Under her persistent, sincere, and intense hatred for you love is flashing out at every moment... and madness... the sincerest infinite love and... madness!
On the contrary, behind the love she feels for me, which is sincere too, every moment there are flashes of hatred... the most intense hatred!
I could never have fancied all these transitions... before."
"But I wonder, though, how could you come here and dispose of the hand of Lizaveta Nikolaevna?
Have you the right to do so?
Has she authorised you?"
Mavriky Nikolaevitch frowned and for a minute he looked down.
"That's all words on your part," he brought out suddenly, "words of revenge and triumph; I am sure you can read between the lines, and is this the time for petty vanity?
Haven't you satisfaction enough?
Must I really dot my i's and go into it all?
Very well, I will dot my i's, if you are so anxious for my humiliation. I have no right, it's impossible for me to be authorised; Lizaveta Nikolaevna knows nothing about it and her betrothed has finally lost his senses and is only fit for a madhouse, and, to crown everything, has come to tell you so himself.
You are the only man in the world who can make her happy, and I am the one to make her unhappy.
You are trying to get her, you are pursuing her, but—I don't know why—you won't marry her.
If it's because of a lovers' quarrel abroad and I must be sacrificed to end it, sacrifice me.
She is too unhappy and I can't endure it.
My words are not a sanction, not a prescription, and so it's no slur on your pride.
If you care to take my place at the altar, you can do it without any sanction from me, and there is no ground for me to come to you with a mad proposal, especially as our marriage is utterly impossible after the step I am taking now.
I cannot lead her to the altar feeling myself an abject wretch.
What I am doing here and my handing her over to you, perhaps her bitterest foe, is to my mind something so abject that I shall never get over it."
"Will you shoot yourself on our wedding day?"
"No, much later.
Why stain her bridal dress with my blood?
Perhaps I shall not shoot myself at all, either now or later."
"I suppose you want to comfort me by saying that?"
"You?
What would the blood of one more mean to you?"
He turned pale and his eyes gleamed.
A minute of silence followed.
"Excuse me for the questions I've asked you," Stavrogin began again; "some of them I had no business to ask you, but one of them I think I have every right to put to you. Tell me, what facts have led you to form a conclusion as to my feelings for Lizaveta Nikolaevna?
I mean to a conviction of a degree of feeling on my part as would justify your coming here... and risking such a proposal."
"What?" Mavriky Nikolaevitch positively started. "Haven't you been trying to win her?
Aren't you trying to win her, and don't you want to win her?"
"Generally speaking, I can't speak of my feeling for this woman or that to a third person or to anyone except the woman herself.
You must excuse it, it's a constitutional peculiarity.
But to make up for it, I'll tell you the truth about everything else; I am married, and it's impossible for me either to marry or to try 'to win' anyone."
Mavriky Nikolaevitch was so astounded that he started back in his chair and for some time stared fixedly into Stavrogin's face.
"Only fancy, I never thought of that," he muttered. "You said then, that morning, that you were not married... and so I believed you were not married."
He turned terribly pale; suddenly he brought his fist down on the table with all his might.
"If after that confession you don't leave Lizaveta Nikolaevna alone, if you make her unhappy, I'll kill you with my stick like a dog in a ditch!"
He jumped up and walked quickly out of the room.
Pyotr Stepanovitch, running in, found his host in a most unexpected frame of mind.
"Ah, that's you!" Stavrogin laughed loudly; his laughter seemed to be provoked simply by the appearance of Pyotr Stepanovitch as he ran in with such impulsive curiosity.
"Were you listening at the door?
Wait a bit. What have you come about?
I promised you something, didn't I? Ah, bah!
I remember, to meet 'our fellows.'
Let us go. I am delighted. You couldn't have thought of anything more appropriate."
He snatched up his hat and they both went at once out of the house.
"Are you laughing beforehand at the prospect of seeing 'our fellows'?" chirped gaily Pyotr Stepanovitch, dodging round him with obsequious alacrity, at one moment trying to walk beside his companion on the narrow brick pavement and at the next running right into the mud of the road; for Stavrogin walked in the middle of the pavement without observing that he left no room for anyone else.
"I am not laughing at all," he answered loudly and gaily; "on the contrary, I am sure that you have the most serious set of people there."