The possessed or, The devils
lasted all the week simply because the invalid would not have a doctor,
and instead of having the swelling lanced had waited for it to go down.
He would not hear of a doctor, and would scarcely allow even his mother
to come near him, and then only for a moment, once a day, and only at
dusk, after it was dark and before lights had been brought in. He did
not receive Pyotr Stepanovitch either, though the latter ran round to
Varvara Petrovna's two or three times a day so long as he remained in
the town. And now, at last, returning on the Monday morning after his
three days' absence, Pyotr Stepanovitch made a circuit of the town,
and, after dining at Yulia Mihailovna's, came at last in the evening to
Varvara Petrovna, who was impatiently expecting him. The interdict had
been removed, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was "at home." Varvara Petrovna
herself led the visitor to the door of the study; she had long looked
forward to their meeting, and Pyotr Stepanovitch had promised to run
to her and repeat what passed. She knocked timidly at Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch's door, and getting no answer ventured to open the door
a couple of inches.
"Nicolas, may I bring Pyotr Stepanovitch in to see you?" she asked, in a
soft and restrained voice, trying to make out her son's face behind the
lamp.
"You can--you can, of course you can," Pyotr Stepanovitch himself cried
out, loudly and gaily. He opened the door with his hand and went in.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had not heard the knock at the door, and only
caught his mother's timid question, and had not had time to answer it.
Before him, at that moment, there lay a letter he had just read over,
which he was pondering deeply. He started, hearing Pyotr Stepanovitch's
sudden outburst, and hurriedly put the letter under a paper-weight,
but did not quite succeed; a corner of the letter and almost the whole
envelope showed.
"I called out on purpose that you might be prepared," Pyotr Stepanovitch
said hurriedly, with surprising naïveté, running up to the table, and
instantly staring at the corner of the letter, which peeped out from
beneath the paper-weight.
"And no doubt you had time to see how I hid the letter I had just
received, under the paper-weight," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch calmly,
without moving from his place.
"A letter? Bless you and your letters, what are they to do with me?"
cried the visitor. "But... what does matter..." he whispered again,
turning to the door, which was by now closed, and nodding his head in
that direction.
"She never listens," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch observed coldly.
"What if she did overhear?" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, raising his voice
cheerfully, and settling down in an arm-chair. "I've nothing against
that, only I've come here now to speak to you alone. Well, at last I've
succeeded in getting at you. First of all, how are you? I see you're
getting on splendidly. To-morrow you'll show yourself again--eh?"
"Perhaps."
"Set their minds at rest. Set mine at rest at last." He gesticulated
violently with a jocose and amiable air. "If only you knew what nonsense
I've had to talk to them. You know, though." He laughed.
"I don't know everything. I only heard from my mother that you've
been... very active."
"Oh, well, I've said nothing definite," Pyotr Stepanovitch flared up
at once, as though defending himself from an awful attack. "I simply
trotted out Shatov's wife; you know, that is, the rumours of your
liaison in Paris, which accounted, of course, for what happened on
Sunday. You're not angry?"
"I'm sure you've done your best."
"Oh, that's just what I was afraid of. Though what does that mean, 'done
your best'? That's a reproach, isn't it? You always go straight for
things, though.... What I was most afraid of, as I came here, was that
you wouldn't go straight for the point."
"I don't want to go straight for anything," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch
with some irritation. But he laughed at once.
"I didn't mean that, I didn't mean that, don't make a mistake," cried
Pyotr Stepanovitch, waving his hands, rattling his words out like peas,
and at once relieved at his companion's irritability. "I'm not going to
worry you with _our_ business, especially in your present position. I've
only come about Sunday's affair, and only to arrange the most necessary
steps, because, you see, it's impossible. I've come with the frankest
explanations which I stand in more need of than you--so much for your
vanity, but at the same time it's true. I've come to be open with you
from this time forward."
"Then you have not been open with me before?"
"You know that yourself. I've been cunning with you many times... you
smile; I'm very glad of that smile as a prelude to our explanation. I
provoked that smile on purpose by using the word 'cunning,' so that you
might get cross directly at my daring to think I could be cunning, so
that I might have a chance of explaining myself at once. You see, you
see how open I have become now! Well, do you care to listen?"
In the expression of Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch's face, which was
contemptuously composed, and even ironical, in spite of his visitor's
obvious desire to irritate him by the insolence of his premeditated
and intentionally coarse naïvetés, there was, at last, a look of rather
uneasy curiosity.
"Listen," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, wriggling more than ever, "when I set
off to come here, I mean here in the large sense, to this town, ten days
ago, I made up my mind, of course, to assume a character. It would
have been best to have done without anything, to have kept one's
own character, wouldn't it? There is no better dodge than one's own
character, because no one believes in it. I meant, I must own, to assume
the part of a fool, because it is easier to be a fool than to act
one's own character; but as a fool is after all something extreme,
and anything extreme excites curiosity, I ended by sticking to my own
character. And what is my own character? The golden mean: neither wise
nor foolish, rather stupid, and dropped from the moon, as sensible
people say here, isn't that it?"
