Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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He raised his fist, waving it ecstatically and menacingly over his head, and suddenly brought it down furiously, as if crushing his adversary to dust. Frenzied yelling came from all sides, deafening applause broke out. This time almost half the hall applauded; they were most innocently carried away: Russia was being dishonored before all eyes, publicly—how could one not roar in ecstasy?
"That's the business! Now we're getting to business! Hurrah! No, this is none of your aesthetics!"
The maniac went on ecstatically:
"Since then twenty years have passed. Universities have been opened and multiplied. Drill has turned into a legend; we're thousands short of the full complement of officers. Railroads have eaten up all the capital and covered Russia like spiderwebs, so that perhaps in another fifteen years or so one may even be able to take a ride somewhere. Bridges burn only rarely, while towns burn down regularly, in established order, by turns, during the fire seasons. In the courts there are judgments of Solomon, and jurors take bribes solely in the struggle for existence, when they're going to die of hunger. The serfs are free and whack each other with birch rods instead of their former landowners. Seas and oceans of vodka are drunk to support the budget, and in Novgorod, opposite the ancient and useless Sophia, a colossal bronze ball has been solemnly erected to commemorate a millennium of already elapsed disorder and witlessness. [179]Europe is frowning and beginning to worry again... Fifteen years of reforms! And yet never, even in the most caricaturish epochs of her witlessness, has Russia reached..."
The last words could not even be heard over the roar of the crowd. He could be seen raising his hand again and once more bringing it down victoriously. The ecstasy went beyond all bounds: people were yelling, clapping their hands, some of the ladies even shouted: "Enough! You couldn't say anything better!" It was like drunkenness. The orator let his eyes wander over them all and was as if melting in his own triumph. I caught a glimpse of Lembke, in inexpressible agitation, pointing something out to someone. Yulia Mikhailovna, all pale, was hurriedly saying something to the prince, who had run up to her... But at that moment a whole crowd of about six more or less official persons rushed out on the platform from backstage, laid hold of the orator, and drew him backstage. I do not understand how he could have torn free of them, but he did tear free, leaped up to the very edge again, and still managed to shout with all his might, waving his fist:
"But never before has Russia reached..."
But he was already being dragged away again. I saw about fifteen men, perhaps, rush backstage to free him, not across the platform but from the side, smashing the flimsy partition so that it finally fell down ... I saw later, not believing my eyes, how the girl student (Virginsky's relative) jumped up on the platform with that same bundle of hers under her arm, dressed in the same clothes, her face the same red, with the same well-fed cheeks, surrounded by two or three women and two or three men, and accompanied by her mortal enemy, the high-school boy. I even managed to catch the phrase:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to proclaim the sufferings of unfortunate students and rouse them to protest everywhere."
But I fled. I hid my bow in my pocket and, by various back passages known to me, got myself out of the house to the street. First of all, of course, I went to Stepan Trofimovich.
2 : The End of the Fête
I
He did not receive me. He had locked himself in and was writing. To my repeated knocking and calling, he answered through the door:
"My friend, I have finished it all, who can demand more of me?"
"You didn't finish anything, you just contributed to the general collapse. For God's sake, Stepan Trofimovich, let's do without punning; open up. We must take measures; they may come here and insult you..."
I considered I had the right to be especially stern and even exacting. I feared he might undertake something still more insane. But to my surprise I met with an extraordinary firmness.
"Don't you be the first to insult me, then. I thank you for all that's past, but, I repeat, I have finished it all with people, both good and wicked. I am writing a letter to Darya Pavlovna, whom I have so unpardonably forgotten until now. Deliver it tomorrow, if you like, and now 'merci.’”
"Stepan Trofimovich, I assure you the matter is more serious than you think. You think you smashed someone there? You didn't smash anyone, but you yourself broke like an empty glass" (oh, I was rude and impolite; it grieves me to remember!). "There is decidedly no reason for you to write to Darya Pavlovna... and what's going to become of you now without me? What do you understand of practical things? You must be plotting something else? You'll just perish another time if you're plotting something again..."
He rose and came right up to the door.
