VI

“But he interested me too much, and all that day I was under the influence of strange thoughts connected with him, and I determined to return his visit the next day. “Rogojin was evidently by no means pleased to see me, and hinted, delicately, that he saw no reason why our acquaintance should continue. For all that, however, I spent a very interesting hour, and so, I dare say, did he. There was so great a contrast between us that I am sure we must both have felt it; anyhow, I felt it acutely. Here was I, with my days numbered, and he, a man in the full vigour of life, living in the present, without the slightest thought for ‘final convictions,’ or numbers, or days, or, in fact, for anything but that which⁠—which⁠—well, which he was mad about, if he will excuse me the expression⁠—as a feeble author who cannot express his ideas properly. “In spite of his lack of amiability, I could not help seeing in Rogojin a man of intellect and sense; and although, perhaps, there was little in the outside world which was of interest to him, still he was clearly a man with eyes to see. “I hinted nothing to him about my ‘final conviction,’ but it appeared to me that he had guessed it from my words. He remained silent⁠—he is a terribly silent man. I remarked to him, as I rose to depart, that, in spite of the contrast and the wide differences between us two, les extrémités se touchent (‘extremes meet,’ as I explained to him in Russian); so that maybe he was not so far from my final conviction as appeared. “His only reply to this was a sour grimace. He rose and looked for my cap, and placed it in my hand, and led me