Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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"Nikolai Vsevolodovich, when you came in earlier, didn't you accidentally knock my uniform off the chair... where it was lying by the door?"
"Not that I remember. Your uniform was lying there?"
"Yes, lying there, sir." "On the floor?"
"First on the chair and then on the floor."
"So, did you pick it up?"
"I did."
"Well, what more do you want?"
"In that case, nothing, sir..."
He did not dare finish, and he did not dare tell anyone in the rooming house—so timid these people are. However, everybody in the rooming house was terribly afraid and respectful of me then. Afterwards I enjoyed meeting his eyes once or twice in the corridor. But quickly got bored.
As soon as three days passed, I went back to Gorokhovy Street. The mother was going out somewhere with a bundle; the tradesman was, of course, not there. Matryosha and I remained. The windows were open. The tenants of the house were all craftsmen, and all day long there was a tapping of hammers and singing coming from all the floors. We had been there an hour already. Matryosha sat in her closet on a low bench, back to me, pottering over something with her needle. At last she suddenly started to sing softly, very softly; she sometimes did that. I took out my watch and looked at the time—it was two. My heart was beginning to pound. But then I suddenly asked myself again: could I stop? and answered at once that I could. I got up and began stealing towards her. They had a lot of geraniums in the window, and the sun was shining terribly brightly. I quietly sat down on the floor next to her. She gave a start and at first was unbelievably frightened and jumped up. I took her hand and softly kissed it, pulling her back down onto the bench, and began looking into her eyes. The fact that I had kissed her hand suddenly made her laugh like a child, but only for one second, because she impetuously jumped up again, now so frightened that a spasm passed over her face. She looked at me with horribly fixed eyes, and her lips began to twitch, as if on the verge of tears, but all the same she did not cry out. I began to kiss her hands again and, taking her on my knees, kissed her face and her feet. When I kissed her feet, she recoiled all over and smiled as if in shame, but with some crooked smile. Her whole face flushed with shame. I kept whispering something to her. Finally, there suddenly occurred an odd thing, which I will never forget and which caused me astonishment: the girl threw her arms around my neck and suddenly began kissing me terribly herself. Her face expressed complete admiration. I almost got up and left—so unpleasant was it in such a tiny child—out of pity. But I overcame the sudden sensation of my fear and stayed.
When it was all over, she was embarrassed. I didn't try to reassure her and no longer caressed her. She looked at me, smiling timidly. Her face suddenly seemed stupid to me. Embarrassment quickly came over her more and more with every moment. At last, she covered her face with her hands and stood in the corner motionlessly, turned to the wall. I was afraid she was going to get frightened again, as she had earlier, and silently left the house.
I suppose everything that had happened finally had to appear to her as a boundless outrage, with mortal horror. Despite the Russian curses she must have been hearing since she was in diapers, and all sorts of strange conversations, I have the full conviction that she still understood nothing. Most likely it seemed to her in the end that she had committed an unbelievable crime and was mortally guilty for it—that she had "killed God."
That night I had the fight in the pot-house which I have mentioned fleetingly. But I woke up in my rooms the next morning, Lebyadkin had brought me. My first thought on waking up was of whether she had told or not; this was a moment of real fear, though not very strong yet. I was very cheerful that morning and terribly kind to everyone, and the whole crowd was very pleased with me. But I dropped them all and went to Gorokhovy Street. I met her downstairs in the entry-way. She was coming back from the shop where she had been sent to buy chicory. When she saw me, she shot up the stairs in terrible fear. When I came in, her mother had already slapped her twice in the face for having run in "headlong," which also covered the real reason for her fright. And so, for the time being everything was quiet. She hid somewhere and never came in while I was there. I stayed for about an hour and then left.
