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!"
"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.