The possessed or, The devils
"Liza, it grieves me, this unnatural language. This affectation must
hurt you, too. What's it for? What's the object of it?"
His eyes glowed.
"Liza," he cried, "I swear I love you now more than yesterday when you
came to me!"
"What a strange declaration! Why bring in yesterday and to-day and these
comparisons?"
"You won't leave me," he went on, almost with despair; "we will go away
together, to-day, won't we? Won't we?"
"Aie, don't squeeze my hand so painfully! Where could we go together
to-day? To 'rise again' somewhere? No, we've made experiments enough...
and it's too slow for me; and I am not fit for it; it's too exalted
for me. If we are to go, let it be to Moscow, to pay visits and
entertain--that's my ideal you know; even in Switzerland I didn't
disguise from you what I was like. As we can't go to Moscow and pay
visits since you are married, it's no use talking of that."
"Liza! What happened yesterday!"
"What happened is over!"
"That's impossible! That's cruel!"
"What if it is cruel? You must bear it if it is cruel."
"You are avenging yourself on me for yesterday's caprice," he muttered
with an angry smile. Liza flushed.
"What a mean thought!"
"Why then did you bestow on me... so great a happiness? Have I the right
to know?"
"No, you must manage without rights; don't aggravate the meanness of
your supposition by stupidity. You are not lucky to-day. By the way, you
surely can't be afraid of public opinion and that you will be blamed
for this 'great happiness'? If that's it, for God's sake don't alarm
yourself. It's not your doing at all and you are not responsible to
anyone. When I opened your door yesterday, you didn't even know who was
coming in. It was simply my caprice, as you expressed it just now,
and nothing more! You can look every one in the face boldly and
triumphantly!"
"Your words, that laugh, have been making me feel cold with horror for
the last hour. That 'happiness' of which you speak frantically is
worth... everything to me. How can I lose you now? I swear I loved you
less yesterday. Why are you taking everything from me to-day? Do you
know what it has cost me, this new hope? I've paid for it with life."
"Your own life or another's?"
He got up quickly.
"What does that mean?" he brought out, looking at her steadily.
"Have you paid for it with your life or with mine? is what I mean. Or
have you lost all power of understanding?" cried Liza, flushing. "Why
did you start up so suddenly? Why do you stare at me with such a look?
You frighten me. What is it you are afraid of all the time? I noticed
some time ago that you were afraid and you are now, this very minute...
Good heavens, how pale you are!"
"If you know anything, Liza, I swear I don't... and I wasn't talking of
_that_ just now when I said that I had paid for it with life...."
"I don't understand you," she brought out, faltering apprehensively.
At last a slow brooding smile came on to his lips. He slowly sat down,
put his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands.
"A bad dream and delirium.... We were talking of two different things."
"I don't know what you were talking about.... Do you mean to say you did
not know yesterday that I should leave you to-day, did you know or not?
Don't tell a lie, did you or not?"
"I did," he said softly.
"Well then, what would you have? You knew and yet you accepted 'that
moment' for yourself. Aren't we quits?"
"Tell me the whole truth," he cried in intense distress. "When you
opened my door yesterday, did you know yourself that it was only for one
hour?"
She looked at him with hatred.
"Really, the most sensible person can ask most amazing questions. And
why are you so uneasy? Can it be vanity that a woman should leave you
first instead of your leaving her? Do you know, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch,
since I've been with you I've discovered that you are very generous to
me, and it's just that I can't endure from you."
He got up from his seat and took a few steps about the room.
"Very well, perhaps it was bound to end so.... But how can it all have
happened?"
"That's a question to worry about! Especially as you know the answer
yourself perfectly well, and understand it better than anyone on earth,
and were counting on it yourself. I am a young lady, my heart has been
trained on the opera, that's how it all began, that's the solution."
"No."
"There is nothing in it to fret your vanity. It is all the absolute
truth. It began with a fine moment which was too much for me to bear.
The day before yesterday, when I 'insulted' you before every one and you
answered me so chivalrously, I went home and guessed at once that
you were running away from me because you were married, and not from
contempt for me which, as a fashionable young lady, I dreaded more than
anything. I understood that it was for my sake, for me, mad as I was,
that you ran away. You see how I appreciate your generosity. Then Pyotr
Stepanovitch skipped up to me and explained it all to me at once. He
revealed to me that you were dominated by a 'great idea,' before which
he and I were as nothing, but yet that I was a stumbling-block in your
path. He brought himself in, he insisted that we three should work
together, and said the most fantastic things about a boat and about
maple-wood oars out of some Russian song. I complimented him and told
him he was a poet, which he swallowed as the real thing. And as apart
from him I had known long before that I had not the strength to do
anything for long, I made up my mind on the spot. Well, that's all and
quite enough, and please let us have no more explanations. We might
quarrel. Don't be afraid of anyone, I take it all on myself. I am horrid
and capricious, I was fascinated by that operatic boat, I am a young
lady... but you know I did think that you were dreadfully in love
with me. Don't despise the poor fool, and don't laugh at the tear that
dropped just now. I am awfully given to crying with self-pity. Come,
that's enough, that's enough. I am no good for anything and you are
no good for anything; it's as bad for both of us, so let's comfort
ourselves with that. Anyway, it eases our vanity."
