“As many as you; I give you my solemn word, not one hour more than you!”
He was still walking up and down and did not see the rapid penetrating glance she turned upon him, in which there seemed a dawning hope. But the light died away at the same moment.
“If you knew what it costs me that I can’t be sincere at this moment, Liza, if I could only tell you …”
“Tell me? You want to tell me something, to me? God save me from your secrets!” she broke in almost in terror. He stopped and waited uneasily.
“I ought to confess that ever since those days in Switzerland I have had a strong feeling that you have something awful, loathsome, some bloodshed on your conscience … and yet something that would make you look very ridiculous. Beware of telling me, if it’s true: I shall laugh you to scorn. I shall laugh at you for the rest of your life. … Aie, you are turning pale again? I won’t, I won’t, I’ll go at once.” She jumped up from her chair with a movement of disgust and contempt.
“Torture me, punish me, vent your spite on me,” he cried in despair. “You have the full right. I knew I did not love you and yet I ruined you! Yes, I accepted the moment for my own; I had a hope … I’ve had it a long time … my last hope. … I could not resist the radiance that flooded my heart when you came in to me yesterday, of yourself, alone, of your own accord. I suddenly believed. … Perhaps I have faith in it still.”
“I will repay such noble frankness by being as frank. I don’t want to be a Sister of Mercy for you. Perhaps I really may become a nurse unless I happen appropriately to die today; but if I do I won’t be your nurse, though, of course, you need one as much as any crippled creature. I always fancied that you would take me to some place where there was a huge wicked spider, big as a man, and we should spend our lives looking at it and being afraid of it. That’s how our love would spend itself. Appeal to Dashenka; she will go with you anywhere you like.”
“Can’t you help thinking of her even now?”
“Poor little spaniel! Give her my greetings. Does she know that even in Switzerland you had fixed on her for your old age? What prudence! What foresight! Aie, who’s that?”
At the farther end of the room a door opened a crack; a head was thrust in and vanished again hurriedly.
“Is that you, Alexey Yegorytch?” asked Stavrogin.
“No, it’s only I.” Pyotr Stepanovitch thrust himself half in again. “How do you do, Lizaveta Nikolaevna? Good morning, anyway. I guessed I should find you both in this room. I have come for one moment literally, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. I was anxious to have a couple of words with you at all costs … absolutely necessary … only a few words!”
Stavrogin moved towards him but turned back to Liza at the third step.
“If you hear anything directly, Liza, let me tell you I am to blame for it!”
She started and looked at him in dismay; but he hurriedly went out.
II
The room from which Pyotr Stepanovitch had peeped in was a large oval vestibule. Alexey Yegorytch had been sitting there before Pyotr Stepanovitch came in, but the latter sent him away. Stavrogin closed the door after him and stood expectant. Pyotr Stepanovitch looked rapidly and searchingly at him.
“Well?”
“If you know already,” said Pyotr Stepanovitch hurriedly, his eyes looking as though they would dive into Stavrogin’s soul, “then, of course, we are none of us to blame, above all not you, for it’s such a concatenation … such a coincidence of events … in brief, you can’t be legally implicated and I’ve rushed here to tell you so beforehand.”
“Have they been burnt? murdered?”
“Murdered but not burnt, that’s the trouble, but I give you my word of honour that it’s not been my fault, however much you may suspect me, eh? Do you want the whole truth: you see the idea really did cross my mind—you hinted it yourself, not seriously, but teasing me (for, of course, you would not hint it seriously), but I couldn’t bring myself to it, and wouldn’t bring myself to it for anything, not for a hundred roubles—and what was there to be gained by it, I mean for me, for me. …” (He was in desperate haste and his talk was like the clacking of a rattle.) “But what a coincidence of circumstances: I gave that drunken fool Lebyadkin two hundred and thirty roubles of my own money (do you hear, my own money, there wasn’t a rouble of yours and, what’s more, you know it yourself) the day before yesterday, in the evening—do you hear, not yesterday after the matinée, but the day before yesterday, make a note of it: it’s a very important coincidence for I did not know for certain at that time whether Lizaveta Nikolaevna would come to you or not; I gave my own money simply because you distinguished yourself by taking it into your head to betray your secret to everyone. Well, I won’t go into that … that’s your affair … your chivalry, but I must own I was amazed, it was a knockdown blow. And forasmuch as I was exceeding weary of these tragic stories—and let me tell you, I talk seriously though I do use Biblical language—as it was all upsetting my plans in fact, I made up my mind at any cost, and without your knowledge, to pack the Lebyadkins off to Petersburg, especially as
