God and shall be nothing. But no one has once done it yet.”
“There have been millions of suicides.”
“But always not for that; always with terror and not for that object. Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear will become a god at once.”
“He won't have time, perhaps,” I observed.
“That's no matter,” he answered softly, with calm pride, almost disdain. “I'm sorry that you seem to be laughing,” he added half a minute later.
“It seems strange to me that you were so irritable this morning and are now so calm, though you speak with warmth.”
“This morning? It was funny this morning,” he answered with a smile. “I don't like scolding, and I never laugh,” he added mournfully.
“Yes, you don't spend your nights very cheerfully over your tea.”
I got up and took my cap.
“You think not?” he smiled with some surprise. “Why? No, I ... I don't know.” He was suddenly confused. “I know not how it is with the others, and I feel that I cannot do as others. Everybody thinks and then at once thinks of something else. I can't think of something else. I think all my life of one thing. God has tormented me all my life,” he ended up suddenly with astonishing expansiveness.
“And tell me, if I may ask, why is it you speak Russian not quite correctly? Surely you haven't forgotten it after five years abroad?”
“Don't I speak correctly? I don't know. No, it's not because of abroad. I have talked like that all my life . . . it's no matter to me.”
“Another question, a more delicate one. I quite — believe you that you're disinclined to meet people and talk very little. Why have you talked to me now?”
“To you? This morning you sat so nicely and you . . . but it's all no matter . . . you are like my brother, very much, extremely,” he added, flushing. “He has been dead seven years. He was older, very, very much.”
“I suppose he had a great influence on your way of thinking?”
“N-no. He said little; he said nothing. I'll give your note.”
He saw me to the gate with a lantern, to lock it after me. “Of course he's mad,” I decided. In the gateway I met with another encounter.
IX
I had only just lifted my leg over the high barrier across the bottom of the gateway, when suddenly a strong hand clutched at my chest.
“Who's this?” roared a voice, “a friend or an enemy? Own up!”
“He's one of us; one of us!” Liputin's voice squealed near by. “It's Mr. G—— v, a young man of classical education, in touch with the highest society.”
“I love him if he's in society, clas-si . . . that means he's high-ly ed-u-cated. The retired Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the service of the world and his friends ... if they're true ones, if they're true ones, the scoundrels.”
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. . . .
'
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.
“Pie is in a hurry, he is going home!” Liputin tried to persuade him. “He'll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna to- morrow.”
“Lizaveta!” he yelled again. “Stay, don't go! A variation;
'
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 to-morrow 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, to-day — 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; good-bye.”
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.
“
“You ought to be ashamed!” I couldn't help exclaiming. “My friend, now I am utterly alone.
