What can be more foolish than a good-natured simpleton?"
"A spiteful fool, ma bonne amie, a spiteful fool is still more foolish," Stepan Trofimovitch protested magnanimously.
"You're right, perhaps. Do you remember Liza?"
"Charmante enfant!"
"But she's not an enfant now, but a woman, and a woman of character.
She's a generous, passionate creature, and what I like about her, she stands up to that confiding fool, her mother.
There was almost a row over that cousin."
"Bah, and of course he's no relation of Lizaveta Nikolaevna's at all.... Has he designs on her?"
"You see, he's a young officer, not by any means talkative, modest in fact.
I always want to be just.
I fancy he is opposed to the intrigue himself, and isn't aiming at anything, and it was only the Von Lembke's tricks.
He had a great respect for Nicolas.
You understand, it all depends on Liza. But I left her on the best of terms with Nicolas, and he promised he would come to us in November.
So it's only the Von Lembke who is intriguing, and Praskovya is a blind woman.
She suddenly tells me that all my suspicions are fancy. I told her to her face she was a fool.
I am ready to repeat it at the day of judgment.
And if it hadn't been for Nicolas begging me to leave it for a time, I wouldn't have come away without unmasking that false woman.
She's been trying to ingratiate herself with Count K. through Nicolas. She wants to come between mother and son.
But Liza's on our side, and I came to an understanding with Praskovya.
Do you know that Karmazinov is a relation of hers?"
"What?
A relation of Madame von Lembke?"
"Yes, of hers.
Distant."
"Karmazinov, the novelist?"
"Yes, the writer. Why does it surprise you?
Of course he considers himself a great man.
Stuck-up creature!
She's coming here with him. Now she's making a fuss of him out there.
She's got a notion of setting up a sort of literary society here.
He's coming for a month, he wants to sell his last piece of property here.
I very nearly met him in Switzerland, and was very anxious not to.
Though I hope he will deign to recognise me.
He wrote letters to me in the old days, he has been in my house.
I should like you to dress better, Stepan Trofimovitch; you're growing more slovenly every day.... Oh, how you torment me!
What are you reading now?"
"I... I..."
"I understand.
The same as ever, friends and drinking, the club and cards, and the reputation of an atheist.
I don't like that reputation, Stepan Trofimovitch; I don't care for you to be called an atheist, particularly now.
I didn't care for it in old days, for it's all nothing but empty chatter.
It must be said at last."
"Mais, ma chere..."
"Listen, Stepan Trofimovitch, of course I'm ignorant compared with you on all learned subjects, but as I was travelling here I thought a great deal about you.
I've come to one conclusion."
"What conclusion?"
"That you and I are not the wisest people in the world, but that there are people wiser than we are."
"Witty and apt.
If there are people wiser than we are, then there are people more right than we are, and we may be mistaken, you mean?
Mais, ma bonne amie, granted that I may make a mistake, yet have I not the common, human, eternal, supreme right of freedom of conscience?