"I believe one may congratulate you... or is it too soon?" he brought out with a peculiar line in his face. Dasha made him some answer, but it was difficult to catch it. "Forgive my indiscretion," he added, raising his voice, "but you know I was expressly informed. Did you know about it?" "Yes, I know that you were expressly informed." "But I hope I have not done any harm by my congratulations," he laughed. "And if Stepan Trofimovitch..." "What, what's the congratulation about?" Pyotr Stepanovitch suddenly skipped up to them. "What are you being congratulated about, Darya Pavlovna? Bah! Surely that's not it? Your blush proves I've guessed right. And indeed, what else does one congratulate our charming and virtuous young ladies on? And what congratulations make them blush most readily? Well, accept mine too, then, if I've guessed right! And pay up. Do you remember when we were in Switzerland you bet you'd never be married.... Oh, yes, apropos of Switzerland--what am I thinking about? Only fancy, that's half what I came about, and I was almost forgetting it. Tell me," he turned quickly to Stepan Trofimovitch, "when are you going to Switzerland?" "I... to Switzerland?" Stepan Trofimovitch replied, wondering and confused. "What? Aren't you going? Why you're getting married, too, you wrote?" _"Pierre!"_ cried Stepan Trofimovitch. "Well, why Pierre?... You see, if that'll please you, I've flown here to announce that I'm not at all against it, since you were set on having my opinion as quickly as possible; and if, indeed," he pattered on, "you want to 'be saved,' as you wrote, beseeching my help in the same letter, I am at your service again. Is it true that he is going to be married, Varvara Petrovna?" He turned quickly to her. "I hope I'm not being indiscreet; he writes himself that the whole town knows it and every one's congratulating him, so that, to avoid it he only goes out at night. I've got his letters in my pocket. But would you believe it, Varvara Petrovna, I can't make head or tail of it? Just tell me one thing, Stepan Trofimovitch, are you to be congratulated or are you to be 'saved'? You wouldn't believe it; in one line he's despairing and in the next he's most joyful. To begin with he begs my forgiveness; well, of course, that's their way... though it must be said; fancy, the man's only seen me twice in his life and then by accident. And suddenly now, when he's going to be married for the third time, he imagines that this is a breach of some sort of parental duty to me, and entreats me a thousand miles away not to be angry and to allow him to. Please don't be hurt, Stepan Trofimovitch. It's characteristic of your generation, I take a broad view of it, and don't blame you. And let's admit it does you honour and all the rest. But the point is again that I don't see the point of it. There's something about some sort of 'sins in Switzerland.' 'I'm getting married,' he says, 'for my sins or on account of the 'sins'