Towards evening I again felt fear, but this time it was incomparably stronger. Of course, I could deny it, but they could also expose me. I kept imagining hard labor. I had never felt any fear, and, apart from this occasion in my life, was never afraid of anything either before or since. Especially not of Siberia, though I could have been sent there more than once. But this time I was frightened and really felt fear, I do not know why, for the first time in my life—a very tormenting sensation. Besides that, in the evening, in my rooms, I came to hate her so much that I decided to kill her. My chief hatred was at the remembrance of her smile. Contempt together with boundless revulsion would spring up in me for the way she had rushed into the corner after it all and covered herself with her hands; I was seized by an inexplicable rage; then came a chill, and when fever began to set in towards morning, I was again overcome by fear, but so strong this time that I have never known a stronger torment. But I no longer hated the girl; at least it did not reach such a paroxysm as the evening before. I observed that strong fear utterly drives out hatred and vengeful feeling.
I woke up around noon, healthy and even surprised at some of yesterday's feelings. I was nonetheless in a bad humor, and again felt compelled to go to Gorokhovy Street, despite all my revulsion. I remember wanting terribly at that moment to have a quarrel with someone, only a real one. But on coming to Gorokhovy Street, I suddenly found Nina Savelyevna in my room, the maid, who had already been waiting for me for about an hour. I was not at all in love with the girl, so that she had come a bit afraid that I might be angry at the uninvited visit. But I was suddenly very glad to see her. She was not bad-looking, but modest and with the sort of manners common people like, so that my landlady had long been praising her to me. I found them together over coffee, and the landlady was greatly enjoying the pleasant conversation. In the corner of the room I noticed Matryosha. She stood and gazed fixedly at her mother and the visitor. When I came in, she did not hide as before, and did not run away. Only it seemed to me that she had become very thin and that she had a fever. I was tender with Nina and closed the door to the landlady's room, something I hadn't done for a long time, so that Nina left perfectly pleased. I myself took her out and for two days did not go to Gorokhovy Street. I was already sick of it.
I decided to finish it all, to give up the apartment and leave Petersburg. But when I came to give up the apartment, I found the landlady worried and distressed: for three days Matryosha had been sick, lying every night in a fever and raving all night. Of course, I asked what she was raving about (we were talking in a whisper in my room). She whispered to me that she was raving "something terrible," saying "I killed God." I offered to bring a doctor at my own expense, but she did not want to: "God willing, it'll just go away, she doesn't lie down all the time, she goes out during the day, she just ran to the store." I decided to find Matryosha when she was alone, and since the landlady had let on that she had to go to the Petersburg side by five o'clock, [220] I decided to come back in the evening.
I had dinner in a tavern. Came back at exactly five-fifteen. I always let myself in with my own key. There was no one there but Matryosha. She was lying in their closet, behind the screen, on her mother's bed, and I saw her peek out; but I pretended not to notice. All the windows were open. The air was warm, it was even hot. I walked about the room and sat down on the sofa. I remember it all to the last minute. It decidedly gave me pleasure not to start talking with Matryosha. I waited and sat there for a whole hour, and suddenly she herself jumped from behind the screen. I heard her two feet hit the floor as she jumped off the bed, then rather quick steps, and then she was standing on the threshold of my room. She looked at me silently. In the three or four days since that time, during which I had never once seen her up close, she had indeed become very thin. Her face was as if dried up and her head must have been hot. Her eyes had grown big and looked at me fixedly, as if with dull curiosity—so it seemed to me at first. I was sitting on the corner of the sofa, looked at her, and did not budge. And then I suddenly felt hatred again. But very soon I noticed that she was not frightened of me at all, but was perhaps more likely delirious. But she was not delirious either. She suddenly began shaking her head rapidly at me, as people do when they reproach very much, and suddenly she raised her little fist at me and began threatening me with it from where she stood. For the first moment this gesture seemed funny to me, but I could not stand it for long; I got up and moved nearer to her. There was despair in her face, such as was impossible to see on the face of a child. She kept brandishing her little fist at me threateningly and shaking her head in reproach. I came close and cautiously began to speak, but saw that she would not understand. Then suddenly she covered her face impetuously with both hands, like before, walked over and stood by the window, back to me. I left her, returned to my room, and sat by my own window. I have no idea why I did not leave then, but stayed as if I were waiting. Soon I heard her hurrying steps again, she walked out the door onto the wooden gallery, from which a stairway went down, and I at once ran to my door, opened it a bit, and had just time to spy Matryosha going into a tiny shed, like a chicken coop, next to the other place. A strange thought flashed in my mind. I closed the door and—back to the window. Of course, it was impossible to believe a fleeting thought; "and yet..." (I remember everything.)
