The possessed or, The devils
"Get away!" hissed Andrey Antonovitch. "Do what you like... afterwards.
Oh, my God!"
The curtain was raised and Yulia Mihailovna made her appearance. She
stood still majestically at the sight of Blum, casting a haughty and
offended glance at him, as though the very presence of this man was an
affront to her. Blum respectfully made her a deep bow without speaking
and, doubled up with veneration, moved towards the door on tiptoe with
his arms held a little away from him.
Either because he really took Andrey Antonovitch's last hysterical
outbreak as a direct permission to act as he was asking, or whether
he strained a point in this case for the direct advantage of his
benefactor, because he was too confident that success would crown his
efforts; anyway, as we shall see later on, this conversation of the
governor with his subordinate led to a very surprising event which
amused many people, became public property, moved Yulia Mihailovna to
fierce anger, utterly disconcerting Andrey Antonovitch and reducing him
at the crucial moment to a state of deplorable indecision.
V
It was a busy day for Pyotr Stepanovitch. From Von Lembke he hastened to
Bogoyavlensky Street, but as he went along Bykovy Street, past the house
where Karmazinov was staying, he suddenly stopped, grinned, and
went into the house. The servant told him that he was expected, which
interested him, as he had said nothing beforehand of his coming.
But the great writer really had been expecting him, not only that day
but the day before and the day before that. Three days before he had
handed him his manuscript _Merci_ (which he had meant to read at the
literary matinée at Yulia Mihailovna's fête). He had done this out of
amiability, fully convinced that he was agreeably flattering the young
man's vanity by letting him read the great work beforehand. Pyotr
Stepanovitch had noticed long before that this vainglorious, spoiled
gentleman, who was so offensively unapproachable for all but the elect,
this writer "with the intellect of a statesman," was simply trying
to curry favour with him, even with avidity. I believe the young man
guessed at last that Karmazinov considered him, if not the leader of
the whole secret revolutionary movement in Russia, at least one of those
most deeply initiated into the secrets of the Russian revolution who had
an incontestable influence on the younger generation. The state of mind
of "the cleverest man in Russia" interested Pyotr Stepanovitch, but
hitherto he had, for certain reasons, avoided explaining himself.
The great writer was staying in the house belonging to his sister, who
was the wife of a _kammerherr_ and had an estate in the neighbourhood.
Both she and her husband had the deepest reverence for their illustrious
relation, but to their profound regret both of them happened to be in
Moscow at the time of his visit, so that the honour of receiving him
fell to the lot of an old lady, a poor relation of the _kammerherr's,_ who
had for years lived in the family and looked after the housekeeping. All
the household had moved about on tiptoe since Karmazinov's arrival. The
old lady sent news to Moscow almost every day, how he had slept, what he
had deigned to eat, and had once sent a telegram to announce that after
a dinner-party at the mayor's he was obliged to take a spoonful of a
well-known medicine. She rarely plucked up courage to enter his room,
though he behaved courteously to her, but dryly, and only talked to her
of what was necessary.
When Pyotr Stepanovitch came in, he was eating his morning cutlet with
half a glass of red wine. Pyotr Stepanovitch had been to see him before
and always found him eating this cutlet, which he finished in his
presence without ever offering him anything. After the cutlet a little
cup of coffee was served. The footman who brought in the dishes wore a
swallow-tail coat, noiseless boots, and gloves.
"Ha ha!" Karmazinov got up from the sofa, wiping his mouth with a
table-napkin, and came forward to kiss him with an air of unmixed
delight--after the characteristic fashion of Russians if they are very
illustrious. But Pyotr Stepanovitch knew by experience that, though
Karmazinov made a show of kissing him, he really only proffered his
cheek, and so this time he did the same: the cheeks met. Karmazinov did
not show that he noticed it, sat down on the sofa, and affably offered
Pyotr Stepanovitch an easy chair facing him, in which the latter
stretched himself at once.
"You don't... wouldn't like some lunch?" inquired Karmazinov, abandoning
his usual habit but with an air, of course, which would prompt a polite
refusal. Pyotr Stepanovitch at once expressed a desire for lunch. A
shade of offended surprise darkened the face of his host, but only for
an instant; he nervously rang for the servant and, in spite of all his
breeding, raised his voice scornfully as he gave orders for a second
lunch to be served.
"What will you have, cutlet or coffee?" he asked once more.
"A cutlet and coffee, and tell him to bring some more wine, I am
hungry," answered Pyotr Stepanovitch, calmly scrutinising his host's
attire. Mr. Karmazinov was wearing a sort of indoor wadded jacket with
pearl buttons, but it was too short, which was far from becoming to his
rather comfortable stomach and the solid curves of his hips. But tastes
differ. Over his knees he had a checkered woollen plaid reaching to the
floor, though it was warm in the room.
"Are you unwell?" commented Pyotr Stepanovitch.
"No, not unwell, but I am afraid of being so in this climate," answered
the writer in his squeaky voice, though he uttered each word with a soft
cadence and agreeable gentlemanly lisp. "I've been expecting you since
yesterday."
"Why? I didn't say I'd come."
"No, but you have my manuscript. Have you... read it?"
