He looked out of the window and went on, standing in the middle of the room: 

“Everything happened so secretly, as though we were concealing it all from you.  The feeling that you might be wounded and angry has been a blot on our happiness all these days.  But let me justify myself.  We kept it secret not because we did not trust you.  To begin with, it all happened suddenly, by a kind of inspiration; there was no time to discuss it.  Besides, it’s such a private, delicate matter, and it was awkward to bring a third person in, even some one as intimate as you.  Above all, in all this we reckoned on your generosity.  You are a very noble and generous person.  I am infinitely grateful to you.  If you ever need my life, come and take it.”

Vlassitch talked in a quiet, hollow bass, always on the same droning note; he was evidently agitated.  Pyotr Mihalitch felt it was his turn to speak, and that to listen and keep silent would really mean playing the part of a generous and noble simpleton, and that had not been his idea in coming.  He got up quickly and said, breathlessly in an undertone: 

“Listen, Grigory.  You know I liked you and could have desired no better husband for my sister; but what has happened is awful!  It’s terrible to think of it!”

“Why is it terrible?” asked Vlassitch, with a quiver in his voice.  “It would be terrible if we had done wrong, but that isn’t so.”

“Listen, Grigory.  You know I have no prejudices; but, excuse my frankness, to my mind you have both acted selfishly.  Of course, I shan’t say so to my sister—­it will distress her; but you ought to know:  mother is miserable beyond all description.”

“Yes, that’s sad,” sighed Vlassitch.  “We foresaw that, Petrusha, but what could we have done?  Because one’s actions hurt other people, it doesn’t prove that they are wrong.  What’s to be done!  Every important step one takes is bound to distress somebody.  If you went to fight for freedom, that would distress your mother, too.  What’s to be done!  Any one who puts the peace of his family before everything has to renounce the life of ideas completely.”

There was a vivid flash of lightning at the window, and the lightning seemed to change the course of Vlassitch’s thoughts.  He sat down beside Pyotr Mihalitch and began saying what was utterly beside the point.

“I have such a reverence for your sister, Petrusha,” he said.  “When I used to come and see you, I felt as though I were going to a holy shrine, and I really did worship Zina.  Now my reverence for her grows every day.  For me she is something higher than a wife—­yes, higher!” Vlassitch waved his hands.  “She is my holy of holies.  Since she is living with me, I enter my house as though it were a temple.  She is an extraordinary, rare, most noble woman!”

“Well, he’s off now!” thought Pyotr Mihalitch; he disliked the word “woman.”

“Why shouldn’t you be married properly?” he asked.  “How much does your wife want for a divorce?”