Meanwhile an incident had occurred which astounded me and shattered
Stepan Trofimovitch. At eight o'clock in the morning Nastasya ran round
to me from him with the news that her master was "raided." At first I
could not make out what she meant; I could only gather that the "raid"
was carried out by officials, that they had come and taken his papers,
and that a soldier had tied them up in a bundle and "wheeled them away
in a barrow." It was a fantastic story. I hurried at once to Stepan
Trofimovitch.
I found him in a surprising condition: upset and in great agitation, but
at the same time unmistakably triumphant. On the table in the middle of
the room the samovar was boiling, and there was a glass of tea poured
out but untouched and forgotten. Stepan Trofimovitch was wandering round
the table and peeping into every corner of the room, unconscious of what
he was doing. He was wearing his usual red knitted jacket, but seeing
me, he hurriedly put on his coat and waistcoat--a thing he had never
done before when any of his intimate friends found him in his jacket. He
took me warmly by the hand at once.
_"Enfin un ami!"_ (He heaved a deep sigh.) "_Cher,_ I've sent to you only,
and no one knows anything. We must give Nastasya orders to lock the
doors and not admit anyone, except, of course them.... _Vous comprenez?_"
He looked at me uneasily, as though expecting a reply. I made haste, of
course, to question him, and from his disconnected and broken sentences,
full of unnecessary parentheses, I succeeded in learning that at seven
o'clock that morning an official of the province had 'all of a sudden'
called on him.
"_Pardon, j'ai oublié son nom. Il n'est pas du pays,_ but I think he came
to the town with Lembke, _quelque chose de bête et d'Allemand dans la
physionomie. Il s'appelle Rosenthal._"
"Wasn't it Blum?"
"Yes, that was his name. _Vous le connaissez? Quelque chose d'hébété et
de très content dans la figure, pourtant très sevère, roide et sérieux._
A type of the police, of the submissive subordinates, _je m'y connais._ I
was still asleep, and, would you believe it, he asked to have a look at
my books and manuscripts! _Oui, je m'en souviens, il a employé ce mot._ He
did not arrest me, but only the books. _Il se tenait à distance,_ and when
he began to explain his visit he looked as though I... _enfin il
avait l'air de croire que je tomberai sur lui immédiatement et que je
commencerai a le battre comme plâtre. Tous ces gens du bas étage sont
comme ça_ when they have to do with a gentleman. I need hardly say I
understood it all at once. _Voilà vingt ans que je m'y prépare._ I opened
all the drawers and handed him all the keys; I gave them myself, I gave
him all. _J'étais digne et calme._ From the books he took the foreign
edition of Herzen, the bound volume of _The Bell,_ four copies of my poem,
_et enfin tout ça._ Then he took my letters and my papers _et quelques-unes
de mes ébauches historiques, critiques et politiques._ All that they
carried off. Nastasya says that a soldier wheeled them away in a barrow
and covered them with an apron; _oui, c'est cela,_ with an apron." It
sounded like delirium. Who could make head or tail of it? I pelted him
with questions again. Had Blum come alone, or with others? On whose
authority? By what right? How had he dared? How did he explain it?
"_Il etait seul, bien seul,_ but there was someone else _dans
l'antichambre, oui, je m'en souviens, et puis..._ Though I believe there
was someone else besides, and there was a guard standing in the entry.
You must ask Nastasya; she knows all about it better than I do. _J'étais
surexcité, voyez-vous. Il parlait, il parlait... un tas de chases_; he
said very little though, it was I said all that.... I told him the
story of my life, simply from that point of view, of course. _J'étais
surexcité, mais digne, je vous assure...._ I am afraid, though, I may
have shed tears. They got the barrow from the shop next door."
"Oh, heavens! how could all this have happened? But for mercy's sake,
speak more exactly, Stepan Trofimovitch. What you tell me sounds like a
dream."
"_Cher,_ I feel as though I were in a dream myself.... _Savez-vous! Il
a prononcé le nom de Telyatnikof,_ and I believe that that man was
concealed in the entry. Yes, I remember, he suggested calling the
prosecutor and Dmitri Dmitritch, I believe... _qui me doit encore quinze
roubles_ I won at cards, _soit dit en passant. Enfin, je n'ai pas trop
compris._ But I got the better of them, and what do I care for Dmitri
Dmitritch? I believe I begged him very earnestly to keep it quiet;
I begged him particularly, most particularly. I am afraid I demeaned
myself, in fact, _comment croyez-vous? Enfin il a consenti._ Yes, I
remember, he suggested that himself--that it would be better to keep it
quiet, for he had only come 'to have a look round' _et rien de plus,_ and
nothing more, nothing more... and that if they find nothing, nothing
will happen. So that we ended it all _en amis, je suis tout à fait
content._"
"Why, then he suggested the usual course of proceedings in such cases
and regular guarantees, and you rejected them yourself," I cried with
friendly indignation.
