On the following day Dounika, bare-headed and barefooted, came running
to Sanine who was gardening.

"Vladimir Petrovitch," she exclaimed, and her silly face had a scared
look, "the officers have come, and they wish to speak to you." She
repeated the words like a lesson that she had learnt by heart.

Sanine was not surprised. He had been expecting a challenge from
Sarudine.

"Are they very anxious to see me?" he asked in a jocular tone.

Dounika, however, must have had an inkling of something dreadful, for
instead of hiding her face she gazed at Sanine in sympathetic
bewilderment.

Sanine propped his spade against a tree, tightened his belt and walked
towards the house with his usual jaunty step.

'What fools they are! What absolute idiots!' he said to himself, as he
thought of Sarudine and his seconds. By this no insult was intended; it
was just the sincere expression of his own opinion.

Passing through the house, he saw Lida coming out of her room. She
stood on the threshold; her face white as a shroud, and her eyes,
anxious and distressful. Her lips moved, yet no sound escaped from
them. At that moment she felt that she was the guiltiest, most
miserable woman in all the world.

In an arm-chair in the morning-room sat Maria Ivanovna, looking utterly
helpless and panic-stricken. Her cap that resembled a cock's comb was
poised sideways on her head, and she gazed in terror at Sanine, unable
to utter a word. He smiled at her and was inclined to stop for a
moment, yet he preferred to proceed.