Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm not mad, by God, I'm not mad!" the captain assured excitedly in all directions.
"No, my dear sir, you are out of your mind."
"Madam, it's not at all what you think! I, of course, am a negligible link... Oh, madam, rich are your halls, but poor are those of Marya the Unknown, my sister, born Lebyadkin, but for now we will call her Marya the Unknown, for now, madam, only for now,for God himself will not allow it to be forever! Madam, you gave her ten roubles, and she accepted them only because they came from you,madam! Do you hear, madam! From no one else in the world would this Unknown Marya take, otherwise her grandfather, an officer killed in the Caucasus before the eyes of Ermolov himself, [65]would shudder in his grave, but from you, madam, from you she will take anything. She will take with one hand, but with the other she will now offer you twenty roubles, as a donation to one of the charitable committees in the capital, where you, madam, are a member... since you yourself, madam, have been published in the Moscow Gazette,that you are the keeper of this town's local book for this charitable society, where anyone can subscribe ..."
The captain suddenly broke off; he was breathing heavily, as though after some difficult feat. All that about the charitable committee had probably been prepared beforehand, and perhaps edited by Liputin as well. He became even more sweaty; beads of sweat literally stood out on his temples. Varvara Petrovna scrutinized him sharply.
"This book," she said sternly, "is always downstairs, with the doorkeeper of my house, you may enter your donation in it if you like. And therefore I ask you now to put your money away and not to wave it in the air. That's right. I also ask you to take your former seat. That's right. I am very sorry, my dear sir, that I was mistaken with regard to your sister, and gave to her as to the poor when she is so rich. One thing only I fail to understand—why it is that she can take money from me alone and not from anyone else. You insisted on it so much that I should like a perfectly precise explanation."
"Madam, that is a secret that can only be buried in the grave!" the captain replied.
"Why so?" Varvara Petrovna asked, somehow less firmly now.
"Madam, madam! ..."
He fell glumly silent, looking down, his right hand pressed to his heart. Varvara Petrovna waited, not taking her eyes off him.
"Madam!" he suddenly bellowed, "allow me to ask you one question, just one, but openly, directly, in the Russian way, from the soul."
"Kindly do."
"Have you, madam, ever suffered in your life?"
"You merely want to say that you have suffered or are suffering because of someone."
"Madam, madam!" he suddenly jumped up again, probably without noticing it, and struck himself on the chest. "Here, in this heart, so much has built up, so much that God himself will be surprised when it's revealed at the Last Judgment!"
"Hm, that's putting it strongly."
"Madam, I am speaking, perhaps, in irritable language..."
"Don't worry, I know myself when you will need to be stopped."
"May I pose one more question, madam?"
"Do pose one more question."
"Can one die solely from the nobility of one's own soul?"
"I don't know, I've never asked myself such a question."
"You don't know! Never asked yourself such a question!" he cried with pathetic irony. "In that case, in that case—‘Be silent, hopeless heart!’” [66]and he struck himself fiercely on the chest.
By now he was pacing the room again. A trait of such people—this total incapacity to keep their desires to themselves; this uncontrollable urge, on the contrary, to reveal them at once, even in all their untidiness, the moment they arise. When he steps into society not his own, such a gentleman usually begins timidly, but yield him just a hair and he will at once leap to impertinence. The captain was already excited; he paced, waved his arms, did not listen to questions, spoke of himself rapidly, so rapidly that his tongue sometimes tripped, and without finishing he would leap on to the next phrase. True, he could hardly have been completely sober; then, too, Lizaveta Nikolaevna was sitting there, and though he did not glance at her even once, her presence seemed to make him terribly giddy. However, that is only a surmise. There must therefore have been some reason why Varvara Petrovna, overcoming her loathing, decided to listen to such a man. Praskovya Ivanovna was simply quaking with fear, though, to tell the truth,I don't think she quite understood what was going on. Stepan Trofimovich was also trembling, but, on the contrary, because he was always inclined to understand everything to excess. Mavriky Nikolaevich stood in the attitude of universal protector. Poor Liza was pale and was staring fixedly, with wide-open eyes, at the wild captain. Shatov went on sitting in the same attitude; but, what was strangest of all, Marya Timofeevna not only stopped laughing, but became terribly sad. She leaned her right elbow on the table and gazed at her declaiming brother with a long, sad look. Darya Pavlovna alone seemed calm to me.
