stent with ordinary usage.

But he had caught Varvara Petrovna by touching on too painful a spot.
I did not know the man's character at that time, and still less his
designs.

"I am listening," Varvara Petrovna announced with a reserved and
cautious manner. She was rather painfully aware of her condescension.

"It's a short story; in fact if you like it's not a story at all," he
rattled on, "though a novelist might work it up into a novel in an idle
hour. It's rather an interesting little incident, Praskovya Ivanovna,
and I am sure that Lizaveta Nikolaevna will be interested to hear
it, because there are a great many things in it that are odd if not
wonderful. Five years ago, in Petersburg, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch
made the acquaintance of this gentleman, this very Mr. Lebyadkin who's
standing here with his mouth open, anxious, I think, to slip away at
once. Excuse me, Varvara Petrovna. I don't advise you to make your
escape though, you discharged clerk in the former commissariat
department; you see, I remember you very well. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch
and I know very well what you've been up to here, and, don't forget,
you'll have to answer for it. I ask your pardon once more, Varvara
Petrovna. In those days Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch used to call this
gentleman his Falstaff; that must be," he explained suddenly, "some old
burlesque character, at whom every one laughs, and who is willing to
let every one laugh at him, if only they'll pay him for it. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch was leading at that time in Petersburg a life, so to
say, of mockery. I can't find another word to describe it, because he
is not a man who falls into disillusionment, and he disdained to be
occupied with work at that time. I'm only speaking of that period,
Varvara Petrovna. Lebyadkin had a sister, the woman who was sitting here
just now. The brother and sister hadn't a corner* of their own, but
were always quartering themselves on different people. He used to hang
about the arcades in the Gostiny Dvor, always wearing his old uniform,
and would stop the more respectable-looking passers-by, and everything
he got from them he'd spend in drink. His sister lived like the birds
of heaven. She'd help people in their 'corners,' and do jobs for them
on occasion. It was a regular Bedlam. I'll pass over the description
of this life in 'corners,' a life to which Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had
taken,"

* In the poorer quarters of Russian towns a single room is