Deniska lowered his eyelashes. “I bought myself a volish, sir.”
“Well, you can’t possibly go about in a hussar jacket without a valise!” said Tikhon Ilitch scoffingly. “And what’s that you’ve got in your pocket?”
“Nothing much—just a lot of small stuff.”
“Let me look at it.”
Deniska set down his valise on the platform and pulled the little books out of his pocket. Tikhon Ilitch took them and examined them attentively. There was the songbook Marusya , The Woman Debauchee , An Innocent Young Girl in the Clutches of Violence , Congratulatory Verses to Parents, Teachers, and Benefactors , The Role—
At this point Tikhon Ilitch faltered, but Deniska, who was watching closely, briskly and modestly prompted him: The Role of the Proletariat in Russia .
Tikhon Ilitch shook his head. “Here’s something new! Not a mouthful of food, but you buy yourself a valise and nasty little books. Truly, ’tis not for nothing that folks call you an agitator. They say you are constantly reviling the Tsar! Look out, brother!”
“Well, ’tis not so costly as buying an estate,” replied Deniska, with a melancholy grin. “They are good little books. And I haven’t touched the Tsar. They tell lies about me as if I were dead and couldn’t defend myself. But I never had any such thing in my thoughts. Am I a lunatic?”
The door-pulley creaked, and the station watchman made his appearance—a discharged soldier, grey-haired, afflicted with a hoarse, whistling asthma—also the restaurant keeper, a fat man with puffy eyes and greasy hair.