"These are all nonsensical allegories," Varvara Petrovna finally became angry, "you have not answered my question—'Why?' I am insistently awaiting an answer."
"I didn't answer your 'why'? You're awaiting an answer to your 'why'?" the captain reiterated, winking. "This little word 'why' has been poured all over the universe since the very first day of creation, madam, and every moment the whole of nature cries out 'Why?' to its creator, and for seven thousand years [67]has received no answer. Is it for Captain Lebyadkin alone to answer, and would that be just, madam?"
"That's all nonsense, that's not the point!" Varvara Petrovna was growing wrathful and losing her patience. "These are allegories, and, besides, you choose to speak too floridly, my dear sir, which I regard as impertinence."
"Madam," the captain was not listening to her, "I might wish to be called Ernest, yet I am forced to bear the crude name of Ignat—why is that, do you think? I might wish to be called Prince de Monbars, [68] yet I'm only Lebyadkin, from lebed,the swan—why is that? I am a poet, a poet in my soul, and could be getting a thousand roubles from a publisher, yet I'm forced to live in a tub—why, why? Madam! In my opinion Russia is a freak of nature, nothing else!"
"You decidedly cannot say anything more definite?"
"I can recite you a piece called 'The Cockroach,' madam!"
"Wha-a-at?"
"Madam, I am not crazy yet! I will be crazy, I will be, that's certain, but I am not crazy yet! Madam, a friend of mine—a most no-o-oble person—has written a Krylov's fable entitled 'The Cockroach'—may I recite it?"
"You want to recite some fable of Krylov's?"
"No, it's not Krylov's fable I want to recite, it's my own fable, mine, I wrote it! Believe me, madam—no offense to you—but I'm not uneducated and depraved to such an extent as not to realize that Russia possesses the great fable-writer Krylov, to whom the minister of education erected a monument in the Summer Garden for childhood playing. [69]Now then, madam, you ask me, 'Why?' The answer is at the bottom of this fable, in flaming letters!"
"Recite your fable."
“‘Tis of a cockroach I will tell, And a fine cockroach was he, But then into a glass he fell Full of fly-phagy ..."
"Lord, what is this?" Varvara Petrovna exclaimed.
"It's in the summertime," the captain hurried, waving his arms terribly, with the irritated impatience of an author whose recitation is being hindered, "in the summertime, when lots of flies get into a glass, then fly-phagy takes place, any fool can understand that, don't interrupt, don't interrupt, you'll see, you'll see..." (he kept waving his arms).
"The cockroach took up so much room
It made the flies murmur.
'A crowded glass, is this our doom?
They cried to Jupiter.
But as the flies did make their moan
Along came Nikifor, A kind, old, no-o-oble man ...
I haven't quite finished here, but anyway, in plain words!" the captain rattled on. "Nikifor takes the glass and, in spite of their crying, dumps the whole comedy into the tub, both flies and cockroach, which should have been done long ago. But notice, madam, notice, the cockroach does not murmur! This is the answer to your question, 'Why?’“ he cried out triumphantly.”‘The cock-roach does not mur-mur!' As for Nikifor, he represents nature," he added in a quick patter, and began pacing the room self-contentedly.
Varvara Petrovna became terribly angry.
"And to do with what money—allow me to ask you—supposedly received from Nikolai Vsevolodovich, and supposedly not given to you in full, have you dared to accuse a person belonging to my household?"
"Slander!" bellowed Lebyadkin, raising his right hand tragically.
"No, it is not slander."
"Madam, there are circumstances that make one rather endure family disgrace than proclaim the truth aloud. Lebyadkin will not let on, madam!"
