"Nikolai Vsevolodovich, is he telling the truth?" Liza barely uttered.
"No, it's not the truth."
"How, not the truth!" Pyotr Stepanovich jumped. "What's this now!"
"Lord, I'm losing my mind!" Liza cried out.
"But understand, at least, that right now he is the mad one!" Pyotr Stepanovich shouted with all his might. "After all, his wife has been murdered. See how pale he is ... Wasn't he with you all night, without leaving you for a moment, how can you suspect him?"
"Nikolai Vsevolodovich, tell me, as before God, are you guilty or not, and I swear I'll believe your word as if it were God's own, and follow you to the ends of the earth, oh, I will! I'll go like a little dog..."
"Why are you tormenting her, you fantastic head?" Pyotr Stepanovich flew into a frenzy. "Lizaveta Nikolaevna, grind me in a mortar, by gosh, but he's innocent, on the contrary, he's crushed and raving, you can see that. He's not guilty of anything, not of anything, not even of the thought! ... It's all the doing of brigands alone, who will certainly be found within a week and punished with flogging... Fedka the Convict and the Shpigulin men are the ones, the whole town's rattling about it, which is why I am, too."
"Is that right? Is that right?" Liza waited, all trembling, for her final sentence.
"I didn't kill them and was against it, but I knew they would be killed, and I didn't stop the killers. Leave me, Liza," Stavrogin uttered, and he turned and went into the drawing room.
Liza covered her face with her hands, turned, and went out. Pyotr Stepanovich first dashed after her, but immediately came back to the drawing room.
"So that's how you are? So that's how you are? So you're not afraid of anything?" he fell upon Stavrogin in a perfect fury, muttering incoherently, almost at a loss for words, foaming at the mouth.
Stavrogin stood in the middle of the room without answering a word. He lightly grasped a tuft of his hair with his left hand and smiled forlornly. Pyotr Stepanovich pulled him hard by the sleeve.
"Are you all there, or what? So this is what you're doing now? You'll denounce everybody and take yourself to a monastery, or to the devil... But I'll bump you off all the same, even if you're not afraid of me!"
"Ah, it's you rattling!" Stavrogin finally made him out. "Run," he suddenly came to his senses, "run after her, order the carriage, don't abandon her ... Run, run! Take her home, so that no one knows, and so that she doesn't go there ... at the bodies ... at the bodies... force her to get into the carriage. Alexei Yegorych! Alexei Yegorych!"
"Stop, don't shout! She's in Mavriky's arms by now... Mavriky is not going to get into your carriage... Stop! This is more precious than the carriage!"
He snatched out the revolver again; Stavrogin gave him a serious look.
"Go ahead, kill me," he said softly, almost peaceably.
"Pah, the devil, what lies a man heaps on himself!" Pyotr Stepanovich was simply shaking. "By God, you ought to be killed! Truly, she should have spat on you! What sort of 'bark' are you; you're an old, leaky timber barge, fit to be broken up! ... Can't you come to your senses now, at least out of spite, at least out of spite! Ehh! Does it make any difference to you, since you're asking for a bullet in the head?"
Stavrogin grinned strangely.
"If you weren't such a clown, perhaps I'd say yes now ... If you were just a drop smarter..."
"I am a clown, but I don't want you, my main half, to be a clown! Do you understand me?"
Stavrogin did understand, and he alone, perhaps. For Shatov was amazed when Stavrogin told him there was enthusiasm in Pyotr Stepanovich.
"Leave me now, go to the devil, and by tomorrow I'll wring something out of myself. Come tomorrow."
"Yes? Yes?"
"How do I know! ... To the devil, to the devil!"
And he left the room.
"Maybe it's all still for the better," Pyotr Stepanovich muttered to himself, putting the revolver away.
III
He rushed to catch up with Lizaveta Nikolaevna. She had not gone very far yet, only a few steps from the house. She had been detained for a while by Alexei Yegorovich, who was still following her, a step behind, in a tailcoat, reverently inclined and hatless. He begged her persistently to wait for the carriage; the old man was frightened and almost weeping.
"Go, the master's asking for tea, there's no one to serve him," Pyotr Stepanovich pushed him away and at once took Lizaveta Nikolaevna's arm.
She did not pull her arm free, but seemed not to have quite recovered her reason, not to have come to her senses yet.
"First of all, you're not going the right way," Pyotr Stepanovich began to prattle, "we must go that way, not past the garden; and, second, in any case it's not possible on foot, it's a good two miles, and you're not dressed for it. If you'd wait a bit. I came in a droshky, the horse is here in the yard, I'll bring it in a moment, put you in, and deliver you so that no one will see."
"You're so kind..." Liza said tenderly.
"For pity's sake, on such an occasion any humane person in my place would also..."
Liza looked at him and was surprised.
"Ah, my God, and I thought that old man was still here!"
"Listen, I'm terribly glad you're taking it this way, because it's all a terrible prejudice, and since that's the way it is, why don't I order this old man to take care of the carriage, it's just ten minutes, and we'll go back and wait under the porch, eh?"
"I first want... where are those murdered people?"
"Ah, what a fancy! Just what I was afraid of... No, we'd better leave that trash alone; and there's nothing there to look at."
"I know where they are, I know that house."
"So what if you do know! The rain, the fog, for pity's sake (what a sacred duty I've heaped on myself, though!)... Listen, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, it's one of two things: either you come with me in the droshky, in which case stop and don't go a step farther, because another twenty steps and Mavriky Nikolaevich will certainly notice us."
"Mavriky Nikolaevich! Where? Where?"
"Well, and if you want to go with him, then perhaps I'll take you a little farther and show you where he's sitting, and then—I'm your humble servant. I don't want to get near him right now."
"He's waiting for me, oh, God!" she suddenly stopped, and color spread over her face.
"But, for pity's sake, if he's a man without prejudices! You know, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, it's all none of my business; I'm completely outside of it, and you know that yourself; but still, I do wish you well ... If our 'bark' has failed, if it has turned out to be just an old, rotten barge, only fit to be broken up..."
"Ah, wonderful!" Liza cried out.
"Wonderful, and with tears pouring down. One needs courage here. One mustn't yield to a man in anything. In our day and age, when a woman... pah, the devil!" (Pyotr Stepanovich nearly spat). "And, mainly, there's nothing to be sorry for: maybe it will all turn out excellently. Mavriky Nikolaevich is a ... in a word, he's a sensitive man, though not very talkative, which, however, is also good, on condition, of course, if he's without prejudices..."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" Liza burst into hysterical laughter.
"Ah, well, the devil... Lizaveta Nikolaevna," Pyotr Stepanovich was suddenly piqued, "as a matter of fact, it's for you that I... what is it to me ... I did you a service yesterday when you yourself wanted it, but today... Well, from here you can see Mavriky Nikolaevich, there he sits, he doesn't see us. I wonder, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, have you ever read Polinka Sachs?"[187]
"What is it?"
"There's this novella, Polinka Sachs. I read it when I was still a student... In it some official, Sachs, with a big fortune, arrests his wife at their summer house for infidelity... Ah, well, the devil, spit on it! You'll see, Mavriky Nikolaevich will propose to you even before you get home. He still hasn't seen us."