The possessed or, The devils
be uneasy again.... Fifteen years of reforms! And yet never even in the
most grotesque periods of its madness has Russia sunk..."
The last words could not be heard in the roar of the crowd. One could
see him again raise his arm and bring it down triumphantly again.
Enthusiasm was beyond all bounds: people yelled, clapped their hands,
even some of the ladies shouted: "Enough, you can't beat that!" Some
might have been drunk. The orator scanned them all and seemed revelling
in his own triumph. I caught a glimpse of Lembke in indescribable
excitement, pointing something out to somebody. Yulia Mihailovna, with a
pale face, said something in haste to the prince, who had run up to her.
But at that moment a group of six men, officials more or less, burst on
to the platform, seized the orator and dragged him behind the scenes. I
can't understand how he managed to tear himself away from them, but he
did escape, darted up to the edge of the platform again and succeeded in
shouting again, at the top of his voice, waving his fist: "But never has
Russia sunk..."
But he was dragged away again. I saw some fifteen men dash behind the
scenes to rescue him, not crossing the platform but breaking down the
light screen at the side of it.... I saw afterwards, though I could
hardly believe my eyes, the girl student (Virginsky's sister) leap on
to the platform with the same roll under her arm, dressed as before,
as plump and rosy as ever, surrounded by two or three women and two or
three men, and accompanied by her mortal enemy, the schoolboy. I even
caught the phrase:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I've come to call attention to the sufferings
of poor students and to rouse them to a general protest..."
But I ran away. Hiding my badge in my pocket I made my way from the
house into the street by back passages which I knew of. First of all, of
course, I went to Stepan Trofimovitch's.
CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE FETE
I
HE WOULD NOT SEE ME. He had shut himself up and was writing. At my
repeated knocks and appeals he answered through the door:
"My friend, I have finished everything. Who can ask anything more of
me?"
"You haven't finished anything, you've only helped to make a mess of the
whole thing. For God's sake, no epigrams, Stepan Trofimovitch! Open the
door. We must take steps; they may still come and insult you...."
I thought myself entitled to be particularly severe and even rigorous.
I was afraid he might be going to do something still more mad. But to my
surprise I met an extraordinary firmness.
"Don't be the first to insult me then. I thank you for the past, but
I repeat I've done with all men, good and bad. I am writing to Darya
Pavlovna, whom I've forgotten so unpardonably till now. You may take it
to her to-morrow, if you like, now _merci_."
"Stepan Trofimovitch, I assure you that the matter is more serious
than you think. Do you think that you've crushed someone there? You've
pulverised no one, but have broken yourself to pieces like an empty
bottle." (Oh, I was coarse and discourteous, I remember it with
regret.) "You've absolutely no reason to write to Darya Pavlovna... and
what will you do with yourself without me? What do you understand about
practical life? I expect you are plotting something else? You'll simply
come to grief again if you go plotting something more...."
He rose and came close up to the door.
"You've not been long with them, but you've caught the infection of
their tone and language. _Dieu vous pardonne, mon ami, et Dieu vous
garde._ But I've always seen in you the germs of delicate feeling, and
you will get over it perhaps--_après le temps,_ of course, like all of us
Russians. As for what you say about my impracticability, I'll remind you
of a recent idea of mine: a whole mass of people in Russia do nothing
whatever but attack other people's impracticability with the utmost fury
and with the tiresome persistence of flies in the summer, accusing every
one of it except themselves. _Cher,_ remember that I am excited, and
don't distress me. Once more _merci_ for everything, and let us part like
Karmazinov and the public; that is, let us forget each other with as
much generosity as we can. He was posing in begging his former readers
so earnestly to forget him; _quant à moi,_ I am not so conceited, and I
rest my hopes on the youth of your inexperienced heart. How should you
remember a useless old man for long? 'Live more,' my friend, as Nastasya
wished me on my last name-day _(ces pauvres gens ont quelquefois des
mots charmants et pleins de philosophie)._ I do not wish you much
happiness--it will bore you. I do not wish you trouble either, but,
following the philosophy of the peasant, I will repeat simply 'live
more' and try not to be much bored; this useless wish I add from myself.
Well, good-bye, and good-bye for good. Don't stand at my door, I will
not open it."
He went away and I could get nothing more out of him. In spite of his
"excitement," he spoke smoothly, deliberately, with weight, obviously
trying to be impressive. Of course he was rather vexed with me and was
avenging himself indirectly, possibly even for the yesterday's "prison
carts" and "floors that give way." His tears in public that morning, in
spite of a triumph of a sort, had put him, he knew, in rather a comic
position, and there never was a man more solicitous of dignity and
punctilio in his relations with his friends than Stepan Trofimovitch.
Oh, I don't blame him. But this fastidiousness and irony which he
preserved in spite of all shocks reassured me at the time. A man who was
so little different from his ordinary self was, of course, not in the
mood at that moment for anything tragic or extraordinary. So I reasoned
at the time, and, heavens, what a mistake I made! I left too much out of
my reckoning.
