The possessed or, The devils
heard all about it from our friends, whom I had only just informed. But,
strange to say, instead of being inquisitive and asking questions about
Stepan Trofimovitch, he interrupted me, when I began apologising for not
having come to him before, and at once passed to other subjects. It is
true that he had a great deal stored up to tell me. He was in a state
of great excitement, and was delighted to have got hold of me for a
listener. He began talking of the news of the town, of the arrival
of the governor's wife, "with new topics of conversation," of an
opposition party already formed in the club, of how they were all in a
hubbub over the new ideas, and how charmingly this suited him, and so
on. He talked for a quarter of an hour and so amusingly that I could not
tear myself away. Though I could not endure him, yet I must admit he had
the gift of making one listen to him, especially when he was very angry
at something. This man was, in my opinion, a regular spy from his very
nature. At every moment he knew the very latest gossip and all the
trifling incidents of our town, especially the unpleasant ones, and it
was surprising to me how he took things to heart that were sometimes
absolutely no concern of his. It always seemed to me that the leading
feature of his character was envy. When I told Stepan Trofimovitch the
same evening of my meeting Liputin that morning and our conversation,
the latter to my amazement became greatly agitated, and asked me the
wild question: "Does Liputin know or not?"
I began trying to prove that there was no possibility of his finding it
out so soon, and that there was nobody from whom he could hear it. But
Stepan Trofimovitch was not to be shaken. "Well, you may believe it or
not," he concluded unexpectedly at last, "but I'm convinced that he not
only knows every detail of 'our' position, but that he knows something
else besides, something neither you nor I know yet, and perhaps never
shall, or shall only know when it's too late, when there's no turning
back!..."
I said nothing, but these words suggested a great deal. For five whole
days after that we did not say one word about Liputin; it was clear to
me that Stepan Trofimovitch greatly regretted having let his tongue run
away with him, and having revealed such suspicions before me.
II
One morning, on the seventh or eighth day after Stepan Trofimovitch had
consented to become "engaged," about eleven o'clock, when I was hurrying
as usual to my afflicted friend, I had an adventure on the way.
I met Karmazinov, "the great writer," as Liputin called him. I had read
Karmazinov from a child. His novels and tales were well known to the
past and even to the present generation. I revelled in them; they were
the great enjoyment of my childhood and youth. Afterwards I grew rather
less enthusiastic over his work. I did not care so much for the novels
with a purpose which he had been writing of late as for his first,
early works, which were so full of spontaneous poetry, and his latest
publications I had not liked at all. Speaking generally, if I may
venture to express my opinion on so delicate a subject, all these
talented gentlemen of the middling sort who are sometimes in their
lifetime accepted almost as geniuses, pass out of memory quite suddenly
and without a trace when they die, and what's more, it often happens
that even during their lifetime, as soon as a new generation grows up
and takes the place of the one in which they have flourished, they are
forgotten and neglected by every one in an incredibly short time. This
somehow happens among us quite suddenly, like the shifting of the scenes
on the stage. Oh, it's not at all the same as with Pushkin, Gogol,
Molière, Voltaire, all those great men who really had a new original
word to say! It's true, too, that these talented gentlemen of the
middling sort in the decline of their venerable years usually write
themselves out in the most pitiful way, though they don't observe the
fact themselves. It happens not infrequently that a writer who has been
for a long time credited with extraordinary profundity and expected
to exercise a great and serious influence on the progress of society,
betrays in the end such poverty, such insipidity in his fundamental
ideas that no one regrets that he succeeded in writing himself out so
soon. But the old grey-beards don't notice this, and are angry. Their
vanity sometimes, especially towards the end of their career, reaches
proportions that may well provoke wonder. God knows what they begin
to take themselves for--for gods at least! People used to say about
Karmazinov that his connections with aristocratic society and powerful
personages were dearer to him than his own soul, people used to say that
on meeting you he would be cordial, that he would fascinate and enchant
you with his open-heartedness, especially if you were of use to him in
some way, and if you came to him with some preliminary recommendation.
But that before any stray prince, any stray countess, anyone that he
was afraid of, he would regard it as his sacred duty to forget your
existence with the most insulting carelessness, like a chip of wood,
like a fly, before you had even time to get out of his sight; he
seriously considered this the best and most aristocratic style. In spite
of the best of breeding and perfect knowledge of good manners he is,
they say, vain to such an hysterical pitch that he cannot conceal his
irritability as an author even in those circles of society where little
interest is taken in literature. If anyone were to surprise him by being
indifferent, he would be morbidly chagrined, and try to revenge himself.
