When the first contemptible anonymous letter was sent to me, Pyotr Stepanovitch, you'll hardly believe it, but I had not strength enough to treat all this wickedness with contempt....

I shall never, never forgive myself for my weakness." "I had heard something of anonymous letters here already," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, growing suddenly more lively, "and I'll find out the writers of them, you may be sure." "But you can't imagine the intrigues that have been got up here.

They have even been pestering our poor Praskovya Ivanovna, and what reason can they have for worrying her?
I was quite unfair to you to-day perhaps, my dear Praskovya Ivanovna," she added in a generous impulse of kindliness, though not without a certain triumphant irony.
"Don't say any more, my dear," the other lady muttered reluctantly.
"To my thinking we'd better make an end of all this; too much has been said." And again she looked timidly towards Liza, but the latter was looking at Pyotr Stepanovitch.
"And I intend now to adopt this poor unhappy creature, this insane woman who has lost everything and kept only her heart," Varvara Petrovna exclaimed suddenly.

"It's a sacred duty I intend to carry out.

I take her under my protection from this day." "And that will be a very good thing in one way," Pyotr Stepanovitch cried, growing quite eager again.