“I was fooling about the bullet! I want to live. I love life! You may be sure of that. I love golden-haired Phoebus and his warm light. … Dear Pyotr Ilyitch, do you know how to step aside?”
“What do you mean by ‘stepping aside’?”
“Making way. Making way for a dear creature, and for one I hate. And to let the one I hate become dear—that’s what making way means! And to say to them: God bless you, go your way, pass on, while I—”
“While you—?”
“That’s enough, let’s go.”
“Upon my word. I’ll tell someone to prevent your going there,” said Pyotr Ilyitch, looking at him. “What are you going to Mokroe for, now?”
“There’s a woman there, a woman. That’s enough for you. You shut up.”
“Listen, though you’re such a savage I’ve always liked you. … I feel anxious.”
“Thanks, old fellow. I’m a savage you say. Savages, savages! That’s what I am always saying. Savages! Why, here’s Misha! I was forgetting him.”
Misha ran in, posthaste, with a handful of notes in change, and reported that everyone was in a bustle at the Plotnikovs’; “They’re carrying down the bottles, and the fish, and the tea; it will all be ready directly.” Mitya seized ten roubles and handed it to Pyotr Ilyitch, then tossed another ten-rouble note to Misha.
“Don’t dare to do such a thing!” cried Pyotr Ilyitch. “I won’t have it in my house, it’s a bad, demoralizing habit. Put your money away. Here, put it here, why waste it? It would come in handy tomorrow, and I dare say you’ll be coming to me to borrow ten roubles again. Why do you keep putting the notes in your side-pocket? Ah, you’ll lose them!”