"He didn't exactly promise anything, but only said that I might be of use to your honour if my luck turns out good, but how exactly he didn't explain; for Pyotr Stepanovitch wants to see if I have the patience of a Cossack, and feels no sort of confidence in me."
"Why?"
"Pyotr Stepanovitch is an astronomer, and has learnt all God's planets, but even he may be criticised.
I stand before you, sir, as before God, because I have heard so much about you.
Pyotr Stepanovitch is one thing, but you, sir, maybe, are something else.
When he's said of a man he's a scoundrel, he knows nothing more about him except that he's a scoundrel.
Or if he's said he's a fool, then that man has no calling with him except that of fool.
But I may be a fool Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Thursday wiser than he.
Here now he knows about me that I'm awfully sick to get a passport, for there's no getting on in Russia without papers—so he thinks that he's snared my soul.
I tell you, sir, life's a very easy business for Pyotr Stepanovitch, for he fancies a man to be this and that, and goes on as though he really was.
And, what's more, he's beastly stingy.
It's his notion that, apart from him, I daren't trouble you, but I stand before you, sir, as before God. This is the fourth night I've been waiting for your honour on this bridge, to show that I can find my own way on the quiet, without him.
I'd better bow to a boot, thinks I, than to a peasant's shoe."
"And who told you that I was going to cross the bridge at night?"
"Well, that, I'll own, came out by chance, most through Captain Lebyadkin's foolishness, because he can't keep anything to himself.... So that three roubles from your honour would pay me for the weary time I've had these three days and nights.
And the clothes I've had soaked, I feel that too much to speak of it."
"I'm going to the left; you'll go to the right. Here's the end of the bridge.
Listen, Fyodor; I like people to understand what I say, once for all. I won't give you a farthing. Don't meet me in future on the bridge or anywhere. I've no need of you, and never shall have, and if you don't obey, I'll tie you and take you to the police.
March!"
"Eh-heh! Fling me something for my company, anyhow. I've cheered you on your way."
"Be off!"
"But do you know the way here?
There are all sorts of turnings.... I could guide you; for this town is for all the world as though the devil carried it in his basket and dropped it in bits here and there."
"I'll tie you up!" said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, turning upon him menacingly.
"Perhaps you'll change your mind, sir; it's easy to ill-treat the helpless."
"Well, I see you can rely on yourself!"
"I rely upon you, sir, and not very much on myself...."
"I've no need of you at all. I've told you so already."
"But I have need, that's how it is!
I shall wait for you on the way back. There's nothing for it."
"I give you my word of honour if I meet you I'll tie you up."
"Well, I'll get a belt ready for you to tie me with.
A lucky journey to you, sir. You kept the helpless snug under your umbrella. For that alone I'll be grateful to you to my dying day."
He fell behind.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch walked on to his destination, feeling disturbed.
This man who had dropped from the sky was absolutely convinced that he was indispensable to him, Stavrogin, and was in insolent haste to tell him so.
He was being treated unceremoniously all round.
But it was possible, too, that the tramp had not been altogether lying, and had tried to force his services upon him on his own initiative, without Pyotr Stepanovitch's knowledge, and that would be more curious still.
II
The house which Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had reached stood alone in a deserted lane between fences, beyond which market gardens stretched, at the very end of the town.
It was a very solitary little wooden house, which was only just built and not yet weather-boarded.
In one of the little windows the shutters were not yet closed, and there was a candle standing on the window-ledge, evidently as a signal to the late guest who was expected that night.
Thirty paces away Stavrogin made out on the doorstep the figure of a tall man, evidently the master of the house, who had come out to stare impatiently up the road.
He heard his voice, too, impatient and, as it were, timid.
"Is that you?
You?"
"Yes," responded Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, but not till he had mounted the steps and was folding up his umbrella.
"At last, sir." Captain Lebyadkin, for it was he, ran fussily to and fro. "Let me take your umbrella, please. It's very wet; I'll open it on the floor here, in the corner. Please walk in. Please walk in."
The door was open from the passage into a room that was lighted by two candles.
"If it had not been for your promise that you would certainly come, I should have given up expecting you."