Demons, p.37
Demons, page 37
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 thank her. 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] Chère Varvara 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."
"And you also allow me to put my name on your subscription list. I will tell Stepan Trofimovich and ask him myself."
Varvara Petrovna returned home utterly enchanted; she stood like a rock for Yulia Mikhailovna, and for some reason was now thoroughly angry with Stepan Trofimovich; and he, poor man, sat at home and did not even know anything.
"I'm in love with her, I don't understand how I could have been so mistaken about this woman," she said to Nikolai Vsevolodovich and to Pyotr Stepanovich, who ran by that evening.
"But you still ought to make peace with the old man," Pyotr Stepanovich proposed, "he's in despair. You've exiled him to the kitchen altogether. Yesterday he met your carriage, bowed, and you turned away. You know, we'll bring him forward; I have some designs on him, and he can still be useful."
"Oh, he's going to read."
"That's not all I meant. And I also wanted to run by and see him today myself. So shall I tell him?"
"If you wish. I don't know how you'll arrange it, though," she said irresolutely. "I intended to talk with him myself and wanted to fix a day and place." She frowned deeply.
"Well, no point in fixing a day. I'll simply tell him."
"Please do. Add, however, that I'll be sure to fix a day. Be sure to add that."
Pyotr Stepanovich ran off, grinning. Generally, as far as I recall, he was somehow especially angry at that time and even allowed himself extremely impatient escapades with almost everyone. Strangely, everyone somehow forgave him. Generally, the opinion became established that he should be looked upon somehow specially. I will observe that he was extremely angry about Nikolai Vsevolodovich's duel. It caught him off guard; he even turned green when he was told. Perhaps his vanity suffered here: he learned of it only the next day, when everybody knew.
"But you really had no right to fight," he whispered to Stavrogin five days later, meeting him by chance in the club. Remarkably, they had not met anywhere during those five days, though Pyotr Stepanovich ran by Varvara Petrovna's almost every day.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich looked at him silently, with a distracted air, as if not understanding what it was about, and went on without stopping. He was going through the big hall of the club towards the buffet.
"You've also been to see Shatov... you want to publish Marya Timofeevna," he went running after him and somehow distractedly seized his shoulder.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich suddenly shook his hand off and quickly turned to him with a menacing frown. Pyotr Stepanovich looked at him, smiling a strange, long smile. It all lasted only a moment. Nikolai Vsevolodovich walked on.
II
He ran over to the old man straight from Varvara Petrovna's, and if he hurried so, it was from sheer spite, to take revenge for a previous offense of which I had no idea until then. The thing was that at their last meeting—namely, a week ago Thursday—Stepan Trofimovich, who, incidentally, had started the argument himself, ended by driving Pyotr Stepanovich out with a stick. He concealed this fact from me then; but now, as soon as Pyotr Stepanovich ran in with his usual smirk, so naively supercilious, and with his unpleasantly curious eyes darting into every corner, Stepan Trofimovich at once gave me a secret sign not to leave the room. Thus their real relations were disclosed to me, for this time I listened to the whole conversation.
Stepan Trofimovich was sitting stretched out on the sofa. He had grown thin and yellow since that Thursday. Pyotr Stepanovich sat down next to him with a most familiar air, tucking his legs under him unceremoniously, and taking up much more space on the sofa than respect for a father demanded. Stepan Trofimovich silently and dignifiedly moved aside.
On the table lay an open book. It was the novel What Is to Be Done?[110] Alas, I must admit one strange weakness in our friend: the fancy that he ought to emerge from his solitude and fight a last battle was gaining more and more of a hold on his seduced imagination. I guessed that he had obtained and was studying the novel with a single purpose, so that in the event of an unquestionable confrontation with the "screamers," he would know their methods and arguments beforehand from their own "catechism," and, being thus prepared, would solemnly refute them all in her eyes. Oh, how this book tormented him! At times he would throw it aside in despair and, jumping up from his seat, pace the room almost in a frenzy.
"I agree that the author's basic idea is correct," he said to me feverishly, "but so much the more horrible for that! It's our same idea, precisely ours; we, we were the first to plant it, to nurture it, to prepare it—and what new could they say on their own after us! But, God, how it's all perverted, distorted, mutilated!" he exclaimed, thumping the book with his fingers. "Are these the conclusions we strove for? Who can recognize the initial thought here?"
"Getting yourself enlightened?" Pyotr Stepanovich grinned, taking the book from the table and reading the title. "It's about time. I'll bring you something better if you like."
Stepan Trofimovich again dignifiedly kept silent. I was sitting in the corner on a sofa.
Pyotr Stepanovich quickly explained the reason for his coming. Of course, Stepan Trofimovich was struck beyond measure, and listened in fear, mixed with extreme indignation.
"And this Yulia Mikhailovna is counting on me to come and read for her!"
"I mean, it's not that they need you so much. On the contrary, it's to indulge you and thereby suck up to Varvara Petrovna. But, needless to say, you won't dare refuse to read. And you yourself would even like to, I suppose," he grinned. "You old fogies are all infernally ambitious. Listen, though, it mustn't be too dull. What have you got there, Spanish history or something? Give it to me to look over a few days ahead, otherwise you may put them all to sleep."
