“Someone, your excellency, crept in without permission directly my back was turned. He was asking for you. I told him: when the members come out, then...”

“Where is he?”

“Maybe he’s gone into the passage, but here he comes anyway. That is he,” said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broad-shouldered man with a curly beard, who, without taking off his sheepskin cap, was running lightly and rapidly up the worn steps of the stone staircase. One of the members going down—�a lean official with a portfolio—�stood out of his way and looked disapprovingly at the legs of the stranger, then glanced inquiringly at Oblonsky.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was standing at the top of the stairs. His good-naturedly