Lebyadkin Character Analysis

‘Nikolay Vsevolodovich, Nikolay Vsevolodovich, this cannot be, perhaps you’ll give it some more thought, you won’t want to lay hands on… What will people say, what will the world say?’

‘Oh, I’m hardly afraid of your world. After all, I did marry your sister then, when I felt like it, after a drunken dinner, on a bet for wine, and now I’m going to proclaim it for all to hear — why not, if it amuses me now?’

‘Oh, Nikolay Vsevolodovich,’ he exclaimed, ‘what troubled me most of all was that this was completely against all civil laws, and primarily those of the fatherland! Suddenly they would print that people should go out with pitchforks, and remember that he who went out poor in the morning could return home rich in the evening. Just think of it, sir! I was shaking in my boots, but I was distributing them. Or suddenly there would be five or six lines addressed to all of Russia, for no good reason: “Lock the churches as soon as you can, destroy God, violate marriages, destroy the rights of inheritance, take up knives”, that’s all, and the Devil knows what else. That was the piece of paper, with the five lines, that I was almost caught with, but the officers of the regiment gave me a good beating and then, God bless them, let me go.’

‘Lizaveta Nikolayevna, really and truly, you can grind me in a mortar, but he’s innocent; on the contrary, he’s been crushed and is raving, as you can see. He’s not guilty of anything, of anything, even in thought! It’s all the doing of robbers who will certainly be found in a week and punished by flogging. It’s all the fault of Fedka the Convict and the Shpigulin workers; the whole town is chattering about it, and that’s why I am too.’

‘Is that so? Is that so?’ Liza was waiting, all atremble, for the final verdict.

‘I didn’t kill them and I was against it, but I knew they would be killed, and I didn’t stop the killers. Step away from me, Liza,’ Stavrogin said, and he went into the drawing room.

Liza covered her face with her hands and went out of the house.

‘[…] Yesterday on the bridge one little demon offered to kill Lebyadkin and Marya Timofeyevna to solve the problem of my lawful marriage and leave no traces of it behind. He asked for three silver roubles as an advance, but let it clearly be known that the whole procedure would cost no less than fifteen hundred. There’s a calculating demon for you! A bookkeeper! Ha, ha!’

[…]

‘[…] It was just Fedka the Convict, a robber who’s escaped from hard labour. But that’s not the point. What do you think I did? I gave him all the money in my wallet, and he’s now utterly convinced that I gave him an advance!’ […]

‘You ran across him at night and he made you an offer like that? Can you really not see that they’ve completely entangled you in their net!’

‘Oh, let them!’

What’s he doing there?’

‘He’s putting out the fire, Your Excellency.’

‘That’s impossible. The fire is in people’s minds, and not on the roofs of houses. Pull him down and leave everything!’

A curious fact had come to light: on the very outskirts of the quarter, on a piece of empty ground, beyond the vegetable gardens, no less than fifty paces from the other buildings, stood a small wooden house that had just been built, and this isolated house had caught fire almost before all the others, at the very beginning of the conflagration. […] As it turned out, the house had caught fire on its own and independently, and therefore suspiciously. But the main thing was that it had not actually burned down, and inside it, towards dawn, surprising things were discovered […] there were tenants in the house — a captain who was well known in the town, his sister and an aged servant of theirs; and these tenants — the captain, his sister and the servant — all three of them had had their throats cut during the night, and had evidently been robbed.

Suddenly someone shouted: ‘It’s Stavrogin’s woman!’ Then: ‘It’s not enough for them to commit murder, they have to come and look!’ Suddenly I saw someone’s hand raised above her head from behind, and then it came down; Liza fell. Mavriky Nikolayevich let out a dreadful cry and rushed to help her, hitting with all his strength a man who was trying to block his way. But at that very instant the tradesman grabbed him from behind with both hands. For some time it was impossible to make anything out in the scuffle that ensued. Liza seemed to get up, but fell again from another blow.

[…]

As an eyewitness, albeit a distant one, I had to give evidence at the inquest: I stated that everything had happened quite accidentally, the work of people who, though perhaps incited, were scarcely aware of what they were doing as they were drunk and disorderly. I hold this opinion even now.

