I
The adventure that befell us on the way was also a surprising one. But I
must tell the story in due order. An hour before Stepan Trofimovitch
and I came out into the street, a crowd of people, the hands from
Shpigulins' factory, seventy or more in number, had been marching
through the town, and had been an object of curiosity to many
spectators. They walked intentionally in good order and almost in
silence. Afterwards it was asserted that these seventy had been elected
out of the whole number of factory hands, amounting to about nine
hundred, to go to the governor and to try and get from him, in the
absence of their employer, a just settlement of their grievances against
the manager, who, in closing the factory and dismissing the workmen, had
cheated them all in an impudent way--a fact which has since been proved
conclusively. Some people still deny that there was any election of
delegates, maintaining that seventy was too large a number to elect,
and that the crowd simply consisted of those who had been most unfairly
treated, and that they only came to ask for help in their own case, so
that the general "mutiny" of the factory workers, about which there
was such an uproar later on, had never existed at all. Others fiercely
maintained that these seventy men were not simple strikers but
revolutionists, that is, not merely that they were the most turbulent,
but that they must have been worked upon by seditious manifestoes.
The fact is, it is still uncertain whether there had been any outside
influence or incitement at work or not. My private opinion is that the
workmen had not read the seditious manifestoes at all, and if they had
read them, would not have understood one word, for one reason because
the authors of such literature write very obscurely in spite of the
boldness of their style. But as the workmen really were in a difficult
plight and the police to whom they appealed would not enter into their
grievances, what could be more natural than their idea of going in a
body to "the general himself" if possible, with the petition at their
head, forming up in an orderly way before his door, and as soon as he
showed himself, all falling on their knees and crying out to him as to
providence itself? To my mind there is no need to see in this a mutiny
or even a deputation, for it's a traditional, historical mode of
action; the Russian people have always loved to parley with "the general
himself" for the mere satisfaction of doing so, regardless of how the
conversation may end.
And so I am quite convinced that, even though Pyotr Stepanovitch,
Liputin, and perhaps some others--perhaps even Fedka too--had been
flitting about among the workpeople talking to them (and there is fairly
good evidence of this), they had only approached two, three, five at the
most, trying to sound them, and nothing had come of their conversation.
As for the mutiny they advocated, if the factory-workers did understand
anything of their propaganda, they would have left off listening to it
at once as to something stupid that had nothing to do with them. Fedka
was a different matter: he had more success, I believe, than Pyotr
Stepanovitch. Two workmen are now known for a fact to have assisted
Fedka in causing the fire in the town which occurred three days
afterwards, and a month later three men who had worked in the factory
were arrested for robbery and arson in the province. But if in these
cases Fedka did lure them to direct and immediate action, he could only
have succeeded with these five, for we heard of nothing of the sort
being done by others.
Be that as it may, the whole crowd of workpeople had at last reached the
open space in front of the governor's house and were drawn up there in
silence and good order. Then, gaping open-mouthed at the front door,
they waited. I am told that as soon as they halted they took off their
caps, that is, a good half-hour before the appearance of the governor,
who, as ill-luck would have it, was not at home at the moment. The
police made their appearance at once, at first individual policemen and
then as large a contingent of them as could be gathered together; they
began, of course, by being menacing, ordering them to break up. But
the workmen remained obstinately, like a flock of sheep at a fence, and
replied laconically that they had come to see "the general himself"; it
was evident that they were firmly determined. The unnatural shouting
of the police ceased, and was quickly succeeded by deliberations,
mysterious whispered instructions, and stern, fussy perplexity, which
wrinkled the brows of the police officers. The head of the police
preferred to await the arrival of the "governor himself." It was not
true that he galloped to the spot with three horses at full speed, and
began hitting out right and left before he alighted from his carriage.
It's true that he used to dash about and was fond of dashing about at
full speed in a carriage with a yellow back, and while his trace-horses,
who were so trained to carry their heads that they looked "positively
perverted," galloped more and more frantically, rousing the enthusiasm
of all the shopkeepers in the bazaar, he would rise up in the carriage,
stand erect, holding on by a strap which had been fixed on purpose at
the side, and with his right arm extended into space like a figure on a
monument, survey the town majestically. But in the present case he did
not use his fists, and though as he got out of the carriage he could not
refrain from a forcible expression, this was simply done to keep up
his popularity. There is a still more absurd story that soldiers were
brought up with bayonets, and that a telegram was sent for artillery and
Cossacks; those are legends which are not believed now even by those
who invented them. It's an absurd story, too, that barrels of water were
brought from the fire brigade, and that people were drenched with water
from them. The simple fact is that Ilya Ilyitch shouted in his heat that
he wouldn't let one of them come dry out of the water; probably this was
the foundation of the barrel legend which got into the columns of the
Petersburg and Moscow newspapers. Probably the most accurate version was
that at first all the available police formed a cordon round the crowd,
and a messenger was sent for Lembke, a police superintendent, who dashed
off in the carriage belonging to the head of the police on the way to
Skvoreshniki, knowing that Lembke had gone there in his carriage half an
hour before.
But I must confess that I am still unable to answer the question how
they could at first sight, from the first moment, have transformed an
insignificant, that is to say an ordinary, crowd of petitioners, even
though there were several of them, into a rebellion which threatened to
shake the foundations of the state. Why did Lembke himself rush at that
idea when he arrived twenty minutes after the messenger? I imagine (but
again it's only my private opinion) that it was to the interest of Ilya
Ilyitch, who was a crony of the factory manager's, to represent the
crowd in this light to Lembke, in order to prevent him from going into
the case; and Lembke himself had put the idea into his head. In the
course of the last two days, he had had two unusual and mysterious
conversations with him. It is true they were exceedingly obscure,
but Ilya Ilyitch was able to gather from them that the governor had
thoroughly made up his mind that there were political manifestoes, and
that Shpigulins' factory hands were being incited to a Socialist rising,
and that he was so persuaded of it that he would perhaps have regretted
it if the story had turned out to be nonsense. "He wants to get
distinction in Petersburg," our wily Ilya Ilyitch thought to himself as
he left Von Lembke; "well, that just suits me."
But I am convinced that poor Andrey Antonovitch would not have desired
a rebellion even for the sake of distinguishing himself. He was a most
conscientious official, who had lived in a state of innocence up to the
time of his marriage. And was it his fault that, instead of an innocent
allowance of wood from the government and an equally innocent Minnchen,
a princess of forty summers had raised him to her level? I know almost
for certain that the unmistakable symptoms of the mental condition
which brought poor Andrey Antonovitch to a well-known establishment in
Switzerland, where, I am told, he is now regaining his energies,
were first apparent on that fatal morning. But once we admit that
unmistakable signs of something were visible that morning, it may well
be allowed that similar symptoms may have been evident the day before,
though not so clearly. I happen to know from the most private sources
(well, you may assume that Yulia Mihailovna later on, not in triumph
but _almost_ in remorse--for a woman is incapable of _complete_
remorse--revealed part of it to me herself) that Andrey Antonovitch had
gone into his wife's room in the middle of the previous night, past
two o'clock in the morning, had waked her up, and had insisted on her
listening to his "ultimatum." He demanded it so insistently that she
was obliged to get up from her bed in indignation and curl-papers,
and, sitting down on a couch, she had to listen, though with sarcastic
disdain. Only then she grasped for the first time how far gone her
Andrey Antonovitch was, and was secretly horrified. She ought to have
thought what she was about and have been softened, but she concealed her
horror and was more obstinate than ever. Like every wife she had her
own method of treating Andrey Antonovitch, which she had tried more than
once already and with it driven him to frenzy. Yulia Mihailovna's method
was that of contemptuous silence, for one hour, two, a whole day and
almost for three days and nights--silence whatever happened, whatever he
said, whatever he did, even if he had clambered up to throw himself
out of a three-story window--a method unendurable for a sensitive man!
Whether Yulia Mihailovna meant to punish her husband for his blunders of
the last few days and the jealous envy he, as the chief authority in the
town, felt for her administrative abilities; whether she was indignant
at his criticism of her behaviour with the young people and local
society generally, and lack of comprehension of her subtle and
far-sighted political aims; or was angry with his stupid and senseless
jealousy of Pyotr Stepanovitch--however that may have been, she made
up her mind not to be softened even now, in spite of its being three
o'clock at night, and though Andrey Antonovitch was in a state of
emotion such as she had never seen him in before.
Pacing up and down in all directions over the rugs of her boudoir,
beside himself, he poured out everything, everything, quite
disconnectedly, it's true, but everything that had been rankling in
his heart, for--"it was outrageous." He began by saying that he was a
laughing-stock to every one and "was being led by the nose."
"Curse the expression," he squealed, at once catching her smile, "let it
stand, it's true.... No, madam, the time has come; let me tell you it's
not a time for laughter and feminine arts now. We are not in the boudoir
of a mincing lady, but like two abstract creatures in a balloon who have
met to speak the truth." (He was no doubt confused and could not find
the right words for his ideas, however just they were.) "It is you,
madam, you who have destroyed my happy past. I took up this post
simply for your sake, for the sake of your ambition.... You smile
sarcastically? Don't triumph, don't be in a hurry. Let me tell you,
madam, let me tell you that I should have been equal to this position,
and not only this position but a dozen positions like it, for I have
abilities; but with you, madam, with you--it's impossible, for with
you here I have no abilities. There cannot be two centres, and you have
created two--one of mine and one in your boudoir--two centres of power,
madam, but I won't allow it, I won't allow it! In the service, as in
marriage, there must be one centre, two are impossible.... How have you
repaid me?" he went on. "Our marriage has been nothing but your proving
to me all the time, every hour, that I am a nonentity, a fool, and
even a rascal, and I have been all the time, every hour, forced in a
degrading way to prove to you that I am not a nonentity, not a fool at
all, and that I impress every one with my honourable character. Isn't
that degrading for both sides?"
At this point he began rapidly stamping with both feet on the carpet,
so that Yulia Mihailovna was obliged to get up with stern dignity. He
subsided quickly, but passed to being pathetic and began sobbing (yes,
sobbing!), beating himself on the breast almost for five minutes,
getting more and more frantic at Yulia Mihailovna's profound silence. At
last he made a fatal blunder, and let slip that he was jealous of Pyotr
Stepanovitch. Realising that he had made an utter fool of himself, he
became savagely furious, and shouted that he "would not allow them to
deny God" and that he would "send her _salon_ of irresponsible infidels
packing," that the governor of a province was bound to believe in God
"and so his wife was too," that he wouldn't put up with these young
men; that "you, madam, for the sake of your own dignity, ought to have
thought of your husband and to have stood up for his intelligence even
if he were a man of poor abilities (and I'm by no means a man of poor
abilities!), and yet it's your doing that every one here despises me, it
was you put them all up to it!" He shouted that he would annihilate
the woman question, that he would eradicate every trace of it, that
to-morrow he would forbid and break up their silly fête for the benefit
of the governesses (damn them!), that the first governess he came across
to-morrow morning he would drive out of the province "with a Cossack!
I'll make a point of it!" he shrieked. "Do you know," he screamed, "do
you know that your rascals are inciting men at the factory, and that I
know it? Let me tell you, I know the names of four of these rascals and
that I am going out of my mind, hopelessly, hopelessly!..."
But at this point Yulia Mihailovna suddenly broke her silence and
sternly announced that she had long been aware of these criminal
designs, and that it was all foolishness, and that he had taken it too
seriously, and that as for these mischievous fellows, she knew not only
those four but all of them (it was a lie); but that she had not the
faintest intention of going out of her mind on account of it, but, on
the contrary, had all the more confidence in her intelligence and hoped
to bring it all to a harmonious conclusion: to encourage the young
people, to bring them to reason, to show them suddenly and unexpectedly
that their designs were known, and then to point out to them new aims
for rational and more noble activity.