"Yes, it's better without the guarantees. And why make a scandal? Let's
keep it _en amis_ so long as we can. You know, in our town, if they get to
know it... _mes ennemis, et puis, à quoi bon, le procureur, ce cochon de
notre procureur, qui deux fois m'a manqué de politesse et qu'on a rossé
à plaisir l'autre année chez cette charmante et belle Natalya Pavlovna
quand il se cacha dans son boudoir. Et puis, mon ami,_ don't make
objections and don't depress me, I beg you, for nothing is more
unbearable when a man is in trouble than for a hundred friends to point
out to him what a fool he has made of himself. Sit down though and have
some tea. I must admit I am awfully tired.... Hadn't I better lie down
and put vinegar on my head? What do you think?"
"Certainly," I cried, "ice even. You are very much upset. You are pale
and your hands are trembling. Lie down, rest, and put off telling me.
I'll sit by you and wait."
He hesitated, but I insisted on his lying down. Nastasya brought a cup
of vinegar. I wetted a towel and laid it on his head. Then Nastasya
stood on a chair and began lighting a lamp before the ikon in the
corner. I noticed this with surprise; there had never been a lamp there
before and now suddenly it had made its appearance.
"I arranged for that as soon as they had gone away," muttered Stepan
Trofimovitch, looking at me slyly. "_Quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa
chambre et qu'on vient vous arrêter_ it makes an impression and they are
sure to report that they have seen it...."
When she had done the lamp, Nastasya stood in the doorway, leaned her
cheek in her right hand, and began gazing at him with a lachrymose air.
"_Eloignez-la_ on some excuse," he nodded to me from the sofa. "I can't
endure this Russian sympathy, _et puis ça m'embête._"
But she went away of herself. I noticed that he kept looking towards the
door and listening for sounds in the passage.
_"Il faut être prêt, voyez-vous,"_ he said, looking at me significantly,
_"chaque moment..._ they may come and take one and, phew!--a man
disappears."
"Heavens! who'll come? Who will take you?"
"_Voyez-vous, mon cher,_ I asked straight out when he was going away, what
would they do to me now."
"You'd better have asked them where you'd be exiled!" I cried out in the
same indignation.
"That's just what I meant when I asked, but he went away without
answering. _Voyez-vous:_ as for linen, clothes, warm things especially,
that must be as they decide; if they tell me to take them--all right,
or they might send me in a soldier's overcoat. But I thrust thirty-five
roubles" (he suddenly dropped his voice, looking towards the door by
which Nastasya had gone out) "in a slit in my waistcoat pocket, here,
feel.... I believe they won't take the waistcoat off, and left seven
roubles in my purse to keep up appearances, as though that were all I
have. You see, it's in small change and the coppers are on the table,
so they won't guess that I've hidden the money, but will suppose that
that's all. For God knows where I may have to sleep to-night!"
I bowed my head before such madness. It was obvious that a man could not
be arrested and searched in the way he was describing, and he must
have mixed things up. It's true it all happened in the days before our
present, more recent regulations. It is true, too, that according to his
own account they had offered to follow the more regular procedure, but
he "got the better of them" and refused.... Of course not long ago a
governor might, in extreme cases.... But how could this be an extreme
case? That's what baffled me.
"No doubt they had a telegram from Petersburg," Stepan Trofimovitch said
suddenly.
"A telegram? About you? Because of the works of Herzen and your poem?
Have you taken leave of your senses? What is there in that to arrest you
for?"
I was positively angry. He made a grimace and was evidently
mortified--not at my exclamation, but at the idea that there was no
ground for arrest.
"Who can tell in our day what he may not be arrested for?" he muttered
enigmatically.
A wild and nonsensical idea crossed my mind.
"Stepan Trofimovitch, tell me as a friend," I cried, "as a real friend,
I will not betray you: do you belong to some secret society or not?"
And on this, to my amazement, he was not quite certain whether he was or
was not a member of some secret society.
"That depends, _voyez-vous._"
"How do you mean 'it depends'?"
"When with one's whole heart one is an adherent of progress and... who
can answer it? You may suppose you don't belong, and suddenly it turns
out that you do belong to something."
"Now is that possible? It's a case of yes or no."
"_Cela date de Pétersburg_ when she and I were meaning to found a magazine
there. That's what's at the root of it. She gave them the slip then, and
they forgot us, but now they've remembered. _Cher, cher,_ don't you know
me?" he cried hysterically. "And they'll take us, put us in a cart, and
march us off to Siberia forever, or forget us in prison."
