Текст книги "Demons"

"Not your business. Maybe he wouldn't have.": "And would just have beaten me up?"

"Not your business. Bear the burden. Otherwise there's no merit."

"I spit on your merit, I'm not seeking that from anyone!"

"I thought you were," Kirillov concluded with terrible equanimity.

They rode into the courtyard.

"Want to come in?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich offered.

"No, home. Good-bye." He got off the horse and took his box under his arm.

"You at least are not angry with me?" Stavrogin gave him his hand.

"Not at all!" Kirillov turned back to shake hands with him. "If the burden is light for me because of my nature, then maybe the burden is heavier for you because of your nature. Nothing to be much ashamed of, only a little."

"I know I'm a worthless character, but I'm not trying to get in with the strong ones."

"Don't; you're not a strong man. Come for tea."

Nikolai Vsevolodovich entered the house greatly perturbed.

IV

He learned at once from Alexei Yegorovich that Varvara Petrovna, very pleased with Nikolai Vsevolodovich's going out– the first time after eight days of illness—for a ride on horseback, ordered a carriage to be readied and drove off alone, "after the pattern of former days, to take a breath of fresh air, for in these eight days she has forgotten what it means to breathe fresh air."

"Did she go alone or with Darya Pavlovna?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich interrupted the old man with a quick question, and frowned deeply on hearing that Darya Pavlovna "declined to accompany her, being unwell, and is now in her rooms."

"Listen, old man," he said, as if suddenly making up his mind, "keep an eye out for her all day today, and if you see her coming to me, stop her at once, and tell her that at least for a few days I'll be unable to receive her... that I myself ask it of her... and that I'll send for her when the time comes—do you hear?"

"I'll tell her, sir," Alexei Yegorovich said, with anguish in his voice, lowering his eyes.

"But not before you see clearly that she's coming to me herself."

"Do not worry, if you please, sir, there will be no mistakes. Up to now the visits have taken place through me; my assistance has always been called upon."

"I know. But, still, not before she comes herself. Bring me some tea, quickly, if you can."

As soon as the old man went out, at almost the same moment, the same door opened and Darya Pavlovna appeared on the threshold. Her eyes were calm, but her face was pale.

"Where did you come from?" Stavrogin exclaimed.

"I was standing right here, waiting for him to come out so that I could come in. I heard the order you gave him, and when he came out just now, I hid around the corner to the right, and he didn't notice me."

"I've long meant to break it off with you, Dasha... meanwhile... for the time being. I couldn't receive you last night, despite your note. I wanted to write back to you, but I'm no good at writing," he added with vexation, even as if with disgust.

"I myself thought we should break it off. Varvara Petrovna is too suspicious of our relations."

"Well, let her be."

"No, she shouldn't worry. And so, that's it now, until the end?"

"You're still so certainly expecting an end?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it."

"Nothing in the world ever ends."

"Here there will be an end. Call me then; I'll come. Now, good-bye."

"And what sort of end will it be?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich grinned.

"You're not wounded, and... haven't shed blood?" she asked, without answering his question about the end.

"It was stupid; I didn't kill anyone, don't worry. However, you'll hear all about it this very day from everyone. I'm a bit unwell."

"I'll leave. The marriage won't be announced today?" she added irresolutely.

"Not today; not tomorrow; about the day after tomorrow I don't know, maybe we'll all die, and so much the better. Leave me, leave me, finally."

"You won't ruin the other woman... the insane one?"

"I won't ruin the insane ones, neither the one nor the other, but it seems I will ruin the sane one: I'm so mean and vile, Dasha, that it seems I really will call you 'in the final end,' as you say, and you, despite your sanity, will come. Why are you ruining yourself?"

"I know that finally I alone will remain with you, and... I'm waiting for that."

"And what if I don't finally call you, but run away from you?"

"That cannot be. You will call."

"There's much contempt for me there." "You know it's not just contempt."

"So there is still contempt?"

"I didn't put it right. God be my witness, I wish very much that you should never have need of me."

