"Lise," cried Stepan Trofimovitch, rushing to her almost in delirium too.
"Chere, chere.... Can you be out, too... in such a fog?
You see the glow of fire.
Vous etes malheureuse, n'est-ce pas?
I see, I see. Don't tell me, but don't question me either.
Nous sommes tous malheureux mais il faut les pardonner tous.
Pardonnons, Lise, and let us be free forever.
To be quit of the world and be completely free. Il faut pardonner, pardonner, et pardonner!"
"But why are you kneeling down?"
"Because, taking leave of the world, I want to take leave of all my past in your person!"
He wept and raised both her hands to his tear-stained eyes.
"I kneel to all that was beautiful in my life. I kiss and give thanks!
Now I've torn myself in half; left behind a mad visionary who dreamed of soaring to the sky. Vingt-deux ans, here.
A shattered, frozen old man. A tutor chez ce marchand, s'il existe pourtant ce marchand.... But how drenched you are, Lise!" he cried, jumping on to his feet, feeling that his knees too were soaked by the wet earth. "And how is it possible... you are in such a dress... and on foot, and in these fields?... You are crying!
Vous etes malheureuse.
Bah, I did hear something.... But where have you come from now?" He asked hurried questions with an uneasy air, looking in extreme bewilderment at Mavriky Nikolaevitch. "Mais savez-vous l'heure qu'il est?"
"Stepan Trofimovitch, have you heard anything about the people who've been murdered?... Is it true?
Is it true?"
"These people!
I saw the glow of their work all night.
They were bound to end in this...." His eyes flashed again. "I am fleeing away from madness, from a delirious dream. I am fleeing away to seek for Russia. Existe-t-elle, la Russie?
Bah! C'est vous, cher capitaine!
I've never doubted that I should meet you somewhere on some high adventure.... But take my umbrella, and—why must you be on foot?
For God's sake, do at least take my umbrella, for I shall hire a carriage somewhere in any case.
I am on foot because Stasie (I mean, Nastasya) would have shouted for the benefit of the whole street if she'd found out I was going away. So I slipped away as far as possible incognito.
I don't know; in the Voice they write of there being brigands everywhere, but I thought surely I shouldn't meet a brigand the moment I came out on the road.
Chere Lise, I thought you said something of someone's being murdered.
Oh, mon Dieu! You are ill!"
"Come along, come along!" cried Liza, almost in hysterics, drawing Mavriky Nikolaevitch after her again.
"Wait a minute, Stepan Trofimovitch!" she came back suddenly to him. "Stay, poor darling, let me sign you with the cross.
Perhaps, it would be better to put you under control, but I'd rather make the sign of the cross over you.
You, too, pray for 'poor' Liza—just a little, don't bother too much about it.
Mavriky Nikolaevitch, give that baby back his umbrella. You must give it him.
That's right.... Come, let us go, let us go!"
They reached the fatal house at the very moment when the huge crowd, which had gathered round it, had already heard a good deal of Stavrogin, and of how much it was to his interest to murder his wife.
Yet, I repeat, the immense majority went on listening without moving or uttering a word.
The only people who were excited were bawling drunkards and excitable individuals of the same sort as the gesticulatory cabinet-maker.
Every one knew the latter as a man really of mild disposition, but he was liable on occasion to get excited and to fly off at a tangent if anything struck him in a certain way.
I did not see Liza and Mavriky Nikolaevitch arrive.
Petrified with amazement, I first noticed Liza some distance away in the crowd, and I did not at once catch sight of Mavriky Nikolaevitch.
I fancy there was a moment when he fell two or three steps behind her or was pressed back by the crush.
Liza, forcing her way through the crowd, seeing and noticing nothing round her, like one in a delirium, like a patient escaped from a hospital, attracted attention only too quickly, of course. There arose a hubbub of loud talking and at last sudden shouts.
Some one bawled out,
"It's Stavrogin's woman!"
And on the other side,
"It's not enough to murder them, she wants to look at them!"
All at once I saw an arm raised above her head from behind and suddenly brought down upon it. Liza fell to the ground.
We heard a fearful scream from Mavriky Nikolaevitch as he dashed to her assistance and struck with all his strength the man who stood between him and Liza.
But at that instant the same cabinetmaker seized him with both arms from behind.
For some minutes nothing could be distinguished in the scrimmage that followed.