“You must have a very good memory, if you can remember such trifles. And did you hear about the slap in the face?”
“I heard something about that.”
“You mean everything. You must have a great deal of time on your hands. And about the duel too?”[[9]]
“And about the duel.”
“You don’t need newspapers here. Shatov warned you against me?”
“No, I know Mr. Shatov, though; but I haven’t seen him for a long time.”
“Hm.... What’s that map you have got there? Ah, the map of the last war! What do you want with it?”
“I wanted to refer to it in reading this book. It’s a most interesting description.”
“Let me see. Yes, the account is not bad.[[10]] Yet what strange reading for you.”
He drew the book towards him and gave it a cursory glance. It was a full and able account of the circumstances of the last war, not so much from the military point of view, however, as from the purely literary. Having turned the book over, he suddenly put it down impatiently.