“‘I wish you,' she says, 'to understand me fully and correctly,' she says. 'I sent for you now because I consider you a perspicacious and sharp-witted man, capable of forming an accurate observation' (such compliments!). 'You,' she says, 'will also understand, of course, that this is a mother speaking to you... Nikolai Vsevolodovich has experienced certain misfortunes and many upheavals in his life. All this,' she says, 'could influence his frame of mind. Of course,' she says, 'I am not talking about madness—that could never be!' (spoken firmly and with pride). 'But there could be something strange, peculiar, a certain turn of thought, an inclination towards certain special views' (these are all her exact words, and I marveled, Stepan Trofimovich, at how exactly Varvara Petrovna is able to explain the matter. A lady of high intelligence!). 'I myself, at least,' she says, 'have noticed a certain constant restlessness in him, and an urge towards peculiar inclinations. But I am a mother, while you are an outsider and are therefore capable, given your intelligence, of forming a more independent opinion. I implore you, finally' (uttered just like that: 'I implore'), 'to tell me the whole truth, without any contortions, and if at the same time you give me your promise never to forget in future that I have spoken with you confidentially, you may expect of me a complete and henceforth permanent readiness to show my gratitude at every opportunity.' Well, what do you think of that, sir!"
"You... you astound me so..." Stepan Trofimovich stammered, "that I don't believe you..."
"No, but observe, observe," Liputin picked up, as if he had not even heard Stepan Trofimovich, "how great the trouble and worry must be, if such a question is addressed from such a height to such a man as me, and if she stoops so far as to beg for secrecy. What can it be, sir? Has she received some unexpected news about Nikolai Vsevolodovich?"
"I don't know... any news... it's some days since I've seen... but I must observe to you..." Stepan Trofimovich went on stammering, apparently barely able to master his thoughts, "but I must observe to you, Liputin, that if this was told you confidentially, and now, in front of everyone, you..."
"Absolutely confidentially! God strike me dead if I... And so what if now... what of it, sir? Are we strangers here, even taking Alexei Nilych?"
"I do not share such a view; no doubt the three of us here will keep the secret; it is you, the fourth, that I am afraid of, and I do not believe you in anything!"
"Oh, come now, sir! I'm the one who has most to gain, it's to me the eternal gratitude was promised! And, in this same connection, I precisely wanted to mention an extremely strange occurrence—or more psychological, so to speak, than simply strange. Yesterday evening, under the influence of that conversation at Varvara Petrovna's (you can imagine what an impression it made on me), I addressed Alexei Nilych with a distant question: 'You,' I say, 'used to know Nikolai Vsevolodovich even before, abroad and in Petersburg; what do you think,' I say, 'regarding his intelligence and abilities?' So this gentleman answers laconically, as his way is, that he is a man 'of refined mind and sound judgment,' he says. 'And didn't you ever notice over the years,' I say, 'some deviation of ideas, as it were, or a peculiar turn of thought, or as if some madness, so to speak?' In short, I repeated Varvara Petrovna's own question. And just imagine, Alexei Nilych suddenly turned thoughtful and scowled, just as he's doing now. 'Yes,' he says, 'at times it seemed to me there was something strange.' Note, besides, that if there could seem something strange even to Alexei Nilych, then what might turn out in reality, eh?"
"Is this true?" Stepan Trofimovich turned to Alexei Nilych.
"I wish not to speak of it," Alexei Nilych replied, suddenly raising his head and flashing his eyes. "I want to contest your right, Liputin. You have no right to this occurrence about me. I by no means told my whole opinion. Though I was acquainted in Petersburg, that was long ago, and though I met him now, I still know Nikolai Stavrogin very little. I ask that you remove me and... and this all resembles gossip."
Liputin spread his arms in the guise of oppressed innocence.
"A gossip, am I! And maybe also a spy? It's easy for you to criticize, Alexei Nilych, since you remove yourself from everything. But you wouldn't believe it, Stepan Trofimovich, take even Captain Lebyadkin, sir, one might think he's stupid as a... that is, it's even shameful to say as what—there's a Russian comparison signifying the degree— but he, too, considers himself offended from Nikolai Vsevolodovich, though he bows to his sharp wits. 'The man amazes me,' he says, 'a wise serpent' (his very words). So I asked him (still under yesterday's same influence and after talking with Alexei Nilych), 'And what do you think for your own part, Captain, is your wise serpent crazy, or not?' And, can you believe, it was as if I'd given him a lash from behind without asking permission; he simply jumped in his seat. 'Yes,' he says... 'Yes,' he says, 'only that,' he says, 'cannot affect. . .' but affect what—he didn't finish saying; and then he turned so ruefully thoughtful, so thoughtful that even his drunkenness dropped off him. We were sitting in Filippov's tavern, sir. And only maybe half an hour later he suddenly banged his fist on the table: 'Yes,' he says, 'maybe he is crazy, only that cannot affect...' and again he didn't finish saying what it couldn't affect. Of course, I'm telling you only an extract of the conversation, but the thought is clear; whoever you ask, they all come up with the same thought, even if it never entered anybody's head before: 'Yes,' they say, 'crazy—very intelligent, but maybe also crazy.’”
