scaped from a
hospital, attracted attention only too quickly, of course. There arose
a hubbub of loud talking and at last sudden shouts. Some one bawled out,
"It's Stavrogin's woman!" And on the other side, "It's not enough to
murder them, she wants to look at them!" All at once I saw an arm raised
above her head from behind and suddenly brought down upon it. Liza fell
to the ground. We heard a fearful scream from Mavriky Nikolaevitch as
he dashed to her assistance and struck with all his strength the man who
stood between him and Liza. But at that instant the same cabinetmaker
seized him with both arms from behind. For some minutes nothing could be
distinguished in the scrimmage that followed. I believe Liza got up but
was knocked down by another blow. Suddenly the crowd parted and a
small space was left empty round Liza's prostrate figure, and Mavriky
Nikolaevitch, frantic with grief and covered with blood, was standing
over her, screaming, weeping, and wringing his hands. I don't remember
exactly what followed after; I only remember that they began to carry
Liza away. I ran after her. She was still alive and perhaps still
conscious. The cabinet-maker and three other men in the crowd were
seized. These three still deny having taken any part in the dastardly
deed, stubbornly maintaining that they have been arrested by mistake.
Perhaps it's the truth. Though the evidence against the cabinet-maker
is clear, he is so irrational that he is still unable to explain what
happened coherently. I too, as a spectator, though at some distance,
had to give evidence at the inquest. I declared that it had all happened
entirely accidentally through the action of men perhaps moved by
ill-feeling, yet scarcely conscious of what they were doing--drunk and
irresponsible. I am of that opinion to this day.

CHAPTER IV. THE LAST RESOLUTION

THAT MORNING MANY people saw Pyotr Stepanovitch. All who saw him
remembered that he was in a particularly excited state. At two o'clock
he went to see Gaganov, who had arrived from the country only the day
before, and whose house was full of visitors hotly discussing the events
of the previous day. Pyotr Stepanovitch talked more than anyone and made
them listen to him. He was always considered among us as a "chatterbox
of a student with a screw loose," but now he talked of Yulia Mihailovna,
and in the general excitement the theme was an enthralling one. As one
who had recently been her intimate and