But Stavrogin was not laughing.
"You suppose that one may attain to God by work, and by peasants' work," he repeated, reflecting as though he had really come across something new and serious which was worth considering.
"By the way," he passed suddenly to a new idea, "you reminded me just now. Do you know that I'm not rich at all, that I've nothing to give up?
I'm scarcely in a position even to provide for Marya Timofyevna's future.... Another thing: I came to ask you if it would be possible for you to remain near Marya Timofyevna in the future, as you are the only person who has some influence over her poor brain. I say this so as to be prepared for anything."
"All right, all right. You're speaking of Marya Timofyevna," said Shatov, waving one hand, while he held a candle in the other. "All right. Afterwards, of course.... Listen. Go to Tikhon."
"To whom?"
"To Tikhon, who used to be a bishop. He lives retired now, on account of illness, here in the town, in the Bogorodsky monastery."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing.
People go and see him.
You go. What is it to you?
What is it to you?"
"It's the first time I've heard of him, and... I've never seen anything of that sort of people.
Thank you, I'll go."
"This way." Shatov lighted him down the stairs. "Go along." He flung open the gate into the street.
"I shan't come to you any more, Shatov," said Stavrogin quietly as he stepped through the gateway.
The darkness and the rain continued as before.
CHAPTER II. NIGHT (continued)
HE WALKED THE LENGTH of Bogoyavlensky Street. At last the road began to go downhill; his feet slipped in the mud and suddenly there lay open before him a wide, misty, as it were empty expanse—the river.
The houses were replaced by hovels; the street was lost in a multitude of irregular little alleys.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was a long while making his way between the fences, keeping close to the river bank, but finding his way confidently, and scarcely giving it a thought indeed.
He was absorbed in something quite different, and looked round with surprise when suddenly, waking up from a profound reverie, he found himself almost in the middle of one long, wet, floating bridge.
There was not a soul to be seen, so that it seemed strange to him when suddenly, almost at his elbow, he heard a deferentially familiar, but rather pleasant, voice, with a suave intonation, such as is affected by our over-refined tradespeople or befrizzled young shop assistants.
"Will you kindly allow me, sir, to share your umbrella?"
There actually was a figure that crept under his umbrella, or tried to appear to do so.
The tramp was walking beside him, almost "feeling his elbow," as the soldiers say.
Slackening his pace, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch bent down to look more closely, as far as he could, in the darkness. It was a short man, and seemed like an artisan who had been drinking; he was shabbily and scantily dressed; a cloth cap, soaked by the rain and with the brim half torn off, perched on his shaggy, curly head.
He looked a thin, vigorous, swarthy man with dark hair; his eyes were large and must have been black, with a hard glitter and a yellow tinge in them, like a gipsy's; that could be divined even in the darkness.
He was about forty, and was not drunk.
"Do you know me?" asked Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch.
"Mr. Stavrogin, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. You were pointed out to me at the station, when the train stopped last Sunday, though I had heard enough of you beforehand."
"From Pyotr Stepanovitch?
Are you... Fedka the convict?"
"I was christened Fyodor Fyodorovitch. My mother is living to this day in these parts; she's an old woman, and grows more and more bent every day. She prays to God for me, day and night, so that she doesn't waste her old age lying on the stove."
"You escaped from prison?"
"I've had a change of luck.
I gave up books and bells and church-going because I'd a life sentence, so that I had a very long time to finish my term."
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, I do what I can.
My uncle, too, died last week in prison here. He was there for false coin, so I threw two dozen stones at the dogs by way of memorial. That's all I've been doing so far.
Moreover Pyotr Stepanovitch gives me hopes of a passport, and a merchant's one, too, to go all over Russia, so I'm waiting on his kindness.
'Because,' says he, 'my papa lost you at cards at the English club, and I,' says he, 'find that inhumanity unjust.'
You might have the kindness to give me three roubles, sir, for a glass to warm myself."
"So you've been spying on me. I don't like that.
By whose orders?"
"As to orders, it's nothing of the sort; it's simply that I knew of your benevolence, which is known to all the world.
All we get, as you know, is an armful of hay, or a prod with a fork.
Last Friday I filled myself as full of pie as Martin did of soap; since then I didn't eat one day, and the day after I fasted, and on the third I'd nothing again.
I've had my fill of water from the river. I'm breeding fish in my belly.... So won't your honour give me something? I've a sweetheart expecting me not far from here, but I daren't show myself to her without money."
"What did Pyotr Stepanovitch promise you from me?"