‘This is cheaper, and nearer to the university.’ ‘But now it’s vacation.... And what could induce you to stay in the town in summer! You should have taken a country cottage if you were determined to move.’ Insarov made no reply to this remark, and offered Bersenyev a pipe, adding: ‘Excuse me, I have no cigarettes or cigars.’ Bersenyev began smoking the pipe. ‘Here have I,’ he went on, ‘taken a little house near Kuntsovo, very cheap and very roomy. In fact there is a room to spare upstairs.’ Insarov again made no answer. Bersenyev drew at the pipe: ‘I have even been thinking,’ he began again, blowing out the smoke in a thin cloud, ‘that if any one could be found--you, for instance, I thought of--who would care, who would consent to establish himself there upstairs, how nice it would be! What do you think, Dmitri Nikanorovitch?’ Insarov turned his little eyes on him. ‘You propose my staying in your country house?’ ‘Yes; I have a room to spare there upstairs.’ ‘Thanks very much, Andrei Petrovitch; but I expect my means would not allow of it.’ ‘How do you mean?’ ‘My means would not allow of my living in a country house. It’s impossible for me to keep two lodgings.’ ‘But of course I’--Bersenyev was beginning, but he stopped short. ‘You would have no extra expense in that way,’ he went on. ‘Your lodging here would remain for you, let us suppose; but then everything there is very cheap; we could even arrange so as to dine, for instance, together.’ Insarov said nothing. Bersenyev began to feel awkward. ‘You might at least pay me a visit sometime,’ he began, after a short pause. ‘A few steps from me there’s a family living with whom I want very much to make you acquainted. If only you knew, Insarov, what a marvellous girl there is there! There is an intimate friend of mine staying there too, a man of great talent; I am sure you would get on with him. [The Russian loves to be hospitable--of his friends if he can offer nothing else.] Really, you must come. And what would be better still, come and stay with me, do. We could work and read together.... I am busy, as you know, with history and philosophy. All that would interest you. I have a lot of books.’ Insarov got up and walked about the room. ‘Let me know,’ he said, ‘how much do you pay for your cottage?’ ‘A hundred silver roubles.’ ‘And how many rooms are there?’ ‘Five.’ ‘Then one may reckon that one room costs twenty roubles?’ ‘Yes, one may reckon so.... But really it’s utterly unnecessary for me. It simply stands empty.’ ‘Perhaps so; but listen,’ added Insarov, with a decided, but at the same time good-natured movement of his head: ‘I can only take advantage of your offer if you agree to take the sum we have reckoned. Twenty roubles I am able to give, the more easily, since, as you say, I shall be economising there in other things.’ ‘Of course; but really I am ashamed to take it.’ ‘Otherwise it’s impossible, Andrei Petrovitch.’