Chapter II. Night (continued)

Crossing a rainy bridge at night, Stavrogin is accosted by Fedka, an escaped convict seeking favor via Pyotr Stepanovich. Stavrogin curtly rejects him and threatens police, suspecting Fedka’s self-appointed meddling.

At a newly built, bare house, Captain Lebyadkin anxiously receives Stavrogin. The captain boasts of sobriety, flatters, and begs funds, displaying a modest “house-warming.” Stavrogin sternly catalogs Lebyadkin’s drunken waste, threats, and manipulations, then declares he will publicly acknowledge his secret marriage to Marya Timofyevna, ending the captain’s leverage and subsidy. Panicked, Lebyadkin hints at informing; under pressure he admits past distribution of seditious leaflets and other schemes, and that he babbled to Liputin. Stavrogin advises him to claim it was bluff to extort money.

Stavrogin meets Marya Timofyevna. She wakes fearful under his gaze, veering between suspicion and fragile warmth, calling him “prince.” When Stavrogin proposes a lifelong, secluded life abroad with provisions and no coercion, Marya derides the plan and, exalting her imagined “prince,” decides Stavrogin is an impostor. She taunts him, claims he brought a knife, and curses him as “Grishka Otrepyev.” Stavrogin shoves her away and leaves.

On the bridge back, fed by anger over the “knife” accusation, Stavrogin seizes Fedka, then releases him. Fedka briefly flashes a knife, then respectfully recounts robbing a church and killing an accomplice, and hints he could exploit Lebyadkin but prefers a larger payoff tied to Stavrogin. In a sudden impulse, Stavrogin throws Fedka his entire purse and departs, leaving Fedka scrambling in the mud for the notes.