A minute later I looked at my watch and made note of the time. Evening was coming. A fly was buzzing over me and kept landing on my face. I caught it, held it in my fingers, and let it go out the window. Very loudly a cart rolled into the courtyard below. Very loudly (and for long now) an artisan, a tailor, had been singing a song in the corner of the yard, in his window. He was sitting over his work, and I could see him. It occurred to me that since no one had met me when I came through the gateway and went upstairs, so no one had better meet me going downstairs now, and I moved the chair away from the window. Then I picked up a book, threw it down again, began watching a tiny red spider on a geranium leaf, and became oblivious. I remember everything to the last moment.
I suddenly snatched out my watch. It was twenty minutes since she went out. My guess was assuming the shape of a probability. But I decided to wait another quarter of an hour. It also occurred to me that she might have come back and that I perhaps had not heard; but that could not be: there was dead silence and I could hear the whine of every little fly. Suddenly my heart began to pound. I took out my watch: three minutes to go; I sat them out, though my heart was pounding so that it hurt. Then I got up, covered myself with my hat, buttoned my coat, and glanced around the room to make sure everything was in place and there were no signs that I had come. I moved the chair closer to the window, as it had stood before. Finally, I quietly opened the door, locked it with my key, and went to the shed. The door was closed, but not locked; I knew it could not be locked, yet I did not want to open it, but got up on tiptoe and began looking through the crack. At that very moment, as I was getting up on tiptoe, I recalled that when I was sitting by the window looking at the little red spider and became oblivious, I was thinking of how I would get up on tiptoe and reach that crack with my eyes. By putting in this trifle here, I want to prove with certainty to what degree of clarity I was in possession of my mental faculties. I looked through that crack for a long time, it was dark inside, but not totally. At last I made out what I needed ... I wanted to be totally sure.
I decided finally that I could leave, and went downstairs. I did not meet anyone. About three hours later we were all in our shirtsleeves, drinking tea in my rooms and playing a friendly game of cards. Lebyadkin was reciting poetry. Many stories were told and, as if by design, they were all successful and funny, not stupid as usual. Kirillov was also there. No one drank, and though a bottle of rum was standing there, only Lebyadkin kept nipping from it. Prokhor Malov observed that "when Nikolai Vsevolodovich is pleased and not moping, all our boys are cheerful and talk cleverly." It sank into my mind right then.
But by around eleven o'clock the caretaker's girl came running from the landlady, from Gorokhovy Street, bringing me the news that Matryosha had hanged herself. I went with the girl and saw that the landlady did not know herself why she had sent for me. She was howling and thrashing, there was turmoil, a lot of people, police. I stood in the entryway for a while and then left.
I was hardly inconvenienced, though they did ask the appropriate questions. But apart from the fact that the girl had been sick and occasionally delirious over the past few days, so that for my part I had offered a doctor at my own expense, I had decidedly nothing to give as evidence. They also asked me about the penknife; I said that the landlady had given the girl a whipping, but that it was nothing. No one found out that I had come in the evening. I heard nothing about the results of the medical examination.
For a week or so I did not go back there. I went when they had long since buried her, in order to give up the apartment. The landlady was still crying, though she was already pottering with her rags and sewing as before. "It was on account of your knife that I offended her," she said to me, but without great reproach. I paid her off on the pretext that I really could no longer remain in such an apartment and receive Nina Savelyevna in it. She praised Nina Savelyevna once more on parting. As I left I gave her five roubles on top of what I owed for the apartment.