‘Nikolay Vsevolodovich, Nikolay Vsevolodovich, this cannot be, perhaps you’ll give it some more thought, you won’t want to lay hands on… What will people say, what will the world say?’

‘Oh, I’m hardly afraid of your world. After all, I did marry your sister then, when I felt like it, after a drunken dinner, on a bet for wine, and now I’m going to proclaim it for all to hear — why not, if it amuses me now?’

‘Oh, Nikolay Vsevolodovich,’ he exclaimed, ‘what troubled me most of all was that this was completely against all civil laws, and primarily those of the fatherland! Suddenly they would print that people should go out with pitchforks, and remember that he who went out poor in the morning could return home rich in the evening. Just think of it, sir! I was shaking in my boots, but I was distributing them. Or suddenly there would be five or six lines addressed to all of Russia, for no good reason: “Lock the churches as soon as you can, destroy God, violate marriages, destroy the rights of inheritance, take up knives”, that’s all, and the Devil knows what else. That was the piece of paper, with the five lines, that I was almost caught with, but the officers of the regiment gave me a good beating and then, God bless them, let me go.’

‘Lizaveta Nikolayevna, really and truly, you can grind me in a mortar, but he’s innocent; on the contrary, he’s been crushed and is raving, as you can see. He’s not guilty of anything, of anything, even in thought! It’s all the doing of robbers who will certainly be found in a week and punished by flogging. It’s all the fault of Fedka the Convict and the Shpigulin workers; the whole town is chattering about it, and that’s why I am too.’

‘Is that so? Is that so?’ Liza was waiting, all atremble, for the final verdict.

‘I didn’t kill them and I was against it, but I knew they would be killed, and I didn’t stop the killers. Step away from me, Liza,’ Stavrogin said, and he went into the drawing room.

Liza covered her face with her hands and went out of the house.

‘[…] Yesterday on the bridge one little demon offered to kill Lebyadkin and Marya Timofeyevna to solve the problem of my lawful marriage and leave no traces of it behind. He asked for three silver roubles as an advance, but let it clearly be known that the whole procedure would cost no less than fifteen hundred. There’s a calculating demon for you! A bookkeeper! Ha, ha!’

[…]

‘[…] It was just Fedka the Convict, a robber who’s escaped from hard labour. But that’s not the point. What do you think I did? I gave him all the money in my wallet, and he’s now utterly convinced that I gave him an advance!’ […]

‘You ran across him at night and he made you an offer like that? Can you really not see that they’ve completely entangled you in their net!’

‘Oh, let them!’

What’s he doing there?’

‘He’s putting out the fire, Your Excellency.’

‘That’s impossible. The fire is in people’s minds, and not on the roofs of houses. Pull him down and leave everything!’

A curious fact had come to light: on the very outskirts of the quarter, on a piece of empty ground, beyond the vegetable gardens, no less than fifty paces from the other buildings, stood a small wooden house that had just been built, and this isolated house had caught fire almost before all the others, at the very beginning of the conflagration. […] As it turned out, the house had caught fire on its own and independently, and therefore suspiciously. But the main thing was that it had not actually burned down, and inside it, towards dawn, surprising things were discovered […] there were tenants in the house — a captain who was well known in the town, his sister and an aged servant of theirs; and these tenants — the captain, his sister and the servant — all three of them had had their throats cut during the night, and had evidently been robbed.

Suddenly someone shouted: ‘It’s Stavrogin’s woman!’ Then: ‘It’s not enough for them to commit murder, they have to come and look!’ Suddenly I saw someone’s hand raised above her head from behind, and then it came down; Liza fell. Mavriky Nikolayevich let out a dreadful cry and rushed to help her, hitting with all his strength a man who was trying to block his way. But at that very instant the tradesman grabbed him from behind with both hands. For some time it was impossible to make anything out in the scuffle that ensued. Liza seemed to get up, but fell again from another blow.

[…]

As an eyewitness, albeit a distant one, I had to give evidence at the inquest: I stated that everything had happened quite accidentally, the work of people who, though perhaps incited, were scarcely aware of what they were doing as they were drunk and disorderly. I hold this opinion even now.