The possessed or, The devils
money, you would find peace, comfort, servants to wait on you. There you
could occupy yourself with study, and could always make up a party for
cards."
_"Passons."_
_"Passons?"_ Varvara Petrovna winced. "But, if so, that's all. You've been
informed that we shall live henceforward entirely apart."
"And that's all?" he said. "All that's left of twenty years? Our last
farewell?"
"You're awfully fond of these exclamations, Stepan Trofimovitch. It's
not at all the fashion. Nowadays people talk roughly but simply. You
keep harping on our twenty years! Twenty years of mutual vanity, and
nothing more. Every letter you've written me was written not for me but
for posterity. You're a stylist, and not a friend, and friendship is
only a splendid word. In reality--a mutual exchange of sloppiness...."
"Good heavens! How many sayings not your own! Lessons learned by heart!
They've already put their uniform on you too. You, too, are rejoicing;
you, too, are basking in the sunshine. _Chère, chère,_ for what a mess of
pottage you have sold them your freedom!"
"I'm not a parrot, to repeat other people's phrases!" cried Varvara
Petrovna, boiling over. "You may be sure I have stored up many sayings
of my own. What have you been doing for me all these twenty years? You
refused me even the books I ordered for you, though, except for the
binder, they would have remained uncut. What did you give me to read
when I asked you during those first years to be my guide? Always Kapfig,
and nothing but Kapfig. You were jealous of my culture even, and took
measures. And all the while every one's laughing at you. I must confess
I always considered you only as a critic. You are a literary critic and
nothing more. When on the way to Petersburg I told you that I meant
to found a journal and to devote my whole life to it, you looked at me
ironically at once, and suddenly became horribly supercilious."
"That was not that, not that.... we were afraid then of
persecution...."
"It was just that. And you couldn't have been afraid of persecution in
Petersburg at that time. Do you remember that in February, too, when the
news of the emancipation came, you ran to me in a panic, and demanded
that I should at once give you a written statement that the proposed
magazine had nothing to do with you; that the young people had been
coming to see me and not you; that you were only a tutor who lived in
the house, only because he had not yet received his salary. Isn't that
so? Do remember that? You have distinguished yourself all your life,
Stepan Trofimovitch."
"That was only a moment of weakness, a moment when we were alone," he
exclaimed mournfully. "But is it possible, is it possible, to break
off everything for the sake of such petty impressions? Can it be that
nothing more has been left between us after those long years?"
"You are horribly calculating; you keep trying to leave me in your debt.
When you came back from abroad you looked down upon me and wouldn't
let me utter a word, but when I came back myself and talked to you
afterwards of my impressions of the Madonna, you wouldn't hear me,
you began smiling condescendingly into your cravat, as though I were
incapable of the same feelings as you."
"It was not so. It was probably not so. _J'ai oublié!_"
"No; it was so," she answered, "and, what's more, you've nothing to
pride yourself on. That's all nonsense, and one of your fancies. Now,
there's no one, absolutely no one, in ecstasies over the Madonna; no
one wastes time over it except old men who are hopelessly out of date.
That's established."
"Established, is it?"
"It's of no use whatever. This jug's of use because one can pour water
into it. This pencil's of use because you can write anything with it.
But that woman's face is inferior to any face in nature. Try drawing
an apple, and put a real apple beside it. Which would you take? You
wouldn't make a mistake, I'm sure. This is what all our theories amount
to, now that the first light of free investigation has dawned upon
them."
"Indeed, indeed."
"You laugh ironically. And what used you to say to me about charity?
Yet the enjoyment derived from charity is a haughty and immoral
enjoyment. The rich man's enjoyment in his wealth, his power, and in the
comparison of his importance with the poor. Charity corrupts giver and
taker alike; and, what's more, does not attain its object, as it
only increases poverty. Fathers who don't want to work crowd round the
charitable like gamblers round the gambling-table, hoping for gain,
while the pitiful farthings that are flung them are a hundred times too
little. Have you given away much in your life? Less than a rouble, if
you try and think. Try to remember when last you gave away anything;
it'll be two years ago, maybe four. You make an outcry and only hinder
things. Charity ought to be forbidden by law, even in the present state
of society. In the new regime there will be no poor at all."
"Oh, what an eruption of borrowed phrases! So it's come to the new
regime already? Unhappy woman, God help you!"
"Yes; it has, Stepan Trofimovitch. You carefully concealed all these new
ideas from me, though every one's familiar with them nowadays. And you
did it simply out of jealousy, so as to have power over me. So that now
even that Yulia is a hundred miles ahead of me. But now my eyes have
been opened. I have defended you, Stepan Trofimovitch, all I could, but
there is no one who does not blame you."
"Enough!" said he, getting up from his seat. "Enough! And what can I
wish you now, unless it's repentance?"
"Sit still a minute, Stepan Trofimovitch. I have another question to ask
you. You've been told of the invitation to read at the literary matinée.
It was arranged through me. Tell me what you're going to read?"
"Why, about that very Queen of Queens, that ideal of humanity, the
Sistine Madonna, who to your thinking is inferior to a glass or a
pencil."
