o say, he exonerated Nikolay Stavrogin from
all share in the secret society, from any collaboration with Pyotr
Stepanovitch. (Lyamshin had no conception of the secret and very absurd
hopes that Pyotr Stepanovitch was resting on Stavrogin.) According to
his story Nikolay Stavrogin had nothing whatever to do with the death of
the Lebyadkins, which had been planned by Pyotr Stepanovitch alone
and with the subtle aim of implicating the former in the crime, and
therefore making him dependent on Pyotr Stepanovitch; but instead of
the gratitude on which Pyotr Stepanovitch had reckoned with shallow
confidence, he had roused nothing but indignation and even despair in
"the generous heart of Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch." He wound up, by a hint,
evidently intentional, volunteered hastily, that Stavrogin was perhaps
a very important personage, but that there was some secret about that,
that he had been living among us, so to say, incognito, that he had some
commission, and that very possibly he would come back to us again
from Petersburg. (Lyamshin was convinced that Stavrogin had gone
to Petersburg), but in quite a different capacity and in different
surroundings, in the suite of persons of whom perhaps we should soon
hear, and that all this he had heard from Pyotr Stepanovitch, "Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch's secret enemy."

Here I will note that two months later, Lyamshin admitted that he had
exonerated Stavrogin on purpose, hoping that he would protect him and
would obtain for him a mitigation in the second degree of his sentence,
and that he would provide him with money and letters of introduction
in Siberia. From this confession it is evident that he had an
extraordinarily exaggerated conception of Stavrogin's powers.

On the same day, of course, the police arrested Virginsky and in their
zeal took his whole family too. (Arina Prohorovna, her sister, aunt, and
even the girl student were released long ago; they say that Shigalov too
will be set free very shortly because he cannot be classed with any of
the other prisoners. But all that is so far only gossip.) Virginsky at
once pleaded guilty. He was lying ill with fever when he was arrested.
I am told that he seemed almost relieved; "it was a load off his heart,"
he is reported to have said. It is rumoured that he is giving his
evidence without reservation, but with a certain dignity, and has not
given up any of his "bright hopes," though at the same time he curses
the political metho