Liputin too came out of the grotto without speaking. Pyotr Stepanovitch raised the lantern again.
“Why were you hiding in there? Why didn’t you come out?”
“I imagine we still keep the right of freedom … of our actions,” Liputin muttered, though probably he hardly knew what he wanted to express.
“Gentlemen,” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, raising his voice for the first time above a whisper, which produced an effect, “I think you fully understand that it’s useless to go over things again. Everything was said and fully thrashed out yesterday, openly and directly. But perhaps—as I see from your faces—someone wants to make some statement; in that case I beg you to make haste. Damn it all! there’s not much time, and Erkel may bring him in a minute.…”
“He is sure to bring him,” Tolkatchenko put in for some reason.
“If I am not mistaken, the printing press will be handed over, to begin with?” inquired Liputin, though again he seemed hardly to understand why he asked the question.
“Of course. Why should we lose it?” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, lifting the lantern to his face. “But, you see, we all agreed yesterday that it was not really necessary to take it. He need only show you the exact spot where it’s buried; we can dig it up afterwards for ourselves. I know that it’s somewhere ten paces from a corner of this grotto. But, damn it all! how could you have forgotten, Liputin? It was agreed that you should meet him alone and that we should come out afterwards.… It’s strange that you should ask—or didn’t you mean what you said?”
Liputin kept gloomily silent. All were silent. The wind shook the tops of the pine-trees.
“I trust, however, gentlemen, that every one will do his duty,” Pyotr Stepanovitch rapped out impatiently.
“I know that Shatov’s wife has come back and has given birth to a child,” Virginsky said suddenly, excited and gesticulating and scarcely able to speak distinctly. “Knowing what human nature is, we can be sure that now he won’t give information … because he is happy.… So I went to every one this morning and found no one at home, so perhaps now nothing need be done.…”