Oh, how can I describe the effect of this on Andrey Antonovitch! Hearing
that Pyotr Stepanovitch had duped him again and had made a fool of him
so coarsely, that he had told her much more than he had told him, and
sooner than him, and that perhaps Pyotr Stepanovitch was the chief
instigator of all these criminal designs--he flew into a frenzy.
"Senseless but malignant woman," he cried, snapping his bonds at one
blow, "let me tell you, I shall arrest your worthless lover at once, I
shall put him in fetters and send him to the fortress, or--I shall jump
out of a window before your eyes this minute!"
Yulia Mihailovna, turning green with anger, greeted this tirade at once
with a burst of prolonged, ringing laughter, going off into peals such
as one hears at the French theatre when a Parisian actress, imported for
a fee of a hundred thousand to play a coquette, laughs in her husband's
face for daring to be jealous of her.
Von Lembke rushed to the window, but suddenly stopped as though rooted
to the spot, folded his arms across his chest, and, white as a corpse,
looked with a sinister gaze at the laughing lady. "Do you know, Yulia,
do you know," he said in a gasping and suppliant voice, "do you know
that even I can do something?" But at the renewed and even louder
laughter that followed his last words he clenched his teeth, groaned,
and suddenly rushed, not towards the window, but at his spouse, with his
fist raised! He did not bring it down--no, I repeat again and again, no;
but it was the last straw. He ran to his own room, not knowing what he
was doing, flung himself, dressed as he was, face downwards on his bed,
wrapped himself convulsively, head and all, in the sheet, and lay so for
two hours--incapable of sleep, incapable of thought, with a load on his
heart and blank, immovable despair in his soul. Now and then he shivered
all over with an agonising, feverish tremor. Disconnected and irrelevant
things kept coming into his mind: at one minute he thought of the old
clock which used to hang on his wall fifteen years ago in Petersburg and
had lost the minute-hand; at another of the cheerful clerk, Millebois,
and how they had once caught a sparrow together in Alexandrovsky
Park and had laughed so that they could be heard all over the park,
remembering that one of them was already a college assessor. I imagine
that about seven in the morning he must have fallen asleep without being
aware of it himself, and must have slept with enjoyment, with agreeable
dreams.
Waking about ten o'clock, he jumped wildly out of bed remembered
everything at once, and slapped himself on the head; he refused his
breakfast, and would see neither Blum nor the chief of the police nor
the clerk who came to remind him that he was expected to preside over
a meeting that morning; he would listen to nothing, and did not want to
understand. He ran like one possessed to Yulia Mihailovna's part of the
house. There Sofya Antropovna, an old lady of good family who had lived
for years with Yulia Mihailovna, explained to him that his wife had set
off at ten o'clock that morning with a large company in three carriages
to Varvara Petrovna Stavrogin's, to Skvoreshniki, to look over the place
with a view to the second fête which was planned for a fortnight later,
and that the visit to-day had been arranged with Varvara Petrovna three
days before. Overwhelmed with this news, Andrey Antonovitch returned to
his study and impulsively ordered the horses. He could hardly wait for
them to be got ready. His soul was hungering for Yulia Mihailovna--to
look at her, to be near her for five minutes; perhaps she would glance
at him, notice him, would smile as before, forgive him... "O-oh! Aren't
the horses ready?" Mechanically he opened a thick book lying on the
table. (He sometimes used to try his fortune in this way with a book,
opening it at random and reading the three lines at the top of the
right-hand page.) What turned up was: _"Tout est pour le mieux dans
le meilleur des mondes possibles."_--Voltaire, _Candide._ He uttered
an ejaculation of contempt and ran to get into the carriage.
"Skvoreshniki!"
The coachman said afterwards that his master urged him on all the way,
but as soon as they were getting near the mansion he suddenly told him
to turn and drive back to the town, bidding him "Drive fast; please
drive fast!" Before they reached the town wall "master told me to stop
again, got out of the carriage, and went across the road into the field;
I thought he felt ill but he stopped and began looking at the flowers,
and so he stood for a time. It was strange, really; I began to feel
quite uneasy." This was the coachman's testimony. I remember the weather
that morning: it was a cold, clear, but windy September day; before
Andrey Antonovitch stretched a forbidding landscape of bare fields from
which the crop had long been harvested; there were a few dying yellow
flowers, pitiful relics blown about by the howling wind. Did he want to
compare himself and his fate with those wretched flowers battered by the
autumn and the frost? I don't think so; in fact I feel sure it was
not so, and that he realised nothing about the flowers in spite of the
evidence of the coachman and of the police superintendent, who drove up
at that moment and asserted afterwards that he found the governor with
a bunch of yellow flowers in his hand. This police superintendent,
Flibusterov by name, was an ardent champion of authority who had only
recently come to our town but had already distinguished himself and
become famous by his inordinate zeal, by a certain vehemence in the
execution of his duties, and his inveterate inebriety. Jumping out of
the carriage, and not the least disconcerted at the sight of what the
governor was doing, he blurted out all in one breath, with a frantic
expression, yet with an air of conviction, that "There's an upset in the
town."
"Eh? What?" said Andrey Antonovitch, turning to him with a stern face,
but without a trace of surprise or any recollection of his carriage and
his coachman, as though he had been in his own study.
"Police-superintendent Flibusterov, your Excellency. There's a riot in
the town."
"Filibusters?" Andrey Antonovitch said thoughtfully.
"Just so, your Excellency. The Shpigulin men are making a riot."
"The Shpigulin men!..."
The name "Shpigulin" seemed to remind him of something. He started and
put his finger to his forehead: "The Shpigulin men!" In silence, and
still plunged in thought, he walked without haste to the carriage,
took his seat, and told the coachman to drive to the town. The
police-superintendent followed in the droshky.
I imagine that he had vague impressions of many interesting things of
all sorts on the way, but I doubt whether he had any definite idea or
any settled intention as he drove into the open space in front of his
house. But no sooner did he see the resolute and orderly ranks of "the
rioters," the cordon of police, the helpless (and perhaps purposely
helpless) chief of police, and the general expectation of which he was
the object, than all the blood rushed to his heart. With a pale face he
stepped out of his carriage.
"Caps off!" he said breathlessly and hardly audibly. "On your knees!"
he squealed, to the surprise of every one, to his own surprise too, and
perhaps the very unexpectedness of the position was the explanation of
what followed. Can a sledge on a switchback at carnival stop short as it
flies down the hill? What made it worse, Andrey Antonovitch had been all
his life serene in character, and never shouted or stamped at anyone;
and such people are always the most dangerous if it once happens that
something sets their sledge sliding downhill. Everything was whirling
before his eyes.
"Filibusters!" he yelled still more shrilly and absurdly, and his voice
broke. He stood, not knowing what he was going to do, but knowing
and feeling in his whole being that he certainly would do something
directly.
"Lord!" was heard from the crowd. A lad began crossing himself; three or
four men actually did try to kneel down, but the whole mass moved three
steps forward, and suddenly all began talking at once: "Your
Excellency... we were hired for a term... the manager... you mustn't
say," and so on and so on. It was impossible to distinguish anything.
Alas! Andrey Antonovitch could distinguish nothing: the flowers were
still in his hands. The riot was as real to him as the prison carts
were to Stepan Trofimovitch. And flitting to and fro in the crowd
of "rioters" who gazed open-eyed at him, he seemed to see Pyotr
Stepanovitch, who had egged them on--Pyotr Stepanovitch, whom he hated
and whose image had never left him since yesterday.
"Rods!" he cried even more unexpectedly. A dead silence followed.
From the facts I have learnt and those I have conjectured, this must
have been what happened at the beginning; but I have no such exact
information for what followed, nor can I conjecture it so easily. There
are some facts, however.
In the first place, rods were brought on the scene with strange
rapidity; they had evidently been got ready beforehand in expectation
by the intelligent chief of the police. Not more than two, or at most
three, were actually flogged, however; that fact I wish to lay stress
on. It's an absolute fabrication to say that the whole crowd of rioters,
or at least half of them, were punished. It is a nonsensical story,
too, that a poor but respectable lady was caught as she passed by
and promptly thrashed; yet I read myself an account of this incident
afterwards among the provincial items of a Petersburg newspaper. Many
people in the town talked of an old woman called Avdotya Petrovna
Tarapygin who lived in the almshouse by the cemetery. She was said,
on her way home from visiting a friend, to have forced her way into the
crowd of spectators through natural curiosity. Seeing what was going on,
she cried out, "What a shame!" and spat on the ground. For this it was
said she had been seized and flogged too. This story not only appeared
in print, but in our excitement we positively got up a subscription for
her benefit. I subscribed twenty kopecks myself. And would you believe
it? It appears now that there was no old woman called Tarapygin living
in the almshouse at all! I went to inquire at the almshouse by the
cemetery myself; they had never heard of anyone called Tarapygin there,
and, what's more, they were quite offended when I told them the story
that was going round. I mention this fabulous Avdotya Petrovna because
what happened to her (if she really had existed) very nearly happened
to Stepan Trofimovitch. Possibly, indeed, his adventure may have been at
the bottom of the ridiculous tale about the old woman, that is, as the
gossip went on growing he was transformed into this old dame.
What I find most difficult to understand is how he came to slip away
from me as soon as he got into the square. As I had a misgiving of
something very unpleasant, I wanted to take him round the square
straight to the entrance to the governor's, but my own curiosity was
roused, and I stopped only for one minute to question the first person
I came across, and suddenly I looked round and found Stepan Trofimovitch
no longer at my side. Instinctively I darted off to look for him in the
most dangerous place; something made me feel that his sledge, too, was
flying downhill. And I did, as a fact, find him in the very centre of
things. I remember I seized him by the arm; but he looked quietly and
proudly at me with an air of immense authority.
_"Cher,"_ he pronounced in a voice which quivered on a breaking note, "if
they are dealing with people so unceremoniously before us, in an open
square, what is to be expected from that man, for instance... if he
happens to act on his own authority?"
And shaking with indignation and with an intense desire to defy them, he
pointed a menacing, accusing finger at Flibusterov, who was gazing at us
open-eyed two paces away.
"That man!" cried the latter, blind with rage. "What man? And who are
you?" He stepped up to him, clenching his fist. "Who are you?" he roared
ferociously, hysterically, and desperately. (I must mention that he
knew Stepan Trofimovitch perfectly well by sight.) Another moment and he
would have certainly seized him by the collar; but luckily, hearing him
shout, Lembke turned his head. He gazed intensely but with perplexity
at Stepan Trofimovitch, seeming to consider something, and suddenly
he shook his hand impatiently. Flibusterov was checked. I drew Stepan
Trofimovitch out of the crowd, though perhaps he may have wished to
retreat himself.
"Home, home," I insisted; "it was certainly thanks to Lembke that we
were not beaten."
"Go, my friend; I am to blame for exposing you to this. You have
a future and a career of a sort before you, while I--_mon heure est
sonnée._"
He resolutely mounted the governor's steps. The hall-porter knew me; I
said that we both wanted to see Yulia Mihailovna.
We sat down in the waiting-room and waited. I was unwilling to leave my
friend, but I thought it unnecessary to say anything more to him. He had
the air of a man who had consecrated himself to certain death for the
sake of his country. We sat down, not side by side, but in different
corners--I nearer to the entrance, he at some distance facing me, with
his head bent in thought, leaning lightly on his stick. He held his
wide-brimmed hat in his left hand. We sat like that for ten minutes.
II
Lembke suddenly came in with rapid steps, accompanied by the chief of
police, looked absent-mindedly at us and, taking no notice of us, was
about to pass into his study on the right, but Stepan Trofimovitch stood
before him blocking his way. The tall figure of Stepan Trofimovitch, so
unlike other people, made an impression. Lembke stopped.
"Who is this?" he muttered, puzzled, as if he were questioning the chief
of police, though he did not turn his head towards him, and was all the
time gazing at Stepan Trofimovitch.
"Retired college assessor, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky, your
Excellency," answered Stepan Trofimovitch, bowing majestically. His
Excellency went on staring at him with a very blank expression, however.