And generally I was bored with life then, to the point of stupefaction. Once the danger was past, I all but completely forgot the incident on Gorokhovy Street, like everything else then, except that for some time I remembered spitefully how I had turned coward. I vented my spite on whomever I could. At the same time, but not at all for any reason or other, I conceived the notion of somehow maiming my life, only in as repulsive a way as possible. For a year already I had been thinking of shooting myself; something better turned up. Once, looking at the lame Marya Timofeevna Lebyadkin, who was something of a servant in those corners, not yet crazy then, but simply an ecstatic idiot, and secretly madly in love with me (as our boys spied out), I decided suddenly to marry her. The thought of Stavrogin marrying such a last being tickled my nerves. Nothing uglier could be imagined. But I will not venture to decide whether my decisiveness included at least unconsciously (of course, unconsciously!) my spite at the base cowardice that had come over me after the thing with Matryosha. I do not think so, really; but in any case I went to the altar not just because of "a bet for wine after a drunken dinner." The witnesses to the marriage were Kirillov and Pyotr Verkhovensky, who happened to be in Petersburg then; and, finally, Lebyadkin himself, and Prokhor Malov (now dead). No one else ever learned of it, and these gave their word to be silent. This silence has always seemed to me a vile thing, as it were, but so far it has not been broken, though I had the intention of announcing it; I announce it now, along with everything else.
After the wedding, I left for the province to see my mother. I went for distraction, because it was unbearable. In our town I left the idea that I was crazy—an idea not eradicated even now, and undoubtedly harmful to me, as I will explain further on. I then went abroad and stayed for four years.
I was in the East, I stood through eight-hour vigils on Mount Athos, [221]was in Egypt, lived in Switzerland, even went to Iceland; sat out a whole yearlong course in Gottingen. During the last year I became very close with one noble Russian family in Paris and two Russian girls in Switzerland. About two years ago, in Frankfurt, passing by a stationer's shop, I noticed among the photographs on display a small picture of a girl, dressed in an elegant child's costume, but very much resembling Matryosha. I bought the picture at once and, coming to my hotel, placed it on the mantelpiece. There it stayed untouched for about a week, and I never once glanced at it; when I left Frankfurt, I forgot to take it with me.
I am setting this down precisely in order to prove the extent of my power over my memories, and how unfeeling for them I had become. I would reject them all in a mass, and the whole mass would obediently disappear each time the moment I wanted it to. I have always felt bored remembering the past, and was never able to talk about the past, as almost everyone does. As for Matryosha, I even forgot her picture on the mantelpiece.
About a year ago, in the spring, traveling through Germany, I absentmindedly missed the station where I should have changed for my direction, and got onto a different branch. They let me off at the next station; it was three o'clock in the afternoon, a bright day. It was a tiny German town. A hotel was pointed out to me. I had to wait: the next train came through at eleven o'clock at night. I was even pleased with the adventure, because I was not in any hurry. The hotel turned out to be trashy and small, but all sunk in greenery and completely surrounded with flower beds. They gave me a cramped little room. I had a nice meal, and since I had spent the whole night on the train, I fell asleep excellently after dinner, at four o'clock in the afternoon.
I had a dream which for me was totally unexpected, because I had never before had one like it. In Dresden, in the gallery, there exists a painting by Claude Lorrain—"Acis and Galatea," [222] I think, according to the catalogue, but I always called it "The Golden Age," I do not know why myself. I had seen it before, but now, three days earlier, I had noticed it once again as I was passing through. It was this painting that I saw in my dream, though not as a painting, but as if it were some kind of verity.
