Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, wiped his face, and with a subdued tread walked out of the room. “Matvey says she will come round; but how? I don’t see the least chance of it. Ah, oh, how horrible it is! And how vulgarly she shouted,” he said to himself, remembering her shriek and the words⁠—“scoundrel” and “mistress.” “And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly vulgar! horrible!” Stepan Arkadyevitch stood a few seconds alone, wiped his face, squared his chest, and walked out of the room.

It was Friday, and in the dining-room the German watchmaker was winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered his joke about this punctual, bald watchmaker, “that the German was wound up for a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches,” and he smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch was fond of a joke: “And maybe she will come round! That’s a good expression, ‘ come round, ’ ” he thought. “I must repeat that.”

“Matvey!” he shouted. “Arrange everything with Darya in the sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna,” he said to Matvey when he came in.