Dmitri Fyodorovitch, give me your pistols at once if you mean to behave like a man," he shouted aloud to Mitya. "Do you hear, Dmitri?"
"The pistols?
Wait a bit, brother, I'll throw them into the pool on the road," answered Mitya. "Fenya, get up, don't kneel to me.
Mitya won't hurt anyone, the silly fool won't hurt anyone again.
But I say, Fenya," he shouted, after having taken his seat. "I hurt you just now, so forgive me and have pity on me, forgive a scoundrel.... But it doesn't matter if you don't.
It's all the same now.
Now then, Andrey, look alive, fly along full speed!"
Andrey whipped up the horses, and the bells began ringing.
"Good-bye, Pyotr Ilyitch!
My last tear is for you!..."
"He's not drunk, but he keeps babbling like a lunatic," Pyotr Ilyitch thought as he watched him go.
He had half a mind to stay and see the cart packed with the remaining wines and provisions, knowing that they would deceive and defraud Mitya. But, suddenly feeling vexed with himself, he turned away with a curse and went to the tavern to play billiards.
"He's a fool, though he's a good fellow," he muttered as he went. "I've heard of that officer, Grushenka's former flame.
Well, if he has turned up.... Ech, those pistols!
Damn it all! I'm not his nurse!
Let them do what they like!
Besides, it'll all come to nothing.
They're a set of brawlers, that's all.
They'll drink and fight, fight and make friends again.
They are not men who do anything real.
What does he mean by 'I'm stepping aside, I'm punishing myself'? It'll come to nothing!
He's shouted such phrases a thousand times, drunk, in the taverns.
But now he's not drunk.
'Drunk in spirit'- they're fond of fine phrases, the villains.
Am I his nurse?
He must have been fighting, his face was all over blood.
With whom?
I shall find out at the Metropolis.
And his handkerchief was soaked in blood.... It's still lying on my floor.... Hang it!"
He reached the tavern in a bad humour and at once made up a game.
The game cheered him.
He played a second game, and suddenly began telling one of his partners that Dmitri Karamazov had come in for some cash again- something like three thousand roubles, and had gone to Mokroe again to spend it with Grushenka....
This news roused singular interest in his listeners.
They all spoke of it, not laughing, but with a strange gravity.
They left off playing.
"Three thousand?
But where can he have got three thousand?"
Questions were asked.
The story of Madame Hohlakov's present was received with scepticism.
"Hasn't he robbed his old father?- that's the question."
"Three thousand!
There's something odd about it."
"He boasted aloud that he would kill his father; we all heard him, here.
And it was three thousand he talked about..."
Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and dry in his answers.
He said not a word about the blood on Mitya's face and hands, though he had meant to speak of it at first.
They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about Mitya died away. But by the end of the third game, Pyotr Ilyitch felt no more desire for billiards; he laid down the cue, and without having supper as he had intended, he walked out of the tavern.
When he reached the market-place he stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself.
He realised that what he wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch's and find out if anything had happened there.
"On account of some stupid nonsense as it's sure to turn out- am I going to wake up the household and make a scandal?