The possessed or, The devils
"Here," he indicated his surroundings, "I live like Zossima. Sobriety,
solitude, and poverty--the vow of the knights of old."
"You imagine that the knights of old took such vows?"
"Perhaps I'm mistaken. Alas! I have no culture. I've ruined all. Believe
me, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, here first I have recovered from shameful
propensities--not a glass nor a drop! I have a home, and for six days
past I have experienced a conscience at ease. Even the walls smell of
resin and remind me of nature. And what have I been; what was I?
'At night without a bed I wander
And my tongue put out by day...'
to use the words of a poet of genius. But you're wet through....
Wouldn't you like some tea?"
"Don't trouble."
"The samovar has been boiling since eight o'clock, but it went out at
last like everything in this world. The sun, too, they say, will go
out in its turn. But if you like I'll get up the samovar. Agafya is not
asleep."
"Tell me, Marya Timofyevna..."
"She's here, here," Lebyadkin replied at once, in a whisper. "Would you
like to have a look at her?" He pointed to the closed door to the next
room.
"She's not asleep?"
"Oh, no, no. How could she be? On the contrary, she's been expecting
you all the evening, and as soon as she heard you were coming she began
making her toilet."
He was just twisting his mouth into a jocose smile, but he instantly
checked himself.
"How is she, on the whole?" asked Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, frowning.
"On the whole? You know that yourself, sir." He shrugged his shoulders
commiseratingly. "But just now... just now she's telling her fortune
with cards...."
"Very good. Later on. First of all I must finish with you."
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch settled himself in a chair. The captain did not
venture to sit down on the sofa, but at once moved up another chair for
himself, and bent forward to listen, in a tremor of expectation.
"What have you got there under the table-cloth?" asked Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, suddenly noticing it.
"That?" said Lebyadkin, turning towards it also. "That's from your
generosity, by way of house-warming, so to say; considering also
the length of the walk, and your natural fatigue," he sniggered
ingratiatingly. Then he got up on tiptoe, and respectfully and carefully
lifted the table-cloth from the table in the corner. Under it was seen a
slight meal: ham, veal, sardines, cheese, a little green decanter, and a
long bottle of Bordeaux. Everything had been laid neatly, expertly, and
almost daintily.
"Was that your effort?"
"Yes, sir. Ever since yesterday I've done my best, and all to do you
honour.... Marya Timofyevna doesn't trouble herself, as you know, on
that score. And what's more its all from your liberality, your own
providing, as you're the master of the house and not I, and I'm only, so
to say, your agent. All the same, all the same, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch,
all the same, in spirit, I'm independent! Don't take away from me this
last possession!" he finished up pathetically.
"H'm! You might sit down again."
"Gra-a-teful, grateful, and independent." He sat down. "Ah, Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, so much has been fermenting in this heart that I have
not known how to wait for your coming. Now you will decide my fate,
and... that unhappy creature's, and then... shall I pour out all I feel
to you as I used to in old days, four years ago? You deigned to listen
to me then, you read my verses.... They might call me your Falstaff from
Shakespeare in those days, but you meant so much in my life! I have
great terrors now, and it's only to you I look for counsel and light.
Pyotr Stepanovitch is treating me abominably!"
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch listened with interest, and looked at him
attentively. It was evident that though Captain Lebyadkin had left off
drinking he was far from being in a harmonious state of mind.
Drunkards of many years' standing, like Lebyadkin, often show traces of
incoherence, of mental cloudiness, of something, as it were, damaged,
and crazy, though they may deceive, cheat, and swindle, almost as well
as anybody if occasion arises.
"I see that you haven't changed a bit in these four years and more,
captain," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, somewhat more amiably. "It
seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is usually
made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first
half."
"Grand words! You solve the riddle of life!" said the captain, half
cunningly, half in genuine and unfeigned admiration, for he was a
great lover of words. "Of all your sayings, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, I
remember one thing above all; you were in Petersburg when you said it:
'One must really be a great man to be able to make a stand even against
common sense.' That was it."
"Yes, and a fool as well."
"A fool as well, maybe. But you've been scattering clever sayings all
your life, while they.... Imagine Liputin, imagine Pyotr Stepanovitch
saying anything like that! Oh, how cruelly Pyotr Stepanovitch has
treated me!"
"But how about yourself, captain? What can you say of your behaviour?"
"Drunkenness, and the multitude of my enemies. But now that's all over,
all over, and I have a new skin, like a snake. Do you know, Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, I am making my will; in fact, I've made it already?"
"That's interesting. What are you leaving, and to whom?"
