seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment.

“If you mean that for me,...” he began, stammering. “But what’s the matter with you? Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own even now it is not quite logical... What you have done it all for I can’t understand.”

“Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!”

“You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never touch vodka, for it’s against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rouble note —