nd won't give himself away even when he's drunk."

Shatov moved away from the door.

"What's it all about?" I asked.

Shatov waved aside the question, opened the door and began listening
on the stairs again. He listened a long while, and even stealthily
descended a few steps. At last he came back.

"There's nothing to be heard; he isn't beating her; he must have flopped
down at once to go to sleep. It's time for you to go."

"Listen, Shatov, what am I to gather from all this?"

"Oh, gather what you like!" he answered in a weary and disgusted voice,
and he sat down to his writing-table.

I went away. An improbable idea was growing stronger and stronger in my
mind. I thought of the next day with distress....

VII

This "next day," the very Sunday which was to decide Stepan
Trofimovitch's fate irrevocably, was one of the most memorable days in
my chronicle. It was a day of surprises, a day that solved past riddles
and suggested new ones, a day of startling revelations, and still more
hopeless perplexity. In the morning, as the reader is already aware, I
had by Varvara Petrovna's particular request to accompany my friend on
his visit to her, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I had to be with
Lizaveta Nikolaevna in order to tell her--I did not know what--and to
assist her--I did not know how. And meanwhile it all ended as no one
could have expected. In a word, it was a day of wonderful coincidences.

To begin with, when Stepan Trofimovitch and I arrived at Varvara
Petrovna's at twelve o'clock punctually, the time she had fixed, we did
not find her at home; she had not yet come back from church. My poor
friend was so disposed, or, more accurately speaking, so indisposed that
this circumstance crushed him at once; he sank almost helpless into
an arm-chair in the drawing-room. I suggested a glass of water; but in
spite of his pallor and the trembling of his hands, he refused it
with dignity. His get-up for the occasion was, by the way, extremely
recherche: a shirt of batiste and embroidered, almost fit for a ball, a
white tie, a new hat in his hand, new straw-coloured gloves, and even a
suspicion of scent. We had hardly sat down when Shatov was shown in by
the butler, obviously also by official invitation. Stepan Trofimovitch
was rising to shake hands with him, but Shatov, after looking
attentively at us both, turned away into a corner, and sat down there
without even nodding to us. Stepan Trofimovitch looked a