"So you're not taking something historical?'" said Varvara Petrovna
in mournful surprise. "But they won't listen to you. You've got that
Madonna on your brain. You seem bent on putting every one to sleep! Let
me assure you, Stepan Trofimovitch, I am speaking entirely in your own
interest. It would be a different matter if you would take some short
but interesting story of mediæval court life from Spanish history, or,
better still, some anecdote, and pad it out with other anecdotes and
witty phrases of your own. There were magnificent courts then; ladies,
you know, poisonings. Karmazinov says it would be strange if you
couldn't read something interesting from Spanish history."
"Karmazinov--that fool who has written himself out--looking for a
subject for me!"
"Karmazinov, that almost imperial intellect. You are too free in your
language, Stepan Trofimovitch."
"Your Karmazinov is a spiteful old woman whose day is over. _Chère,
chère,_ how long have you been so enslaved by them? Oh God!"
"I can't endure him even now for the airs he gives himself. But I do
justice to his intellect. I repeat, I have done my best to defend you
as far as I could. And why do you insist on being absurd and tedious?
On the contrary, come on to the platform with a dignified smile as
the representative of the last generation, and tell them two or three
anecdotes in your witty way, as only you can tell things sometimes.
Though you may be an old man now, though you may belong to a past age,
though you may have dropped behind them, in fact, yet you'll recognise
it yourself, with a smile, in your preface, and all will see that you're
an amiable, good-natured, witty relic... in brief, a man of the old
savour, and so far advanced as to be capable of appreciating at their
value all the absurdities of certain ideas which you have hitherto
followed. Come, as a favour to me, I beg you."
"_Chère,_ enough. Don't ask me. I can't. I shall speak of the Madonna,
but I shall raise a storm that will either crush them all or shatter me
alone."
"It will certainly be you alone, Stepan Trofimovitch."
"Such is my fate. I will speak of the contemptible slave, of the
stinking, depraved flunkey who will first climb a ladder with scissors
in his hands, and slash to pieces the divine image of the great ideal,
in the name of equality, envy, and... digestion. Let my curse thunder
out upon them, and then--then..."
"The madhouse?"
"Perhaps. But in any case, whether I shall be left vanquished or
victorious, that very evening I shall take my bag, my beggar's bag.
I shall leave all my goods and chattels, all your presents, all your
pensions and promises of future benefits, and go forth on foot to end my
life a tutor in a merchant's family or to die somewhere of hunger in a
ditch. I have said it. _Alea jacta est._" He got up again.
"I've been convinced for years," said Varvara Petrovna, getting up with
flashing eyes, "that your only object in life is to put me and my house
to shame by your calumnies! What do you mean by being a tutor in a
merchant's family or dying in a ditch? It's spite, calumny, and nothing
more."
"You have always despised me. But I will end like a knight, faithful to
my lady. Your good opinion has always been dearer to me than
anything. From this moment I will take nothing, but will worship you
disinterestedly."
"How stupid that is!"
"You have never respected me. I may have had a mass of weaknesses. Yes,
I have sponged on you. I speak the language of nihilism, but sponging
has never been the guiding motive of my action. It has happened so
of itself. I don't know how.... I always imagined there was something
higher than meat and drink between us, and--I've never, never been a
scoundrel! And so, to take the open road, to set things right. I set
off late, late autumn out of doors, the mist lies over the fields, the
hoarfrost of old age covers the road before me, and the wind howls about
the approaching grave.... But so forward, forward, on my new way
'Filled with purest love and fervour,
Faith which my sweet dream did yield.'
Oh, my dreams. Farewell. Twenty years. _Alea jacta est!_"
His face was wet with a sudden gush of tears. He took his hat.
"I don't understand Latin," said Varvara Petrovna, doing her best to
control herself.
Who knows, perhaps, she too felt like crying. But caprice and
indignation once more got the upper hand.
"I know only one thing, that all this is childish nonsense. You will
never be capable of carrying out your threats, which are a mass of
egoism. You will set off nowhere, to no merchant; you'll end very
peaceably on my hands, taking your pension, and receiving your utterly
impossible friends on Tuesdays. Good-bye, Stepan Trofimovitch."
_"Alea jacta est!"_ He made her a deep bow, and returned home, almost
dead with emotion.
CHAPTER VI. PYOTR STEPANOVITCH IS BUSY
I
The date of the fête was definitely fixed, and Von Lembke became more
and more depressed. He was full of strange and sinister forebodings,
and this made Yulia Mihailovna seriously uneasy. Indeed, things were not
altogether satisfactory. Our mild governor had left the affairs of the
province a little out of gear; at the moment we were threatened with
cholera; serious outbreaks of cattle plague had appeared in several
places; fires were prevalent that summer in towns and villages; whilst
among the peasantry foolish rumours of incendiarism grew stronger and
stronger. Cases of robbery were twice as numerous as usual. But all
this, of course, would have been perfectly ordinary had there been
no other and more weighty reasons to disturb the equanimity of Andrey
Antonovitch, who had till then been in good spirits.
What struck Yulia Mihailovna most of all was that he became more silent
and, strange to say, more secretive every day. Yet it was hard to