She watched them as they expressed their surprise that he was not the practical, fearless and unimaginative Englishman who was their typical figure.

Whilst he found them far from the Karamazovs, the Raskolnikoffs, of his imagination, they in their turn could not create the "sportsman" and "man of affairs" whom they had expected.
To all of this Semyonov added, beyond question, his personal weight.
He had from the first declared Trenchard "a ridiculous figure." Whilst the others were unfailingly kind, hospitable and even indulgent to Trenchard, Semyonov was openly satirical, making no attempt to hide his sarcastic irony.

I do not know how much Trenchard's engagement to Marie Ivanovna had to do with this, but I know that "my Englishman" could not to his misfortune have had a more practical, more efficient figure against whom to be contrasted than Semyonov.
During these weeks I think that I hated Semyonov.

There was, however, one silent observer of all this business upon whose personal interference I had not reckoned.

This was Nikitin, who, at the end of our first week at the school-house, broke his silence in a conversation with me.
Nikitin, although he spoke as little as possible to any one, had already had his effect upon the Otriad.