Stepan Trofimovich sat deep in thought, his mind working intensely.
"And why does Lebyadkin know?"
"Be so good as to make that inquiry of Alexei Nilych, who has just called me a spy. I am a spy, yet I don't know—while Alexei Nilych knows all the innermost secrets and keeps silent, sir."
"I know nothing, or little," the engineer replied, with the same irritation. "You pour drink into Lebyadkin in order to find out. You also brought me here in order to find out, and to get me to say. So you are a spy!"
"I've never yet poured any drink into him, sir, and he's not worth the money, with all his secrets—that's how much he means to me, I don't know about you. On the contrary, he's throwing money around, though twelve days ago he came to beg me for fifteen kopecks, and he's pouring champagne into me, not I into him. But you've given me an idea, and if need be I will get him drunk, precisely in order to find things out, and perhaps I will learn, sir... all your little secrets, sir," Liputin snarled back spitefully.
Bewildered, Stepan Trofimovich observed the two quarreling men. They were giving themselves away and, moreover, were being quite unceremonious about it. It occurred to me that Liputin had brought this Alexei Nilych to us precisely so as to draw him into the conversation he wanted through a third person—his favorite maneuver.
"Alexei Nilych knows Nikolai Vsevolodovich only too well," he went on irritably, "but he conceals it. And as for your question about Captain Lebyadkin, he met him before any of us, in Petersburg, five or six years ago, in that little-known epoch, if I may put it so, of Nikolai Vsevolodovich's life when he had not yet even thought of doing us the happiness of coming here. Our prince, one can only conclude, surrounded himself at that time in Petersburg with a very odd choice of acquaintances. It was then, I believe, that he became acquainted with Alexei Nilych."
"Beware, Liputin, I warn you that Nikolai Vsevolodovich is intending to be here in person soon, and he knows how to stand up for himself."
"And how do I deserve this, sir? I am the first one to shout that he's a man of the most refined and elegant mind, and I set Varvara Petrovna completely at ease yesterday in that regard. 'Only,' I said to her, 'I cannot vouch for his character.' Yesterday Lebyadkin said it in so many words: 'I've suffered from his character,' he said. Ah, Stepan Trofimovich, it's fine for you to shout about gossiping and spying, and that, notice, when you yourself have already extorted everything from me, and with such exceeding curiosity besides. And Varvara Petrovna, she really put her finger on it yesterday: 'You had a personal interest in the matter,' she says, 'that's why I'm turning to you.' And what else, sir! Why talk about purposes, when I swallowed a personal offense from His Excellency in front of a whole gathering! It would seem I have reasons to be interested, not just for the sake of gossip. Today he shakes your hand, and tomorrow, for no reason at all, to repay your hospitality, he slaps your face in front of a whole honorable gathering, the moment he pleases. From fat living, sir! And the main thing with them is the female sex: butterflies and strutting roosters! Landowners with little wings like antique cupids, lady-killer Pechorins![51] It's easy for you, Stepan Trofimovich, an inveterate bachelor, to talk this way and call me a gossip on account of His Excellency. But if you, being the fine fellow you still are, were to marry a pretty and young one, you might just keep your door bolted against our prince, and build barricades in your own house! But why go far: if this Mademoiselle Lebyadkin, who gets whipped with knouts, weren't mad and bow-legged, by God, I'd think it was she who was the victim of our general's passions, and that this is what Captain Lebyadkin has suffered 'in his familial dignity,' as he himself puts it. Only maybe it contradicts his refined taste, but that's no great trouble to him. Any berry will do, so long as it comes his way while he's in a certain mood. You talk about gossip, but I'm not shouting about it, the whole town is clattering, while I just listen and yes them—yessing's not forbidden, sir." "The town is shouting? What is it shouting about?" "That is, it's Captain Lebyadkin, in a drunken state, who's shouting for the whole town to hear—well, and isn't that the same as if the whole marketplace was shouting? How am I to blame? I'm interested only as among friends, sir, because I still consider myself among friends here." He looked around at us with an innocent air. "There was an incident here, sirs, just think: it seems His Excellency, while still in Switzerland, supposedly sent three hundred roubles by a most noble girl and, so to speak, humble orphan, whom I have the honor of knowing, to be given to Captain Lebyadkin. But a little later Lebyadkin received most precise information, I won't say from whom, but also from a most noble and therefore most reliable person, that the sum sent was not three hundred roubles, but a thousand! ... 'That means,' Lebyadkin is shouting, 'that the girl filched seven hundred roubles from me,' and he wants to demand it back even if it's through the police, at least he's threatening to, and he's clattering all over town..."