بخش 03 - فصل 03

CHAPTER THREE

“HE’S DOING WELL, REALLY well!” Zossimov shouted cheerfully as they came in.

He had arrived ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, fully dressed and more carefully washed and combed than he had been for some time. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasia managed to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen.

Raskolnikov was actually almost better again compared to his condition the day before, but he was still pale, listless and somber. He looked like a wounded man or someone who has undergone terrible physical pain. His eyebrows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. When he spoke, he said little and did so reluctantly, as though he were performing a duty; his movements were restless.

He only needed a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken bone. The pale, somber face lit up for a moment when his mother and sister entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering instead of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient with all the passion of a young doctor beginning to practice, noticed no joy in him at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable torture. He saw later that almost every word of their conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same time he marveled at the restraint and self-control of a patient who the previous day had, like a monomaniac, become frenzied at the slightest word.

“Yes, I can see myself that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov, giving his mother and sister a welcoming kiss which made Pulcheria Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I’m not just saying this like I did yesterday,” he said, addressing Razumikhin with a friendly handshake.

“Yes, I’m actually surprised at him today,” began Zossimov, delighted that the ladies had arrived, since he had not even managed to keep up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is, as he was a month ago, or two . . . or perhaps even three. It’s been coming on for a long time . . . yes? Own up, wasn’t it maybe your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though still afraid of irritating him.

“Maybe,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.

“I’d say,” continued Zossimov, evidently enjoying himself, “that your complete recovery depends on yourself alone. Now that we can talk, I’d like to remind you that it is essential to avoid the elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes which tend to produce your morbid condition. In that case, you will be cured; if not, it will go from bad to worse. I don’t know what these fundamental causes are, but you should. You’re an intelligent man, of course, you must have observed yourself. I reckon the first stage of your derangement coincided with you leaving the university. You mustn’t be left without an occupation, so work and a definite aim set in front of you might, I imagine, be very beneficial.” “Yes, yes; you are absolutely right . . . I’ll hurry up and get back to the university, and then everything will go smoothly . . . ” Zossimov, who had started giving him advice partly to make an impact on the ladies, was certainly a little mystified when he glanced at his patient and noticed an unmistakably mocking expression on his face. However, it only lasted for an instant. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to thank Zossimov at once, especially for his visit to their apartment the previous night.

“What! He saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled. “Then you haven’t slept either after your journey.” “Rodia, that was only until two o’clock. Dunia and I never go to bed before two at home.” “I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov went on suddenly frowning and looking down. “Aside from the question of payment—sorry for referring to it” (he turned to Zossimov)—“I really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention from you! I just don’t understand it . . . and . . . and . . . in fact, it weighs upon me because I don’t understand it. I’m telling you honestly.” “Don’t be annoyed.” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Assume that you are my first patient—well—people like me who are just starting to practice love our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in love with them. And, of course, I don’t have a lot of patients.” “Let alone him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumikhin, “though he has had nothing from me either but insults and trouble.” “What nonsense! You’re in a sentimental mood today, aren’t you?” shouted Razumikhin.

If he had looked more carefully he would have seen that there was no trace of sentimentality in him—the opposite, in fact. But Avdotia Romanovna noticed. She was intently and uneasily watching her brother.

“As for you, Mother, I don’t know how to begin,” he went on, as though repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It’s only today that I’ve begun to realize just how upset you must have been here yesterday, waiting for me to come back.” When he said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister, smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real feeling. Dunia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had spoken to her since their argument the previous day. The mother’s face lighted up with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken reconciliation.

“Yes, that’s what I love him for,” Razumikhin, exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his chair. “He has these movements.” “And how well he does it all,” the mother was thinking to herself. “What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end to all the misunderstandings with his sister—just by holding out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that . . . And what handsome eyes he has, and how handsome his whole face is! . . . He is even better looking than Dunia . . . But, my goodness, what a suit—how terribly he’s dressed! . . . Vasia, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanovich’s store, is better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him . . . weep over him—but I’m afraid . . . Oh dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m afraid! Why, what am I afraid of? . . . ”

“Oh, Rodia, you wouldn’t believe,” she began suddenly, hastily answering his words to her, “how unhappy Dunia and I were yesterday! Now that it’s all over and done with and we are truly happy again—I can tell you. Can you imagine—we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace you and that woman—ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasia! . . . She told us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the streets. You can’t imagine how we felt! I couldn’t help thinking about the tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s—you won’t remember him, Rodia—who ran out in the same way in a high fever and fell into the well in the courtyard and they couldn’t pull him out until next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were about to rush off and find Peter Petrovich to ask him to help . . . Because we were alone, totally alone,” she said mournfully and stopped short, suddenly, remembering it was still pretty dangerous to speak about Peter Petrovich, although “we are truly happy again.” “Yes, yes . . . Of course it’s very annoying . . . ” Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but in such a preoccupied and inattentive way that Dunia gazed at him, perplexed.

