"Ah, you drunken dog!
He strips the ikons of their setting and then preaches about God!"
"D'you see, Pyotr Stepanovitch, I tell you truly that I have stripped the ikons, but I only took out the pearls; and how do you know? Perhaps my own tear was transformed into a pearl in the furnace of the Most High to make up for my sufferings, seeing I am just that very orphan, having no daily refuge.
Do you know from the books that once, in ancient times, a merchant with just such tearful sighs and prayers stole a pearl from the halo of the Mother of God, and afterwards, in the face of all the people, laid the whole price of it at her feet, and the Holy Mother sheltered him with her mantle before all the people, so that it was a miracle, and the command was given through the authorities to write it all down word for word in the Imperial books.
And you let a mouse in, so you insulted the very throne of God.
And if you were not my natural master, whom I dandled in my arms when I was a stripling, I would have done for you now, without budging from this place!"
Pyotr Stepanovitch flew into a violent rage.
"Tell me, have you seen Stavrogin to-day?"
"Don't you dare to question me.
Mr. Stavrogin is fairly amazed at you, and he had no share in it even in wish, let alone instructions or giving money.
You've presumed with me."
"You'll get the money and you'll get another two thousand in Petersburg, when you get there, in a lump sum, and you'll get more."
"You are lying, my fine gentleman, and it makes me laugh to see how easily you are taken in.
Mr. Stavrogin stands at the top of the ladder above you, and you yelp at him from below like a silly puppy dog, while he thinks it would be doing you an honour to spit at you."
"But do you know," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch in a rage, "that I won't let you stir a step from here, you scoundrel, and I'll hand you straight over to the police."
Fedka leapt on to his feet and his eyes gleamed with fury.
Pyotr Stepanovitch pulled out his revolver.
Then followed a rapid and revolting scene: before Pyotr Stepanovitch could take aim, Fedka swung round and in a flash struck him on the cheek with all his might.
Then there was the thud of a second blow, a third, then a fourth, all on the cheek.
Pyotr Stepanovitch was dazed; with his eyes starting out of his head, he muttered something, and suddenly crashed full length to the ground.
"There you are; take him," shouted Fedka with a triumphant swagger; he instantly took up his cap, his bag from under the bench, and was gone.
Pyotr Stepanovitch lay gasping and unconscious.
Liputin even imagined that he had been murdered.
Kirillov ran headlong into the kitchen.
"Water!" he cried, and ladling some water in an iron dipper from a bucket, he poured it over the injured man's head.
Pyotr Stepanovitch stirred, raised his head, sat up, and looked blankly about him.
"Well, how are you?" asked Kirillov.
Pyotr Stepanovitch looked at him intently, still not recognising him; but seeing Liputin peeping in from the kitchen, he smiled his hateful smile and suddenly got up, picking up his revolver from the floor.
"If you take it into your head to run away to-morrow like that scoundrel Stavrogin," he cried, pouncing furiously on Kirillov, pale, stammering, and hardly able to articulate his words, "I'll hang you... like a fly... or crush you... if it's at the other end of the world... do you understand!"
And he held the revolver straight at Kirillov's head; but almost at the same minute, coming completely to himself, he drew back his hand, thrust the revolver into his pocket, and without saying another word ran out of the house.
Liputin followed him.
They clambered through the same gap and again walked along the slope holding to the fence.
Pyotr Stepanovitch strode rapidly down the street so that Liputin could scarcely keep up with him.
At the first crossing he suddenly stopped.
"Well?" He turned to Liputin with a challenge.
Liputin remembered the revolver and was still trembling all over after the scene he had witnessed; but the answer seemed to come of itself irresistibly from his tongue:
"I think... I think that..." "Did you see what Fedka was drinking in the kitchen?"
"What he was drinking?
He was drinking vodka."
"Well then, let me tell you it's the last time in his life he will drink vodka.
I recommend you to remember that and reflect on it.
And now go to hell; you are not wanted till to-morrow. But mind now, don't be a fool!"
Liputin rushed home full speed.
IV
He had long had a passport in readiness made out in a false name.
It seems a wild idea that this prudent little man, the petty despot of his family, who was, above all things, a sharp man of business and a capitalist, and who was an official too (though he was a Fourierist), should long before have conceived the fantastic project of procuring this passport in case of emergency, that he might escape abroad by means of it if... he did admit the possibility of this if, though no doubt he was never able himself to formulate what this if might mean.
But now it suddenly formulated itself, and in a most unexpected way.
That desperate idea with which he had gone to Kirillov's after that "fool" he had heard from Pyotr Stepanovitch on the pavement, had been to abandon everything at dawn next day and to emigrate abroad.
If anyone doubts that such fantastic incidents occur in everyday Russian life, even now, let him look into the biographies of all the Russian exiles abroad.
Not one of them escaped with more wisdom or real justification.