"What is it?" And with the curtness of a great official he turned his
ear to Stepan Trofimovitch with disdainful impatience, taking him for an
ordinary person with a written petition of some sort.
"I was visited and my house was searched to-day by an official acting in
your Excellency's name; therefore I am desirous..."
"Name? Name?" Lembke asked impatiently, seeming suddenly to have an
inkling of something. Stepan Trofimovitch repeated his name still more
majestically.
"A-a-ah! It's... that hotbed... You have shown yourself, sir, in such a
light.... Are you a professor? a professor?"
"I once had the honour of giving some lectures to the young men of the X
university."
"The young men!" Lembke seemed to start, though I am ready to bet that
he grasped very little of what was going on or even, perhaps, did not
know with whom he was talking.
"That, sir, I won't allow," he cried, suddenly getting terribly angry.
"I won't allow young men! It's all these manifestoes? It's an assault
on society, sir, a piratical attack, filibustering.... What is your
request?"
"On the contrary, your wife requested me to read something to-morrow at
her fête. I've not come to make a request but to ask for my rights...."
"At the fête? There'll be no fête. I won't allow your fête. A lecture? A
lecture?" he screamed furiously.
"I should be very glad if you would speak to me rather more politely,
your Excellency, without stamping or shouting at me as though I were a
boy."
"Perhaps you understand whom you are speaking to?" said Lembke, turning
crimson.
"Perfectly, your Excellency."
"I am protecting society while you are destroying it!... You... I
remember about you, though: you used to be a tutor in the house of
Madame Stavrogin?"
"Yes, I was in the position... of tutor... in the house of Madame
Stavrogin."
"And have been for twenty years the hotbed of all that has now
accumulated... all the fruits.... I believe I saw you just now in the
square. You'd better look out, sir, you'd better look out; your way of
thinking is well known. You may be sure that I keep my eye on you. I
cannot allow your lectures, sir, I cannot. Don't come with such requests
to me."
He would have passed on again.
"I repeat that your Excellency is mistaken; it was your wife who asked
me to give, not a lecture, but a literary reading at the fête to-morrow.
But I decline to do so in any case now. I humbly request that you will
explain to me if possible how, why, and for what reason I was subjected
to an official search to-day? Some of my books and papers, private
letters to me, were taken from me and wheeled through the town in a
barrow."
"Who searched you?" said Lembke, starting and returning to full
consciousness of the position. He suddenly flushed all over. He turned
quickly to the chief of police. At that moment the long, stooping, and
awkward figure of Blum appeared in the doorway.
"Why, this official here," said Stepan Trofimovitch, indicating him. Blum
came forward with a face that admitted his responsibility but showed no
contrition.
_"Vous ne faites que des bêtises,"_ Lembke threw at him in a tone of
vexation and anger, and suddenly he was transformed and completely
himself again.
"Excuse me," he muttered, utterly disconcerted and turning absolutely
crimson, "all this... all this was probably a mere blunder, a
misunderstanding... nothing but a misunderstanding."
"Your Excellency," observed Stepan Trofimovitch, "once when I was young
I saw a characteristic incident. In the corridor of a theatre a man ran
up to another and gave him a sounding smack in the face before the whole
public. Perceiving at once that his victim was not the person whom he
had intended to chastise but someone quite different who only slightly
resembled him, he pronounced angrily, with the haste of one whose
moments are precious--as your Excellency did just now--'I've made
a mistake... excuse me, it was a misunderstanding, nothing but a
misunderstanding.' And when the offended man remained resentful and
cried out, he observed to him, with extreme annoyance: 'Why, I tell you
it was a misunderstanding. What are you crying out about?'"
"That's... that's very amusing, of course"--Lembke gave a wry
smile--"but... but can't you see how unhappy I am myself?"
He almost screamed, and seemed about to hide his face in his hands.
This unexpected and piteous exclamation, almost a sob, was almost more
than one could bear. It was probably the first moment since the previous
day that he had full, vivid consciousness of all that had happened--and
it was followed by complete, humiliating despair that could not be
disguised--who knows, in another minute he might have sobbed aloud.
For the first moment Stepan Trofimovitch looked wildly at him; then he
suddenly bowed his head and in a voice pregnant with feeling pronounced:
"Your Excellency, don't trouble yourself with my petulant complaint, and
only give orders for my books and letters to be restored to me...."
He was interrupted. At that very instant Yulia Mihailovna returned and
entered noisily with all the party which had accompanied her. But at
this point I should like to tell my story in as much detail as possible.
III
In the first place, the whole company who had filled three carriages
crowded into the waiting-room. There was a special entrance to Yulia
Mihailovna's apartments on the left as one entered the house; but on
this occasion they all went through the waiting-room--and I imagine just
because Stepan Trofimovitch was there, and because all that had happened
to him as well as the Shpigulin affair had reached Yulia Mihailovna's
ears as she drove into the town. Lyamshin, who for some misdemeanour
had not been invited to join the party and so knew all that had been
happening in the town before anyone else, brought her the news. With
spiteful glee he hired a wretched Cossack nag and hastened on the way
to Skvoreshniki to meet the returning cavalcade with the diverting
intelligence. I fancy that, in spite of her lofty determination, Yulia
Mihailovna was a little disconcerted on hearing such surprising news,
but probably only for an instant. The political aspect of the affair,
for instance, could not cause her uneasiness; Pyotr Stepanovitch had
impressed upon her three or four times that the Shpigulin ruffians ought
to be flogged, and Pyotr Stepanovitch certainly had for some time past
been a great authority in her eyes. "But... anyway, I shall make him pay
for it," she doubtless reflected, the "he," of course, referring to
her spouse. I must observe in passing that on this occasion, as though
purposely, Pyotr Stepanovitch had taken no part in the expedition,
and no one had seen him all day. I must mention too, by the way, that
Varvara Petrovna had come back to the town with her guests (in the
same carriage with Yulia Mihailovna) in order to be present at the last
meeting of the committee which was arranging the fête for the next day.
She too must have been interested, and perhaps even agitated, by the
news about Stepan Trofimovitch communicated by Lyamshin.
The hour of reckoning for Andrey Antonovitch followed at once. Alas! he
felt that from the first glance at his admirable wife. With an open air
and an enchanting smile she went quickly up to Stepan Trofimovitch, held
out her exquisitely gloved hand, and greeted him with a perfect shower
of flattering phrases--as though the only thing she cared about that
morning was to make haste to be charming to Stepan Trofimovitch because
at last she saw him in her house. There was not one hint of the search
that morning; it was as though she knew nothing of it. There was not one
word to her husband, not one glance in his direction--as though he
had not been in the room. What's more, she promptly confiscated Stepan
Trofimovitch and carried him off to the drawing-room--as though he had
had no interview with Lembke, or as though it was not worth prolonging
if he had. I repeat again, I think that in this, Yulia Mihailovna,
in spite of her aristocratic tone, made another great mistake. And
Karmazinov particularly did much to aggravate this. (He had taken part
in the expedition at Yulia Mihailovna's special request, and in that way
had, incidentally, paid his visit to Varvara Petrovna, and she was so
poor-spirited as to be perfectly delighted at it.) On seeing Stepan
Trofimovitch, he called out from the doorway (he came in behind the
rest) and pressed forward to embrace him, even interrupting Yulia
Mihailovna.
"What years, what ages! At last..._excellent ami._"
He made as though to kiss him, offering his cheek, of course, and Stepan
Trofimovitch was so fluttered that he could not avoid saluting it.
_"Cher,"_ he said to me that evening, recalling all the events of that
day, "I wondered at that moment which of us was the most contemptible:
he, embracing me only to humiliate me, or I, despising him and his face
and kissing it on the spot, though I might have turned away.... Foo!"
"Come, tell me about yourself, tell me everything," Karmazinov drawled
and lisped, as though it were possible for him on the spur of the moment
to give an account of twenty-five years of his life. But this foolish
trifling was the height of "chic."
"Remember that the last time we met was at the Granovsky dinner in
Moscow, and that twenty-four years have passed since then..." Stepan
Trofimovitch began very reasonably (and consequently not at all in the
same "chic" style).
_"Ce cher homme,"_ Karmazinov interrupted with shrill familiarity,
squeezing his shoulder with exaggerated friendliness. "Make haste and
take us to your room, Yulia Mihailovna; there he'll sit down and tell us
everything."
"And yet I was never at all intimate with that peevish old woman,"
Stepan Trofimovitch went on complaining to me that same evening, shaking
with anger; "we were almost boys, and I'd begun to detest him even
then... just as he had me, of course."
Yulia Mihailovna's drawing-room filled up quickly. Varvara Petrovna
was particularly excited, though she tried to appear indifferent, but
I caught her once or twice glancing with hatred at Karmazinov and with
wrath at Stepan Trofimovitch--the wrath of anticipation, the wrath of
jealousy and love: if Stepan Trofimovitch had blundered this time and
had let Karmazinov make him look small before every one, I believe she
would have leapt up and beaten him. I have forgotten to say that
Liza too was there, and I had never seen her more radiant, carelessly
light-hearted, and happy. Mavriky Nikolaevitch was there too, of course.
In the crowd of young ladies and rather vulgar young men who made up
Yulia Mihailovna's usual retinue, and among whom this vulgarity was
taken for sprightliness, and cheap cynicism for wit, I noticed two or
three new faces: a very obsequious Pole who was on a visit in the town;
a German doctor, a sturdy old fellow who kept loudly laughing with great
zest at his own wit; and lastly, a very young princeling from Petersburg
like an automaton figure, with the deportment of a state dignitary and
a fearfully high collar. But it was evident that Yulia Mihailovna had a
very high opinion of this visitor, and was even a little anxious of the
impression her salon was making on him.
_"Cher M. Karmazinov,"_ said Stepan Trofimovitch, sitting in a picturesque
pose on the sofa and suddenly beginning to lisp as daintily as
Karmazinov himself, "_cher M. Karmazinov,_ the life of a man of our time
and of certain convictions, even after an interval of twenty-five years,
is bound to seem monotonous..."
The German went off into a loud abrupt guffaw like a neigh, evidently
imagining that Stepan Trofimovitch had said something exceedingly funny.
The latter gazed at him with studied amazement but produced no effect
on him whatever. The prince, too, looked at the German, turning head,
collar and all, towards him and putting up his pince-nez, though without
the slightest curiosity.
"... Is bound to seem monotonous," Stepan Trofimovitch intentionally
repeated, drawling each word as deliberately and nonchalantly as
possible. "And so my life has been throughout this quarter of a century,
_et comme on trouve partout plus de moines que de raison,_ and as I am
entirely of this opinion, it has come to pass that throughout this
quarter of a century I..."
_"C'est charmant, les moines,"_ whispered Yulia Mihailovna, turning to
Varvara Petrovna, who was sitting beside her.
Varvara Petrovna responded with a look of pride. But Karmazinov could
not stomach the success of the French phrase, and quickly and shrilly
interrupted Stepan Trofimovitch.
"As for me, I am quite at rest on that score, and for the past seven
years I've been settled at Karlsruhe. And last year, when it was
proposed by the town council to lay down a new water-pipe, I felt in
my heart that this question of water-pipes in Karlsruhe was dearer and
closer to my heart than all the questions of my precious Fatherland...
in this period of so-called reform."
"I can't help sympathising, though it goes against the grain," sighed
Stepan Trofimovitch, bowing his head significantly.
Yulia Mihailovna was triumphant: the conversation was becoming profound
and taking a political turn.
"A drain-pipe?" the doctor inquired in a loud voice.
"A water-pipe, doctor, a water-pipe, and I positively assisted them in
drawing up the plan."
The doctor went off into a deafening guffaw. Many people followed his
example, laughing in the face of the doctor, who remained unconscious of
it and was highly delighted that every one was laughing.
