"You don't think it will rain?" he asked anxiously. "No, those clouds
are going away, I see. Well ... this is delightful ..." and then sat
there gloomily looking in front of him.
I could see that he was depressed.
"Well, Andrey Vassilievitch," I said to him. "You're depressed about
something?"
"Yes," he said very gloomily indeed. "I have many unhappy hours, Ivan
Andreievitch."
I did not get up and leave him as I very easily might have done. I had
had, since the night when Nikitin had spoken to me so frankly, a
desire to know the little man's side of that affair. In some curious
fashion that silent plain wife of his had been very frequently in my
thoughts; there had not been enough in Nikitin's account to explain to
me his passion for her, and yet her ghost, as though evoked by the
memories both of Nikitin and her husband, had seemed to me, sometimes,
to be present with us....
I waited.
"Tell me frankly," Andrey Vassilievitch said at last, "am I of any use
here?"
"Of use?" I repeated, taken by surprise.
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