"Manuscript? Which one?"
Karmazinov was terribly surprised.
"But you've brought it with you, haven't you?" He was so disturbed that
he even left off eating and looked at Pyotr Stepanovitch with a face of
dismay.
"Ah, that _Bonjour_ you mean...."
_"Merci."_
"Oh, all right. I'd quite forgotten it and hadn't read it; I haven't had
time. I really don't know, it's not in my pockets... it must be on my
table. Don't be uneasy, it will be found."
"No, I'd better send to your rooms at once. It might be lost; besides,
it might be stolen."
"Oh, who'd want it! But why are you so alarmed? Why, Yulia Mihailovna
told me you always have several copies made--one kept at a notary's
abroad, another in Petersburg, a third in Moscow, and then you send some
to a bank, I believe."
"But Moscow might be burnt again and my manuscript with it. No, I'd
better send at once."
"Stay, here it is!" Pyotr Stepanovitch pulled a roll of note-paper
out of a pocket at the back of his coat. "It's a little crumpled. Only
fancy, it's been lying there with my pocket-handkerchief ever since I
took it from you; I forgot it."
Karmazinov greedily snatched the manuscript, carefully examined it,
counted the pages, and laid it respectfully beside him on a special
table, for the time, in such a way that he would not lose sight of it
for an instant.
"You don't read very much, it seems?" he hissed, unable to restrain
himself.
"No, not very much."
"And nothing in the way of Russian literature?"
"In the way of Russian literature? Let me see, I have read
something.... 'On the Way' or 'Away!' or 'At the Parting of the Ways'--
something of the sort; I don't remember. It's a long time since I read
it, five years ago. I've no time."
A silence followed.
"When I came I assured every one that you were a very intelligent man,
and now I believe every one here is wild over you."
"Thank you," Pyotr Stepanovitch answered calmly.
Lunch was brought in. Pyotr Stepanovitch pounced on the cutlet with
extraordinary appetite, had eaten it in a trice, tossed off the wine and
swallowed his coffee.
"This boor," thought Karmazinov, looking at him askance as he munched
the last morsel and drained the last drops--"this boor probably
understood the biting taunt in my words... and no doubt he has read
the manuscript with eagerness; he is simply lying with some object. But
possibly he is not lying and is only genuinely stupid. I like a genius
to be rather stupid. Mayn't he be a sort of genius among them? Devil
take the fellow!"
He got up from the sofa and began pacing from one end of the room to the
other for the sake of exercise, as he always did after lunch.
"Leaving here soon?" asked Pyotr Stepanovitch from his easy chair,
lighting a cigarette.
"I really came to sell an estate and I am in the hands of my bailiff."
"You left, I believe, because they expected an epidemic out there after
the war?"
"N-no, not entirely for that reason," Mr. Karmazinov went on, uttering
his phrases with an affable intonation, and each time he turned round in
pacing the corner there was a faint but jaunty quiver of his right leg.
"I certainly intend to live as long as I can." He laughed, not without
venom. "There is something in our Russian nobility that makes them wear
out very quickly, from every point of view. But I wish to wear out as
late as possible, and now I am going abroad for good; there the climate
is better, the houses are of stone, and everything stronger. Europe will
last my time, I think. What do you think?"
"How can I tell?"
"H'm. If the Babylon out there really does fall, and great will be the
fall thereof (about which I quite agree with you, yet I think it will
last my time), there's nothing to fall here in Russia, comparatively
speaking. There won't be stones to fall, everything will crumble into
dirt. Holy Russia has less power of resistance than anything in the
world. The Russian peasantry is still held together somehow by the
Russian God; but according to the latest accounts the Russian God is not
to be relied upon, and scarcely survived the emancipation; it certainly
gave Him a severe shock. And now, what with railways, what with you...
I've no faith in the Russian God."
"And how about the European one?"
"I don't believe in any. I've been slandered to the youth of Russia.
I've always sympathised with every movement among them. I was shown the
manifestoes here. Every one looks at them with perplexity because they
are frightened at the way things are put in them, but every one is
convinced of their power even if they don't admit it to themselves.
Everybody has been rolling downhill, and every one has known for ages
that they have nothing to clutch at. I am persuaded of the success of
this mysterious propaganda, if only because Russia is now pre-eminently
the place in all the world where anything you like may happen without
any opposition. I understand only too well why wealthy Russians all
flock abroad, and more and more so every year. It's simply instinct. If
the ship is sinking, the rats are the first to leave it. Holy Russia is
a country of wood, of poverty... and of danger, the country of ambitious
beggars in its upper classes, while the immense majority live in poky
little huts. She will be glad of any way of escape; you have only to
present it to her. It's only the government that still means to
resist, but it brandishes its cudgel in the dark and hits its own men.
Everything here is doomed and awaiting the end. Russia as she is has no
future. I have become a German and I am proud of it."
"But you began about the manifestoes. Tell me everything; how do you
look at them?"
"Every one is afraid of them, so they must be influential. They openly
unmask what is false and prove that there is nothing to lay hold of
among us, and nothing to lean upon. They speak aloud while all is
silent. What is most effective about them (in spite of their style) is