Pyotr Stepanovitch seated himself beside him with a most familiar air, unceremoniously tucking his legs up under him, and taking up more room on the lounge than deference to his father should have allowed.

Stepan Trofimovitch moved aside, in silence, and with dignity.
On the table lay an open book.

It was the novel, "What's to be done ?" Alas, I must confess one strange weakness in my friend; the fantasy that he ought to come forth from his solitude and fight a last battle was getting more and more hold upon his deluded imagination.

I guessed that he had got the novel and was _studying_ it solely in order that when the inevitable conflict with the "shriekers" came about he might know their methods and arguments beforehand, from their very "catechism," and in that way be prepared to confute them all triumphantly, _before her eyes._ Oh, how that book tortured him! He sometimes flung it aside in despair, and leaping up, paced about the room almost in a frenzy.
"I agree that the author's fundamental idea is a true one," he said to me feverishly, "but that only makes it more awful.

It's just our idea, exactly ours; we first sowed the seed, nurtured it, prepared the way, and, indeed, what could they say new, after us?
But, heavens! How it's all expressed, distorted, mutilated!" he exclaimed, tapping the book with his fingers.