“Andrey Stanislavovitch. Yes.⁠ ⁠…”

“ Merci ,” I said, took out my notebook, and wrote it down.

There followed a silence during which my wife and Ivan Ivanitch were probably waiting for me to go; my wife did not believe that I wanted to know the president’s name⁠—I saw that from her eyes.

“Well, I must be going, my beauty,” muttered Ivan Ivanitch, after I had walked once or twice across the drawing room and sat down by the fireplace.

“No,” said Natalya Gavrilovna quickly, touching his hand. “Stay another quarter of an hour.⁠ ⁠… Please do!”

Evidently she did not wish to be left alone with me without a witness.

“Oh, well, I’ll wait a quarter of an hour, too,” I thought.

“Why, it’s snowing!” I said, getting up and looking out of window. “A good fall of snow! Ivan Ivanitch”⁠—I went on walking about the room⁠—“I do regret not being a sportsman. I can imagine what a pleasure it must be coursing hares or hunting wolves in snow like this!”

My wife, standing still, watched my movements, looking out of the corner of her eyes without turning her head. She looked as though she thought I had a sharp knife or a revolver in my pocket.

“Ivan Ivanitch, do take me out hunting some day,” I went on softly. “I shall be very, very grateful to you.”

At that moment a visitor came into the room. He was a tall, thickset gentleman whom I did not know, with a bald head, a big fair beard, and little eyes. From his baggy, crumpled clothes and his manners I took him to be a parish clerk or a teacher, but my wife introduced him to me as Dr. Sobol.