's what you're
asking to go to Petersburg for. If you haven't written, have you blabbed
to anybody here? Speak the truth. I've heard something."

"When I was drunk, to Liputin. Liputin's a traitor. I opened my heart to
him," whispered the poor captain.

"That's all very well, but there's no need to be an ass. If you had an
idea you should have kept it to yourself. Sensible people hold their
tongues nowadays; they don't go chattering."

"Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch!" said the captain, quaking. "You've had
nothing to do with it yourself; it's not you I've..."

"Yes. You wouldn't have ventured to kill the goose that laid your golden
eggs."

"Judge for yourself, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, judge for yourself," and,
in despair, with tears, the captain began hurriedly relating the story
of his life for the last four years. It was the most stupid story of
a fool, drawn into matters that did not concern him, and in his
drunkenness and debauchery unable, till the last minute, to grasp their
importance. He said that before he left Petersburg 'he had been drawn
in, at first simply through friendship, like a regular student, although
he wasn't a student,' and knowing nothing about it, 'without being
guilty of anything,' he had scattered various papers on staircases, left
them by dozens at doors, on bell-handles, had thrust them in as though
they were newspapers, taken them to the theatre, put them in people's
hats, and slipped them into pockets. Afterwards he had taken money from
them, 'for what means had I?' He had distributed all sorts of rubbish
through the districts of two provinces. "Oh, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch!"
he exclaimed, "what revolted me most was that this was utterly opposed
to civic, and still more to patriotic laws. They suddenly printed that
men were to go out with pitchforks, and to remember that those who went
out poor in the morning might go home rich at night. Only think of it!
It made me shudder, and yet I distributed it. Or suddenly five or six
lines addressed to the whole of Russia, apropos of nothing, 'Make haste
and lock up the churches, abolish God, do away with marriage, destroy
the right of inheritance, take up your knives,' that's all, and God
knows what it means. I tell you, I almost got caught with this five-line
leaflet. The officers in the regiment gave me a thrashing, but, bless
them for it, let me go. And last year I was almost caught when I passed
off French counterfeit notes for fifty roubles on K