"Perhaps it is," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with a faint smile.
"Ah, you agree--I'm very glad; I knew beforehand that it was your own
opinion.... You needn't trouble, I am not annoyed, and I didn't describe
myself in that way to get a flattering contradiction from you--no,
you're not stupid, you're clever.... Ah! you're smiling again!... I've
blundered once more. You would not have said 'you're clever,' granted;
I'll let it pass anyway. _Passons,_ as papa says, and, in parenthesis,
don't be vexed with my verbosity. By the way, I always say a lot, that
is, use a great many words and talk very fast, and I never speak well.
And why do I use so many words, and why do I never speak well? Because
I don't know how to speak. People who can speak well, speak briefly. So
that I am stupid, am I not? But as this gift of stupidity is natural
to me, why shouldn't I make skilful use of it? And I do make use of it.
It's true that as I came here, I did think, at first, of being silent.
But you know silence is a great talent, and therefore incongruous for
me, and secondly silence would be risky, anyway. So I made up my mind
finally that it would be best to talk, but to talk stupidly--that is, to
talk and talk and talk--to be in a tremendous hurry to explain things,
and in the end to get muddled in my own explanations, so that my
listener would walk away without hearing the end, with a shrug, or,
better still, with a curse. You succeed straight off in persuading them
of your simplicity, in boring them and in being incomprehensible--three
advantages all at once! Do you suppose anybody will suspect you of
mysterious designs after that? Why, every one of them would take it as
a personal affront if anyone were to say I had secret designs. And I
sometimes amuse them too, and that's priceless. Why, they're ready to
forgive me everything now, just because the clever fellow who used
to publish manifestoes out there turns out to be stupider than
themselves--that's so, isn't it? From your smile I see you approve."
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was not smiling at all, however.
On the contrary, he was listening with a frown and some impatience.
"Eh? What? I believe you said 'no matter.'"
Pyotr Stepanovitch rattled on. (Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had said nothing
at all.) "Of course, of course. I assure you I'm not here to compromise
you by my company, by claiming you as my comrade. But do you know you're
horribly captious to-day; I ran in to you with a light and open heart,
and you seem to be laying up every word I say against me. I assure you
I'm not going to begin about anything shocking to-day, I give you my
word, and I agree beforehand to all your conditions."
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was obstinately silent.
"Eh? What? Did you say something? I see, I see that I've made a blunder
again, it seems; you've not suggested conditions and you're not going
to; I believe you, I believe you; well, you can set your mind at rest;
I know, of course, that it's not worth while for me to suggest them, is
it? I'll answer for you beforehand, and--just from stupidity, of course;
stupidity again.... You're laughing? Eh? What?"
"Nothing," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch laughed at last. "I just remembered
that I really did call you stupid, but you weren't there then, so they
must have repeated it.... I would ask you to make haste and come to the
point."
"Why, but I am at the point! I am talking about Sunday," babbled Pyotr
Stepanovitch. "Why, what was I on Sunday? What would you call it? Just
fussy, mediocre stupidity, and in the stupidest way I took possession of
the conversation by force. But they forgave me everything, first because
I dropped from the moon, that seems to be settled here, now, by every
one; and, secondly, because I told them a pretty little story, and got
you all out of a scrape, didn't they, didn't they?"
"That is, you told your story so as to leave them in doubt and suggest
some compact and collusion between us, when there was no collusion and
I'd not asked you to do anything."
"Just so, just so!" Pyotr Stepanovitch caught him up, apparently
delighted. "That's just what I did do, for I wanted you to see that I
implied it; I exerted myself chiefly for your sake, for I caught you and
wanted to compromise you, above all I wanted to find out how far you're
afraid."
"It would be interesting to know why you are so open now?"
"Don't be angry, don't be angry, don't glare at me.... You're not,
though. You wonder why I am so open? Why, just because it's all changed
now; of course, it's over, buried under the sand. I've suddenly changed
my ideas about you. The old way is closed; now I shall never compromise
you in the old way, it will be in a new way now."
"You've changed your tactics?"
"There are no tactics. Now it's for you to decide in everything, that
is, if you want to, say yes, and if you want to, say no. There you have
my new tactics. And I won't say a word about our cause till you bid me
yourself. You laugh? Laugh away. I'm laughing myself. But I'm in earnest
now, in earnest, in earnest, though a man who is in such a hurry is
stupid, isn't he? Never mind, I may be stupid, but I'm in earnest, in
earnest."
He really was speaking in earnest in quite a different tone, and with a
peculiar excitement, so that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked at him with
curiosity.
"You say you've changed your ideas about me?" he asked.
"I changed my ideas about you at the moment when you drew your hands
back after Shatov's attack, and, that's enough, that's enough, no
questions, please, I'll say nothing more now."
He jumped up, waving his hands as though waving off questions. But as