"You have not spent so long a time with them, yet you have been infected by their language and tone, Dieu vous pardonne, mon ami, et Dieu vous garde. [cxlv] But I have always noticed the germs of decency in you, and perhaps you will still think better of it– après le temps, [cxlvi] of course, like all of us Russians. As for your remark about my impracticality, I shall remind you of a long-standing thought of mine: that in our Russia a vast number of people occupy themselves with nothing else but attacking other people's impracticality, fiercely and with special persistence, like flies in summer, accusing all and sundry of it, and excluding only themselves. Cher,remember that I am agitated and do not torment me. Once more, mercifor everything, and let us part from each other as Karmazinov did from his public—that is, forget each other with all possible magnanimity. He was being sly when he begged his former readers so very much to forget him; quant à moi, [cxlvii] I am not so vain and trust most of all in the youth of your innocent heart: are you likely to remember a useless old man for long? 'Live more,' my friend, as Nastasya wished me on my last name day (ces pauvres gens ont quelquefois des mots charmants et pleins de philosophie). [cxlviii] I do not wish you much happiness—it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; this useless wish I am adding on my own. Now, farewell, and a serious farewell. And don't stand by my door, I won't open it."
He walked away, and I achieved nothing further. In spite of the "agitation," he had spoken evenly, unhurriedly, with weight, and obviously trying to impress. Of course, he was somewhat vexed with me and was indirectly taking revenge on me, let's say, perhaps still for yesterday's "kibitkas" and "opening floorboards." And this morning's public tears, despite a certain sort of victory, had placed him, he knew, in a somewhat comical position, and there was no man more concerned with beauty and strictness of form in his relations with friends than Stepan Trofimovich. Oh, I do not blame him! But it was this scrupulousness and sarcasm, which held out in him despite all shocks, that set me at ease then: this man who had apparently changed so little as compared to usual was certainly not disposed at that moment towards anything tragic or extraordinary. So I reasoned then, and, my God, how mistakenly! I had lost sight of too many things...
Anticipating events, I will quote the first few lines of this letter to Darya Pavlovna, which she in fact received the next day.
"Mon enfant,my hand is trembling, but I have finished everything. You were not present at my final combat with people; you did not come to this 'reading,' and you did well. But you will be told that in our character-impoverished Russia one courageous man stood up and, despite the deadly menace pouring from all sides, told those little fools their truth—that is, that they are little fools. O, ce sont des pauvres petits vauriens et rien de plus, des petitslittle fools– voilà le mot! [cxlix] The die is cast; I am leaving this town forever, whither I do not know. Everyone I loved has turned away from me. But you, you, a pure and naïve being, you, a meek one, whose fate was almost joined with mine by the will of one capricious and tyrannical heart, you, who perhaps in disdain watched me shed fainthearted tears on the eve of our unrealized marriage; you who, whatever you may be, cannot look on me in any other way than as a comical person, oh, to you, to you goes the last cry of my heart, to you is my last duty, to you alone! I cannot possibly leave you forever to think of me as an ungrateful fool, boor, and egoist, as is probably affirmed to you day after day by one ungrateful and cruel heart, which, alas, I cannot forget..."
And so on and so forth, four big pages in all.
Having pounded on the door three times with my fist in response to his "I won't open it," and having shouted after him that he would still send Nastasya for me three times that same day, but that I would not come, I abandoned him and ran to Yulia Mikhailovna.
II
There I found myself witness to an outrageous scene: the poor woman was being deceived right to her face, and I could do nothing. Indeed, what could I tell her? I had had time to come to my senses somewhat and to realize that all I had were just certain feelings, suspicious presentiments, and nothing more. I found her in tears, almost in hysterics, with eau de Cologne compresses and a glass of water. Before her stood Pyotr Stepanovich, who was talking nonstop, and the prince, who was as silent as though he were under lock and key. With tears and little cries she was reproaching Pyotr Stepanovich for his "apostasy." It struck me at once that she ascribed the whole failure, the whole disgrace of this matinée, everything, in short, to Pyotr Stepanovich's absence alone.
As for him, I noticed one important change: he was almost serious, as if preoccupied with something. Ordinarily he never seemed serious, always laughed, even when he was angry, and he was often angry. Oh, he was angry now, too, spoke rudely, carelessly, with vexation and impatience. He assured her that he had been sick with a headache and vomiting at Gaganov's, where he had chanced to stop early that morning. Alas, the poor woman still wanted so much to be deceived! The main question I found on the agenda was whether or not the ball—that is, the whole second half of the fête—was to take place. Yulia Mikhailovna would not agree for anything in the world to appear at the ball after "today's insults"; in other words, she wished with all her might to be compelled to go, and by absolutely no one else but him, Pyotr Stepanovich. She looked upon him as an oracle, and it seemed that if he had left then, she would have taken to her bed. But he had no intention of leaving: he himself needed with all his might that the ball take place that day, and Yulia Mikhailovna absolutely had to be there...
