"A sister? An invalid? With a whip?" Stepan Trofimovitch cried out, as though he had suddenly been lashed with a whip himself. "What sister? What Lebyadkin?" All his former terror came back in an instant. "Lebyadkin! Oh, that's the retired captain; he used only to call himself a lieutenant before...." "Oh, what is his rank to me? What sister? Good heavens!... You say Lebyadkin? But there used to be a Lebyadkin here...." "That's the very man. 'Our' Lebyadkin, at Virginsky's, you remember?" "But he was caught with forged papers?" "Well, now he's come back. He's been here almost three weeks and under the most peculiar circumstances." "Why, but he's a scoundrel?" "As though no one could be a scoundrel among us," Liputin grinned suddenly, his knavish little eyes seeming to peer into Stepan Trofimovitch's soul. "Good heavens! I didn't mean that at all... though I quite agree with you about that, with you particularly. But what then, what then? What did you mean by that? You certainly meant something by that." "Why, it's all so trivial.... This captain to all appearances went away from us at that time; not because of the forged papers, but simply to look for his sister, who was in hiding from him somewhere, it seems; well, and now he's brought her and that's the whole story. Why do you seem frightened, Stepan Trofimovitch? I only tell this from his drunken chatter though, he doesn't speak of it himself when he's sober. He's an irritable man, and, so to speak, æsthetic in a military style; only he has bad taste. And this sister is lame as well as mad. She seems to have been seduced by someone, and Mr. Lebyadkin has, it seems, for many years received a yearly grant from the seducer by way of compensation for the wound to his honour, so it would seem at least from his chatter, though I believe it's only drunken talk. It's simply his brag. Besides, that sort of thing is done much cheaper. But that he has a sum of money is perfectly certain. Ten days ago he was walking barefoot, and now I've seen hundreds in his hands. His sister has fits of some sort every day, she shrieks and he 'keeps her in order' with the whip. You must inspire a woman with respect, he says. What I can't understand is how Shatov goes on living above him. Alexey Nilitch has only been three days with them. They were acquainted in Petersburg, and now he's taken the lodge to get away from the disturbance." "Is this all true?" said Stepan Trofimovitch, addressing the engineer. "You do gossip a lot, Liputin," the latter muttered wrathfully. "Mysteries, secrets! Where have all these mysteries and secrets among us sprung from?" Stepan Trofimovitch could not refrain from exclaiming. The engineer frowned, flushed red, shrugged his shoulders and went out of the room. "Alexey Nilitch positively snatched the whip out of his hand, broke it and threw it out of the window, and they had a violent quarrel," added Liputin.