Next day I met Lizaveta Nikolaevna out riding with Mavriky Nikolaevitch; she was out for the first time after her illness.
She beamed at me from the distance, laughed, and nodded in a very friendly way.
I told all this to Stepan Trofimovitch; he paid no attention, except to the news about the Lebyadkins.
And now, having described our enigmatic position throughout those eight days during which we knew nothing, I will pass on to the description of the succeeding incidents of my chronicle, writing, so to say, with full knowledge, and describing things as they became known afterwards, and are clearly seen to-day.
I will begin with the eighth day after that Sunday, that is, the Monday evening—for in reality a "new scandal" began with that evening.
III
It was seven o'clock in the evening. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was sitting alone in his study—the room he had been fond of in old days. It was lofty, carpeted with rugs, and contained somewhat heavy old-fashioned furniture.
He was sitting on the sofa in the corner, dressed as though to go out, though he did not seem to be intending to do so.
On the table before him stood a lamp with a shade.
The sides and corners of the big room were left in shadow.
His eyes looked dreamy and concentrated, not altogether tranquil; his face looked tired and had grown a little thinner.
He really was ill with a swollen face; but the story of a tooth having been knocked out was an exaggeration.
One had been loosened, but it had grown into its place again: he had had a cut on the inner side of the upper lip, but that, too, had healed.
The swelling on his face had lasted all the week simply because the invalid would not have a doctor, and instead of having the swelling lanced had waited for it to go down.
He would not hear of a doctor, and would scarcely allow even his mother to come near him, and then only for a moment, once a day, and only at dusk, after it was dark and before lights had been brought in.
He did not receive Pyotr Stepanovitch either, though the latter ran round to Varvara Petrovna's two or three times a day so long as he remained in the town.
And now, at last, returning on the Monday morning after his three days' absence, Pyotr Stepanovitch made a circuit of the town, and, after dining at Yulia Mihailovna's, came at last in the evening to Varvara Petrovna, who was impatiently expecting him.
The interdict had been removed, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was "at home."
Varvara Petrovna herself led the visitor to the door of the study; she had long looked forward to their meeting, and Pyotr Stepanovitch had promised to run to her and repeat what passed.
She knocked timidly at Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch's door, and getting no answer ventured to open the door a couple of inches.
"Nicolas, may I bring Pyotr Stepanovitch in to see you?" she asked, in a soft and restrained voice, trying to make out her son's face behind the lamp.
"You can—you can, of course you can," Pyotr Stepanovitch himself cried out, loudly and gaily. He opened the door with his hand and went in.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had not heard the knock at the door, and only caught his mother's timid question, and had not had time to answer it.
Before him, at that moment, there lay a letter he had just read over, which he was pondering deeply.
He started, hearing Pyotr Stepanovitch's sudden outburst, and hurriedly put the letter under a paper-weight, but did not quite succeed; a corner of the letter and almost the whole envelope showed.
"I called out on purpose that you might be prepared," Pyotr Stepanovitch said hurriedly, with surprising naivete, running up to the table, and instantly staring at the corner of the letter, which peeped out from beneath the paper-weight.
"And no doubt you had time to see how I hid the letter I had just received, under the paper-weight," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch calmly, without moving from his place.
"A letter?
Bless you and your letters, what are they to do with me?" cried the visitor. "But... what does matter..." he whispered again, turning to the door, which was by now closed, and nodding his head in that direction.
"She never listens," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch observed coldly.
"What if she did overhear?" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, raising his voice cheerfully, and settling down in an arm-chair.
"I've nothing against that, only I've come here now to speak to you alone. Well, at last I've succeeded in getting at you.
First of all, how are you?
I see you're getting on splendidly. To-morrow you'll show yourself again—eh?"
"Perhaps."
"Set their minds at rest. Set mine at rest at last." He gesticulated violently with a jocose and amiable air.
"If only you knew what nonsense I've had to talk to them.
You know, though."
He laughed.
"I don't know everything.
I only heard from my mother that you've been... very active."
"Oh, well, I've said nothing definite," Pyotr Stepanovitch flared up at once, as though defending himself from an awful attack. "I simply trotted out Shatov's wife; you know, that is, the rumours of your liaison in Paris, which accounted, of course, for what happened on Sunday. You're not angry?"
"I'm sure you've done your best."
"Oh, that's just what I was afraid of.
Though what does that mean, 'done your best'?
That's a reproach, isn't it?
You always go straight for things, though.... What I was most afraid of, as I came here, was that you wouldn't go straight for the point."
"I don't want to go straight for anything," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch with some irritation. But he laughed at once.
"I didn't mean that, I didn't mean that, don't make a mistake," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, waving his hands, rattling his words out like peas, and at once relieved at his companion's irritability.
"I'm not going to worry you with our business, especially in your present position.