Vsyevolodovitch looked round. The room was tiny and low-pitched.
The furniture consisted only of the most essential articles, plain
wooden chairs and a sofa, also newly made without covering or cushions.
There were two tables of limewood; one by the sofa, and the other in
the corner was covered with a table-cloth, laid with things over which
a clean table-napkin had been thrown. And, indeed, the whole room was
obviously kept extremely clean.

Captain Lebyadkin had not been drunk for eight days. His face looked
bloated and yellow. His eyes looked uneasy, inquisitive, and obviously
bewildered. It was only too evident that he did not know what tone he
could adopt, and what line it would be most advantageous for him to
take.

"Here," he indicated his surroundings, "I live like Zossima. Sobriety,
solitude, and poverty--the vow of the knights of old."

"You imagine that the knights of old took such vows?"

"Perhaps I'm mistaken. Alas! I have no culture. I've ruined all. Believe
me, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, here first I have recovered from shameful
propensities--not a glass nor a drop! I have a home, and for six days
past I have experienced a conscience at ease. Even the walls smell of
resin and remind me of nature. And what have I been; what was I?

'At night without a bed I wander
And my tongue put out by day...'

to use the words of a poet of genius. But you're wet through....
Wouldn't you like some tea?"

"Don't trouble."

"The samovar has been boiling since eight o'clock, but it went out at
last like everything in this world. The sun, too, they say, will go
out in its turn. But if you like I'll get up the samovar. Agafya is not
asleep."

"Tell me, Marya Timofyevna..."

"She's here, here," Lebyadkin replied at once, in a whisper. "Would you
like to have a look at her?" He pointed to the closed door to the next
room.

"She's not asleep?"

"Oh, no, no. How could she be? On the contrary, she's been expecting
you all the evening, and as soon as she heard you were coming she began
making her toilet."

He was just twisting his mouth into a jocose smile, but he instantly
checked himself.

"How is she, on the whole?" asked Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, frowning.

"On the whole? You know that yourself, sir." He shrugged his shoulders
commiseratingly. "But just now... just now she's telling her fortune
with cards...."

"Very good. Later on. First of all I must finish with you."

Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch