“Ah! You’ve been listening?”

“What were you saying just now about Mavriky Nikolaevitch? Has he been murdered?”

“Ah! Then you didn’t hear? Don’t distress yourself, Mavriky Nikolaevitch is alive and well, and you can satisfy yourself of it in an instant, for he is here by the wayside, by the garden fence⁠ ⁠… and I believe he’s been sitting there all night. He is drenched through in his greatcoat! He saw me as I drove past.”

“That’s not true. You said ‘murdered.’⁠ ⁠… Who’s been murdered?” she insisted with agonising mistrust.

“The only people who have been murdered are my wife, her brother Lebyadkin, and their servant,” Stavrogin brought out firmly.

Liza trembled and turned terribly pale.