"So, what's there to cry about! You absolutely must have a scene? Vent your anger on someone? Go ahead, vent it on me, only make it quick, because time is passing and we've got to decide. We messed it up with the reading; we'll smooth it over with the ball. The prince here is of the same opinion. Yes, ma'am, if it hadn't been for the prince, where would it all have ended?"
The prince had been against the ball at first (that is, against Yulia Mikhailovna's appearance at the ball; the ball itself had anyhow to take place), but after two or three such references to his opinion, he gradually began to grunt in token of consent.
I was also surprised by the altogether extraordinary impoliteness of Pyotr Stepanovich's tone. Oh, I indignantly reject the base gossip spread later about some supposed liaison between Yulia Mikhailovna and Pyotr Stepanovich. There was not and could not have been anything of the sort. He got the upper hand with her only by yessing her with all his might from the very beginning in her dreams of influencing society and the ministry; by entering into her plans, devising them for her, acting through the crudest flattery, he entangled her from head to foot, and became as necessary to her as air.
Seeing me, she cried out, flashing her eyes:
"Ask him! He, too, never left my side all the while, like the prince. Tell me, isn't it obvious that it's all a conspiracy, a base, cunning conspiracy, to do all possible evil to me and to Andrei Antonovich? Oh, they arranged it! They had a plan. There's a party, a whole party of them!"
"That's overshot, as usual with you. There's some poem eternally running through your head. I'm glad, however, to see Mr...." (he pretended to have forgotten my name), "he'll tell us his opinion."
"My opinion," I hastened, "agrees entirely with Yulia Mikhailovna's opinion. The conspiracy is all too obvious. I've brought you these ribbons, Yulia Mikhailovna. Whether the ball does or does not take place—is, of course, none of my business, since the power is not mine; but my role as an usher is at an end. Forgive my heat, but I cannot act to the detriment of common sense and conviction."
"You hear! You hear!" she clasped her hands.
"I hear, ma'am, and this is what I shall tell you," he turned to me. "I think you all must have eaten something that has made you all delirious. In my opinion, nothing has happened, precisely nothing, that never happened before and could not always have happened in this town here. What conspiracy? It came out ugly, stupid to the point of disgrace, but where is the conspiracy? You mean against Yulia Mikhailovna, against her who indulged them, protected them, forgave them right and left for all their pranks? Yulia Mikhailovna! What have I been hammering into you this whole month nonstop? What have I been warning you about? So, what, what did you need all these people for? You just had to deal with this trash! Why? What for? To unite society? But can they possibly unite, for pity's sake?"
"When did you ever warn me? On the contrary, you approved, you even demanded ... I confess, I am so surprised... You yourself brought many strange people to me."
"On the contrary, I argued with you, I did not approve, and as for bringing—I did bring them, but not until they themselves came swarming by dozens, and that only recently, to make up the 'quadrille of literature,' since there was no way of doing without these boors. Only I'll bet a dozen or two more of the same boors were brought in today without tickets."
"Quite certainly," I confirmed.
"See, you already agree. Remember the tone we've had here lately, I mean, in this whole wretched town? It's all turned into nothing but insolence, shamelessness; it's been a scandal with a ceaseless ringing of bells. And who encouraged them? Who shielded them with her authority? Who got everyone muddled? Who infuriated all the small-fry? In your album all the local family secrets are reproduced. Wasn't it you who patted your poets and artists on the head? Wasn't it you who held out your hand for Lyamshin to kiss? Wasn't it in your presence that a seminarian swore at an actual state councillor and ruined his daughter's dress with his monstrous tarred boots? Why are you surprised, then, that the public is set against you?"
"But that's all you, you yourself! Oh, my God!"
"No, ma'am, I kept warning you; we quarreled, do you hear, we quarreled!"
"You're lying to my face!"