A corner of the Greek archipelago; blue, caressing waves, islands and rocks, a luxuriant coastline, a magic panorama in the distance, an inviting sunset—words cannot express it. Here European mankind remembered its cradle, here were the first scenes from mythology, its earthly paradise... Here beautiful people lived! They rose and lay down to sleep happy and innocent; the groves were filled with their merry songs, the great abundance of their untapped forces went into love, into simplehearted joy. The sun poured down its rays upon these islands and this sea, rejoicing over its beautiful children. A wondrous dream, a lofty delusion! The most incredible vision of all that have ever been, to which mankind throughout its life has given all its forces, for which it has sacrificed everything, for which prophets have died on crosses and been killed, without which people do not want to live and cannot even die. It was as if I lived through this whole sensation in my dream; I don't know precisely what I dreamed about, but the rocks and sea, the slanting rays of the setting sun—it was as if I still saw it all when I woke up and opened my eyes, for the first time in my life literally wet with tears. A feeling of happiness, as yet unknown to me, went through my heart even till it hurt. It was already full evening; in the window of my little room, through the foliage of the flowers in the window, a whole sheaf of bright slanting rays of the setting sun was bursting and flooding me with light. I quickly closed my eyes again, as if straining to return to the departed dream, but suddenly, as if in the midst of the bright, bright light, I saw some tiny dot. It was taking some shape, and suddenly appeared distinctly to me as a tiny red spider. I recalled it at once on the geranium leaf, when the slanting rays of the setting sun had been pouring in just as they were now. It was as though something pierced me, I raised myself and sat up on the bed... (This was how it all happened then!)
I saw before me (oh, not in reality! and if only, if only it had been a real vision!), I saw Matryosha, wasted and with feverish eyes, exactly the same as when she had stood on my threshold and, shaking her head, had raised her tiny little fist at me. And nothing had ever seemed so tormenting to me! The pitiful despair of a helpless ten-year-old being with a still unformed mind, who was threatening me (with what? what could she do to me?), but, of course, blaming only herself! Nothing like it had ever happened to me. I sat until nightfall, not moving and forgetting about time. Is this what is called remorse of conscience or repentance? I do not know, and I cannot tell to this day. Perhaps even to this moment I do not loathe the memory of the act itself. Perhaps this remembrance even now contains something pleasurable for my passions. No—what is unbearable to me is only this image alone, and precisely on the threshold, with its raised and threatening little fist, only that look alone, only that minute alone, only that shaking head. This is what I cannot bear, because since then it appears to me almost every day. It does not appear on its own, but I myself evoke it, and cannot help evoking it, even though I cannot live with it. Oh, if only I could ever see her really, at least in a hallucination!
I have other old memories, perhaps even better than this one. I behaved worse with one woman, and she died from it. In duels I have taken the lives of two men who were innocent before me. Once I was mortally insulted and did not take revenge on my adversary. There is one poisoning to my account—intentional and successful and unknown to anyone. (If need be, I'll tell about it all.)
But why is it that none of these memories evokes anything of the kind in me? Only hatred, perhaps, and that caused by my present situation, while before I would cold-bloodedly forget it and keep it away.
After that I wandered about for almost this whole year trying to occupy myself. I know I can remove the girl even now, whenever I wish. As before, I am in perfect control of my will. But the whole point is that I have never wanted to do it, I myself do not want to and will not want to; that I do know. And so it will go on, right up to my madness.
In Switzerland, two months ago, I was able to fall in love with one girl, or, better to say, I felt a fit of the same passion, with the same sort of violent impulse, as used to happen only long ago, in the beginning. I felt a terrible temptation for a new crime—that is, to commit bigamy (since I was already married); but I fled, following the advice of another girl to whom I confided almost everything. Besides, this new crime would in no way have rid me of Matryosha.
So it is that I have decided to print these pages and bring them to Russia in three hundred copies. When the time comes, I will send them to the police and the local authorities; simultaneously, I will send them to the editorial offices of all the newspapers, requesting that they be made public, and to my numerous acquaintances in Petersburg and in Russia. They will equally appear in translation abroad. I know that legally I will perhaps not be inconvenienced, at least not considerably; I am making this statement on my own, and have no accuser; besides, there are very few if any proofs. Finally, there is the deeply rooted idea that my mind is deranged, and the efforts my family will certainly make to use this idea to stifle any legal prosecution that might be dangerous for me. I state this incidentally, to prove that I am fully in my right mind and understand my position. But there will remain for me those who know everything and who will look at me, and I at them. And the more of them the better. Whether this will make it any easier for me—I do not know. I am doing it as a last resort.
Once again: a good search through the Petersburg police records might turn something up. The tradespeople might still be in Petersburg. The house will, of course, be remembered. It was light blue. As for me, I won't be going anywhere, and for some time (a year or two) I can always be found at Skvoreshniki, my mother's estate. If I'm summoned, I'll appear anywhere.
