"You are unhappy?
You are in need of help?"
"I am in need.... I have come..." faltered the "unhappy" creature, in a voice broken with emotion.
"I have come only to kiss your hand...." Again she giggled.
With the childish look with which little children caress someone, begging for a favour, she stretched forward to seize Varvara Petrovna's hand, but, as though panic-stricken, drew her hands back.
"Is that all you have come for?" said Varvara Petrovna, with a compassionate smile; but at once she drew her mother-of-pearl purse out of her pocket, took out a ten-rouble note and gave it to the unknown.
The latter took it.
Varvara Petrovna was much interested and evidently did not look upon her as an ordinary low-class beggar.
"I say, she gave her ten roubles!" someone said in the crowd.
"Let me kiss your hand," faltered the unknown, holding tight in the fingers of her left hand the corner of the ten-rouble note, which fluttered in the draught.
Varvara Petrovna frowned slightly, and with a serious, almost severe, face held out her hand. The cripple kissed it with reverence.
Her grateful eyes shone with positive ecstasy.
At that moment the governor's wife came up, and a whole crowd of ladies and high officials flocked after her.
The governor's wife was forced to stand still for a moment in the crush; many people stopped.
"You are trembling. Are you cold?" Varvara Petrovna observed suddenly, and flinging off her pelisse which a footman caught in mid-air, she took from her own shoulders a very expensive black shawl, and with her own hands wrapped it round the bare neck of the still kneeling woman.
"But get up, get up from your knees I beg you!"
The woman got up.
"Where do you live?
Is it possible no one knows where she lives?" Varvara Petrovna glanced round impatiently again.
But the crowd was different now: she saw only the faces of acquaintances, people in society, surveying the scene, some with severe astonishment, others with sly curiosity and at the same time guileless eagerness for a sensation, while others positively laughed.
"I believe her name's Lebyadkin," a good-natured person volunteered at last in answer to Varvara Petrovna. It was our respectable and respected merchant Andreev, a man in spectacles with a grey beard, wearing Russian dress and holding a high round hat in his hands. "They live in the Filipovs' house in Bogoyavlensky Street."
"Lebyadkin?
Filipovs' house?
I have heard something.... Thank you, Nikon Semyonitch. But who is this Lebyadkin?"
"He calls himself a captain, a man, it must be said, not over careful in his behaviour.
And no doubt this is his sister.
She must have escaped from under control," Nikon Semyonitch went on, dropping his voice, and glancing significantly at Varvara Petrovna.
"I understand. Thank you, Nikon Semyonitch.
Your name is Mlle. Lebyadkin?"
"No, my name's not Lebyadkin."
"Then perhaps your brother's name is Lebyadkin?"
"My brother's name is Lebyadkin."
"This is what I'll do, I'll take you with me now, my dear, and you shall be driven from me to your family. Would you like to go with me?"
"Ach, I should!" cried Mlle. Lebyadkin, clasping her hands.
"Auntie, auntie, take me with you too!" the voice of Lizaveta Nikolaevna cried suddenly.
I must observe that Lizaveta Nikolaevna had come to the cathedral with the governor's wife, while Praskovya Ivanovna had by the doctor's orders gone for a drive in her carriage, taking Mavriky Nikolaevitch to entertain her.
Liza suddenly left the governor's wife and ran up to Varvara Petrovna.
"My dear, you know I'm always glad to have you, but what will your mother say?" Varvara Petrovna began majestically, but she became suddenly confused, noticing Liza's extraordinary agitation.
"Auntie, auntie, I must come with you!" Liza implored, kissing Varvara Petrovna.
"Mais qu'avez vous donc, Lise?" the governor's wife asked with expressive wonder.
"Ah, forgive me, darling, chere cousine, I'm going to auntie's." Liza turned in passing to her unpleasantly surprised chere cousine, and kissed her twice.
"And tell maman to follow me to auntie's directly; maman meant, fully meant to come and see you, she said so this morning herself, I forgot to tell you," Liza pattered on. "I beg your pardon, don't be angry, Julie, chere...cousine....Auntie, I'm ready!"
"If you don't take me with you, auntie, I'll run after your carriage, screaming," she whispered rapidly and despairingly in Varvara Petrovna's ear; it was lucky that no one heard.
Varvara Petrovna positively staggered back, and bent her penetrating gaze on the mad girl.
That gaze settled everything. She made up her mind to take Liza with her.
"We must put an end to this!" broke from her lips.
"Very well, I'll take you with pleasure, Liza," she added aloud, "if Yulia Mihailovna is willing to let you come, of course." With a candid air and straightforward dignity she addressed the governor's wife directly.
"Oh, certainly, I don't want to deprive her of such a pleasure especially as I am myself..." Yulia Mihailovna lisped with amazing affability—"I myself... know well what a fantastic, wilful little head it is!" Yulia Mihailovna gave a charming smile.
"I thank you extremely," said Varvara Petrovna, with a courteous and dignified bow.
"And I am the more gratified," Yulia Mihailovna went on, lisping almost rapturously, flushing all over with agreeable excitement, "that, apart from the pleasure of being with you Liza should be carried away by such an excellent, I may say lofty, feeling... of compassion..." (she glanced at the "unhappy creature") "and... and at the very portal of the temple...."