Demons, page 58
"But never before has Russia reached..."
But he was already being dragged away again. I saw about fifteen men, perhaps, rush backstage to free him, not across the platform but from the side, smashing the flimsy partition so that it finally fell down ... I saw later, not believing my eyes, how the girl student (Virginsky's relative) jumped up on the platform with that same bundle of hers under her arm, dressed in the same clothes, her face the same red, with the same well-fed cheeks, surrounded by two or three women and two or three men, and accompanied by her mortal enemy, the high-school boy. I even managed to catch the phrase:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to proclaim the sufferings of unfortunate students and rouse them to protest everywhere."
But I fled. I hid my bow in my pocket and, by various back passages known to me, got myself out of the house to the street. First of all, of course, I went to Stepan Trofimovich.
2 : The End of the Fête
I
He did not receive me. He had locked himself in and was writing. To my repeated knocking and calling, he answered through the door:
"My friend, I have finished it all, who can demand more of me?"
"You didn't finish anything, you just contributed to the general collapse. For God's sake, Stepan Trofimovich, let's do without punning; open up. We must take measures; they may come here and insult you..."
I considered I had the right to be especially stern and even exacting. I feared he might undertake something still more insane. But to my surprise I met with an extraordinary firmness.
"Don't you be the first to insult me, then. I thank you for all that's past, but, I repeat, I have finished it all with people, both good and wicked. I am writing a letter to Darya Pavlovna, whom I have so unpardonably forgotten until now. Deliver it tomorrow, if you like, and now 'merci.’”
"Stepan Trofimovich, I assure you the matter is more serious than you think. You think you smashed someone there? You didn't smash anyone, but you yourself broke like an empty glass" (oh, I was rude and impolite; it grieves me to remember!). "There is decidedly no reason for you to write to Darya Pavlovna... and what's going to become of you now without me? What do you understand of practical things? You must be plotting something else? You'll just perish another time if you're plotting something again..."
He rose and came right up to the door.
"You have not spent so long a time with them, yet you have been infected by their language and tone, Dieu vous pardonne, mon ami, et Dieu vous garde.[cxlv] But I have always noticed the germs of decency in you, and perhaps you will still think better of it—après le temps,[cxlvi] of course, like all of us Russians. As for your remark about my impracticality, I shall remind you of a long-standing thought of mine: that in our Russia a vast number of people occupy themselves with nothing else but attacking other people's impracticality, fiercely and with special persistence, like flies in summer, accusing all and sundry of it, and excluding only themselves. Cher, remember that I am agitated and do not torment me. Once more, merci for everything, and let us part from each other as Karmazinov did from his public—that is, forget each other with all possible magnanimity. He was being sly when he begged his former readers so very much to forget him; quant à moi,[cxlvii] I am not so vain and trust most of all in the youth of your innocent heart: are you likely to 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).[cxlviii] I do not wish you much happiness—it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; this useless wish I am adding on my own. Now, farewell, and a serious farewell. And don't stand by my door, I won't open it."
He walked away, and I achieved nothing further. In spite of the "agitation," he had spoken evenly, unhurriedly, with weight, and obviously trying to impress. Of course, he was somewhat vexed with me and was indirectly taking revenge on me, let's say, perhaps still for yesterday's "kibitkas" and "opening floorboards." And this morning's public tears, despite a certain sort of victory, had placed him, he knew, in a somewhat comical position, and there was no man more concerned with beauty and strictness of form in his relations with friends than Stepan Trofimovich. Oh, I do not blame him! But it was this scrupulousness and sarcasm, which held out in him despite all shocks, that set me at ease then: this man who had apparently changed so little as compared to usual was certainly not disposed at that moment towards anything tragic or extraordinary. So I reasoned then, and, my God, how mistakenly! I had lost sight of too many things...
Anticipating events, I will quote the first few lines of this letter to Darya Pavlovna, which she in fact received the next day.
"Mon enfant, my hand is trembling, but I have finished everything. You were not present at my final combat with people; you did not come to this 'reading,' and you did well. But you will be told that in our character-impoverished Russia one courageous man stood up and, despite the deadly menace pouring from all sides, told those little fools their truth—that is, that they are little fools. O, ce sont des pauvres petits vauriens et rien de plus, des petits little fools—voilà le mot![cxlix] The die is cast; I am leaving this town forever, whither I do not know. Everyone I loved has turned away from me. But you, you, a pure and naïve being, you, a meek one, whose fate was almost joined with mine by the will of one capricious and tyrannical heart, you, who perhaps in disdain watched me shed fainthearted tears on the eve of our unrealized marriage; you who, whatever you may be, cannot look on me in any other way than as a comical person, oh, to you, to you goes the last cry of my heart, to you is my last duty, to you alone! I cannot possibly leave you forever to think of me as an ungrateful fool, boor, and egoist, as is probably affirmed to you day after day by one ungrateful and cruel heart, which, alas, I cannot forget..."
And so on and so forth, four big pages in all.