Nikolai Stavrogin
The reading took about an hour. Tikhon read slowly and perhaps reread some passages a second time. Stavrogin sat all the while silent and motionless. Strangely, the shade of impatience, distraction, and as if delirium that had been on his face all that morning almost disappeared, giving way to calm and as if a sort of sincerity, which lent him an air almost of dignity. Tikhon removed his glasses and began first, somewhat cautiously.
"And might it be possible to make some corrections in this document?"
"What for? I wrote it sincerely," replied Stavrogin.
"To touch up the style a little."
"I forgot to warn you that all your words will be in vain; I will not put off my intention; don't bother talking me out of it."
"You did not forget to warn me of that earlier, before the reading."
"Never mind, I repeat again: no matter how strong your objections, I will not leave off my intention. Note that by this unfortunate phrase, or fortunate—think what you like—I am in no way inviting you to quickly start objecting to me and entreating me," he added, as if unable to help himself, again suddenly falling for a moment into the former tone, but he at once smiled sadly at his own words.
"I would not even be able to object or to entreat you especially to give up your intention. This thought is a great thought, and there is no way to express a Christian thought more fully. Repentance cannot go any further than the astonishing deed you are contemplating, if only ..."
"If only what?"
"If only it is indeed repentance and indeed a Christian thought."
"These are fine points, it seems to me; does it make any difference? I wrote it sincerely."
"It is as if you purposely want to portray yourself as coarser than your heart would wish ..." Tikhon was growing more and more bold. Obviously, the "document" had made a strong impression on him.
“‘Portray'? I tell you again: I was not 'portraying myself and especially was not 'posturing.’”
Tikhon quickly lowered his eyes.
"This document comes straight from the need of a mortally wounded heart—do I understand correctly?" he went on insistently and with extraordinary ardor. "Yes, it is repentance and the natural need for it that have overcome you, and you have struck upon a great path, a path of an unheard-of sort. But it is as if you already hate beforehand all those who will read what is described here and are challenging them to battle. If you are not ashamed to confess the crime, why are you ashamed of repentance? Let them look at me, you say; well, and you yourself, how are you going to look at them? Certain places in your account are stylistically accentuated; as if you admire your own psychology and seize upon every little detail just to astonish the reader with an unfeelingness that is not in you. What is that if not the proud challenge of a guilty man to his judge?"
"Where is there any challenge? I eliminated all personal reasoning."
Tikhon held his peace. Color even spread over his pale cheeks.
"Let's leave that," Stavrogin brought it abruptly to a halt. "Allow me instead to make you a question: here it is already five minutes that we've been talking after that" (he nodded to the pages) "and I don't see any expression of loathing or shame in you... you're not squeamish, it seems! ..."
He did not finish and grinned.
"That is, you wish I'd quickly voice my contempt for you," Tikhon rounded off firmly. "I won't conceal anything from you: I was horrified at this great idle force being spent deliberately on abomination. As for the crime itself, many people sin in the same way, and live in peace and quiet with their conscience, even regarding it as one of the inevitable trespasses of youth. There are old men who sin in the same way, even contentedly and playfully. The whole world is filled with all these horrors. But you have felt the whole depth of it, something which rarely happens to such an extent."
"You haven't taken to respecting me after these pages?" Stavrogin grinned crookedly.
"To that I shall not respond directly. But, of course, there is not and cannot be any greater and more terrible crime than your act with the maiden."
"Let's quit putting a yardstick to it. I'm somewhat surprised at your opinion about other people and the ordinariness of such a crime. Perhaps I don't suffer nearly as much as I've written here, and perhaps I've really heaped too many lies on myself," he added unexpectedly.
Tikhon once more held his peace. Stavrogin was not even thinking of leaving; on the contrary, he again began to lapse at moments into deep pensiveness.
"And this girl," Tikhon began again, very timidly, "with whom you broke off in Switzerland, is, if I may ask ... where is she at the present moment?"
