Demons, p.67
Demons, page 67
And she gave him a long, worn-out, tired look. Shatov stood facing her across the room, five steps away, and listened to her timidly, but somehow in a renewed way, with some never-seen radiance in his face. This strong and rough man, his fur permanently bristling, was suddenly all softness and brightness. Something unusual, altogether unexpected, trembled in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of broken marriage, had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, the dear being who had once said to him: "I love you." Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he could never have admitted in himself even the dream that some woman might say "I love you" to him. He was wildly chaste and modest, considered himself terribly ugly, hated his face and his character, compared himself with some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all that, he placed honesty above all things, and gave himself up to his convictions to the point of fanaticism, was gloomy, proud, irascible, and unloquacious. But now this sole being who had loved him for two weeks (he always, always believed that!)—a being he had always regarded as immeasurably above him, despite his perfectly sober understanding of her errors; a being to whom he could forgive everything, everything (there could have been no question of that, but even somewhat the opposite, so that in his view it came out that he himself was guilty before her for everything), this woman, this Marya Shatov, was again suddenly in his house, was again before him... this was almost impossible to comprehend! He was so struck, this event contained for him so much of something fearsome, and together with it so much happiness, that, of course, he could not, and perhaps did not wish to, was afraid to, recover his senses. This was a dream. But when she gave him that worn-out look, he suddenly understood that this so beloved being was suffering, had perhaps been offended. His heart sank. He studied her features with pain: the luster of first youth had long since disappeared from this tired face. True, she was still good-looking—in his eyes a beauty, as before. (In reality she was a woman of about twenty-five, of rather strong build, taller than average (taller than Shatov), with dark blond, fluffy hair, a pale oval face, and big dark eyes, now shining with a feverish glint.) But the former thoughtless, naive, and simplehearted energy, so familiar to him, had given place in her to sullen irritability, disappointment, cynicism, as it were, to which she was not yet accustomed and which was a burden to her. But, above all, she was ill, he could see that clearly. Despite all his fear before her, he suddenly went up to her and took her by both hands:
"Marie... you know... perhaps you're very tired, for God's sake, don't be angry ... If you'd accept, for instance, some tea at least, eh? Tea is very fortifying, eh? If you'd accept! ..."
"Why ask me to accept, of course I accept, what a child you are still. Give it if you can. What a small room! How cold it is!"
"Oh, right away, firewood, firewood ... I have some firewood!" Shatov got all stirred up. "Firewood... that is, but. . . tea, too, right away," he waved his hand as if with desperate resolution, and grabbed his cap.
"You're going out? So there's no tea in the house!"
"There will be, there will, there'll be everything, right away... I..." He grabbed the revolver from the shelf.
"I'll sell this revolver now ... or pawn it..."
"How stupid, and it will take so long! Here, take my money, if you have nothing, there's eighty kopecks, I think; that's all. It's like a crazy house here."
"There's no need, no need for your money, I'll go now, one moment, even without the revolver..."
And he rushed straight to Kirillov. This was probably still two hours before Kirillov was visited by Pyotr Stepanovich and Liputin. Shatov and Kirillov, who shared the same yard, hardly ever saw each other, and when they met they did not nod or speak: they had spent much too long "lying" beside each other in America.
"Kirillov, you always have tea; have you got tea and a samovar?"
Kirillov, who was pacing the room (as was his custom, all night, from corner to corner), suddenly stopped and looked intently at the man who had run in, though without any special surprise.
"There's tea, there's sugar, and there's a samovar. But no need for the samovar, the tea is hot. Just sit down and drink."
"Kirillov, we lay beside each other in America ... My wife has come to me... I... Give me the tea ... I need the samovar."
"If it's a wife, you need the samovar. But the samovar later. I have two. For now take the teapot from the table. Hot, the hottest. Take everything; take sugar; all of it. Bread ... A lot of bread; all of it. There's veal. A rouble in cash."