And he suddenly broke into bitter weeping. His tears positively
streamed. He covered his face with his red silk handkerchief and sobbed,
sobbed convulsively for five minutes. It wrung my heart. This was
the man who had been a prophet among us for twenty years, a leader,
a patriarch, the Kukolnik who had borne himself so loftily and
majestically before all of us, before whom we bowed down with genuine
reverence, feeling proud of doing so--and all of a sudden here he was
sobbing, sobbing like a naughty child waiting for the rod which the
teacher is fetching for him. I felt fearfully sorry for him. He believed
in the reality of that "cart" as he believed that I was sitting by his
side, and he expected it that morning, at once, that very minute, and
all this on account of his Herzen and some poem! Such complete, absolute
ignorance of everyday reality was touching and somehow repulsive.
At last he left off crying, got up from the sofa and began walking about
the room again, continuing to talk to me, though he looked out of the
window every minute and listened to every sound in the passage. Our
conversation was still disconnected. All my assurances and attempts
to console him rebounded from him like peas from a wall. He scarcely
listened, but yet what he needed was that I should console him and keep
on talking with that object. I saw that he could not do without me now,
and would not let me go for anything. I remained, and we spent more than
two hours together. In conversation he recalled that Blum had taken with
him two manifestoes he had found.
"Manifestoes!" I said, foolishly frightened. "Do you mean to say
you..."
"Oh, ten were left here," he answered with vexation (he talked to me
at one moment in a vexed and haughty tone and at the next with dreadful
plaintiveness and humiliation), "but I had disposed of eight already,
and Blum only found two." And he suddenly flushed with indignation.
"_Vous me mettez avec ces gens-là!_ Do you suppose I could be working
with those scoundrels, those anonymous libellers, with my son Pyotr
Stepanovitch, _avec ces esprits forts de lâcheté?_ Oh, heavens!"
"Bah! haven't they mixed you up perhaps?... But it's nonsense, it can't
be so," I observed.
_"Savez-vous,"_ broke from him suddenly, "I feel at moments _que je ferai
là-bas quelque esclandre._ Oh, don't go away, don't leave me alone! _Ma
carrière est finie aujourd'hui, je le sens._ Do you know, I might fall on
somebody there and bite him, like that lieutenant."
He looked at me with a strange expression--alarmed, and at the same time
anxious to alarm me. He certainly was getting more and more exasperated
with somebody and about something as time went on and the police-cart
did not appear; he was positively wrathful. Suddenly Nastasya, who
had come from the kitchen into the passage for some reason, upset a
clothes-horse there. Stepan Trofimovitch trembled and turned numb with
terror as he sat; but when the noise was explained, he almost shrieked
at Nastasya and, stamping, drove her back to the kitchen. A minute later
he said, looking at me in despair: "I am ruined! _Cher_"--he sat down
suddenly beside me and looked piteously into my face--"_cher,_ it's not
Siberia I am afraid of, I swear. _Oh, je vous jure!_" (Tears positively
stood in his eyes.) "It's something else I fear."
I saw from his expression that he wanted at last to tell me something of
great importance which he had till now refrained from telling.
"I am afraid of disgrace," he whispered mysteriously.
"What disgrace? On the contrary! Believe me, Stepan Trofimovitch, that all
this will be explained to-day and will end to your advantage...."
"Are you so sure that they will pardon me?"
"Pardon you? What! What a word! What have you done? I assure you you've
done nothing."
"_Qu'en savez-vous;_ all my life has been... _cher_... They'll remember
everything... and if they find nothing, it will be _worse still_," he
added all of a sudden, unexpectedly.
"How do you mean it will be worse?"
"It will be worse."
"I don't understand."
"My friend, let it be Siberia, Archangel, loss of rights--if I must
perish, let me perish! But... I am afraid of something else." (Again
whispering, a scared face, mystery.)
"But of what? Of what?"
"They'll flog me," he pronounced, looking at me with a face of despair.
"Who'll flog you? What for? Where?" I cried, feeling alarmed that he was
going out of his mind.
"Where? Why there... where 'that's' done."
"But where is it done?"
"Eh, _cher,_" he whispered almost in my ear. "The floor suddenly gives
way under you, you drop half through.... Every one knows that."
"Legends!" I cried, guessing what he meant. "Old tales. Can you have
believed them till now?" I laughed.
"Tales! But there must be foundation for them; flogged men tell no
tales. I've imagined it ten thousand times."
"But you, why you? You've done nothing, you know."