Having pounded on the door three times with my fist in response to his "I won't open it," and having shouted after him that he would still send Nastasya for me three times that same day, but that I would not come, I abandoned him and ran to Yulia Mikhailovna.
II
There I found myself witness to an outrageous scene: the poor woman was being deceived right to her face, and I could do nothing. Indeed, what could I tell her? I had had time to come to my senses somewhat and to realize that all I had were just certain feelings, suspicious presentiments, and nothing more. I found her in tears, almost in hysterics, with eau de Cologne compresses and a glass of water. Before her stood Pyotr Stepanovich, who was talking nonstop, and the prince, who was as silent as though he were under lock and key. With tears and little cries she was reproaching Pyotr Stepanovich for his "apostasy." It struck me at once that she ascribed the whole failure, the whole disgrace of this matinée, everything, in short, to Pyotr Stepanovich's absence alone.
As for him, I noticed one important change: he was almost serious, as if preoccupied with something. Ordinarily he never seemed serious, always laughed, even when he was angry, and he was often angry. Oh, he was angry now, too, spoke rudely, carelessly, with vexation and impatience. He assured her that he had been sick with a headache and vomiting at Gaganov's, where he had chanced to stop early that morning. Alas, the poor woman still wanted so much to be deceived! The main question I found on the agenda was whether or not the ball—that is, the whole second half of the fête—was to take place. Yulia Mikhailovna would not agree for anything in the world to appear at the ball after "today's insults"; in other words, she wished with all her might to be compelled to go, and by absolutely no one else but him, Pyotr Stepanovich. She looked upon him as an oracle, and it seemed that if he had left then, she would have taken to her bed. But he had no intention of leaving: he himself needed with all his might that the ball take place that day, and Yulia Mikhailovna absolutely had to be there...
"So, what's there to cry about! You absolutely must have a scene? Vent your anger on someone? Go ahead, vent it on me, only make it quick, because time is passing and we've got to decide. We messed it up with the reading; we'll smooth it over with the ball. The prince here is of the same opinion. Yes, ma'am, if it hadn't been for the prince, where would it all have ended?"
The prince had been against the ball at first (that is, against Yulia Mikhailovna's appearance at the ball; the ball itself had anyhow to take place), but after two or three such references to his opinion, he gradually began to grunt in token of consent.
I was also surprised by the altogether extraordinary impoliteness of Pyotr Stepanovich's tone. Oh, I indignantly reject the base gossip spread later about some supposed liaison between Yulia Mikhailovna and Pyotr Stepanovich. There was not and could not have been anything of the sort. He got the upper hand with her only by yessing her with all his might from the very beginning in her dreams of influencing society and the ministry; by entering into her plans, devising them for her, acting through the crudest flattery, he entangled her from head to foot, and became as necessary to her as air.
Seeing me, she cried out, flashing her eyes:
"Ask him! He, too, never left my side all the while, like the prince. Tell me, isn't it obvious that it's all a conspiracy, a base, cunning conspiracy, to do all possible evil to me and to Andrei Antonovich? Oh, they arranged it! They had a plan. There's a party, a whole party of them!"
"That's overshot, as usual with you. There's some poem eternally running through your head. I'm glad, however, to see Mr...." (he pretended to have forgotten my name), "he'll tell us his opinion."
"My opinion," I hastened, "agrees entirely with Yulia Mikhailovna's opinion. The conspiracy is all too obvious. I've brought you these ribbons, Yulia Mikhailovna. Whether the ball does or does not take place—is, of course, none of my business, since the power is not mine; but my role as an usher is at an end. Forgive my heat, but I cannot act to the detriment of common sense and conviction."
"You hear! You hear!" she clasped her hands.
"I hear, ma'am, and this is what I shall tell you," he turned to me. "I think you all must have eaten something that has made you all delirious. In my opinion, nothing has happened, precisely nothing, that never happened before and could not always have happened in this town here. What conspiracy? It came out ugly, stupid to the point of disgrace, but where is the conspiracy? You mean against Yulia Mikhailovna, against her who indulged them, protected them, forgave them right and left for all their pranks? Yulia Mikhailovna! What have I been hammering into you this whole month nonstop? What have I been warning you about? So, what, what did you need all these people for? You just had to deal with this trash! Why? What for? To unite society? But can they possibly unite, for pity's sake?"
"When did you ever warn me? On the contrary, you approved, you even demanded ... I confess, I am so surprised... You yourself brought many strange people to me."
"On the contrary, I argued with you, I did not approve, and as for bringing—I did bring them, but not until they themselves came swarming by dozens, and that only recently, to make up the 'quadrille of literature,' since there was no way of doing without these boors. Only I'll bet a dozen or two more of the same boors were brought in today without tickets."
"Quite certainly," I confirmed.
"See, you already agree. Remember the tone we've had here lately, I mean, in this whole wretched town? It's all turned into nothing but insolence, shamelessness; it's been a scandal with a ceaseless ringing of bells. And who encouraged them? Who shielded them with her authority? Who got everyone muddled? Who infuriated all the small-fry? In your album all the local family secrets are reproduced. Wasn't it you who patted your poets and artists on the head? Wasn't it you who held out your hand for Lyamshin to kiss? Wasn't it in your presence that a seminarian swore at an actual state councillor and ruined his daughter's dress with his monstrous tarred boots? Why are you surprised, then, that the public is set against you?"
"But that's all you, you yourself! Oh, my God!"
"No, ma'am, I kept warning you; we quarreled, do you hear, we quarreled!"
"You're lying to my face!"
"Ah, yes, of course, it costs nothing to say a thing like that. You need a victim now, someone to vent your anger on; go ahead, vent it on me, as I told you. I'd better address myself to you, Mr...." (He still could not recall my name.) "Let's count up on our fingers: I maintain that, apart from Liputin, there was no conspiracy, none what-so-ever! I'll prove it, but let's first analyze Liputin. He came out with that fool Lebyadkin's verses—was that, in your opinion, a conspiracy? But, you know, Liputin might simply have thought it was witty. Seriously, seriously, witty. He simply came out with the aim of making everybody laugh and have fun, his patroness Yulia Mikhailovna first, that's all. You don't believe it? Why, isn't it in tone with everything that's been going on here this whole month? And, if you wish, I'll say all: by God, under other circumstances it might even have gone over! A crude joke, well, yes, salacious or whatever, but funny, funny, right?"
"What! You consider Liputin's act witty?" Yulia Mikhailovna cried out in terrible indignation. "Such stupidity, such tactlessness, so base, so vile, so deliberate—oh, you're saying it on purpose! It means you yourself are in conspiracy with him!"
"Oh, certainly, sitting in back, hiding, moving the whole little mechanism! But if I had taken part in any conspiracy—understand this at least!—it wouldn't have ended just with Liputin! So, according to you, I also arranged with papa that he should purposely produce such a scandal? Well, ma'am, whose fault was it that father was brought in to read? Who tried to stop you yesterday, just yesterday, yesterday?"
"O, hier il avait tant d'esprit,[cl] I was counting on him so much, and, besides, he has manners: I thought he and Karmazinov... and now look!"
"Yes, ma'am, and now look. But in spite of all that tant d'esprit, papa mucked it up, and if I'd known beforehand that he was going to muck it up so badly, being part of the indubitable conspiracy against your fête, I would undoubtedly not have started persuading you yesterday to keep the bull out of the china shop, right, ma'am? And yet I did try to talk you out of it yesterday—I did, because I had a presentiment. It was, of course, impossible to foresee everything: he himself probably didn't know, a minute before, what he was going to fire off. These nervous old codgers don't even resemble human beings! But you can still salvage it: tomorrow, for the public's satisfaction, send two doctors to him by administrative order, with all the trimmings, to inquire after his health—you could even do it today—and then straight to the hospital, for cold compresses. At least everyone will laugh and see that there's nothing to be offended at. I'll make an announcement about it tonight at the ball, since I'm the son. Karmazinov's another matter, he came out like a green ass and stretched his article for a whole hour— now there's one who must surely be in conspiracy with me! As if he said, 'Why don't I muck it up, too, just to harm Yulia Mikhailovna!’“
"Oh, Karmazinov, quelle bonte![cli] I was burning, burning with shame for our public!"
"Well, ma'am, I wouldn't have burned, but I'd have roasted him. The public was right. And who, again, is guilty of Karmazinov? Did I foist him on you, or didn't I? Did I take part in adoring him, or didn't I? Ah, well, devil take him, but that third maniac, the political one, that's another question. Here everybody went amiss, it's not just my conspiracy."
"Ah, don't speak of it, it's terrible, terrible! I, I alone, am guilty of that!"
"Of course, ma'am, but here I'm going to vindicate you. Eh, who can keep track of these sincere ones! They can't guard against them even in Petersburg. Because he was recommended to you; and how he was! You'll agree, then, that it's even your duty now to appear at the ball. Because it's an important thing, because you yourself put him up on the rostrum. You must precisely declare in public now that you are not solidary with this, that the fine fellow is already in the hands of the police, and that you were deceived in some inexplicable way. You must declare indignantly that you were the victim of a mad person. Because he is a madman and nothing else. That's how he must be reported. I can't stand these biters. I may talk even worse myself, but not from the rostrum. And right now they're shouting about a senator."
"What senator? Who is shouting?"
"You see, I don't understand anything myself. You, Yulia Mikhailovna, do you know anything about some senator?"
"Senator?"
"You see, they're convinced that a senator has been appointed here, and that you are being replaced from Petersburg. I've heard it from many people."
"I've heard it, too," I confirmed.
"Who said so?" Yulia Mikhailovna flushed all over.
"You mean, who first started talking? How should I know. They're just talking. The mass is talking. They were talking yesterday especially. Everybody's somehow much too serious, though it's impossible to make anything out. Of course, those who are a bit more intelligent and competent—are not talking, but even among them some are listening to it."
"How mean! And... how stupid!"
