takes him, out of sheer wantonness. And what's more, the fair sex is everything for them, these butterflies and mettlesome cocks! Grand gentlemen with little wings like the ancient cupids, lady-killing Petchorins! It's all very well for you, Stepan Trofimovitch, a confirmed bachelor, to talk like that, stick up for his excellency and call me a slanderer. But if you married a pretty young wife--as you're still such a fine fellow--then I dare say you'd bolt your door against our prince, and throw up barricades in your house! Why, if only that Mademoiselle Lebyadkin, who is thrashed with a whip, were not mad and bandy-legged, by Jove, I should fancy she was the victim of the passions of our general, and that it was from him that Captain Lebyadkin had suffered 'in his family dignity,' as he expresses it himself. Only perhaps that is inconsistent with his refined taste, though, indeed, even that's no hindrance to him. Every berry is worth picking if only he's in the mood for it. You talk of slander, but I'm not crying this aloud though the whole town is ringing with it; I only listen and assent. That's not prohibited."
"The town's ringing with it? What's the town ringing with?"
"That is, Captain Lebyadkin is shouting for all the town to hear, and isn't that just the same as the marketplace ringing with it? How am I to blame? I interest myself in it only among friends, for, after all, I consider myself among friends here." He looked at us with an innocent air. "Something's happened, only consider: they say his excellency has sent three hundred roubles from Switzerland by
a most honourable young lady, and, so to say, modest orphan, whom I have the honour of knowing, to be handed over to Captain Lebyadkin. And Lebyadkin, a little later, was told as an absolute fact also by a very honourable and therefore trustworthy person, I won't say whom, that not three hundred but a thousand roubles had been sent!... And so, Lebyadkin keeps crying out 'the young lady has grabbed seven hundred roubles belonging to me,' and he's almost ready to call in the police; he threatens to, anyway, and he's making an uproar all over the town."
"This is vile, vile of you!" cried the engineer, leaping up suddenly from his chair.
"But I say, you are yourself the honourable person who brought word to Lebyadkin from Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch that a thousand roubles were sent, not three hundred. Why, the captain told me so himself when he was drunk."
"It's... it's an unhappy misunderstanding. Some one's made a mistake and it's led to... It's nonsense, and it's base of you."
"But I'm ready to believe that it's nonsense, and I'm distressed at the story, for, take it as you will, a girl of an honourable reputation is implicated first over the seven hundred roubles, and secondly in unmistakable intimacy with Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. For how much does it mean to his excellency to disgrace a girl of good character, or put to shame another man's wife, like that incident with me? If he comes across a generous-hearted man he'll force him to cover the sins of others under the shelter of his honourable name. That's just what I had to put up with, I'm speaking of myself...."
"Be careful, Liputin." Stepan Trofimovitch got up from his easy chair and turned pale.
"Don't believe it, don't believe it! Somebody has made a mistake and Lebyadkin's drunk..." exclaimed the engineer in indescribable excitement. "It will all be explained, but I can't.... And I think it's low.... And that's enough, enough!"
He ran out of the room.
"What are you about? Why, I'm going with you!" cried Liputin, startled. He jumped up and ran after Alexey Nilitch.
43
VII
Stepan Trofimovitch stood a moment reflecting, looked at me as though he did not see me, took up his hat and stick and walked quietly out of the room. I followed him again, as before. As we went out of the gate, noticing that I was accompanying him, he said:
"Oh yes, you may serve as a witness...de l'accident. Vous m'accompagnerez, n'est-ce pas?"
"Stepan Trofimovitch, surely you're not going there again? Think what may come of it!"
With a pitiful and distracted smile, a smile of shame and utter despair, and at the same time of a sort of strange ecstasy, he whispered to me, standing still for an instant:
"I can't marry to cover 'another man's sins'!"
These words were just what I was expecting. At last that fatal sentence that he had kept hidden from me was uttered aloud, after a
whole week of shuffling and pretence. I was positively enraged.
"And you, Stepan Verhovensky, with your luminous mind, your kind heart, can harbour such a dirty, such a low idea... and could before Liputin came!"
He looked at me, made no answer and walked on in the same direction. I did not want to be left behind. I wanted to give Varvara Petrovna my version. I could have forgiven him if he had simply with his womanish faint-heartedness believed Liputin, but now it was clear that he had thought of it all himself long before, and that Liputin had only confirmed his suspicions and poured oil on the flames. He had not hesitated to suspect the girl from the very first day, before he had any kind of grounds, even Liputin's words, to go upon. Varvara Petrovna's despotic behaviour he had explained to himself as due to her haste to cover up the aristocratic misdo-ings of her precious "Nicolas" by marrying the girl to an honourable man! I longed for him to be punished for it.
"Oh, Dieu, qui est si grand et si bon! Oh, who will comfort me!" he exclaimed, halting suddenly again, after walking a hundred paces.
"Come straight home and I'll make everything clear to you," I cried, turning him by force towards home.
"It's he! Stepan Trofimovitch, it's you? You?" A fresh, joyous young voice rang out like music behind us.
We had seen nothing, but a lady on horseback suddenly made her appearance beside us--Lizaveta Nikolaevna with her invariable companion. She pulled up her horse.
"Come here, come here quickly!" she called to us, loudly and merrily. "It's twelve years since I've seen him, and I know him, while
he.... Do you really not know me?"
Stepan Trofimovitch clasped the hand held out to him and kissed it reverently. He gazed at her as though he were praying and could
not utter a word.
"He knows me, and is glad! Mavriky Nikolaevitch, he's delighted to see me! Why is it you haven't been to see us all this fortnight? Auntie tried to persuade me you were ill and must not be disturbed; but I know Auntie tells lies. I kept stamping and swearing at you, but I had made up my mind, quite made up my mind, that you should come to me first, that was why I didn't send to you. Heavens, why he hasn't changed a bit!" She scrutinised him, bending down from the saddle. "He's absurdly unchanged. Oh, yes, he has wrinkles, a lot of wrinkles, round his eyes and on his cheeks some grey hair, but his eyes are just the same. And have I changed? Have I changed? Why don't you say something?"
I remembered at that moment the story that she had been almost ill when she was taken away to Petersburg at eleven years old, and
that she had cried during her illness and asked for Stepan Trofimovitch.
"You... I..." he faltered now in a voice breaking with joy. "I was just crying out 'who will comfort me?' and I heard your voice. I look
on it as a miracle et je commence a croire."
"En Dieu! En Dieu qui est la-haut et qui est si grand et si bon! You see, I know all your lectures by heart. Mavriky Nikolaevitch, what faith he used to preach to me then, en Dieu qui est si grand et si bon! And do you remember your story of how Columbus discovered America, and they all cried out, 'Land! land!'? My nurse Alyona Frolovna says I was lightheaded at night afterwards, and kept crying out