The narrator suddenly broke off and was turning to Lebyadkin, but Varvara Petrovna stopped him; she was in the greatest exaltation.
"Have you finished?" she asked.
"Not yet; for completeness, I would have to put some questions on certain matters to this gentleman, with your permission... You will see presently what it's about, Varvara Petrovna."
"Enough, later, stop for a moment, I beg you. Oh, how good it is that I allowed you to speak!"
"And observe, Varvara Petrovna," Pyotr Stepanovich roused himself, "how could Nikolai Vsevolodovich have explained all this to you himself just now, in answer to your question, which was perhaps much too categorical?"
"Oh, much too much!"
"And was I not right to say that in certain cases it is much easier for a third person to explain than for the interested person himself!"
"Yes, yes... But in one thing you are mistaken, and I regret to see that you continue to be mistaken."
"Really? What's that?"
"You see... And, incidentally, why don't you sit down, Pyotr Stepanovich?"
"Oh, if you like, and I am tired, thank you."
He at once pulled out a chair and turned it in such a way that he wound up between Varvara Petrovna on the one side and Praskovya Ivanovna at the table on the other, and facing Mr. Lebyadkin, whom he would not take his eyes off for a moment.
"You are mistaken in calling it 'whimsicality'..."
"Oh, if that's all..."
"No, no, no, wait," Varvara Petrovna stopped him, obviously preparing herself to speak much and ecstatically. As soon as he noticed it, Pyotr Stepanovich became all attention.
"No, this was something higher than whimsicality and, I assure you, even something holy! A man, proud and early insulted, who had arrived at that 'jeering' which you mentioned so aptly—in short, a Prince Harry, to use Stepan Trofimovich's magnificent comparison at the time, which would be perfectly correct if he did not resemble Hamlet even more, at least in my view."
"Et vous avez raison, "[lxxv] Stepan Trofimovich echoed, weightily and with feeling.
"Thank you, Stepan Trofimovich, you I thank especially, and precisely for your constant faith in Nicolas, in the loftiness of his soul and calling. You even strengthened this faith in me when I was losing spirit..."
"Chère, chère ..." Stepan Trofimovich was already making a step forward, but stopped, realizing that it would be dangerous to interrupt.
"And if Nicolas had always had at his side" (Varvara Petrovna was half singing now) "a gentle Horatio, great in his humility—another beautiful expression of yours, Stepan Trofimovich—he would perhaps have been saved long ago from the sad and 'sudden demon of irony' that has tormented him all his life. (The phrase about the demon of irony is again an astonishing expression of yours, Stepan Trofimovich.) But Nicolas never had a Horatio, or an Ophelia. He had only his mother, but what can a mother do alone and in such circumstances? You know, Pyotr Stepanovich, I can even understand, and quite well, how a being such as Nicolas could appear even in such dirty slums as those you were telling about. I can imagine so clearly now this 'jeering' life (your remarkably apt expression!), this insatiable thirst for contrast, this dark background of the picture, against which he appears like a diamond—again according to your comparison, Pyotr Stepanovich. And so he meets there a creature offended by everyone, a cripple, half crazy, and perhaps at the same time with the noblest feelings!"
"Hm, yes, presumably."
"And after all that you still do not understand that he is not laughing at her like everyone else! Oh, people! You do not understand that he should protect her from her offenders, surround her with respect 'like a marquise' (this Kirillov must have a remarkably deep understanding of people, though he did not understand Nicolas!). If you like, it was precisely through this contrast that the trouble came; if the unfortunate woman had been in different circumstances, she might not have arrived at such a delirious dream. A woman, it takes a woman to understand this, Pyotr Stepanovich, and what a pity that you... that is, not that you are not a woman, but at least for this once, so as to understand!"
"You mean, in a sense, the worse the better—I understand, I understand, Varvara Petrovna. It's like with religion: the worse a man's life is, or the more downtrodden and poor a whole people is, the more stubbornly they dream of a reward in paradise, and if there are a hundred thousand priests fussing about at the same time, inflaming the dream and speculating on it, then ... I understand you, Varvara Petrovna, rest assured."
"I don't suppose that's quite so, but tell me, can it really be that in order to extinguish the dream in this unfortunate organism" (why Varvara Petrovna used the word "organism" here, I could not understand), "Nicolas, too, should have laughed at her and treated her as the other clerks did? Can it really be that you reject that lofty compassion, that noble tremor of the whole organism with which Nicolas suddenly so sternly answered Kirillov: 'I do not laugh at her.' A lofty, a holy answer!"
"Sublime, " muttered Stepan Trofimovich.
"And, note, he is not at all as rich as you think; it is I who am rich, not he, and at that time he was taking almost nothing from me."
"I understand, I understand all that, Varvara Petrovna," Pyotr Stepanovich was now stirring somewhat impatiently.
"Oh, it is my character! I recognize myself in Nicolas! I recognize that youth, that possibility of stormy, awesome impulses... And, Pyotr Stepanovich, if one day you and I become close, which I for my part sincerely wish, all the more so in that I already owe you so much, perhaps then you will understand..."