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The soup was served, he took the spoon, but suddenly, before dipping it, he dropped the spoon on the table and all but jumped up from his chair. An unexpected thought suddenly dawned on him: at that moment—and God knows by what process—he suddenly understood fully the cause of his anguish, his special, particular anguish, which had already tormented him for several days in a row, the whole time lately, which had fastened on to him God knows how and, God knows why, refused to get unfastened; and now he all at once saw and understood everything like the palm of his hand.
“It’s all that hat!” he murmured as if inspired. “Just simply and solely that cursed round hat with the loathsome funeral crape on it, that’s the cause of it all!”
He began to think—and the further he thought into it, the gloomier he became and the more astonishing “the whole event” became in his eyes.
“But… but what sort of event is it, anyhow?” he tried to protest, not trusting himself. “Is there anything in it that remotely resembles an event?”
The whole thing consisted in this: almost two weeks ago (he really did not remember, but it seemed like two weeks), he had met for the first time, in the street, somewhere at the corner of Podiachesky and Meshchansky Streets, a gentleman with crape on his hat. The gentleman was like everybody else, there was nothing special about him, he had passed by quickly, but he had glanced at Velchaninov somehow much too intently and for some reason had at once greatly attracted his attention. At least his physiognomy had seemed familiar to Velchaninov. He had apparently met it sometime somewhere. “Ah, anyhow, haven’t I met thousands of physiognomies in my life? One can’t remember them all!” Having gone on some twenty paces, he seemed to have forgotten the encounter already, despite his first impression. But the impression nevertheless lingered for the whole day—and a rather original one: in the form of some pointless, peculiar anger. Now, two weeks later, he recalled it all clearly, he also recalled failing completely to understand the source of his anger—to the point of not even once co
This was the third encounter. Then for five days in a row he encountered decidedly “no one,” and of the “rascal” there was not a sound. And yet every now and then the gentleman with crape on his hat would be remembered. Velchaninov caught himself at it with some surprise. “Am I pining for him, or what?—Hm!… And it must be that he also has a lot to do in Petersburg—and for whom is this crape of his? He evidently recognized me, but I don’t recognize him. And why do these people wear crape? It somehow doesn’t become them… I suppose if I look at him more closely, I’ll recognize him…”
And something was as if begi
“It was… It was long ago… and it was somewhere… There was… there was …—well, devil take it all, whatever there was or wasn’t!…” he suddenly cried out spitefully. “And is it worth befouling and humiliating myself over this rascal!…”
He got terribly angry; but in the evening, when he suddenly recalled that he had gotten angry that day, and “terribly” so—it felt extremely unpleasant to him; as if someone had caught him at something. He was embarrassed and surprised:
“It means, then, that there are reasons for my getting so angry… out of the blue… just from remembering…” He did not finish his thought.
And the next day he got still angrier, but this time it seemed to him that there was a cause and that he was perfectly right; it was “an unheard-of impertinence”: the thing was that a fourth encounter had taken place. The gentleman with the crape had appeared again, as if from under the ground. Velchaninov had only just caught in the street that very state councillor and necessary gentleman whom he was now trying to catch by coming upon him by chance at his country house, because this official, barely acquainted with Velchaninov, but needed for his case, refused to be caught, then as now, and was hiding as well as he could, not wishing for his part to meet with Velchaninov; rejoicing that he had finally run into him, Velchaninov walked beside him, hurrying, peeking into his eyes, and trying as well as he could to guide the gray-haired old fox toward a certain theme, toward a certain conversation in which he might divulge and let drop one much-sought and long-awaited little phrase; but the gray-haired old fox also kept his own counsel, laughed it off, and said nothing—and then, precisely at this extremely tricky moment, Velchaninov’s eye suddenly picked out, across the street, the gentleman with crape on his hat. He was standing there and gazing intently at them both; he was watching them—that was obvious—and even seemed to be chuckling.
“Devil take it!” Velchaninov flew into a rage, having already parted from the official and ascribing all his failure with him to the sudden appearance of this “impudent fellow.” “Devil take it, is he spying on me, or what! He’s obviously keeping watch on me! Has somebody hired him, or what, and… and… and, by God, he was chuckling! I’ll beat him up, by God… Too bad I don’t carry a stick! I’ll buy a stick! I won’t leave it like this! Who is he? I absolutely must know who he is!”
Finally—exactly three days after this (fourth) encounter—we find Velchaninov in his restaurant, as we have already described him, now completely and seriously alarmed, and even somewhat at a loss. He even could not help admitting it himself, despite all his pride. He was forced, finally, to realize, having juxtaposed all the circumstances, that all his spleen, all this peculiar anguish and all his two-week-long alarm—had been caused by none other than this same mourning gentleman, “despite all his nonentity.”