“What else was it I wanted to say,” he went on, trying to remember. “Oh, yes; mother, and Dunia, you too, don’t think I didn’t mean to come and see you today and just waited for you to come first.” “What are you saying, Rodia?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She too was surprised.

“Is he answering us as a duty?” Dunia wondered. “Is he being reconciled and asking for our forgiveness as though he were performing a ritual or repeating a lesson?” “I’ve only just woken up, and I wanted to come and see you, but I was delayed because of my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her . . . Nastasia . . . to wash out the blood . . . I’ve only just dressed.” “Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.

“Oh, nothing—don’t worry. It was when I was wandering about yesterday, when I was delirious, I met a man who had been run over . . . a clerk . . . ” “Delirious? But you remember everything!” Razumikhin interrupted.

“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I remember everything down to the last detail, and yet—why I did that and went there and said that, I can’t explain.” “A familiar phenomenon,” Zossimov interrupted, “actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and remarkably cunning way, while the motive for the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions—it’s like a dream.” “Maybe it’s really a good thing that he thinks I’m almost mad,” thought Raskolnikov.

“But people in perfect health act in the same way as well,” observed Dunia, looking uneasily at Zossimov.

“There is some truth in your observation,” the latter replied. “In that sense we certainly all resemble madmen quite often, but with the slight difference that the deranged are even madder, because we have to draw the line somewhere. It’s true that a normal man hardly even exists. It’s hard to find one in a dozen—perhaps even one in a hundred thousand.” At the word “madmen,” carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter about his favorite subject, everyone frowned.

Raskolnikov seemed not to pay any attention to them and sat there plunged in thought, with a strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something.

“Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!” Razumikhin shouted swiftly.

“What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh . . . I got spattered with blood when I was helping them carry him to his apartment. By the way, Mother, I did an unforgivable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave away all the money you sent me . . . to his wife for the funeral. She’s a widow now, tubercular, poor lady . . . three little children, starving . . . nothing in the house . . . there’s a daughter, too . . . perhaps you’d have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I had no right to do it, I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself. To help others you’ve got to have the right to do it, or else you’ve just got to accept it.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t it, Dunia?” “No, it’s not,” answered Dunia firmly.

“Pah! You have ideals too,” he muttered, looking at her almost with hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I ought to have thought about that . Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s better for you . . . and if you reach a line you won’t cross, you’ll be unhappy . . . and if you cross it, maybe you’ll be even unhappier . . . But that’s all nonsense,” he added irritably, annoyed that he got carried away. “I only meant to ask mother to forgive me,” he concluded, shortly and abruptly.

“That’s enough, Rodia, I’m sure that everything you do is very good,” said his mother, delighted.

“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile.

A silence followed. There was a constraint in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and everyone felt it.

“It is as though they were afraid of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking to himself, looking sideways at his mother and sister. Pulcheria Alexandrovna definitely grew more timid the longer she kept silent.

“Yet when they were gone I seemed to love them so much,” flashed through his mind.

“Do you know, Rodia, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out.

“What Marfa Petrovna?”

“Lord have mercy on us—Marfa Petrovna Svidrigailov. I wrote you so much about her.” “A-a-h! Yes, I remember . . . So she’s dead! Really?” he roused himself suddenly, as if waking up. “What did she die of?” “Just imagine, she died so suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. “On the same day I sent you that letter! Would you believe it, that terrible man seems to have been the cause of her death. They say he used to beat her horribly.” “Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked, addressing his sister.

“No, not at all; exactly the opposite. With her, he was always very patient, even considerate. In fact, all those seven years of their married life he gave way to her, often too much, in fact. All of a sudden he seemed to have lost his patience.” “Then he couldn’t have been so nasty if he controlled himself for seven years? You seem to be defending him, Dunia?” “No, no, he’s a terrible man! I can’t imagine anything more disgusting!” Dunia answered, almost with a shudder, wrinkling up her brows and sinking into thought.

“It happened in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on hurriedly. “And immediately afterwards she ordered the horses to be harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always used to drive to the town in cases like that. They said she ate a really good dinner . . . ” “After the beating?” “That was always her . . . habit; and immediately after dinner, so she wasn’t late setting out, she went to the bathhouse . You see, she was having some bath treatment. They have a cold spring there, and she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner did she get into the water when she suddenly had a stroke!” “I should think so,” said Zossimov.

“And did he beat her badly?”

“What does that matter!” put in Dunia.

“Hmm! Mother, I don’t know why you want to tell us gossip like that,” said Raskolnikov irritably, almost in spite of himself.

“My dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna said.

“Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a constrained smile.

