The possessed or, The devils
"I've got tea and sugar and a samovar. But there's no need of the
samovar, the tea is hot. Sit down and simply drink it."
"Kirillov, we lay side by side in America.... My wife has come to me ...
I... give me the tea.... I shall want the samovar."
"If your wife is here you want the samovar. But take it later. I've
two. And now take the teapot from the table. It's hot, boiling hot. Take
everything, take the sugar, all of it. Bread... there's plenty of bread;
all of it. There's some veal. I've a rouble."
"Give it me, friend, I'll pay it back to-morrow! Ach, Kirillov!"
"Is it the same wife who was in Switzerland? That's a good thing. And
your running in like this, that's a good thing too."
"Kirillov!" cried Shatov, taking the teapot under his arm and carrying
the bread and sugar in both hands. "Kirillov, if... if you could get rid
of your dreadful fancies and give up your atheistic ravings... oh, what
a man you'd be, Kirillov!"
"One can see you love your wife after Switzerland. It's a good thing you
do--after Switzerland. When you want tea, come again. You can come all
night, I don't sleep at all. There'll be a samovar. Take the rouble,
here it is. Go to your wife, I'll stay here and think about you and your
wife."
Marya Shatov was unmistakably pleased at her husband's haste and fell
upon the tea almost greedily, but there was no need to run for the
samovar; she drank only half a cup and swallowed a tiny piece of bread.
The veal she refused with disgust and irritation.
"You are ill, Marie, all this is a sign of illness," Shatov remarked
timidly as he waited upon her.
"Of course I'm ill, please sit down. Where did you get the tea if you
haven't any?"
Shatov told her about Kirillov briefly. She had heard something of him.
"I know he is mad; say no more, please; there are plenty of fools. So
you've been in America? I heard, you wrote."
"Yes, I... I wrote to you in Paris."
"Enough, please talk of something else. Are you a Slavophil in your
convictions?"
"I... I am not exactly.... Since I cannot be a Russian, I became a
Slavophil." He smiled a wry smile with the effort of one who feels he
has made a strained and inappropriate jest.
"Why, aren't you a Russian?"
"No, I'm not."
"Well, that's all foolishness. Do sit down, I entreat you. Why are you
all over the place? Do you think I am lightheaded? Perhaps I shall be.
You say there are only you two in the house."
"Yes.... Downstairs..."
"And both such clever people. What is there downstairs? You said
downstairs?"
"No, nothing."
"Why nothing? I want to know."
"I only meant to say that now we are only two in the yard, but that the
Lebyadkins used to live downstairs...."
"That woman who was murdered last night?" she started suddenly. "I heard
of it. I heard of it as soon as I arrived. There was a fire here, wasn't
there?"
"Yes, Marie, yes, and perhaps I am doing a scoundrelly thing this moment
in forgiving the scoundrels...." He stood up suddenly and paced about
the room, raising his arms as though in a frenzy.
But Marie had not quite understood him. She heard his answers
inattentively; she asked questions but did not listen.
"Fine things are being done among you! Oh, how contemptible it all is!
What scoundrels men all are! But do sit down, I beg you, oh, how you
exasperate me!" and she let her head sink on the pillow, exhausted.
"Marie, I won't.... Perhaps you'll lie down, Marie?" She made no answer
and closed her eyes helplessly. Her pale face looked death-like. She
fell asleep almost instantly. Shatov looked round, snuffed the candle,
looked uneasily at her face once more, pressed his hands tight in front
of him and walked on tiptoe out of the room into the passage. At the
top of the stairs he stood in the corner with his face to the wall and
remained so for ten minutes without sound or movement. He would have
stood there longer, but he suddenly caught the sound of soft cautious
steps below. Someone was coming up the stairs. Shatov remembered he had
forgotten to fasten the gate.
"Who's there?" he asked in a whisper. The unknown visitor went on slowly
mounting the stairs without answering. When he reached the top he stood
still; it was impossible to see his face in the dark; suddenly Shatov
heard the cautious question:
"Ivan Shatov?"
Shatov said who he was, but at once held out his hand to check his
advance. The latter took his hand, and Shatov shuddered as though he had
touched some terrible reptile.
"Stand here," he whispered quickly. "Don't go in, I can't receive you
just now. My wife has come back. I'll fetch the candle."
When he returned with the candle he found a young officer standing
there; he did not know his name but he had seen him before.
"Erkel," said the lad, introducing himself. "You've seen me at
Virginsky's."
"I remember; you sat writing. Listen," said Shatov in sudden excitement,
going up to him frantically, but still talking in a whisper. "You gave
me a sign just now when you took my hand. But you know I can treat all
these signals with contempt! I don't acknowledge them.... I don't want
them.... I can throw you downstairs this minute, do you know that?"
"No, I know nothing about that and I don't know what you are in such a
rage about," the visitor answered without malice and almost ingenuously.
"I have only to give you a message, and that's what I've come for, being
particularly anxious not to lose time. You have a printing press which
does not belong to you, and of which you are bound to give an account,
as you know yourself. I have received instructions to request you to
give it up to-morrow at seven o'clock in the evening to Liputin. I have
been instructed to tell you also that nothing more will be asked of
you."
