fterwards that in another moment
she would have fallen into a-swoon. One of the most respectable old
gentlemen helped his old wife on to her feet, and they walked out of the
hall accompanied by the agitated glances of the audience. Who knows,
the example might have infected others if Karmazinov himself, wearing a
dress-coat and a white tie and carrying a manuscript, in his hand, had
not appeared on the platform at that moment. Yulia Mihailovna turned
an ecstatic gaze at him as on her deliverer.... But I was by that time
behind the scenes. I was in quest of Liputin.

"You did that on purpose!" I said, seizing him indignantly by the arm.

"I assure you I never thought..." he began, cringing and lying at once,
pretending to be unhappy. "The verses had only just been brought and I
thought that as an amusing pleasantry...."

"You did not think anything of the sort. You can't really think that
stupid rubbish an amusing pleasantry?"

"Yes, I do."

"You are simply lying, and it wasn't brought to you just now. You helped
Lebyadkin to compose it yourself, yesterday very likely, to create a
scandal. The last verse must have been yours, the part about the sexton
too. Why did he come on in a dress-coat? You must have meant him to read
it, too, if he had not been drunk?"

Liputin looked at me coldly and ironically.

"What business is it of yours?" he asked suddenly with strange calm.

"What business is it of mine? You are wearing the steward's badge,
too.... Where is Pyotr Stepanovitch?"

"I don't know, somewhere here; why do you ask?"

"Because now I see through it. It's simply a plot against Yulia
Mihailovna so as to ruin the day by a scandal...."

Liputin looked at me askance again.

"But what is it to you?" he said, grinning. He shrugged his shoulders
and walked away.

It came over me with a rush. All my suspicions were confirmed. Till
then, I had been hoping I was mistaken! What was I to do? I was on the
point of asking the advice of Stepan Trofimovitch, but he was standing
before the looking-glass, trying on different smiles, and continually
consulting a piece of paper on which he had notes. He had to go
on immediately after Karmazinov, and was not in a fit state for
conversation. Should I run to Yulia Mihailovna? But it was too soon
to go to her: she needed a much sterner lesson to cure her of
her conviction that she had "a following," and that every one was
"fanatically devoted" to her. She would not have beli