"You must allow me to differ from you, Karmazinov," Yulia Mihailovna
hastened to interpose. "Karlsruhe is all very well, but you are fond
of mystifying people, and this time we don't believe you. What Russian
writer has presented so many modern types, has brought forward so many
contemporary problems, has put his finger on the most vital modern
points which make up the type of the modern man of action? You, only
you, and no one else. It's no use your assuring us of your coldness
towards your own country and your ardent interest in the water-pipes of
Karlsruhe. Ha ha!"
"Yes, no doubt," lisped Karmazinov. "I have portrayed in the character
of Pogozhev all the failings of the Slavophils and in the character of
Nikodimov all the failings of the Westerners...."
"I say, hardly _all!_" Lyamshin whispered slyly.
"But I do this by the way, simply to while away the tedious hours and to
satisfy the persistent demands of my fellow-countrymen."
"You are probably aware, Stepan Trofimovitch," Yulia Mihailovna went on
enthusiastically, "that to-morrow we shall have the delight of hearing
the charming lines... one of the last of Semyon Yakovlevitch's exquisite
literary inspirations--it's called _Merci._ He announces in this piece
that he will write no more, that nothing in the world will induce him
to, if angels from Heaven or, what's more, all the best society were to
implore him to change his mind. In fact he is laying down the pen for
good, and this graceful _Merci_ is addressed to the public in grateful
acknowledgment of the constant enthusiasm with which it has for so many
years greeted his unswerving loyalty to true Russian thought."
Yulia Mihailovna was at the acme of bliss.
"Yes, I shall make my farewell; I shall say my _Merci_ and depart and
there... in Karlsruhe... I shall close my eyes." Karmazinov was gradually
becoming maudlin.
Like many of our great writers (and there are numbers of them amongst
us), he could not resist praise, and began to be limp at once, in spite
of his penetrating wit. But I consider this is pardonable. They say that
one of our Shakespeares positively blurted out in private conversation
that "we _great men_ can't do otherwise," and so on, and, what's more, was
unaware of it.
"There in Karlsruhe I shall close my eyes. When we have done our duty,
all that's left for us great men is to make haste to close our eyes
without seeking a reward. I shall do so too."
"Give me the address and I shall come to Karlsruhe to visit your tomb,"
said the German, laughing immoderately.
"They send corpses by rail nowadays," one of the less important young
men said unexpectedly.
Lyamshin positively shrieked with delight. Yulia Mihailovna frowned.
Nikolay Stavrogin walked in.
"Why, I was told that you were locked up?" he said aloud, addressing
Stepan Trofimovitch before every one else.
"No, it was a case of unlocking," jested Stepan Trofimovitch.
"But I hope that what's happened will have no influence on what I asked
you to do," Yulia Mihailovna put in again. "I trust that you will not
let this unfortunate annoyance, of which I had no idea, lead you to
disappoint our eager expectations and deprive us of the enjoyment of
hearing your reading at our literary matinée."
"I don't know, I... now..."
"Really, I am so unlucky, Varvara Petrovna... and only fancy, just when
I was so longing to make the personal acquaintance of one of the
most remarkable and independent intellects of Russia--and here Stepan
Trofimovitch suddenly talks of deserting us."
"Your compliment is uttered so audibly that I ought to pretend not to
hear it," Stepan Trofimovitch said neatly, "but I cannot believe that
my insignificant presence is so indispensable at your fête to-morrow.
However, I..."
"Why, you'll spoil him!" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, bursting into the
room. "I've only just got him in hand--and in one morning he has been
searched, arrested, taken by the collar by a policeman, and here ladies
are cooing to him in the governor's drawing-room. Every bone in his body
is aching with rapture; in his wildest dreams he had never hoped for
such good fortune. Now he'll begin informing against the Socialists
after this!"
"Impossible, Pyotr Stepanovitch! Socialism is too grand an idea to
be unrecognised by Stepan Trofimovitch." Yulia Mihailovna took up the
gauntlet with energy.
"It's a great idea but its exponents are not always great men, _et
brisons-là, mon cher,_" Stepan Trofimovitch ended, addressing his son and
rising gracefully from his seat.
But at this point an utterly unexpected circumstance occurred. Von
Lembke had been in the room for some time but seemed unnoticed by
anyone, though every one had seen him come in. In accordance with her
former plan, Yulia Mihailovna went on ignoring him. He took up his
position near the door and with a stern face listened gloomily to the
conversation. Hearing an allusion to the events of the morning, he
began fidgeting uneasily, stared at the prince, obviously struck by his
stiffly starched, prominent collar; then suddenly he seemed to start on
hearing the voice of Pyotr Stepanovitch and seeing him burst in; and no
sooner had Stepan Trofimovitch uttered his phrase about Socialists than
Lembke went up to him, pushing against Lyamshin, who at once skipped out
of the way with an affected gesture of surprise, rubbing his shoulder
and pretending that he had been terribly bruised.
"Enough!" said Von Lembke to Stepan Trofimovitch, vigorously gripping
the hand of the dismayed gentleman and squeezing it with all his might
in both of his. "Enough! The filibusters of our day are unmasked. Not
another word. Measures have been taken...."
He spoke loudly enough to be heard by all the room, and concluded with
energy. The impression he produced was poignant. Everybody felt that
something was wrong. I saw Yulia Mihailovna turn pale. The effect was
heightened by a trivial accident. After announcing that measures had
been taken, Lembke turned sharply and walked quickly towards the door,
but he had hardly taken two steps when he stumbled over a rug, swerved
forward, and almost fell. For a moment he stood still, looked at the rug
at which he had stumbled, and, uttering aloud "Change it!" went out of
the room. Yulia Mihailovna ran after him. Her exit was followed by an
uproar, in which it was difficult to distinguish anything. Some said he
was "deranged," others that he was "liable to attacks"; others put their
fingers to their forehead; Lyamshin, in the corner, put his two fingers
above his forehead. People hinted at some domestic difficulties--in a
whisper, of course. No one took up his hat; all were waiting. I don't
know what Yulia Mihailovna managed to do, but five minutes later she
came back, doing her utmost to appear composed. She replied evasively
that Andrey Antonovitch was rather excited, but that it meant nothing,
that he had been like that from a child, that she knew "much better,"
and that the fête next day would certainly cheer him up. Then followed a
few flattering words to Stepan Trofimovitch simply from civility, and a
loud invitation to the members of the committee to open the meeting now,
at once. Only then, all who were not members of the committee prepared
to go home; but the painful incidents of this fatal day were not yet
over.
I noticed at the moment when Nikolay Stavrogin came in that Liza looked
quickly and intently at him and was for a long time unable to take her
eyes off him--so much so that at last it attracted attention. I saw
Mavriky Nikolaevitch bend over her from behind; he seemed to mean to
whisper something to her, but evidently changed his intention and drew
himself up quickly, looking round at every one with a guilty air. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch too excited curiosity; his face was paler than usual and
there was a strangely absent-minded look in his eyes. After flinging
his question at Stepan Trofimovitch he seemed to forget about him
altogether, and I really believe he even forgot to speak to his hostess.
He did not once look at Liza--not because he did not want to, but I am
certain because he did not notice her either. And suddenly, after the
brief silence that followed Yulia Mihailovna's invitation to open the
meeting without loss of time, Liza's musical voice, intentionally loud,
was heard. She called to Stavrogin.
"Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, a captain who calls himself a relation of
yours, the brother of your wife, and whose name is Lebyadkin, keeps
writing impertinent letters to me, complaining of you and offering to
tell me some secrets about you. If he really is a connection of yours,
please tell him not to annoy me, and save me from this unpleasantness."
There was a note of desperate challenge in these words--every one
realised it. The accusation was unmistakable, though perhaps it was a
surprise to herself. She was like a man who shuts his eyes and throws
himself from the roof.
But Nikolay Stavrogin's answer was even more astounding.
To begin with, it was strange that he was not in the least surprised and
listened to Liza with unruffled attention. There was no trace of either
confusion or anger in his face. Simply, firmly, even with an air of
perfect readiness, he answered the fatal question:
"Yes, I have the misfortune to be connected with that man. I have been
the husband of his sister for nearly five years. You may be sure I will
give him your message as soon as possible, and I'll answer for it that
he shan't annoy you again."
I shall never forget the horror that was reflected on the face of
Varvara Petrovna. With a distracted air she got up from her seat,
lifting up her right hand as though to ward off a blow. Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch looked at her, looked at Liza, at the spectators, and
suddenly smiled with infinite disdain; he walked deliberately out of the
room. Every one saw how Liza leapt up from the sofa as soon as he
turned to go and unmistakably made a movement to run after him. But she
controlled herself and did not run after him; she went quietly out of
the room without saying a word or even looking at anyone, accompanied,
of course, by Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who rushed after her.
The uproar and the gossip that night in the town I will not attempt to
describe. Varvara Petrovna shut herself up in her town house and Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, it was said, went straight to Skvoreshniki without
seeing his mother. Stepan Trofimovitch sent me that evening to _cette
chère amie_ to implore her to allow him to come to her, but she would not
see me. He was terribly overwhelmed; he shed tears. "Such a marriage!
Such a marriage! Such an awful thing in the family!" he kept repeating.
He remembered Karmazinov, however, and abused him terribly. He set
to work vigorously to prepare for the reading too and--the artistic
temperament!--rehearsed before the looking-glass and went over all the
jokes and witticisms uttered in the course of his life which he had
written down in a separate notebook, to insert into his reading next
day.
"My dear, I do this for the sake of a great idea," he said to me,
obviously justifying himself. "_Cher ami,_ I have been stationary for
twenty-five years and suddenly I've begun to move--whither, I know
not--but I've begun to move...."
PART III
CHAPTER I. THE FETE--FIRST PART
I
The fête took place in spite of all the perplexities of the preceding
"Shpigulin" day. I believe that even if Lembke had died the previous
night, the fête would still have taken place next morning--so peculiar
was the significance Yulia Mihailovna attached to it. Alas! up to the
last moment she was blind and had no inkling of the state of public
feeling. No one believed at last that the festive day would pass without
some tremendous scandal, some "catastrophe" as some people expressed it,
rubbing their hands in anticipation. Many people, it is true, tried to
assume a frowning and diplomatic countenance; but, speaking generally,
every Russian is inordinately delighted at any public scandal and
disorder. It is true that we did feel something much more serious
than the mere craving for a scandal: there was a general feeling
of irritation, a feeling of implacable resentment; every one seemed
thoroughly disgusted with everything. A kind of bewildered cynicism, a
forced, as it were, strained cynicism was predominant in every one. The
only people who were free from bewilderment were the ladies, and they
were clear on only one point: their remorseless detestation of Yulia
Mihailovna. Ladies of all shades of opinion were agreed in this. And
she, poor dear, had no suspicion; up to the last hour she was persuaded
that she was "surrounded by followers," and that they were still
"fanatically devoted to her."
I have already hinted that some low fellows of different sorts had
made their appearance amongst us. In turbulent times of upheaval or
transition low characters always come to the front everywhere. I am
not speaking now of the so-called "advanced" people who are always in a
hurry to be in advance of every one else (their absorbing anxiety) and
who always have some more or less definite, though often very stupid,
aim. No, I am speaking only of the riff-raff. In every period of
transition this riff-raff, which exists in every society, rises to the
surface, and is not only without any aim but has not even a symptom of
an idea, and merely does its utmost to give expression to uneasiness and
impatience. Moreover, this riff-raff almost always falls unconsciously
under the control of the little group of "advanced people" who do act
with a definite aim, and this little group can direct all this rabble
as it pleases, if only it does not itself consist of absolute idiots,
which, however, is sometimes the case. It is said among us now that it
is all over, that Pyotr Stepanovitch was directed by the _Internationale,_
and Yulia Mihailovna by Pyotr Stepanovitch, while she controlled, under
his rule, a rabble of all sorts. The more sober minds amongst us wonder
at themselves now, and can't understand how they came to be so foolish
at the time.