"One phrase is worth another. I also wish not to ruin you."

"Nothing you do can ever ruin me, and you know it better than anyone else," Darya Pavlovna said quickly and firmly. "If it's not you, I'll become a sister of mercy, or a sick-nurse, or a book-hawker and sell Gospels. I've decided it so. I can't be anyone's wife; I can't live in a house like this either; that's not what I want. . . You know all that."

"No, I never could discover what you wanted; it seems to me that you're interested in me in the same way as certain antiquated sick-nurses for some reason take an interest in some one patient as opposed to all the others, or, better still, the way certain pious old women who hang about at funerals prefer certain nice little corpses that are comelier than the others. Why are you looking at me so strangely?"

"Are you very sick?" she asked sympathetically, looking at him in some special way. "Oh, God! And this man wants to do without me!"

"Listen, Dasha! I keep seeing ghosts now. Yesterday, on the bridge, one little demon offered to put a knife into Lebyadkin and Marya Timofeevna for me, to do away with my lawful marriage and cover the traces. He asked for three roubles down, but let me know plainly that the whole operation would cost not less than fifteen hundred. There's a calculating demon for you! A bookkeeper! Ha, ha!"

"But you're quite certain it was a ghost?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't a ghost at all! It was simply Fedka the Convict, a robber who escaped from hard labor. But that's not the point: what do you think I did? I gave him all the money I had in my wallet, and now he's quite certain I've given him his down payment."

"You met him at night, and he made you such an offer? But don't you see that you're all entangled in their net!"

"Well, never mind them. You know, you've got a question on the tip of your tongue, I can see by your eyes," he added, with a spiteful and irritated smile.

Dasha became frightened.

"There isn't any question, and there aren't any doubts whatever, you'd better keep still!" she cried anxiously, as if waving his question away.

"So you're sure I won't go shopping at Fedka's?"

"Oh, God!" she clasped her hands, "why do you torment me so?"

"Well, forgive me my stupid joke, I must be acquiring their bad manners. You know, since last night I've wanted terribly to laugh, to laugh all the time, constantly, long, loud. It's as if I'm charged with laughter... Sh! Mother's come back; I can tell the clatter of her carriage when it stops at the porch."

Dasha seized his hand.

"May God preserve you from your dark spirit, and... call me, call me soon!"

"Oh, he's no dark spirit! He's simply a nasty, scrofulous little demon with a runny nose, a failure. And you, Dasha, again there's something you don't dare say?"

She looked at him with pain and reproach, and turned towards the door.

"Listen!" he shouted after her with a spiteful, twisted smile. "If... well, in short, if...you understand, well, even if I did go shopping, and called you after that—would you still come, after that shopping?"

She went out without turning or answering, covering her face with her hands.

"She'll come even after that shopping!" he whispered, having thought a moment, with a look of scornful disgust. "A sick-nurse! Hm! ... However, that may be just what I need."

4: All in Expectation

1

The impression produced in our whole society by the story of the duel, which quickly became public, was especially remarkable for the unanimity with which everyone hastened to declare himself unconditionally for Nikolai Vsevolodovich. Many of his former enemies resolutely proclaimed themselves his friends. The main reason for such an unexpected turnabout in public opinion was a few words, spoken aloud with unusual aptness by a certain person who until then had not spoken, which all at once gave the event a significance that greatly interested our vast majority. This is how it happened: the very next day after the event, the whole town gathered to celebrate the name day of the wife of our provincial marshal of nobility. Yulia Mikhailovna was also present, or, rather, presided, having arrived with Lizaveta Nikolaevna, who shone with beauty and a special gaiety, which this time many of our ladies at once found especially suspicious. Incidentally, there could no longer be any doubts about her engagement to Mavriky Nikolaevich. That evening, to the jocular question of one retired but important general, of whom more will be said later, Lizaveta Nikolaevna herself answered directly that she was engaged. And what do you think? Decidedly none of our ladies wanted to believe in this engagement. They all stubbornly continued to suppose some romance, some fatal family secret that had taken place in Switzerland, and for some reason necessarily with Yulia Mikhailovna's participation. It is hard to say why all these rumors, or even, so to speak, dreams, held out so stubbornly, or precisely why it was so necessary to drag Yulia Mikhailovna into it. As soon as she entered, everyone turned to her with strange looks, overflowing with expectations. It must be noted that in view of the recentness of the event and certain accompanying circumstances, it was still being spoken of somewhat cautiously that evening, and not aloud. Besides, nothing was known yet about the orders of the authorities. ^[106]Neither duelist, as far as anyone knew, had been inconvenienced. Everyone knew, for example, that Artemy Pavlovich had gone to his Dukhovo estate early in the morning without any hindrance. Meanwhile, everyone was certainly longing for someone to be the first to speak out and thereby open the door for public impatience. They placed their hopes precisely in the above-mentioned general, and were not mistaken.