In anticipation of events I will quote the few first lines of the letter
to Darya Pavlovna, which she actually received the following day:
"_Mon enfant,_ my hand trembles, but I've done with everything. You were
not present at my last struggle: you did not come to that matinée, and
you did well to stay away. But you will be told that in our Russia,
which has grown so poor in men of character, one man had the courage to
stand up and, in spite of deadly menaces showered on him from all
sides, to tell the fools the truth, that is, that they are fools. _Oh,
ce sont--des pauvres petits vauriens et rien de plus, des
petits_--fools--_voilà le mot!_ The die is cast; I am going from this town
forever and I know not whither. Every one I loved has turned from me.
But you, you are a pure and naïve creature; you, a gentle being whose
life has been all but linked with mine at the will of a capricious and
imperious heart; you who looked at me perhaps with contempt when I shed
weak tears on the eve of our frustrated marriage; you, who cannot in any
case look on me except as a comic figure--for you, for you is the last
cry of my heart, for you my last duty, for you alone! I cannot leave
you forever thinking of me as an ungrateful fool, a churlish egoist, as
probably a cruel and ungrateful heart--whom, alas, I cannot forget--is
every day describing me to you...."
And so on and so on, four large pages.
Answering his "I won't open" with three bangs with my fist on the door,
and shouting after him that I was sure he would send Nastasya for me
three times that day, but I would not come, I gave him up and ran off to
Yulia Mihailovna.
II
There I was the witness of a revolting scene: the poor woman was
deceived to her face, and I could do nothing. Indeed, what could I say
to her? I had had time to reconsider things a little and reflect that
I had nothing to go upon but certain feelings and suspicious
presentiments. I found her in tears, almost in hysterics, with
compresses of eau-de-Cologne and a glass of water. Before her stood
Pyotr Stepanovitch, who talked without stopping, and the prince, who
held his tongue as though it had been under a lock. With tears and
lamentations she reproached Pyotr Stepanovitch for his "desertion." I
was struck at once by the fact that she ascribed the whole failure,
the whole ignominy of the matinée, everything in fact, to Pyotr
Stepanovitch's absence.
In him I observed an important change: he seemed a shade too anxious,
almost serious. As a rule he never seemed serious; he was always
laughing, even when he was angry, and he was often angry. Oh, he was
angry now! He was speaking coarsely, carelessly, with vexation and
impatience. He said that he had been taken ill at Gaganov's lodging,
where he had happened to go early in the morning. Alas, the poor woman
was so anxious to be deceived again! The chief question which I found
being discussed was whether the ball, that is, the whole second half of
the fête, should or should not take place. Yulia Mihailovna could not be
induced to appear at the ball "after the insults she had received that
morning"; in other words, her heart was set on being compelled to do so,
and by him, by Pyotr Stepanovitch. She looked upon him as an oracle, and
I believe if he had gone away she would have taken to her bed at once.
But he did not want to go away; he was desperately anxious that the ball
should take place and that Yulia Mihailovna should be present at it.
"Come, what is there to cry about? Are you set on having a scene? On
venting your anger on somebody? Well, vent it on me; only make haste
about it, for the time is passing and you must make up your mind. We
made a mess of it with the matinée; we'll pick up on the ball. Here, the
prince thinks as I do. Yes, if it hadn't been for the prince, how would
things have ended there?"
The prince had been at first opposed to the ball (that is, opposed to
Yulia Mihailovna's appearing at it; the ball was bound to go on in any
case), but after two or three such references to his opinion he began
little by little to grunt his acquiescence.
I was surprised too at the extraordinary rudeness of Pyotr
Stepanovitch's tone. Oh, I scout with indignation the contemptible
slander which was spread later of some supposed liaison between Yulia
Mihailovna and Pyotr Stepanovitch. There was no such thing, nor could
there be. He gained his ascendency over her from the first only by
encouraging her in her dreams of influence in society and in the
ministry, by entering into her plans, by inventing them for her, and
working upon her with the grossest flattery. He had got her completely
into his toils and had become as necessary to her as the air she
breathed. Seeing me, she cried, with flashing eyes:
"Here, ask him. He kept by my side all the while, just like the prince
did. Tell me, isn't it plain that it was all a preconcerted plot, a
base, designing plot to damage Andrey Antonovitch and me as much as
possible? Oh, they had arranged it beforehand. They had a plan! It's a
party, a regular party."
"You are exaggerating as usual. You've always some romantic notion in
your head. But I am glad to see Mr...." (He pretended to have forgotten
my name.) "He'll give us his opinion."
"My opinion," I hastened to put in, "is the same as Yulia Mihailovna's.
The plot is only too evident. I have brought you these ribbons, Yulia
Mihailovna. Whether the ball is to take place or not is not my business,
for it's not in my power to decide; but my part as steward is over.
Forgive my warmth, but I can't act against the dictates of common sense
and my own convictions."
"You hear! You hear!" She clasped her hands.
"I hear, and I tell you this." He turned to me. "I think you must
have eaten something which has made you all delirious. To my thinking,
nothing has happened, absolutely nothing but what has happened before
and is always liable to happen in this town. A plot, indeed! It was an