He was as if blind; he was inspired; he felt his significance; he must have been imagining some such thing. He already wanted to offend, to do something dirty, to show his power.
"Ring the bell, please, Stepan Trofimovich," Varvara Petrovna requested.
"Lebyadkin is cunning, madam!" he winked, with a nasty smile, "he's cunning, but he, too, has his stumbling block, he, too, has his forecourt of passions! And this forecourt is the old hussar's war-bottle, sung by Denis Davydov. [70]And so, when in this forecourt, madam, it may happen that he sends a letter in verse, a mag-ni-fi-cent one, but which afterwards he might wish to bring back with the tears of his whole life, for the sense of beauty is violated. But the bird has flown, you can't catch it by the tail! It is in this forecourt, madam, that Lebyadkin could also talk about a noble young lady, by way of the noble indignation of a soul resenting its offenses, which fact has been made use of by his slanderers. But Lebyadkin is cunning, madam! And in vain does the sinister wolf sit over him, pouring more every moment and waiting for the end: Lebyadkin will not let on, and after two bottles what turns up each time, instead of the expected thing, is– Lebyadkin's Cunning! But enough, oh, enough! Madam, your magnificent halls might belong to the noblest of persons, but the cockroach does not murmur! Notice, yes, notice finally that he does not murmur, and know the great spirit!"
At that moment the bell rang from the doorkeeper's room downstairs, and almost at once Alexei Yegorych, who had been rather slow in responding to Stepan Trofimovich's ring, appeared. The decorous old servant was somehow unusually excited.
"Nikolai Vsevolodovich has been pleased to arrive just this minute and is on his way here, ma'am," he said in reply to Varvara Petrovna's inquiring look.
I especially remember her at that moment: at first she became pale, but suddenly her eyes flashed. She drew herself up in her chair with a look of extraordinary resolution. Everyone else was also astounded. The totally unexpected arrival of Nikolai Vsevolodovich, who was due to be here perhaps no sooner than in another month, was strange not only in its unexpectedness, but precisely in some fatal coincidence with the present moment. Even the captain stopped like a post in the middle of the room, openmouthed, staring at the door with a terribly stupid look.
And then, from the adjacent hall, a long and large room, came the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, small steps, extremely rapid, as if someone were rolling along, and suddenly into the drawing room flew—not Nikolai Vsevolodovich at all, but a young man totally unknown to anyone.
V
I will allow myself to pause and depict, if only in cursory strokes, this suddenly appearing person.
This was a young man of twenty-seven or thereabouts, a little taller than average, with thin, rather long blond hair and a wispy, barely evident moustache and beard. Dressed in clean and even fashionable clothes, but not foppishly; a bit hunched and slack at first sight, and yet not hunched at all, even easygoing. Seemingly a sort of odd man, and yet everyone later found his manners quite decent and his conversation always to the point.
No one would call him bad-looking, but no one likes his face. His head is elongated towards the back and as if flattened on the sides, giving his face a sharp look. His forehead is high and narrow, but his features are small—eyes sharp, nose small and sharp, lips long and thin. The expression of his face is as if sickly, but it only seems so. He has a sort of dry crease on his cheeks and around his cheekbones, which makes him look as if he were recovering from a grave illness. And yet he is perfectly healthy and strong, and has never even been ill.
He walks and moves very hurriedly, and yet he is not hurrying anywhere. Nothing, it seems, can put him out of countenance; in any circumstances and in any society, he remains the same. There is great self-satisfaction in him, but he does not take the least note of it himself.
He speaks rapidly, hurriedly, but at the same time self-confidently, and is never at a loss for words. His thoughts are calm, despite his hurried look, distinct and final—and that is especially noticeable. His enunciation is remarkably clear; his words spill out like big, uniform grains, always choice and always ready to be at your service. You like it at first, but later it will become repulsive, and precisely because of this all too clear enunciation, this string of ever ready words. You somehow begin to imagine that the tongue in his mouth must be of some special form, somehow unusually long and thin, terribly red, and with an extremely sharp, constantly and involuntarily wriggling tip.
