"You decidedly cannot say anything more definite?"
"I can recite you a piece called 'The Cockroach,' madam!"
"Wha-a-at?"
"Madam, I am not crazy yet! I will be crazy, I will be, that's certain, but I am not crazy yet! Madam, a friend of mine—a most no-o-oble person—has written a Krylov's fable entitled 'The Cockroach'—may I recite it?"
"You want to recite some fable of Krylov's?"
"No, it's not Krylov's fable I want to recite, it's my own fable, mine, I wrote it! Believe me, madam—no offense to you—but I'm not uneducated and depraved to such an extent as not to realize that Russia possesses the great fable-writer Krylov, to whom the minister of education erected a monument in the Summer Garden for childhood playing.[69] Now then, madam, you ask me, 'Why?' The answer is at the bottom of this fable, in flaming letters!"
"Recite your fable."
“‘Tis of a cockroach I will tell, And a fine cockroach was he, But then into a glass he fell Full of fly-phagy ..."
"Lord, what is this?" Varvara Petrovna exclaimed.
"It's in the summertime," the captain hurried, waving his arms terribly, with the irritated impatience of an author whose recitation is being hindered, "in the summertime, when lots of flies get into a glass, then fly-phagy takes place, any fool can understand that, don't interrupt, don't interrupt, you'll see, you'll see..." (he kept waving his arms).
"The cockroach took up so much room
It made the flies murmur.
'A crowded glass, is this our doom?
They cried to Jupiter.
But as the flies did make their moan
Along came Nikifor, A kind, old, no-o-oble man ...
I haven't quite finished here, but anyway, in plain words!" the captain rattled on. "Nikifor takes the glass and, in spite of their crying, dumps the whole comedy into the tub, both flies and cockroach, which should have been done long ago. But notice, madam, notice, the cockroach does not murmur! This is the answer to your question, 'Why?’“ he cried out triumphantly.”‘The cock-roach does not mur-mur!' As for Nikifor, he represents nature," he added in a quick patter, and began pacing the room self-contentedly.
Varvara Petrovna became terribly angry.
"And to do with what money—allow me to ask you—supposedly received from Nikolai Vsevolodovich, and supposedly not given to you in full, have you dared to accuse a person belonging to my household?"
"Slander!" bellowed Lebyadkin, raising his right hand tragically.
"No, it is not slander."
"Madam, there are circumstances that make one rather endure family disgrace than proclaim the truth aloud. Lebyadkin will not let on, madam!"
He was as if blind; he was inspired; he felt his significance; he must have been imagining some such thing. He already wanted to offend, to do something dirty, to show his power.
"Ring the bell, please, Stepan Trofimovich," Varvara Petrovna requested.
"Lebyadkin is cunning, madam!" he winked, with a nasty smile, "he's cunning, but he, too, has his stumbling block, he, too, has his forecourt of passions! And this forecourt is the old hussar's war-bottle, sung by Denis Davydov.[70] And so, when in this forecourt, madam, it may happen that he sends a letter in verse, a mag-ni-fi-cent one, but which afterwards he might wish to bring back with the tears of his whole life, for the sense of beauty is violated. But the bird has flown, you can't catch it by the tail! It is in this forecourt, madam, that Lebyadkin could also talk about a noble young lady, by way of the noble indignation of a soul resenting its offenses, which fact has been made use of by his slanderers. But Lebyadkin is cunning, madam! And in vain does the sinister wolf sit over him, pouring more every moment and waiting for the end: Lebyadkin will not let on, and after two bottles what turns up each time, instead of the expected thing, is— Lebyadkin's Cunning! But enough, oh, enough! Madam, your magnificent halls might belong to the noblest of persons, but the cockroach does not murmur! Notice, yes, notice finally that he does not murmur, and know the great spirit!"
At that moment the bell rang from the doorkeeper's room downstairs, and almost at once Alexei Yegorych, who had been rather slow in responding to Stepan Trofimovich's ring, appeared. The decorous old servant was somehow unusually excited.
"Nikolai Vsevolodovich has been pleased to arrive just this minute and is on his way here, ma'am," he said in reply to Varvara Petrovna's inquiring look.
I especially remember her at that moment: at first she became pale, but suddenly her eyes flashed. She drew herself up in her chair with a look of extraordinary resolution. Everyone else was also astounded. The totally unexpected arrival of Nikolai Vsevolodovich, who was due to be here perhaps no sooner than in another month, was strange not only in its unexpectedness, but precisely in some fatal coincidence with the present moment. Even the captain stopped like a post in the middle of the room, openmouthed, staring at the door with a terribly stupid look.
And then, from the adjacent hall, a long and large room, came the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, small steps, extremely rapid, as if someone were rolling along, and suddenly into the drawing room flew—not Nikolai Vsevolodovich at all, but a young man totally unknown to anyone.
V
I will allow myself to pause and depict, if only in cursory strokes, this suddenly appearing person.
This was a young man of twenty-seven or thereabouts, a little taller than average, with thin, rather long blond hair and a wispy, barely evident moustache and beard. Dressed in clean and even fashionable clothes, but not foppishly; a bit hunched and slack at first sight, and yet not hunched at all, even easygoing. Seemingly a sort of odd man, and yet everyone later found his manners quite decent and his conversation always to the point.
No one would call him bad-looking, but no one likes his face. His head is elongated towards the back and as if flattened on the sides, giving his face a sharp look. His forehead is high and narrow, but his features are small—eyes sharp, nose small and sharp, lips long and thin. The expression of his face is as if sickly, but it only seems so. He has a sort of dry crease on his cheeks and around his cheekbones, which makes him look as if he were recovering from a grave illness. And yet he is perfectly healthy and strong, and has never even been ill.
He walks and moves very hurriedly, and yet he is not hurrying anywhere. Nothing, it seems, can put him out of countenance; in any circumstances and in any society, he remains the same. There is great self-satisfaction in him, but he does not take the least note of it himself.
He speaks rapidly, hurriedly, but at the same time self-confidently, and is never at a loss for words. His thoughts are calm, despite his hurried look, distinct and final—and that is especially noticeable. His enunciation is remarkably clear; his words spill out like big, uniform grains, always choice and always ready to be at your service. You like it at first, but later it will become repulsive, and precisely because of this all too clear enunciation, this string of ever ready words. You somehow begin to imagine that the tongue in his mouth must be of some special form, somehow unusually long and thin, terribly red, and with an extremely sharp, constantly and involuntarily wriggling tip.
Well, so this was the young man who had just flown into the drawing room, and, really, even now it seems to me that he started talking in the next room and came in that way, already talking. Instantly he was standing before Varvara Petrovna.