See what can be done by crude, simple coincidence—eh?"
"Are you threatening me, you fool?"
"Come, leave off, leave off! Here you are, calling me a fool, and what a tone to use!
You ought to be glad, yet you... I rushed here on purpose to let you know in good time.... Besides, how could I threaten you?
As if I cared for what I could get by threats!
I want you to help from goodwill and not from fear.
You are the light and the sun.... It's I who am terribly afraid of you, not you of me!
I am not Mavriky Nikolaevitch.... And only fancy, as I flew here in a racing droshky I saw Mavriky Nikolaevitch by the fence at the farthest corner of your garden... in his greatcoat, drenched through, he must have been sitting there all night!
Queer goings on! How mad people can be!"
"Mavriky Nikolaevitch?
Is that true?"
"Yes, yes.
He is sitting by the garden fence.
About three hundred paces from here, I think.
I made haste to pass him, but he saw me.
Didn't you know?
In that case I am glad I didn't forget to tell you.
A man like that is more dangerous than anyone if he happens to have a revolver about him, and then the night, the sleet, or natural irritability—for after all he is in a nice position, ha ha!
What do you think? Why is he sitting there?"
"He is waiting for Lizaveta Nikolaevna, of course."
"Well!
Why should she go out to him?
And... in such rain too... what a fool!"
"She is just going out to him!"
"Eh!
That's a piece of news!
So then... But listen, her position is completely changed now. What does she want with Mavriky now?
You are free, a widower, and can marry her to-morrow.
She doesn't know yet—leave it to me and I'll arrange it all for you.
Where is she? We must relieve her mind too."
"Relieve her mind?"
"Rather! Let's go."
"And do you suppose she won't guess what those dead bodies mean?" said Stavrogin, screwing up his eyes in a peculiar way.
"Of course she won't," said Pyotr Stepanovitch with all the confidence of a perfect simpleton, "for legally... Ech, what a man you are!
What if she did guess?
Women are so clever at shutting their eyes to such things, you don't understand women!
Apart from it's being altogether to her interest to marry you now, because there's no denying she's disgraced herself; apart from that, I talked to her of 'the boat' and I saw that one could affect her by it, so that shows you what the girl is made of.
Don't be uneasy, she will step over those dead bodies without turning a hair—especially as you are not to blame for them; not in the least, are you?
She will only keep them in reserve to use them against you when you've been married two or three years.
Every woman saves up something of the sort out of her husband's past when she gets married, but by that time... what may not happen in a year?
Ha ha!"
"If you've come in a racing droshky, take her to Mavriky Nikolaevitch now.
She said just now that she could not endure me and would leave me, and she certainly will not accept my carriage."
"What!
Can she really be leaving?
How can this have come about?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, staring stupidly at him.
"She's guessed somehow during this night that I don't love her... which she knew all along, indeed."
"But don't you love her?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, with an expression of extreme surprise.
"If so, why did you keep her when she came to you yesterday, instead of telling her plainly like an honourable man that you didn't care for her?
That was horribly shabby on your part; and how mean you make me look in her eyes!"