The possessed or, The devils

He locked the door, returned to the table, and sat down, facing Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. He had grown thinner during that week, and now he seemed in a fever. "You've been worrying me to death," he said, looking down, in a soft half-whisper. "Why didn't you come?" "You were so sure I should come then?" "Yes, stay, I have been delirious... perhaps I'm delirious now.... Stay a moment." He got up and seized something that was lying on the uppermost of his three bookshelves. It was a revolver. "One night, in delirium, I fancied that you were coming to kill me, and early next morning I spent my last farthing on buying a revolver from that good-for-nothing fellow Lyamshin; I did not mean to let you do it. Then I came to myself again... I've neither powder nor shot; it has been lying there on the shelf till now; wait a minute...." He got up and was opening the casement. "Don't throw it away, why should you?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch checked him. "It's worth something. Besides, tomorrow people will begin saying that there are revolvers lying about under Shatov's window. Put it back, that's right; sit down. Tell me, why do you seem to be penitent for having thought I should come to kill you? I have not come now to be reconciled, but to talk of something necessary. Enlighten me to begin with. You didn't give me that blow because of my connection with your wife?" "You know I didn't, yourself," said Shatov, looking down again. "And not because you believed the stupid gossip about Darya Pavlovna?" "No, no, of course not! It's nonsense! My sister told me from the very first..." Shatov said, harshly and impatiently, and even with a slight stamp of his foot. "Then I guessed right and you too guessed right," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went on in a tranquil voice. "You are right. Marya Timofyevna Lebyadkin is my lawful wife, married to me four and a half years ago in Petersburg. I suppose the blow was on her account?" Shatov, utterly astounded, listened in silence. "I guessed, but did not believe it," he muttered at last, looking strangely at Stavrogin. "And you struck me?" Shatov flushed and muttered almost incoherently: "Because of your fall... your lie. I didn't go up to you to punish you... I didn't know when I went up to you that I should strike you... I did it because you meant so much to me in my life... I..." "I understand, I understand, spare your words. I am sorry you are feverish. I've come about a most urgent matter." "I have been expecting you too long." Shatov seemed to be quivering all over, and he got up from his seat. "Say what you have to say... I'll speak too... later." He sat down. "What I have come about is nothing of that kind," began Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, scrutinising him with curiosity. "Owing to certain circumstances I was forced this very day to choose such an hour to come and tell you that they may murder you." Shatov looked wildly at him. "I know that I may be in some danger," he said in measured tones, "but how can you have come to know of it?" "Because I belong to them as you do, and am a member of their society, just as you are." "You... you are a member of the society?" "I see from your eyes that you were prepared for anything from me rather than that," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with a faint smile. "But, excuse me, you knew then that there would be an attempt on your life?" "Nothing of the sort. And I don't think so now, in spite of your words, though... though there's no being sure of anything with these fools!" he cried suddenly in a fury, striking the table with his fist. "I'm not afraid of them! I've broken with them. That fellow's run here four times to tell me it was possible... but"--he looked at Stavrogin--"what do you know about it, exactly?" "Don't be uneasy; I am not deceiving you," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went on, rather coldly, with the air of a man who is only fulfilling a duty. "You question me as to what I know. I know that you entered that society abroad, two years ago, at the time of the old organisation, just before you went to America, and I believe, just after our last conversation, about which you wrote so much to me in your letter from America. By the way, I must apologise for not having answered you by letter, but confined myself to..." "To sending the money; wait a bit," Shatov interrupted, hurriedly pulling out a drawer in the table and taking from under some papers a rainbow-coloured note. "Here, take it, the hundred roubles you sent me; but for you I should have perished out there. I should have been a long time paying it back if it had not been for your mother. She made me a present of that note nine months ago, because I was so badly off after my illness. But, go on, please...." He was breathless. "In America you changed your views, and when you came back you wanted to resign. They gave you no answer, but charged you to take over a printing press here in Russia from someone, and to keep it till you handed it over to someone who would come from them for it. I don't know the details exactly, but I fancy that's the position in outline. You undertook it in the hope, or on the condition, that it would be the last task they would require of you, and that then they would release you altogether. Whether that is so or not, I learnt it, not from them, but quite by chance. But now for what I fancy you don't know; these gentry have no intention of parting with you." "That's absurd!" cried Shatov. "I've told them honestly that I've cut myself off from them in everything. That is my right, the right to freedom of conscience and of thought.... I won't put up with it! There's no power which could..." "I say, don't shout," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch said earnestly, checking him. "That Verhovensky is such a fellow