you must ask
the prince, you must ask Mr.... You must not desert us, monsieur, just
when we have to begin all over again. And finally, you must appear
arm-in-arm with Andrey Antonovitch.... How is Andrey Antonovitch?"

"Oh, how unjustly, how untruly, how cruelly you have always judged that
angelic man!" Yulia Mihailovna cried in a sudden, outburst, almost with
tears, putting her handkerchief to her eyes.

Pyotr Stepanovitch was positively taken aback for the moment. "Good
heavens! I.... What have I said? I've always..."

"You never have, never! You have never done him justice."

"There's no understanding a woman," grumbled Pyotr Stepanovitch, with a
wry smile.

"He is the most sincere, the most delicate, the most angelic of men! The
most kind-hearted of men!"

"Well, really, as for kind-heartedness... I've always done him
justice...."

"Never! But let us drop it. I am too awkward in my defence of him.
This morning that little Jesuit, the marshal's wife, also dropped some
sarcastic hints about what happened yesterday."

"Oh, she has no thoughts to spare for yesterday now, she is full of
to-day. And why are you so upset at her not coming to the ball to-night?
Of course, she won't come after getting mixed up in such a scandal.
Perhaps it's not her fault, but still her reputation... her hands are
soiled."

"What do you mean; I don't understand? Why are her hands soiled?" Yulia
Mihailovna looked at him in perplexity.

"I don't vouch for the truth of it, but the town is ringing with the
story that it was she brought them together."

"What do you mean? Brought whom together?"

"What, do you mean to say you don't know?" he exclaimed with
well-simulated wonder. "Why Stavrogin and Lizaveta Nikolaevna."

"What? How?" we all cried out at once.

"Is it possible you don't know? Phew! Why, it is quite a tragic romance:
Lizaveta Nikolaevna was pleased to get out of that lady's carriage
and get straight into Stavrogin's carriage, and slipped off with 'the
latter' to Skvoreshniki in full daylight. Only an hour ago, hardly an
hour."

We were flabbergasted. Of course we fell to questioning him, but to our
wonder, although he "happened" to be a witness of the scene himself,
he could give us no detailed account of it. The thing seemed to have
happened like this: when the marshal's wife was driving Liza and Mavriky
Nikolaevitch from the matinee to the house of Praskovya Ivanovna (whose
legs were still bad) they saw a car