n a regular litter and clouds of tobacco
smoke. I'm sending you Marya and Fomushka. They'll tidy you up in half
an hour. And don't hinder them, but go and sit in the kitchen while they
clear up. I'm sending you a Bokhara rug and two china vases. I've long
been meaning to make you a present of them, and I'm sending you my
Teniers, too, for a time! You can put the vases in the window and hang
the Teniers on the right under the portrait of Goethe; it will be more
conspicuous there and it's always light there in the morning. If he does
turn up at last, receive him with the utmost courtesy but try and talk
of trifling matters, of some intellectual subject, and behave as though
you had seen each other lately. Not a word about me. Perhaps I may look
in on you in the evening.--V. S.

"P.S.--If he does not come to-day he won't come at all."

I read and was amazed that he was in such excitement over such trifles.
Looking at him inquiringly, I noticed that he had had time while I was
reading to change the everlasting white tie he always wore, for a red
one. His hat and stick lay on the table. He was pale, and his hands were
positively trembling.

"I don't care a hang about her anxieties," he cried frantically, in
response to my inquiring look. "_Je m'en fiche!_ She has the face to be
excited about Karmazinov, and she does not answer my letters. Here is
my unopened letter which she sent me back yesterday, here on the table
under the book, under _L'Homme qui rit_. What is it to me that she's
wearing herself out over Nikolay! _Je m'en fiche, et je proclame ma
liberte! Au diable le Karmazinov! Au diable la Lembke!_ I've hidden the
vases in the entry, and the Teniers in the chest of drawers, and I have
demanded that she is to see me at once. Do you hear. I've insisted!
I've sent her just such a scrap of paper, a pencil scrawl, unsealed, by
Nastasya, and I'm waiting. I want Darya Pavlovna to speak to me with
her own lips, before the face of Heaven, or at least before you. _Vous me
seconderez, n'est-ce pas, comme ami et temoin._ I don't want to have
to blush, to lie, I don't want secrets, I won't have secrets in this
matter. Let them confess everything to me openly, frankly, honourably
and then... then perhaps I may surprise the whole generation by my
magnanimity.... Am I a scoundrel or not, my dear sir?" he concluded
suddenly, looking menacingly at me, as though I'd considered him a
scoundrel.

I offered him a sip of water; I had ne