Well, so this was the young man who had just flown into the drawing room, and, really, even now it seems to me that he started talking in the next room and came in that way, already talking. Instantly he was standing before Varvara Petrovna.
". . . And imagine, Varvara Petrovna," the beads spilled out of him, "I came in thinking to find he'd already been here for a quarter of an hour; it's an hour and a half since he arrived; we met at Kirillov's; he left half an hour ago to come straight here, and told me to come here, too, in a quarter of an hour..."
"But, who? Who told you to come here?" Varvara Petrovna questioned.
"But, Nikolai Vsevolodovich, of course! You don't mean you're only learning of it this minute? His luggage at least should have arrived long ago, didn't they tell you? So I'm the first to announce it. By the way, we could send for him somewhere, but, anyhow, he'll certainly come himself presently and, it would seem, precisely at a moment that answers to some of his expectations and, at least so far as I can judge, to some of his calculations." Here he looked around the room and rested his eyes especially on the captain. "Ah, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, how glad I am to meet you first thing, I'm very glad to shake your hand," he quickly flew over to take the hand which the gaily smiling Liza offered him, "and I notice that the much esteemed Praskovya Ivanovna also seems to remember her 'professor,' and is not even angry with him, as she always was in Switzerland. But, by the way, how do your legs feel here, Praskovya Ivanovna, and were the Swiss consultants right in sentencing you to the climate of the fatherland?... what's that, ma'am? wet compresses? that must be very good for you. But how sorry I was, Varvara Petrovna" (he quickly turned again), "that I was too late to find you abroad and pay my respects in person, and I had so much to tell you besides ... I notified my old man here, but he, as is his custom, seems to..."
"Petrusha!" Stepan Trofimovich cried, instantly coming out of his stupor; he clasped his hands and rushed to his son. "Pierre, mon enfant,and I didn't recognize you!" He embraced him tightly, and tears poured from his eyes.
"There, there, don't be naughty, no need for gestures, there, enough, enough, I beg you," Petrusha hastily muttered, trying to free himself from the embrace.
"I have always, always been guilty before you!"
"Now, that's enough; save it for later. I just knew you were going to be naughty. Be a bit more sober, I beg you."
"But I haven't seen you for ten years!"
"The less reason for any outpourings..."
"Mon enfant!"
"So, I believe, I believe you love me, take your arms away. You're disturbing the others ... Ah, here is Nikolai Vsevolodovich, now don't be naughty, I beg you, finally!"
Nikolai Vsevolodovich was indeed already in the room; he had come in very quietly, and stopped for a moment in the doorway, quietly looking around at the gathering.
Just as four years ago, when I saw him for the first time, so now, too, I was struck at the first sight of him. I had not forgotten him in the least; but there are, it seems, such physiognomies as always, each time they appear, bring something new, as it were, which you have not noticed in them before, though you may have met them a hundred times previously. Apparently he was still the same as four years ago: as refined, as imposing, he entered as imposingly as then, even almost as youthful. His faint smile was as officially benign and just as self-satisfied; his glance as stern, thoughtful, and as if distracted. In short, it seemed we had parted only yesterday. But one thing struck me:
before, even though he had been considered a handsome man, his face had indeed "resembled a mask," as certain vicious-tongued ladies of our society put it. Whereas now—now, I don't know why, but he appeared to me, at very first sight, as decidedly, unquestionably handsome, so that it could in no way be said that his face resembled a mask. Was it because he had become a bit paler than before, and seemed to have lost some weight? Or was there perhaps some new thought that now shone in his eyes?
"Nikolai Vsevolodovich!" Varvara Petrovna cried, drawing herself up straight but not quitting her armchair, stopping him with an imperious gesture, "stop for one moment!"
