Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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"You need two," said Pyotr Stepanovich.
"Why two?" von Lembke stopped in front of him.
"I don't think one will be enough to earn you respect. You surely need two."
Andrei Antonovich made a wry face.
"You... you allow yourself God knows what, Pyotr Stepanovich. You take advantage of my kindness to make caustic remarks and play some sort of bourru bienfaisant [lxxxix] . .."
"Well, that's as you like," Pyotr Stepanovich muttered, "but all the same you're paving the way for us and preparing our success."
"That is, which 'us' and what success?" von Lembke stared at him in surprise, but received no answer.
Yulia Mikhailovna, after hearing a report of the conversation, was very displeased.
"But, really," von Lembke defended himself, "I cannot behave as a superior towards your favorite, especially when we're in private ... I might have let something slip... from the goodness of my heart."
"From all too much goodness. I didn't know you had a collection of tracts, kindly show it to me."
"But... but he asked to take it for a day."
"And once again you gave it!" Yulia Mikhailovna became angry. "What tactlessness!"
"I'll send someone now to take it back from him."
"He won't give it back."
"I'll insist!" von Lembke boiled over, and even jumped up from his place. "Who is he to be so feared, and who am I not to dare to do anything?"
"Sit down and calm yourself," Yulia Mikhailovna interrupted. "I will answer your first question: he came to me with excellent recommendations, he has abilities, and occasionally says extremely intelligent things. Karmazinov assured me that he has connections almost everywhere and is extremely influential with the youth of the capital. And if through him I can attract them and gather them all around me, I can divert them from ruin by showing a new path for their ambition. He is devoted to me with his whole heart and heeds me in everything."
"But while we're indulging them, they can do ... devil knows what. Of course, it's an idea..." von Lembke vaguely defended himself, "but. . . but now I hear that some tracts have appeared in the – district."
"But we heard that rumor already in the summer—tracts, false banknotes, and whatnot—yet nothing has been brought in. Who told you?"
"I heard it from von Blum."
"Ah, spare me your Blum, and do not dare to mention him again!"
Yulia Mikhailovna boiled over and for about a minute was even unable to speak. Von Blum was an official from the governor's office whom she especially hated. Of that later.
"Please don't worry about Verkhovensky," she concluded the conversation. "If he had participated in any mischief, he wouldn't talk the way he does with you and with everyone here. Phrase-mongers are not dangerous, and I would even say that if something were to happen,I would be the first to learn of it through him. He is fanatically, fanatically devoted to me."
I will note, anticipating events, that had it not been for Yulia Mikhailovna's self-importance and ambition, perhaps none of the things these bad little people managed to do here would have taken place. Much of it is her responsibility!
5: Before the Fête
I
The day of the fête conceived by Yulia Mikhailovna as a subscription benefit for the governesses of our province had already been fixed and canceled several times. Constantly fluttering around her were Pyotr Stepanovich; the little clerk Lyamshin, serving as errand boy, who once upon a time used to visit Stepan Trofimovich but suddenly came into favor in the governor's house for his piano playing; Liputin, partly, whom Yulia Mikhailovna planned to make the editor of a future independent provincial newspaper; a few ladies and young girls; and finally even Karmazinov, who, though he did not flutter, nevertheless announced aloud and with a satisfied air that he was going to give everyone a pleasant surprise when the quadrille of literature began. A great many subscribers and donors turned up, all select town society; though the most non-select were also admitted, as long as they came with money. Yulia Mikhailovna observed that sometimes the mixing of ranks even ought to be allowed, "otherwise who will enlighten them?" An unofficial home committee was formed at which it was decided that the fête should be a democratic one. The extravagant subscription list tempted them to spend; they wanted to do something wonderful—which was why it kept being postponed. They still could not decide where to organize the evening ball: at the huge house of the marshal of nobility's wife, which she had offered for the day, or at Varvara Petrovna's in Skvoreshniki. Skvoreshniki would be a bit far, but many of the committee insisted that it would be "freer" there. Varvara Petrovna herself was only too anxious to have it take place there. It is hard to understand why this proud woman almost fawned on Yulia Mikhailovna. She probably liked it that the woman, in her turn, almost demeaned herself before Nikolai Vsevolodovich and paid court to him as to no one else. I will repeat once more: Pyotr Stepanovich, all the time and unceasingly, in whispers, continued to cultivate in the governor's house an idea he had set going even earlier, that Nikolai Vsevolodovich was a man who had the most mysterious connections in a most mysterious world, and that he must have come on some assignment.
