They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the horses to be brought. It was cool.

“There’s a falling star,” said Meier, wrapping himself in his overcoat.

“There are a great many in August.”

When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the sky, and said with a sigh:

“A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion.⁠ ⁠…”

After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor’s position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before; he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and slow to forgive.

“It’s bad, it’s bad,” muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. “Ah, it’s bad!”