On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the
table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play
of the eyebrows observed:
‘What are you going to do now, sir?’
‘Well, really, I don’t know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and
come, we should have gone shooting together.’
‘So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he
promised?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘H’m.’ Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with
commiseration. ‘If you ‘d care to amuse yourself with reading,’ he
continued: ‘there are some books left of my old master’s; I’ll get them
you, if you like; only you won’t read them, I expect.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of
these days.’
‘Have you read them?’
‘If I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t have spoken about them. A dream-book,
for instance ... that’s not much of a book, is it? There are others too,
of course ... only you won’t read them either.’
‘Why?’
‘They are religious books.’