The possessed or, The devils
like a pistol-shot, had so terrifying an effect on the patient that it
greatly accelerated her delivery.
But though she was a nihilist, Madame Virginsky did not, when occasion
arose, disdain social or even old-fashioned superstitions and customs
if they could be of any advantage to herself. She would never, for
instance, have stayed away from a baby's christening, and always put on
a green silk dress with a train and adorned her chignon with curls and
ringlets for such events, though at other times she positively revelled
in slovenliness. And though during the ceremony she always maintained
"the most insolent air," so that she put the clergy to confusion, yet
when it was over she invariably handed champagne to the guests (it was
for that that she came and dressed up), and it was no use trying to take
the glass without a contribution to her "porridge bowl."
The guests who assembled that evening at Virginsky's (mostly men) had a
casual and exceptional air. There was no supper nor cards. In the middle
of the large drawing-room, which was papered with extremely old blue
paper, two tables had been put together and covered with a large though
not quite clean table-cloth, and on them two samovars were boiling. The
end of the table was taken up by a huge tray with twenty-five glasses on
it and a basket with ordinary French bread cut into a number of slices,
as one sees it in genteel boarding-schools for boys or girls. The tea
was poured out by a maiden lady of thirty, Arina Prohorovna's sister,
a silent and malevolent creature, with flaxen hair and no eyebrows, who
shared her sister's progressive ideas and was an object of terror to
Virginsky himself in domestic life. There were only three ladies in the
room: the lady of the house, her eyebrowless sister, and Virginsky's
sister, a girl who had just arrived from Petersburg. Arina Prohorovna, a
good-looking and buxom woman of seven-and-twenty, rather dishevelled, in
an everyday greenish woollen dress, was sitting scanning the guests with
her bold eyes, and her look seemed in haste to say, "You see I am not
in the least afraid of anything." Miss Virginsky, a rosy-cheeked student
and a nihilist, who was also good-looking, short, plump and round as a
little ball, had settled herself beside Arina Prohorovna, almost in
her travelling clothes. She held a roll of paper in her hand, and
scrutinised the guests with impatient and roving eyes. Virginsky himself
was rather unwell that evening, but he came in and sat in an easy chair
by the tea-table. All the guests were sitting down too, and the orderly
way in which they were ranged on chairs suggested a meeting. Evidently
all were expecting something and were filling up the interval with loud
but irrelevant conversation. When Stavrogin and Verhovensky appeared
there was a sudden hush.
But I must be allowed to give a few explanations to make things clear.
I believe that all these people had come together in the agreeable
expectation of hearing something particularly interesting, and had
notice of it beforehand. They were the flower of the reddest Radicalism
of our ancient town, and had been carefully picked out by Virginsky for
this "meeting." I may remark, too, that some of them (though not very
many) had never visited him before. Of course most of the guests had no
clear idea why they had been summoned. It was true that at that time
all took Pyotr Stepanovitch for a fully authorised emissary from abroad;
this idea had somehow taken root among them at once and naturally
flattered them. And yet among the citizens assembled ostensibly to
keep a name-day, there were some who had been approached with definite
proposals. Pyotr Verhovensky had succeeded in getting together a
"quintet" amongst us like the one he had already formed in Moscow and,
as appeared later, in our province among the officers. It was said that
he had another in X province. This quintet of the elect were sitting now
at the general table, and very skilfully succeeded in giving themselves
the air of being quite ordinary people, so that no one could have known
them. They were--since it is no longer a secret--first Liputin, then
Virginsky himself, then Shigalov (a gentleman with long ears, the
brother of Madame Virginsky), Lyamshin, and lastly a strange person
called Tolkatchenko, a man of forty, who was famed for his vast
knowledge of the people, especially of thieves and robbers. He used
to frequent the taverns on purpose (though not only with the object of
studying the people), and plumed himself on his shabby clothes, tarred
boots, and crafty wink and a flourish of peasant phrases. Lyamshin had
once or twice brought him to Stepan Trofimovitch's gatherings, where,
however, he did not make a great sensation. He used to make his
appearance in the town from time to time, chiefly when he was out of a
job; he was employed on the railway.
Every one of these fine champions had formed this first group in the
fervent conviction that their quintet was only one of hundreds and
thousands of similar groups scattered all over Russia, and that they all
depended on some immense central but secret power, which in its turn was
intimately connected with the revolutionary movement all over Europe.
