Besides, the whole story only does honour to Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, if one must make use of that vague word 'honour.'" "You mean to say that you were a witness of some incident which gave rise...

to this misunderstanding ?" asked Varvara Petrovna.
"I witnessed it, and took part in it," Pyotr Stepanovitch hastened to declare.
"If you'll give me your word that this will not wound Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch's delicacy in regard to his feeling for me, from whom he ne-e-ver conceals anything...

and if you are convinced also that your doing this will be agreeable to him..." "Certainly it will be agreeable, and for that reason I consider it a particularly agreeable duty.

I am convinced that he would beg me to do it himself." The intrusive desire of this gentleman, who seemed to have dropped on us from heaven to tell stories about other people's affairs, was rather strange and inconsistent with ordinary usage.
But he had caught Varvara Petrovna by touching on too painful a spot.
I did not know the man's character at that time, and still less his designs.
"I am listening," Varvara Petrovna announced with a reserved and cautious manner.

She was rather painfully aware of her condescension.
"It's a short story; in fact if you like it's not a story at all," he rattled on, "though a novelist might work it up into a novel in an idle hour.