Strange was the state of people's minds at that time. A certain frivolity emerged especially in the ladies' society, and one could not say little by little. Several extremely casual notions spread as if on the wind. Something light and happy-go-lucky came about, which I will not say was always pleasant. A certain disorderliness of mind became fashionable. Afterwards, when it was all over, the blame fell on Yulia Mikhailovna, her circle and influence; but it hardly all originated with Yulia Mikhailovna alone. On the contrary, a great many vied with one another in praising the new governor's wife for knowing how to bring society together, and for making things suddenly more cheerful. Several scandalous incidents even took place which were not Yulia Mikhailovna's fault at all; but at the time everyone merely laughed loudly and disported themselves, and there was no one to stop them. True, a considerable group of persons stood firmly aside, having their own special view of the course of events then; but even they did not grumble at the time; they even smiled.
I remember that at that time a rather wide circle had formed, somehow of itself, whose center may indeed have been in Yulia Mikhailovna's drawing room. In this intimate circle that crowded around her—among the young people, of course—all sorts of mischief was allowed and even accepted as a rule, some of it really quite free and easy. The circle included several even very charming ladies. The young people arranged picnics, parties, sometimes rode all around town, in a whole cavalcade, in carriages and on horseback. They sought adventures, even purposely invented some, concocting them themselves, solely for the sake of a merry joke. They treated our town as some sort of Foolsbury. [112]They were called sneerers and jeerers, because there was little they scorned to do. It so happened, for example, that one local lieutenant's wife, still a very young little brunette, though wasted from her husband's ill-keeping, thoughtlessly sat down at a party to play a high-staked hand of whist, hoping to win enough to buy a mantilla, but instead of winning, she lost fifteen roubles. Fearing her husband, and having no money to pay, she decided, recalling her former boldness, to borrow some money on the quiet, right there at the party, from our mayor's son, a very nasty boy, dissipated beyond his years. He not only refused her but also went guffawing to tell her husband. The lieutenant, who indeed lived poorly on nothing but his salary, took his wife home and gave her what for to his heart's content, though she screamed, yelled, and begged forgiveness on her knees. This outrageous story evoked only laughter everywhere in town, and though the poor woman did not belong to the society that surrounded Yulia Mikhailovna, one of the ladies of the "cavalcade," a perky and eccentric character who somehow knew the lieutenant's wife, stopped by her place and quite simply carried her off to her own house. There she was seized upon at once by our pranksters, who petted her, showered her with presents, and kept her for some four days without returning her to her husband. She lived in the perky lady's house, spending whole days driving around town with her and the rest of that frolicsome society, taking part in their merrymaking and dances. Everyone egged her on to haul her husband into court, to start a scandal. She was given assurances that they would all support her and appear as witnesses. The husband was silent, not daring to fight. The poor woman finally grasped that she was up to her ears in trouble, and on the fourth day, at nightfall, half dead with fear, she fled from her protectors to her lieutenant. It is not known precisely what took place between the spouses, but the two shutters of the low wooden house in which the lieutenant rented his lodgings did not open for two weeks. Yulia Mikhailovna was a bit angry with the pranksters when she learned about it all, and was quite displeased with the perky lady's behavior, though the lady had introduced the lieutenant's wife to her on the first day of the abduction. However, it was soon forgotten.