"That makes it worse. They'll find out I've done nothing and flog me for
it."
"And you are sure that you'll be taken to Petersburg for that."
"My friend, I've told you already that I regret nothing, _ma carrière est
finie._ From that hour when she said good-bye to me at Skvoreshniki my
life has had no value for me... but disgrace, disgrace, _que dira-t-elle_
if she finds out?"
He looked at me in despair. And the poor fellow flushed all over. I
dropped my eyes too.
"She'll find out nothing, for nothing will happen to you. I feel as if I
were speaking to you for the first time in my life, Stepan Trofimovitch,
you've astonished me so this morning."
"But, my friend, this isn't fear. For even if I am pardoned, even if
I am brought here and nothing is done to me--then I am undone. _Elle me
soupçonnera toute sa vie_--me, me, the poet, the thinker, the man whom
she has worshipped for twenty-two years!"
"It will never enter her head."
"It will," he whispered with profound conviction. "We've talked of it
several times in Petersburg, in Lent, before we came away, when we
were both afraid.... _Elle me soupçonnera toute sa vie..._ and how can
I disabuse her? It won't sound likely. And in this wretched town who'd
believe it, _c'est invraisemblable.... Et puis les femmes,_ she will be
pleased. She will be genuinely grieved like a true friend, but secretly
she will be pleased.... I shall give her a weapon against me for the
rest of my life. Oh, it's all over with me! Twenty years of such perfect
happiness with her... and now!" He hid his face in his hands.
"Stepan Trofimovitch, oughtn't you to let Varvara Petrovna know at once
of what has happened?" I suggested.
"God preserve me!" he cried, shuddering and leaping up from his
place. "On no account, never, after what was said at parting at
Skvoreshniki--never!"
His eyes flashed.
We went on sitting together another hour or more, I believe, expecting
something all the time--the idea had taken such hold of us. He lay down
again, even closed his eyes, and lay for twenty minutes without uttering
a word, so that I thought he was asleep or unconscious. Suddenly he got
up impulsively, pulled the towel off his head, jumped up from the sofa,
rushed to the looking-glass, with trembling hands tied his cravat, and
in a voice of thunder called to Nastasya, telling her to give him his
overcoat, his new hat and his stick.
"I can bear no more," he said in a breaking voice. "I can't, I can't! I
am going myself."
"Where?" I cried, jumping up too.
"To Lembke. _Cher,_ I ought, I am obliged. It's my duty. I am a citizen
and a man, not a worthless chip. I have rights; I want my rights....
For twenty years I've not insisted on my rights. All my life I've
neglected them criminally... but now I'll demand them. He must tell me
everything--everything. He received a telegram. He dare not torture me;
if so, let him arrest me, let him arrest me!"
He stamped and vociferated almost with shrieks. "I approve of what you
say," I said, speaking as calmly as possible, on purpose, though I was
very much afraid for him.
"Certainly it is better than sitting here in such misery, but I can't
approve of your state of mind. Just see what you look like and in what a
state you are going there! _Il faut être digne et calme avec Lembke._ You
really might rush at someone there and bite him."
"I am giving myself up. I am walking straight into the jaws of the lion...."
"I'll go with you."
"I expected no less of you, I accept your sacrifice, the sacrifice of a
true friend; but only as far as the house, only as far as the house. You
ought not, you have no right to compromise yourself further by being my
confederate. _Oh, croyez-moi, je serai calme._ I feel that I am at this
moment _à la hauteur de tout ce que il y a de plus sacré...._"
"I may perhaps go into the house with you," I interrupted him. "I had a
message from their stupid committee yesterday through Vysotsky that they
reckon on me and invite me to the _fête_ to-morrow as one of the stewards
or whatever it is... one of the six young men whose duty it is to look
after the trays, wait on the ladies, take the guests to their places,
and wear a rosette of crimson and white ribbon on the left shoulder. I
meant to refuse, but now why shouldn't I go into the house on the
excuse of seeing Yulia Mihailovna herself about it?... So we will go
in together."
He listened, nodding, but I think he understood nothing. We stood on the
threshold.
_"Cher"_--he stretched out his arm to the lamp before the ikon--"_cher,_
I have never believed in this, but... so be it, so be it!" He crossed
himself. _"Allons!"_
"Well, that's better so," I thought as I went out on to the steps with
him. "The fresh air will do him good on the way, and we shall calm down,
turn back, and go home to bed...."
But I reckoned without my host. On the way an adventure occurred which
agitated Stepan Trofimovitch even more, and finally determined him to go
on... so that I should never have expected of our friend so much spirit
as he suddenly displayed that morning. Poor friend, kind-hearted friend!