"Ah, that is a golden truth! They keep mum, sulk, and... glance around."
"And if it's true, it's for you to speak it out here, aloud, proudly, sternly. Precisely to show that you're not crushed. Precisely to the little old men and the mothers. Oh, you'll find a way, you have the gift, when your head is clear. You'll draw them into a group—and speak aloud, aloud. Then a report to the Voice and the Stock Exchange. Wait, I'll take it in hand myself, I'll arrange it all for you. Of course, more attentiveness and a good eye on the buffet—ask the prince, ask Mr.... You cannot possibly leave us, monsieur, precisely when we must start all over again. Well, and finally, you arm in arm with Andrei Antonovich. How is Andrei Antonovich's health?"
"Oh, how unjustly, how wrongly, how offensively you have always judged that angelic man!" Yulia Mikhailovna cried out suddenly, on an unexpected impulse, and almost in tears, bringing her handkerchief to her eyes. For the first moment, Pyotr Stepanovich even faltered:
"For pity's sake, I... but what did I... I've always..."
"You never, never! Never did you do him justice!"
"Never can one understand a woman!" Pyotr Stepanovich grumbled, with a crooked smile.
"He is the most truthful, the most delicate, the most angelic man! The most kindly man!"
"For pity's sake, but as for his kindness, what have I ... as for his kindness, I've always..."
"Never! But leave that. I defend him much too awkwardly. Today that Jesuit, the marshal's wife, also dropped a few sarcastic hints about yesterday."
"Oh, she won't be bothered now with hints about yesterday—she's got today. And why are you so worried that she won't come to the ball? Of course she won't, now that she's come into such a scandal. Maybe she's not to blame, but still there's her reputation; she got her little hands dirty."
"What? I don't understand: how are her hands dirty?" Yulia Mikhailovna looked at him in perplexity.
"I mean, I don't insist on it, but the bells are already ringing in town that it was she who did the matchmaking."
"What? Matchmaking whom?"
"Eh, so you still don't know?" he cried out in surprise, superbly feigned. "Why, Stavrogin and Lizaveta Nikolaevna!"
"How! What!" we all cried out.
"So you really don't know? Whew! There have been tragic novels going on here: Lizaveta Nikolaevna was so good as to get out of the marshal's wife's carriage and straight into Stavrogin's, and to slip away with 'the latter' to Skvoreshniki in broad daylight. Just an hour ago, not even that."
We were dumbfounded. Of course, we hastened to inquire further, but, surprisingly, though he himself had "inadvertently" been a witness, he nevertheless could tell us nothing in detail. The thing seemed to have happened like this: when the marshal's wife brought Liza and Mavriky Nikolaevich from the "reading" to the house of Liza's mother (whose legs were still ailing), someone's carriage was waiting not far from the entrance, about twenty-five steps off to one side. When Liza jumped out at the entrance, she ran straight to this carriage; the door opened, slammed shut; Liza called out "Spare me!" to Mavriky Nikolaevich—and the carriage flew at top speed to Skvoreshniki. To our hurried questions: "Was there some arrangement? Who was sitting in the carriage?"—Pyotr Stepanovich replied that he knew nothing; that there must certainly have been an arrangement, but that he had not made out Stavrogin himself in the carriage; it might have been the valet, old Alexei Yegorovich, who was sitting there. To the question: "And how did you turn up there? And why do you know for certain that she went to Skvoreshniki?"—he replied that he chanced to be there because he was passing by, and on seeing Liza even ran up to the carriage (and yet did not make out who was in the carriage, and with his curiosity!), and that Mavriky Nikolaevich not only did not set off in pursuit, but did not even try to stop Liza, and with his own hand even held back the marshal's wife, who was shouting at the top of her voice: "She's gone to Stavrogin, she's gone to Stavrogin!" Here I suddenly got beside all patience and shouted furiously at Pyotr Stepanovich:
"You set it up, you scoundrel! You killed the whole morning on it. You helped Stavrogin, you came in the carriage, you put her into it... you, you, you! Yulia Mikhailovna, he is your enemy, he will ruin you, too! Beware!"
And I rushed precipitously from the house.
To this day I do not understand and marvel myself at how I could have shouted that to him then. But I had guessed perfectly: it had all happened almost exactly the way I said, as turned out afterwards. In the first place, the obviously false way in which he reported the news was all too noticeable. He did not tell it as soon as he entered the house, as a first and extraordinary piece of news, but pretended that we already knew without him—which was impossible in so short a time. And if we had known, we could not in any case have kept silent about it until he started to speak. He also could not have heard of any "bells ringing" in town about the marshal's wife, because again the time was too short. Besides, as he was telling about it, he smiled a couple of times somehow meanly and flippantly, probably regarding us by then as utterly deceived fools. But I could no longer be bothered with him; the main fact I did believe, and I ran out of Yulia Mikhailovna's beside myself. The catastrophe struck me to the very heart. It pained me almost to tears; perhaps I was actually weeping. I did not know at all what to undertake. I rushed to Stepan Trofimovich, but the vexatious man again would not open the door. Nastasya assured me in a reverent whisper that he had retired to bed, but I did not believe it. At Liza's house I was able to question the servants; they confirmed the flight, but knew nothing themselves. The house was in alarm; the ailing mistress was having fainting fits, and Mavriky Nikolaevich was with her. I did not think it possible to call Mavriky Nikolaevich away. When I inquired about Pyotr Stepanovich, it was confirmed that he had been darting about the house during the past few days, sometimes even twice a day. The servants were sad, and spoke of Liza with some special reverence; she was loved. That she was ruined, utterly ruined, I did not doubt, but I was decidedly unable to comprehend the psychological side of the matter, especially after her scene the day before with Stavrogin. To run around town and inquire of acquaintances, in gloating houses, where the news, of course, had already spread, seemed disgusting to me and humiliating for Liza. But, strangely, I did run by to see Darya Pavlovna, where, however, I was not received (no one had been received in the Stavrogins' house since the previous day); what I could have said to her, and why I ran by, I do not know. From her I made my way to her brother. Shatov listened to me glumly and silently. I will note that I found him in an unprecedentedly dark mood; he was terribly thoughtful and, it seemed, had to force himself to listen to me. He said almost nothing and began walking back and forth from corner to corner of his closet, stomping more than usual with his boots. But when I was already on my way down the stairs, he shouted after me that I should go to Liputin: "You'll find out everything there." Yet I did not go to Liputin, but, well on my way, turned back again to Shatov, and, half opening the door, without going in and without any explanations, suggested to him laconically: wouldn't he be going to see Marya Timofeevna today? At that Shatov cursed, and I left. I set down here, so as not to forget, that that same evening he went especially to the outskirts of town to visit Marya Timofeevna, whom he had not seen for quite a while. He found her in reasonably good health and spirits, and Lebyadkin dead drunk, asleep on the sofa in the front room. This was at exactly nine o'clock. He told it to me himself the next day, meeting me hotfoot in the street. And I decided after nine o'clock to go to the ball, but not now as a "gentleman usher" (besides, my bow had stayed with Yulia Mikhailovna), but from an irresistible curiosity to hear (without asking questions) what people were saying in town about all these events generally. Besides, I wanted to have a look at Yulia Mikhailovna, if only from afar. I reproached myself very much for the way I had run out on her earlier.