I only looked at one another,
and made up our minds that that was the right thing and that we liked it
very much...."

"The strange thing is that with us all this is not only in the brain but
is carried out in practice," I observed.

"Men made of paper," Shatov repeated.

"But to cross the ocean in an emigrant steamer, though, to go to an
unknown country, even to make a personal experiment and all that--by
Jove... there really is a large-hearted staunchness about it.... But
how did you get out of it?"

"I wrote to a man in Europe and he sent me a hundred roubles."

As Shatov talked he looked doggedly at the ground as he always did, even
when he was excited. At this point he suddenly raised his head.

"Do you want to know the man's name?"

"Who was it?"

"Nikolay Stavrogin."

He got up suddenly, turned to his limewood writing-table and
began searching for something on it. There was a vague, though
well-authenticated rumour among us that Shatov's wife had at one time
had a liaison with Nikolay Stavrogin, in Paris, and just about two years
ago, that is when Shatov was in America. It is true that this was long
after his wife had left him in Geneva.

"If so, what possesses him now to bring his name forward and to lay
stress on it?" I thought.

"I haven't paid him back yet," he said, turning suddenly to me again,
and looking at me intently he sat down in the same place as before in
the corner, and asked abruptly, in quite a different voice:

"You have come no doubt with some object. What do you want?"

I told him everything immediately, in its exact historical order, and
added that though I had time to think it over coolly after the first
excitement was over, I was more puzzled than ever. I saw that it meant
something very important to Lizaveta Nikolaevna. I was extremely anxious
to help her, but the trouble was that I didn't know how to keep the
promise I had made her, and didn't even quite understand now what I had
promised her. Then I assured him impressively once more that she had not
meant to deceive him, and had had no thought of doing so; that there had
been some misunderstanding, and that she had been very much hurt by the
extraordinary way in which he had gone off that morning.

He listened very attentively.

"Perhaps I was stupid this morning, as I usually am.... Well, if she
didn't understand why I went away like that... so much the better for
her."

He got up, went to the door, opened it, and