The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky

HE had recovered a little, however, by the time they stood on the stairs at the entrance to his own flat. He was mentally cursing himself: ‘Blockhead that I am, where on earth am I taking him? It's putting my head in a noose of my own accord. What on earth will Petrushka think, seeing us together? What will that scoundrel have the nerve to think? he's suspicious. .' But it was already too late to repent; Mr Golyadkin knocked, the door opened and Petrushka began helping his master and the guest off with their coats. Mr Golyadkin glanced at him, simply throwing him a rapid casual look and trying to read his face and guess his thoughts. But, to his immense astonishment, he saw that it had not even entered his servant's head to be surprised; on the contrary, he even seemed to have been expecting something of the kind. He still, of course, kept his wolfish look, squinting sideways and apparently ready to eat somebody. ‘Everybody seems bewitched today,' thought our hero, ‘some kind of devil's got into all of them! There must certainly be something special in everybody today. Devil take it, what a torture!' Turning things over in his mind in this way, Mr Golyadkin led his visitor into his room and begged him to take a seat. The visitor evidently felt highly embarrassed and extremely shy; he humbly followed his host's every movement and caught his every look, apparently trying to guess his thoughts from them. All his gestures expressed something meek, downtrodden, and cowed, so that at that moment he was, if the comparison is permissible, like a man who for want of his own clothes is wearing somebody else's; the sleeves have crept half-way up his arms, the waist is almost round his neck, and he is either constantly tugging at the too-short waistcoat, or sliding away somewhere out of the way, or striving to find somewhere to hide, or looking into everybody's eyes and straining to hear whether people are talking about his plight and laughing at him or ashamed of him; and the poor man blushes, he loses his presence of mind, his pride suffers. . Mr Golyadkin placed his hat on the window-sill with a gesture so careless that it fell to the floor. His visitor rushed to pick it up, brushed off the dust and carefully restored it to the same place, while he put his own hat on the floor beside the chair on the edge of which he had meekly perched. This small incident partly opened Mr Golyadkin's eyes; he realized that the fellow was in dire need and ceased to hesitate over how he should begin to talk to his guest, instead leaving it all to him, as was fitting. The guest, for his part, did not begin either, whether from shyness, or because he felt ashamed, or was waiting for his host out of politeness, it was difficult to decide. Meanwhile Petrushka entered, posted himself in the doorway and stared fixedly in the direction exactly opposite to the position of his master and the visitor.

‘Shall I get dinner for two?' he asked huskily and carelessly.