"Ah, yes, of course, it costs nothing to say a thing like that. You need a victim now, someone to vent your anger on; go ahead, vent it on me, as I told you. I'd better address myself to you, Mr...." (He still could not recall my name.) "Let's count up on our fingers: I maintain that, apart from Liputin, there was no conspiracy, none what-so-ever! I'll prove it, but let's first analyze Liputin. He came out with that fool Lebyadkin's verses—was that, in your opinion, a conspiracy? But, you know, Liputin might simply have thought it was witty. Seriously, seriously, witty. He simply came out with the aim of making everybody laugh and have fun, his patroness Yulia Mikhailovna first, that's all. You don't believe it? Why, isn't it in tone with everything that's been going on here this whole month? And, if you wish, I'll say all: by God, under other circumstances it might even have gone over! A crude joke, well, yes, salacious or whatever, but funny, funny, right?"
"What! You consider Liputin's act witty?" Yulia Mikhailovna cried out in terrible indignation. "Such stupidity, such tactlessness, so base, so vile, so deliberate—oh, you're saying it on purpose! It means you yourself are in conspiracy with him!"
"Oh, certainly, sitting in back, hiding, moving the whole little mechanism! But if I had taken part in any conspiracy—understand this at least!—it wouldn't have ended just with Liputin! So, according to you, I also arranged with papa that he should purposely produce such a scandal? Well, ma'am, whose fault was it that father was brought in to read? Who tried to stop you yesterday, just yesterday, yesterday?"
" O, hier il avait tant d'esprit, [cl] I was counting on him so much, and, besides, he has manners: I thought he and Karmazinov... and now look!"
"Yes, ma'am, and now look. But in spite of all that tant d'esprit,papa mucked it up, and if I'd known beforehand that he was going to muck it up so badly, being part of the indubitable conspiracy against your fête, I would undoubtedly not have started persuading you yesterday to keep the bull out of the china shop, right, ma'am? And yet I did try to talk you out of it yesterday—I did, because I had a presentiment. It was, of course, impossible to foresee everything: he himself probably didn't know, a minute before, what he was going to fire off. These nervous old codgers don't even resemble human beings! But you can still salvage it: tomorrow, for the public's satisfaction, send two doctors to him by administrative order, with all the trimmings, to inquire after his health—you could even do it today—and then straight to the hospital, for cold compresses. At least everyone will laugh and see that there's nothing to be offended at. I'll make an announcement about it tonight at the ball, since I'm the son. Karmazinov's another matter, he came out like a green ass and stretched his article for a whole hour– now there's one who must surely be in conspiracy with me! As if he said, 'Why don't I muck it up, too, just to harm Yulia Mikhailovna!’“
"Oh, Karmazinov, quelle bonte! [cli] I was burning, burning with shame for our public!"
"Well, ma'am, I wouldn't have burned, but I'd have roasted him. The public was right. And who, again, is guilty of Karmazinov? Did I foist him on you, or didn't I? Did I take part in adoring him, or didn't I? Ah, well, devil take him, but that third maniac, the political one, that's another question. Here everybody went amiss, it's not just my conspiracy."
"Ah, don't speak of it, it's terrible, terrible! I, I alone, am guilty of that!"
"Of course, ma'am, but here I'm going to vindicate you. Eh, who can keep track of these sincere ones! They can't guard against them even in Petersburg. Because he was recommended to you; and how he was! You'll agree, then, that it's even your duty now to appear at the ball. Because it's an important thing, because you yourself put him up on the rostrum. You must precisely declare in public now that you are not solidary with this, that the fine fellow is already in the hands of the police, and that you were deceived in some inexplicable way. You must declare indignantly that you were the victim of a mad person. Because he is a madman and nothing else. That's how he must be reported. I can't stand these biters. I may talk even worse myself, but not from the rostrum. And right now they're shouting about a senator."
"What senator? Who is shouting?"
"You see, I don't understand anything myself. You, Yulia Mikhailovna, do you know anything about some senator?"
"Senator?"
"You see, they're convinced that a senator has been appointed here, and that you are being replaced from Petersburg. I've heard it from many people."
"I've heard it, too," I confirmed.
"Who said so?" Yulia Mikhailovna flushed all over.
"You mean, who first started talking? How should I know. They're just talking. The mass is talking. They were talking yesterday especially. Everybody's somehow much too serious, though it's impossible to make anything out. Of course, those who are a bit more intelligent and competent—are not talking, but even among them some are listening to it."
