“But marriage in secret, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch—a fatal secret. I receive money from you, and I’m suddenly asked the question, ‘What’s that money for?’ My hands are tied; I cannot answer to the detriment of my sister, to the detriment of the family honour.”
The captain raised his voice. He liked that subject and reckoned boldly upon it. Alas! he did not realise what a blow was in store for him.
Calmly and exactly, as though he were speaking of the most everyday arrangement, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch informed him that in a few days, perhaps even tomorrow or the day after, he intended to make his marriage known everywhere, “to the police as well as to local society.” And so the question of family honour would be settled once for all, and with it the question of subsidy. The captain’s eyes were ready to drop out of his head; he positively could not take it in. It had to be explained to him.
“But she is … crazy.”
“I shall make suitable arrangements.”
“But … how about your mother?”
“Well, she must do as she likes.”
“But will you take your wife to your house?”
“Perhaps so. But that is absolutely nothing to do with you and no concern of yours.”
“No concern of mine!” cried the captain. “What about me then?”
“Well, certainly you won’t come into my house.”
“But, you know, I’m a relation.”
“One does one’s best to escape from such relations. Why should I go on giving you money then? Judge for yourself.”
“Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, this is impossible. You will think better of it, perhaps? You don’t want to lay hands upon. … What will people think? What will the world say?”
“Much I care for your world. I married your sister when the fancy took me, after a drunken dinner, for a bet, and now I’ll make it public … since that amuses me now.”
He said this with a peculiar irritability, so that Lebyadkin began with horror to believe him.
“But me, me? What about me? I’m what matters most! … Perhaps you’re joking, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch?”
“No, I’m not joking.”
“As you will, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, but I don’t believe you. … Then I’ll take proceedings.”
“You’re fearfully stupid, captain.”
“Maybe, but this is all that’s left me,” said the captain, losing his head completely. “In old days we used to get free quarters, anyway, for the work she did in the ‘corners.’ But what will happen now if you throw me over altogether?”
“But you want to go to Petersburg to try a new career. By the way, is it true what I hear, that you mean to go and give information, in the hope of obtaining a pardon, by betraying all the others?”
The captain stood gaping with wide-open eyes, and made no answer.
“Listen, captain,” Stavrogin began suddenly, with great earnestness, bending down to the table. Until then he had been talking, as it were, ambiguously, so that Lebyadkin, who had wide experience in playing the part of buffoon, was up to the last moment a trifle uncertain whether his patron were really angry or simply putting it on; whether he really had the wild intention of making his marriage public, or whether he were only playing. Now Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch’s stern expression was so convincing that a shiver ran down the captain’s back.
“Listen, and tell the truth, Lebyadkin. Have you betrayed anything yet, or not? Have you succeeded in doing anything really? Have you sent a letter to somebody in your foolishness?”
“No, I haven’t … and I haven’t thought of doing it,” said the captain, looking fixedly at him.
“That’s a lie, that you haven’t thought of doing it. That’s what you’re asking to go to Petersburg for. If you haven’t written, have you blabbed to anybody here? Speak the truth. I’ve heard something.”
“When I was drunk, to Liputin. Liputin’s a traitor. I opened my heart to him,” whispered the poor captain.
“That’s all very well, but there’s no need to be an ass. If you had an idea you should have kept it to yourself. Sensible people hold their tongues nowadays; they don’t go chattering.”
“Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch!” said the captain, quaking. “You’ve had nothing to do with it yourself; it’s not you I’ve …”
“Yes. You wouldn’t have ventured to kill the goose that laid your golden eggs.”
“Judge for yourself, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, judge for yourself,” and, in despair, with tears, the captain began hurriedly relating the story of his life for the last four years. It was the most stupid story of a fool, drawn into matters that did not concern him, and in his drunkenness and debauchery unable, till the last minute, to grasp their importance. He said that before he left Petersburg “he had been drawn in, at first simply through friendship, like a regular student, although he wasn’t a student,” and knowing nothing about it, “without being guilty of anything,” he had scattered various papers on staircases, left them by dozens at doors, on bell-handles, had thrust them in as though they were newspapers, taken them to the theatre, put them in people’s hats, and slipped them into pockets. Afterwards he had taken money from them, “for what means had I?” He had distributed all sorts of rubbish through the districts of two provinces. “Oh, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch!” he exclaimed, “what revolted me most was that this was utterly opposed to civic, and still more to patriotic laws. They suddenly printed that men were to go out with pitchforks, and to remember that those who went out poor in the morning might go home rich at night. Only think of it! It made me shudder, and yet I distributed it. Or suddenly five or six lines addressed to the whole of Russia, apropos of nothing, ‘Make haste and lock up the churches, abolish God, do away with marriage, destroy the right of inheritance, take up your knives,’ that’s all, and God knows what it means. I tell you, I almost got caught with this five-line leaflet. The officers in the regiment gave
