he would at last solve all his difficulties, yet, as he drew near Volovya station, he trembled at the thought of what Grushenka might be doing in his absence. * What if she made up her mind today to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch? This was why he had gone off without telling her and why he left orders with his landlady not to let out where he had gone, if anyone came to inquire for
“I must, I must get back tonight,” he repeated, as he was jolted along in the cart, “and I dare say I shall have to bring this Lyagavy back here … to draw up the deed.”
So mused Mitya, with a throbbing heart, but alas! his dreams were not fated to be carried out.
To begin with, he was late, taking a shortcut from Volovya station which turned out to be eighteen versts instead of twelve.
Secondly, he did not find the priest at home at Ilyinskoe; he had gone off to a neighboring village. While Mitya, setting off there with the same exhausted horses, was looking for him, it was almost dark.
The priest, a shy and amiable looking little man, informed him at once that though Lyagavy had been staying with him at first, he was now at Suhoy Possyolok, that he was staying the night in the forester’s cottage, as he was buying timber there too. At Mitya’s urgent request that he would take him to Lyagavy at once, and by so doing “save him, so to speak,” the priest agreed, after some demur, to conduct him to Suhoy Possyolok; his curiosity was obviously aroused. But, unluckily, he advised their going on foot,