Moreover, he was a scandal-monger, and had more than once had to smart for his back-biting, for which he had been badly punished by an officer, and again by a country gentleman, the respectable head of a family.

But we liked his wit, his inquiring mind, his peculiar, malicious liveliness.

Varvara Petrovna disliked him, but he always knew how to make up to her.
Nor did she care for Shatov, who became one of our circle during the last years of this period.

Shatov had been a student and had been expelled from the university after some disturbance.

In his childhood he had been a student of Stepan Trofimovitch's and was by birth a serf of Varvara Petrovna's, the son of a former valet of hers, Pavel Fyodoritch, and was greatly indebted to her bounty.