Demons

'That is mean, mean of you!' the engineer suddenly jumped up from his chair.

'But you yourself are that most noble person who confirmed to Lebyadkin on Nikolai Vsevolodovich's behalf that it was not three hundred but a thousand roubles that were sent. The captain himself told me in a drunken state.'

'That... that is an unfortunate misunderstanding. Someone made a mistake and it came out... that is nonsense, and you are mean! ...'

'But I also want to believe that it's nonsense, and I listen to it with regret, because, whether you like it or not, a most noble girl is mixed up, first of all, with the seven hundred roubles and, second, in some obvious intimacy with Nikolai Vsevolodovich. It's nothing for His Excellency to disgrace the noblest girl or to defame another man's wife, just as in that mishap with me, sir! He'll come across some man full of magnanimity and make him cover up someone else's sins with his honorable name. Just the same way as I suffered, sir; I'm talking about myself, sir...'

'Beware, Liputin!' Stepan Trofimovich rose from his chair and turned pale.

'Don't believe it, don't believe it! Someone made a mistake, and Lebyadkin is drunk...' the engineer exclaimed in inexpressible agitation. 'It will all be made clear, but I can no longer... it's baseness... and enough, enough!'

He ran out of the room.

'What's the matter? I'm going with you!' Liputin, all aflutter, jumped up and ran after Alexei Nilych.

VII

Stepan Trofimovich stood in thought for a moment, glanced at me somehow without looking, took his hat and stick, and slowly walked out of the room. I went after him as before. Passing through the gate, he noticed that I was following him and said:

'Ah, yes, you can serve as a witness ... de l'accident. Vous m'accompagnerez; n'est-ce pas?'^[xlv]

'Stepan Trofimovich, are you really going there again? Think what may come of it!'

With a pathetic and lost smile—a smile of shame and utter despair, and at the same time of some strange rapture—he whispered to me, stopping for a moment:

'I really cannot marry 'someone else's sins'!'

This was just the phrase I had been waiting for. At last this little phrase, cherished, concealed from me, had been spoken, after a whole week of hedging and contortions. I decidedly lost my temper.

'And such a dirty, such a... base thought could come to you, to Stepan Verkhovensky, to your lucid mind, to your kind heart, and... even prior to Liputin!'

He looked at me, made no reply, and continued on his way. I did not want to lag behind. I wanted to testify before Varvara Petrovna. I would have forgiven him if, in his womanish faintheartedness, he had simply believed Liputin, but it was clear now that he had conceived it all even long before Liputin, and Liputin had merely confirmed his suspicions and added fat to the fire. He had not hesitated to suspect the girl from the very first day, still without any grounds, not even Liputin's. He had explained Varvara Petrovna's despotic actions to himself only by her desperate wish to paint over the aristocratic peccadilloes of her priceless Nicolas by a marriage with an honorable man! I certainly wanted to see him punished for it.

'O Dieu qui est si grand et si bon!^[xlvi] Oh, who will comfort me!' he exclaimed, having gone another hundred steps or so and suddenly stopped.

'Let's go home now, and I'll explain everything to you!' I cried out, forcing him to turn back towards his house.

'It's him! Stepan Trofimovich, is it you? You?' a fresh, playful young voice, like a sort of music, was heard beside us.

We had not noticed anything, but suddenly there beside us was Lizaveta Nikolaevna, on horseback, with her usual companion. She stopped her horse.

'Come, come quickly!' she called loudly and gaily. 'I haven't seen him for twelve years and I recognized him, but he... Don't you recognize me?'

Stepan Trofimovich seized the hand she offered him and kissed it reverently. He looked at her as if in prayer and could not utter a word.

'He recognizes me, and he's glad! Mavriky Nikolaevich, he's delighted to see me! Then why haven't you come for two whole weeks? Auntie kept persuading us you were sick and couldn't be disturbed; but I know auntie lies. I stamped my feet and abused you, but I absolutely, absolutely wanted you to be the first to come, that's why I didn't send for you. God, he hasn't changed in the least!' she examined him, leaning down from her saddle, 'It's funny how he hasn't changed! Ah, no, there are wrinkles, lots of little wrinkles around the eyes, and on the cheeks, and some gray hair, but the eyes are the same! And have I changed? Have I? But why don't you say something?'

I remembered at that moment having been told of how she was almost ill when she was taken to Petersburg at the age of eleven; during her illness she had allegedly cried and asked for Stepan Trofimovich.

'You ... I ...' he babbled now, in a voice breaking with joy, 'I just cried out, 'Who will comfort me!' and then heard your voice ... I regard it as a miracle et je commence a croire,'^[xlvii]

'En Dieu? En Dieu qui est la-haut et qui est si grand et si bon?^[xlviii] You see, I remember all your lectures by heart. Mavriky Nikolaevich, how he taught me then to believe en Dieu, qui est si grand et si bon! And do you remember your story of how Columbus discovered America and everybody shouted: 'Land, land!' My nurse Alyona Frolovna says that I raved during the night after that and shouted 'Land, land!' in my sleep. And do you remember telling me the story of Prince Hamlet? And do you remember describing to me how poor emigrants were transported from Europe to America? It was all untrue, I learned it all later, how they were transported, but how well he lied to me then, Mavriky Nikolaevich, it was almost better than the truth! Why are you looking at Mavriky Nikolaevich that way? He is the best and most faithful man on the whole earth, and you must come to love him as you do me! Il fait tout ce que je veux.^[xlix] But, dear Stepan Trofimovich, it must mean you're unhappy again, if you're crying out in the middle of the street about who will comfort you? Unhappy, is it so? Is it?'