"He must have greatly influenced your way of thinking."

"N-no, he spoke little; he said nothing. I'll deliver your note."

He walked me to the gate with a lantern, to lock up after me. "He's crazy, of course," I decided to myself. At the gate a new encounter took place.

IX

Just as I lifted my foot to step over the high sill of the gate, someone's strong hand grabbed me by the chest.

"Who's this?" someone's voice bellowed, "friend or foe? Confess!"

"He's one of us, one of us!" Liputin's little voice squealed nearby.

"It's Mr. G——v, a young man of classical upbringing and connected with the highest society."

"I love it, if it's society, clas-si... that means high-ly ed-u-ca-ted... retired captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the world's and his friends' service ... if they're faithful, faithful, the scoundrels!"

Captain Lebyadkin, over six feet tall, fat, beefy, curly-haired, red, and extremely drunk, could barely stand up in front of me and had difficulty articulating. I had, incidentally, seen him even before, from a distance.

"Ah, and this one, too!" he bellowed again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing there with his lantern. He raised his fist, but lowered it at once.

"I forgive him on account of his learning! Ignat Lebyadkin—the high-ly ed-u-ca-ted...

A cannonball with hot love loaded In Ignat's noble breast exploded. Again with bitter torment groaned Sebastópol's armless one.

Though I was never at Sebastopol,^[53] nor am I armless—but what rhymes!" He thrust himself at me with his drunken mug.

"He has no time, no time, he's going home," Liputin tried to reason with him. "He'll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna all about it tomorrow."

"Lizaveta!" he shouted again. "Wait, don't move! A variation:

A star on horseback she flies free In Amazonian round-dance wild

And then from horseback smiles on me, The aris-to-crat-ic child.

'To a Star-Amazon.' This is a hymn, see! It's a hymn, or else you're an ass! The slobs, they don't understand! Wait!" he grabbed at my coat, though I was trying with all my might to pass through the gate. "Tell her I'm a knight of honor, and Dashka... With two fingers I'll... She's a serf slave and won't dare..."

At this point he fell over, because I forcibly tore myself from his grip and ran off down the street. Liputin tagged along.

"Alexei Nilych will pick him up. Do you know what I just found out from him?" he babbled, huffing and puffing. "Did you hear that jingle? Well, he's sealed those same verses 'To a Star-Amazon' in an envelope, and is going to send them to Lizaveta Nikolaevna tomorrow with his full signature. How about that!"

"I bet you put him up to it yourself."

"You lose!" Liputin guffawed. "He's in love, in love like a tomcat, and, you know, it actually started with hatred. He hated Lizaveta Nikolaevna at first for riding around on horseback, so much so that he almost abused her out loud in the street; in fact, he did abuse her! Only the day before yesterday he abused her when she rode by—fortunately she didn't hear; and suddenly today—verses! Do you know he means to venture a proposal? Seriously, seriously!"

"I'm surprised at you, Liputin; wherever there's some such trash to be found, you're always there as a leader!" I said in a rage.

"Now, that's going too far, Mr. G——v; hasn't your little heart skipped a beat for fear of a rival, eh?"

"Wha-a-at?" I cried, stopping.

"So, just to punish you, I'm not going to say anything more! And you'd love to hear more, wouldn't you? Just this one thing: that that nitwit is no longer merely a captain, but a landowner of our province, and quite a significant one at that, because Nikolai Vsevolodovich sold him his entire estate, his former two hundred souls, the other day, and by God I'm not lying! I only just found it out, but from a most reliable source. So now go groping around for the rest yourself; I won't tell you anything more; good-bye, sir!"

X

Stepan Trofimovich was waiting for me with hysterical impatience. He had been back for an hour. He was as if drunk when I found him; at least for the first five minutes I thought he was drunk. Alas, his visit to the Drozdovs had knocked the last bit of sense out of him.

"Mon ami, I've quite lost the thread... Lise ... I love and respect the angel as before, exactly as before; but it seems they were both waiting for me only in order to find something out, that is, quite simply, to wheedle it out of me, and then—off you go, and God be with you... It's really so."

"Shame on you!" I cried out, unable to help myself.

"My friend, I am completely alone now. Enfin, il'est ridicule.^[lv] Imagine that there, too, it's all crammed with mysteries. They simply fell on me with these noses and ears and other Petersburg mysteries. It was only here that the two of them found out about those local stories to do with Nicolas four years ago: 'You were here, you saw, is it true that he's mad?' And where this idea came from, I don't understand. Why is it that Praskovya must absolutely have Nicolas turn out to be mad? The woman wants it, she does! Ce Maurice, or what's his name, Mavriky Nikolaevich, brave homme tout de même,^[lvi]but can it be for his benefit, after she herself was the first to write from Paris to cette pauvre amie... Enfin, this Praskovya, as cette chère amie calls her, is a type, she's Gogol's Korobochka,^[54] Mrs. Littlebox, of immortal memory, only a wicked Littlebox, a provoking Littlebox, and in an infinitely enlarged form."

"That would make her a trunk! Enlarged, really?"

"Well, diminished then, it makes no difference, only don't interrupt me, because it all keeps whirling around. They had a final spat there, except for Lise; she still says 'auntie, auntie,' but Lise is sly, and there's something more to it. Mysteries. But she did quarrel with the old woman. Cette pauvre auntie, it's true, is despotic with everyone ... and there's also the governor's wife, and the disrespect of society, and the 'disrespect' of Karmazinov; and then suddenly this notion of craziness, ce Liputine, ce que je ne comprends pas,^[lvii]and... and they say she put vinegar to her head, and then you and I come along with our complaints and letters ... Oh, how I've tormented her, and at such a time! Je suis un ingrat!^[lviii]Imagine, I come back and find a letter from her— read it, read it! Oh, how ignoble it was on my part."

He handed me the just-received letter from Varvara Petrovna. She seemed to have repented of her morning's "Stay home." It was a polite little letter, but nonetheless resolute and laconic. She invited Stepan Trofimovich to call on her the day after tomorrow, Sunday, at twelve o'clock sharp, and advised him to bring along some one of his friends (my name appeared in parentheses). She, for her part, promised to invite Shatov, as Darya Pavlovna's brother. "You can receive a final answer from her; will this suffice you? Is this the formality you've been striving for?"

"Note that irritated phrase at the end about formality. Poor, poor woman, the friend of my whole life! I confess, this sudden deciding of my fate crushed me, as it were ... I confess, I was still hoping, but now tout est dit, I know it's finished; c'est terrible.^[lix]Oh, if only there were no Sunday at all, and everything could go on as before: you would visit me, and I would..."