dless of Liputin, who had no room to walk beside him and so had to
hurry a step behind or run in the muddy road if he wanted to speak to
him. Pyotr Stepanovitch suddenly remembered how he had lately splashed
through the mud to keep pace with Stavrogin, who had walked, as he was
doing now, taking up the whole pavement. He recalled the whole scene,
and rage choked him.

But Liputin, too, was choking with resentment. Pyotr Stepanovitch might
treat the others as he liked, but him! Why, he knew more than all the
rest, was in closer touch with the work and taking more intimate part
in it than anyone, and hitherto his services had been continual, though
indirect. Oh, he knew that even now Pyotr Stepanovitch might ruin him _if
it came to the worst._ But he had long hated Pyotr Stepanovitch, and not
because he was a danger but because of his overbearing manner. Now, when
he had to make up his mind to such a deed, he raged inwardly more than
all the rest put together. Alas! he knew that next day "like a slave"
he would be the first on the spot and would bring the others, and if
he could somehow have murdered Pyotr Stepanovitch before the morrow,
without ruining himself, of course, he would certainly have murdered
him.

Absorbed in his sensations, he trudged dejectedly after his tormentor,
who seemed to have forgotten his existence, though he gave him a
rude and careless shove with his elbow now and then. Suddenly Pyotr
Stepanovitch halted in one of the principal thoroughfares and went into
a restaurant.

"What are you doing?" cried Liputin, boiling over. "This is a
restaurant."

"I want a beefsteak."

"Upon my word! It is always full of people."

"What if it is?"

"But... we shall be late. It's ten o'clock already."

"You can't be too late to go there."

"But I shall be late! They are expecting me back."

"Well, let them; but it would be stupid of you to go to them. With all
your bobbery I've had no dinner. And the later you go to Kirillov's the
more sure you are to find him."

Pyotr Stepanovitch went to a room apart. Liputin sat in an easy chair on
one side, angry and resentful, and watched him eating. Half an hour
and more passed. Pyotr Stepanovitch did not hurry himself; he ate with
relish, rang the bell, asked for a different kind of mustard, then for
beer, without saying a word to Liputin. He was pondering deeply. He was
capable of doing two things at once--eating with relish and pondering
deeply. Liputin loat