Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady's samovar.

She heard nothing.

Who would have dreamed of his going out, indeed?
A minute later he was in the street.
It was nearly eight o'clock, the sun was setting.

It was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air.

His head felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face.