"Do you understand, anyway, that he is mad now!" Pyotr Stepanovitch cried at the top of his voice.
"After all, his wife has just been murdered.
You see how white he is.... Why, he has been with you the whole night. He hasn't left your side a minute. How can you suspect him?"
"Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, tell me, as before God, are you guilty or not, and I swear I'll believe your word as though it were God's, and I'll follow you to the end of the earth. Yes, I will.
I'll follow you like a dog."
"Why are you tormenting her, you fantastic creature?" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch in exasperation.
"Lizaveta Nikolaevna, upon my oath, you can crush me into powder, but he is not guilty. On the contrary, it has crushed him, and he is raving, you see that.
He is not to blame in any way, not in any way, not even in thought!...
It's all the work of robbers who will probably be found within a week and flogged.... It's all the work of Fedka the convict, and some Shpigulin men, all the town is agog with it. That's why I say so too."
"Is that right?
Is that right?" Liza waited trembling for her final sentence.
"I did not kill them, and I was against it, but I knew they were going to be killed and I did not stop the murderers.
Leave me, Liza," Stavrogin brought out, and he walked into the drawing-room.
Liza hid her face in her hands and walked out of the house.
Pyotr Stepanovitch was rushing after her, but at once hurried back and went into the drawing-room.
"So that's your line?
That's your line?
So there's nothing you are afraid of?" He flew at Stavrogin in an absolute fury, muttering incoherently, scarcely able to find words and foaming at the mouth.
Stavrogin stood in the middle of the room and did not answer a word.
He clutched a lock of his hair in his left hand and smiled helplessly.
Pyotr Stepanovitch pulled him violently by the sleeve.
"Is it all over with you?
So that's the line you are taking?
You'll inform against all of us, and go to a monastery yourself, or to the devil.... But I'll do for you, though you are not afraid of me!"
"Ah! That's you chattering!" said Stavrogin, noticing him at last.
"Run," he said, coming to himself suddenly, "run after her, order the carriage, don't leave her.... Run, run!
Take her home so that no one may know... and that she mayn't go there... to the bodies... to the bodies.... Force her to get into the carriage...
Alexey Yegorytch!
Alexey Yegorytch!"
"Stay, don't shout!
By now she is in Mavriky's arms.... Mavriky won't put her into your carriage.... Stay!
There's something more important than the carriage!"
He seized his revolver again. Stavrogin looked at him gravely.
"Very well, kill me," he said softly, almost conciliatorily.
"Foo. Damn it! What a maze of false sentiment a man can get into!" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, shaking with rage.
"Yes, really, you ought to be killed!
She ought simply to spit at you!
Fine sort of 'magic boat,' you are; you are a broken-down, leaky old hulk!...
You ought to pull yourself together if only from spite!
Ech!
Why, what difference would it make to you since you ask for a bullet through your brains yourself?"
Stavrogin smiled strangely.
"If you were not such a buffoon I might perhaps have said yes now.... If you had only a grain of sense..."
"I am a buffoon, but I don't want you, my better half, to be one!
Do you understand me?"
Stavrogin did understand, though perhaps no one else did.
Shatov, for instance, was astonished when Stavrogin told him that Pyotr Stepanovitch had enthusiasm.
"Go to the devil now, and to-morrow perhaps I may wring something out of myself.
Come to-morrow."
"Yes?