The possessed or, The devils
brushing his hair with it. Kirillov and I only looked at one another,
and made up our minds that that was the right thing and that we liked it
very much...."
"The strange thing is that with us all this is not only in the brain but
is carried out in practice," I observed.
"Men made of paper," Shatov repeated.
"But to cross the ocean in an emigrant steamer, though, to go to an
unknown country, even to make a personal experiment and all that--by
Jove... there really is a large-hearted staunchness about it.... But
how did you get out of it?"
"I wrote to a man in Europe and he sent me a hundred roubles."
As Shatov talked he looked doggedly at the ground as he always did, even
when he was excited. At this point he suddenly raised his head.
"Do you want to know the man's name?"
"Who was it?"
"Nikolay Stavrogin."
He got up suddenly, turned to his limewood writing-table and
began searching for something on it. There was a vague, though
well-authenticated rumour among us that Shatov's wife had at one time
had a liaison with Nikolay Stavrogin, in Paris, and just about two years
ago, that is when Shatov was in America. It is true that this was long
after his wife had left him in Geneva.
"If so, what possesses him now to bring his name forward and to lay
stress on it?" I thought.
"I haven't paid him back yet," he said, turning suddenly to me again,
and looking at me intently he sat down in the same place as before in
the corner, and asked abruptly, in quite a different voice:
"You have come no doubt with some object. What do you want?"
I told him everything immediately, in its exact historical order, and
added that though I had time to think it over coolly after the first
excitement was over, I was more puzzled than ever. I saw that it meant
something very important to Lizaveta Nikolaevna. I was extremely anxious
to help her, but the trouble was that I didn't know how to keep the
promise I had made her, and didn't even quite understand now what I had
promised her. Then I assured him impressively once more that she had not
meant to deceive him, and had had no thought of doing so; that there had
been some misunderstanding, and that she had been very much hurt by the
extraordinary way in which he had gone off that morning.
He listened very attentively.
"Perhaps I was stupid this morning, as I usually am.... Well, if she
didn't understand why I went away like that... so much the better for
her."
He got up, went to the door, opened it, and began listening on the
stairs.
"Do you want to see that person yourself?"
"That's just what I wanted, but how is it to be done?" I cried,
delighted.
"Let's simply go down while she's alone. When he comes in he'll beat
her horribly if he finds out we've been there. I often go in on the sly.
I went for him this morning when he began beating her again."
"What do you mean?"
"I dragged him off her by the hair. He tried to beat me, but I
frightened him, and so it ended. I'm afraid he'll come back drunk, and
won't forget it--he'll give her a bad beating because of it."
We went downstairs at once.
The Lebyadkins' door was shut but not locked, and we were able to go in.
Their lodging consisted of two nasty little rooms, with smoke-begrimed
walls on which the filthy wall-paper literally hung in tatters. It
had been used for some years as an eating-house, until Filipov, the
tavern-keeper, moved to another house. The other rooms below what had
been the eating-house were now shut up, and these two were all the
Lebyadkins had. The furniture consisted of plain benches and deal
tables, except for an old arm-chair that had lost its arms. In the
second room there was the bedstead that belonged to Mlle. Lebyadkin
standing in the corner, covered with a chintz quilt; the captain himself
went to bed anywhere on the floor, often without undressing. Everything
was in disorder, wet and filthy; a huge soaking rag lay in the middle
of the floor in the first room, and a battered old shoe lay beside it
in the wet. It was evident that no one looked after anything here. The
stove was not heated, food was not cooked; they had not even a samovar
as Shatov told me. The captain had come to the town with his sister
utterly destitute, and had, as Liputin said, at first actually gone from
house to house begging. But having unexpectedly received some money, he
had taken to drinking at once, and had become so besotted that he was
incapable of looking after things.
Mlle. Lebyadkin, whom I was so anxious to see, was sitting quietly at
a deal kitchen table on a bench in the corner of the inner room, not
making a sound. When we opened the door she did not call out to us or
even move from her place. Shatov said that the door into the passage
would not lock and it had once stood wide open all night. By the dim
light of a thin candle in an iron candlestick, I made out a woman of
about thirty, perhaps, sickly and emaciated, wearing an old dress of
dark cotton material, with her long neck uncovered, her scanty dark hair
twisted into a knot on the nape of her neck, no larger than the fist of
a two-year-old child. She looked at us rather cheerfully. Besides the
candlestick, she had on the table in front of her a little peasant
looking-glass, an old pack of cards, a tattered book of songs, and a
white roll of German bread from which one or two bites had been taken.
It was noticeable that Mlle. Lebyadkin used powder and rouge, and
painted her lips. She also blackened her eyebrows, which were fine,
long, and black enough without that. Three long wrinkles stood sharply
conspicuous across her high, narrow forehead in spite of the powder on
it. I already knew that she was lame, but on this occasion she did not
attempt to get up or walk. At some time, perhaps in early youth, that
wasted face may have been pretty; but her soft, gentle grey eyes were
remarkable even now. There was something dreamy and sincere in her
gentle, almost joyful, expression. This gentle serene joy, which was
reflected also in her smile, astonished me after all I had heard of the
Cossack whip and her brother's violence. Strange to say, instead of the
oppressive repulsion and almost dread one usually feels in the presence
of these creatures afflicted by God, I felt it almost pleasant to look
at her from the first moment, and my heart was filled afterwards with
pity in which there was no trace of aversion.
