“My lady begs you to come back.…”
“The mistress, or Lizaveta Nikolaevna?”
“The young lady.”
I found Liza not in the big room where we had been sitting, but in the reception-room next to it. The door between it and the drawing-room, where Mavriky Nikolaevitch was left alone, was closed.
Liza smiled to me but was pale. She was standing in the middle of the room in evident indecision, visibly struggling with herself; but she suddenly took me by the hand, and led me quickly to the window.
“I want to see her at once,” she whispered, bending upon me a burning, passionate, impatient glance, which would not admit a hint of opposition. “I must see her with my own eyes, and I beg you to help me.”
She was in a perfect frenzy, and—in despair.
“Who is it you want to see, Lizaveta Nikolaevna?” I inquired in dismay.
“That Lebyadkin’s sister, that lame girl.… Is it true that she’s lame?”
I was astounded.