ill went on looking about him.

"So Stepan Trofimovitch wrote to you that he was getting married for
the 'sins of another committed in Switzerland,' and that you were to
fly here 'to save him,' in those very words?" said Varvara Petrovna,
addressing him suddenly. Her face was yellow and distorted, and her lips
were twitching.

"Well, you see, if there's anything I've not understood," said Pyotr
Stepanovitch, as though in alarm, talking more quickly than ever, "it's
his fault, of course, for writing like that. Here's the letter. You
know, Varvara Petrovna, his letters are endless and incessant, and,
you know, for the last two or three months there has been letter upon
letter, till, I must own, at last I sometimes didn't read them through.
Forgive me, Stepan Trofimovitch, for my foolish confession, but you must
admit, please, that, though you addressed them to me, you wrote them
more for posterity, so that you really can't mind.... Come, come, don't
be offended; we're friends, anyway. But this letter, Varvara Petrovna,
this letter, I did read through. These 'sins'--these 'sins of
another'--are probably some little sins of our own, and I don't mind
betting very innocent ones, though they have suddenly made us take a
fancy to work up a terrible story, with a glamour of the heroic about
it; and it's just for the sake of that glamour we've got it up. You
see there's something a little lame about our accounts--it must be
confessed, in the end. We've a great weakness for cards, you know....
But this is unnecessary, quite unnecessary, I'm sorry, I chatter too
much. But upon my word, Varvara Petrovna, he gave me a fright, and I
really was half prepared to save him. He really made me feel ashamed.
Did he expect me to hold a knife to his throat, or what? Am I such a
merciless creditor? He writes something here of a dowry.... But are you
really going to get married, Stepan Trofimovitch? That would be just
like you, to say a lot for the sake of talking. Ach, Varvara Petrovna,
I'm sure you must be blaming me now, and just for my way of talking
too...."

"On the contrary, on the contrary, I see that you are driven out of
all patience, and, no doubt you have had good reason," Varvara Petrovna
answered spitefully. She had listened with spiteful enjoyment to all the
"candid outbursts" of Pyotr Stepanovitch, who was obviously playing
a part (what part I did not know then, but it was unmistakable, and
over-acted indeed).

"On the contr