“And who can say? perhaps all this, the sheets and their intended publication, are but the same as the Governor’s bitten ear, only in a different shape. But why this should come into my mind now, when so much has already been explained, I can’t understand. I bring forward no proof, nor do I at all assert that the document is false, that is, completely made up and fabricated. Most likely the truth ought to be sought somewhere midway. However, I have already wandered too far in advance; it is safer to turn to the document itself. This is what Tikhon read.” Here ends the first chapter in the Supplement to Vol. VIII. of Dostoevsky’s Works, Jubilee Edition, 1906. “From Stavrogin. “I, Nikolai Stavrogin, retired officer, lived in the year 186.. in Petersburg, abandoned to vice, in which I found no pleasure. For a certain period at that time I rented three lodgings. In one of them I lived myself and boarded and lodged, and there at that time lived Marya Lebiadkin, now my lawful wife. My other two lodgings I rented by the month for the purpose of an intrigue: in one I received a certain lady who loved me, and in the other her maid, and for a time I was much engrossed with the notion of contriving that both the lady and the maid should meet each other at my lodging.[26] Knowing the characters of both, I anticipated for myself great pleasure from that joke. Footnote 26: After “should meet, etc.,” there is struck out: “in the presence of my friends and of her husband.”