‘Shut up, please! What do you understand? I was certain that he was dead!’
‘Well yes, well yes. And that girl of yours, if you allow me, Nina! How is it, Nina, a Lermontov name! So tall, blue eyed. She also . . . Listen, but this is even terrible, why are you drinking on your own? In that case pour me one. So Nina, Nina?’
‘This is what kind of cognac? KVVK?’
‘My dear, I’m not coming to terms with them! I understood that you don’t want to talk about Nina. Well good, my dear? That is how I named you, and it cake to my mind straight away. My dear, that I squealed on you to Losev.’
‘But, what my dear? A terrible cunt, that dear one! He’s insinuating friendship, some verses he thrust into my hands . . . incompetents . . . f*****g symbolists!’
‘Poetry? Listen, what a coincidence. It means t
