"
"Good for you, old fellow!" joyously exclaimed Lichonin, who was
delighted by a certain peculiar, indolent negligence--of few
words, yet at the same time self-confident--in the reporter. "Will
you share the cognac with me also?"
"Very, very gladly," affably answered Platonov and suddenly looked
at Lichonin with a radiant, almost child-like smile, which
beautified his plain face with the prominent cheek-bones. "You,
too, appealed to me from the first. And even when I saw you there,
at Doroshenko's, I at once thought that you are not at all as
rough as you seem."
"Well, now, we have exchanged pleasantries," laughed Lichonin.
"But it's amazing that we haven't met once just here. Evidently,
you come to Anna Markovna's quite frequently?"
"Even too much so."
"Sergei Ivanich is our most important guest!" naively shrieked
Niura. "Sergei Ivanich is a sort of brother among us!"
"Fool!" Tamara stopped her.
"That seems strange to me," continued Lichonin. "I, too, am a
habitue. In any case, one can only envy everybody's cordiality
toward you."
"The local chieftain!" said Boris Sobashnikov, curling his lips
downward, but said it so low that Platanov, if he chose to, could
pretend that he had not heard anything distinctly.
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