“What nonsense! The murder is a chance crime; it was committed by Fedka for the sake of robbery.”
“H’m! Strange coincidence, though,” said Liputin, wriggling.
“And if you will have it, it’s all through you.”
“Through us?”
“In the first place, you, Liputin, had a share in the intrigue yourself; and the second chief point is, you were ordered to get Lebyadkin away and given money to do it; and what did you do? If you’d got him away nothing would have happened.”
“But wasn’t it you yourself who suggested the idea that it would be a good thing to set him on to read his verses?”
“An idea is not a command. The command was to get him away.”
“Command! Rather a queer word. … On the contrary, your orders were to delay sending him off.”
“You made a mistake and showed your foolishness and self-will. The murder was the work of Fedka, and he carried it out alone for the sake of robbery. You heard the gossip and believed it. You were scared. Stavrogin is not such a fool, and the proof of that is he left the town at twelve o’clock after an interview with the vice-governor; if there were anything in it they would not let him go to Petersburg in broad daylight.”
“But we are not making out that Mr. Stavrogin committed the murder himself,” Liputin rejoined spitefully and unceremoniously. “He may have known nothing about it, like me; and you know very well that I knew nothing about it, though I am mixed up in it like mutton in a hash.”
“Whom are you accusing?” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, looking at him darkly.
“Those whose interest it is to burn down towns.”
“You make matters worse by wriggling out of it. However, won’t you read this and pass it to the others, simply as a fact of interest?”
He pulled out of his pocket Lebyadkin’s anonymous letter to Lembke and handed it to Liputin. The latter read it, was evidently surprised, and passed it thoughtfully to his neighbour; the letter quickly went the round.
“Is that really Lebyadkin’s handwriting?” observed Shigalov.
“It is,” answered Liputin and Tolkatchenko (the authority on the peasantry).
“I simply brought it as a fact of interest and because I knew you were so sentimental over Lebyadkin,” repeated Pyotr Stepanovitch, taking the letter back. “So it turns out, gentlemen, that a stray Fedka relieves us quite by chance of a dangerous man. That’s what chance does sometimes! It’s instructive, isn’t it?”
The members exchanged rapid glances.
“And now, gentlemen, it’s my turn to ask questions,” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, assuming an air of dignity. “Let me know what business you had to set fire to the town without permission.”
“What’s this! We, we set fire to the town? That is laying the blame on others!” they exclaimed.
“I quite understand that you carried the game too far,” Pyotr Stepanovitch persisted stubbornly, “but it’s not a matter of petty scandals with Yulia Mihailovna. I’ve brought you here gentlemen, to explain to you the greatness of the danger you have so stupidly incurred, which is a menace to much besides yourselves.”
“Excuse me, we, on the contrary, were intending just now to point out to you the greatness of the despotism and unfairness you have shown in taking such a serious and also strange step without consulting the members,” Virginsky, who had been hitherto silent, protested, almost with indignation.
“And so you deny it? But I maintain that you set fire to the town, you and none but you. Gentlemen, don’t tell lies! I have good evidence. By your rashness you exposed the common cause to danger. You are only one knot in an endless network of knots—and your duty is blind obedience to the centre. Yet three men of you incited the Shpigulin men to set fire to the town without the least instruction to do so, and the fire has taken place.”
“What three? What three of us?”
“The day before yesterday, at three o’clock in the night, you, Tolkatchenko, were inciting Fomka Zavyalov at the ‘Forget-me-not.’ ”
“Upon my word!” cried the latter, jumping up, “I scarcely said a word to him, and what I did say was without intention, simply because he had been flogged that morning. And I dropped it at once; I saw he was too drunk. If you had not referred to it I should not have thought of it again. A word could not set the place on fire.”
“You are like a man who should be surprised that a tiny spark could blow a whole powder magazine into the air.”
“I spoke in a whisper in his ear, in a corner; how could you have heard of it?”
Tolkatchenko reflected suddenly.
“I was sitting there under the table. Don’t disturb yourselves, gentlemen; I know every step you take. You smile sarcastically, Mr. Liputin? But I know, for instance, that you pinched your wife black and blue at midnight, three days ago, in your bedroom as you were going to bed.”
Liputin’s mouth fell open and he turned pale. (It was afterwards found out that he knew of this exploit of Liputin’s from Agafya, Liputin’s servant, whom he had paid from the beginning to spy on him; this only came out later.)
“May I state a fact?” said Shigalov, getting up.
“State it.”
Shigalov sat down and pulled himself together.
“So far as I understand—and it’s impossible not to understand it—you yourself at first and a second time later, drew with great eloquence, but too theoretically, a picture of Russia covered with an endless network of knots. Each of these centres of activity, proselytising and ramifying endlessly, aims by systematic denunciation to injure the prestige of local authority, to reduce the villages to confusion, to spread cynicism and scandals, together with complete disbelief in everything and an eagerness for something better, and finally, by means of fires, as a preeminently national method, to reduce the country at a given moment, if need be, to desperation. Are those your words which I tried to remember accurately? Is that the programme you gave us as the