What constituted the turbulence of our time and what transition it was
we were passing through I don't know, nor I think does anyone, unless
it were some of those visitors of ours. Yet the most worthless fellows
suddenly gained predominant influence, began loudly criticising
everything sacred, though till then they had not dared to open their
mouths, while the leading people, who had till then so satisfactorily
kept the upper hand, began listening to them and holding their peace,
some even simpered approval in a most shameless way. People like
Lyamshin and Telyatnikov, like Gogol's Tentyotnikov, drivelling
home-bred editions of Radishtchev, wretched little Jews with a mournful
but haughty smile, guffawing foreigners, poets of advanced tendencies
from the capital, poets who made up with peasant coats and tarred boots
for the lack of tendencies or talents, majors and colonels who ridiculed
the senselessness of the service, and who would have been ready for an
extra rouble to unbuckle their swords, and take jobs as railway clerks;
generals who had abandoned their duties to become lawyers; advanced
mediators, advancing merchants, innumerable divinity students, women
who were the embodiment of the woman question--all these suddenly gained
complete sway among us and over whom? Over the club, the venerable
officials, over generals with wooden legs, over the very strict and
inaccessible ladies of our local society. Since even Varvara Petrovna
was almost at the beck and call of this rabble, right up to the time
of the catastrophe with her son, our other local Minervas may well be
pardoned for their temporary aberration. Now all this is attributed,
as I have mentioned already, to the _Internationale._ This idea has taken
such root that it is given as the explanation to visitors from other
parts. Only lately councillor Kubrikov, a man of sixty-two, with the
Stanislav Order on his breast, came forward uninvited and confessed in
a voice full of feeling that he had beyond a shadow of doubt been for
fully three months under the influence of the _Internationale._ When with
every deference for his years and services he was invited to be more
definite, he stuck firmly to his original statement, though he could
produce no evidence except that "he had felt it in all his feelings," so
that they cross-examined him no further.
I repeat again, there was still even among us a small group who held
themselves aloof from the beginning, and even locked themselves up. But
what lock can stand against a law of nature? Daughters will grow up even
in the most careful families, and it is essential for grown-up daughters
to dance.
And so all these people, too, ended by subscribing to the governesses'
fund.
The ball was assumed to be an entertainment so brilliant, so
unprecedented; marvels were told about it; there were rumours of princes
from a distance with lorgnettes; of ten stewards, all young dandies,
with rosettes on their left shoulder; of some Petersburg people who
were setting the thing going; there was a rumour that Karmazinov had
consented to increase the subscriptions to the fund by reading his _Merci_
in the costume of the governesses of the district; that there would be
a literary quadrille all in costume, and every costume would symbolise
some special line of thought; and finally that "honest Russian thought"
would dance in costume--which would certainly be a complete novelty in
itself. Who could resist subscribing? Every one subscribed.
II
The programme of the fête was divided into two parts: the literary
matinée from midday till four o'clock, and afterwards a ball from ten
o'clock onwards through the night. But in this very programme there lay
concealed germs of disorder. In the first place, from the very beginning
a rumour had gained ground among the public concerning a luncheon
immediately after the literary matinée, or even while it was going
on, during an interval arranged expressly for it--a free luncheon, of
course, which would form part of the programme and be accompanied by
champagne. The immense price of the tickets (three roubles) tended to
confirm this rumour. "As though one would subscribe for nothing? The
fête is arranged for twenty-four hours, so food must be provided. People
will get hungry." This was how people reasoned in the town. I must admit
that Yulia Mihailovna did much to confirm this disastrous rumour by her
own heedlessness. A month earlier, under the first spell of the great
project, she would babble about it to anyone she met; and even sent a
paragraph to one of the Petersburg papers about the toasts and speeches
arranged for her fête. What fascinated her most at that time was
the idea of these toasts; she wanted to propose them herself and was
continually composing them in anticipation. They were to make clear what
was their banner (what was it? I don't mind betting that the poor dear
composed nothing after all), they were to get into the Petersburg and
Moscow papers, to touch and fascinate the higher powers and then to
spread the idea over all the provinces of Russia, rousing people to
wonder and imitation.
But for toasts, champagne was essential, and as champagne can't be
drunk on an empty stomach, it followed that a lunch was essential too.
Afterwards, when by her efforts a committee had been formed and had
attacked the subject more seriously, it was proved clearly to her at
once that if they were going to dream of banquets there would be very
little left for the governesses, however well people subscribed. There
were two ways out of the difficulty: either Belshazzar's feast with
toasts and speeches, and ninety roubles for the governesses, or a
considerable sum of money with the fête only as a matter of form to
raise it. The committee, however, only wanted to scare her, and had of
course worked out a third course of action, which was reasonable and
combined the advantages of both, that is, a very decent fête in every
respect only without champagne, and so yielding a very respectable sum,
much more than ninety roubles. But Yulia Mihailovna would not agree to
it: her proud spirit revolted from paltry compromise. She decided at
once that if the original idea could not be carried out they should rush
to the opposite extreme, that is, raise an enormous subscription that
would be the envy of other provinces. "The public must understand,"
she said at the end of her flaming speech to the committee, "that
the attainment of an object of universal human interest is infinitely
loftier than the corporeal enjoyments of the passing moment, that the
fête in its essence is only the proclamation of a great idea, and so we
ought to be content with the most frugal German ball simply as a symbol,
that is, if we can't dispense with this detestable ball altogether,"
so great was the aversion she suddenly conceived for it. But she was
pacified at last. It was then that "the literary quadrille" and the
other æsthetic items were invented and proposed as substitutes for the
corporeal enjoyments. It was then that Karmazinov finally consented to
read _Merci_ (until then he had only tantalised them by his hesitation) and
so eradicate the very idea of victuals from the minds of our incontinent
public. So the ball was once more to be a magnificent function, though
in a different style. And not to be too ethereal it was decided that tea
with lemon and round biscuits should be served at the beginning of the
ball, and later on "orchade" and lemonade and at the end even ices--but
nothing else. For those who always and everywhere are hungry and, still
more, thirsty, they might open a buffet in the farthest of the suite of
rooms and put it in charge of Prohorovitch, the head cook of the club,
who would, subject to the strict supervision of the committee, serve
whatever was wanted, at a fixed charge, and a notice should be put up
on the door of the hall that refreshments were extra. But on the morning
they decided not to open the buffet at all for fear of disturbing the
reading, though the buffet would have been five rooms off the White Hall
in which Karmazinov had consented to read _Merci._
It is remarkable that the committee, and even the most practical people
in it, attached enormous consequence to this reading. As for people
of poetical tendencies, the marshal's wife, for instance, informed
Karmazinov that after the reading she would immediately order a marble
slab to be put up in the wall of the White Hall with an inscription
in gold letters, that on such a day and year, here, in this place, the
great writer of Russia and of Europe had read _Merci_ on laying aside his
pen, and so had for the first time taken leave of the Russian public
represented by the leading citizens of our town, and that this
inscription would be read by all at the ball, that is, only five hours
after _Merci_ had been read. I know for a fact that Karmazinov it was who
insisted that there should be no buffet in the morning on any account,
while he was reading, in spite of some protests from members of the
committee that this was rather opposed to our way of doing things.
This was the position of affairs, while in the town people were still
reckoning on a Belshazzar feast, that is, on refreshments provided by
the committee; they believed in this to the last hour. Even the young
ladies were dreaming of masses of sweets and preserves, and something
more beyond their imagination. Every one knew that the subscriptions had
reached a huge sum, that all the town was struggling to go, that people
were driving in from the surrounding districts, and that there were
not tickets enough. It was known, too, that there had been some large
subscriptions apart from the price paid for tickets: Varvara Petrovna,
for instance, had paid three hundred roubles for her ticket and had
given almost all the flowers from her conservatory to decorate the room.
The marshal's wife, who was a member of the committee, provided the
house and the lighting; the club furnished the music, the attendants,
and gave up Prohorovitch for the whole day. There were other
contributions as well, though lesser ones, so much so indeed that the
idea was mooted of cutting down the price of tickets from three roubles
to two. Indeed, the committee were afraid at first that three roubles
would be too much for young ladies to pay, and suggested that they might
have family tickets, so that every family should pay for one daughter
only, while the other young ladies of the family, even if there were a
dozen specimens, should be admitted free. But all their apprehensions
turned out to be groundless: it was just the young ladies who did come.
Even the poorest clerks brought their girls, and it was quite evident
that if they had had no girls it would never have occurred to them to
subscribe for tickets. One insignificant little secretary brought all
his seven daughters, to say nothing of his wife and a niece into the
bargain, and every one of these persons held in her hand an entrance
ticket that cost three roubles.
It may be imagined what an upheaval it made in the town! One has only to
remember that as the fête was divided into two parts every lady needed
two costumes for the occasion--a morning one for the matinée and a
ball dress for the evening. Many middle-class people, as it appeared
afterwards, had pawned everything they had for that day, even the family
linen, even the sheets, and possibly the mattresses, to the Jews, who
had been settling in our town in great numbers during the previous two
years and who became more and more numerous as time went on. Almost all
the officials had asked for their salary in advance, and some of the
landowners sold beasts they could ill spare, and all simply to bring
their ladies got up as marchionesses, and to be as good as anybody. The
magnificence of dresses on this occasion was something unheard of in our
neighbourhood. For a fortnight beforehand the town was overflowing with
funny stories which were all brought by our wits to Yulia Mihailovna's
court. Caricatures were passed from hand to hand. I have seen some
drawings of the sort myself, in Yulia Mihailovna's album. All this
reached the ears of the families who were the source of the jokes; I
believe this was the cause of the general hatred of Yulia Mihailovna
which had grown so strong in the town. People swear and gnash their
teeth when they think of it now. But it was evident, even at the time,
that if the committee were to displease them in anything, or if anything
went wrong at the ball, the outburst of indignation would be something
surprising. That's why every one was secretly expecting a scandal; and
if it was so confidently expected, how could it fail to come to pass?
The orchestra struck up punctually at midday. Being one of the stewards,
that is, one of the twelve "young men with a rosette," I saw with my own
eyes how this day of ignominious memory began. It began with an enormous
crush at the doors. How was it that everything, including the police,
went wrong that day? I don't blame the genuine public: the fathers of
families did not crowd, nor did they push against anyone, in spite of
their position. On the contrary, I am told that they were disconcerted
even in the street, at the sight of the crowd shoving in a way unheard
of in our town, besieging the entry and taking it by assault, instead
of simply going in. Meanwhile the carriages kept driving up, and at last
blocked the street. Now, at the time I write, I have good grounds for
affirming that some of the lowest rabble of our town were brought in
without tickets by Lyamshin and Liputin, possibly, too, by other people
who were stewards like me. Anyway, some complete strangers, who had come
from the surrounding districts and elsewhere, were present. As soon as
these savages entered the hall they began asking where the buffet was,
as though they had been put up to it beforehand, and learning that
there was no buffet they began swearing with brutal directness, and an
unprecedented insolence; some of them, it is true, were drunk when they
came. Some of them were dazed like savages at the splendour of the
hall, as they had never seen anything like it, and subsided for a minute
gazing at it open-mouthed. This great White Hall really was magnificent,
though the building was falling into decay: it was of immense size, with
two rows of windows, with an old-fashioned ceiling covered with gilt
carving, with a gallery with mirrors on the walls, red and white
draperies, marble statues (nondescript but still statues) with heavy old
furniture of the Napoleonic period, white and gold, upholstered in red
velvet. At the moment I am describing, a high platform had been put
up for the literary gentlemen who were to read, and the whole hall was
filled with chairs like the parterre of a theatre with wide aisles for
the audience.
But after the first moments of surprise the most senseless questions and
protests followed. "Perhaps we don't care for a reading.... We've paid
our money.... The audience has been impudently swindled.... This is our
entertainment, not the Lembkes!" They seemed, in fact, to have been
let in for this purpose. I remember specially an encounter in which the
princeling with the stand-up collar and the face of a Dutch doll, whom I
had met the morning before at Yulia Mihailovna's, distinguished himself.