"How mean! And... how stupid!"
"Well, so you must appear precisely now and show the fools."
"I confess, I myself feel it's even my duty, but... what if there's another disgrace awaiting us? What if they don't attend? Because no one's going to come, no one, no one!"
"Such ardor! They won't come, eh? And what about all those dresses made, what about the girls' costumes? No, after this I give up on you as a woman. Such human insight!"
"The marshal's wife won't come, she won't!"
"But what, finally, has happened here? Why won't they come?" he suddenly cried out with spiteful impatience.
"Infamy, disgrace—that's what has happened. There was, I don't know what, but something, after which it's impossible for me to enter."
"Why? But what, finally, are you to blame for? Why go taking the blame on yourself? Isn't it rather the public, your venerable elders, your fathers of families, who are to blame? It was for them to restrain the scoundrels and wastrels—because all we have here are wastrels and scoundrels, nothing serious. In no society anywhere is it possible to manage with the police alone. Here with us every person, on entry, demands that a special little cop be detailed to protect him. They don't understand that society protects itself. And what do our fathers of families, our dignitaries, wives, maidens, do in such circumstances? Keep mum and sulk. There's not even enough social initiative to restrain the pranksters."
"Ah, that is a golden truth! They keep mum, sulk, and... glance around."
"And if it's true, it's for you to speak it out here, aloud, proudly, sternly. Precisely to show that you're not crushed. Precisely to the little old men and the mothers. Oh, you'll find a way, you have the gift, when your head is clear. You'll draw them into a group—and speak aloud, aloud. Then a report to the Voiceand the Stock Exchange.Wait, I'll take it in hand myself, I'll arrange it all for you. Of course, more attentiveness and a good eye on the buffet—ask the prince, ask Mr.... You cannot possibly leave us, monsieur,precisely when we must start all over again. Well, and finally, you arm in arm with Andrei Antonovich. How is Andrei Antonovich's health?"
"Oh, how unjustly, how wrongly, how offensively you have always judged that angelic man!" Yulia Mikhailovna cried out suddenly, on an unexpected impulse, and almost in tears, bringing her handkerchief to her eyes. For the first moment, Pyotr Stepanovich even faltered:
"For pity's sake, I... but what did I... I've always..."
"You never, never! Never did you do him justice!"
"Never can one understand a woman!" Pyotr Stepanovich grumbled, with a crooked smile.
"He is the most truthful, the most delicate, the most angelic man! The most kindly man!"
"For pity's sake, but as for his kindness, what have I ... as for his kindness, I've always..."
"Never! But leave that. I defend him much too awkwardly. Today that Jesuit, the marshal's wife, also dropped a few sarcastic hints about yesterday."
"Oh, she won't be bothered now with hints about yesterday—she's got today. And why are you so worried that she won't come to the ball? Of course she won't, now that she's come into such a scandal. Maybe she's not to blame, but still there's her reputation; she got her little hands dirty."
"What? I don't understand: how are her hands dirty?" Yulia Mikhailovna looked at him in perplexity.
"I mean, I don't insist on it, but the bells are already ringing in town that it was she who did the matchmaking."
"What? Matchmaking whom?"
"Eh, so you still don't know?" he cried out in surprise, superbly feigned. "Why, Stavrogin and Lizaveta Nikolaevna!"
"How! What!" we all cried out.
"So you really don't know? Whew! There have been tragic novels going on here: Lizaveta Nikolaevna was so good as to get out of the marshal's wife's carriage and straight into Stavrogin's, and to slip away with 'the latter' to Skvoreshniki in broad daylight. Just an hour ago, not even that."
