"How is she, generally?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich asked, frowning.

"Generally? That, sir, you know yourself" (he shrugged regretfully), "and now... now she sits reading the cards..."

"Very well, later; first we must finish with you."

Nikolai Vsevolodovich sat down on a chair.

The captain did not dare to sit on the sofa, but at once pulled another chair over for himself and bent forward to listen in trembling expectation.

"And what is it you've got there in the corner under the cloth?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich suddenly paid attention.

"That, sir?" Lebyadkin also turned around. "That is from your own generosities, by way of housewarming, so to speak, also taking into account the further way and natural fatigue," he tittered sweetly, then rose from his seat and, tiptoeing over, reverently and carefully took the cloth from the table in the corner. Under it a light supper turned out to have been prepared: ham, veal, sardines, cheese, a small greenish carafe, and a tall bottle of Bordeaux; everything had been laid out neatly, expertly, and almost elegantly.

"Was it you who saw to that?"

"Me, sir. Since yesterday, and whatever I could do to honor ... And Marya Timofeevna, you know yourself, is indifferent in this respect. And, above all, it's from your generosity, it's yours, since you are the master here, not me, and I'm only by way of being your steward, so to speak, for all the same, all the same, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, all the same I am independent in spirit! You won't take away this last possession of mine, will you?" he ended sweetly.

"Hm! ... why don't you sit back down."

"With gra-a-atitude, gratitude and independence!" (He sat down.) "Ah, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, so much has been stewing in this heart that I couldn't wait for you to come! So you will now decide my fate, and... that unfortunate woman's, and then... then, as I used to, in the old days, I'll pour everything out to you, as four years ago! You did deign to listen to me then, you read my stanzas... And though you used to call me your Falstaff from Shakespeare, you meant so much in my fate! ... I have great fears now, and wait for counsel and light from you alone. Pyotr Stepanovich acts terribly with me!"

Nikolai Vsevolodovich listened with curiosity, studying him closely. It was obvious that Captain Lebyadkin, though he had stopped drinking, was still far from being in a harmonious state. Something incoherent, dazed, something damaged and crazy, as it were, finally settles for good into such long-term drunkards, though, by the way, they can cheat, dodge, and sham almost no worse than anyone else if need be.

"I see you haven't changed at all, Captain, in these four years," Nikolai Vsevolodovich said, as if somewhat more kindly. "It must be true that the whole second half of a man's life is most often made up only of habits accumulated during the first half."

"Lofty words! You've solved the riddle of life!" the captain cried, half shamming and half really in genuine delight, because he was a great lover of little sayings. "Of all your sayings, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, there's one I remember especially; you uttered it back in Petersburg: 'One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense.' There, sir!"

"Or else a fool."

"Yes, sir, or else a fool, I suppose, but you've poured out witticisms all your life, while they... Let Liputin, let Pyotr Stepanovich try uttering anything like that! Oh, how cruelly Pyotr Stepanovich acted with me! ..."

"But what about you, Captain, how did you act?"

"A drunken state, and the myriads of my enemies besides! But now all, all has gone past, and I renew myself like the serpent. Nikolai Vsevolodovich, do you know that I'm writing my will, and have already written it?"

"Curious. What is it you're leaving, and to whom?"

"To the fatherland, to mankind, and to students. Nikolai Vsevolodovich, in the newspapers I read a biography about an American. He left his whole huge fortune to factories and for the positive sciences, his skeleton to the students at the academy there, and his skin to make a drum so as to have the American national anthem drummed on it day and night. Alas, we're pygmies compared to the soaring ideas of the North American States; Russia is a freak of nature, but not of mind. If I were to try and bequeath my skin for a drum, to the Akmolinsk infantry regiment, for example, where I had the honor of beginning my service, so as to have the Russian national anthem drummed on it every day in front of the regiment, it would be regarded as liberalism, my skin would be forbidden... and so I limited myself only to students. I want to bequeath my skeleton to the academy, on condition, however, that a label be pasted to its forehead unto ages of ages, reading: 'Repentant Freethinker.' There, sir!"

The captain spoke ardently and, to be sure, already believed in the beauty of the American bequest, but he was also a knave and wanted very much to make Nikolai Vsevolodovich laugh, having for a long time been in the position of his buffoon. Yet he did not even smile, but, on the contrary, asked somehow suspiciously:

"So you intend to make your will public in your lifetime, and get rewarded for it?"

"And what if it were so, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, what if it were so?" Lebyadkin peered at him cautiously. "For just you look at my fate! I've even stopped writing poetry, and there was a time when even you were amused by my little verses, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, remember, over a bottle? But it's all finished with my pen. I've written only one poem, like Gogol's 'Last Story,' remember, how he announced to Russia then that it 'sang itself out of his breast.^[100] Well, it's the same with me, I sang it and basta!"

"And what is this poem?"

“‘In Case If She Broke Her Leg'!"

"Wha-a-at?"

This was just what the captain had been waiting for. He respected and valued his poems beyond measure, but besides, through some knavish duplicity of soul, he also liked it that Nikolai Vsevolodovich had always made merry over his little poems in the past, and had sometimes roared with laughter at them, holding his sides. Thus two objects were achieved—one poetic, the other subservient; but now there was also a third, special and quite ticklish object: the captain, by bringing poetry onto the scene, hoped to justify himself on one point, about which for some reason he had great apprehensions, and in which he felt himself at fault most of all.

“‘In Case If She Broke Her Leg,' that is, in case of horseback riding. A fantasy, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, raving, but a poet's raving: I was struck once, in passing, when I encountered a girl on horseback, and asked a material question: 'What would happen then?'—that is, in such case. The answer is clear: all pretenders back out, all wooers vanish, so it goes and wipe your nose, the poet alone will be left with his heart squashed in his breast. Nikolai Vsevolodovich, even a louse, even he can be in love, even he is not forbidden by any laws. And yet the person was offended by both the letter and the poem. I hear even you got angry—is it so, sir; that's regrettable; I didn't even want to believe it. Who could I harm with just my imagination? Besides, I swear on my honor, it was Liputin: 'Send it, send it, every man deserves the right of correspondence'—so I sent it."

"I believe you proposed yourself as a fiancé?"

"Enemies, enemies, enemies!"

"Recite the poem," Nikolai Vsevolodovich sternly interrupted.

"Raving, raving, above all."