Another time a petty clerk, to all appearances a respectable family man, gave away his daughter, a girl of seventeen and a beauty known to the whole town, to a young man who came to town from another district. Word suddenly went around that on their wedding night the young man dealt rather uncivilly with the beauty, in revenge for his injured honor. Lyamshin, who all but witnessed the affair, because he got drunk at the wedding and stayed in the house overnight, ran around at first light bringing everyone the merry news. Instantly a company of about ten men was formed, all of them on horseback, some on hired Cossack horses, like Pyotr Stepanovich, for example, or Liputin, who, despite his gray hairs, took part at the time in almost all the scandalous adventures of our flighty youth. When the young couple appeared outside in a droshky-and-pair to go around paying calls, as our custom invariably demands on the day after a wedding, mishaps notwithstanding—the whole cavalcade surrounded the droshky, laughing merrily, and accompanied them around town all morning. True, they did not go into the houses, but waited on horseback at the gates; they refrained from any particular insults to the bride and groom, yet they still caused a scandal. The whole town began talking. Of course, everyone laughed heartily. But here von Lembke got angry and again had a lively scene with Yulia Mikhailovna. She, too, got extremely angry, and momentarily intended to deny her house to the pranksters. But the very next day she forgave everyone, after admonitions from Pyotr Stepanovich and a few words from Karmazinov. The latter found the "joke" quite witty.
"These are local ways," he said. "Anyhow it's characteristic and ... bold; and, look, everyone's laughing, you alone are indignant."
But there were some pranks that were intolerable, with a certain tinge.
An itinerant book-hawker appeared in town selling Gospels, a respectable woman, though of tradesman's rank. She was talked about, because the metropolitan newspapers had just published some curious reports on her kind. [113]Again that same rogue, Lyamshin, with the help of some seminarian who was loafing about waiting for a teaching post in the school, while pretending to buy books from her, quietly slipped into her bag a whole bundle of enticing, nasty photographs from abroad, specially donated for the occasion, as was found out later, by a quite venerable old man whose name I shall omit, who had an important decoration around his neck, and who loved, as he put it, "healthy laughter and a merry joke." When the poor woman began taking out her sacred books in the shopping arcade, the photographs spilled out with them. There was laughter, murmuring; the crowd closed in, there was swearing, it would have gone as far as blows if the police had not come in time. The book-hawker was put in the lockup, and only that evening, through the efforts of Mavriky Nikolaevich, who had learned with indignation the intimate details of this vile story, was she freed and sent out of town. This time Yulia Mikhailovna decidedly chased Lyamshin out, but that same evening our entire company brought him to her with the news that he had invented a special new trick on the piano, and talked her into hearing it at least. The trick indeed turned out to be amusing, with the funny title of "The Franco-Prussian War." It began with the fearsome sounds of the "Marseillaise":
Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons! [xc]
A bombastic challenge was heard, the intoxication of future victories. But suddenly, together with masterfully varied measures from the anthem, somewhere from the side, down below, in a corner, but very close by, came the vile little strains of "Mein lieber Augustin." [114]The "Marseillaise" does not notice them, the "Marseillaise" is at the peak of her intoxication with her own grandeur; but "Augustin" is gaining strength, "Augustin" is turning insolent, and now the measures of "Augustin" somehow unexpectedly begin to fall in with the measures of the "Marseillaise." She begins to get angry, as it were; she finally notices "Augustin," she wants to shake him off, to chase him away like an importunate, worthless fly, but "Mein lieber Augustin" holds on tight; he is cheerful and confident; he is joyful and insolent; and the "Marseillaise" somehow suddenly becomes terribly stupid; she no longer conceals that she is annoyed and offended; these are cries of indignation, these are tears and oaths, with arms outstretched to providence:
Pas un pouce de notre terrain, pas une pierre de nos forteresses! [xci]
But now she is forced to sing in time with "Mein lieber Augustin." Her strains somehow turn most stupidly into "Augustin," she is drooping, dying out. Only an occasional outburst, "qu'un sang impur . .." is heard again, but it jumps over at once, in a most vexing way, to the vile little waltz. She is thoroughly humbled: it is Jules Favre weeping on Bismarck's bosom and giving away everything, everything [115]... But then "Augustin" turns ferocious: one hears hoarse sounds, senses measureless quantities of beer being drunk, a frenzy of self-advertisement, demands for billions, slender cigars, champagne, and hostages; "Augustin" turns into a furious bellowing... The Franco-Prussian War is over. Our group applauds, Yulia Mikhailovna smiles and says: "Well, how can one chase him out?" Peace is made. The scoundrel did indeed have a bit of talent. Stepan Trofimovich once tried to convince me that the loftiest artistic talents can be the most terrible scoundrels, and that the one does not exclude the other. Rumor later had it that Lyamshin stole this little piece from a certain talented and modest young man, a visiting acquaintance of his, who remained unknown; but that is an aside. This blackguard, who for several years fluttered around Stepan Trofimovich, portraying on demand at his parties various little Jews, the confession of a deaf woman, or the birth of a child, now at Yulia Mikhailovna's produced killing caricatures, among them one of Stepan Trofimovich himself, entitled "A Liberal of the Forties." Everyone rocked with laughter, so that by the end it was decidedly impossible to chase him out; he had become too necessary a person. Besides, he fawned servilely on Pyotr Stepanovich, who, in his turn, had by that time acquired a strangely strong influence over Yulia Mikhailovna...
