Out of the house came a tall, fair, good-looking man. His red silk shirt, fitting tight to his well-proportioned frame, looked brilliant in the sun; his pale blue eyes had a lazy, good-natured expression.
“There you go! Always quarrelling!” said he, in a languid, friendly tone. “And in Heaven’s name, what about?”
“Well, the fact is, mother thinks that a Grecian nose would suit me better, while I am quite satisfied with the one that I have got.”
Sanine looked down his nose and, laughing, grasped the other’s big, soft hand.
“So, I should say!” exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, pettishly.
Novikoff laughed merrily; and from the green thicket, came a gentle echo in reply, as if some one yonder heartily shared his mirth.
“Ah! I know what it is! Worrying about your future.”
“What, you, too?” exclaimed Sanine, in comic alarm.
“Ah!” cried Sanine. “If it’s a case of two to one, I had better clear out.”
“No, it is I that will soon have to clear out,” said Maria Ivanovna with sudden irritation at which she herself was vexed. Hastily removing her saucepan of jam, she hurried into the house, without looking back. The terrier jumped up, and with ears erect watched her go. Then it rubbed its nose with its front paw, gave another questioning glance at the house and ran off into the garden.
“Have you got any cigarettes?” asked Sanine, delighted at his mother’s departure.
Novikoff with a lazy movement of his large body produced a cigarette- case.
“You ought not to tease her so,” said he, in a voice of gentle reproof. “She’s an old lady.”
“What do you mean by ‘well, you see?’ It is she who is always after me. I have never asked anything of anybody, and therefore people ought to leave me alone.”
“Well, how goes it, doctor?” asked Sanine, as he watched the tobacco- smoke rising in fantastic curves above his head.
Novikoff, who was thinking of something else, did not answer at once.
“Oh! in every way. Everything is so dull and this little town bores me to death. There’s nothing to do.”
“Nothing to do? Why it was you that complained of not having time to breathe!”
“That is not what I mean. One can’t be always seeing patients, seeing patients. There is another life besides that.”
“And who prevents you from living that other life?”