This general, one of the stateliest members of our club, a landowner of no very great wealth but of an incomparable turn of mind, an old-fashioned dangler after young ladies, was, among other things, extremely fond of speaking out in large gatherings, with a general's weightiness, precisely about things which everyone was still speaking of in cautious whispers. It was as if this constituted his specific role, so to speak, in our society. In doing so, he drew his words out especially, with a sugary enunciation, a habit he had probably borrowed from Russians traveling abroad, or from those formerly wealthy Russian landowners who had been most ruined by the peasant reform. Stepan Trofimovich even noted once that the more ruined a landowner was, the more sugarily he lisped and drew out his words. He himself, however, had the same sugary drawl and lisp, without noticing it in himself.

The general began speaking as a man of competence. Besides the fact that he was some sort of distant relation of Artemy Pavlovich's, though on bad terms and even at law with him, he had, moreover, fought two duels in the past, for one of which he had even been exiled to the ranks in the Caucasus. Someone mentioned Varvara Petrovna, that it was two days now since she had begun going out "after an illness," or not her, properly speaking, but the excellent match of her gray four-in-hand, from the Stavrogins' own stud. The general suddenly remarked that he had met "young Stavrogin" on horseback that day... Everyone fell silent at once. The general smacked his lips and suddenly declared, twiddling in his fingers a gold presentation snuffbox:

"I regret that I wasn't here a few years ago—I mean, that I was in Karlsbad... Hm. I'm very interested in this young man, of whom I then found so many rumors. Hm. And what, is it true that he's crazy? Someone said so at the time. Suddenly I'm told that some student here insulted him in the presence of his cousins, and that he hid from him under the table; then yesterday I heard from Stepan Vysotsky that Stavrogin fought with this... Gaganov. And solely with the gallant purpose of offering his forehead to an enraged man; just to get rid of him. Hm. That's the style of the Guard in the twenties. Does he call on anyone here?"

The general fell silent, as if waiting for an answer. The door for public impatience had been opened.

"What could be simpler?" Yulia Mikhailovna suddenly raised her voice, annoyed by the fact that everyone, as if on command, turned their eyes towards her. "How can there be anything surprising in Stavrogin fighting with Gaganov and not responding to a student? Could he challenge his own former serf to a duel?"

Portentous words! A clear and simple thought which, however, had so far not occurred to anyone. Words with extraordinary consequences. Everything scandalous and gossipy, everything petty and anecdotal, was immediately pushed into the background; a different meaning was set forth; a new person was brought forth, in whom everyone had been mistaken, a person of an almost ideal strictness of notions. Mortally offended by a student—that is, by an educated man and no longer a serf—he scorns the insult, because the offender is his former serf. Noise and gossip in society; frivolous society looks with scorn on the man who has been slapped in the face; he scorns the opinion of society, which has not yet attained to real notions and yet talks about them.

"And yet you and I, Ivan Alexandrovich, sit and talk about correct notions, sir," one little old clubman observes to another, with the noble vehemence of self-accusation.