The hasty and all too naked rudeness of these barbs was plainly deliberate. He made as if it were impossible to speak with Stepan Trofimovich in any other, more refined language or concepts. Stepan Trofimovich staunchly continued to ignore the insults. But the events he was being informed of produced a more and more staggering impression on him.
"And she herself, herself, said this should be told to me by... you, sir?" he asked, turning pale.
"I mean, you see, she wants to arrange a day and place for a mutual talk with you, the leftovers of your sentimentalizing. You've been flirting with her for twenty years and have got her used to the funniest ways. But don't worry, it's all different now; she herself keeps saying that she's only now beginning 'to have her eyes re-opened.' I explained to her straight out that this whole friendship of yours is just a mutual outpouring of slops. She's told me a lot, friend; pah, what a lackey position you've been in all this time. Even I blushed for you."
"I, in a lackey position?" Stepan Trofimovich could not restrain himself.
"Worse, you've been a sponger, meaning a voluntary lackey. Too lazy to work, but with an appetite for a spot of cash. All this she now understands; anyway, what she tells about you is simply terrible. No, friend, I really had a good laugh over your letters to her; shameful and disgusting. But you're all so depraved, so depraved! There's something eternally depraving in alms—you're a clear example of it!"
"She showed you my letters!"
"All of them. I mean, of course, there was no way I could read them. Pah, how much paper you wasted, there must be more than two thousand letters there... And you know, old man, I think there was a moment between you two when she was ready to marry you. It was most stupid of you to let it slip! I'm speaking from your viewpoint, of course, but still it would have been better than now when you almost married 'someone else's sins,' like a clown, a laughingstock, for money."
"For money! She, she says it was for money!" Stepan Trofimovich cried out in pain.
"And what else? Come now, I'm the one who had to defend you. That's the only way you could justify yourself. She understood that you needed money like everyone else, and that from that point perhaps you were right. I proved to her like two times two that you'd been living for your mutual profit: she as a capitalist, and you as her sentimental clown. By the way, she's not angry about the money, though you've been milking her like a nanny goat. She's just mad because she believed you for twenty years, because you hoodwinked her so much with nobility and made her lie for so long. That she herself was lying she will never admit, but you're going to catch it twice over for that. I don't understand how you never figured out that you'd have to settle accounts one day. You did have some sense after all, didn't you? I advised her yesterday to send you to an almshouse—a decent one, don't worry, nothing to complain of; it seems that's just what she'll do. Remember your last letter to me in Kh—— province, three weeks ago?"
"You mean you showed it to her?" Stepan Trofimovich jumped up, horrified.
"But, what else? First thing. The one in which you informed me that she exploited you because she was jealous of your talent—well, and also about 'someone else's sins.' Really, though, friend, how vain you are, incidentally! I laughed my head off. Generally, your letters are quite dull; your style is terrible. I often didn't read them at all, and there's one lying around unopened even now; I'll send it to you tomorrow. But this, this last letter of yours—it's the peak of perfection! How I laughed, how I laughed!"
"Monster! Monster!" Stepan Trofimovich cried out.
"Pah, the devil, one can't even talk with you. What, are you offended again, like last Thursday?"
Stepan Trofimovich drew himself up menacingly. "How dare you speak to me in such language?"
"What language? Simple and clear?"
"But tell me finally, monster, are you my son or not?"
"You should know better than I. Of course, fathers always tend to be blind in such cases..."
"Silence! Silence!" Stepan Trofimovich was shaking all over.
"See, you shout at me and abuse me, as you did last Thursday, you were going to wave your stick at me, but I did find that document then. I spent the whole evening rummaging in my suitcase out of curiosity. True, there's nothing certain, you can be comforted. It's just my mother's note to that little Polack. But judging by her character..."
"One word more and I'll slap your face."
"Look at these people!" Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly turned to me. "See, we've been at it since last Thursday. I'm glad at least that you're here today and can settle it. First the fact: he reproaches me for speaking this way about my mother, but wasn't it he who suggested this very thing into my head? In Petersburg, when I was still at school, didn't he wake me up twice in the night, embracing me and weeping like a woman, and what do you think he told me those nights? These same non-lenten anecdotes about my mother! He was the first I heard them from."
"Oh, that was in the loftiest sense! Oh, you didn't understand me! Nothing, you understood nothing."
"But, still, it comes out meaner your way than mine, meaner, admit it. You see, it's all the same to me, if you like. I mean, from your point. From my viewpoint, don't worry: I don't blame mother; if it's you, it's you, if it's the Polack, it's the Polack, it makes no difference to me. It's not my fault if it came out so stupidly with you in Berlin. As if anything smarter could have come out with you. So, aren't you funny people after that! And does it make any difference to you whether I'm your son or not? Listen," he turned to me again, "he didn't spend a rouble on me all his life, he didn't know me at all till I was sixteen, then he robbed me here, and now he shouts that his heart has ached for me all his life, and poses in front of me like an actor. Really, I'm not Varvara Petrovna, for pity's sake!"
