Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “I seek a bur den?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve . . . seen that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it so noticeable?”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence for a moment. Stavrogin had a very preoccupied face. He was almost impressed.

  “I didn’t aim because I didn’t want to kill anyone. There was nothing more in it, I assure you,” he said hurriedly, and with agitation, as though justifying himself.

  “You ought not to have offended him.”

  “What ought I to have done then?”

  “You ought to have killed him.”

  “Are you sorry I didn’t kill him?”

  “I’m not sorry for anything. I thought you really meant to kill him. You don’t know what you’re seeking.”

  “I seek a burden,” laughed Stavrogin.

  “If you didn’t want blood yourself, why did you give him a chance to kill you?”

  “If I hadn’t challenged him, he’d have killed me simply, without a duel.”

  “That’s not your affair. Perhaps he wouldn’t have killed you.”

  “Only have beaten me?”

  “That’s not your business. Bear your burden. Or else there’s no merit.”

  “Hang your merit. I don’t seek anyone’s approbation.”

  “I thought you were seeking it,” Kirillov commented with terrible unconcern.

  They rode into the courtyard of the house.

  “Do you care to come in?” said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch.

  “No; I’m going home. Good-bye.”

  He got off the horse and took his box of pistols under his arm.

  “Anyway, you’re not angry with me?” said Stavrogin, holding out his hand to him.

  “Not in the least,” said Kirillov, turning round to shake hands with him. “If my burden’s light it’s because it’s from nature; perhaps your burden’s heavier because that’s your nature. There’s no need to be much ashamed; only a little.”

  “I know I’m a worthless character, and I don’t pretend to be a strong one.”

  “You’d better not; you’re not a strong person. Come and have tea.”

  Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went into the house, greatly perturbed.

  IV

  He learned at once from Alexey Yegorytch that Varvara Petrovna had been very glad to hear that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had gone out for a ride — the first time he had left the house after eight days’ illness. She had ordered the carriage, and had driven out alone for a breath of fresh air “according to the habit of the past, as she had forgotten for the last eight days what it meant to breathe fresh air.”

  “Alone, or with Darya Pavlovna?” Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch interrupted the old man with a rapid question, and he scowled when he heard that Darya Pavlovna “had declined to go abroad on account of indisposition and was in her rooms.”

  “Listen, old man,” he said, as though suddenly making up his mind. “Keep watch over her all to-day, and if you notice her coming to me, stop her at once, and tell her that I can’t see her for a few days at least . . . that I ask her not to come myself. . . . I’ll let her know myself, when the time comes. Do you hear?”

  “I’ll tell her, sir,” said Alexey Yegorytch, with distress in his voice, dropping his eyes.

  “Not till you see clearly she’s meaning to come and see me of herself, though.”

  “Don’t be afraid, sir, there shall be no mistake. Your interviews have all passed through me, hitherto. You’ve always turned to me for help.”

  “I know. Not till she comes of herself, anyway. Bring me some tea, if you can, at once.”

  The old man had hardly gone out, when almost at the same instant the door reopened, and Darya Pavlovna appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were tranquil, though her face was pale.

  “Where have you come from?” exclaimed Stavrogin.

  “I was standing there, and waiting for him to go out, to come in to you. I heard the order you gave him, and when he came out just now I hid round the corner, on the right, and he didn’t notice me.”

  “I’ve long meant to break off with you, Dasha . . . for a while . . . for the present. I couldn’t see you last night, in spite of your note. I meant to write to you myself, but I don’t know how to write,” he added with vexation, almost as though with disgust.

  “I thought myself that we must break it off. Varvara Petrovna is too suspicious of our relations.”

  “Well, let her be.”

  “She mustn’t be worried. So now we part till the end comes.”

  “You still insist on expecting the end?”

  “Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “But nothing in the world ever has an end.”

  “This will have an end. Then call me. I’ll come. Now, good-bye.”

  “And what sort of end will it be?” smiled Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch.

  “You’re not wounded, and . . . have not shed blood?” she asked, not answering his question.

  “It was stupid. I didn’t kill anyone. Don’t be uneasy. However, you’ll hear all about it to-day from every one. I’m not quite well.”

  “I’m going. The announcement of the marriage won’t be to-day?” she added irresolutely.

  “It won’t be to-day, and it won’t be to-morrow. I can’t say about the day after to-morrow. Perhaps we shall all be dead, and so much the better. Leave me alone, leave me alone, do.”

  “You won’t ruin that other . . . mad girl?”

  “I won’t ruin either of the mad creatures. It seems to be the sane I’m ruining. I’m so vile and loathsome, Dasha, that I might really send for you, ‘at the latter end,’ as you say. And in spite of your sanity you’ll come. Why will you be your own ruin?”

  “I know that at the end I shall be the only one left you, and . . . I’m waiting for that.”

  “And what if I don’t send for you after all, but run away from you?”

  “That can’t be. You will send for me.”

  “There’s a great deal of contempt for me in that.”

  “You know that there’s not only contempt.”

  “Then there is contempt, anyway?”

  “I used the wrong word. God is my witness, it’s my greatest wish that you may never have need of me.”

  “One phrase is as good as another. I should also have wished not to have ruined you.”

  “You can never, anyhow, be my ruin; and you know that yourself, better than anyone,” Darya Pavlovna said, rapidly and resolutely. “If I don’t come to you I shall be a sister of mercy, a nurse, shall wait upon the sick, or go selling the gospel. I’ve made up my mind to that. I cannot be anyone’s wife. I can’t live in a house like this, either. That’s not what I want. . . . You know all that.”

  “No, I never could tell what you want. It seems to me that you’re interested in me, as some veteran nurses get specially interested in some particular invalid in comparison with the others, or still more, like some pious old women who frequent funerals and find one corpse more attractive than another. Why do you look at me so strangely?”

