The possessed or, The devils
mean to his excellency to disgrace a girl of good character, or put to
shame another man's wife, like that incident with me? If he comes across
a generous-hearted man he'll force him to cover the sins of others under
the shelter of his honourable name. That's just what I had to put up
with, I'm speaking of myself...."
"Be careful, Liputin." Stepan Trofimovitch got up from his easy chair
and turned pale.
"Don't believe it, don't believe it! Somebody has made a mistake
and Lebyadkin's drunk..." exclaimed the engineer in indescribable
excitement. "It will all be explained, but I can't.... And I think it's
low.... And that's enough, enough!"
He ran out of the room.
"What are you about? Why, I'm going with you!" cried Liputin, startled.
He jumped up and ran after Alexey Nilitch.
VII
Stepan Trofimovitch stood a moment reflecting, looked at me as though he
did not see me, took up his hat and stick and walked quietly out of
the room. I followed him again, as before. As we went out of the gate,
noticing that I was accompanying him, he said:
"Oh yes, you may serve as a witness..._de l'accident. Vous
m'accompagnerez, n'est-ce pas?_"
"Stepan Trofimovitch, surely you're not going there again? Think what
may come of it!"
With a pitiful and distracted smile, a smile of shame and utter despair,
and at the same time of a sort of strange ecstasy, he whispered to me,
standing still for an instant:
"I can't marry to cover 'another man's sins'!"
These words were just what I was expecting. At last that fatal sentence
that he had kept hidden from me was uttered aloud, after a whole week of
shuffling and pretence. I was positively enraged.
"And you, Stepan Verhovensky, with your luminous mind, your kind heart,
can harbour such a dirty, such a low idea... and could before Liputin
came!"
He looked at me, made no answer and walked on in the same direction.
I did not want to be left behind. I wanted to give Varvara Petrovna my
version. I could have forgiven him if he had simply with his womanish
faint-heartedness believed Liputin, but now it was clear that he
had thought of it all himself long before, and that Liputin had only
confirmed his suspicions and poured oil on the flames. He had not
hesitated to suspect the girl from the very first day, before he had any
kind of grounds, even Liputin's words, to go upon. Varvara Petrovna's
despotic behaviour he had explained to himself as due to her haste
to cover up the aristocratic misdoings of her precious "Nicolas" by
marrying the girl to an honourable man! I longed for him to be punished
for it.
"_Oh, Dieu, qui est si grand et si bon!_ Oh, who will comfort me!" he
exclaimed, halting suddenly again, after walking a hundred paces.
"Come straight home and I'll make everything clear to you," I cried,
turning him by force towards home.
"It's he! Stepan Trofimovitch, it's you? You?" A fresh, joyous young
voice rang out like music behind us.
We had seen nothing, but a lady on horseback suddenly made her
appearance beside us--Lizaveta Nikolaevna with her invariable companion.
She pulled up her horse.
"Come here, come here quickly!" she called to us, loudly and merrily.
"It's twelve years since I've seen him, and I know him, while he.... Do
you really not know me?"
Stepan Trofimovitch clasped the hand held out to him and kissed it
reverently. He gazed at her as though he were praying and could not
utter a word.
"He knows me, and is glad! Mavriky Nikolaevitch, he's delighted to see
me! Why is it you haven't been to see us all this fortnight? Auntie
tried to persuade me you were ill and must not be disturbed; but I know
Auntie tells lies. I kept stamping and swearing at you, but I had made
up my mind, quite made up my mind, that you should come to me first,
that was why I didn't send to you. Heavens, why he hasn't changed a
bit!" She scrutinised him, bending down from the saddle. "He's absurdly
unchanged. Oh, yes, he has wrinkles, a lot of wrinkles, round his eyes
and on his cheeks some grey hair, but his eyes are just the same. And
have I changed? Have I changed? Why don't you say something?"
I remembered at that moment the story that she had been almost ill when
she was taken away to Petersburg at eleven years old, and that she had
cried during her illness and asked for Stepan Trofimovitch.
"You... I..." he faltered now in a voice breaking with joy. "I was just
crying out 'who will comfort me?' and I heard your voice. I look on it
as a miracle _et je commence à croire_."
"_En Dieu! En Dieu qui est là-haut et qui est si grand et si bon!_ You
see, I know all your lectures by heart. Mavriky Nikolaevitch, what faith
he used to preach to me then, _en Dieu qui est si grand et si bon!_ And do
you remember your story of how Columbus discovered America, and they
all cried out, 'Land! land!'? My nurse Alyona Frolovna says I was
light-headed at night afterwards, and kept crying out 'land! land!'
in my sleep. And do you remember how you told me the story of Prince
Hamlet? And do you remember how you described to me how the poor
emigrants were transported from Europe to America? And it was all
untrue; I found out afterwards how they were transited. But what
beautiful fibs he used to tell me then, Mavriky Nikolaevitch! They were
better than the truth. Why do you look at Mavriky Nikolaevitch like
that? He is the best and finest man on the face of the globe and you must
like him just as you do me! _Il fait tout ce que je veux._ But, dear Stepan
Trofimovitch, you must be unhappy again, since you cry out in the middle
of the street asking who will comfort you. Unhappy, aren't you? Aren't
you?"
"Now I'm happy...."
