“Come in and sit down,” answered Shatov. “Shut the door; stay, I’ll shut it.”
He locked the door, returned to the table, and sat down, facing Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. He had grown thinner during that week, and now he seemed in a fever.
“You’ve been worrying me to death,” he said, looking down, in a soft half-whisper. “Why didn’t you come?”
“You were so sure I should come then?”
“Yes, stay, I have been delirious … perhaps I’m delirious now.… Stay a moment.”
He got up and seized something that was lying on the uppermost of his three bookshelves. It was a revolver.
“One night, in delirium, I fancied that you were coming to kill me, and early next morning I spent my last farthing on buying a revolver from that good-for-nothing fellow Lyamshin; I did not mean to let you do it. Then I came to myself again … I’ve neither powder nor shot; it has been lying there on the shelf till now; wait a minute.…”
He got up and was opening the casement.
“Don’t throw it away, why should you?” Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch checked him. “It’s worth something. Besides, tomorrow people will begin saying that there are revolvers lying about under Shatov’s window. Put it back, that’s right; sit down. Tell me, why do you seem to be penitent for having thought I should come to kill you? I have not come now to be reconciled, but to talk of something necessary. Enlighten me to begin with. You didn’t give me that blow because of my connection with your wife?”
“You know I didn’t, yourself,” said Shatov, looking down again.