"This is how she sits literally for days together, utterly alone,
without moving; she tries her fortune with the cards, or looks in the
looking-glass," said Shatov, pointing her out to me from the doorway.
"He doesn't feed her, you know. The old woman in the lodge brings her
something sometimes out of charity; how can they leave her all alone
like this with a candle!"
To my surprise Shatov spoke aloud, just as though she were not in the
room.
"Good day, Shatushka!" Mlle. Lebyadkin said genially.
"I've brought you a visitor, Marya Timofyevna," said Shatov.
"The visitor is very welcome. I don't know who it is you've brought, I
don't seem to remember him." She scrutinised me intently from behind the
candle, and turned again at once to Shatov (and she took no more notice
of me for the rest of the conversation, as though I had not been near
her).
"Are you tired of walking up and down alone in your garret?" she
laughed, displaying two rows of magnificent teeth.
"I was tired of it, and I wanted to come and see you."
Shatov moved a bench up to the table, sat down on it and made me sit
beside him.
"I'm always glad to have a talk, though you're a funny person,
Shatushka, just like a monk. When did you comb your hair last? Let me
do it for you." And she pulled a little comb out of her pocket. "I don't
believe you've touched it since I combed it last."
"Well, I haven't got a comb," said Shatov, laughing too.
"Really? Then I'll give you mine; only remind me, not this one but
another."
With a most serious expression she set to work to comb his hair. She
even parted it on one side; drew back a little, looked to see whether it
was right and put the comb back in her pocket.
"Do you know what, Shatushka?" She shook her head. "You may be a very
sensible man but you're dull. It's strange for me to look at all of you.
I don't understand how it is people are dull. Sadness is not dullness.
I'm happy."
"And are you happy when your brother's here?"
"You mean Lebyadkin? He's my footman. And I don't care whether he's
here or not. I call to him: 'Lebyadkin, bring the water!' or 'Lebyadkin,
bring my shoes!' and he runs. Sometimes one does wrong and can't help
laughing at him."
"That's just how it is," said Shatov, addressing me aloud without
ceremony. "She treats him just like a footman. I've heard her myself
calling to him, 'Lebyadkin, give me some water!' And she laughed as
she said it. The only difference is that he doesn't fetch the water but
beats her for it; but she isn't a bit afraid of him. She has some sort
of nervous fits, almost every day, and they are destroying her memory
so that afterwards she forgets everything that's just happened, and is
always in a muddle over time. You imagine she remembers how you came in;
perhaps she does remember, but no doubt she has changed everything to
please herself, and she takes us now for different people from what we
are, though she knows I'm 'Shatushka.' It doesn't matter my speaking
aloud, she soon leaves off listening to people who talk to her, and
plunges into dreams. Yes, plunges. She's an extraordinary person for
dreaming; she'll sit for eight hours, for whole days together in the
same place. You see there's a roll lying there, perhaps she's only taken
one bite at it since the morning, and she'll finish it to-morrow. Now
she's begun trying her fortune on cards...."
"I keep trying my fortune, Shatushka, but it doesn't come out right,"
Marya Timofyevna put in suddenly, catching the last word, and without
looking at it she put out her left hand for the roll (she had heard
something about the roll too very likely). She got hold of the roll
at last and after keeping it for some time in her left hand, while her
attention was distracted by the conversation which sprang up again, she
put it back again on the table unconsciously without having taken a bite
of it.
"It always comes out the same, a journey, a wicked man, somebody's
treachery, a death-bed, a letter, unexpected news. I think it's all
nonsense. Shatushka, what do you think? If people can tell lies why
shouldn't a card?" She suddenly threw the cards together again. "I said
the same thing to Mother Praskovya, she's a very venerable woman, she
used to run to my cell to tell her fortune on the cards, without letting
the Mother Superior know. Yes, and she wasn't the only one who came to
me. They sigh, and shake their heads at me, they talk it over while I
laugh. 'Where are you going to get a letter from, Mother Praskovya,' I
say, 'when you haven't had one for twelve years?' Her daughter had been
taken away to Turkey by her husband, and for twelve years there had been
no sight nor sound of her. Only I was sitting the next evening at tea
with the Mother Superior (she was a princess by birth), there was some
lady there too, a visitor, a great dreamer, and a little monk from Athos
was sitting there too, a rather absurd man to my thinking. What do you
think, Shatushka, that monk from Athos had brought Mother Praskovya a
letter from her daughter in Turkey, that morning--so much for the knave
of diamonds--unexpected news! We were drinking our tea, and the monk
from Athos said to the Mother Superior, 'Blessed Mother Superior, God
has blessed your convent above all things in that you preserve so great
a treasure in its precincts,' said he. 'What treasure is that?' asked