I may remark that he took up an extremely resentful attitude about Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch's duel.
It took him unawares. He turned positively green when he was told of it.
Perhaps his vanity was wounded: he only heard of it next day when every one knew of it.
"You had no right to fight, you know," he whispered to Stavrogin, five days later, when he chanced to meet him at the club.
It was remarkable that they had not once met during those five days, though Pyotr Stepanovitch had dropped in at Varvara Petrovna's almost every day.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked at him in silence with an absent-minded air, as though not understanding what was the matter, and he went on without stopping.
He was crossing the big hall of the club on his way to the refreshment room.
"You've been to see Shatov too.... You mean to make it known about Marya Timofyevna," Pyotr Stepanovitch muttered, running after him, and, as though not thinking of what he was doing he clutched at his shoulder.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch shook his hand off and turned round quickly to him with a menacing scowl.
Pyotr Stepanovitch looked at him with a strange, prolonged smile.
It all lasted only one moment.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch walked on.
II
He went to the "old man" straight from Varvara Petrovna's, and he was in such haste simply from spite, that he might revenge himself for an insult of which I had no idea at that time.
The fact is that at their last interview on the Thursday of the previous week, Stepan Trofimovitch, though the dispute was one of his own beginning, had ended by turning Pyotr Stepanovitch out with his stick.
He concealed the incident from me at the time. But now, as soon as Pyotr Stepanovitch ran in with his everlasting grin, which was so naively condescending, and his unpleasantly inquisitive eyes peering into every corner, Stepan Trofimovitch at once made a signal aside to me, not to leave the room.
This was how their real relations came to be exposed before me, for on this occasion I heard their whole conversation.
Stepan Trofimovitch was sitting stretched out on a lounge.
He had grown thin and sallow since that Thursday.
Pyotr Stepanovitch seated himself beside him with a most familiar air, unceremoniously tucking his legs up under him, and taking up more room on the lounge than deference to his father should have allowed.
Stepan Trofimovitch moved aside, in silence, and with dignity.
On the table lay an open book.
It was the novel,
"What's to be done?"
Alas, I must confess one strange weakness in my friend; the fantasy that he ought to come forth from his solitude and fight a last battle was getting more and more hold upon his deluded imagination.
I guessed that he had got the novel and was studying it solely in order that when the inevitable conflict with the "shriekers" came about he might know their methods and arguments beforehand, from their very "catechism," and in that way be prepared to confute them all triumphantly, before her eyes. Oh, how that book tortured him!
He sometimes flung it aside in despair, and leaping up, paced about the room almost in a frenzy.
"I agree that the author's fundamental idea is a true one," he said to me feverishly, "but that only makes it more awful.
It's just our idea, exactly ours; we first sowed the seed, nurtured it, prepared the way, and, indeed, what could they say new, after us?
But, heavens! How it's all expressed, distorted, mutilated!" he exclaimed, tapping the book with his fingers.
"Were these the conclusions we were striving for?
Who can understand the original idea in this?"
"Improving your mind?" sniggered Pyotr Stepanovitch, taking the book from the table and reading the title.
"It's high time.
I'll bring you better, if you like."
Stepan Trofimovitch again preserved a dignified silence.
I was sitting on a sofa in the corner.
Pyotr Stepanovitch quickly explained the reason of his coming.
Of course, Stepan Trofimovitch was absolutely staggered, and he listened in alarm, which was mixed with extreme indignation.
"And that Yulia Mihailovna counts on my coming to read for her!"
"Well, they're by no means in such need of you.
On the contrary, it's by way of an attention to you, so as to make up to Varvara Petrovna.
But, of course, you won't dare to refuse, and I expect you want to yourself," he added with a grin. "You old fogies are all so devilishly ambitious.
But, I say though, you must look out that it's not too boring.
What have you got? Spanish history, or what is it?
You'd better let me look at it three days beforehand, or else you'll put us to sleep perhaps."
The hurried and too barefaced coarseness of these thrusts was obviously premeditated.
He affected to behave as though it were impossible to talk to Stepan Trofimovitch in different and more delicate language.
Stepan Trofimovitch resolutely persisted in ignoring his insults, but what his son told him made a more and more overwhelming impression upon him.
"And she, she herself sent me this message through you?" he asked, turning pale.