He had, at her urgent request, consented to pin a rosette on his left
shoulder and to become one of our stewards. It turned out that this dumb
wax figure could act after a fashion of his own, if he could not talk.
When a colossal pockmarked captain, supported by a herd of rabble
following at his heels, pestered him by asking "which way to the
buffet?" he made a sign to a police sergeant. His hint was promptly
acted upon, and in spite of the drunken captain's abuse he was
dragged out of the hall. Meantime the genuine public began to make its
appearance, and stretched in three long files between the chairs. The
disorderly elements began to subside, but the public, even the most
"respectable" among them, had a dissatisfied and perplexed air; some of
the ladies looked positively scared.
At last all were seated; the music ceased. People began blowing their
noses and looking about them. They waited with too solemn an air--which
is always a bad sign. But nothing was to be seen yet of the Lembkes.
Silks, velvets, diamonds glowed and sparkled on every side; whiffs of
fragrance filled the air. The men were wearing all their decorations,
and the old men were even in uniform. At last the marshal's wife came in
with Liza. Liza had never been so dazzlingly charming or so splendidly
dressed as that morning. Her hair was done up in curls, her eyes
sparkled, a smile beamed on her face. She made an unmistakable
sensation: people scrutinised her and whispered about her. They said
that she was looking for Stavrogin, but neither Stavrogin nor Varvara
Petrovna were there. At the time I did not understand the expression
of her face: why was there so much happiness, such joy, such energy and
strength in that face? I remembered what had happened the day before and
could not make it out.
But still the Lembkes did not come. This was distinctly a blunder. I
learned that Yulia Mihailovna waited till the last minute for Pyotr
Stepanovitch, without whom she could not stir a step, though she never
admitted it to herself. I must mention, in parenthesis, that on the
previous day Pyotr Stepanovitch had at the last meeting of the committee
declined to wear the rosette of a steward, which had disappointed her
dreadfully, even to the point of tears. To her surprise and, later on,
her extreme discomfiture (to anticipate things) he vanished for the
whole morning and did not make his appearance at the literary matinée at
all, so that no one met him till evening. At last the audience began
to manifest unmistakable signs of impatience. No one appeared on the
platform either. The back rows began applauding, as in a theatre. The
elderly gentlemen and the ladies frowned. "The Lembkes are really giving
themselves unbearable airs." Even among the better part of the audience
an absurd whisper began to gain ground that perhaps there would not be a
fête at all, that Lembke perhaps was really unwell, and so on and so
on. But, thank God, the Lembkes at last appeared, she was leaning on
his arm; I must confess I was in great apprehension myself about
their appearance. But the legends were disproved, and the truth
was triumphant. The audience seemed relieved. Lembke himself seemed
perfectly well. Every one, I remember, was of that opinion, for it
can be imagined how many eyes were turned on him. I may mention,
as characteristic of our society, that there were very few of the
better-class people who saw reason to suppose that there was anything
wrong with him; his conduct seemed to them perfectly normal, and so much
so that the action he had taken in the square the morning before was
accepted and approved.
"That's how it should have been from the first," the higher officials
declared. "If a man begins as a philanthropist he has to come to the
same thing in the end, though he does not see that it was necessary
from the point of view of philanthropy itself"--that, at least, was the
opinion at the club. They only blamed him for having lost his temper.
"It ought to have been done more coolly, but there, he is a new man,"
said the authorities.
All eyes turned with equal eagerness to Yulia Mihailovna. Of course no
one has the right to expect from me an exact account in regard to one
point: that is a mysterious, a feminine question. But I only know one
thing: on the evening of the previous day she had gone into Andrey
Antonovitch's study and was there with him till long after midnight.
Andrey Antonovitch was comforted and forgiven. The husband and wife came
to a complete understanding, everything was forgotten, and when at
the end of the interview Lembke went down on his knees, recalling with
horror the final incident of the previous night, the exquisite hand,
and after it the lips of his wife, checked the fervent flow of penitent
phrases of the chivalrously delicate gentleman who was limp with
emotion. Every one could see the happiness in her face. She walked in
with an open-hearted air, wearing a magnificent dress. She seemed to
be at the very pinnacle of her heart's desires, the fête--the goal and
crown of her diplomacy--was an accomplished fact. As they walked
to their seats in front of the platform, the Lembkes bowed in all
directions and responded to greetings. They were at once surrounded. The
marshal's wife got up to meet them.
But at that point a horrid misunderstanding occurred; the orchestra,
apropos of nothing, struck up a flourish, not a triumphal march of any
kind, but a simple flourish such as was played at the club when some
one's health was drunk at an official dinner. I know now that Lyamshin,
in his capacity of steward, had arranged this, as though in honour of
the Lembkes' entrance. Of course he could always excuse it as a blunder
or excessive zeal.... Alas! I did not know at the time that they no
longer cared even to find excuses, and that all such considerations were
from that day a thing of the past. But the flourish was not the end of
it: in the midst of the vexatious astonishment and the smiles of the
audience there was a sudden "hurrah" from the end of the hall and from
the gallery also, apparently in Lembke's honour. The hurrahs were few,
but I must confess they lasted for some time. Yulia Mihailovna flushed,
her eyes flashed. Lembke stood still at his chair, and turning towards
the voices sternly and majestically scanned the audience.... They
hastened to make him sit down. I noticed with dismay the same dangerous
smile on his face as he had worn the morning before, in his wife's
drawing-room, when he stared at Stepan Trofimovitch before going up to
him. It seemed to me that now, too, there was an ominous, and, worst of
all, a rather comic expression on his countenance, the expression of a
man resigned to sacrifice himself to satisfy his wife's lofty aims....
Yulia Mihailovna beckoned to me hurriedly, and whispered to me to run
to Karmazinov and entreat him to begin. And no sooner had I turned away
than another disgraceful incident, much more unpleasant than the first,
took place.
On the platform, the empty platform, on which till that moment all eyes
and all expectations were fastened, and where nothing was to be seen but
a small table, a chair in front of it, and on the table a glass of water
on a silver salver--on the empty platform there suddenly appeared the
colossal figure of Captain Lebyadkin wearing a dress-coat and a white
tie. I was so astounded I could not believe my eyes. The captain seemed
confused and remained standing at the back of the platform. Suddenly
there was a shout in the audience, "Lebyadkin! You?" The captain's
stupid red face (he was hopelessly drunk) expanded in a broad vacant
grin at this greeting. He raised his hand, rubbed his forehead with it,
shook his shaggy head and, as though making up his mind to go through
with it, took two steps forward and suddenly went off into a series
of prolonged, blissful, gurgling, but not loud guffaws, which made him
screw up his eyes and set all his bulky person heaving. This spectacle
set almost half the audience laughing, twenty people applauded. The
serious part of the audience looked at one another gloomily; it all
lasted only half a minute, however. Liputin, wearing his steward's
rosette, ran on to the platform with two servants; they carefully took
the captain by both arms, while Liputin whispered something to him.
The captain scowled, muttered "Ah, well, if that's it!" waved his hand,
turned his huge back to the public and vanished with his escort. But a
minute later Liputin skipped on to the platform again. He was wearing
the sweetest of his invariable smiles, which usually suggested vinegar
and sugar, and carried in his hands a sheet of note-paper. With tiny but
rapid steps he came forward to the edge of the platform.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, addressing the public, "through our
inadvertency there has arisen a comical misunderstanding which has been
removed; but I've hopefully undertaken to do something at the earnest
and most respectful request of one of our local poets. Deeply touched by
the humane and lofty object... in spite of his appearance... the object
which has brought us all together... to wipe away the tears of the poor
but well-educated girls of our province... this gentleman, I mean this
local poet... although desirous of preserving his incognito, would
gladly have heard his poem read at the beginning of the ball... that is,
I mean, of the matinée. Though this poem is not in the programme...
for it has only been received half an hour ago... yet it has seemed to
_us_"--(Us? Whom did he mean by us? I report his confused and incoherent
speech word for word)--"that through its remarkable naïveté of feeling,
together with its equally remarkable gaiety, the poem might well be
read, that is, not as something serious, but as something appropriate to
the occasion, that is to the idea... especially as some lines... And I
wanted to ask the kind permission of the audience."
"Read it!" boomed a voice at the back of the hall.
"Then I am to read it?"
"Read it, read it!" cried many voices.
"With the permission of the audience I will read it," Liputin minced
again, still with the same sugary smile. He still seemed to hesitate,
and I even thought that he was rather excited. These people are
sometimes nervous in spite of their impudence. A divinity student would
have carried it through without winking, but Liputin did, after all,
belong to the last generation.
"I must say, that is, I have the honour to say by way of preface, that
it is not precisely an ode such as used to be written for fêtes, but is
rather, so to say, a jest, but full of undoubted feeling, together with
playful humour, and, so to say, the most realistic truthfulness."
"Read it, read it!"
He unfolded the paper. No one of course was in time to stop him.
Besides, he was wearing his steward's badge. In a ringing voice he
declaimed:
"To the local governesses of the Fatherland from the poet at the fête:
"Governesses all, good morrow,
Triumph on this festive day.
Retrograde or vowed George-Sander--
Never mind, just frisk away!"
"But that's Lebyadkin's! Lebyadkin's!" cried several voices. There was
laughter and even applause, though not from very many.
"Teaching French to wet-nosed children,
You are glad enough to think
You can catch a worn-out sexton--
Even he is worth a wink!"
"Hurrah! hurrah!"
"But in these great days of progress,
Ladies, to your sorrow know,
You can't even catch a sexton,
If you have not got a 'dot'."
"To be sure, to be sure, that's realism. You can't hook a husband
without a 'dot'!"
"But, henceforth, since through our feasting
Capital has flowed from all,
And we send you forth to conquest
Dancing, dowried from this hall--
Retrograde or vowed George-Sander,
Never mind, rejoice you may,
You're a governess with a dowry,
Spit on all and frisk away!"
I must confess I could not believe my ears. The insolence of it was so
unmistakable that there was no possibility of excusing Liputin on
the ground of stupidity. Besides, Liputin was by no means stupid. The
intention was obvious, to me, anyway; they seemed in a hurry to create
disorder. Some lines in these idiotic verses, for instance the last,
were such that no stupidity could have let them pass. Liputin himself
seemed to feel that he had undertaken too much; when he had achieved
his exploit he was so overcome by his own impudence that he did not even
leave the platform but remained standing, as though there were something
more he wanted to say. He had probably imagined that it would somehow
produce a different effect; but even the group of ruffians who had
applauded during the reading suddenly sank into silence, as though they,
too, were overcome. What was silliest of all, many of them took the
whole episode seriously, that is, did not regard the verses as a lampoon
but actually thought it realistic and true as regards the governesses--a
poem with a tendency, in fact. But the excessive freedom of the verses
struck even them at last; as for the general public they were not only
scandalised but obviously offended. I am sure I am not mistaken as to
the impression. Yulia Mihailovna said afterwards that in another moment
she would have fallen into a swoon. One of the most respectable old
gentlemen helped his old wife on to her feet, and they walked out of the
hall accompanied by the agitated glances of the audience. Who knows,
the example might have infected others if Karmazinov himself, wearing a
dress-coat and a white tie and carrying a manuscript, in his hand, had
not appeared on the platform at that moment. Yulia Mihailovna turned
an ecstatic gaze at him as on her deliverer.... But I was by that time
behind the scenes. I was in quest of Liputin.
"You did that on purpose!" I said, seizing him indignantly by the arm.
"I assure you I never thought..." he began, cringing and lying at once,
pretending to be unhappy. "The verses had only just been brought and I
thought that as an amusing pleasantry...."
"You did not think anything of the sort. You can't really think that
stupid rubbish an amusing pleasantry?"
"Yes, I do."
