Captain Lebyadkin, a stout, fleshy man over six feet in height, with curly hair and a red face, was so extremely drunk that he could scarcely stand up before me, and articulated with difficulty. I had seen him before, however, in the distance.
“And this one!” he roared again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing with the lantern; he raised his fist, but let it fall again at once.
“I forgive you for your learning! Ignat Lebyadkin—high‑ly ed‑u‑cated. …
‘A bomb of love with stinging smart
Exploded in Ignaty’s heart.
In anguish dire I weep again
The arm that at Sevastopol
I lost in bitter pain!’
Not that I ever was at Sevastopol, or ever lost my arm, but you know what rhyme is.” He pushed up to me with his ugly, tipsy face.
“He is in a hurry, he is going home!” Liputin tried to persuade him. “He’ll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna tomorrow.”
“Lizaveta!” he yelled again. “Stay, don’t go! A variation:
‘Among the Amazons a star,
Upon her steed she flashes by,
And smiles upon me from afar,
The child of aris‑to‑cra‑cy!’
To a Starry Amazon.
You know that’s a hymn. It’s a hymn, if you’re not an ass! The duffers, they don’t understand! Stay!”
He caught hold of my coat, though I pulled myself away with all my might.
“Tell her I’m a knight and the soul of honour, and as for that Dasha … I’d pick her up and chuck her out. … She’s only a serf, she daren’t …”
At this point he fell down, for I pulled myself violently out of his hands and ran into the street. Liputin clung on to me.
“Alexey Nilitch will pick him up. Do you know what I’ve just found out from him?” he babbled in desperate haste. “Did you hear his verses? He’s sealed those verses to the ‘Starry Amazon’ in an envelope and is going to send them tomorrow to Lizaveta Nikolaevna, signed with his name in full. What a fellow!”
“I bet you suggested it to him yourself.”
“You’ll lose your bet,” laughed Liputin. “He’s in love, in love like a cat, and do you know it began with hatred. He hated Lizaveta Nikolaevna at first so much, for riding on horseback that he almost swore aloud at her in the street. Yes, he did abuse her! Only the day before yesterday he swore at her when she rode by—luckily she didn’t hear. And, suddenly, today—poetry! Do you know he means to risk a proposal? Seriously! Seriously!”
“I wonder at you, Liputin; whenever there’s anything nasty going on you’re always on the spot taking a leading part in it,” I said angrily.
“You’re going rather far, Mr. G⸺v. Isn’t your poor little heart quaking, perhaps, in terror of a rival?”
“Wha-at!” I cried, standing still.
“Well, now to punish you I won’t say anything more, and wouldn’t you like to know though? Take this alone, that that lout is not a simple captain now but a landowner of our province, and rather an important one, too, for Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sold him all his estate the other day, formerly of two hundred serfs; and as God’s above, I’m not lying. I’ve only just heard it, but it was from a most reliable source. And now you can ferret it out for yourself; I’ll say nothing more; goodbye.”
X
Stepan Trofimovitch was awaiting me with hysterical impatience. It was an hour since he had returned. I found him in a state resembling intoxication; for the first five minutes at least I thought he was drunk. Alas, the visit to the Drozdovs had been the finishing-stroke.
“Mon ami! I have completely lost the thread … Lise … I love and respect that angel as before; just as before; but it seems to me they both asked me simply to find out something from me, that is more simply to get something out of me, and then to get rid of me. … That’s how it is.”
“You ought to be ashamed!” I couldn’t help exclaiming.
“My friend, now I am utterly alone. Enfin, c’est ridicule. Would you believe it, the place is positively packed with mysteries there too. They simply flew at me about those ears and noses, and some mysteries in Petersburg too. You know they hadn’t heard till they came about the tricks Nicolas played here four years ago. ‘You were here, you saw it, is it true that he is mad?’ Where they got the idea I can’t make out. Why is it that Praskovya is so anxious Nicolas should be mad? The woman will have it so, she will. Ce Maurice, or what’s his name, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, brave homme tout de même … but can it be for his sake, and after she wrote herself from Paris to cette pauvre amie? … Enfin, this Praskovya, as cette chère amie calls her, is a type. She’s Gogol’s Madame Box, of immortal memory, only she’s a spiteful Madame Box, a malignant Box, and in an immensely exaggerated form.”
“That’s making her out a regular packing-case if it’s an exaggerated form.”
“Well, perhaps it’s the opposite; it’s all the same, only don’t interrupt me, for I’m all in a whirl. They are all at loggerheads, except Lise, she keeps on with her ‘Auntie, auntie!’ but Lise’s sly, and there’s something behind it too. Secrets. She has quarrelled with the old lady. Cette pauvre auntie tyrannises over everyone it’s true, and then there’s the governor’s wife, and the rudeness of local society, and Karmazinov’s ‘rudeness’; and then this idea of madness, ce Lipoutine, ce que je ne comprends pas … and … and they say she’s been putting vinegar on her head, and here are we with our complaints and letters. … Oh, how I have tormented her and at such a time! Je suis un ingrat! Only imagine, I come back and find a letter from her; read it, read it! Oh, how ungrateful it was of me!”
He gave me a letter
