Trirodov went to the window. A man of about forty, impressive for his appearance of calm and self-assurance, stepped out of the calash. Trirodov recognized his visitor at the first glance, though he had never met him before in society. He knew him well, but only from portraits he had seen of him, from his literary works, and from the stories of his admirers and articles about him. In his youth Trirodov had had some slight relations with him through friends, but this was interrupted. He had not even met him. Trirodov suddenly felt both cheerful and sad. He reflected: “Why has he come to me? What does he want of me? And why should he suddenly think of me? Our roads have diverged so much, we have become such strangers to one another.” There was his disturbing curiosity: “I’ll see and hear him for the first time.” And the mutinous protest: “His words are a lie! His preachings the ravings of despair. There was no miracle, there is none, and there will not be!” Kirsha, very agitated, ran out of the room. The sensitive and painful feeling of aloneness seized Trirodov as in a sticky net, entangled his legs, and obstructed his glances with grey. A quiet boy entered, smiling, and handed him a card, on which, under a princely crown, was the lithographed inscription: _Immanuel Osipovitch Davidov_.[36] In a voice dark and deep with suppressed excitement Trirodov said to the boy: “Ask him to come in.” The provoking and unanswerable question persisted in his mind: “Why, why has he come? What does he want of me?” With an avidly curious glance he looked at the door, and did not take his eyes away. He heard the measured, unhastening footsteps, nearer and nearer--as if his fate were approaching. The door opened, admitting the visitor--Prince Immanuel Osipovitch Davidov, celebrated as author and preacher, a man of a distinguished family and democratic views, a man beloved of many and possessed of the mystery of extraordinary fascination, attracting to him many hearts. His face was very smooth, quite un-Russian in type. His lips, slightly descending at the corners, were marked with sorrow. His beard was reddish, short, and cut to a point. His red-gold, slightly wavy hair was cut quite short. This astonished Trirodov, who had always seen the Prince in portraits wearing his hair rather long, like the poet Nadson. His eyes were black, flaming and deep. Deeply hidden in his eyes was an expression of great weariness and suffering, which the inattentive observer might have interpreted as an expression of fatigued tranquillity and indifference. Everything about the visitor--his face and his ways--betrayed his habit of speaking in a large company, even in a crowd. He walked up tranquilly to Trirodov and said, as he stretched out his hand: “I wanted to see you. I have observed you for some time, and at last have come to you.” Trirodov, making an effort to control his agitation and his deep irritation, said with an affectedly amiable voice: