Nikolaevich not only did not set off in pursuit, but did not even try to stop Liza, and with his own hand even held back the marshal's wife, who was shouting at the top of her voice: 'She's gone to Stavrogin, she's gone to Stavrogin!' Here I suddenly got beside all patience and shouted furiously at Pyotr Stepanovich:
'You set it up, you scoundrel! You killed the whole morning on it. You helped Stavrogin, you came in the carriage, you put her into it... you, you, you! Yulia Mikhailovna, he is your enemy, he will ruin you, too! Beware!'
And I rushed precipitously from the house.
To this day I do not understand and marvel myself at how I could have shouted that to him then. But I had guessed perfectly: it had all happened almost exactly the way I said, as turned out afterwards. In the first place, the obviously false way in which he reported the news was all too noticeable. He did not tell it as soon as he entered the house, as a first and extraordinary piece of news, but pretended that we already knew without him— which was impossible in so short a time. And if we had known, we could not in any case have kept silent about it until he started to speak. He also could not have heard of any 'bells ringing' in town about the marshal's wife, because again the time was too short. Besides, as he was telling about it, he smiled a couple of times somehow meanly and flippantly, probably regarding us by then as utterly deceived fools. But I could no longer be bothered with him; the main fact I did believe, and I ran out of Yulia Mikhailovna's beside myself. The catastrophe struck me to the very heart. It pained me almost to tears; perhaps I was actually weeping. I did not know at all what to undertake. I rushed to Stepan Trofimovich, but the vexatious man again would not open the door. Nastasya assured me in a reverent whisper that he had retired to bed, but I did not believe it. At Liza's house I was able to question the servants; they confirmed the flight, but knew nothing themselves. The house was in alarm; the ailing mistress was having fainting fits, and Mavriky Nikolaevich was with her. I did not think it possible to call Mavriky Nikolaevich away. When I inquired about Pyotr Stepanovich, it was confirmed that he had been darting about the house during the past few days, sometimes even twice a day. The servants were sad, and spoke of Liza with some special reverence; she was loved. That she was ruined, utterly ruined, I did not doubt, but I was decidedly unable to comprehend the psychological side of the matter, especially after her scene the day before with Stavrogin. To run around town and inquire of acquaintances, in gloating houses, where the news, of course, had already spread, seemed disgusting to me and humiliating for Liza. But, strangely, I did run by to see Darya Pavlovna, where, however, I was not received (no one had been received in the Stavrogins' house since the previous day); what I could have said to her, and why I ran by, I do not know. From her I made my way to her brother. Shatov listened to me glumly and silently. I will note that I found him in an unprecedentedly dark mood; he was terribly thoughtful and, it seemed, had to force himself to listen to me. He said almost nothing and began walking back and forth from corner to corner of his closet, stomping more than usual with his boots. But when I was already on my way down the stairs, he shouted after me that I should go to Liputin: 'You'll find out everything there.' Yet I did not go to Liputin, but, well on my way, turned back again to Shatov, and, half opening the door, without going in and without any explanations, suggested to him laconically: wouldn't he be going to see Marya Timofeevna today? At that Shatov cursed, and I left. I set down here, so as not to forget, that that same evening he went especially to the outskirts of town to visit Marya Timofeevna, whom he had not seen for quite a while. He found her in reasonably good health and spirits, and Lebyadkin dead drunk, asleep on the sofa in the front room. This was at exactly nine o'clock. He told it to me himself the next day, meeting me hotfoot in the street. And I decided after nine o'clock to go to the ball, but not now as a 'gentleman usher' (besides, my bow had stayed with Yulia Mikhailovna), but from an irresistible curiosity to hear (without asking questions) what people were saying in town about all these events generally. Besides, I wanted to have a look at Yulia Mikhailovna, if only from afar. I reproached myself very much for the way I had run out on her earlier.
III
The whole of that night, with its almost absurd events and ghastly 'denouement' in the morning, comes back to me even now as a hideous, nightmarish dream, and constitutes—for me at least—the most difficult part of my chronicle. Though I came late to the ball, I arrived towards the end of it anyway—so quickly was it destined to end. It was already past ten when I reached the entrance of the marshal's wife's house, where the same White Hall in which the reading took place had, despite the shortness of time, been cleared and made ready to serve as the main ballroom, it was supposed, for the whole town. But however ill-disposed I had been towards the ball that morning —even so I did not anticipate the full truth: not a single family from higher circles came; even officials of any importance at all were absent—and that was an extremely marked feature. As for ladies and young girls, here Pyotr Stepanovich's (now obviously perfidious) calculations turned out to be incorrect to the highest degree: exceedingly few had appeared; there was scarcely one lady to four men, and what ladies! 'Certain' wives of regimental officers, of various small fry from the post office and petty clerkdom, three doctors' wives with their daughters, two or three landowners of the poorer sort, the seven daughters and one niece of that secretary I mentioned somewhere above, some merchants' wives—was this what Yulia Mikhailovna had expected? Even half of the merchants did not come. As for the men, their mass was still indeed dense, despite the compact absence of all our nobility, but produced an ambiguous and suspicious impression. Of course, there were several rather quiet and respectful officers with their wives, several most obedient fathers of families, as again, for example, that same secretary, the father of his seven daughters. All these humble small potatoes came, so to speak, 'out of inevitability,' as one of these gentlemen put it. But, on the other hand, the mass of perky characters, and the mass, besides, of such persons as Pyotr Stepanovich and I had suspected of being let in to the matinee without tickets, seemed to have increased still more compared with the matinee. For the time being they were sitting in the buffet, and had gone straight to the buffet on arrival, as if the place had been appointed beforehand. At least it seemed so to me. The buffet was located at the end of the suite of rooms, in a spacious hall, where Prokhorych had installed himself with all the enticements of the club kitchen and with a tempting display of snacks and drinks. I noticed several personages there in all but torn frock coats, in the most dubious and utterly un-ball-like outfits, who had obviously been sobered up with boundless effort and for a short time only, and had been fetched from God knows where, perhaps from out of town. I knew, of course, that in accordance with Yulia Mikhailovna's idea it had been suggested to arrange a most democratic ball, 'not refusing even tradesmen, if any such should happen to pay for a ticket.' She could bravely utter these words in her committee, knowing perfectly well that it would not occur to any of our town tradesmen, all of them destitute, to buy a ticket. But anyway I doubted that these gloomy, all but tattered frock-coaters ought to have been let in, despite all the democratism of the committee. Who, then, had let them in, and with what purpose? Liputin and Lyamshin had been deprived of their ushers' bows (though they were present at the ball, as participants in the 'quadrille of literature'); but Liputin's place had been taken, to my surprise, by that same seminarian who more than anyone else had made a scandal of the 'matinee' by his skirmish with Stepan Trofimovich, and Lyamshin's by Pyotr Stepanovich himself; what, then, could be expected in such a case? I tried to listen in on conversations. Some opinions were striking in their wildness. It was maintained in one group, for example, that the whole story of Stavrogin and Liza had been fixed up by Yulia Mikhailovna, who had taken money from Stavrogin for it. The amount was even quoted. It was maintained that she had even arranged the fete for that purpose; and that was why, when they learned what was going on, half the town stayed away, and Lembke himself was so jolted that his 'reason got deranged,' and she was now 'leading him about' insane. There was also much guffawing, hoarse, savage, and sly. Everyone criticized the ball terribly and abused Yulia Mikhailovna without any ceremony. Generally, the babble was disorderly, fragmentary, drunken, and agitated, so that it was difficult to grasp or infer anything. Simple merrymakers also found refuge in the buffet, and there were even several ladies of the sort that can no longer be surprised or frightened by anything, most jolly and amiable, mainly officers' wives, with their husbands. They settled in groups at separate tables and had an extremely merry time drinking tea. The buffet turned into a snug haven for nearly half the assembled public. And yet in a short time this whole mass was to come pouring into the ballroom; it was terrible even to think of it.
And meanwhile in the White Hall three skimpy little quadrilles had been formed, with the prince's participation. The young ladies were dancing, and their parents were rejoicing over them. But here, too, many of these respectable persons were already thinking of how, after letting their girls have fun, they could clear out in time, and not be there 'once it starts.' Decidedly everyone was certain that it was inevitably going to start. It would be difficult for me to describe the state of mind of Yulia Mikhailovna herself; I did not speak with her, though I came
