entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course,
though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at
the time when he had received the news of his first wife's death in
Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so
shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight
of him. The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and
one of them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled
the idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity,
and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that
he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain,
and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was
talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta's condition,
and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then
suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no
other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken
band five had left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly
and much respected civil councilor, the father of grown-up daughters, who
could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation
for it. But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in
pointing at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him: he would
not have troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he
was proud, and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the
officials and nobles, whom he entertained so well.

At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked
quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some
people round to his side. "It's the wench's own fault," he asserted, and
the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and
whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This
conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in
the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three
people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular
sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A
well-to-do merchant's widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her
house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the
confinement. They kept a