v, Pyotr Verhovensky,
and Lebyadkin (whom I now have the pleasure of claiming as a
brother-in-law) promised to hold their tongues."

"I don't mean that... You speak so calmly... but good! Listen! You
weren't forced into that marriage, were you?"

"No, no one forced me into it." Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch smiled at
Shatov's importunate haste.

"And what's that talk she keeps up about her baby?" Shatov interposed
disconnectedly, with feverish haste.

"She talks about her baby? Bah! I didn't know. It's the first time
I've heard of it. She never had a baby and couldn't have had: Marya
Timofyevna is a virgin."

"Ah! That's just what I thought! Listen!"

"What's the matter with you, Shatov?"

Shatov hid his face in his hands, turned away, but suddenly clutched
Stavrogin by the shoulders.

"Do you know why, do you know why, anyway," he shouted, "why you did all
this, and why you are resolved on such a punishment now!"

"Your question is clever and malignant, but I mean to surprise you too;
I fancy I do know why I got married then, and why I am resolved on such
a punishment now, as you express it."

"Let's leave that... of that later. Put it off. Let's talk of the chief
thing, the chief thing. I've been waiting two years for you."

"Yes?"

"I've waited too long for you. I've been thinking of you incessantly.
You are the only man who could move... I wrote to you about it from
America."

"I remember your long letter very well."

"Too long to be read? No doubt; six sheets of notepaper. Don't speak!
Don't speak! Tell me, can you spare me another ten minutes?... But now,
this minute... I have waited for you too long."

"Certainly, half an hour if you like, but not more, if that will suit
you."

"And on condition, too," Shatov put in wrathfully, "that you take a
different tone. Do you hear? I demand when I ought to entreat. Do you
understand what it means to demand when one ought to entreat?"

"I understand that in that way you lift yourself above all
ordinary considerations for the sake of loftier aims," said Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch with a faint smile. "I see with regret, too, that you're
feverish."

"I beg you to treat me with respect, I insist on it!" shouted Shatov,
"not my personality--I don't care a hang for that, but something else,
just for this once. While I am talking... we are two beings, and have
come together in infinity... for the last time in the world. Drop your
tone, and speak like a human being