I suspected that he was longing to assert himself again, to come forth from his seclusion, to show fight, to struggle to the last.
"_Cher,_ I could crush them!" broke from him on Thursday evening after his second interview with Pyotr Stepanovitch, when he lay stretched on the sofa with his head wrapped in a towel.
Till that moment he had not uttered one word all day.
_"Fils, fils, cher,"_ and so on, "I agree all those expressions are nonsense, kitchen talk, and so be it.

I see it for myself.

I never gave him food or drink, I sent him a tiny baby from Berlin to X province by post, and all that, I admit it....

'You gave me neither food nor drink, and sent me by post,' he says, 'and what's more you've robbed me here.'" "'But you unhappy boy,' I cried to him, 'my heart has been aching for you all my life; though I did send you by post.' _Il rit._" "But I admit it.

I admit it, granted it was by post," he concluded, almost in delirium.
_"Passons,"_ he began again, five minutes later.