“Impossible to avoid it. It was only one.”
“So Liputin knows?”
“Impossible to help it: but Liputin, you know yourself, dare not … By the way, you ought to meet our fellows, that is, the fellows not our fellows, or you’ll be finding fault again. Don’t disturb yourself, not just now, but sometime. Just now it’s raining. I’ll let them know, they’ll meet together, and we’ll go in the evening. They’re waiting, with their mouths open like young crows in a nest, to see what present we’ve brought them. They’re a hot-headed lot. They’ve brought out leaflets, they’re on the point of quarrelling. Virginsky is a universal humanity man, Liputin is a Fourierist with a marked inclination for police work; a man, I assure you, who is precious from one point of view, though he requires strict supervision in all others; and, last of all, that fellow with the long ears, he’ll read an account of his own system. And do you know, they’re offended at my treating them casually, and throwing cold water over them, but we certainly must meet.”
“You’ve made me out some sort of chief?” Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch dropped as carelessly as possible.
Pyotr Stepanovitch looked quickly at him.
“By the way,” he interposed, in haste to change the subject, as though he had not heard. “I’ve been here two or three times, you know, to see her excellency, Varvara Petrovna, and I have been obliged to say a great deal too.”
“So I imagine.”
“No, don’t imagine, I’ve simply told her that you won’t kill him, well, and other sweet things. And only fancy; the very next day she knew I’d moved Marya Timofyevna beyond the river. Was it you told her?”
“I never dreamed of it!”
“I knew it wasn’t you. Who else could it be? It’s interesting.”