that he may be listening to us now in your passage, perhaps, with his own ears or someone else's. Even that drunkard, Lebyadkin, was probably bound to keep an eye on you, and you on him, too, I dare say? You'd better tell me, has Verhovensky accepted your arguments now, or not?" "He has. He has said that it can be done and that I have the right...." "Well then, he's deceiving you. I know that even Kirillov, who scarcely belongs to them at all, has given them information about you. And they have lots of agents, even people who don't know that they're serving the society. They've always kept a watch on you. One of the things Pyotr Verhovensky came here for was to settle your business once for all, and he is fully authorised to do so, that is at the first good opportunity, to get rid of you, as a man who knows too much and might give them away. I repeat that this is certain, and allow me to add that they are, for some reason, convinced that you are a spy, and that if you haven't informed against them yet, you will. Is that true?" Shatov made a wry face at hearing such a question asked in such a matter-of fact tone. "If I were a spy, whom could I inform?" he said angrily, not giving a direct answer. "No, leave me alone, let me go to the devil!" he cried suddenly, catching again at his original idea, which agitated him violently. Apparently it affected him more deeply than the news of his own danger. "You, you, Stavrogin, how could you mix yourself up with such shameful, stupid, second-hand absurdity? You a member of the society? What an exploit for Stavrogin!" he cried suddenly, in despair. He clasped his hands, as though nothing could be a bitterer and more inconsolable grief to him than such a discovery. "Excuse me," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, extremely surprised, "but you seem to look upon me as a sort of sun, and on yourself as an insect in comparison. I noticed that even from your letter in America." "You... you know.... Oh, let us drop me altogether," Shatov broke off suddenly, "and if you can explain anything about yourself explain it.... Answer my question!" he repeated feverishly. "With pleasure. You ask how I could get into such a den? After what I have told you, I'm bound to be frank with you to some extent on the subject. You see, strictly speaking, I don't belong to the society at all, and I never have belonged to it, and I've much more right than you to leave them, because I never joined them. In fact, from the very beginning I told them that I was not one of them, and that if I've happened to help them it has simply been by accident as a man of leisure. I took some part in reorganising the society, on the new plan, but that was all. But now they've changed their views, and have made up their minds that it would be dangerous to let me go, and I believe I'm sentenced to death too." "Oh, they do nothing but sentence to death, and all by means of sealed documents, signed by three men and a half. And you think they've any power!" "You're partly right there and partly not," Stavrogin answered with the same indifference, almost listlessness. "There's no doubt that there's a great deal that's fanciful about it, as there always is in such cases: a handful magnifies its size and significance. To my thinking, if you will have it, the only one is Pyotr Verhovensky, and it's simply good-nature on his part to consider himself only an agent of the society. But the fundamental idea is no stupider than others of the sort. They are connected with the _Internationale._ They have succeeded in establishing agents in Russia, they have even hit on a rather original method, though it's only theoretical, of course. As for their intentions here, the movements of our Russian organisation are something so obscure and almost always unexpected that really they might try anything among us. Note that Verhovensky is an obstinate man." "He's a bug, an ignoramus, a buffoon, who understands nothing in Russia!" cried Shatov spitefully. "You know him very little. It's quite true that none of them understand much about Russia, but not much less than you and I do. Besides, Verhovensky is an enthusiast." "Verhovensky an enthusiast?" "Oh, yes. There is a point when he ceases to be a buffoon and becomes a madman. I beg you to remember your own expression: 'Do you know how powerful a single man may be?' Please don't laugh about it, he's quite capable of pulling a trigger. They are convinced that I am a spy too. As they don't know how to do things themselves, they're awfully fond of accusing people of being spies." "But you're not afraid, are you?" "N--no. I'm not very much afraid.... But your case is quite different. I warned you that you might anyway keep it in mind. To my thinking there's no reason to be offended in being threatened with danger by fools; their brains don't affect the question. They've raised their hand against better men than you or me. It's a quarter past eleven, though." He looked at his watch and got up from his chair. "I wanted to ask you one quite irrelevant question." "For God's sake!" cried Shatov, rising impulsively from his seat. "I beg your pardon?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch looked at him inquiringly. "Ask it, ask your question for God's sake," Shatov repeated in indescribable excitement, "but on condition that I ask you a question too. I beseech you to allow me... I can't... ask your question!" Stavrogin waited a moment and then began. "I've heard that you have some influence on Marya Timofyevna, and that she was fond of seeing you and hearing you talk. Is that so?" "Yes... she used to listen..." said Shatov, confused. "Within a day or two I intend to make a public announcement of our marriage here in the town." "Is that possible?" Shatov whispered, almost with horror. "I don't quite understand you. There's no sort of difficulty about it, witnesses to the marriage are here. Everything took place in Petersburg,