In the morning I roused myself early, I jumped out of bed in agitation, as if all this was going to start happening right away. But then I did believe that some radical break in my life was coming and could not fail to come that very day. It may have been lack of habit or something, but all my life, when faced with any external event, be it ever so small, I always thought that right then some radical break in my life was going to come. Nevertheless, I went to work as usual, but slipped away two hours early to go home and get ready. The main thing, I thought, is that I mustn't be the first to arrive, or they'll think I'm all too delighted. But there were thousands of such main things, and they all agitated me to the point of impotence. I polished my boots a second time with my own hands; for the life of him Apollon would not have polished them twice in one day, finding it inordinate. I polished them, therefore, having stolen the brushes from the entryway so that he would not somehow notice and afterwards begin to despise me. Then I carefully inspected my clothes and found that everything was old, shabby, worn out. I had indeed become too slovenly. My uniform was perhaps in good condition, but I really couldn't go to dinner in my uniform. And the main thing was that on my trousers, right on the knee, there was a huge yellow spot. I could sense already that this spot alone would rob me of nine-tenths of my dignity. I also knew that it was very mean to think so. "But I can't be bothered with thinking now; now comes reality," I thought, and my heart sank. I also knew perfectly well, even then, that I was monstrously exaggerating all these facts; but there was nothing to be done: I could no longer control myself, I was shaking with fever. In despair I pictured how coldly and condescendingly that "scoundrel" Zverkov would meet me; with what dull, all-invincible contempt the dullard Trudolyubov would look at me; how nastily and impudently that little snot Ferfichkin would titter at my expense, sucking up to Zverkov; how perfectly Simonov would understand it all in himself, and how he would despise me for the meanness of my vanity and faintheartedness; and, the main thing - how measly, non- literary, commonplace it was all going to be. Of course, it would be best not to go at all. But that was more impossible than anything else: once I began to be drawn, I used to be drawn in all the way, over my head. Afterwards I'd have been taunting myself for the rest of my life: "So you turned coward, turned coward before reality, that's what you did, you turned coward!" On the contrary, I passionately wanted to prove to all that
"riffraff" that I was by no means the coward I made myself out to be. More than that: in the strongest paroxysm of cowardly fever, I dreamed of getting the best of them, winning them over, carrying them away, making them love me - if only for my "lofty mind and indubitable wit." They would drop Zverkov, he would sit on the sidelines, silent and ashamed, and I would crush him. Afterwards I would perhaps make peace with him, and we would pledge eternal friendship, yet the most bitter and offensive thing for me was that I knew even then, knew fully and certainly, that in fact I needed none of that, and in fact I had no wish to crush, subject, or attract them, and would be the first not to give a penny for the whole outcome, even if I achieved it. Oh, how I prayed to God for that day to pass more quickly! In inexpressible anguish I kept going to the window, opening the vent, and peering into the dull darkness of thickly falling wet snow…
At last my wretched little wall clock hissed five. I grabbed my hat and, trying not to glance at Apollon - who since morning had been waiting to receive his wages from me, but in his pride refused to speak first - slipped past him out the door, and in a coach hired for the purpose with my last fifty kopecks, drove up like a grand gentleman to the Hotel de Paris.
IV
I had already known the evening before that I would be the first to arrive. But primacy was no longer the point. Not only were none of them there, but I even had difficulty finding our room. The table was not quite laid yet. What did it mean? After much questioning, I finally got out of the waiters that the dinner had been ordered for six o'clock, not five. This was confirmed in the bar. I was even ashamed to be asking. It was only five twenty-five. If they had changed the time, they ought in any case to have informed me; that's what the city mail is for; and not to have subjected me to "disgrace" both in my own and… be it only the waiters' eyes. I sat down; a waiter began laying the table; in his presence it felt somehow still more offensive. By six o'clock, in addition to the lighted lamps, candles were brought into the room. It had not occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them when I arrived. In the next room two customers, gloomy, angry-looking, and silent, were having dinner at separate tables. In one of the farther rooms it was very noisy; there was even shouting; the guffaws of a whole bunch of people could be heard; some nasty French squeals could be heard: it was a dinner with ladies. Quite nauseating, in short. Rarely have I spent a nastier moment, so that when, at exactly six o'clock, they all came in together, I was glad of them for the first moment as of some sort of deliverers, and almost forgot that I ought to look offended.