"Dream and delirium," cried Stavrogin, wringing his hands, and pacing
about the room. "Liza, poor child, what have you done to yourself?"
"I've burnt myself in a candle, nothing more. Surely you are not crying,
too? You should show less feeling and better breeding...."
"Why, why did you come to me?"
"Don't you understand what a ludicrous position you put yourself in in
the eyes of the world by asking such questions?"
"Why have you ruined yourself, so grotesquely and so stupidly, and
what's to be done now?"
"And this is Stavrogin, 'the vampire Stavrogin,' as you are called by a
lady here who is in love with you! Listen! I have told you already, I've
put all my life into one hour and I am at peace. Do the same with
yours... though you've no need to: you have plenty of 'hours' and
'moments' of all sorts before you."
"As many as you; I give you my solemn word, not one hour more than you!"
He was still walking up and down and did not see the rapid penetrating
glance she turned upon him, in which there seemed a dawning hope. But
the light died away at the same moment.
"If you knew what it costs me that I can't be sincere at this moment,
Liza, if I could only tell you..."
"Tell me? You want to tell me something, to me? God save me from your
secrets!" she broke in almost in terror. He stopped and waited uneasily.
"I ought to confess that ever since those days in Switzerland I have
had a strong feeling that you have something awful, loathsome, some
bloodshed on your conscience... and yet something that would make you
look very ridiculous. Beware of telling me, if it's true: I shall laugh
you to scorn. I shall laugh at you for the rest of your life.... Aie,
you are turning pale again? I won't, I won't, I'll go at once." She
jumped up from her chair with a movement of disgust and contempt.
"Torture me, punish me, vent your spite on me," he cried in despair.
"You have the full right. I knew I did not love you and yet I ruined
you! Yes, I accepted the moment for my own; I had a hope... I've had
it a long time... my last hope.... I could not resist the radiance that
flooded my heart when you came in to me yesterday, of yourself, alone,
of your own accord. I suddenly believed.... Perhaps I have faith in it
still."
"I will repay such noble frankness by being as frank. I don't want to be
a Sister of Mercy for you. Perhaps I really may become a nurse unless I
happen appropriately to die to-day; but if I do I won't be your nurse,
though, of course, you need one as much as any crippled creature. I
always fancied that you would take me to some place where there was a
huge wicked spider, big as a man, and we should spend our lives looking
at it and being afraid of it. That's how our love would spend itself.
Appeal to Dashenka; she will go with you anywhere you like."
"Can't you help thinking of her even now?"
"Poor little spaniel! Give her my greetings. Does she know that even in
Switzerland you had fixed on her for your old age? What prudence! What
foresight! Aie, who's that?"
At the farther end of the room a door opened a crack; a head was thrust
in and vanished again hurriedly.
"Is that you, Alexey Yegorytch?" asked Stavrogin.
"No, it's only I." Pyotr Stepanovitch thrust himself half in again.
"How do you do, Lizaveta Nikolaevna? Good morning, anyway. I guessed I
should find you both in this room. I have come for one moment literally,
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. I was anxious to have a couple of words with
you at all costs... absolutely necessary... only a few words!"
Stavrogin moved towards him but turned back to Liza at the third step.
"If you hear anything directly, Liza, let me tell you I am to blame for
it!"
She started and looked at him in dismay; but he hurriedly went out.
II
The room from which Pyotr Stepanovitch had peeped in was a large
oval vestibule. Alexey Yegorytch had been sitting there before Pyotr
Stepanovitch came in, but the latter sent him away. Stavrogin closed the
door after him and stood expectant. Pyotr Stepanovitch looked rapidly
and searchingly at him.
"Well?"
"If you know already," said Pyotr Stepanovitch hurriedly, his eyes
looking as though they would dive into Stavrogin's soul, "then, of
course, we are none of us to blame, above all not you, for it's such a
concatenation... such a coincidence of events... in brief, you can't be
legally implicated and I've rushed here to tell you so beforehand."
"Have they been burnt? murdered?"
"Murdered but not burnt, that's the trouble, but I give you my word of
honour that it's not been my fault, however much you may suspect me,
eh? Do you want the whole truth: you see the idea really did cross my
mind--you hinted it yourself, not seriously, but teasing me (for, of
course, you would not hint it seriously), but I couldn't bring myself
to it, and wouldn't bring myself to it for anything, not for a hundred
roubles--and what was there to be gained by it, I mean for me, for
me...." (He was in desperate haste and his talk was like the clacking of a
rattle.) "But what a coincidence of circumstances: I gave that drunken
fool Lebyadkin two hundred and thirty roubles of my own money (do you
hear, my own money, there wasn't a rouble of yours and, what's more, you
know it yourself) the day before yesterday, in the evening--do you hear,
not yesterday after the matinée, but the day before yesterday, make a
note of it: it's a very important coincidence for I did not know for
certain at that time whether Lizaveta Nikolaevna would come to you or
not; I gave my own money simply because you distinguished yourself by