"Yes, Pyotr Mikhailovich, yes, sir," the other yesses him delightedly, "talk about the young folk after that."

"The young folk aren't the point, Ivan Alexandrovich," a third turns up and observes. "This isn't a question of the young folk; this is a star, sir, not one of the young folk; that's how it should be understood."

"And that's just what we need; there's a dearth of such people."

The main thing here lay in the fact that the "new man," besides having shown himself an "unquestionable nobleman," was moreover the wealthiest landowner in the province, and therefore could not but come forth as a helper and an active figure. However, I have already referred in passing to the moods of our landowners.

They would even become vehement:

"Not only did he not challenge the student, he even put his hands behind his back—make special note of that, Your Excellency," one of them put forth.

"And he didn't haul him into the new courts," another added.

"Though the new courts would adjudge him fifteen roubles for a nobleman's personaloffense, sir, heh, heh, heh!"

"No, I'll tell you, here's the secret of our new courts," the third would get frantic. "Suppose a man steals or cheats and gets caught and clearly exposed—so, run home quickly, while there's still time, and kill your mother. You'll be acquitted instantly, and the ladies will wave their cambric handkerchiefs from the gallery—it's unquestionably true!" ^[107]

"True, true!"

There was no doing without anecdotes. Nikolai Vsevolodovich's connections with Count K. were recalled. The stern, solitary opinions of Count K. concerning the recent reforms were well known. Well known, too, was his remarkable activity, which had ceased somewhat of late. And now suddenly it became unquestionable for everyone that Nikolai Vsevolodovich was engaged to one of Count K.'s daughters, though nothing gave any precise grounds for such a rumor. As far as certain wondrous Swiss adventures and Lizaveta Nikolaevna were concerned, even the ladies ceased mentioning them. We may mention, incidentally, that just at that time the Drozdovs succeeded in paying all the visits they had failed to pay so far. Everyone now found Lizaveta Nikolaevna unquestionably a most ordinary girl who was "making a show" of her bad nerves. They now explained her swoon on the day of Nikolai Vsevolodovich's arrival simply by her fright at the student's outrageous act. They even emphasized the prosaicness of the very thing they had previously been at such pains to endow with some fantastic coloring; and they finally forgot all about the poor lame girl; they were even ashamed to recall it. "Let there be a hundred lame girls—we were all young once!" They drew attention to Nikolai Vsevolodovich's deference to his mother, sought out various virtues in him, spoke benevolently of his learning, acquired during four years in German universities. Artemy Pavlovich's act was finally declared tactless—"their own knew not their own"—and Yulia Mikhailovna was finally acknowledged as a woman of supreme perceptivity.

Thus, when Nikolai Vsevolodovich himself appeared at last, everyone met him with the most naïve earnestness; one could read the most impatient expectations in all the eyes turned to him. Nikolai Vsevolodovich at once withdrew into the most strict silence, which certainly satisfied everyone far more than if he had talked a whole cartload. In a word, he succeeded in everything, he was in fashion. In provincial society, once a person makes his appearance, there is no way he can hide. Nikolai Vsevolodovich began, as before, to follow all the provincial rules to the point of finesse. He was not found cheerful: "The man has suffered, the man is not like everyone else, there are things on his mind." Even his pride and that squeamish unapproachability for which he had been so hated among us four years earlier, were now respected and liked.

Varvara Petrovna was most triumphant of all. I cannot say whether she grieved much over her collapsed dreams concerning Lizaveta Nikolaevna. Of course, family pride was a help here. One thing was strange: Varvara Petrovna suddenly believed in the highest degree that Nicolas had indeed "made his choice" at Count K.'s, but, strangest of all, she believed it from rumors that came to her, as to everyone else, on the wind. She was afraid to ask Nikolai Vsevolodovich directly. Some two or three times, however, she could not help herself and chided him gaily and slyly for not being more open with her; Nikolai Vsevolodovich smiled and went on being silent. The silence was taken as a sign of assent. And just think: for all that, she never forgot about the poor lame girl. The thought of her lay on her heart like a stone, like a nightmare, tormented her with strange phantoms and forebodings, and all that together and simultaneously with her dreams about Count K.'s daughters. But more of that later. To be sure, in society Varvara Petrovna was once again treated with extreme and deferential respect, but she made little use of it and went out extremely rarely.

