Everybody thinks and then at once thinks of something else.
I can't think of something else. I think all my life of one thing.
God has tormented me all my life," he ended up suddenly with astonishing expansiveness.
"And tell me, if I may ask, why is it you speak Russian not quite correctly?
Surely you haven't forgotten it after five years abroad?"
"Don't I speak correctly?
I don't know.
No, it's not because of abroad.
I have talked like that all my life... it's no matter to me."
"Another question, a more delicate one. I quite believe you that you're disinclined to meet people and talk very little.
Why have you talked to me now?"
"To you?
This morning you sat so nicely and you... but it's all no matter... you are like my brother, very much, extremely," he added, flushing. "He has been dead seven years. He was older, very, very much."
"I suppose he had a great influence on your way of thinking?"
"N-no. He said little; he said nothing.
I'll give your note."
He saw me to the gate with a lantern, to lock it after me.
"Of course he's mad," I decided.
In the gateway I met with another encounter.
IX
I had only just lifted my leg over the high barrier across the bottom of the gateway, when suddenly a strong hand clutched at my chest.
"Who's this?" roared a voice, "a friend or an enemy?
Own up!"
"He's one of us; one of us!" Liputin's voice squealed near by. "It's Mr. G——v, a young man of classical education, in touch with the highest society."
"I love him if he's in society, clas-si... that means he's high-ly ed-u-cated. The retired Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the service of the world and his friends... if they're true ones, if they're true ones, the scoundrels."
Captain Lebyadkin, a stout, fleshy man over six feet in height, with curly hair and a red face, was so extremely drunk that he could scarcely stand up before me, and articulated with difficulty.
I had seen him before, however, in the distance.
"And this one!" he roared again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing with the lantern; he raised his fist, but let it fall again at once.
"I forgive you for your learning!
Ignat Lebyadkin—high-ly ed-u-cated....
'A bomb of love with stinging smart Exploded in Ignaty's heart.
In anguish dire I weep again The arm that at Sevastopol I lost in bitter pain!'
Not that I ever was at Sevastopol, or ever lost my arm, but you know what rhyme is." He pushed up to me with his ugly, tipsy face.
"He is in a hurry, he is going home!" Liputin tried to persuade him. "He'll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna to-morrow."
"Lizaveta!" he yelled again. "Stay, don't go!
A variation:
'Among the Amazons a star, Upon her steed she flashes by, And smiles upon me from afar, The child of aris-to-cra-cy!
To a Starry Amazon.'
You know that's a hymn.
It's a hymn, if you're not an ass!
The duffers, they don't understand!
Stay!" He caught hold of my coat, though I pulled myself away with all my might.
"Tell her I'm a knight and the soul of honour, and as for that Dasha... I'd pick her up and chuck her out.... She's only a serf, she daren't..."
At this point he fell down, for I pulled myself violently out of his hands and ran into the street.
Liputin clung on to me.
"Alexey Nilitch will pick him up.
Do you know what I've just found out from him?" he babbled in desperate haste.
"Did you hear his verses?
He's sealed those verses to the
'Starry Amazon' in an envelope and is going to send them to-morrow to Lizaveta Nikolaevna, signed with his name in full.