I would not have begun speaking in particular about this scoundrel, and he would not be worth dwelling upon, but at that time a certain outrageous incident occurred in which, it was asserted, he also took part, and this incident I can by no means omit from my chronicle.
One morning the news swept through town of an ugly and outrageous blasphemy. At the entrance to our vast marketplace stands the decrepit church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, which is a notable antiquity in our ancient town. Long ago a large icon of the Mother of God had been built into the wall behind a grating near the gates of the enclosure. And so, one night the icon was robbed, the glass of the frame was knocked out, the grating was broken, and a few stones and pearls were taken from the crown and setting, whether very valuable ones or not I do not know. But the main thing was that besides the theft a senseless, jeering blasphemy was committed: behind the broken glass of the icon a live mouse was said to have been found in the morning. It is known positively now, four months later, that the crime was committed by the convict Fedka, but for some reason Lyamshin's participation has also been added to it. At the time no one mentioned Lyamshin and he was not suspected at all, but now everyone insists that it was he who let in the mouse. I remember all our authorities being somewhat at a loss. People had been crowding around the scene of the crime since morning. There was a constant crowd standing there, though not a very big one, but still about a hundred people. Some came, others left. Those who came crossed themselves and kissed the icon; there were donations, a collection plate appeared, and a monk beside it, and it was three o'clock in the afternoon before the authorities realized that they could order people not to stand in a crowd, but to move on after praying, kissing, and donating. This unfortunate incident produced a very gloomy effect on von Lembke. As I am told Yulia Mikhailovna put it afterwards, from that sinister morning on she began to notice that strange despondency in her husband which never left him afterwards up to the very day of his departure from our town, two months ago, for reasons of ill health, and seems to be accompanying him now in Switzerland as well, where he continues to rest after his brief career in our province.
I remember stopping in the square then, at one o'clock in the afternoon; the crowd was silent, the faces significantly somber. A merchant, fat and sallow, drove up in a droshky, climbed out, bowed to the ground, planted a kiss, donated a rouble, clambered back, groaning, into the droshky, and drove off again. A carriage also drove up with two of our ladies, accompanied by two of our pranksters. The young men (one of whom was no longer so young) got out of the vehicle as well and forced their way through the crowd to the icon, rather negligently pushing people aside. Neither of them took his hat off, and one placed a pince-nez on his nose. There was murmuring among the people, dull but disagreeable. The fine fellow in the pince-nez took a brass kopeck from a purse chock-full of bills and threw it into the dish; laughing and talking loudly, they both went back to the carriage. At that moment Lizaveta Nikolaevna, accompanied by Mavriky Nikolaevich, suddenly rode up. She jumped from the horse, handed the bridle to her companion, who on her orders remained mounted, and went up to the icon precisely at the moment when the kopeck was thrown. A flush of indignation covered her cheeks; she took off her round hat, her gloves, fell on her knees before the icon, right on the dirty sidewalk, and reverently bowed three times to the ground. Then she took out her purse, but as there were only a few ten-kopeck pieces in it, she instantly removed her diamond earrings and put them on the plate. "May I? May I? To ornament the setting?" she asked the monk, all agitated.
"It is permissible," the monk replied, "every gift is good." The people were silent, showing neither reproach nor approval; Lizaveta Nikolaevna mounted her horse in her soiled dress and rode off.