"To my fatherland, to humanity, and to the students. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, I read in the paper the biography of an American. He
left all his vast fortune to factories and to the exact sciences, and
his skeleton to the students of the academy there, and his skin to be
made into a drum, so that the American national hymn might be beaten
upon it day and night. Alas! we are pigmies in mind compared with the
soaring thought of the States of North America. Russia is the play of
nature but not of mind. If I were to try leaving my skin for a drum, for
instance, to the Akmolinsky infantry regiment, in which I had the honour
of beginning my service, on condition of beating the Russian national
hymn upon it every day, in face of the regiment, they'd take it for
liberalism and prohibit my skin... and so I confine myself to the
students. I want to leave my skeleton to the academy, but on the
condition though, on the condition that a label should be stuck on the
forehead forever and ever, with the words: 'A repentant free-thinker.'
There now!"
The captain spoke excitedly, and genuinely believed, of course, that
there was something fine in the American will, but he was cunning too,
and very anxious to entertain Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with whom he had
played the part of a buffoon for a long time in the past. But the latter
did not even smile, on the contrary, he asked, as it were, suspiciously:
"So you intend to publish your will in your lifetime and get rewarded
for it?"
"And what if I do, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch? What if I do?" said
Lebyadkin, watching him carefully. "What sort of luck have I had? I've
given up writing poetry, and at one time even you were amused by my
verses, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. Do you remember our reading them over a
bottle? But it's all over with my pen. I've written only one poem, like
Gogol's 'The Last Story.' Do you remember he proclaimed to Russia that
it broke spontaneously from his bosom? It's the same with me; I've sung
my last and it's over."
"What sort of poem?"
"'In case she were to break her leg.'"
"Wha-a-t?"
That was all the captain was waiting for. He had an unbounded admiration
for his own poems, but, through a certain cunning duplicity, he was
pleased, too, that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch always made merry over his
poems, and sometimes laughed at them immoderately. In this way he killed
two birds with one stone, satisfying at once his poetical aspirations
and his desire to be of service; but now he had a third special and very
ticklish object in view. Bringing his verses on the scene, the captain
thought to exculpate himself on one point about which, for some reason,
he always felt himself most apprehensive, and most guilty.
"'In case of her breaking her leg.' That is, of her riding on
horseback. It's a fantasy, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, a wild fancy,
but the fancy of a poet. One day I was struck by meeting a lady on
horseback, and asked myself the vital question, 'What would happen
then?' That is, in case of accident. All her followers turn away, all
her suitors are gone. A pretty kettle of fish. Only the poet
remains faithful, with his heart shattered in his breast, Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch. Even a louse may be in love, and is not forbidden by
law. And yet the lady was offended by the letter and the verses. I'm
told that even you were angry. Were you? I wouldn't believe in anything
so grievous. Whom could I harm simply by imagination? Besides, I swear
on my honour, Liputin kept saying, 'Send it, send it,' every man,
however humble, has a right to send a letter! And so I sent it."
"You offered yourself as a suitor, I understand."
"Enemies, enemies, enemies!"
"Repeat the verses," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sternly.
"Ravings, ravings, more than anything."
However, he drew himself up, stretched out his hand, and began:
"With broken limbs my beauteous queen
Is twice as charming as before,
And, deep in love as I have been,
To-day I love her even more."
"Come, that's enough," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with a wave of his hand.
"I dream of Petersburg," cried Lebyadkin, passing quickly to another
subject, as though there had been no mention of verses. "I dream of
regeneration.... Benefactor! May I reckon that you won't refuse the means
for the journey? I've been waiting for you all the week as my sunshine."
"I'll do nothing of the sort. I've scarcely any money left. And why
should I give you money?"
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch seemed suddenly angry. Dryly and briefly he
recapitulated all the captain's misdeeds; his drunkenness, his lying,
his squandering of the money meant for Marya Timofyevna, his having
taken her from the nunnery, his insolent letters threatening to publish
the secret, the way he had behaved about Darya Pavlovna, and so on, and
so on. The captain heaved, gesticulated, began to reply, but every time
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch stopped him peremptorily.
"And listen," he observed at last, "you keep writing about 'family
disgrace.' What disgrace is it to you that your sister is the lawful
wife of a Stavrogin?"
"But marriage in secret, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch--a fatal secret. I
receive money from you, and I'm suddenly asked the question, 'What's
that money for?' My hands are tied; I cannot answer to the detriment of
my sister, to the detriment of the family honour."
The captain raised his voice. He liked that subject and reckoned boldly
upon it. Alas! he did not realise what a blow was in store for him.
Calmly and exactly, as though he were speaking of the most everyday
arrangement, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch informed him that in a few days,
perhaps even to-morrow or the day after, he intended to make his
marriage known everywhere, "to the police as well as to local society."
And so the question of family honour would be settled once for all, and
with it the question of subsidy. The captain's eyes were ready to
drop out of his head; he positively could not take it in. It had to be
explained to him.
"But she is... crazy."
"I shall make suitable arrangements."
"But... how about your mother?"
"Well, she must do as she likes."
"But will you take your wife to your house?"
"Perhaps so. But that is absolutely nothing to do with you and no
concern of yours."
"No concern of mine!" cried the captain. "What about me then?"
"Well, certainly you won't come into my house."
"But, you know, I'm a relation."