White Nights and Other Stories

Excerpt: ...naïveté of expectation drove me to fury, but I restrained myself. She ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as usual, while instead of that, she . and I dimly felt that I should make her pay dearly for all this. "You have found me in a strange position, Liza," I began, stammering and knowing that this was the wrong way to begin. "No, no, don't imagine anything," I cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. "I am not ashamed of my poverty. On the contrary I look with pride on my poverty. I am poor but honourable. One can be poor and honourable," I muttered. "However . would you like tea?". "No," she was beginning. "Wait a minute." I leapt up and ran to Apollon. I had to get out of the room somehow. "Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here are your wages, you see I give them to you; but for that you must come to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant. If you won't go, you'll make me a miserable man! You don't know what this woman is. This is-everything! You may be imagining something. But you don't know what that woman is!". Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or making any answer he went on busying himself with his needle, which he had not yet threaded. I waited before him for three minutes with my arms crossed à la Napoléon. My temples were moist with sweat. I was pale, I felt it. But, thank God, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me. Having threaded his needle he deliberately got up from his seat, deliberately moved back his chair, deliberately took off his spectacles, deliberately counted the money, and finally asking me over his shoulder: "Shall I get a whole portion?" deliberately walked out of the...