t a belt ready for you to tie me with. A lucky journey to
you, sir. You kept the helpless snug under your umbrella. For that
alone I'll be grateful to you to my dying day." He fell behind. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch walked on to his destination, feeling disturbed. This
man who had dropped from the sky was absolutely convinced that he was
indispensable to him, Stavrogin, and was in insolent haste to tell him
so. He was being treated unceremoniously all round. But it was possible,
too, that the tramp had not been altogether lying, and had tried
to force his services upon him on his own initiative, without Pyotr
Stepanovitch's knowledge, and that would be more curious still.

II

The house which Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had reached stood alone in a
deserted lane between fences, beyond which market gardens stretched, at
the very end of the town. It was a very solitary little wooden house,
which was only just built and not yet weather-boarded. In one of the
little windows the shutters were not yet closed, and there was a candle
standing on the window-ledge, evidently as a signal to the late guest
who was expected that night. Thirty paces away Stavrogin made out on the
doorstep the figure of a tall man, evidently the master of the house,
who had come out to stare impatiently up the road. He heard his voice,
too, impatient and, as it were, timid.

"Is that you? You?"

"Yes," responded Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, but not till he had mounted
the steps and was folding up his umbrella.

"At last, sir." Captain Lebyadkin, for it was he, ran fussily to and
fro. "Let me take your umbrella, please. It's very wet; I'll open it on
the floor here, in the corner. Please walk in. Please walk in."

The door was open from the passage into a room that was lighted by two
candles.

"If it had not been for your promise that you would certainly come, I
should have given up expecting you."

"A quarter to one," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, looking at his watch,
as he went into the room.

"And in this rain; and such an interesting distance. I've no clock...
and there are nothing but market-gardens round me... so that you fall
behind the times. Not that I murmur exactly; for I dare not, I dare not,
but only because I've been devoured with impatience all the week... to
have things settled at last."

"How so?"

"To hear my fate, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. Please sit down."

He bowed, pointing to a seat by the table, before the sofa.

Nikolay