Shatov had indeed gotten up; he was holding his hat in his hand and looking at Verkhovensky. It seemed he wanted to tell him something, but hesitated. His face was pale and spiteful, but he controlled himself, did not say a word, and silently started out of the room.
"Shatov, this is not to your advantage!" Verkhovensky shouted after him mysteriously.
"But it is to yours, spy and scoundrel that you are!" Shatov shouted at him from the doorway and left altogether.
Again shouts and exclamations.
"So that's the test!" shouted a voice.
"Proved useful!" shouted another.
"But didn't it prove useful too late?" observed a third.
"Who invited him? Who let him in? Who is he? Who is this Shatov? Will he inform or won't he?" the questions came pouring out.
"If he was an informer he'd have pretended, but he just spat and left," someone observed.
"Now Stavrogin's getting up, too; Stavrogin hasn't answered the question either," shouted the girl student.
Stavrogin indeed got up, and together with him, from the other end of the table, Kirillov also rose.
"Excuse me, Mr. Stavrogin," the hostess addressed him sharply, "all of us here have answered the question, while you're leaving without a word?"
"I see no need to answer the question that interests you," Stavrogin muttered.
"But we've compromised ourselves, and you haven't," several voices shouted.
"What do I care if you've compromised yourselves?" Stavrogin laughed, but his eyes were flashing.
"What? He doesn't care? He doesn't care?" exclamations came. Many jumped up from their chairs.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, excuse me," the lame man shouted, "but Mr. Verkhovensky also didn't answer the question, he only asked it."
The observation produced a striking effect. They all exchanged glances. Stavrogin laughed loudly in the lame man's face and walked out, followed by Kirillov. Verkhovensky ran out after them to the entryway.
"What are you doing to me?" he murmured, seizing Stavrogin's hand and clenching it as hard as he could in his own. The latter silently jerked it free.
"Go to Kirillov's now, I'll come... It's necessary for me, it's necessary!"
"It's not necessary for me," Stavrogin cut him short.
"Stavrogin will," Kirillov put an end to it. "Stavrogin, it is necessary for you. I'll show you there."
They left.
8: Ivan the Tsarevich
They left. Pyotr Stepanovich first rushed back to the "meeting" in order to quiet the chaos, but, probably considering it not worth the trouble, abandoned everything and in two minutes was already flying down the road after the departing men. As he ran he recalled a lane which was a closer way to Filippov's house; sinking to his knees in mud, he started down the lane and in fact arrived at a run the very moment Stavrogin and Kirillov were going through the gate.
"Here already?" Kirillov remarked. "That is well. Come in."
"How is it you said you lived alone?" asked Stavrogin, passing through the entryway where a samovar had been prepared and was already beginning to boil.
"You'll see now who I live with," Kirillov muttered, "come in."
As soon as they entered, Verkhovensky at once pulled out the anonymous letter he had taken earlier from Lembke and placed it in front of Stavrogin. All three sat down. Stavrogin silently read the letter.
"Well?" he asked.
"The scoundrel will do as he says," Verkhovensky explained. "Since he's at your disposal, instruct me how to act. I assure you he may go to Lembke tomorrow."
"Well, let him."
"How, let him? Especially since there are ways to avoid it."
"You're mistaken, he's not dependent on me. And anyway I don't care; he's no danger to me, only to you."
"You, too."
"I don't think so."
"But others may not spare you, don't you understand? Listen, Stavrogin, this is just playing with words. Can you be sorry about the money?"
"So there's a need for money?"
"Certainly, about two thousand, or a minimum of fifteen hundred. Give it to me tomorrow, or even today, and by tomorrow evening I'll have sent him packing off to Petersburg for you, and that is precisely what he wants. If you wish, with Marya Timofeevna—mark that."
There was something completely thrown off in him, he spoke somehow imprudently, ill-considered words escaped him. Stavrogin was watching him in surprise.
"I have no need to send Marya Timofeevna away."
"Maybe you don't even want to?" Pyotr Stepanovich smiled ironically.
"Maybe I don't."
"In short, will there be money or won't there be?" he shouted at Stavrogin in spiteful impatience and as if peremptorily. The latter looked him over seriously.
"There'll be no money."
"Eh, Stavrogin! Do you know something, or have you done something already? You're—on a spree!"
His face became distorted, the corners of his mouth twitched, and he suddenly burst into somehow altogether pointless laughter, inappropriate to anything.
"You got money from your father for the estate," Nikolai Vsevolodovich observed calmly. "Maman gave you about six or eight thousand for Stepan Trofimovich. So you can pay fifteen hundred of your own. I don't want, finally, to pay for other people, I've given out a lot as it is, it makes me feel bad..." he grinned at his own words.
"Ah, you're beginning to joke..."
Stavrogin rose from his chair, and Verkhovensky instantly jumped up as well and mechanically turned his back to the door, as if blocking the way out. Nikolai Vsevolodovich had already made a motion to push him away from the door and go out, but he suddenly stopped.
"I won't let you have Shatov," he said. Pyotr Stepanovich gave a start; the two men stood looking at each other.
"I told you earlier why you need Shatov's blood," Stavrogin flashed his eyes. "You want to stick your crews together with that muck. You drove Shatov out superbly just now: you knew very well he wouldn't have said, 'I won't inform,' and he would have regarded it as baseness to lie in front of you. But me, what do you need me for now? You've been pestering me almost since abroad. The way you've been explaining it to me all along is just sheer raving. And yet what you're driving at is that by giving fifteen hundred to Lebyadkin, I would thus be giving Fedka an occasion for putting a knife into him. I know you've got the notion that I'd like to have my wife killed at the same time. By binding me with a crime you think, of course, you'll be getting power over me, right? What do you want that power for? Why the devil do you need me? Take a good look once and for alclass="underline" am I your man? And leave me alone."
"Did Fedka come to you on his own?" Verkhovensky asked, short of breath.
"Yes, he did; his price is also fifteen hundred... But he'll confirm it himself, he's standing right here..." Stavrogin reached out his arm.
Pyotr Stepanovich quickly turned around. On the threshold, out of the darkness, a new figure emerged—Fedka, in a sheepskin jacket, but without a hat, as if at home. He stood and chuckled, baring his white, even teeth. His black eyes with their yellow cast darted cautiously around the room, watching the gentlemen. There was something he could not understand; he had obviously just been brought by Kirillov, and it was to him that his questioning eyes turned; he stood on the threshold but would not come into the room.
"You stashed him away here so he could listen to our bargaining, or even see the money in our hands, right?" asked Stavrogin, and without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the house. Verkhovensky caught up with him at the gate, nearly crazy.
"Stop! Not another step!" he cried, seizing him by the elbow. Stavrogin jerked his arm, but did not jerk it free. Fury came over him: seizing Verkhovensky by the hair with his left hand, he flung him down on the ground with all his might and went through the gate. But before he had walked even thirty steps, the man caught up with him again.
"Let's make peace, let's make peace," he whispered to him, in a convulsive whisper.