But to explain the terrible question that suddenly followed this gesture and exclamation—a question I could not have supposed possible even in Varvara Petrovna herself—I shall ask the reader to recall what Varvara Petrovna's character had been all her life and the remarkable impetuousness she had shown in certain extraordinary moments. I also ask him to bear in mind that, despite the remarkable firmness of soul and the considerable amount of reason, and of practical, even, so to speak, managerial tact she possessed, there was no lack of moments in her life in which she would give all of herself suddenly, entirely, and, if it is permissible to say so, totally without restraint. I also ask him, finally, to consider that for her the present moment could indeed have been one of those in which the whole essence of a life—all that has been lived through, all the present, and perhaps the future—is suddenly focused. I shall also remind him in passing of the anonymous letter she had received, as she had just so irritably let on to Praskovya Ivanovna, though I think she kept silent about the further contents of the letter; and precisely in it, perhaps, lay the key to the possibility of that terrible question which she suddenly addressed to her son.
"Nikolai Vsevolodovich," she repeated, rapping out the words in a firm voice in which a menacing challenge sounded, "I ask you to tell me right now, without moving from that spot: is it true that this unfortunate lame woman—there she is, over there, look at her!—is it true that she is... your lawful wife?"
I remember that moment only too well; he did not even blink an eye, but looked intently at his mother; not the slightest change in his face ensued. At last he smiled slowly, a sort of condescending smile, and, without a word of reply, quietly went up to his mother, took her hand, brought it reverently to his lips, and kissed it. And so strong was his ever irresistible influence on his mother that even then she did not dare snatch her hand away. She simply stared at him, all question, and her whole look confessed that she could not endure the uncertainty a moment longer.
But he continued to be silent. Having kissed her hand, he glanced all around the room once again and, still as unhurriedly as before, went straight to Marya Timofeevna. It is very difficult to describe people's physiognomies at certain moments. It has remained in my memory, for example, that Marya Timofeevna, all numb with fear, rose to meet him and clasped her hands before her as if entreating him; and at the same time I also remember there was rapture in her eyes, a sort of insane rapture that almost distorted her features—a rapture hard for people to bear. Perhaps both were there, both fear and rapture; but I remember myself quickly moving closer (I was standing just next to her), for I fancied she was about to faint.
"You cannot be here," Nikolai Vsevolodovich spoke to her in a caressing, melodious voice, and an extraordinary tenderness shone in his eyes. He stood before her in a most reverent attitude, and his every movement expressed the most sincere respect. In an impetuous half-whisper the poor woman breathlessly murmured to him:
"And may I... kneel to you... now?"
"No, you certainly may not," he smiled magnificently at her, so that she, too, suddenly gave a joyful little smile. In the same melodious voice, and tenderly reasoning with her, as with a child, he added imposingly:
"Consider that you are a girl, and I, though your most faithful friend, am nevertheless a stranger to you, not a husband, not a father, not a fiancé. Now give me your hand and let us go; I will see you to the carriage and, if you permit, will take you to your house myself."
She listened and bent her head as if pondering.
"Let us go," she said, sighing, and gave him her hand.
But then a small mishap befell her. She must have turned somehow awkwardly and stepped on her bad, shorter leg—in a word, she fell full sideways on the armchair, and if it had not been for the armchair, she would have fallen to the floor. He instantly caught her up, supported her, holding her firmly under the arm, and led her carefully and sympathetically to the door. She was obviously distressed by her fall, became embarrassed, blushed, and was terribly ashamed. Silently looking down, limping badly, she hobbled after him, almost hanging on his arm. They walked out like that. Liza, I noticed, for some reason suddenly jumped up from her chair as they were walking out, and followed them with a fixed stare to the very door. Then she silently sat down again, but there was some convulsive movement in her face, as if she had touched some viper.
While this whole scene was taking place between Nikolai Vsevolodovich and Marya Timofeevna, everyone was hushed with amazement; one could have heard a fly buzz; but as soon as they walked out, everyone suddenly began talking.
