the habit from Russians travelling abroad, or from
those wealthy landowners of former days who had suffered most from the
emancipation. Stepan Trofimovitch had observed that the more completely
a landowner was ruined, the more suavely he lisped and drawled his
words. He did, as a fact, lisp and drawl himself, but was not aware of
it in himself.

The general spoke like a person of authority. He was, besides, a distant
relation of Gaganov's, though he was on bad terms with him, and even
engaged in litigation with him. He had, moreover, in the past, fought
two duels himself, and had even been degraded to the ranks and sent to
the Caucasus on account of one of them. Some mention was made of Varvara
Petrovna's having driven out that day and the day before, after being
kept indoors "by illness," though the allusion was not to her, but to
the marvellous matching of her four grey horses of the Stavrogins'
own breeding. The general suddenly observed that he had met "young
Stavrogin" that day, on horseback.... Every one was instantly silent.
The general munched his lips, and suddenly proclaimed, twisting in his
fingers his presentation gold snuff-box.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here some years ago... I mean when I was at
Carlsbad... H'm! I'm very much interested in that young man about whom
I heard so many rumours at that time. H'm! And, I say, is it true that
he's mad? Some one told me so then. Suddenly I'm told that he has been
insulted by some student here, in the presence of his cousins, and he
slipped under the table to get away from him. And yesterday I heard
from Stepan Vysotsky that Stavrogin had been fighting with Gaganov. And
simply with the gallant object of offering himself as a target to an
infuriated man, just to get rid of him. H'm! Quite in the style of the
guards of the twenties. Is there any house where he visits here?"

The general paused as though expecting an answer. A way had been opened
for the public impatience to express itself.

"What could be simpler?" cried Yulia Mihailovna, raising her voice,
irritated that all present had turned their eyes upon her, as though
at a word of command. "Can one wonder that Stavrogin fought Gaganov and
took no notice of the student? He couldn't challenge a man who used to
be his serf!"

A noteworthy saying! A clear and simple notion, yet it had entered
nobody's head till that moment. It was a saying that had extraordinary
consequences. All scandal and gossip, all the petty