"Give it to me, friend, I'll pay it back tomorrow! Ah, Kirillov!"
"Is this the wife who was in Switzerland? That's good. And that you ran in like that is also good."
"Kirillov!" Shatov cried, taking the teapot under his arm and sugar and bread in both hands, "Kirillov! If ... if you could renounce your terrible fantasies and drop your atheistic ravings... oh, what a man you'd be, Kirillov!"
"One can see you love your wife after Switzerland. That's good, if it's after Switzerland. When you need tea, come again. Come all night, I don't sleep at all. There'll be a samovar. Take the rouble, here. Go to your wife, I'll stay and think about you and your wife."
Marya Shatov was visibly pleased by his haste and almost greedily got down to her tea, but there was no need to run for the samovar: she drank only half a cup and swallowed just a tiny piece of bread. The veal was squeamishly and irritably rejected.
"You're ill, Marie, it's all such illness in you..." Shatov remarked timidly, waiting timidly on her.
"Of course I'm ill, sit down, please. Where did you get tea, if there wasn't any?"
Shatov told her about Kirillov, slightly, briefly. She had heard something about him.
"He's mad, I know; no more, please. As if there weren't enough fools! So you were in America? I heard, you wrote."
"Yes, I... wrote to Paris."
"Enough, and please let's talk about something else. Are you a Slavophil by conviction?"
"I... not that I... Seeing it was impossible to be a Russian, I became a Slavophil," he grinned crookedly, with the strain of a man whose witticism is inappropriate and forced.
"So you're not a Russian?"
"No, I'm not."
"Well, this is all stupid. Sit down, finally, I beg you. What's all this back-and-forth? You think I'm raving? Maybe I will be raving. You say there are just the two of you in the house?"
"Two... downstairs..."
"And both such smart ones. What's downstairs? You said downstairs?"
"No, nothing."
"What, nothing? I want to know."
"I was just going to say that there are two of us on the yard now, and before the Lebyadkins used to live downstairs..."
"That's the woman who was killed last night?" she suddenly heaved herself up. "I heard about it. As soon as I arrived, I heard about it. You had a fire?"
"Yes, Marie, yes, and maybe I'm a terrible scoundrel this minute, because I forgive the scoundrels..." He suddenly got up and began to pace the room, his arms raised as if in a frenzy.
But Marie did not quite understand him. She listened distractedly to his replies; she asked, but did not listen.
"Nice things you've got going. Oh, how scoundrelly everything is! They're all such scoundrels. But do sit down, I beg you, finally—oh, how you irritate me!" and, exhausted, she lowered her head onto the pillow.
"Marie, I won't... Maybe you want to lie down, Marie?"
She did not answer and strengthlessly closed her eyes. Her pale face became like a dead woman's. She fell asleep almost instantly. Shatov looked around, straightened the candle, looked anxiously at her face one more time, clasped his hands tightly in front of him, and tiptoed out of the room into the hallway. At the top of the stairs he pressed his face into a corner and stood that way for about ten minutes, silently and motionlessly. He would have stood there longer, but suddenly he heard soft, cautious footsteps from below. Someone was coming up. Shatov remembered that he had forgotten to lock the gate.
"Who's there?" he asked in a whisper.
The unknown visitor kept coming up without haste and without answering. When he reached the landing, he stopped; to make him out in the darkness was impossible; suddenly there came his cautious question:
"Ivan Shatov?"
Shatov gave his name, and immediately reached his hand out to stop him; but the man himself seized him by the hand and—Shatov gave a start, as if he had touched some horrible viper.
"Stop there," he whispered quickly, "don't come in, I can't receive you now. My wife has come back to me. I'll bring a candle out."
When he came back with the candle, there stood some young little officer; he did not know his name, but he had seen him somewhere.
"Erkel," the man introduced himself. "You saw me at Virginsky's."