"Nothing?"
"Absolutely nothing. Your request is granted, and you are struck off our
list. I was instructed to tell you that positively."
"Who instructed you to tell me?"
"Those who told me the sign."
"Have you come from abroad?"
"I... I think that's no matter to you."
"Oh, hang it! Why didn't you come before if you were told to?"
"I followed certain instructions and was not alone."
"I understand, I understand that you were not alone. Eh... hang it! But
why didn't Liputin come himself?"
"So I shall come for you to-morrow at exactly six o'clock in the
evening, and we'll go there on foot. There will be no one there but us
three."
"Will Verhovensky be there?"
"No, he won't. Verhovensky is leaving the town at eleven o'clock
to-morrow morning."
"Just what I thought!" Shatov whispered furiously, and he struck his
fist on his hip. "He's run off, the sneak!"
He sank into agitated reflection. Erkel looked intently at him and
waited in silence.
"But how will you take it? You can't simply pick it up in your hands and
carry it."
"There will be no need to. You'll simply point out the place and we'll
just make sure that it really is buried there. We only know whereabouts
the place is, we don't know the place itself. And have you pointed the
place out to anyone else yet?"
Shatov looked at him.
"You, you, a chit of a boy like you, a silly boy like you, you too have
got caught in that net like a sheep? Yes, that's just the young blood
they want! Well, go along. E-ech! that scoundrel's taken you all in and
run away."
Erkel looked at him serenely and calmly but did not seem to understand.
"Verhovensky, Verhovensky has run away!" Shatov growled fiercely.
"But he is still here, he is not gone away. He is not going till
to-morrow," Erkel observed softly and persuasively. "I particularly
begged him to be present as a witness; my instructions all referred to
him (he explained frankly like a young and inexperienced boy). But I
regret to say he did not agree on the ground of his departure, and he
really is in a hurry."
Shatov glanced compassionately at the simple youth again, but suddenly
gave a gesture of despair as though he thought "they are not worth
pitying."
"All right, I'll come," he cut him short. "And now get away, be off."
"So I'll come for you at six o'clock punctually." Erkel made a courteous
bow and walked deliberately downstairs.
"Little fool!" Shatov could not help shouting after him from the top.
"What is it?" responded the lad from the bottom.
"Nothing, you can go."
"I thought you said something."
II
Erkel was a "little fool" who was only lacking in the higher form
of reason, the ruling power of the intellect; but of the lesser, the
subordinate reasoning faculties, he had plenty--even to the point of
cunning. Fanatically, childishly devoted to "the cause" or rather in
reality to Pyotr Verhovensky, he acted on the instructions given to him
when at the meeting of the quintet they had agreed and had distributed
the various duties for the next day. When Pyotr Stepanovitch gave him
the job of messenger, he succeeded in talking to him aside for ten
minutes.
A craving for active service was characteristic of this shallow,
unreflecting nature, which was forever yearning to follow the lead
of another man's will, of course for the good of "the common" or "the
great" cause. Not that that made any difference, for little fanatics
like Erkel can never imagine serving a cause except by identifying
it with the person who, to their minds, is the expression of it. The
sensitive, affectionate and kind-hearted Erkel was perhaps the most
callous of Shatov's would-be murderers, and, though he had no personal
spite against him, he would have been present at his murder without the
quiver of an eyelid. He had been instructed, for instance, to have a
good look at Shatov's surroundings while carrying out his commission,
and when Shatov, receiving him at the top of the stairs, blurted out to
him, probably unaware in the heat of the moment, that his wife had come
back to him--Erkel had the instinctive cunning to avoid displaying the
slightest curiosity, though the idea flashed through his mind that the
fact of his wife's return was of great importance for the success of
their undertaking.
And so it was in reality; it was only that fact that saved the
"scoundrels" from Shatov's carrying out his intention, and at the same
time helped them "to get rid of him." To begin with, it agitated Shatov,
threw him out of his regular routine, and deprived him of his usual
clear-sightedness and caution. Any idea of his own danger would be the
last thing to enter his head at this moment when he was absorbed with
such different considerations. On the contrary, he eagerly believed that
Pyotr Verhovensky was running away the next day: it fell in exactly with
his suspicions! Returning to the room he sat down again in a corner,
leaned his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. Bitter
thoughts tormented him....
Then he would raise his head again and go on tiptoe to look at her.
"Good God! she will be in a fever by to-morrow morning; perhaps it's
begun already! She must have caught cold. She is not accustomed to this
awful climate, and then a third-class carriage, the storm, the rain, and
she has such a thin little pelisse, no wrap at all.... And to leave
her like this, to abandon her in her helplessness! Her bag, too, her
bag--what a tiny, light thing, all crumpled up, scarcely weighs ten
pounds! Poor thing, how worn out she is, how much she's been through!
She is proud, that's why she won't complain. But she is irritable, very
irritable. It's illness; an angel will grow irritable in illness. What
a dry forehead, it must be hot--how dark she is under the eyes,
and... and yet how beautiful the oval of her face is and her rich hair,
how..."
And he made haste to turn away his eyes, to walk away as though he were
frightened at the very idea of seeing in her anything but an unhappy,