how
I prayed for the day to pass quickly! In unutterable anguish I went to
the window, opened the movable pane and looked out into the troubled
darkness of the thickly falling wet snow. At last my wretched little
clock hissed out five. I seized my hat and, trying not to look at
Apollon, who had been all day expecting his month's wages, but in his
foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, I slipped
between him and the door and, jumping into a high-class sledge, on
which I spent my last half rouble, I drove up in grand style to the
Hotel de Paris.

IV

I had been certain the day before that I should be the first to arrive.
But it was not a question of being the first to arrive. Not only were
they not there, but I had difficulty in finding our room. The table
was not laid even. What did it mean? After a good many questions I
elicited from the waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for
five, but for six o'clock. This was confirmed at the buffet too. I
felt really ashamed to go on questioning them. It was only twenty-five
minutes past five. If they changed the dinner hour they ought at least
to have let me know--that is what the post is for, and not to have put
me in an absurd position in my own eyes and ... and even before the
waiters. I sat down; the servant began laying the table; I felt even
more humiliated when he was present. Towards six o'clock they brought
in candles, though there were lamps burning in the room. It had not
occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them in at once when I
arrived. In the next room two gloomy, angry-looking persons were
eating their dinners in silence at two different tables. There was a
great deal of noise, even shouting, in a room further away; one could
hear the laughter of a crowd of people, and nasty little shrieks in
French: there were ladies at the dinner. It was sickening, in fact. I
rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did
arrive all together punctually at six I was overjoyed to see them, as
though they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent
upon me to show resentment.

Zverkov walked in at the head of them; evidently he was the leading
spirit. He and all of them were laughing; but, seeing me, Zverkov drew
himself up a little, walked up to me deliberately with a slight, rather
jaunty bend from the waist. He shook hands with me in a friendly, but
not over-friendly, fashion, with a so