"I remember; you sat and wrote. Listen," Shatov suddenly boiled up, frenziedly stepping close to him, but speaking in a whisper as before, "you gave me a sign just now with your hand, when you seized mine. But know that I could spit on all these signs! I don't acknowledge ... I don't want to ... I could chuck you down the stairs now, do you know that?"
"No, I don't know any of it, and I don't know at all why you got so angry," the visitor replied, mildly and almost simpleheartedly. "I only have to tell you something, and that is why I've come, wishing above all not to waste any time. You have a press that does not belong to you, and for which you are accountable, as you know yourself. I was told to demand that you hand it over tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, to Liputin. Furthermore, I was told to inform you that nothing else will ever be demanded of you."
"Nothing?"
"Absolutely nothing. Your request is being granted, and you are removed forever. I was told to inform you positively of this."
"Who told you to inform me?"
"Those who gave me the sign."
"Are you from abroad?"
"That... that, I think, is irrelevant for you."
"Eh, the devil! And why didn't you come sooner, if you were told?"
"I followed certain instructions and was not alone."
"I understand, I understand that you weren't alone. Eh ... the devil! And why didn't Liputin come himself?"
"And so I will come for you tomorrow at exactly six o'clock in the evening, and we will go there on foot. There will be no one there except the three of us."
"Will Verkhovensky be there?"
"No, he won't. Verkhovensky is leaving town tomorrow, in the morning, at eleven o'clock."
"Just as I thought," Shatov whispered furiously and struck himself on the hip with his fist, "he ran away, the dog!"
He lapsed into agitated thought. Erkel was looking intently at him, waiting silently.
"And how are you going to take it? It can't be picked up in one piece and carried away."
"There will be no need to. You'll just point out the place, and we'll just make sure it really is hidden there. We know just the whereabouts of the place, but not the place itself. And have you pointed the place out to anyone else?"
Shatov looked at him.
"And you, and you, such a boy—such a silly boy—you, too, have gotten into it up to your neck, like a sheep? Eh, but that's what they need, such sap. Well, go! Ehh! That scoundrel hoodwinked you all and ran away."
Erkel looked at him serenely and calmly, but seemed not to understand.
"Verkhovensky ran away! Verkhovensky!" Shatov rasped furiously.
"But he's still here, he hasn't left yet. He's only leaving tomorrow," Erkel observed gently and persuadingly. "I especially invited him to be present as a witness; my instructions all had to do with him" (he confided like a young, inexperienced boy). "But, unfortunately, he did not agree, on the pretext of his departure, and he really seems to be in a hurry."
Shatov again glanced pityingly at the simpleton, but suddenly waved his hand as if thinking: "What's there to pity?"
"All right, I'll come," he suddenly broke off, "and now get out of here, go!"
"And so I'll come at exactly six o'clock," Erkel bowed politely and went unhurriedly down the stairs.
"Little fool!" Shatov could not help shouting at his back from upstairs.
"What's that, sir?" the man responded from below.
"Never mind, go."
"I thought you said something."
II
Erkel was the sort of "little fool" whose head lacked only the chief sense; he had no king in his head, but of lesser, subordinate sense he had plenty, even to the point of cunning. Fanatically, childishly devoted to the "common cause," and essentially to Pyotr Verkhovensky, he acted on his instructions, given him at that moment during the meeting of our people when the roles for the next day were arranged and handed out. Pyotr Stepanovich, assigning him the role of messenger, managed to have about a ten-minute talk with him aside. The executive line was what was required by this shallow, scant-reasoning character, eternally longing to submit to another's will—oh, to be sure, not otherwise than for the sake of a "common" or "great" cause. But that, too, made no difference, for little fanatics like Erkel simply cannot understand service to an idea otherwise than by merging it with the very person who, in their understanding, expresses this idea. Sentimental, tender, and kindly Erkel was perhaps the most unfeeling of the murderers who gathered against Shatov, and, having no personal hatred, could be present at his murder without batting an eye. Among other things, for instance, he had been told to spy out Shatov's situation thoroughly while going about his errand, and when Shatov, receiving him on the stairs, blurted out in his heat, most likely without noticing it, that his wife had returned to him—Erkel at once had enough instinctive cunning not to show the slightest further curiosity, despite the surmise flashing in his head that the fact of the returned wife was of great significance for the success of their undertaking...