“That’s definitely true,” said Dunia, looking directly and sternly at her brother. “Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up the stairs.” His face worked, as though in convulsion.

“What are you saying, Dunia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodia . . . Why did you say that, Dunia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, overwhelmed. “You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the train, how we would meet, how we would talk over everything together . . . And I was so happy, I didn’t notice the journey! But what am I saying? I am happy now . You shouldn’t, Dunia . . . I am happy now—just to see you, Rodia . . . ”

“Shsh, Mother,” he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but pressing her hand. “We shall have time to talk freely about everything!”

As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned pale. Again that awful sensation he had known— As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to him that he had just told a terrible lie: that now he would never be able to talk freely about everything, that never again would he be able to talk freely about anything to anyone. The anguish of this thought was such that for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up from his seat, and not looking at anyone walked towards the door.

“What are you doing?” cried Razumikhin, clutching him by the arm.

He sat down again, and began looking around him in silence. They were all looking at him, perplexed.

“But what are you all so silent about?” he shouted, suddenly and entirely unexpectedly. “Say something! What’s the use of sitting like this? Come on, speak! Let’s talk . . . We meet and sit in silence . . . Come on, anything!” “Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself.

“What’s the matter, Rodia?” asked Avdotia Romanovna, distrustfully.

“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly laughed.

“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right! . . . I was beginning to think . . . ” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps . . . if I can . . . ” He made his bows, and went out.

“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he had not shown until then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my illness . . . I think I met him somewhere—. . . And this is a good man, too,” he nodded at Razumikhin. “Do you like him, Dunia?” he asked her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.

“Very much,” answered Dunia.

“Pah! What a pig you are,” Razumikhin protested, blushing in terrible embarrassment, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed out loud.

“Where are you off to?”

“I must go.”

“You don’t need to go at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go. What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a pretty watch you’ve got, Dunia. But why are you all silent again? I’m doing all the talking.” “It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dunia.

“And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.”

“I like that sort,” said Dunia.

“So it is not a present from her fiancé,” thought Razumikhin, and was senselessly delighted.

“I thought it was a present from Luzhin,” observed Raskolnikov.

“No, he has not given Dunia any presents yet.”

“A-ah! Do you remember, Mother, when I was in love and I wanted to get married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was confused by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke about it.

“Oh yes, my dear.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dunia and Razumikhin.

“Hmm, yes. What can I tell you? Actually, I don’t remember much. She was such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again. “A real invalid. She was fond of giving to the poor, and was always dreaming of being a nun, and once she burst into tears when she started talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me to her then—I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been lame or hunchback, I think I would have liked her even more,” he smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of a spring delirium.” “No, it wasn’t just a spring delirium,” said Dunia, with warm feeling.

He gave his sister a strained, intent look, but did not hear or did not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up, went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down.

“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched.

“Her? Now? Oh, yes . . . You ask about her? No . . . somehow it all seems like it’s in another world . . . and so long ago. And in fact everything happening here seems far away somehow.” He looked attentively at them. “You now . . . I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away . . . but, Lord knows why we are talking about that! And what’s the use of asking about it,” he added with annoyance and, biting his nails, he fell into a dreamy silence again.

“What a wretched apartment you have, Rodia! It’s like a tomb,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I am sure it’s half because of your room here that you have become so melancholy.” “My room,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the room had a great deal to do with it . . . I thought that, too . . . If only you knew, though, what a strange thing you said just now, Mother,” he said, laughing strangely.

A little more, and their companionship, this mother and sister, with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation, in the face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything—everything would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent matter which must be settled one way or another that day—he had decided when he woke up. Now he was glad he had remembered it, because now he had a means of escape.

“Listen, Dunia,” he began, gravely and dryly, “of course I asked you to forgive me yesterday, but I think I ought to tell you again that I’m not backing down from my decision. It’s me or Luzhin. If I’m a bad person, you mustn’t be; one is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I shall immediately stop treating you as my sister.” “Rodia, Rodia! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a bad person? I can’t bear it. Yesterday you said the same thing.”

“Rodia,” Dunia answered firmly and with the same dryness. “You’re making a mistake. I thought it over last night, and I discovered what it was. It’s all because you seem to think I am sacrificing myself to someone for someone else. That’s not the case at all. I’m just marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I manage to be useful to my family. But that’s not the chief motive for my decision . . . ”

“She’s lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. “What a proud person she is! She won’t even admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too high and mighty! What terrible people! They even love as if they hate . . . And how I . . . hate them all!” “In fact,” continued Dunia, “I’m marrying Peter Petrovich because I have decided to choose the lesser of two evils. I intend to do everything he asks me to do honestly, so I’m not deceiving him . . . Why did you smile just now?” She, too, flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes.

“Everything?” he asked, with a malignant grin.