II
Two days after the incident just described, I met her in a numerous company, setting out for somewhere in three carriages surrounded by men on horseback. She beckoned to me with her hand, stopped the carriage, and demanded insistently that I join their party. Space was found for me in the carriage, and she laughingly introduced me to her companions, magnificent ladies, and explained to me that they were all setting out on an extremely interesting expedition. She laughed loudly and seemed somehow happy beyond measure. In the most recent time she had become gay to the point of friskiness. The undertaking was indeed an eccentric one: they were all going across the river, to the house of the merchant Sevostyanov, in whose wing, for about ten years now, our blessed man and prophet Semyon Yakovlevich, famous not only among us but in the neighboring provinces and even in the capitals, had been living in retirement, in ease and comfort. Everyone visited him, especially those from out of town, trying to get a word from the holy fool, venerating him, and leaving donations. The donations, sometimes significant ones, unless Semyon Yakovlevich disposed of them at once, were piously conveyed to God's church, mainly to our Bogorodsky monastery; for this purpose a monk sent from the monastery was constantly on duty at Semyon Yakovlevich's. They were all looking forward to having great fun. No one in the group had yet been to see Semyon Yakovlevich. Lyamshin alone had visited him once before, and now insisted that he had ordered him driven out with a broom and with his own hand had sent two big boiled potatoes flying after him. Among the riders I noticed Pyotr Stepanovich, again on a hired Cossack horse, which he sat rather poorly, and Nikolai Vsevolodovich, also on horseback. On occasion the latter did not shun the general amusement, and at such times was always of decently cheerful mien, though he spoke as little and as seldom as ever. When the expedition, descending to the bridge, came opposite the town hotel, someone suddenly announced that in one of the rooms of the hotel they had just found a guest who had shot himself, and that they were awaiting the police. At once the idea was voiced of having a look at the suicide. The idea met with support: our ladies had never seen a suicide. I remember one of them saying aloud right then that "everything has become so boring that there's no need to be punctilious about entertainment, as long as it's diverting." Only a few stood and waited by the porch; the rest went trooping down the dirty corridor, and among them, to my surprise, I noticed Lizaveta Nikolaevna. The room of the man who had shot himself was not locked, and, naturally, they did not dare to keep us from going in. He was a young boy, about nineteen, certainly not more, who must have been very pretty, with thick blond hair, a regular oval face, a pure, beautiful brow. He was already stiff, and his white face looked as if it were made of marble. On the table lay a note, in his handwriting, saying no one was to blame for his death, and that he was shooting himself because he had "caroused away" four hundred roubles. The phrase "caroused away" stood just so in the note: in its four lines there were three grammatical errors. A fat landowner, who seemed to be his neighbor and was staying in another room on business of his own, sighed over him especially. From what he said it turned out that the boy had been sent to town from their village by his family, his widowed mother, his sisters and aunts, to purchase, under the supervision of a female relation who lived in town, various things for the trousseau of his eldest sister, who was getting married, and to bring them home. Those four hundred roubles, saved up in the course of decades, had been entrusted to him with fearful sighs and endless admonishing exhortations, prayers, and crosses. The boy had hitherto been modest and trustworthy. Having come to town three days before, he did not go to his relation, he put up at the hotel and went straight to the club—hoping to find somewhere in a back room some traveling gambler, or at least a game of cards. But there was no card game that day, nor any gambler. Returning to his room at around midnight, he asked for champagne, Havana cigars, and ordered a dinner of six or seven courses. But the champagne made him drunk, the cigar made him throw up, so that when the food was brought he did not touch it, but went to bed almost unconscious. He woke up the next day fresh as an apple, went at once to a Gypsy camp in a village across the river, which he had heard about in the club the day before, and did not return to the hotel for two days. Finally, yesterday at five in the afternoon, he arrived drunk, went to bed at once, and slept until ten o'clock in the evening. On waking up, he asked for a cutlet, a bottle of Château d'Yquem, [116]and grapes, some notepaper, ink, and the bill. No one noticed anything special about him; he was calm, quiet, and gentle. He must have shot himself at around midnight, though strangely, no one heard the shot, and his absence was noticed only today, at one in