The possessed or, The devils
He was in a warm greatcoat and thickly muffled in a rug, so that it was
difficult to make out his face even with a lantern.
"So Liputin is the only one not here?"
Liputin too came out of the grotto without speaking. Pyotr Stepanovitch
raised the lantern again.
"Why were you hiding in there? Why didn't you come out?"
"I imagine we still keep the right of freedom... of our actions,"
Liputin muttered, though probably he hardly knew what he wanted to
express.
"Gentlemen," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, raising his voice for the first
time above a whisper, which produced an effect, "I think you fully
understand that it's useless to go over things again. Everything
was said and fully thrashed out yesterday, openly and directly.
But perhaps--as I see from your faces--someone wants to make some
statement; in that case I beg you to make haste. Damn it all! there's
not much time, and Erkel may bring him in a minute...."
"He is sure to bring him," Tolkatchenko put in for some reason.
"If I am not mistaken, the printing press will be handed over, to begin
with?" inquired Liputin, though again he seemed hardly to understand why
he asked the question.
"Of course. Why should we lose it?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, lifting the
lantern to his face. "But, you see, we all agreed yesterday that it was
not really necessary to take it. He need only show you the exact spot
where it's buried; we can dig it up afterwards for ourselves. I know
that it's somewhere ten paces from a corner of this grotto. But, damn
it all! how could you have forgotten, Liputin? It was agreed that you
should meet him alone and that we should come out afterwards.... It's
strange that you should ask--or didn't you mean what you said?"
Liputin kept gloomily silent. All were silent. The wind shook the tops
of the pine-trees.
"I trust, however, gentlemen, that every one will do his duty," Pyotr
Stepanovitch rapped out impatiently.
"I know that Shatov's wife has come back and has given birth to a
child," Virginsky said suddenly, excited and gesticulating and scarcely
able to speak distinctly. "Knowing what human nature is, we can be sure
that now he won't give information... because he is happy.... So I
went to every one this morning and found no one at home, so perhaps now
nothing need be done...."
He stopped short with a catch in his breath.
"If you suddenly became happy, Mr. Virginsky," said Pyotr Stepanovitch,
stepping up to him, "would you abandon--not giving information; there's
no question of that--but any perilous public action which you had
planned before you were happy and which you regarded as a duty and
obligation in spite of the risk and loss of happiness?"
"No, I wouldn't abandon it! I wouldn't on any account!" said Virginsky
with absurd warmth, twitching all over.
"You would rather be unhappy again than be a scoundrel?"
"Yes, yes.... Quite the contrary.... I'd rather be a complete
scoundrel... that is no... not a scoundrel at all, but on the contrary
completely unhappy rather than a scoundrel."
"Well then, let me tell you that Shatov looks on this betrayal as a
public duty. It's his most cherished conviction, and the proof of it is
that he runs some risk himself; though, of course, they will pardon him
a great deal for giving information. A man like that will never give up
the idea. No sort of happiness would overcome him. In another day he'll
go back on it, reproach himself, and will go straight to the police.
What's more, I don't see any happiness in the fact that his wife
has come back after three years' absence to bear him a child of
Stavrogin's."
"But no one has seen Shatov's letter," Shigalov brought out all at once,
emphatically.
"I've seen it," cried Pyotr Stepanovitch. "It exists, and all this is
awfully stupid, gentlemen."
"And I protest..." Virginsky cried, boiling over suddenly: "I protest
with all my might.... I want... this is what I want. I suggest that when
he arrives we all come out and question him, and if it's true, we induce
him to repent of it; and if he gives us his word of honour, let him
go. In any case we must have a trial; it must be done after trial. We
mustn't lie in wait for him and then fall upon him."
"Risk the cause on his word of honour--that's the acme of stupidity!
Damnation, how stupid it all is now, gentlemen! And a pretty part you
are choosing to play at the moment of danger!"
"I protest, I protest!" Virginsky persisted.
"Don't bawl, anyway; we shan't hear the signal. Shatov, gentlemen....
(Damnation, how stupid this is now!) I've told you already that Shatov
is a Slavophil, that is, one of the stupidest set of people.... But,
damn it all, never mind, that's no matter! You put me out!... Shatov is
an embittered man, gentlemen, and since he has belonged to the party,
anyway, whether he wanted to or no, I had hoped till the last minute
that he might have been of service to the cause and might have been
made use of as an embittered man. I spared him and was keeping him
in reserve, in spite of most exact instructions.... I've spared him a
hundred times more than he deserved! But he's ended by betraying
us.... But, hang it all, I don't care! You'd better try running away
now, any of you! No one of you has the right to give up the job! You can
kiss him if you like, but you haven't the right to stake the cause on
his word of honour! That's acting like swine and spies in government
pay!"
"Who's a spy in government pay here?" Liputin filtered out.
"You, perhaps. You'd better hold your tongue, Liputin; you talk for the
sake of talking, as you always do. All men are spies, gentlemen, who
funk their duty at the moment of danger. There will always be some fools
who'll run in a panic at the last moment and cry out, 'Aie, forgive
me, and I'll give them all away!' But let me tell you, gentlemen,
no betrayal would win you a pardon now. Even if your sentence were
mitigated it would mean Siberia; and, what's more, there's no escaping
the weapons of the other side--and their weapons are sharper than the
government's."
