The possessed or, The devils
to me all my life... _dans ce livre_.... so much so that I remembered
those verses from childhood. Now an idea has occurred to me; _une
comparaison._ A great number of ideas keep coming into my mind now. You
see, that's exactly like our Russia, those devils that come out of the
sick man and enter into the swine. They are all the sores, all the foul
contagions, all the impurities, all the devils great and small that have
multiplied in that great invalid, our beloved Russia, in the course of
ages and ages. _Oui, cette Russie que j'aimais toujours._ But a great
idea and a great Will will encompass it from on high, as with that
lunatic possessed of devils... and all those devils will come forth, all
the impurity, all the rottenness that was putrefying on the surface ...
and they will beg of themselves to enter into swine; and indeed maybe
they have entered into them already! They are we, we and those... and
Petrusha and _les autres avec lui..._ and I perhaps at the head of them,
and we shall cast ourselves down, possessed and raving, from the rocks
into the sea, and we shall all be drowned--and a good thing too, for
that is all we are fit for. But the sick man will be healed and
'will sit at the feet of Jesus,' and all will look upon him with
astonishment.... My dear, _vous comprendrez après,_ but now it excites me
very much.... _Vous comprendrez après. Nous comprendrons ensemble._"
He sank into delirium and at last lost consciousness. So it went on all
the following day. Sofya Matveyevna sat beside him, crying. She scarcely
slept at all for three nights, and avoided seeing the people of the
house, who were, she felt, beginning to take some steps. Deliverance
only came on the third day. In the morning Stepan Trofimovitch returned
to consciousness, recognised her, and held out his hand to her. She
crossed herself hopefully. He wanted to look out of the window. _"Tiens,
un lac!"_ he said. "Good heavens, I had not seen it before!..." At that
moment there was the rumble of a carriage at the cottage door and a
great hubbub in the house followed.
III
It was Varvara Petrovna herself. She had arrived, with Darya Pavlovna,
in a closed carriage drawn by four horses, with two footmen. The marvel
had happened in the simplest way: Anisim, dying of curiosity, went to
Varvara Petrovna's the day after he reached the town and gossiped to
the servants, telling them he had met Stepan Trofimovitch alone in a
village, that the latter had been seen by peasants walking by himself
on the high road, and that he had set off for Spasov by way of Ustyevo
accompanied by Sofya Matveyevna. As Varvara Petrovna was, for her
part, in terrible anxiety and had done everything she could to find her
fugitive friend, she was at once told about Anisim. When she had heard
his story, especially the details of the departure for Ustyevo in a cart
in the company of some Sofya Matveyevna, she instantly got ready and set
off post-haste for Ustyevo herself.
Her stern and peremptory voice resounded through the cottage; even the
landlord and his wife were intimidated. She had only stopped to question
them and make inquiries, being persuaded that Stepan Trofimovitch must
have reached Spasov long before. Learning that he was still here and
ill, she entered the cottage in great agitation.
"Well, where is he? Ah, that's you!" she cried, seeing Sofya Matveyevna,
who appeared at that very instant in the doorway of the next room. "I
can guess from your shameless face that it's you. Go away, you vile
hussy! Don't let me find a trace of her in the house! Turn her out, or
else, my girl, I'll get you locked up for good. Keep her safe for a time
in another house. She's been in prison once already in the town; she can
go back there again. And you, my good man, don't dare to let anyone in
while I am here, I beg of you. I am Madame Stavrogin, and I'll take the
whole house. As for you, my dear, you'll have to give me a full account
of it all."
The familiar sounds overwhelmed Stepan Trofimovitch. He began to
tremble. But she had already stepped behind the screen. With flashing
eyes she drew up a chair with her foot, and, sinking back in it, she
shouted to Dasha:
"Go away for a time! Stay in the other room. Why are you so inquisitive?
And shut the door properly after you."
For some time she gazed in silence with a sort of predatory look into
his frightened face.
"Well, how are you getting on, Stepan Trofimovitch? So you've been
enjoying yourself?" broke from her with ferocious irony.
_"Chère,"_ Stepan Trofimovitch faltered, not knowing what he was saying,
"I've learnt to know real life in Russia... _et je prêcherai l'Evangile._"
"Oh, shameless, ungrateful man!" she wailed suddenly, clasping her
hands. "As though you had not disgraced me enough, you've taken up
with... oh, you shameless old reprobate!"
_"Chère..."_ His voice failed him and he could not articulate a syllable
but simply gazed with eyes wide with horror.
"Who is she?"
"_C'est un ange; c'était plus qu'un ange pour moi._ She's been all
night... Oh, don't shout, don't frighten her, _chère, chère..._"
With a loud noise, Varvara Petrovna pushed back her chair, uttering a
loud cry of alarm.
"Water, water!"
Though he returned to consciousness, she was still shaking with terror,
and, with pale cheeks, looked at his distorted face. It was only then,
for the first time, that she guessed the seriousness of his illness.
"Darya," she whispered suddenly to Darya Pavlovna, "send at once for the
doctor, for Salzfish; let Yegorytch go at once. Let him hire horses here
and get another carriage from the town. He must be here by night."
Dasha flew to do her bidding. Stepan Trofimovitch still gazed at her
with the same wide-open, frightened eyes; his blanched lips quivered.
"Wait a bit, Stepan Trofimovitch, wait a bit, my dear!" she said,
coaxing him like a child. "There, there, wait a bit! Darya will come
back and... My goodness, the landlady, the landlady, you come, anyway,
my good woman!"
