place, the
one who had typhus--and Andrey Vassilievitch--you've known him for
years. He talks a great deal but he's sympathetic and such a good
business man. He'll be useful. Then there's an Englishman; I don't
know much about him, except that he's been working for three months at
the English Hospital. He's not a correspondent, never written a line
in his life. I only saw him for a moment, but he seemed
sympathetic...."

Anna Mihailovna, as is well known to all of us, finds every one
sympathetic simply because she has so much to do and so many people to
see that she has no time to go deeply into things. If you have no time
for judging character you must have some good common rule to go by. I
had known little Andrey Vassilievitch for some years and had found him
tiresome. Finally, I did not care about the possibility of an
Englishman. Perhaps I had wished (through pride) to remain the only
Englishman in our "Otriad." I had made friends with them all, I was at
home with them. Another Englishman might transplant me in their
affections. Russians transfer, with the greatest ease, their emotions
from one place to another; or he might be a failure and so damage my
country's reputation. Some such vain and stupid prejudice I had. I
know that I looked upon our new additions with disfavour.

There, at any rate, Dr. Nikitin and little Andrey Vassilievitch were,
and a strange contrast they made. Nikitin's size would have compelled
attention anywhere, even in Russia, which is, of course, a country of
big men. It was not only that he was tall and broad; the carriage of
his head, the deep blackness of his beard, his eyebrows, his eyes, the
sure independence with which he held himself, as though he were
indifferent to the whole world (and that I know that he was), must
anywhere have made him remarked and remembered. He looked now
immensely fine in his uniform, which admirably suited him. He stood,
without his greatcoat, his hand on his sword, his eyes half-closed as
though he were almost asleep, and a faint half-smile on his face as
though he were amused at his thoughts. I remember that my first
impression of him was that he was so completely beneath the domination
of some idea or remembrance that, at that moment, no human being could
touch him. When I took Trenchard up to him I was so conscious of his
remoteness that I was embarrassed and apologetic.

And if I was aware of Nikitin's remoteness I was equally conscious of
Andrey Vass