The possessed or, The devils
in addition to the facts there were certain ideas accompanying them,
and what's more, a great number of them. And this was perplexing. It was
impossible to estimate and find out exactly what was the drift of these
ideas. Varvara Petrovna was prompted by the feminine composition of her
character to a compelling desire to penetrate the secret of them.
She took to reading newspapers and magazines, prohibited publications
printed abroad and even the revolutionary manifestoes which were just
beginning to appear at the time (she was able to procure them all); but
this only set her head in a whirl. She fell to writing letters; she got
few answers, and they grew more incomprehensible as time went on. Stepan
Trofimovitch was solemnly called upon to explain "these ideas" to
her once for all, but she remained distinctly dissatisfied with his
explanations.
Stepan Trofimovitch's view of the general movement was supercilious in
the extreme. In his eyes all it amounted to was that he was forgotten
and of no use. At last his name was mentioned, at first in periodicals
published abroad as that of an exiled martyr, and immediately afterwards
in Petersburg as that of a former star in a celebrated constellation.
He was even for some reason compared with Radishtchev. Then someone
printed the statement that he was dead and promised an obituary notice
of him. Stepan Trofimovitch instantly perked up and assumed an air of
immense dignity. All his disdain for his contemporaries evaporated and
he began to cherish the dream of joining the movement and showing his
powers. Varvara Petrovna's faith in everything instantly revived and she
was thrown into a violent ferment. It was decided to go to Petersburg
without a moment's delay, to find out everything on the spot, to go into
everything personally, and, if possible, to throw themselves heart and
soul into the new movement. Among other things she announced that she
was prepared to found a magazine of her own, and henceforward to devote
her whole life to it. Seeing what it had come to, Stepan Trofimovitch
became more condescending than ever, and on the journey began to behave
almost patronisingly to Varvara Petrovna--which she at once laid up in
her heart against him. She had, however, another very important reason
for the trip, which was to renew her connections in higher spheres.
It was necessary, as far as she could, to remind the world of her
existence, or at any rate to make an attempt to do so. The ostensible
object of the journey was to see her only son, who was just finishing
his studies at a Petersburg lyceum.
VI
They spent almost the whole winter season in Petersburg. But by Lent
everything burst like a rainbow-coloured soap-bubble.
Their dreams were dissipated, and the muddle, far from being cleared
up, had become even more revoltingly incomprehensible. To begin with,
connections with the higher spheres were not established, or only on a
microscopic scale, and by humiliating exertions. In her mortification
Varvara Petrovna threw herself heart and soul into the "new ideas," and
began giving evening receptions. She invited literary people, and they
were brought to her at once in multitudes. Afterwards they came of
themselves without invitation, one brought another. Never had she seen
such literary men. They were incredibly vain, but quite open in their
vanity, as though they were performing a duty by the display of it.
Some (but by no means all) of them even turned up intoxicated, seeming,
however, to detect in this a peculiar, only recently discovered, merit.
They were all strangely proud of something. On every face was written
that they had only just discovered some extremely important secret. They
abused one another, and took credit to themselves for it. It was rather
difficult to find out what they had written exactly, but among them
there were critics, novelists, dramatists, satirists, and exposers of
abuses. Stepan Trofimovitch penetrated into their very highest circle
from which the movement was directed. Incredible heights had to be
scaled to reach this group; but they gave him a cordial welcome, though,
of course, no one of them had ever heard of him or knew anything about
him except that he "represented an idea." His manoeuvres among them
were so successful that he got them twice to Varvara Petrovna's salon
in spite of their Olympian grandeur. These people were very serious and
very polite; they behaved nicely; the others were evidently afraid of
them; but it was obvious that they had no time to spare. Two or three
former literary celebrities who happened to be in Petersburg, and with
whom Varvara Petrovna had long maintained a most refined correspondence,
came also. But to her surprise these genuine and quite indubitable
celebrities were stiller than water, humbler than the grass, and some
of them simply hung on to this new rabble, and were shamefully cringing
before them. At first Stepan Trofimovitch was a success. People caught
at him and began to exhibit him at public literary gatherings. The first
time he came on to the platform at some public reading in which he was
to take part, he was received with enthusiastic clapping which lasted
for five minutes. He recalled this with tears nine years afterwards,
though rather from his natural artistic sensibility than from gratitude.