In her impatience she ran herself to the landlady.
"Fetch that woman back at once, this minute. Bring her back, bring her
back!"
Fortunately Sofya Matveyevna had not yet had time to get away and was
only just going out of the gate with her pack and her bag. She was
brought back. She was so panic-stricken that she was trembling in every
limb. Varvara Petrovna pounced on her like a hawk on a chicken, seized
her by the hand and dragged her impulsively to Stepan Trofimovitch.
"Here, here she is, then. I've not eaten her. You thought I'd eaten
her."
Stepan Trofimovitch clutched Varvara Petrovna's hand, raised it to his
eyes, and burst into tears, sobbing violently and convulsively.
"There, calm yourself, there, there, my dear, there, poor dear man!
Ach, mercy on us! Calm yourself, will you?" she shouted frantically.
"Oh, you bane of my life!"
"My dear," Stepan Trofimovitch murmured at last, addressing Sofya
Matveyevna, "stay out there, my dear, I want to say something here...."
Sofya Matveyevna hurried out at once.
_"Chérie... chérie..."_ he gasped.
"Don't talk for a bit, Stepan Trofimovitch, wait a little till you've
rested. Here's some water. Do wait, will you!"
She sat down on the chair again. Stepan Trofimovitch held her hand
tight. For a long while she would not allow him to speak. He raised her
hand to his lips and fell to kissing it. She set her teeth and looked
away into the corner of the room.
_"Je vous aimais,"_ broke from him at last. She had never heard such words
from him, uttered in such a voice.
"H'm!" she growled in response.
_"Je vous aimais toute ma vie... vingt ans!"_
She remained silent for two or three minutes.
"And when you were getting yourself up for Dasha you sprinkled yourself
with scent," she said suddenly, in a terrible whisper.
Stepan Trofimovitch was dumbfounded.
"You put on a new tie..."
Again silence for two minutes.
"Do you remember the cigar?"
"My friend," he faltered, overcome with horror.
"That cigar at the window in the evening... the moon was shining...
after the arbour... at Skvoreshniki? Do you remember, do you remember?"
She jumped up from her place, seized his pillow by the corners and shook
it with his head on it. "Do you remember, you worthless, worthless,
ignoble, cowardly, worthless man, always worthless!" she hissed in her
furious whisper, restraining herself from speaking loudly. At last
she left him and sank on the chair, covering her face with her hands.
"Enough!" she snapped out, drawing herself up. "Twenty years have
passed, there's no calling them back. I am a fool too."
_"Je vous aimais."_ He clasped his hands again.
"Why do you keep on with your _aimais_ and _aimais_? Enough!" she cried,
leaping up again. "And if you don't go to sleep at once I'll... You need
rest; go to sleep, go to sleep at once, shut your eyes. Ach, mercy on
us, perhaps he wants some lunch! What do you eat? What does he eat? Ach,
mercy on us! Where is that woman? Where is she?"
There was a general bustle again. But Stepan Trofimovitch faltered in a
weak voice that he really would like to go to sleep _une heure,_ and then
_un bouillon, un thé.... enfin il est si heureux._ He lay back and really
did seem to go to sleep (he probably pretended to). Varvara Petrovna
waited a little, and stole out on tiptoe from behind the partition.
She settled herself in the landlady's room, turned out the landlady and
her husband, and told Dasha to bring her _that_ woman. There followed an
examination in earnest.
"Tell me all about it, my good girl. Sit down beside me; that's right.
Well?"
"I met Stepan Trofimovitch..."
"Stay, hold your tongue! I warn you that if you tell lies or conceal
anything, I'll ferret it out. Well?"
"Stepan Trofimovitch and I... as soon as I came to Hatovo..." Sofya
Matveyevna began almost breathlessly.
"Stay, hold your tongue, wait a bit! Why do you gabble like that? To
begin with, what sort of creature are you?"
Sofya Matveyevna told her after a fashion, giving a very brief account
of herself, however, beginning with Sevastopol. Varvara Petrovna
listened in silence, sitting up erect in her chair, looking sternly
straight into the speaker's eyes.
"Why are you so frightened? Why do you look at the ground? I like people
who look me straight in the face and hold their own with me. Go on."
She told of their meeting, of her books, of how Stepan Trofimovitch had
regaled the peasant woman with vodka... "That's right, that's right,
don't leave out the slightest detail," Varvara Petrovna encouraged her.
At last she described how they had set off, and how Stepan Trofimovitch
had gone on talking, "really ill by that time," and here had given an
account of his life from the very beginning, talking for some hours.
"Tell me about his life."
Sofya Matveyevna suddenly stopped and was completely nonplussed.
"I can't tell you anything about that, madam," she brought out, almost
crying; "besides, I could hardly understand a word of it."
"Nonsense! You must have understood something."
"He told a long time about a distinguished lady with black hair." Sofya
Matveyevna flushed terribly though she noticed Varvara Petrovna's fair
hair and her complete dissimilarity with the "brunette" of the story.
"Black-haired? What exactly? Come, speak!"
"How this grand lady was deeply in love with his honour all her life
long and for twenty years, but never dared to speak, and was shamefaced
before him because she was a very stout lady...."
"The fool!" Varvara Petrovna rapped out thoughtfully but resolutely.
Sofya Matveyevna was in tears by now.
"I don't know how to tell any of it properly, madam, because I was in a
great fright over his honour; and I couldn't understand, as he is such