“Oh, ten were left here,” he answered with vexation (he talked to me at one moment in a vexed and haughty tone and at the next with dreadful plaintiveness and humiliation), “but I had disposed of eight already, and Blum only found two.” And he suddenly flushed with indignation. “ Vous me mettez avec ces gens-là! Do you suppose I could be working with those scoundrels, those anonymous libellers, with my son Pyotr Stepanovitch, avec ces esprits forts de lâcheté ? Oh, heavens!”

“Bah! haven’t they mixed you up perhaps?⁠ ⁠… But it’s nonsense, it can’t be so,” I observed.

“ Savez-vous ,” broke from him suddenly, “I feel at moments que je ferai là-bas quelque esclandre . Oh, don’t go away, don’t leave me alone! Ma carrière est finie aujourd’hui, je le sens. Do you know, I might fall on somebody there and bite him, like that lieutenant.”