VI
Or not talking so much as exclaiming. I have somewhat forgotten now the order in which it all happened, because there was a tumult. Stepan Trofimovich exclaimed something in French and clasped his hands, but Varvara Petrovna could not be bothered with him. Even Mavriky Nikolaevich muttered something abruptly and rapidly. But most excited of all was Pyotr Stepanovich; he was desperately convincing Varvara Petrovna of something, with big gestures, but for a long time I could not understand it. He addressed Praskovya Ivanovna and Lizaveta Nikolaevna as well; in the heat of the moment he even shouted something in passing to his father—in short, he whirled all around the room. Varvara Petrovna, all flushed, jumped up from her seat and cried to Praskovya Ivanovna: "Did you hear, did you hear what he just said to her?" But the latter could no longer even reply, and merely mumbled something, waving her hand. The poor woman had her own troubles: she kept turning her head towards Liza, looking at her in unaccountable fear, and no longer dared even to think of getting up and leaving before her daughter rose. Meanwhile, the captain certainly wanted to slip away, this I noticed. He had been in a great and unquestionable fright from the moment Nikolai Vsevolodovich appeared; but Pyotr Stepanovich seized him by the arm and did not let him leave.
"This is necessary, necessary," he spilled out his beads at Varvara Petrovna, still trying to convince her. He was standing in front of her, and she by then had already sat back down in the armchair and, I remember, listened to him greedily; he had succeeded in holding her attention.
"This is necessary. You can see for yourself, Varvara Petrovna, that there's a misunderstanding here, and much that looks odd, and yet the thing is clear as a candle and simple as a finger. I realize only too well that no one has authorized me to tell about it, and that I perhaps look ridiculous in inviting myself. But, first of all, Nikolai Vsevolodovich himself attaches no great importance to this thing, and, finally, there are still cases when it is difficult for a man to bring himself to explain things personally, and it must be undertaken by a third person, for whom it is easier to express certain delicate matters. Believe me, Varvara Petrovna, Nikolai Vsevolodovich is not in the least to blame for not giving your question a radical explanation at once, even though the matter is a trifling one; I've known of it since Petersburg. Besides, the whole anecdote only does honor to Nikolai Vsevolodovich, if it's necessary to use this vague word 'honor'..."
"You mean to say that you were a witness to some occurrence that gave rise to... this misunderstanding?" asked Varvara Petrovna.
"A witness and a participant," Pyotr Stepanovich hastened to confirm.
"If you give me your word that this will not offend Nikolai Vsevolodovich's delicacy in certain of his feelings towards me, from whom he does not conceal an-y-thing... and if you are so sure, besides, that it will even give him pleasure ..."
"Pleasure, most certainly; that's why I regard it as a particular pleasure for me. I'm convinced he would ask me himself."
It was rather strange, and outside the usual ways, this importunate desire on the part of this gentleman who had suddenly fallen from the sky to tell other people's anecdotes. But he caught Varvara Petrovna with his bait, having touched her sorest spot. I did not know the man's character fully then, and still less did I know his intentions.
"You may speak," Varvara Petrovna announced reservedly and cautiously, suffering somewhat from her indulgence.
"It's a short matter; in fact, if you like, it's not even an anecdote," the beads began spilling out. "However, a novelist might cook up a novel from it in an idle moment. It's quite an interesting little matter, Praskovya Ivanovna, and I'm sure Lizaveta Nikolaevna will listen with curiosity, because there are many things here which, if not queer, are at least quaint. About five years ago, in Petersburg, Nikolai Vsevolodovich got to know this gentleman—this same Mr. Lebyadkin who is standing here with his mouth hanging open and, it seems, was just about to slip away. Forgive me, Varvara Petrovna. Incidentally, I'd advise you not to take to your heels, mister retired official of the former supply department (you see, I remember you perfectly). Both I and Nikolai Vsevolodovich are all too well informed of your local tricks, of which, don't forget, you will have to give an accounting. Once again I ask your forgiveness, Varvara Petrovna. Nikolai Vsevolodovich used to call this gentleman his Falstaff [71]—that must be some former character," he suddenly explained, "some burlesque everyone laughs at and who allows everyone to laugh at him, so long as they pay money. The life Nikolai Vsevolodovich then led in Petersburg was, so to speak, a jeering one—I cannot define it by any other word, because he was not a man to fall into disillusionment, and he scorned then to do anything serious. I'm talking only about that time, Varvara Petrovna. This Lebyadkin had a sister—the very one who was just sitting here. This nice brother and sister had no corner of their own, and wandered about staying with various people. He loitered under the arcades of the Gostiny Dvor, [72]unfailingly wearing his former uniform, and stopped the cleaner-looking passers-by, and whatever he collected he would spend on drink. His sister lived like the birds of the air. She helped out in those corners and served in exchange for necessities. It was a most terrible Sodom; I'll pass over the picture of this corner life—the life to which Nikolai Vsevolodovich then gave himself out of whimsicality. [73] This was only then, Varvara Petrovna; and as for 'whimsicality,' the expression is his. There is much that he does not conceal from me. Mademoiselle Lebyadkin, who at a certain period happened to run into Nikolai Vsevolodovich all too often, was struck by his appearance. He was, so to speak, a diamond set against the dirty background of her life.