Pyotr Stepanovitch was furious and said more than he meant to. With a
resolute air Shigalov took three steps towards him. "Since yesterday
evening I've thought over the question," he began, speaking with his
usual pedantry and assurance. (I believe that if the earth had given way
under his feet he would not have raised his voice nor have varied one
tone in his methodical exposition.) "Thinking the matter over, I've come
to the conclusion that the projected murder is not merely a waste of
precious time which might be employed in a more suitable and befitting
manner, but presents, moreover, that deplorable deviation from the
normal method which has always been most prejudicial to the cause
and has delayed its triumph for scores of years, under the guidance of
shallow thinkers and pre-eminently of men of political instead of purely
socialistic leanings. I have come here solely to protest against the
projected enterprise, for the general edification, intending then
to withdraw at the actual moment, which you, for some reason I don't
understand, speak of as a moment of danger to you. I am going--not from
fear of that danger nor from a sentimental feeling for Shatov, whom I
have no inclination to kiss, but solely because all this business from
beginning to end is in direct contradiction to my programme. As for my
betraying you and my being in the pay of the government, you can set
your mind completely at rest. I shall not betray you."
He turned and walked away.
"Damn it all, he'll meet them and warn Shatov!" cried Pyotr
Stepanovitch, pulling out his revolver. They heard the click of the
trigger.
"You may be confident," said Shigalov, turning once more, "that if I
meet Shatov on the way I may bow to him, but I shall not warn him."
"But do you know, you may have to pay for this, Mr. Fourier?"
"I beg you to observe that I am not Fourier. If you mix me up with that
mawkish theoretical twaddler you simply prove that you know nothing of
my manuscript, though it has been in your hands. As for your vengeance,
let me tell you that it's a mistake to cock your pistol: that's
absolutely against your interests at the present moment. But if you
threaten to shoot me to-morrow, or the day after, you'll gain nothing by
it but unnecessary trouble. You may kill me, but sooner or later you'll
come to my system all the same. Good-bye."
At that instant a whistle was heard in the park, two hundred paces away
from the direction of the pond. Liputin at once answered, whistling also
as had been agreed the evening before. (As he had lost several teeth and
distrusted his own powers, he had this morning bought for a farthing
in the market a child's clay whistle for the purpose.) Erkel had warned
Shatov on the way that they would whistle as a signal, so that the
latter felt no uneasiness.
"Don't be uneasy, I'll avoid them and they won't notice me at all,"
Shigalov declared in an impressive whisper; and thereupon deliberately
and without haste he walked home through the dark park.
Everything, to the smallest detail of this terrible affair, is now fully
known. To begin with, Liputin met Erkel and Shatov at the entrance
to the grotto. Shatov did not bow or offer him his hand, but at once
pronounced hurriedly in a loud voice:
"Well, where have you put the spade, and haven't you another lantern?
You needn't be afraid, there's absolutely no one here, and they wouldn't
hear at Skvoreshniki now if we fired a cannon here. This is the place,
here this very spot."
And he stamped with his foot ten paces from the end of the grotto
towards the wood. At that moment Tolkatchenko rushed out from behind
a tree and sprang at him from behind, while Erkel seized him by the
elbows. Liputin attacked him from the front. The three of them at once
knocked him down and pinned him to the ground. At this point Pyotr
Stepanovitch darted up with his revolver. It is said that Shatov had
time to turn his head and was able to see and recognise him. Three
lanterns lighted up the scene. Shatov suddenly uttered a short and
desperate scream. But they did not let him go on screaming. Pyotr
Stepanovitch firmly and accurately put his revolver to Shatov's
forehead, pressed it to it, and pulled the trigger. The shot seems not
to have been loud; nothing was heard at Skvoreshniki, anyway. Shigalov,
who was scarcely three paces away, of course heard it--he heard the
shout and the shot, but, as he testified afterwards, he did not turn nor
even stop. Death was almost instantaneous. Pyotr Stepanovitch was the
only one who preserved all his faculties, but I don't think he was quite
cool. Squatting on his heels, he searched the murdered man's pockets
hastily, though with steady hand. No money was found (his purse had been
left under Marya Ignatyevna's pillow). Two or three scraps of paper
of no importance were found: a note from his office, the title of some
book, and an old bill from a restaurant abroad which had been preserved,
goodness knows why, for two years in his pocket. Pyotr Stepanovitch
transferred these scraps of paper to his own pocket, and suddenly
noticing that they had all gathered round, were gazing at the corpse and
doing nothing, he began rudely and angrily abusing them and urging them
on. Tolkatchenko and Erkel recovered themselves, and running to the
grotto brought instantly from it two stones which they had got ready
there that morning. These stones, which weighed about twenty pounds
each, were securely tied with cord. As they intended to throw the body
in the nearest of the three ponds, they proceeded to tie the stones to
the head and feet respectively. Pyotr Stepanovitch fastened the stones
while Tolkatchenko and Erkel only held and passed them. Erkel was