And meanwhile it all ended as no one could have expected.

In a word, it was a day of wonderful coincidences.
To begin with, when Stepan Trofimovitch and I arrived at Varvara Petrovna's at twelve o'clock punctually, the time she had fixed, we did not find her at home; she had not yet come back from church.

My poor friend was so disposed, or, more accurately speaking, so indisposed that this circumstance crushed him at once; he sank almost helpless into an arm-chair in the drawing-room.

I suggested a glass of water; but in spite of his pallor and the trembling of his hands, he refused it with dignity.

His get-up for the occasion was, by the way, extremely recherche: a shirt of batiste and embroidered, almost fit for a ball, a white tie, a new hat in his hand, new straw-coloured gloves, and even a suspicion of scent.