Stepan Trofimovitch as a father would have indignantly rejected the insinuation that he could entertain such a hope.

Anyway queer rumours had hitherto been reaching us about Petrusha.

To begin with, on completing his studies at the university six years before, he had hung about in Petersburg without getting work.

Suddenly we got the news that he had taken part in issuing some anonymous manifesto and that he was implicated in the affair.

Then he suddenly turned up abroad in Switzerland at Geneva--he had escaped, very likely.
"It's surprising to me," Stepan Trofimovitch commented, greatly disconcerted.