It was evening.
The eastern end of Long Street was already plunged in twilight, when the clock of the German church struck seven; only a faint ray of light from Pig Street fell into Falk's flax-shop, as Andersson made ready to close it for the night. The shutters in the counting-house had already been fastened and the gas was lighted. The place had been swept and straightened; two hampers with protruding necks of bottles, sealed red and yellow, some covered with tinfoil and others wrapped in pink tissue paper, were standing close to the door. The centre of the room was taken up by a table covered with a white cloth; on it stood an Indian bowl and a heavy silver candelabrum.
Nicholas Falk paced up and down. He was wearing a black frock-coat, and had a respectable as well as a festive air. He had a right to look forward to a pleasant evening: he had arranged it; he had paid for it; he was in his own house and at his ease, for there were no ladies present, and his invited guests were of a calibre which justified him in expecting from them not only attention and civility, but a little more.
They were only two, but he did not like many people; they were his friends, reliable, devoted as dogs; submissive, agreeable, always flattering and never contradicting him.
Being a man of means, he could have moved in better circles; he might have associated with his father's friends, and he did so, twice a year; but he was of too despotic a nature to get on with them.
It was three minutes past seven and still the guests had not arrived. Falk began to show signs of impatience. When he invited his henchmen, he expected them to be punctual to the minute. The thought of the unusually sumptuous arrangement, however, and the paralysing impression it was bound to make, helped him to control his temper a little longer; at the lapse of a few more moments Fritz Levin, the post-office official put in an appearance.
"Good-evening, brother—oh! I say!" He paused in the action of divesting himself of his overcoat, and feigned surprise at the magnificent preparations; he almost seemed in danger of falling on his back with sheer amazement. "The seven-armed candle-stick, and the tabernacle! Good Lord!" he ejaculated, catching sight of the hampers.
The individual who delivered these well-rehearsed witticisms while taking off his overcoat, was a middle-aged man of the type of the government official of twenty years ago; his whiskers joined his moustache, his hair was parted at the side and arranged in a coup de vent. He was extremely pale and as thin as a shroud. In spite of being well dressed, he was shivering with cold and seemed to have secret traffic with poverty.
Falk's manner in welcoming him was both rude and patronizing; it was partly intended to express his scorn of flattery, more particularly from an individual like the newcomer, and partly to intimate that the newcomer enjoyed the privilege of his friendship.
By way of congratulation he began to draw a parallel between Levin's promotion and his own father's receiving a commission in the militia.