“Ach! Don’t let him see us!” Liza cried suddenly, like a mad creature. “Come away, come away! To the woods, to the fields!”
And she ran back.
“Lizaveta Nikolaevna, this is such cowardice,” cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, running after her. “And why don’t you want him to see you? On the contrary, you must look him straight in the face, with pride.… If it’s some feeling about that … some maidenly … that’s such a prejudice, so out of date … But where are you going? Where are you going? Ech! she is running! Better go back to Stavrogin’s and take my droshky.… Where are you going? That’s the way to the fields! There! She’s fallen down!…”
He stopped. Liza was flying along like a bird, not conscious where she was going, and Pyotr Stepanovitch was already fifty paces behind her. She stumbled over a mound of earth and fell down. At the same moment there was the sound of a terrible shout from behind. It came from Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who had seen her flight and her fall, and was running to her across the field. In a flash Pyotr Stepanovitch had retired into Stavrogin’s gateway to make haste and get into his droshky.
Mavriky Nikolaevitch was already standing in terrible alarm by Liza, who had risen to her feet; he was bending over her and holding her hands in both of his. All the incredible surroundings of this meeting overwhelmed him, and tears were rolling down his cheeks. He saw the woman for whom he had such reverent devotion running madly across the fields, at such an hour, in such weather, with nothing over her dress, the gay dress she wore the day before now crumpled and muddy from her fall.… He could not utter a word; he took off his greatcoat, and with trembling hands put it round her shoulders. Suddenly he uttered a cry, feeling that she had pressed her lips to his hand.
“Liza,” he cried, “I am no good for anything, but don’t drive me away from you!”
“Oh, no! Let us make haste away from here. Don’t leave me!” and, seizing his hand, she drew him after her. “Mavriky Nikolaevitch,” she suddenly dropped her voice timidly, “I kept a bold face there all the time, but now I am afraid of death. I shall die soon, very soon, but I am afraid, I am afraid to die.…” she whispered, pressing his hand tight.
“Oh, if there were someone,” he looked round in despair. “Some passer-by! You will get your feet wet, you … will lose your reason!”
“It’s all right; it’s all right,” she tried to reassure him. “That’s right. I am not so frightened with you. Hold my hand, lead me.… Where are we going now? Home? No! I want first to see the people who have been murdered. His wife has been murdered they say, and he says he killed her himself. But that’s not true, is it? I want to see for myself those three who’ve been killed … on my account … it’s because of them his love for me has grown cold since last night.… I shall see and find out everything. Make haste, make haste, I know the house … there’s a fire there.… Mavriky Nikolaevitch, my dear one, don’t forgive me in my shame! Why forgive me? Why are you crying? Give me a blow and kill me here in the field, like a dog!”
“No one is your judge now,” Mavriky Nikolaevitch pronounced firmly. “God forgive you. I least of all can be your judge.”
But it would be strange to describe their conversation. And meanwhile they walked hand in hand quickly, hurrying as though they were crazy. They were going straight towards the fire. Mavriky Nikolaevitch still had hopes of meeting a cart at least, but no one came that way. A mist of fine, drizzling rain enveloped the whole country, swallowing up every ray of light, every gleam of colour, and transforming everything into one smoky, leaden, indistinguishable mass. It had long been daylight, yet it seemed as though it were still night. And suddenly in this cold foggy mist there appeared coming towards them a strange and absurd figure. Picturing it now I think I should not have believed my eyes if I had been in Lizaveta Nikolaevna’s place, yet she uttered a cry of joy, and recognised the approaching figure at once. It was Stepan Trofimovitch. How he had gone off, how the insane, impracticable idea of his flight came to be carried out, of that later. I will only mention that he was in a fever that morning, yet even illness did not prevent his starting. He was walking resolutely on the damp ground. It was evident that he had planned the enterprise to the best of his ability, alone with his inexperience and lack of practical sense. He wore “travelling dress,” that is, a greatcoat with a wide patent-leather belt, fastened with a buckle and a pair of new high boots pulled over his trousers. Probably he had for some time past pictured a traveller as looking like this, and the belt and the high boots with the shining tops like a hussar’s, in which he could hardly walk, had been ready some time before. A broad-brimmed hat, a knitted scarf, twisted close round his neck, a stick in his right hand, and an exceedingly small but extremely tightly packed bag in his left, completed his get-up. He had, besides, in the same right hand, an open umbrella. These three objects—the umbrella, the stick, and the bag—had been very awkward to carry for the first mile, and had begun to be heavy by the second.