I'm a poor describer of feelings, so I'll pass that over; but rotten little people immediately made fun of her, and she grew sad. They generally laughed at her there, but before she didn't notice it. She was already not right in the head then, but less so than now. There's reason to think that in childhood, through some benefactress, she almost received an education. Nikolai Vsevolodovich never paid the slightest attention to her, and rather spent his time playing old greasy cards, the game of preference for quarter-kopeck stakes, with some clerks. But once when she was being mistreated, he, without asking why, grabbed one clerk by the scruff of the neck and chucked him out the second-story window. There wasn't any chivalrous indignation in favor of offended innocence in it; the whole operation took place amid general laughter, and Nikolai Vsevolodovich himself laughed most of all; everything eventually came to a good end, they made peace and began drinking punch. But oppressed innocence herself did not forget it. Of course, it ended with the final shaking of her mental faculties. I repeat, I'm a poor describer of feelings, but the main thing here was the dream. And Nikolai Vsevolodovich, as if on purpose, aroused the dream even more; instead of just laughing at it, he suddenly began addressing Mademoiselle Lebyadkin with unexpected esteem. Kirillov, who was there (an exceedingly original man, Varvara Petrovna, and an exceedingly abrupt one; perhaps you'll meet him one day, he's here now), well, so this Kirillov, who ordinarily is always silent, but then suddenly got excited, observed to Nikolai Vsevolodovich, as I remember, that his treating this lady as a marquise was finally going to finish her off. I will add that Nikolai Vsevolodovich had a certain respect for this Kirillov. And how do you think he answered him? 'You assume, Mr. Kirillov, that I am laughing at her; let me assure you that I do indeed respect her, because she is better than any of us.' And, you know, he said it in such a serious tone. Though, in fact, during those two or three months he hadn't said a word to her except 'hello' and 'good-bye.' I, who was there, remember for a certainty that she finally reached the point of regarding him as something like her fiancé, who did not dare to 'abduct' her solely because he had many enemies and family obstacles, or something of the sort. There was much laughter over that! In the end, when Nikolai Vsevolodovich had to come here that time, as he was leaving he arranged for her keep, and it seems it was quite a substantial yearly pension, at least three hundred roubles, if not more. In short, let's say it was all self-indulgence, the fancy of a prematurely weary man—let it be, finally, as Kirillov was saying, a new étude by a jaded man, with the object of finding out what a mad cripple can be brought to. 'You chose on purpose,' he said, 'the very least of beings, a cripple covered in eternal shame and beatings—and knowing, besides, that this being is dying of her comical love for you—and you suddenly start to flummox her on purpose, solely to see what will come of it!' Why, finally, is a man so especially to blame for the fantasy of a mad woman to whom, notice, he had hardly spoken two sentences during that whole time! There are things, Varvara Petrovna, of which it is not only impossible to speak intelligently, but of which it is not intelligent even to begin speaking. Well, let it be whimsicality, finally—but that's all one can say; and yet quite a story has been made of it now ... I'm partly informed, Varvara Petrovna, of what is going on here."
