Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
about..’
Pyotr Ilyitch listened. All at once he became short and
dry in his answers. He said not a word about the blood on
Mitya’s face and hands, though he had meant to speak of it
at first.
They began a third game, and by degrees the talk about
Mitya died away. But by the end of the third game, Pyotr
Ilyitch felt no more desire for billiards; he laid down the cue,
and without having supper as he had intended, he walked
out of the tavern. When he reached the market-place he
stood still in perplexity, wondering at himself. He realised
that what he wanted was to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s and
find out if anything had happened there. ‘On account of
some stupid nonsense as it’s sure to turn out — am I going
to wake up the household and make a scandal? Fooh! damn
it, is it my business to look after them?’
In a very bad humour he went straight home, and sud-
denly remembered Fenya. ‘Damn it all! I ought to have
questioned her just now,’ he thought with vexation, ‘I should
have heard everything.’ And the desire to speak to her, and
so find out, became so pressing and importunate that when
he was halfway home he turned abruptly and went towards
the house where Grushenka lodged. Going up to the gate he
knocked. The sound of the knock in the silence of the night
sobered him and made him feel annoyed. And no one an-
swered him; everyone in the house was asleep.
‘And I shall be making a fuss!’ he thought, with a feeling
of positive discomfort. But instead of going away altogether,
he fell to knocking again with all his might, filling the street