"You are simply lying, and it wasn't brought to you just now. You helped
Lebyadkin to compose it yourself, yesterday very likely, to create a
scandal. The last verse must have been yours, the part about the sexton
too. Why did he come on in a dress-coat? You must have meant him to read
it, too, if he had not been drunk?"
Liputin looked at me coldly and ironically.
"What business is it of yours?" he asked suddenly with strange calm.
"What business is it of mine? You are wearing the steward's badge,
too.... Where is Pyotr Stepanovitch?"
"I don't know, somewhere here; why do you ask?"
"Because now I see through it. It's simply a plot against Yulia
Mihailovna so as to ruin the day by a scandal...."
Liputin looked at me askance again.
"But what is it to you?" he said, grinning. He shrugged his shoulders
and walked away.
It came over me with a rush. All my suspicions were confirmed. Till
then, I had been hoping I was mistaken! What was I to do? I was on the
point of asking the advice of Stepan Trofimovitch, but he was standing
before the looking-glass, trying on different smiles, and continually
consulting a piece of paper on which he had notes. He had to go
on immediately after Karmazinov, and was not in a fit state for
conversation. Should I run to Yulia Mihailovna? But it was too soon
to go to her: she needed a much sterner lesson to cure her of
her conviction that she had "a following," and that every one was
"fanatically devoted" to her. She would not have believed me, and would
have thought I was dreaming. Besides, what help could she be? "Eh," I
thought, "after all, what business is it of mine? I'll take off my
badge and go home _when it begins._" That was my mental phrase, "when it
begins"; I remember it.
But I had to go and listen to Karmazinov. Taking a last look round
behind the scenes, I noticed that a good number of outsiders, even women
among them, were flitting about, going in and out. "Behind the scenes"
was rather a narrow space completely screened from the audience by a
curtain and communicating with other rooms by means of a passage. Here
our readers were awaiting their turns. But I was struck at that moment
by the reader who was to follow Stepan Trofimovitch. He, too, was some
sort of professor (I don't know to this day exactly what he was) who had
voluntarily left some educational institution after a disturbance among
the students, and had arrived in the town only a few days before. He,
too, had been recommended to Yulia Mihailovna, and she had received him
with reverence. I know now that he had only spent one evening in her
company before the reading; he had not spoken all that evening, had
listened with an equivocal smile to the jests and the general tone of
the company surrounding Yulia Mihailovna, and had made an unpleasant
impression on every one by his air of haughtiness, and at the same
time almost timorous readiness to take offence. It was Yulia Mihailovna
herself who had enlisted his services. Now he was walking from corner to
corner, and, like Stepan Trofimovitch, was muttering to himself, though
he looked on the ground instead of in the looking-glass. He was not
trying on smiles, though he often smiled rapaciously. It was obvious
that it was useless to speak to him either. He looked about forty, was
short and bald, had a greyish beard, and was decently dressed. But what
was most interesting about him was that at every turn he took he threw
up his right fist, brandished it above his head and suddenly brought it
down again as though crushing an antagonist to atoms. He went through
this by-play every moment. It made me uncomfortable. I hastened away to
listen to Karmazinov.
III
There was a feeling in the hall that something was wrong again. Let me
state to begin with that I have the deepest reverence for genius, but
why do our geniuses in the decline of their illustrious years behave
sometimes exactly like little boys? What though he was Karmazinov, and
came forward with as much dignity as five _Kammerherrs_ rolled into one?
How could he expect to keep an audience like ours listening for a whole
hour to a single paper? I have observed, in fact, that however big a
genius a man may be, he can't monopolise the attention of an audience at
a frivolous literary matinée for more than twenty minutes with impunity.
The entrance of the great writer was received, indeed, with the utmost
respect: even the severest elderly men showed signs of approval and
interest, and the ladies even displayed some enthusiasm. The applause
was brief, however, and somehow uncertain and not unanimous. Yet there
was no unseemly behaviour in the back rows, till Karmazinov began to
speak, not that anything very bad followed then, but only a sort of
misunderstanding. I have mentioned already that he had rather a shrill
voice, almost feminine in fact, and at the same time a genuinely
aristocratic lisp. He had hardly articulated a few words when someone
had the effrontery to laugh aloud--probably some ignorant simpleton who
knew nothing of the world, and was congenitally disposed to laughter.
But there was nothing like a hostile demonstration; on the contrary
people said "sh-h!" and the offender was crushed. But Mr. Karmazinov,
with an affected air and intonation, announced that "at first he had
declined absolutely to read." (Much need there was to mention it!)
"There are some lines which come so deeply from the heart that it is
impossible to utter them aloud, so that these holy things cannot be laid
before the public"--(Why lay them then?)--"but as he had been begged
to do so, he was doing so, and as he was, moreover, laying down his
pen forever, and had sworn to write no more, he had written this last
farewell; and as he had sworn never, on any inducement, to read anything
in public," and so on, and so on, all in that style.
But all that would not have mattered; every one knows what authors'
prefaces are like, though, I may observe, that considering the lack of
culture of our audience and the irritability of the back rows, all this
may have had an influence. Surely it would have been better to have
read a little story, a short tale such as he had written in the
past--over-elaborate, that is, and affected, but sometimes witty. It
would have saved the situation. No, this was quite another story! It was
a regular oration! Good heavens, what wasn't there in it! I am positive
that it would have reduced to rigidity even a Petersburg audience, let
alone ours. Imagine an article that would have filled some thirty pages
of print of the most affected, aimless prattle; and to make matters
worse, the gentleman read it with a sort of melancholy condescension
as though it were a favour, so that it was almost insulting to the
audience. The subject.... Who could make it out? It was a sort of
description of certain impressions and reminiscences. But of what? And
about what? Though the leading intellects of the province did their
utmost during the first half of the reading, they could make nothing
of it, and they listened to the second part simply out of politeness.
A great deal was said about love, indeed, of the love of the genius for
some person, but I must admit it made rather an awkward impression. For
the great writer to tell us about his first kiss seemed to my mind a
little incongruous with his short and fat little figure... Another thing
that was offensive; these kisses did not occur as they do with the rest
of mankind. There had to be a framework of gorse (it had to be gorse or
some such plant that one must look up in a flora) and there had to be a
tint of purple in the sky, such as no mortal had ever observed before,
or if some people had seen it, they had never noticed it, but he seemed
to say, "I have seen it and am describing it to you, fools, as if it
were a most ordinary thing." The tree under which the interesting couple
sat had of course to be of an orange colour. They were sitting somewhere
in Germany. Suddenly they see Pompey or Cassius on the eve of a battle,
and both are penetrated by a thrill of ecstasy. Some wood-nymph squeaked
in the bushes. Gluck played the violin among the reeds. The title of the
piece he was playing was given in full, but no one knew it, so that one
would have had to look it up in a musical dictionary. Meanwhile a fog
came on, such a fog, such a fog, that it was more like a million pillows
than a fog. And suddenly everything disappears and the great genius is
crossing the frozen Volga in a thaw. Two and a half pages are filled
with the crossing, and yet he falls through the ice. The genius is
drowning--you imagine he was drowned? Not a bit of it; this was simply
in order that when he was drowning and at his last gasp, he might catch
sight of a bit of ice, the size of a pea, but pure and crystal "as a
frozen tear," and in that tear was reflected Germany, or more accurately
the sky of Germany, and its iridescent sparkle recalled to his mind the
very tear which "dost thou remember, fell from thine eyes when we were
sitting under that emerald tree, and thou didst cry out joyfully: 'There
is no crime!' 'No,' I said through my tears, 'but if that is so, there
are no righteous either.' We sobbed and parted forever." She went off
somewhere to the sea coast, while he went to visit some caves, and then
he descends and descends and descends for three years under Suharev
Tower in Moscow, and suddenly in the very bowels of the earth, he finds
in a cave a lamp, and before the lamp a hermit. The hermit is praying.
The genius leans against a little barred window, and suddenly hears a
sigh. Do you suppose it was the hermit sighing? Much he cares about the
hermit! Not a bit of it, this sigh simply reminds him of her first sigh,
thirty-seven years before, "in Germany, when, dost thou remember, we sat
under an agate tree and thou didst say to me, 'Why love? See ochra is
growing all around and I love thee; but the ochra will cease to grow,
and I shall cease to love.'" Then the fog comes on again, Hoffman
appears on the scene, the wood-nymph whistles a tune from Chopin, and
suddenly out of the fog appears Ancus Marcius over the roofs of Rome,
wearing a laurel wreath. "A chill of ecstasy ran down our backs and we
parted forever"--and so on and so on.
Perhaps I am not reporting it quite right and don't know how to report
it, but the drift of the babble was something of that sort. And after
all, how disgraceful this passion of our great intellects for jesting in
a superior way really is! The great European philosopher, the great man
of science, the inventor, the martyr--all these who labour and are heavy
laden, are to the great Russian genius no more than so many cooks in his
kitchen. He is the master and they come to him, cap in hand, awaiting
orders. It is true he jeers superciliously at Russia too, and there
is nothing he likes better than exhibiting the bankruptcy of Russia in
every relation before the great minds of Europe, but as regards himself,
no, he is at a higher level than all the great minds of Europe; they are
only material for his jests. He takes another man's idea, tacks on to it
its antithesis, and the epigram is made. There is such a thing as crime,
there is no such thing as crime; there is no such thing as justice,
there are no just men; atheism, Darwinism, the Moscow bells.... But
alas, he no longer believes in the Moscow bells; Rome, laurels.... But
he has no belief in laurels even.... We have a conventional attack of
Byronic spleen, a grimace from Heine, something of Petchorin--and the
machine goes on rolling, whistling, at full speed. "But you may praise
me, you may praise me, that I like extremely; it's only in a manner of
speaking that I lay down the pen; I shall bore you three hundred times
more, you'll grow weary of reading me...."
Of course it did not end without trouble; but the worst of it was that
it was his own doing. People had for some time begun shuffling their
feet, blowing their noses, coughing, and doing everything that people
do when a lecturer, whoever he may be, keeps an audience for longer than
twenty minutes at a literary matinée. But the genius noticed nothing of
all this. He went on lisping and mumbling, without giving a thought to
the audience, so that every one began to wonder. Suddenly in a back row
a solitary but loud voice was heard:
"Good Lord, what nonsense!"
The exclamation escaped involuntarily, and I am sure was not intended
as a demonstration. The man was simply worn out. But Mr. Karmazinov
stopped, looked sarcastically at the audience, and suddenly lisped with
the deportment of an aggrieved _kammerherr._
"I'm afraid I've been boring you dreadfully, gentlemen?"
That was his blunder, that he was the first to speak; for provoking an
answer in this way he gave an opening for the rabble to speak, too, and
even legitimately, so to say, while if he had restrained himself, people
would have gone on blowing their noses and it would have passed off
somehow. Perhaps he expected applause in response to his question, but
there was no sound of applause; on the contrary, every one seemed to
subside and shrink back in dismay.
"You never did see Ancus Marcius, that's all brag," cried a voice that
sounded full of irritation and even nervous exhaustion.
"Just so," another voice agreed at once. "There are no such things as
ghosts nowadays, nothing but natural science. Look it up in a scientific
book."
"Gentlemen, there was nothing I expected less than such objections,"
said Karmazinov, extremely surprised. The great genius had completely
lost touch with his Fatherland in Karlsruhe.
"Nowadays it's outrageous to say that the world stands on three fishes,"
a young lady snapped out suddenly. "You can't have gone down to the
hermit's cave, Karmazinov. And who talks about hermits nowadays?"
"Gentlemen, what surprises me most of all is that you take it all so
seriously. However... however, you are perfectly right. No one has
greater respect for truth and realism than I have...."
Though he smiled ironically he was tremendously overcome. His face
seemed to express: "I am not the sort of man you think, I am on your
side, only praise me, praise me more, as much as possible, I like it
extremely...."
"Gentlemen," he cried, completely mortified at last, "I see that my poor
poem is quite out of place here. And, indeed, I am out of place here
myself, I think."