“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Peter Petrovich’s courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too highly of himself, but I hope he respects me, too . . . Why are you laughing again?” “And why are you blushing again? You’re lying, Dunia. You’re lying on purpose, just because of your feminine obstinacy, just to hold your own against me . . . You can’t respect Luzhin. I’ve seen him and talked to him. So you’re selling yourself for money, and so in any case you’re behaving badly, and I’m at least glad that you can blush about it.” “It’s not true. I’m not lying,” cried Dunia, losing her temper.

“I wouldn’t marry him if I weren’t satisfied that he respects me and thinks highly of me. I wouldn’t marry him if I weren’t absolutely satisfied that I can respect him. Fortunately, I’ve had convincing proof of it today . . . and a marriage like that’s not cheap, as you say it is! And even if you were right, if I really had decided to behave badly, isn’t it merciless of you to speak to me like that? Why do you demand I have a heroism that maybe you don’t have either? It’s dictatorial; it’s tyrannical. If I ruin anyone, then I’ll only be ruining myself . . . I’m not committing a murder. Why are you looking at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodia, darling, what’s the matter?” “Lord have mercy! You made him faint,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little dizziness—not fainting. You’ve got fainting on the brain. Hmm, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what way will you get convincing proof today that you can respect him, and that he . . . respects you, you said earlier. I think that’s what you said?” “Mother, show Rodia Peter Petrovich’s letter,” said Dunia.

With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly looked with a sort of amazement at Dunia.

“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. “What am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry who you like!” He said this almost to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for some time at his sister, as though he were puzzled. He opened the letter at last, still with the same look of strange amazement on his face. Then, slowly and attentively, he started reading, and read it through twice. Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed particular anxiety, and in fact everyone expected something strange to happen.

“What surprises me,” he began, after a short pause, handing the letter to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, “is that he is a businessman, a lawyer, that his conversation is definitely pretentious, and yet he writes such an uneducated letter.” They were all astonished. They had expected something totally different.

“But they all write like that, you know,” Razumikhin observed, abruptly.

“Have you read it?”

“Yes.”

“We showed him, Rodia. We . . . consulted him just now,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.

“That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumikhin put in. “Legal documents have always been written like that.” “Legal? Yes, it’s just legal—business language—not entirely uneducated, and not quite educated—business language!” “Peter Petrovich makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap education; in fact, he is proud of having made his own way,” Avdotia Romanovna observed, a little offended by her brother’s tone.

“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason to be, I don’t deny it. You seem to be offended, sister, that I only made such a frivolous criticism of the letter; you think that I talk about such unimportant matters in order to annoy you on purpose. It’s exactly the opposite: a stylistic observation occurred to me which is definitely not irrelevant given the way things stand at the moment. There’s one expression, ‘blame yourselves,’ which has been put in very significantly and clearly, and there’s also a threat that he’ll leave at once if I’m present. That threat to leave is equivalent to a threat to abandon you both if you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an expression from Luzhin, as we should if he” (he pointed to Razumikhin) “had written it, or Zossimov, or one of us?” “N-no,” answered Dunia, with more animation.

“I saw clearly that it was too naively expressed, and that perhaps he doesn’t know how to write well . . . that’s a fair criticism, Rodia. I didn’t expect, in fact . . . ” “It is expressed in a legal style, and maybe it sounds coarser than he intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression in the letter, one slander about me, and a pretty despicable one at that. I gave the money last night to the widow, a tubercular woman in serious difficulties, and not ‘under the pretext of contributing to the funeral,’ but simply to pay for the funeral, and not to the daughter—a young woman, as he writes, of notorious behavior (whom I saw last night for the first time in my life)—but to the widow.

In all this I think he has been suspiciously hasty to slander me and to make us disagree. It is expressed again in legal jargon, that is to say, with too obvious a display of the aim, and with a very naive eagerness. He is an intelligent man, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not enough. It all shows him up for who he really is and . . . I don’t think he has any great respect for you. I’m telling you this just to warn you, because I sincerely wish for your own good . . . ” Dunia did not reply. Her decision had been taken. She was just waiting to see what would happen that evening.

“Then what have you decided, Rodia?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was more uneasy than ever at the sudden new businesslike tone of his talk.

“What decision?”

“You see Peter Petrovich writes that you mustn’t be with us this evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you . . . come?” “That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first and foremost, if you are not offended by such a request; and secondly, by Dunia, if she, too, is not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added dryly.

“Dunia has already decided, and I fully agree with her,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare.

“I decided to urge you, Rodia, to be with us at this interview,” said Dunia. “Will you come?” “Yes.”

“I will ask you too to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said, addressing Razumikhin. “Mother, I am inviting him, too.” “Quite right, Dunia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like concealment and deception. Better for us to have the whole truth, whether Peter Petrovich is angry or not!”