the afternoon, when, after knocking in vain, they broke down the door. The bottle of Château d'Yquem was half empty; about half a plate of grapes was also left. The shot had come from a small three-chambered revolver, straight into his heart. There was very little blood; the revolver had fallen from his hand onto the carpet. The youth himself was half reclined on a sofa in the corner. Death must have occurred instantly; no mortal agony showed on his face; his expression was calm, almost happy, he need only have lived. Our people all stared with greedy curiosity. Generally, in every misfortune of one's neighbor there is always something that gladdens the outsider's eye—and that even no matter who you are. Our ladies stared silently, their companions distinguished themselves by sharpness of wit and a supreme presence of mind. One of them observed that this was the best solution and that the boy even could not have come up with anything smarter; another concluded that he had lived well, if only for a moment. A third suddenly blurted out: "Why have we got so many people hanging or shooting themselves—as if we'd jumped off our roots, as if the floor had slipped from under everyone's feet?" The raisonneurwas given unfriendly looks. Then Lyamshin, who drew honor from his role of buffoon, filched a little bunch of grapes from the plate; another, laughing, followed his example, and a third reached out for the Château d'Yquem as well. But he was stopped by the police chief, who arrived and even ordered them to "clear the room." Since everyone had already had their fill of looking, they went out at once without argument, though Lyamshin did try to badger the police chief about something. For the remaining half of the way, the general merriment, laughter, and brisk chatter became almost twice as lively.
We arrived at Semyon Yakovlevich's at exactly one o'clock in the afternoon. [117]The gates of the rather large merchant's house stood wide open, giving access to the wing. We learned at once that Semyon Yakovlevich was having his dinner, but was still receiving people. Our whole crowd went in together. The room in which the blessed man received and dined was quite spacious, with three windows, and was divided into two equal parts by a waist-high wooden railing from wall to wall. Ordinary visitors remained outside the railing, but the lucky ones were admitted, on the blessed man's instructions, through the gate of the railing into his part, and there he seated them, if he so desired, on his old leather chairs and sofa; while he invariably installed himself in an ancient, shabby Voltaire armchair. He was a rather big, puffy, sallow-faced man of about fifty-five, blond and bald, with thin hair, a clean-shaven chin, a swollen right cheek, and a mouth somewhat twisted, as it were, with a big wart near his left nostril, narrow little eyes, and a calm, solid, sleepy expression on his face. He was dressed German-fashion in a black frock coat, but with no waistcoat or tie. [118]A rather coarse, though white, shirt peeped out from under the frock coat; on his feet, which I believe were ailing, he wore slippers. I have heard that he was once an official and had some rank. He had just finished dining upon a light fish soup and begun his second course– jacket potatoes with salt. This was all he ever dined upon; he also drank lots of tea, of which he was a great fancier. Three servants, kept by the merchant, scurried about him; one of them wore a tailcoat, the second looked like a shop foreman, the third like a beadle. There was also a lad of about sixteen, quite a frisky one. Besides the servants there was present a venerable gray-haired monk, a bit too corpulent, holding a tin cup. On one of the tables an enormous samovar was boiling, and there stood a tray with as many as two dozen glasses. On another table, across the room, offerings had been placed: several loaves and packets of sugar, about two pounds of tea, a pair of embroidered slippers, a foulard, a length of broadcloth, a piece of linen, and so on. Almost all the money that was donated went into the monk's tin cup. The room was crowded, the visitors alone numbering about a dozen, of whom two sat beyond the railing with Semyon Yakovlevich—one a gray-haired little old man, a pilgrim from "simple folk," the other a small, dry monk from elsewhere who sat decorously and looked down. The rest of the visitors stood on this side of the railing, and they, too, were all mainly from simple folk, except for a fat merchant who came from a district town, a bearded fellow and dressed in Russian style, though he was known to be worth a hundred thousand; an elderly and woebegone noblewoman, and one landowner. They were all awaiting their happiness, not daring to begin speaking. Some four of them were on their knees, but it was the landowner who attracted the most attention, a fat man of about forty-five, who knelt right up against the railing where everyone could see him, and waited reverently for a benevolent glance or word from Semyon Yakovlevich. He had already been kneeling there for an hour or so, and the man had still paid him no notice.