“Can it really be you?” cried Liza, looking at him with distressed wonder, after her first rush of instinctive gladness.
“Lise,” cried Stepan Trofimovitch, rushing to her almost in delirium too. “Chère, chère.… Can you be out, too … in such a fog? You see the glow of fire. Vous êtes malheureuse, n’est-ce pas? I see, I see. Don’t tell me, but don’t question me either. Nous sommes tous malheureux mais il faut les pardonner tous. Pardonnons, Lise, and let us be free forever. To be quit of the world and be completely free. Il faut pardonner, pardonner, et pardonner!”
“But why are you kneeling down?”
“Because, taking leave of the world, I want to take leave of all my past in your person!” He wept and raised both her hands to his tear-stained eyes. “I kneel to all that was beautiful in my life. I kiss and give thanks! Now I’ve torn myself in half; left behind a mad visionary who dreamed of soaring to the sky. Vingt-deux ans, here. A shattered, frozen old man. A tutor chez ce marchand, s’il existe pourtant ce marchand.… But how drenched you are, Lise!” he cried, jumping on to his feet, feeling that his knees too were soaked by the wet earth. “And how is it possible … you are in such a dress … and on foot, and in these fields?… You are crying! Vous êtes malheureuse. Bah, I did hear something.… But where have you come from now?” He asked hurried questions with an uneasy air, looking in extreme bewilderment at Mavriky Nikolaevitch. “Mais savez-vous l’heure qu’il est?”
“Stepan Trofimovitch, have you heard anything about the people who’ve been murdered?… Is it true? Is it true?”
“These people! I saw the glow of their work all night. They were bound to end in this.…” His eyes flashed again. “I am fleeing away from madness, from a delirious dream. I am fleeing away to seek for Russia. Existe-t-elle, la Russie? Bah! C’est vous, cher capitaine! I’ve never doubted that I should meet you somewhere on some high adventure.… But take my umbrella, and—why must you be on foot? For God’s sake, do at least take my umbrella, for I shall hire a carriage somewhere in any case. I am on foot because Stasie (I mean, Nastasya) would have shouted for the benefit of the whole street if she’d found out I was going away. So I slipped away as far as possible incognito. I don’t know; in the Voice they write of there being brigands everywhere, but I thought surely I shouldn’t meet a brigand the moment I came out on the road. Chère Lise, I thought you said something of someone’s being murdered. Oh, mon Dieu! You are ill!”
“Come along, come along!” cried Liza, almost in hysterics, drawing Mavriky Nikolaevitch after her again. “Wait a minute, Stepan Trofimovitch!” she came back suddenly to him. “Stay, poor darling, let me sign you with the cross. Perhaps, it would be better to put you under control, but I’d rather make the sign of the cross over you. You, too, pray for ‘poor’ Liza—just a little, don’t bother too much about it. Mavriky Nikolaevitch, give that baby back his umbrella. You must give it him. That’s right.… Come, let us go, let us go!”
They reached the fatal house at the very moment when the huge crowd, which had gathered round it, had already heard a good deal of Stavrogin, and of how much it was to his interest to murder his wife. Yet, I repeat, the immense majority went on listening without moving or uttering a word. The only people who were excited were bawling drunkards and excitable individuals of the same sort as the gesticulatory cabinet-maker. Every one knew the latter as a man really of mild disposition, but he was liable on occasion to get excited and to fly off at a tangent if anything
