"And has she been suffering from it for a long time?" Varvara Petrovna drawled somewhat.
"Madam, I have come to thank you for the generosity you displayed on the church porch, as a Russian, as a brother..."
"As a brother?"
"I mean, not as a brother, but solely in the sense that I'm my sister's brother, madam, and believe me, madam," he went on pattering, turning purple again, "I'm not as uneducated as I may seem at first sight in your drawing room. My sister and I are nothing, madam, compared with the splendor we can observe here. Having our slanderers, besides. But as concerning his reputation, Lebyadkin is proud, madam, and... and... I've come to thank... Here is the money, madam!"
At this point he snatched the wallet from his pocket, tore a wad of bills from it, and began going through them with trembling fingers in a frenzied fit of impatience. One could see that he wanted to explain something as soon as possible, and needed very much to do so; but, probably feeling himself that this fumbling with the money made him look even more foolish, he lost the last of his self-possession; the money refused to be counted, his fingers got entangled, and, to crown the disgrace, one green bill[64] slipped out of the wallet and fluttered zigzag to the carpet.
"Twenty roubles, madam," he suddenly jumped up with the wad in his hand, his face sweaty from suffering; noticing the escaped bill on the floor, he bent down to pick it up, but for some reason felt ashamed and waved his hand.
"For your servants, madam, for the footman who picks it up—let him remember Miss Lebyadkin!"
"I cannot possibly allow that," Varvara Petrovna said hastily and with some fright.
"In that case..."
He bent down, picked it up, turned purple, and, suddenly approaching Varvara Petrovna, held the counted money out to her.
"What is this?" she finally became altogether frightened and even shrank back in her armchair. Mavriky Nikolaevich, myself, and Stepan Trofimovich all stepped forward.
"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm not mad, by God, I'm not mad!" the captain assured excitedly in all directions.
"No, my dear sir, you are out of your mind."
"Madam, it's not at all what you think! I, of course, am a negligible link... Oh, madam, rich are your halls, but poor are those of Marya the Unknown, my sister, born Lebyadkin, but for now we will call her Marya the Unknown, for now, madam, only for now, for God himself will not allow it to be forever! Madam, you gave her ten roubles, and she accepted them only because they came from you, madam! Do you hear, madam! From no one else in the world would this Unknown Marya take, otherwise her grandfather, an officer killed in the Caucasus before the eyes of Ermolov himself,[65] would shudder in his grave, but from you, madam, from you she will take anything. She will take with one hand, but with the other she will now offer you twenty roubles, as a donation to one of the charitable committees in the capital, where you, madam, are a member... since you yourself, madam, have been published in the Moscow Gazette, that you are the keeper of this town's local book for this charitable society, where anyone can subscribe ..."
The captain suddenly broke off; he was breathing heavily, as though after some difficult feat. All that about the charitable committee had probably been prepared beforehand, and perhaps edited by Liputin as well. He became even more sweaty; beads of sweat literally stood out on his temples. Varvara Petrovna scrutinized him sharply.
"This book," she said sternly, "is always downstairs, with the doorkeeper of my house, you may enter your donation in it if you like. And therefore I ask you now to put your money away and not to wave it in the air. That's right. I also ask you to take your former seat. That's right. I am very sorry, my dear sir, that I was mistaken with regard to your sister, and gave to her as to the poor when she is so rich. One thing only I fail to understand—why it is that she can take money from me alone and not from anyone else. You insisted on it so much that I should like a perfectly precise explanation."
"Madam, that is a secret that can only be buried in the grave!" the captain replied.
"Why so?" Varvara Petrovna asked, somehow less firmly now.
"Madam, madam! ..."
He fell glumly silent, looking down, his right hand pressed to his heart. Varvara Petrovna waited, not taking her eyes off him.
"Madam!" he suddenly bellowed, "allow me to ask you one question, just one, but openly, directly, in the Russian way, from the soul."
"Kindly do."
"Have you, madam, ever suffered in your life?"
"You merely want to say that you have suffered or are suffering because of someone."
"Madam, madam!" he suddenly jumped up again, probably without noticing it, and struck himself on the chest. "Here, in this heart, so much has built up, so much that God himself will be surprised when it's revealed at the Last Judgment!"
"Hm, that's putting it strongly."
"Madam, I am speaking, perhaps, in irritable language..."
"Don't worry, I know myself when you will need to be stopped."
"May I pose one more question, madam?"
"Do pose one more question."
"Can one die solely from the nobility of one's own soul?"
"I don't know, I've never asked myself such a question."
"You don't know! Never asked yourself such a question!" he cried with pathetic irony. "In that case, in that case—‘Be silent, hopeless heart!’”[66] and he struck himself fiercely on the chest.
By now he was pacing the room again. A trait of such people—this total incapacity to keep their desires to themselves; this uncontrollable urge, on the contrary, to reveal them at once, even in all their untidiness, the moment they arise. When he steps into society not his own, such a gentleman usually begins timidly, but yield him just a hair and he will at once leap to impertinence. The captain was already excited; he paced, waved his arms, did not listen to questions, spoke of himself rapidly, so rapidly that his tongue sometimes tripped, and without finishing he would leap on to the next phrase. True, he could hardly have been completely sober; then, too, Lizaveta Nikolaevna was sitting there, and though he did not glance at her even once, her presence seemed to make him terribly giddy. However, that is only a surmise. There must therefore have been some reason why Varvara Petrovna, overcoming her loathing, decided to listen to such a man. Praskovya Ivanovna was simply quaking with fear, though, to tell the truth,I don't think she quite understood what was going on. Stepan Trofimovich was also trembling, but, on the contrary, because he was always inclined to understand everything to excess. Mavriky Nikolaevich stood in the attitude of universal protector. Poor Liza was pale and was staring fixedly, with wide-open eyes, at the wild captain. Shatov went on sitting in the same attitude; but, what was strangest of all, Marya Timofeevna not only stopped laughing, but became terribly sad. She leaned her right elbow on the table and gazed at her declaiming brother with a long, sad look. Darya Pavlovna alone seemed calm to me.
"These are all nonsensical allegories," Varvara Petrovna finally became angry, "you have not answered my question—'Why?' I am insistently awaiting an answer."
"I didn't answer your 'why'? You're awaiting an answer to your 'why'?" the captain reiterated, winking. "This little word 'why' has been poured all over the universe since the very first day of creation, madam, and every moment the whole of nature cries out 'Why?' to its creator, and for seven thousand years[67] has received no answer. Is it for Captain Lebyadkin alone to answer, and would that be just, madam?"
"That's all nonsense, that's not the point!" Varvara Petrovna was growing wrathful and losing her patience. "These are allegories, and, besides, you choose to speak too floridly, my dear sir, which I regard as impertinence."
"Madam," the captain was not listening to her, "I might wish to be called Ernest, yet I am forced to bear the crude name of Ignat—why is that, do you think? I might wish to be called Prince de Monbars,[68]yet I'm only Lebyadkin, from lebed, the swan—why is that? I am a poet, a poet in my soul, and could be getting a thousand roubles from a publisher, yet I'm forced to live in a tub—why, why? Madam! In my opinion Russia is a freak of nature, nothing else!"