Shigalov and Virginsky had arrived rather before Pyotr Stepanovitch, and as soon as he came they drew a little apart in profound and obviously intentional silence. Pyotr Stepanovitch raised his lantern and examined them with unceremonious and insulting minuteness. “They mean to speak,” flashed through his mind.

“Isn’t Lyamshin here?” he asked Virginsky. “Who said he was ill?”

“I am here,” responded Lyamshin, suddenly coming from behind a tree. He was in a warm greatcoat and thickly muffled in a rug, so that it was difficult to make out his face even with a lantern.

“So Liputin is the only one not here?”

Liputin too came out of the grotto without speaking. Pyotr Stepanovitch raised the lantern again.

“Why were you hiding in there? Why didn’t you come out?”