"You threw at the crow and you hit the cow," some fool, probably drunk,
shouted at the top of his voice, and of course no notice ought to
have been taken of him. It is true there was a sound of disrespectful
laughter.
"A cow, you say?" Karmazinov caught it up at once, his voice grew
shriller and shriller. "As for crows and cows, gentlemen, I will
refrain. I've too much respect for any audience to permit myself
comparisons, however harmless; but I did think..."
"You'd better be careful, sir," someone shouted from a back row.
"But I had supposed that laying aside my pen and saying farewell to my
readers, I should be heard..."
"No, no, we want to hear you, we want to," a few voices from the front
row plucked up spirit to exclaim at last.
"Read, read!" several enthusiastic ladies' voices chimed in, and at last
there was an outburst of applause, sparse and feeble, it is true.
"Believe me, Karmazinov, every one looks on it as an honour..." the
marshal's wife herself could not resist saying.
"Mr. Karmazinov!" cried a fresh young voice in the back of the hall
suddenly. It was the voice of a very young teacher from the district
school who had only lately come among us, an excellent young man, quiet
and gentlemanly. He stood up in his place. "Mr. Karmazinov, if I had
the happiness to fall in love as you have described to us, I really
shouldn't refer to my love in an article intended for public
reading...." He flushed red all over.
"Ladies and gentlemen," cried Karmazinov, "I have finished. I will omit
the end and withdraw. Only allow me to read the six last lines:
"Yes, dear reader, farewell!" he began at once from the manuscript
without sitting down again in his chair. "Farewell, reader; I do not
greatly insist on our parting friends; what need to trouble you,
indeed. You may abuse me, abuse me as you will if it affords you any
satisfaction. But best of all if we forget one another forever. And
if you all, readers, were suddenly so kind as to fall on your knees and
begin begging me with tears, 'Write, oh, write for us, Karmazinov--for
the sake of Russia, for the sake of posterity, to win laurels,' even
then I would answer you, thanking you, of course, with every courtesy,
'No, we've had enough of one another, dear fellow-countrymen, _merci!_
It's time we took our separate ways!' _Merci, merci, merci!_"
Karmazinov bowed ceremoniously, and, as red as though he had been
cooked, retired behind the scenes.
"Nobody would go down on their knees; a wild idea!"
"What conceit!"
"That's only humour," someone more reasonable suggested.
"Spare me your humour."
"I call it impudence, gentlemen!"
"Well, he's finished now, anyway!"
"Ech, what a dull show!"
But all these ignorant exclamations in the back rows (though they were
confined to the back rows) were drowned in applause from the other half
of the audience. They called for Karmazinov. Several ladies with Yulia
Mihailovna and the marshal's wife crowded round the platform. In Yulia
Mihailovna's hands was a gorgeous laurel wreath resting on another
wreath of living roses on a white velvet cushion.
"Laurels!" Karmazinov pronounced with a subtle and rather sarcastic
smile. "I am touched, of course, and accept with real emotion this
wreath prepared beforehand, but still fresh and unwithered, but I assure
you, mesdames, that I have suddenly become so realistic that I feel
laurels would in this age be far more appropriate in the hands of a
skilful cook than in mine...."
"Well, a cook is more useful," cried the divinity student, who had been
at the "meeting" at Virginsky's.
There was some disorder. In many rows people jumped up to get a better
view of the presentation of the laurel wreath.
"I'd give another three roubles for a cook this minute," another voice
assented loudly, too loudly; insistently, in fact.
"So would I."
"And I."
"Is it possible there's no buffet?..."
"Gentlemen, it's simply a swindle...."
It must be admitted, however, that all these unbridled gentlemen still
stood in awe of our higher officials and of the police superintendent,
who was present in the hall. Ten minutes later all had somehow got back
into their places, but there was not the same good order as before.
And it was into this incipient chaos that poor Stepan Trofimovitch was
thrust.
IV
I ran out to him behind the scenes once more, and had time to warn him
excitedly that in my opinion the game was up, that he had better not
appear at all, but had better go home at once on the excuse of his usual
ailment, for instance, and I would take off my badge and come with him.
At that instant he was on his way to the platform; he stopped suddenly,
and haughtily looking me up and down he pronounced solemnly:
"What grounds have you, sir, for thinking me capable of such baseness?"
I drew back. I was as sure as twice two make four that he would not get
off without a catastrophe. Meanwhile, as I stood utterly dejected, I saw
moving before me again the figure of the professor, whose turn it was to
appear after Stepan Trofimovitch, and who kept lifting up his fist
and bringing it down again with a swing. He kept walking up and down,
absorbed in himself and muttering something to himself with a diabolical
but triumphant smile. I somehow almost unintentionally went up to him.
I don't know what induced me to meddle again. "Do you know," I said,
"judging from many examples, if a lecturer keeps an audience for more
than twenty minutes it won't go on listening. No celebrity is able to
hold his own for half an hour."
He stopped short and seemed almost quivering with resentment. Infinite
disdain was expressed in his countenance.
"Don't trouble yourself," he muttered contemptuously and walked on. At
that moment Stepan Trofimovitch's voice rang out in the hall.
"Oh, hang you all," I thought, and ran to the hall.
Stepan Trofimovitch took his seat in the lecturer's chair in the midst
of the still persisting disorder. He was greeted by the first rows with
looks which were evidently not over-friendly. (Of late, at the club,
people almost seemed not to like him, and treated him with much less
respect than formerly.) But it was something to the good that he was not
hissed. I had had a strange idea in my head ever since the previous
day: I kept fancying that he would be received with hisses as soon as
he appeared. They scarcely noticed him, however, in the disorder. What
could that man hope for if Karmazinov was treated like this? He was
pale; it was ten years since he had appeared before an audience. From
his excitement and from all that I knew so well in him, it was clear to
me that he, too, regarded his present appearance on the platform as a
turning-point of his fate, or something of the kind. That was just what
I was afraid of. The man was dear to me. And what were my feelings when
he opened his lips and I heard his first phrase?
"Ladies and gentlemen," he pronounced suddenly, as though resolved to
venture everything, though in an almost breaking voice. "Ladies and
gentlemen! Only this morning there lay before me one of the illegal
leaflets that have been distributed here lately, and I asked myself for
the hundredth time, 'Wherein lies its secret?'"
The whole hall became instantly still, all looks were turned to him,
some with positive alarm. There was no denying, he knew how to secure
their interest from the first word. Heads were thrust out from behind
the scenes; Liputin and Lyamshin listened greedily. Yulia Mihailovna
waved to me again.
"Stop him, whatever happens, stop him," she whispered in agitation.
I could only shrug my shoulders: how could one stop a man resolved to
venture everything? Alas, I understood what was in Stepan Trofimovitch's
mind.
"Ha ha, the manifestoes!" was whispered in the audience; the whole hall
was stirred.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I've solved the whole mystery. The whole secret
of their effect lies in their stupidity." (His eyes flashed.) "Yes,
gentlemen, if this stupidity were intentional, pretended and calculated,
oh, that would be a stroke of genius! But we must do them justice:
they don't pretend anything. It's the barest, most simple-hearted,
most shallow stupidity. _C'est la bêtise dans son essence la plus pure,
quelque chose comme un simple chimique._ If it were expressed ever so
little more cleverly, every one would see at once the poverty of this
shallow stupidity. But as it is, every one is left wondering: no one
can believe that it is such elementary stupidity. 'It's impossible that
there's nothing more in it,' every one says to himself and tries to
find the secret of it, sees a mystery in it, tries to read between the
lines--the effect is attained! Oh, never has stupidity been so solemnly
rewarded, though it has so often deserved it.... For, _en parenthese,_
stupidity is of as much service to humanity as the loftiest genius...."
"Epigram of 1840" was commented, in a very modest voice, however, but it
was followed by a general outbreak of noise and uproar.
"Ladies and gentlemen, hurrah! I propose a toast to stupidity!" cried
Stepan Trofimovitch, defying the audience in a perfect frenzy.
I ran up on the pretext of pouring out some water for him.
"Stepan Trofimovitch, leave off, Yulia Mihailovna entreats you to."
"No, you leave me alone, idle young man," he cried out at me at the top
of his voice. I ran away. "Messieurs," he went on, "why this excitement,
why the outcries of indignation I hear? I have come forward with an
olive branch. I bring you the last word, for in this business I have the
last word--and we shall be reconciled."
"Down with him!" shouted some.
"Hush, let him speak, let him have his say!" yelled another section. The
young teacher was particularly excited; having once brought himself to
speak he seemed now unable to be silent.
"Messieurs, the last word in this business--is forgiveness. I, an old
man at the end of my life, I solemnly declare that the spirit of life
breathes in us still, and there is still a living strength in the young
generation. The enthusiasm of the youth of today is as pure and bright
as in our age. All that has happened is a change of aim, the replacing
of one beauty by another! The whole difficulty lies in the question
which is more beautiful, Shakespeare or boots, Raphael or petroleum?"
"It's treachery!" growled some.
"Compromising questions!"
_"Agent provocateur!"_
"But I maintain," Stepan Trofimovitch shrilled at the utmost pitch of
excitement, "I maintain that Shakespeare and Raphael are more precious
than the emancipation of the serfs, more precious than Nationalism, more
precious than Socialism, more precious than the young generation, more
precious than chemistry, more precious than almost all humanity because
they are the fruit, the real fruit of all humanity and perhaps the
highest fruit that can be. A form of beauty already attained, but for
the attaining of which I would not perhaps consent to live.... Oh,
heavens!" he cried, clasping his hands, "ten years ago I said the same
thing from the platform in Petersburg, exactly the same thing, in the
same words, and in just the same way they did not understand it, they
laughed and hissed as now; shallow people, what is lacking in you that
you cannot understand? But let me tell you, let me tell you, without the
English, life is still possible for humanity, without Germany, life is
possible, without the Russians it is only too possible, without science,
without bread, life is possible--only without beauty it is impossible,
for there will be nothing left in the world. That's the secret at the
bottom of everything, that's what history teaches! Even science would
not exist a moment without beauty--do you know that, you who laugh--it
will sink into bondage, you won't invent a nail even!... I won't yield an
inch!" he shouted absurdly in confusion, and with all his might banged
his fist on the table.
But all the while that he was shrieking senselessly and incoherently,
the disorder in the hall increased. Many people jumped up from their
seats, some dashed forward, nearer to the platform. It all happened much
more quickly than I describe it, and there was no time to take steps,
perhaps no wish to, either.
"It's all right for you, with everything found for you, you pampered
creatures!" the same divinity student bellowed at the foot of the
platform, grinning with relish at Stepan Trofimovitch, who noticed it
and darted to the very edge of the platform.
"Haven't I, haven't I just declared that the enthusiasm of the young
generation is as pure and bright as it was, and that it is coming to
grief through being deceived only in the forms of beauty! Isn't that
enough for you? And if you consider that he who proclaims this is a
father crushed and insulted, can one--oh, shallow hearts--can one
rise to greater heights of impartiality and fairness?... Ungrateful...
unjust.... Why, why can't you be reconciled!"
And he burst into hysterical sobs. He wiped away his dropping tears with
his fingers. His shoulders and breast were heaving with sobs. He was
lost to everything in the world.
A perfect panic came over the audience, almost all got up from their
seats. Yulia Mihailovna, too, jumped up quickly, seizing her husband by
the arm and pulling him up too.... The scene was beyond all belief.
"Stepan Trofimovitch!" the divinity student roared gleefully. "There's
Fedka the convict wandering about the town and the neighbourhood,
escaped from prison. He is a robber and has recently committed another
murder. Allow me to ask you: if you had not sold him as a recruit
fifteen years ago to pay a gambling debt, that is, more simply, lost
him at cards, tell me, would he have got into prison? Would he have cut
men's throats now, in his struggle for existence? What do you say, Mr.
Æsthete?"