Chapter III. The Sins of Others

After a week of seclusion, Stepan Trofimovich languishes in shame over his uncertain engagement to Darya (Dasha) and Varvara Petrovna’s cold silence. The narrator’s awkward street encounter with famed writer Karmazinov coincides with Varvara’s fussy letters preparing Stepan to receive him, which sends Stepan into agitation and defiance toward Varvara.

Liputin arrives uninvited, bringing engineer Alexey Nilych Kirillov, who knows Pyotr Verkhovensky and Nikolay Stavrogin. In tense exchanges, Liputin needles Kirillov into revealing fragments of radical views while hinting at scandals: Captain Lebyadkin’s daily whipping of his lame sister, money from a “seducer,” and whispers that Stavrogin may be mad. Kirillov denies gossip yet shows irritation; Stepan, terrified of Liputin’s knowledge, presses for clarity.

Liputin then reports Varvara secretly asked him whether Stavrogin is sane. He adds a rumor that a young lady delivered money from Stavrogin to Lebyadkin—three hundred roubles, though others say a thousand—implicating her in theft. Kirillov, distressed, calls it a misunderstanding and leaves. Stepan, desperate and ashamed, rushes out, confessing his hidden fear that his marriage would “cover another man’s sins.”

On the street, Lizaveta Drozdova rides up, joyfully recognizes Stepan, and arranges to visit at once with her cousin-guardian, Captain Mavriky Nikolaevich. At Stepan’s rooms, she warmly recalls childhood, invites him to call, and commissions work from Shatov via the narrator. She reveals the engagement rumor is public and that Dasha is being hidden.

That evening the narrator fails to find Shatov, but meets Kirillov, who hosts him for tea and outlines his creed: pain and belief in the “other world” restrain suicide; conquering fear of death makes one “a god,” heralding a new humanity. Leaving, the narrator encounters a drunken Captain Lebyadkin declaiming verses to Liza; Liputin claims Stavrogin recently sold his estate to Lebyadkin.

Stepan returns from the Drozdovs shattered by their probing about Stavrogin’s sanity and by Varvara’s letter fixing a Sunday meeting to secure Dasha’s answer in witnesses’ presence. He swings between longing for Varvara, dread of marriage, jealousy of Stavrogin’s shadow over Dasha, and hope that his son Pyotr’s arrival might somehow save him.