'Senator?'
'You see, they're convinced that a senator has been appointed here, and that you are being replaced from Petersburg. I've heard it from many people.'
'I've heard it, too,' I confirmed.
'Who said so?' Yulia Mikhailovna flushed all over.
'You mean, who first started talking? How should I know. They're just talking. The mass is talking. They were talking yesterday especially. Everybody's somehow much too serious, though it's impossible to make anything out. Of course, those who are a bit more intelligent and competent—are not talking, but even among them some are listening to it.'
'How mean! And... how stupid!'
'Well, so you must appear precisely now and show the fools.'
'I confess, I myself feel it's even my duty, but... what if there's another disgrace awaiting us? What if they don't attend? Because no one's going to come, no one, no one!'
'Such ardor! They won't come, eh? And what about all those dresses made, what about the girls' costumes? No, after this I give up on you as a woman. Such human insight!'
'The marshal's wife won't come, she won't!'
'But what, finally, has happened here? Why won't they come?' he suddenly cried out with spiteful impatience.
'Infamy, disgrace—that's what has happened. There was, I don't know what, but something, after which it's impossible for me to enter.'
'Why? But what, finally, are you to blame for? Why go taking the blame on yourself? Isn't it rather the public, your venerable elders, your fathers of families, who are to blame? It was for them to restrain the scoundrels and wastrels—because all we have here are wastrels and scoundrels, nothing serious. In no society anywhere is it possible to manage with the police alone. Here with us every person, on entry, demands that a special little cop be detailed to protect him. They don't understand that society protects itself. And what do our fathers of families, our dignitaries, wives, maidens, do in such circumstances? Keep mum and sulk. There's not even enough social initiative to restrain the pranksters.'
'Ah, that is a golden truth! They keep mum, sulk, and... glance around.'
'And if it's true, it's for you to speak it out here, aloud, proudly, sternly. Precisely to show that you're not crushed. Precisely to the little old men and the mothers. Oh, you'll find a way, you have the gift, when your head is clear. You'll draw them into a group—and speak aloud, aloud. Then a report to the
'Oh, how unjustly, how wrongly, how offensively you have always judged that angelic man!' Yulia Mikhailovna cried out suddenly, on an unexpected impulse, and almost in tears, bringing her handkerchief to her eyes. For the first moment, Pyotr Stepanovich even faltered:
'For pity's sake, I... but what did I... I've always...'
'You never, never! Never did you do him justice!'
'Never can one understand a woman!' Pyotr Stepanovich grumbled, with a crooked smile.
'He is the most truthful, the most delicate, the most angelic man! The most kindly man!'
'For pity's sake, but as for his kindness, what have I ... as for his kindness, I've always...'
'Never! But leave that. I defend him much too awkwardly. Today that Jesuit, the marshal's wife, also dropped a few sarcastic hints about yesterday.'
'Oh, she won't be bothered now with hints about yesterday—she's got today. And why are you so worried that she won't come to the ball? Of course she won't, now that she's come into such a scandal. Maybe she's not to blame, but still there's her reputation; she got her little hands dirty.'
'What? I don't understand: how are her hands dirty?' Yulia Mikhailovna looked at him in perplexity.
'I mean, I don't insist on it, but the bells are already ringing in town that it was she who did the matchmaking.'
'What? Matchmaking whom?'
'Eh, so you still don't know?' he cried out in surprise, superbly feigned. 'Why, Stavrogin and Lizaveta Nikolaevna!'
'How! What!' we all cried out.
'So you really don't know? Whew! There have been tragic novels going on here: Lizaveta Nikolaevna was so good as to get out of the marshal's wife's carriage and straight into Stavrogin's, and to slip away with 'the latter' to Skvoreshniki in broad daylight. Just an hour ago, not even that.'
We were dumbfounded. Of course, we hastened to inquire further, but, surprisingly, though he himself had 'inadvertently' been a witness, he nevertheless could tell us nothing in detail. The thing seemed to have happened like this: when the marshal's wife brought Liza and Mavriky Nikolaevich from the 'reading' to the house of Liza's mother (whose legs were still ailing), someone's carriage was waiting not far from the entrance, about twenty-five steps off to one side. When Liza jumped out at the entrance, she ran straight to this carriage; the door opened, slammed shut; Liza called out 'Spare me!' to Mavriky Nikolaevich—and the carriage flew at top speed to Skvoreshniki. To our hurried questions: 'Was there some arrangement? Who was sitting in the carriage?'—Pyotr Stepanovich replied that he knew nothing; that there must certainly have been an arrangement, but that he had not made out Stavrogin himself in the carriage; it might have been the valet, old Alexei Yegorovich, who was sitting there. To the question: 'And how did you turn up there? And why do you know for certain that she went to Skvoreshniki?'—he replied that he chanced to be there because he was passing by, and on seeing Liza even ran up to the carriage (and yet did not make out who was in the carriage, and with his curiosity!), and that Mavriky
