"But, all the same, to cross the ocean on an emigrant steamer to an unknown land, even if it's with the purpose of 'learning by personal experience' and so forth, by God, that seems to have some big-hearted staunchness about it... But how did you get out of there?"

"I wrote to a man in Europe, and he sent me a hundred roubles."

All the while he talked, Shatov stared stubbornly at the ground, as was his custom even when excited. But here he suddenly raised his head.

"And do you want to know the man's name?"

"Who was it?"

"Nikolai Stavrogin."

He suddenly rose, turned to his limewood desk, and began rummaging around on it. There was a vague but trustworthy rumor among us that his wife had for some time had a liaison with Nikolai Stavrogin in Paris, and precisely about two years ago, that is, when Shatov was in America—though, true, long after she had left him in Geneva. "If so, what on earth possessed him now to volunteer the name and smear it about?" the thought came to me.

"I still haven't paid him back," he suddenly turned to me again, looked at me intently, went and sat down in his former place in the corner, and asked abruptly, now in a completely different voice:

"You came for something, of course; what do you want?"

I at once told him everything, in exact historical order, and added that though by now I had had time to think better after today's fever, I had become all the more confused: I understood that there was something very important here for Lizaveta Nikolaevna, I greatly wished to help her, but the whole trouble was that I not only did not know how to keep the promise I had given her, but I no longer even understood what precisely I had promised her. Then I repeated to him imposingly that she did not want and had not intended to deceive him, that there had been some misunderstanding there, and that she had been very upset by his remarkable departure today.

He listened very attentively.

"Maybe I did something stupid today, as my custom is... Well, if she herself didn't understand why I left like that, it's ... so much the better for her."

He rose, went to the door, opened it, and began listening on the stairs.

"Do you want to see this person yourself?"

"That's just what I need, but how?" I jumped up, delighted.

"Let's simply go down while she's sitting alone. He'll beat her up when he comes back, if he finds out we were there. I often go to see her on the quiet. I attacked him today when he began beating her again."

"What do you mean?"

"Precisely that; I dragged him away by the hair; he was on the point of thrashing me for it, but I frightened him, and it ended there. I'm afraid if he comes back drunk and remembers, he'll give her a bad thrashing for it."

We went downstairs at once.

V

The door to the Lebyadkins' place was just closed but not locked, and we walked in freely. Their entire apartment consisted of two ugly little rooms with sooty walls on which the dirty wallpaper hung literally in tatters. There had been a tavern there for a few years, until the owner, Filippov, moved it to his new house. The other rooms once occupied by the tavern were now locked, and these two had fallen to Lebyadkin. The furniture consisted of simple benches and plank tables, except for just one old armchair with a missing arm. In the second room, in the corner, there was a bed with a cotton blanket, which belonged to Mlle. Lebyadkin, while the captain, when he settled down for the night, would collapse each time on the floor, often just as he was. Everywhere there were crumbs, litter, puddles; a big, thick, soaking-wet rag lay in the middle of the floor in the first room, and in the same pool sat an old, worn-out boot. One could see that no one did anything here; no one lit the stoves, cooked the meals; they did not even have a samovar, as Shatov detailed. When the captain arrived with his sister, he was completely destitute and, as Liputin said, went around to certain houses begging; but, having unexpectedly received money, he at once began drinking and went completely off his head from wine, so that he could not be bothered with housekeeping.

Mlle. Lebyadkin, whom I wished so much to see, was sitting placidly and inaudibly in the second room, in the corner, at a wooden kitchen table, on a bench. She did not call out to us when we opened the door, she did not even move from her place. Shatov told me that their door to the front hall even could not be locked, and had once stood wide open for a whole night. By the light of a dim, slender candle in an iron candlestick I made out a woman of perhaps thirty, sickly thin, wearing a dark old cotton dress, her long neck not covered with anything, her scanty dark hair twisted at the nape into a small knot no bigger than a two-year-old child's fist. She looked at us quite gaily. Besides the candlestick, she had on the table before her a small rustic mirror, an old deck of cards, a tattered Songbook, and a little roll of white German bread from which one or two bites had been taken. It was obvious that Mlle. Lebyadkin used white makeup and rouge on her face, and wore lipstick. She also blackened her eyebrows, which were long, thin, and dark even without that. Her narrow and high forehead, in spite of the makeup, was marked rather sharply by three long wrinkles. I knew already that she was lame, but this time she did not get up and walk in our presence. Some time ago, in early youth, this thin face might have been not unattractive; but her quiet, tender gray eyes were remarkable even now; something dreamy and sincere shone in her quiet, almost joyful look. This quiet, serene joy, also expressed in her smile, surprised me after everything I had heard about the Cossack quirt and all the outrages of her dear brother. Strangely, instead of the heavy and even fearful repulsion one usually feels in the presence of such God-afflicted creatures, I found it almost pleasant to look at her from the very first moment, and it was only pity, and by no means repulsion, that came over me afterwards.

"She just sits like that, alone as can be, literally for days on end, without moving; she reads the cards and looks at herself in the mirror," Shatov pointed to her from the threshold. "He doesn't even feed her. The old woman brings her something from the wing every once in a while, for the love of Christ. How can they leave her alone like this with a candle!"

To my surprise, Shatov spoke aloud, as if she were not in the room.

"Good evening, Shatushka!" Mlle. Lebyadkin said affably.

"I've brought you a guest, Marya Timofeevna," said Shatov.

"Honor to the guest, then. I don't know who it is you've brought, I don't seem to remember this one." She looked at me attentively from behind the candle and at once turned to Shatov again (and concerned herself no further with me during the whole conversation, as if I were not there beside her).

"Got bored, did you, pacing your little garret alone?" she laughed, revealing two rows of excellent teeth.

"Got bored, and I also wanted to come and see you."

Shatov moved a bench up to the table, sat down, and sat me down beside him.

"I'm always glad for some talk, only you make me laugh anyhow, Shatushka, you're so like a monk. When did you last comb your hair?

Let me comb it again," she took a comb from her pocket, "you must not have touched it since I combed it that other time."

"But I don't even have a comb," laughed Shatov.

"Really? Then I'll give you mine, not this one, but another, only remind me to do it."