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Would you believe, at Captain Lebyadkin's, out yonder, whom your honour's just been visiting, when he was living at Filipov's, before you came, the door stood open all night long. He'd be drunk and sleeping like the dead, and his money dropping out of his pockets all over the floor. I've chanced to see it with my own eyes, for in our way of life it's impossible to live without assistance...."
"I want to see her at once," she whispered, bending upon me a burning, passionate, impatient glance, which would not admit a hint of opposition. "I must see her with my own eyes, and I beg you to help me." She was in a perfect frenzy, and in despair. "Who is it you want to see, Lizaveta Nikolaevna?" I inquired in dismay. "That Lebyadkin's sister, that lame girl.... Is it true that she's lame?"
However, won't you read this and pass it to the others, simply as a fact of interest?" He pulled out of his pocket Lebyadkin's anonymous letter to Lembke and handed it to Liputin. The latter read it, was evidently surprised, and passed it thoughtfully to his neighbour; the letter quickly went the round. "Is that really Lebyadkin's handwriting?" observed Shigalov.
"Of course it's easy for you to say that. You need a victim to vent your wrath on. Well, vent it on me as I've said already. I maintain that, apart from Liputin, there was nothing preconcerted, nothing! I will prove it, but first let us analyse Liputin. He came forward with that fool Lebyadkin's verses. Do you maintain that that was a plot?
By now he wanted to insult some one, to do something nasty to show his power. "Ring, please, Stepan Trofimovitch," Varvara Petrovna asked him. "Lebyadkin's cunning, madam." he said, winking with his evil smile; "he's cunning, but he too has a weak spot, he too at times is in the portals of passions, and these portals are the old military hussars' bottle, celebrated by Denis Davydov.
"Why be so modest and conceal the generous impulses of one's soul; that is, of your soul? I'm not speaking of my own." "How stupid it is... and quite unnecessary. Lebyadkin's stupid and quite worthless and no use to the cause, and... utterly mischievous. Why do you keep babbling all sorts of things? I'm going."
It must be observed that Pyotr Stepanovitch was sitting in an easy chair with one leg crossed over the other, while the captain stood before him in the most respectful attitude. Lebyadkin's hesitation seemed to annoy Pyotr Stepanovitch; a spasm of anger distorted his face. "Then you have a statement you want to make?" he said, looking subtly at the captain. "Kindly speak. We're waiting for you."
At last, at eight o'clock I went to him again, meaning to leave a note if I did not find him; again I failed to find him. His lodging was shut up, and he lived alone without a servant of any sort. I did think of knocking at Captain Lebyadkin's down below to ask about Shatov; but it was all shut up below, too, and there was no sound or light as though the place were empty.
"Yes, yes, it's all very well for you to laugh, gentlemen, but if only I'd known, if I'd known how it would end!" he concluded. To various excited inquiries about Stavrogin he bluntly replied that in his opinion the catastrophe to the Lebyadkins was a pure coincidence, and that it was all Lebyadkin's own fault for displaying his money. He explained this particularly well.
A simple case of robbery," Pyotr Stepanovitch rattled off at once "Simply robbery, under cover of the fire. The crime was committed by Fedka the convict, and it was all that fool Lebyadkin's fault for showing every one his money.... I rushed here with the news... it fell on me like a thunderbolt. Stavrogin could hardly stand when I told him.
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