“I remember your long letter very well.”
“Too long to be read? No doubt; six sheets of notepaper. Don’t speak! Don’t speak! Tell me, can you spare me another ten minutes?… But now, this minute … I have waited for you too long.”
“Certainly, half an hour if you like, but not more, if that will suit you.”
“And on condition, too,” Shatov put in wrathfully, “that you take a different tone. Do you hear? I demand when I ought to entreat. Do you understand what it means to demand when one ought to entreat?”
“I understand that in that way you lift yourself above all ordinary considerations for the sake of loftier aims,” said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch with a faint smile. “I see with regret, too, that you’re feverish.”
“I beg you to treat me with respect, I insist on it!” shouted Shatov, “not my personality—I don’t care a hang for that, but something else, just for this once. While I am talking … we are two beings, and have come together in infinity … for the last time in the world. Drop your tone, and speak like a human being! Speak, if only for once in your life with the voice of a man. I say it not for my sake but for yours. Do you understand that you ought to forgive me that blow in the face if only because I gave you the opportunity of realising your immense power.… Again you smile your disdainful, worldly smile! Oh, when will you understand me! Have done with being a snob! Understand that I insist on that. I insist on it, else I won’t speak, I’m not going to for anything!”
His excitement was approaching frenzy. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch frowned and seemed to become more on his guard.
“Since I have remained another half-hour with you when time is so precious,” he pronounced earnestly and impressively, “you may rest assured that I mean to listen to you at least with interest … and I am convinced that I shall hear from you much that is new.”
He sat down on a chair.
“Sit down!” cried Shatov, and he sat down himself.