d
looked on with dismay from a distance. I did, indeed, go about here and
there, and, as before, brought him various items of news, without which
he could not exist.

I need hardly say that there were rumours of the most varied kind
going about the town in regard to the blow that Stavrogin had received,
Lizaveta Nikolaevna's fainting fit, and all that happened on that
Sunday. But what we wondered was, through whom the story had got about
so quickly and so accurately. Not one of the persons present had any
need to give away the secret of what had happened, or interest to serve
by doing so.

The servants had not been present. Lebyadkin was the only one who might
have chattered, not so much from spite, for he had gone out in great
alarm (and fear of an enemy destroys spite against him), but simply from
incontinence of speech. But Lebyadkin and his sister had disappeared next
day, and nothing could be heard of them. There was no trace of them at
Filipov's house, they had moved, no one knew where, and seemed to have
vanished. Shatov, of whom I wanted to inquire about Marya Timofyevna,
would not open his door, and I believe sat locked up in his room for the
whole of those eight days, even discontinuing his work in the town. He
would not see me. I went to see him on Tuesday and knocked at his door.
I got no answer, but being convinced by unmistakable evidence that he
was at home, I knocked a second time. Then, jumping up, apparently from
his bed, he strode to the door and shouted at the top of his voice:

"Shatov is not at home!"

With that I went away.

Stepan Trofimovitch and I, not without dismay at the boldness of the
supposition, though we tried to encourage one another, reached at last
a conclusion: we made up our mind that the only person who could be
responsible for spreading these rumours was Pyotr Stepanovitch, though
he himself not long after assured his father that he had found the story
on every one's lips, especially at the club, and that the governor
and his wife were familiar with every detail of it. What is even more
remarkable is that the next day, Monday evening, I met Liputin, and
he knew every word that had been passed, so that he must have heard it
first-hand. Many of the ladies (and some of the leading ones) were
very inquisitive about the "mysterious cripple," as they called Marya
Timofyevna. There were some, indeed, who were anxious to see her and
make her acquaintance, so the intervention of the