Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov.
“I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!”
Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees before him.
“A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, “it’s all nonsense you’ve been talking! ‘An idea struck you, you didn’t think, you noticed’—what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this … ?”
“What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but that what I am telling you is the fact, that’s certain! So far from my being mistaken, you infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps, too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.)