A year before, I had read an article of his in a review, written with
an immense affectation of naïve poetry, and psychology too. He described
the wreck of some steamer on the English coast, of which he had been
the witness, and how he had seen the drowning people saved, and the
dead bodies brought ashore. All this rather long and verbose article
was written solely with the object of self-display. One seemed to read
between the lines: "Concentrate yourselves on me. Behold what I was like
at those moments. What are the sea, the storm, the rocks, the splinters
of wrecked ships to you? I have described all that sufficiently to you
with my mighty pen. Why look at that drowned woman with the dead child
in her dead arms? Look rather at me, see how I was unable to bear that
sight and turned away from it. Here I stood with my back to it; here
I was horrified and could not bring myself to look; I blinked my
eyes--isn't that interesting?" When I told Stepan Trofimovitch my
opinion of Karmazinov's article he quite agreed with me.
When rumours had reached us of late that Karmazinov was coming to the
neighbourhood I was, of course, very eager to see him, and, if possible,
to make his acquaintance. I knew that this might be done through Stepan
Trofimovitch, they had once been friends. And now I suddenly met him at
the cross-roads. I knew him at once. He had been pointed out to me two
or three days before when he drove past with the governor's wife. He
was a short, stiff-looking old man, though not over fifty-five, with a
rather red little face, with thick grey locks of hair clustering under
his chimney-pot hat, and curling round his clean little pink ears.
His clean little face was not altogether handsome with its thin, long,
crafty-looking lips, with its rather fleshy nose, and its sharp, shrewd
little eyes. He was dressed somewhat shabbily in a sort of cape such as
would be worn in Switzerland or North Italy at that time of year. But,
at any rate, all the minor details of his costume, the little studs,
and collar, the buttons, the tortoise-shell lorgnette on a narrow black
ribbon, the signet-ring, were all such as are worn by persons of the
most irreproachable good form. I am certain that in summer he must have
worn light prunella shoes with mother-of-pearl buttons at the side.
When we met he was standing still at the turning and looking about him,
attentively. Noticing that I was looking at him with interest, he asked
me in a sugary, though rather shrill voice:
"Allow me to ask, which is my nearest way to Bykovy Street?"
"To Bykovy Street? Oh, that's here, close by," I cried in great
excitement. "Straight on along this street and the second turning to the
left."
"Very much obliged to you."
A curse on that minute! I fancy I was shy, and looked cringing. He
instantly noticed all that, and of course realised it all at once; that
is, realised that I knew who he was, that I had read him and revered
him from a child, and that I was shy and looked at him cringingly. He
smiled, nodded again, and walked on as I had directed him. I don't know
why I turned back to follow him; I don't know why I ran for ten paces
beside him. He suddenly stood still again.
"And could you tell me where is the nearest cab-stand?" he shouted out
to me again.
It was a horrid shout! A horrid voice!
"A cab-stand? The nearest cab-stand is... by the Cathedral; there are
always cabs standing there," and I almost turned to run for a cab for
him. I almost believe that that was what he expected me to do. Of
course I checked myself at once, and stood still, but he had noticed
my movement and was still watching me with the same horrid smile. Then
something happened which I shall never forget.
He suddenly dropped a tiny bag, which he was holding in his left
hand; though indeed it was not a bag, but rather a little box, or more
probably some part of a pocket-book, or to be more accurate a little
reticule, rather like an old-fashioned lady's reticule, though I really
don't know what it was. I only know that I flew to pick it up.
I am convinced that I did not really pick it up, but my first motion
was unmistakable. I could not conceal it, and, like a fool, I turned
crimson. The cunning fellow at once got all that could be got out of the
circumstance.
"Don't trouble, I'll pick it up," he pronounced charmingly; that is,
when he was quite sure that I was not going to pick up the reticule, he
picked it up as though forestalling me, nodded once more, and went his
way, leaving me to look like a fool. It was as good as though I had
picked it up myself. For five minutes I considered myself utterly
disgraced forever, but as I reached Stepan Trofimovitch's house I
suddenly burst out laughing; the meeting struck me as so amusing that I
immediately resolved to entertain Stepan Trofimovitch with an account of
it, and even to act the whole scene to him.
III
But this time to my surprise I found an extraordinary change in him. He
pounced on me with a sort of avidity, it is true, as soon as I went in,
and began listening to me, but with such a distracted air that at first
he evidently did not take in my words. But as soon as I pronounced the
name of Karmazinov he suddenly flew into a frenzy.
"Don't speak of him! Don't pronounce that name!" he exclaimed, almost in
a fury. "Here, look, read it! Read it!"
He opened the drawer and threw on the table three small sheets of paper,
covered with a hurried pencil scrawl, all from Varvara Petrovna. The
first letter was dated the day before yesterday, the second had come
yesterday, and the last that day, an hour before. Their contents were
quite trivial, and all referred to Karmazinov and betrayed the vain
and fussy uneasiness of Varvara Petrovna and her apprehension that
Karmazinov might forget to pay her a visit. Here is the first one dating
from two days before. (Probably there had been one also three days
before, and possibly another four days before as well.)
"If he deigns to visit you to-day, not a word about me, I beg. Not the
faintest hint. Don't speak of me, don't mention me.--V. S."
The letter of the day before: