"It's for you to decide, Darya Pavlovna; you know that you are perfectly free in the whole matter! You have been, and you are now, and you always will be," Varvara Petrovna concluded impressively. "Bah! Now I understand it all!" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, slapping himself on the forehead. "But... but what a position I am put in by all this! Darya Pavlovna, please forgive me!... What do you call your treatment of me, eh?" he said, addressing his father. "Pierre, you might speak to me differently, mightn't you, my boy," Stepan Trofimovitch observed quite quietly. "Don't cry out, please," said Pierre, with a wave of his hand. "Believe me, it's all your sick old nerves, and crying out will do no good at all. You'd better tell me instead, why didn't you warn me since you might have supposed I should speak out at the first chance?" Stepan Trofimovitch looked searchingly at him. "Pierre, you who know so much of what goes on here, can you really have known nothing of this business and have heard nothing about it?" "What? What a set! So it's not enough to be a child in your old age, you must be a spiteful child too! Varvara Petrovna, did you hear what he said?" There was a general outcry; but then suddenly an incident took place which no one could have anticipated. VIII First of all I must mention that, for the last two or three minutes Lizaveta Nikolaevna had seemed to be possessed by a new impulse; she was whispering something hurriedly to her mother, and to Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who bent down to listen. Her face was agitated, but at the same time it had a look of resolution. At last she got up from her seat in evident haste to go away, and hurried her mother whom Mavriky Nikolaevitch began helping up from her low chair. But it seemed they were not destined to get away without seeing everything to the end. Shatov, who had been forgotten by every one in his corner (not far from Lizaveta Nikolaevna), and who did not seem to know himself why he went on sitting there, got up from his chair, and walked, without haste, with resolute steps right across the room to Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, looking him straight in the face. The latter noticed him approaching at some distance, and faintly smiled, but when Shatov was close to him he left off smiling. When Shatov stood still facing him with his eyes fixed on him, and without uttering a word, every one suddenly noticed it and there was a general hush; Pyotr Stepanovitch was the last to cease speaking. Liza and her mother were standing in the middle of the room. So passed five seconds; the look of haughty astonishment was followed by one of anger on Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch's face; he scowled.... And suddenly Shatov swung his long, heavy arm, and with all his might struck him a blow in the face. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch staggered violently.