le; but at once she drew her mother-of-pearl purse out
of her pocket, took out a ten-rouble note and gave it to the unknown.
The latter took it. Varvara Petrovna was much interested and evidently
did not look upon her as an ordinary low-class beggar.

"I say, she gave her ten roubles!" some one said in the crowd.

"Let me kiss your hand," faltered the unknown, holding tight in the
fingers of her left hand the corner of the ten-rouble note, which
fluttered in the draught. Varvara Petrovna frowned slightly, and with
a serious, almost severe, face held out her hand. The cripple kissed it
with reverence. Her grateful eyes shone with positive ecstasy. At that
moment the governor's wife came up, and a whole crowd of ladies and high
officials flocked after her. The governor's wife was forced to stand
still for a moment in the crush; many people stopped.

"You are trembling. Are you cold?" Varvara Petrovna observed suddenly,
and flinging off her pelisse which a footman caught in mid-air, she took
from her own shoulders a very expensive black shawl, and with her own
hands wrapped it round the bare neck of the still kneeling woman.

"But get up, get up from your knees I beg you!"

The woman got up.

"Where do you live? Is it possible no one knows where she lives?"
Varvara Petrovna glanced round impatiently again. But the crowd was
different now: she saw only the faces of acquaintances, people in
society, surveying the scene, some with severe astonishment, others with
sly curiosity and at the same time guileless eagerness for a sensation,
while others positively laughed.

"I believe her name's Lebyadkin," a good-natured person volunteered at
last in answer to Varvara Petrovna. It was our respectable and respected
merchant Andreev, a man in spectacles with a grey beard, wearing Russian
dress and holding a high round hat in his hands. "They live in the
Filipovs' house in Bogoyavlensky Street."

"Lebyadkin? Filipovs' house? I have heard something.... Thank you, Nikon
Semyonitch. But who is this Lebyadkin?"

"He calls himself a captain, a man, it must be said, not over careful
in his behaviour. And no doubt this is his sister. She must have escaped
from under control," Nikon Semyonitch went on, dropping his voice, and
glancing significantly at Varvara Petrovna.

"I understand. Thank you, Nikon Semyonitch. Your name is Mlle.
Lebyadkin?"

"No, my name's not Lebyadkin."

"Then perhaps your brother's name is Lebyadkin?"

"