'What bad luck!' Pyotr Stepanovich cried out from the threshold. 'Are you seriously ill?'
The benign expression on his face suddenly vanished; something spiteful flashed in his eyes.
'Not in the least,' Shatov jumped up nervously, 'I'm not ill at all, my head is a little...'
He was even at a loss; the sudden appearance of such a visitor decidedly frightened him.
'The matter I've come on is such that it would be better not to be sick,' Pyotr Stepanovich began quickly and as if peremptorily. 'Allow me to sit down' (he sat down), 'and you sit back down on your cot, so. Today some of our people are getting together at Virginsky's, under the pretense of his birthday; there will be no other tinge—that's been seen to. I'll come with Nikolai Stavrogin. I certainly wouldn't drag you there, knowing your present way of thinking ... I mean, in the sense of not wanting to torment you there, and not because we think you'd inform. But it turns out that you'll have to go. You'll meet those people there with whom we will finally decide the manner of your leaving the Society, and to whom you will hand over what you have. We'll do it inconspicuously; I'll lead you to some corner; there will be a lot of people, and there's no need for everyone to know. I confess I did have to exercise my tongue on your behalf; but now it seems that they, too, agree, with the understanding, of course, that you hand over the press and all the papers. Then you can go to the four winds.'
Shatov listened frowningly and spitefully. His recent nervous fright had left him altogether.
'I do not acknowledge any obligation to give an accounting to the devil knows whom,' he stated flatly. 'No one can set me free.'
'Not quite so. A lot was entrusted to you. You had no right to break it off so directly. And, finally, you never announced it clearly, so you led them into an ambiguous position.'
'As soon as I came here I announced it clearly in a letter.'
'No, not clearly,' Pyotr Stepanovich disputed calmly. 'For instance, I sent you 'The Shining Light' to print here, and to keep the copies somewhere here with you until called for; and two tracts as well. You sent it all back with an ambiguous letter that meant nothing.'
'I directly refused to print it.'
'Yes, but not directly. You wrote: 'Am unable,' but did not explain for what reason. 'Unable' doesn't mean 'unwilling.' It could be supposed that you were unable simply for material reasons. In fact, they took it that way, and supposed that you still agreed to continue your connection with the Society, and so they might have entrusted you with something again, and thus have compromised themselves. Here they say you simply wanted to deceive, so that, having obtained important information, you could then denounce them. I defended you all I could, and showed your two-line written reply as a document in your favor. But I myself had to admit, on rereading it, that those two lines are vague and lead one into deception.'
'And you've preserved this letter so carefully?'
'That I've preserved it is nothing; I have it even now.'
'Who the devil cares! ...' Shatov cried out furiously. 'Let your fools think I denounced them, it's not my business! I'd like to see what you can do to me.'
'You'd be marked out and hanged at the first success of the revolution.'
'That's when you seize supreme power and subjugate Russia?'
'Don't laugh. I repeat, I stood up for you. One way or another, I'd still advise you to come today. Why waste words because of some false pride? Isn't it better to part amicably? Because you'll have to hand over the press and the type and the old papers in any case, so we can talk about that.'
'I'll come,' Shatov growled, hanging his head in thought. Pyotr Stepanovich studied him out of the corner of his eye from where he sat.
'Will Stavrogin be there?' Shatov suddenly asked, raising his head.
'Quite certainly.'
'Heh, heh!'
Again they were silent for about a minute. Shatov was grinning squeamishly and irritably.
'And that vile 'Shining Light' of yours, which I didn't want to print here, did it get printed?'
'It did.'
'To persuade schoolboys that Herzen himself wrote it into your album?'
'Herzen himself.'
Again they were silent for about three minutes. Shatov finally rose from the bed.
'Get out of here from me, I don't want to sit with you.'
'I'm going,' Pyotr Stepanovich said, even somehow gaily, rising at once. 'Only one word: it seems Kirillov is all by himself in the wing now, without any maid?'
'All by himself. Get out, I can't stay in the same room with you.'
'Well, aren't you in a fine state now!' Pyotr Stepanovich reflected gaily as he was going out, 'and so you will be in the evening, and that's precisely how I want you now, I could wish for nothing better, nothing better! The Russian God himself is helping out!'
VII
He probably bustled about a good deal that day on various little errands—and it must have been with success —which reflected itself in the smug expression of his physiognomy when in the evening, at six o'clock sharp, he appeared at Nikolai Vsevolodovich's. But he was not shown in to him at once; Mavriky Nikolaevich had just shut himself up with Nikolai Vsevolodovich in the study. This news instantly worried him. He sat down right by the door of the study to wait until the visitor came out. The conversation could be heard, but he was unable to catch the words. The visit did not last long; soon there was noise, an unexpectedly loud and sharp voice was heard, then the door opened and out came Mavriky Nikolaevich with a completely pale face. He did not notice Pyotr Stepanovich and