We were dumbfounded. Of course, we hastened to inquire further, but, surprisingly, though he himself had "inadvertently" been a witness, he nevertheless could tell us nothing in detail. The thing seemed to have happened like this: when the marshal's wife brought Liza and Mavriky Nikolaevich from the "reading" to the house of Liza's mother (whose legs were still ailing), someone's carriage was waiting not far from the entrance, about twenty-five steps off to one side. When Liza jumped out at the entrance, she ran straight to this carriage; the door opened, slammed shut; Liza called out "Spare me!" to Mavriky Nikolaevich—and the carriage flew at top speed to Skvoreshniki. To our hurried questions: "Was there some arrangement? Who was sitting in the carriage?"—Pyotr Stepanovich replied that he knew nothing; that there must certainly have been an arrangement, but that he had not made out Stavrogin himself in the carriage; it might have been the valet, old Alexei Yegorovich, who was sitting there. To the question: "And how did you turn up there? And why do you know for certain that she went to Skvoreshniki?"—he replied that he chanced to be there because he was passing by, and on seeing Liza even ran up to the carriage (and yet did not make out who was in the carriage, and with his curiosity!), and that Mavriky Nikolaevich not only did not set off in pursuit, but did not even try to stop Liza, and with his own hand even held back the marshal's wife, who was shouting at the top of her voice: "She's gone to Stavrogin, she's gone to Stavrogin!" Here I suddenly got beside all patience and shouted furiously at Pyotr Stepanovich:
"You set it up, you scoundrel! You killed the whole morning on it. You helped Stavrogin, you came in the carriage, you put her into it... you, you, you! Yulia Mikhailovna, he is your enemy, he will ruin you, too! Beware!"
And I rushed precipitously from the house.
To this day I do not understand and marvel myself at how I could have shouted that to him then. But I had guessed perfectly: it had all happened almost exactly the way I said, as turned out afterwards. In the first place, the obviously false way in which he reported the news was all too noticeable. He did not tell it as soon as he entered the house, as a first and extraordinary piece of news, but pretended that we already knew without him—which was impossible in so short a time. And if we had known, we could not in any case have kept silent about it until he started to speak. He also could not have heard of any "bells ringing" in town about the marshal's wife, because again the time was too short. Besides, as he was telling about it, he smiled a couple of times somehow meanly and flippantly, probably regarding us by then as utterly deceived fools. But I could no longer be bothered with him; the main fact I did believe, and I ran out of Yulia Mikhailovna's beside myself. The catastrophe struck me to the very heart. It pained me almost to tears; perhaps I was actually weeping. I did not know at all what to undertake. I rushed to Stepan Trofimovich, but the vexatious man again would not open the door. Nastasya assured me in a reverent whisper that he had retired to bed, but I did not believe it. At Liza's house I was able to question the servants; they confirmed the flight, but knew nothing themselves. The house was in alarm; the ailing mistress was having fainting fits, and Mavriky Nikolaevich was with her. I did not think it possible to call Mavriky Nikolaevich away. When I inquired about Pyotr Stepanovich, it was confirmed that he had been darting about the house during the past few days, sometimes even twice a day. The servants were sad, and spoke of Liza with some special reverence; she was loved. That she was ruined, utterly ruined, I did not doubt, but I was decidedly unable to comprehend the psychological side of the matter, especially after her scene the day before with Stavrogin. To run around town and inquire of acquaintances, in gloating houses, where the news, of course, had already spread, seemed disgusting to me and humiliating for Liza. But, strangely, I did run by to see Darya Pavlovna, where, however, I was not received (no one had been received in the Stavrogins' house since the previous day); what I could have said to her, and why I ran by, I do not know. From her I made my way to her brother. Shatov listened to me glumly and silently. I will note that I found him in an unprecedentedly dark mood; he was terribly thoughtful and, it seemed, had to force himself to listen to me. He said almost nothing and began walking back and forth from corner to corner of his closet, stomping more than usual with his boots. But when I was already on my way down the stairs, he shouted after me that I should go to Liputin: "You'll find out everything there." Yet I did not go to Liputin, but, well on my way, turned back again to Shatov, and, half opening the door, without going in and without any explanations, suggested to him laconically: wouldn't he be going to see Marya Timofeevna today? At that Shatov cursed, and I left. I set down here, so as not to forget, that that same evening he went especially to the outskirts of town to visit Marya Timofeevna, whom he had not seen for quite a while. He found her in reasonably good health and spirits, and Lebyadkin dead drunk, asleep on the sofa in the front room. This was at exactly nine o'clock. He told it to me himself the next day, meeting me hotfoot in the street. And I decided after nine o'clock to go to the ball, but not now as a "gentleman usher" (besides, my bow had stayed with Yulia Mikhailovna), but from an irresistible curiosity to hear (without asking questions) what people were saying in town about all these events generally. Besides, I wanted to have a look at Yulia Mikhailovna, if only from afar. I reproached myself very much for the way I had run out on her earlier.
