I took advantage of the interval to tell him of my visit to Filipov's house, and curtly and dryly expressed my opinion that Lebyadkin's sister (whom I had never seen) really might have been somehow victimised by Nicolas at some time during that mysterious period of his life, as Liputin had called it, and that it was very possible that Lebyadkin received sums of money from Nicolas for some reason, but that was all.

As for the scandal about Darya Pavlovna, that was all nonsense, all that brute Liputin's misrepresentations, that this was anyway what Alexey Nilitch warmly maintained, and we had no grounds for disbelieving him.

Stepan Trofimovitch listened to my assurances with an absent air, as though they did not concern him.

I mentioned by the way my conversation with Kirillov, and added that he might be mad.
"He's not mad, but one of those shallow-minded people," he mumbled listlessly.

"_Ces gens-la supposent la nature et la societe humaine autres que Dieu ne les a faites et qu'elles ne sont reellement._ People try to make up to them, but Stepan Verhovensky does not, anyway.