He suddenly stopped.

“I am talking,” he thought, “while he holds his tongue and watches me. He has come to make me ask him a direct question. And I shall ask him.”

“Yulia Mihailovna asked me by some stratagem to find out from you what the surprise is that you are preparing for the ball tomorrow,” Pyotr Stepanovitch asked suddenly.

“Yes, there really will be a surprise and I certainly shall astonish⁠ ⁠…” said Karmazinov with increased dignity. “But I won’t tell you what the secret is.”

Pyotr Stepanovitch did not insist.

“There is a young man here called Shatov,” observed the great writer. “Would you believe it, I haven’t seen him.”

“A very nice person. What about him?”