She did, however, pay a solemn visit to the governor's wife. To be sure, no one had been more charmed and captivated by the above-mentioned portentous words of Yulia Mikhailovna's at the evening for the wife of the marshal of nobility: they had lifted much anguish from her heart, and at once resolved much of what had so tormented her since that unfortunate Sunday. "I had not understood the woman!" she uttered, and directly, with her customary impetuousness, she announced to Yulia Mikhailovna that she had come to thankher. Yulia Mikhailovna was flattered, but bore herself independently. At that time she had already begun to feel her own worth, perhaps even a bit too much. She announced, for example, in the middle of the conversation, that she had never heard anything about the activity or learning of Stepan Trofimovich.

"I receive young Verkhovensky, of course, and indulge him. He's reckless, but then he's still young; of considerable education, however. In any case he's not some former retired critic."

Varvara Petrovna at once hastened to observe that Stepan Trofimovich had never been a critic, but, on the contrary, had lived all his life in her house. And he was famous for the circumstances of his early career, "known only too well to the whole world," and, lately, for his works on Spanish history; he also intended to write something about the present situation in German universities and, it seemed, something about the Dresden Madonna as well. In short, Varvara Petrovna did not want to surrender Stepan Trofimovich to Yulia Mikhailovna.

"The Dresden Madonna? You mean the Sistine Madonna? ^[108] ChèreVarvara Petrovna, I sat for two hours in front of that painting and went away disappointed. I understood nothing, and was greatly surprised. Karmazinov also says it's hard to understand. No one now, Russian or English, finds anything in it. All this fame was just the old men shouting."

"So there's a new fashion?"

"And I think our young people shouldn't be neglected either. They shout that they're communists, but in my opinion they should be spared and appreciated. I read everything now—all the newspapers, communes, natural sciences—I subscribe to everything, because one should finally know where one lives and whom one is dealing with. One cannot live all one's life on the heights of one's fantasy. I have arrived at the conclusion and accepted it as a rule to indulge young people and thereby keep them on the brink. Believe me, Varvara Petrovna, only we of society, by our beneficial influence and, namely, by indulgence, can keep them from the abyss they are being pushed into by the intolerance of all these old codgers. However, I'm glad to have learned from you about Stepan Trofimovich. You've given me an idea: he could be useful at our literary reading. You know, I am organizing a whole day of entertainment by subscription for the benefit of the poor governesses of our province. They're scattered all over Russia; there are about six from our district alone; then there are two telegraph girls, two are studying at the academy, the rest would like to but have no means. The lot of the Russian woman is terrible, Varvara Petrovna! They're now making it a university question, and there has even been a meeting of the state council. ^[109]In our strange Russia one can do whatever one likes. And therefore, again, just by indulgence and by the direct, warm participation of all society, we could guide this great common cause onto the right path. Oh, God, do we really have so many shining lights! There are a few, of course, but they're scattered. Let us join together and be stronger. In short, I'll have a literary morning first, then a light luncheon, then an intermission, and a ball that same evening. We wanted to start the evening with tableaux vivants, but it seems the expenses would be too great, so for the public there will be one or two quadrilles in masks and character costumes representing famous literary trends. This playful idea was suggested by Karmazinov; he is a great help to me. You know, he's going to read his last thing here, as yet unknown to anyone. He's laying down his pen and will not write anymore; this last article is his farewell to the public. A lovely little thing called Merci.The title is French, but he finds it more playful and even more subtle. So do I—it was even I who suggested it. I think Stepan Trofimovich could also read, if it's short and ... not really too learned. It seems Pyotr Stepanovich and someone else will read something or other. Pyotr Stepanovich will run by and tell you the program; or, better still, allow me to bring it to you."