"Aunt is horrid to you?" she went on, without listening. "She's just the
same as ever, cross, unjust, and always our precious aunt! And do
you remember how you threw yourself into my arms in the garden and I
comforted you and cried--don't be afraid of Mavriky Nikolaevitch; he has
known all about you, everything, for ever so long; you can weep on his
shoulder as long as you like, and he'll stand there as long as you like!
... Lift up your hat, take it off altogether for a minute, lift up your
head, stand on tiptoe, I want to kiss you on the forehead as I kissed
you for the last time when we parted. Do you see that young lady's
admiring us out of the window? Come closer, closer! Heavens! How grey he
is!"
And bending over in the saddle she kissed him on the forehead.
"Come, now to your home! I know where you live. I'll be with you
directly, in a minute. I'll make you the first visit, you stubborn man,
and then I must have you for a whole day at home. You can go and make
ready for me."
And she galloped off with her cavalier. We returned. Stepan Trofimovitch
sat down on the sofa and began to cry.
_"Dieu, Dieu."_ he exclaimed, _"enfin une minute de bonheur!"_
Not more than ten minutes afterwards she reappeared according to her
promise, escorted by her Mavriky Nikolaevitch.
_"Vous et le bonheur, vous arrivez en même temps!"_ He got up to meet her.
"Here's a nosegay for you; I rode just now to Madame Chevalier's, she
has flowers all the winter for name-days. Here's Mavriky Nikolaevitch,
please make friends. I wanted to bring you a cake instead of a nosegay,
but Mavriky Nikolaevitch declares that is not in the Russian spirit."
Mavriky Nikolaevitch was an artillery captain, a tall and handsome man
of thirty-three, irreproachably correct in appearance, with an imposing
and at first sight almost stern countenance, in spite of his wonderful
and delicate kindness which no one could fail to perceive almost the
first moment of making his acquaintance. He was taciturn, however,
seemed very self-possessed and made no efforts to gain friends. Many
of us said later that he was by no means clever; but this was not
altogether just.
I won't attempt to describe the beauty of Lizaveta Nikolaevna. The
whole town was talking of it, though some of our ladies and young girls
indignantly differed on the subject. There were some among them who
already detested her, and principally for her pride. The Drozdovs had
scarcely begun to pay calls, which mortified them, though the real
reason for the delay was Praskovya Ivanovna's invalid state. They
detested her in the second place because she was a relative of
the governor's wife, and thirdly because she rode out every day on
horseback. We had never had young ladies who rode on horseback before;
it was only natural that the appearance of Lizaveta Nikolaevna on
horseback and her neglect to pay calls was bound to offend local
society. Yet every one knew that riding was prescribed her by the
doctor's orders, and they talked sarcastically of her illness. She
really was ill. What struck me at first sight in her was her abnormal,
nervous, incessant restlessness. Alas, the poor girl was very unhappy,
and everything was explained later. To-day, recalling the past, I should
not say she was such a beauty as she seemed to me then. Perhaps she was
really not pretty at all. Tall, slim, but strong and supple, she struck
one by the irregularities of the lines of her face. Her eyes were set
somewhat like a Kalmuck's, slanting; she was pale and thin in the
face with high cheek-bones, but there was something in the face that
conquered and fascinated! There was something powerful in the ardent
glance of her dark eyes. She always made her appearance "like a
conquering heroine, and to spread her conquests." She seemed proud and
at times even arrogant. I don't know whether she succeeded in being
kind, but I know that she wanted to, and made terrible efforts to force
herself to be a little kind. There were, no doubt, many fine impulses
and the very best elements in her character, but everything in her
seemed perpetually seeking its balance and unable to find it; everything
was in chaos, in agitation, in uneasiness. Perhaps the demands she made
upon herself were too severe, and she was never able to find in herself
the strength to satisfy them.
She sat on the sofa and looked round the room.
"Why do I always begin to feel sad at such moments; explain that
mystery, you learned person? I've been thinking all my life that
I should be goodness knows how pleased at seeing you and recalling
everything, and here I somehow don't feel pleased at all, although I do
love you.... Ach, heavens! He has my portrait on the wall! Give it here.
I remember it! I remember it!"
An exquisite miniature in water-colour of Liza at twelve years old had
been sent nine years before to Stepan Trofimovitch from Petersburg by
the Drozdovs. He had kept it hanging on his wall ever since.
"Was I such a pretty child? Can that really have been my face?"
She stood up, and with the portrait in her hand looked in the
looking-glass.
"Make haste, take it!" she cried, giving back the portrait. "Don't hang
it up now, afterwards. I don't want to look at it."
She sat down on the sofa again. "One life is over and another is begun,
then that one is over--a third begins, and so on, endlessly. All the
ends are snipped off as it were with scissors. See what stale things I'm
telling you. Yet how much truth there is in them!"
She looked at me, smiling; she had glanced at me several times already,
but in his excitement Stepan Trofimovitch forgot that he had promised
to introduce me.
"And why have you hung my portrait under those daggers? And why have you
got so many daggers and sabres?"
He had as a fact hanging on the wall, I don't know why, two crossed
daggers and above them a genuine Circassian sabre. As she asked this
question she looked so directly at me that I wanted to answer, but
hesitated to speak. Stepan Trofimovitch grasped the position at last and
introduced me.
"I know, I know," she said, "I'm delighted to meet you. Mother has