But I regret to say that even at that time there was beginning to
be dissension among them. Though they had ever since the spring been
expecting Pyotr Verhovensky, whose coming had been heralded first
by Tolkatchenko and then by the arrival of Shigalov, though they had
expected extraordinary miracles from him, and though they had responded
to his first summons without the slightest criticism, yet they had no
sooner formed the quintet than they all somehow seemed to feel insulted;
and I really believe it was owing to the promptitude with which they
consented to join. They had joined, of course, from a not ignoble
feeling of shame, for fear people might say afterwards that they had
not dared to join; still they felt Pyotr Verhovensky ought to have
appreciated their heroism and have rewarded it by telling them some
really important bits of news at least. But Verhovensky was not at all
inclined to satisfy their legitimate curiosity, and told them nothing
but what was necessary; he treated them in general with great sternness
and even rather casually. This was positively irritating, and Comrade
Shigalov was already egging the others on to insist on his "explaining
himself," though, of course, not at Virginsky's, where so many outsiders
were present.
I have an idea that the above-mentioned members of the first quintet
were disposed to suspect that among the guests of Virginsky's that
evening some were members of other groups, unknown to them, belonging
to the same secret organisation and founded in the town by the same
Verhovensky; so that in fact all present were suspecting one another,
and posed in various ways to one another, which gave the whole party a
very perplexing and even romantic air. Yet there were persons present
who were beyond all suspicion. For instance, a major in the service, a
near relation of Virginsky, a perfectly innocent person who had not been
invited but had come of himself for the name-day celebration, so that it
was impossible not to receive him. But Virginsky was quite unperturbed,
as the major was "incapable of betraying them"; for in spite of his
stupidity he had all his life been fond of dropping in wherever extreme
Radicals met; he did not sympathise with their ideas himself, but
was very fond of listening to them. What's more, he had even been
compromised indeed. It had happened in his youth that whole bundles of
manifestoes and of numbers of _The Bell_ had passed through his hands,
and although he had been afraid even to open them, yet he would have
considered it absolutely contemptible to refuse to distribute them--and
there are such people in Russia even to this day.
The rest of the guests were either types of honourable amour-propre
crushed and embittered, or types of the generous impulsiveness of ardent
youth. There were two or three teachers, of whom one, a lame man of
forty-five, a master in the high school, was a very malicious and
strikingly vain person; and two or three officers. Of the latter, one
very young artillery officer who had only just come from a military
training school, a silent lad who had not yet made friends with anyone,
turned up now at Virginsky's with a pencil in his hand, and, scarcely
taking any part in the conversation, continually made notes in his
notebook. Everybody saw this, but every one pretended not to. There was,
too, an idle divinity student who had helped Lyamshin to put indecent
photographs into the gospel-woman's pack. He was a solid youth with a
free-and-easy though mistrustful manner, with an unchangeably satirical
smile, together with a calm air of triumphant faith in his own
perfection. There was also present, I don't know why, the mayor's son,
that unpleasant and prematurely exhausted youth to whom I have referred
already in telling the story of the lieutenant's little wife. He was
silent the whole evening. Finally there was a very enthusiastic and
tousle-headed schoolboy of eighteen, who sat with the gloomy air of a
young man whose dignity has been wounded, evidently distressed by his
eighteen years. This infant was already the head of an independent
group of conspirators which had been formed in the highest class of the
gymnasium, as it came out afterwards to the surprise of every one.
I haven't mentioned Shatov. He was there at the farthest corner of the
table, his chair pushed back a little out of the row. He gazed at the
ground, was gloomily silent, refused tea and bread, and did not for one
instant let his cap go out of his hand, as though to show that he was
not a visitor, but had come on business, and when he liked would get up
and go away. Kirillov was not far from him. He, too, was very silent,
but he did not look at the ground; on the contrary, he scrutinised
intently every speaker with his fixed, lustreless eyes, and listened
to everything without the slightest emotion or surprise. Some of the
visitors who had never seen him before stole thoughtful glances at him.
I can't say whether Madame Virginsky knew anything about the existence
of the quintet. I imagine she knew everything and from her husband.
The girl-student, of course, took no part in anything; but she had an
anxiety of her own: she intended to stay only a day or two and then to
go on farther and farther from one university town to another "to show
active sympathy with the sufferings of poor students and to rouse
them to protest." She was taking with her some hundreds of copies of a
lithographed appeal, I believe of her own composition. It is remarkable
that the schoolboy conceived an almost murderous hatred for her from the
first moment, though he saw her for the first time in his life; and she
felt the same for him. The major was her uncle, and met her to-day for
the first time after ten years. When Stavrogin and Verhovensky came in,
her cheeks were as red as cranberries: she had just quarrelled with her
uncle over his views on the woman question.
II
With conspicuous nonchalance Verhovensky lounged in the chair at the
upper end of the table, almost without greeting anyone. His expression
was disdainful and even haughty. Stavrogin bowed politely, but in spite
of the fact that they were all only waiting for them, everybody, as
though acting on instruction, appeared scarcely to notice them. The lady
of the house turned severely to Stavrogin as soon as he was seated.
"Stavrogin, will you have tea?"
"Please," he answered.
"Tea for Stavrogin," she commanded her sister at the samovar. "And you,
will you?" (This was to Verhovensky.)
"Of course. What a question to ask a visitor! And give me cream too;