Part 22 (1/2)
HE
Decidedly! But you are squandering your time like a millionaire. Hurry up!
GENTLEMAN
I really don't know.... Everything here strikes me so.... These posters, horses, animals, which I pa.s.sed when I was looking for you.... And finally, _you_, a clown in a circus! [_With a slight, deprecating smile._] Could I expect it? It is true, when everybody there decided that you were dead, I was the only man who did not agree with them. I felt that you were still alive. But to find you among such surroundings--I can't understand it.
HE
You said you have a son, now. Doesn't he look like me?
GENTLEMAN
I don't understand?
HE
Don't you know that widows or divorced women often have children by the new husband, which resemble the old one? This misfortune did not befall you? [_Laughs._] And your book, too, is a big success, I hear.
GENTLEMAN
You want to insult me again?
HE
[_Laughing_]: What a restless, touchy faker you are! Please sit still; be quiet. It is the custom here to speak this way. Why were you trying to find me?
GENTLEMAN
My conscience....
HE
You have no conscience. Or were you afraid that you hadn't robbed me of _everything_ I possessed, and you came for the rest? But what more could you take from me now? My fool's cap with its bells? You wouldn't take it. It's too big for your bald head! Crawl back, you book-worm!
GENTLEMAN
You cannot forgive the fact that your wife....
HE
To the devil with my wife! [_The gentleman is startled and raises his eyebrows. HE laughs._]
GENTLEMAN
I don't know.... But such language! I confess I find difficulty in expressing my thoughts in such an atmosphere, but if you are so ...
indifferent to your wife, who, I shall allow myself to emphasize the fact, loved you and thought you were a saint---- [_HE laughs._]
Then _what_ brought you to such a ... step? Or is it that you cannot forgive me my success? A success, it is true, not entirely deserved. And now you want to take vengeance, with your humbleness, on those who misunderstood you. But you always were so indifferent to glory. Or your indifference was only hypocrisy. And when I, a more lucky rival ...
HE