"Ladies and gentlemen," he addressed the public, "by oversight a comical misunderstanding took place, which has been removed; but I, not without hope, have taken upon myself a charge and a profound, most respectful request from one of our local town bards... Moved by a humane and lofty goal ... in spite of his looks... the very same goal which has united us all... to dry the tears of the poor educated girls of our province... this gentleman—that is, I mean to say, this local poet... while wishing to preserve his incognito... very much wished to see his poem read before the start of the ball... that is, I meant to say—the reading. Although this poem is not on the program and doesn't figure... because it was delivered only half an hour ago... yet it seemed to us"(us who? I am citing this abrupt and muddled speech verbatim) "that with its remarkable naivety of feeling, combined with as remarkable a gaiety, the poem could be read—that is, not as something serious, but as something suited to the festivities... To the idea, in short... Moreover, these few lines... and so I wanted to ask permission of the benevolent public."
"Read it!" barked a voice from the end of the hall.
"Shall I read it, then?"
"Read it, read it!" came many voices.
"I'll read it, with the public's permission," Liputin twisted himself up again, with the same sugary smile. It seemed as if he still could not make up his mind, and I even had the impression that he was worried. These people sometimes stumble, for all their boldness. However, a seminarian would not have stumbled, and Liputin did, after all, belong to the old society.
"I warn you—I mean, I have the honor of warning you—that all the same this is not really the kind of ode that once used to be written for festive occasions, this is almost, so to speak, a joke, but combining indisputable feeling and playful gaiety, and with, so to speak, the realmost truth."
"Read it, read it!"
He unfolded the piece of paper. Of course, no one had time to stop him. Besides, he was there with an usher's bow. In a ringing voice he declaimed:
"To the fatherland's governess of local parts from a poet at the fête.
"I give you greetings grand and grander, Governess! Be triumphant now, Retrograde or true George-Sander, Be exultant anyhow!"
"But that's Lebyadkin's! It is, it's Lebyadkin's!" several voices echoed. There was laughter and even applause, though not widespread.
"You teach our snot-nosed children French From an alphabetic book, The beadle even, in a pinch, For marriage you won't overlook!"
"Hoorah! hoorah!"
"But now, when great reforms are flowering, Even a beadle's hard to hook: Unless, young miss, you've got a 'dowering,' It's back to the alphabetic book."
"Precisely, precisely, that's realism, not a step without a 'dowering'!"
"Today, however, with our hosting We have raised much capital, And while dancing here we're posting A dowry to you from this hall.
Retrograde or true George-Sander, Be exultant anyhow! Governess by dower grander, Spit on the rest and triumph now!"
I confess, I did not believe my ears. Here was such obvious impudence that it was impossible to excuse Liputin even by stupidity. And, anyway, Liputin was far from stupid. The intention was clear, to me at least: they were as if hastening the disorder. Some lines of this idiotic poem, the very last one, for example, were of a sort that no stupidity would allow. Liputin himself seemed to feel that he had taken on too much: having accomplished his great deed, he was so taken aback by his own boldness that he did not even leave the platform, but went on standing there as if wishing to add something. He must have supposed it would come out somehow differently; but even the bunch of hooligans who had applauded during the escapade suddenly fell silent, as if they, too, were taken aback. Stupidest of all was that many of them took the whole escapade in a pathetic sense—that is, not as lampoonery, but indeed as the real truth concerning governesses, as verse with a tendency. But these people, too, were finally struck by the excessive license of the poem. As for the rest of the public, the entire hall was not only scandalized but visibly offended. I am not mistaken in conveying the impression. Yulia Mikhailovna said afterwards that she would have fainted in another moment. One of the most venerable little old men helped his little old lady to her feet, and they both left the hall, followed by the alarmed eyes of the public. Who knows, the example might have carried others along as well, if at that moment Karmazinov himself had not appeared on the platform, in a tailcoat and white tie, and with a notebook in his hand. Yulia Mikhailovna turned rapturous eyes to him, as to a deliverer... But by then I had already gone backstage; I was after Liputin.
"You did it on purpose!" I said, indignantly seizing him by the arm.
"By God, I had no idea," he cowered, immediately starting to lie and pretend to be miserable, "the verses were just brought, and I thought as a merry joke..."
"You never thought any such thing. Can you possibly find that giftless trash a merry joke?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"You're simply lying, and it wasn't just brought to you. You wrote it yourself, together with Lebyadkin, maybe yesterday, to cause a scandal. The last line is certainly yours, and the part about the beadle as well. Why did he come out in a tailcoat? It means you were preparing to have him read, if he hadn't gotten drunk?"
Liputin looked at me coldly and caustically.
"What business is it of yours?" he asked suddenly, with a strange calm.
"What? You're wearing one of these bows, too... Where is Pyotr Stepanovich?"
"I don't know, somewhere around. Why?"
"Because I see through it now. This is simply a conspiracy against Yulia Mikhailovna, to disgrace the day..."
Liputin again looked askance at me.
"And what is that to you?" he grinned, shrugged, and walked off.
I felt as if stricken. All my suspicions were justified. And I had still hoped I was mistaken! What was I to do? I thought of discussing it with Stepan Trofimovich, but he was standing in front of the mirror, trying on various smiles, and constantly consulting a piece of paper on which he had made some notes. He was to go on right after Karmazinov and was no longer in any condition to talk with me. Should I run to Yulia Mikhailovna? But it was too soon for her: she needed a much harsher lesson to cure her of the conviction of her "surround-edness" and the general "fanatical devotion." She would not believe me and would regard me as a dreamer. And how could she be of help? "Eh," I thought, "really, what business is it of mine? I'll take the bow off and go home, once it starts.”I actually said "once it starts," I remember that.
But I had to go and listen to Karmazinov. Taking a last look around backstage, I noticed that there were quite a few outsiders, and even women, darting about, coming and going. This "backstage" was quite a narrow space, totally screened off from the public by a curtain and connected through a corridor in back with other rooms. Here our readers waited their turns. But I was particularly struck at that moment by the lecturer who was to follow Stepan Trofimovich. He, too, was some sort of professor (even now I do not know exactly what he was), who had voluntarily retired from some institution after some student incident and had turned up in our town for one reason or another just a few days earlier. He, too, had been recommended to Yulia Mikhailovna, and she had received him with reverence. I know now that he had visited her only on one evening prior to the reading, had spent the whole evening in silence, had smiled ambiguously at the jokes and tone of the company that surrounded Yulia Mikhailovna, and had made an unpleasant impression on everyone by his air—arrogant and at the same time touchy to the point of timorousness. It was Yulia Mikhailovna herself who had recruited him to read. Now he was pacing from corner to corner and, like Stepan Trofimovich, was whispering to himself as well, but looking at the ground, not in the mirror. He did not try on any smiles, though he smiled frequently and carnivorously. Clearly it was not possible to talk with him, either. He was short, looked about forty, was bald front and back, had a grayish little beard, and dressed decently. But most interesting was that at each turn he raised his right fist high, shook it in the air above his head, and suddenly brought it down as if crushing some adversary to dust. He repeated this trick every moment. It gave me an eerie feeling. I ran quickly to listen to Karmazinov.