"That's a lie!
I put up with the libel though. I could with one word... do you understand what she is?"
"What?" Shatov at once drew near the door inquisitively.
"But will you understand?"
"Yes, I shall understand, tell me what?"
"I'm not afraid to say!
I'm never afraid to say anything in public!..."
"You not afraid? A likely story," said Shatov, taunting him, and nodding to me to listen.
"Me afraid?"
"Yes, I think you are."
"Me afraid?"
"Well then, tell away if you're not afraid of your master's whip.... You're a coward, though you are a captain!"
"I... I... she's... she's..." faltered Lebyadkin in a voice shaking with excitement.
"Well?" Shatov put his ear to the door.
A silence followed, lasting at least half a minute.
"Sc-ou-oundrel!" came from the other side of the door at last, and the captain hurriedly beat a retreat downstairs, puffing like a samovar, stumbling on every step.
"Yes, he's a sly one, and won't give himself away even when he's drunk." Shatov moved away from the door.
"What's it all about?" I asked.
Shatov waved aside the question, opened the door and began listening on the stairs again. He listened a long while, and even stealthily descended a few steps.
At last he came back.
"There's nothing to be heard; he isn't beating her; he must have flopped down at once to go to sleep.
It's time for you to go."
"Listen, Shatov, what am I to gather from all this?"
"Oh, gather what you like!" he answered in a weary and disgusted voice, and he sat down to his writing-table.
I went away.
An improbable idea was growing stronger and stronger in my mind.
I thought of the next day with distress....
VII
This "next day," the very Sunday which was to decide Stepan Trofimovitch's fate irrevocably, was one of the most memorable days in my chronicle.
It was a day of surprises, a day that solved past riddles and suggested new ones, a day of startling revelations, and still more hopeless perplexity.
In the morning, as the reader is already aware, I had by Varvara Petrovna's particular request to accompany my friend on his visit to her, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I had to be with Lizaveta Nikolaevna in order to tell her—I did not know what—and to assist her—I did not know how.
And meanwhile it all ended as no one could have expected.
In a word, it was a day of wonderful coincidences.
To begin with, when Stepan Trofimovitch and I arrived at Varvara Petrovna's at twelve o'clock punctually, the time she had fixed, we did not find her at home; she had not yet come back from church.
My poor friend was so disposed, or, more accurately speaking, so indisposed that this circumstance crushed him at once; he sank almost helpless into an arm-chair in the drawing-room.
I suggested a glass of water; but in spite of his pallor and the trembling of his hands, he refused it with dignity.
His get-up for the occasion was, by the way, extremely recherche: a shirt of batiste and embroidered, almost fit for a ball, a white tie, a new hat in his hand, new straw-coloured gloves, and even a suspicion of scent.
We had hardly sat down when Shatov was shown in by the butler, obviously also by official invitation.
Stepan Trofimovitch was rising to shake hands with him, but Shatov, after looking attentively at us both, turned away into a corner, and sat down there without even nodding to us.
Stepan Trofimovitch looked at me in dismay again.
We sat like this for some minutes longer in complete silence.
Stepan Trofimovitch suddenly began whispering something to me very quickly, but I could not catch it; and indeed, he was so agitated himself that he broke off without finishing.
The butler came in once more, ostensibly to set something straight on the table, more probably to take a look at us.
Shatov suddenly addressed him with a loud question:
"Alexey Yegorytch, do you know whether Darya Pavlovna has gone with her?"
"Varvara Petrovna was pleased to drive to the cathedral alone, and Darya Pavlovna was pleased to remain in her room upstairs, being indisposed," Alexey Yegorytch announced formally and reprovingly.
My poor friend again stole a hurried and agitated glance at me, so that at last I turned away from him.
Suddenly a carriage rumbled at the entrance, and some commotion at a distance in the house made us aware of the lady's return.
We all leapt up from our easy chairs, but again a surprise awaited us; we heard the noise of many footsteps, so our hostess must have returned not alone, and this certainly was rather strange, since she had fixed that time herself.
Finally, we heard some one come in with strange rapidity as though running, in a way that Varvara Petrovna could not have come in.