"I swear, and I'm ready to bet," he declared (but only to me, and in
secret), "that not one of that audience knew anything whatever about
me." A noteworthy admission. He must have had a keen intelligence since
he was capable of grasping his position so clearly even on the platform,
even in such a state of exaltation; it also follows that he had not
a keen intelligence if, nine years afterwards, he could not recall
it without mortification. He was made to sign two or three collective
protests (against what he did not know); he signed them. Varvara
Petrovna too was made to protest against some "disgraceful action" and
she signed too. The majority of these new people, however, though they
visited Varvara Petrovna, felt themselves for some reason called upon
to regard her with contempt, and with undisguised irony. Stepan
Trofimovitch hinted to me at bitter moments afterwards that it was from
that time she had been envious of him. She saw, of course, that she
could not get on with these people, yet she received them eagerly,
with all the hysterical impatience of her sex, and, what is more, she
expected something. At her parties she talked little, although she could
talk, but she listened the more. They talked of the abolition of the
censorship, and of phonetic spelling, of the substitution of the Latin
characters for the Russian alphabet, of someone's having been sent into
exile the day before, of some scandal, of the advantage of splitting
Russia into nationalities united in a free federation, of the abolition
of the army and the navy, of the restoration of Poland as far as
the Dnieper, of the peasant reforms, and of the manifestoes, of the
abolition of the hereditary principle, of the family, of children, and
of priests, of women's rights, of Kraevsky's house, for which no one
ever seemed able to forgive Mr. Kraevsky, and so on, and so on. It was
evident that in this mob of new people there were many impostors, but
undoubtedly there were also many honest and very attractive people, in
spite of some surprising characteristics in them. The honest ones were
far more difficult to understand than the coarse and dishonest, but it
was impossible to tell which was being made a tool of by the other.
When Varvara Petrovna announced her idea of founding a magazine, people
flocked to her in even larger numbers, but charges of being a capitalist
and an exploiter of labour were showered upon her to her face. The
rudeness of these accusations was only equalled by their unexpectedness.
The aged General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov, an old friend and comrade
of the late General Stavrogin's, known to us all here as an extremely
stubborn and irritable, though very estimable, man (in his own way, of
course), who ate a great deal, and was dreadfully afraid of atheism,
quarrelled at one of Varvara Petrovna's parties with a distinguished
young man. The latter at the first word exclaimed, "You must be a
general if you talk like that," meaning that he could find no word of
abuse worse than "general."
Ivan Ivanovitch flew into a terrible passion: "Yes, sir, I am a general,
and a lieutenant-general, and I have served my Tsar, and you, sir, are a
puppy and an infidel!"
An outrageous scene followed. Next day the incident was exposed in
print, and they began getting up a collective protest against Varvara
Petrovna's disgraceful conduct in not having immediately turned
the general out. In an illustrated paper there appeared a malignant
caricature in which Varvara Petrovna, Stepan Trofimovitch, and General
Drozdov were depicted as three reactionary friends. There were verses
attached to this caricature written by a popular poet especially for the
occasion. I may observe, for my own part, that many persons of general's
rank certainly have an absurd habit of saying, "I have served my
Tsar"...just as though they had not the same Tsar as all the rest of us,
their simple fellow-subjects, but had a special Tsar of their own.
It was impossible, of course, to remain any longer in Petersburg, all
the more so as Stepan Trofimovitch was overtaken by a complete fiasco.
He could not resist talking of the claims of art, and they laughed
at him more loudly as time went on. At his last lecture he thought to
impress them with patriotic eloquence, hoping to touch their hearts,
and reckoning on the respect inspired by his "persecution." He did
not attempt to dispute the uselessness and absurdity of the word
"fatherland," acknowledged the pernicious influence of religion, but
firmly and loudly declared that boots were of less consequence than
Pushkin; of much less, indeed. He was hissed so mercilessly that he
burst into tears, there and then, on the platform. Varvara Petrovna took
him home more dead than alive. _"On m'a traité comme un vieux bonnet
de coton,"_ he babbled senselessly. She was looking after him all night,
giving him laurel-drops and repeating to him till daybreak, "You will
still be of use; you will still make your mark; you will be appreciated
... in another place."
Early next morning five literary men called on Varvara Petrovna, three
of them complete strangers, whom she had never set eyes on before. With
a stern air they informed her that they had looked into the question of
her magazine, and had brought her their decision on the subject. Varvara
Petrovna had never authorised anyone to look into or decide anything
concerning her magazine. Their decision was that, having founded the
magazine, she should at once hand it over to them with the capital to
run it, on the basis of a co-operative society. She herself was to
go back to Skvoreshniki, not forgetting to take with her Stepan
Trofimovitch, who was "out of date." From delicacy they agreed to
recognise the right of property in her case, and to send her every year
a sixth part of the net profits. What was most touching about it
was that of these five men, four certainly were not actuated by any
mercenary motive, and were simply acting in the interests of the
"cause."
"We came away utterly at a loss," Stepan Trofimovitch used to say
afterwards. "I couldn't make head or tail of it, and kept muttering, I
remember, to the rumble of the train:
'Vyek, and vyek, and Lyov Kambek,
Lyov Kambek and vyek, and vyek.'
and goodness knows what, all the way to Moscow. It was only in Moscow
that I came to myself--as though we really might find something
different there."
"Oh, my friends!" he would exclaim to us sometimes with fervour, "you