And so it was, essentially: this fact alone saved the "blackguards" from Shatov's intention, and at the same time helped them to "get rid" of him... First of all, it excited Shatov, unsettled him, deprived him of his usual perspicacity and caution. Now least of all could any sort of notion of his own safety enter his head, occupied as it was by something quite different. On the contrary, he passionately believed that Pyotr Verkhovensky was going to run away the next day: it coincided so well with his suspicions! Having returned to his room, he again sat down in the corner, leaned his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands. Bitter thoughts tormented him...
And then he would raise his head again, get up, and go on tiptoe to look at her: "Lord! By tomorrow she'll be running a fever, by morning, it may have started already! She caught cold, of course. Unused to this terrible climate, and then the train, third class, rain and storm all around, and her cape is so light, no clothes to speak of... And to leave her here, abandon her without any help! Her bag, such a tiny bag, light, shriveled, ten pounds! Poor thing, how wasted, how much she's endured! She's proud, that's why she doesn't complain. But irritated, so irritated! It's the illness: even an angel would get irritated in illness. How dry, how hot her forehead must be, so dark under her eyes, and... and yet how beautiful the oval of her face and this fluffy hair, how..."
And he would hasten to look away, would hasten to get away, as if fearing the mere thought of seeing anything in her but an unfortunate, worn-out being in need of help—"what hopes could there be here! Oh, how low, how mean man is!"—and he would go back to his corner, sit down, cover his face with his hands, and again dream, again recall... and again picture hopes.
"Oh, I'm tired, so tired!" he recalled her exclamations, her weak, strained voice. "Lord! To abandon her now, and she with her eighty kopecks; she offered her purse, old, tiny! She's come to look for a position—well, what does she understand about positions, what do they understand in Russia? They're like whimsical children, all they have are their own fantasies, made up by themselves; and she's angry, poor thing, why doesn't Russia resemble their little foreign dreams! Oh, unfortunate, oh, innocent ones! ... However, it really is cold here..."
He remembered that she had complained, that he had promised to light the stove. "The firewood's there, I could fetch it, as long as I don't wake her up. I could do it, however. And what do I decide about the veal? She'll get up, she may want to eat... Well, that can wait; Kirillov doesn't sleep all night. What shall I cover her with, she's so fast asleep, but she must be cold, ah, cold!"
And he went over yet again to look at her; her dress was turned back a little, and her right leg was half bared to the knee. He suddenly turned away, almost in fear, took off his warm coat, and, remaining in a wretched old jacket, covered the bare part, trying not to look at it.
Lighting the stove, walking on tiptoe, looking at the sleeping woman, dreaming in the corner, then looking at the sleeping woman again, took a long time. Two or three hours went by. It was during this time that Verkhovensky and Liputin managed to visit Kirillov. Finally he, too, dozed off in the corner. A groan came from her; she awoke, she was calling him; he jumped up like a criminal.
"Marie! I fell asleep... Ah, what a scoundrel I am, Marie!"
She raised herself, looking around in surprise, as if not recognizing where she was, and suddenly became all stirred with indignation, with wrath:
"I took your bed, I fell asleep, beside myself with fatigue; how dared you not wake me up? How dared you think I intend to burden you?"
"How could I wake you, Marie?"
"You could; you should have! There's no other bed for you here, and I took yours. You shouldn't have put me in a false position. Or do you think I came to take advantage of your charity? Be so good as to take your bed right now, and I will lie down in the corner, on some chairs ..."
"Marie, I don't have so many chairs, or anything to make a bed from."
"Well, then simply on the floor. Otherwise you yourself will have to sleep on the floor. I want the floor, now, now!"