  “Are you very ill?” she asked sympathetically, looking at him in a peculiar way. “Good heavens! And this man wants to do without me!”

  “Listen, Dasha, now I’m always seeing phantoms. One devil offered me yesterday, on the bridge, to murder Lebyadkin and Marya Timofyevna, to settle the marriage difficulty, and to cover up all traces. He asked me to give him three roubles on account, but gave me to understand that the whole operation wouldn’t cost less than fifteen hundred. Wasn’t he a calculating devil! A regular shopkeeper. Ha ha!”

  “But you’re fully convinced that it was an hallucination?”

  “Oh, no; not a bit an hallucination! It was simply Fedka the convict, the robber who escaped from prison. But that’s not the point. What do you suppose I did! I gave him all I had, everything in my purse, and now he’s sure I’ve given him that on account!”

  “You met him at night, and he made such a suggesti
on? Surely you must see that you’re being caught in their nets on every side!”

  “Well, let them be. But you’ve got some question at the tip of your tongue, you know. I see it by your eyes,” he added with a resentful and irritable smile.

  Dasha was frightened.

  “I’ve no question at all, and no doubt whatever; you’d better be quiet!” she cried in dismay, as though waving off his question.

  “Then you’re convinced that I won’t go to Fedka’s little shop?”

  “Oh, God!” she cried, clasping her hands. “Why do you torture me like this?”

  “Oh, forgive me my stupid joke. I must be picking up bad manners from them. Do you know, ever since last night I feel awfully inclined to laugh, to go on laughing continually for ever so long. It’s as though I must explode with laughter. It’s like an illness. . . . Oh! my mother’s coming in. I always know by the rumble when her carriage has stopped at the entrance.”

  Dasha seized his hand.

  “God save you from your demon, and . . . call me, call me quickly!”

  “Oh! a fine demon! It’s simply a little nasty, scrofulous imp, with a cold in his head, one of the unsuccessful ones. But you have something you don’t dare to say again, Dasha?”

  She looked at him with pain and reproach, and turned towards the door.

  “Listen,” he called after her, with a malignant and distorted smile. “If ... Yes, if, in one word, if ... you understand, even if I did go to that little shop, and if I called you after that — would you come then?”

  She went out, hiding her face in her hands, and neither turning nor answering.

  “She will come even after the shop,” he whispered, thinking a moment, and an expression of scornful disdain came into his face. “A nurse! H’m! . . . but perhaps that’s what I want.”

  CHAPTER IV.

  ALL IN EXPECTATION

  The impression made on the whole neighbourhood by the story of the duel, which was rapidly noised abroad, was particularly remarkable from the unanimity with which every one hastened to take up the cudgels for Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. Many of his former enemies declared themselves his friends. The chief reason for this change of front in public opinion was chiefly due to one person, who had hitherto not expressed her opinion, but who now very distinctly uttered a few words, which at once gave the event a significance exceedingly interesting to the vast majority. This was how it happened. On the day after the duel, all the town was assembled at the Marshal of Nobility’s in honour of his wife’s nameday. Yulia Mihailovna was present, or, rather, presided, accompanied by Lizaveta Nikolaevna, radiant with beauty and peculiar gaiety, which struck many of our ladies at once as particularly suspicious at this time. And I may mention, by the way, her engagement to Mavriky Nikolaevitch was by now an established fact. To a playful question from a retired general of much consequence, of whom we shall have more to say later, Lizaveta Nikolaevna frankly replied that evening that she was engaged. And only imagine, not one of our ladies would believe in her engagement. They all persisted in assuming a romance of some sort, some fatal family secret, something that had happened in Switzerland, and for some reason imagined that Yulia Mihailovna must have had some hand in it. It was difficult to understand why these rumours, or rather fancies, persisted so obstinately, and why Yulia Mihailovna was so positively connected with it. As soon as she came in, all turned to her with strange looks, brimful of expectation. It must be observed that owing to the freshness of the event, and certain circumstances accompanying it, at the party people talked of it with some circumspection, in undertones. Besides, nothing yet was known of the line taken by the authorities. As far as was known, neither of the combatants had been troubled by the police. Every one knew, for instance, that Gaganov had set off home early in the morning to Duhovo, without being hindered. Meanwhile, of course, all were eager for some one to be the first to speak of it aloud, and so to open the door to the general impatience. They rested their hopes on the general above-mentioned, and they were not disappointed.

  This general, a landowner, though not a wealthy one, was one of the most imposing members of our club, and a man of an absolutely unique turn of mind. He flirted in the old-fashioned way with the young ladies, and was particularly fond, in large assemblies, of speaking aloud with all the weightiness of a general, on subjects to which others were alluding in discreet whispers. This was, so to say, his ‘special role in local society. He drawled, too, and spoke with peculiar suavity, probably having picked up the habit from Russians travelling abroad, or from those wealthy landowners of former days who had suffered most from the emancipation. Stepan Trofimovitch had observed that the more completely a landowner was ruined, the more suavely he lisped and drawled his words. He did, as a fact, lisp and drawl himself, but was not aware of it in himself.

  The general spoke like a person of authority. He was, besides, a distant relation of Gaganov’s, though he was on bad terms with him, and even engaged in litigation with him. He had, moreover, in the past, fought two duels himself, and had even been degraded to the ranks and sent to the Caucasus on account of one of them. Some mention was made of Varvara Petrovna’s having driven out that day and the day before, after being kept indoors “by illness,” though the allusion was not to her, but to the marvellous matching of her four grey horses of the Stavrogins’ own breeding. The general suddenly observed that he had met “young Stavrogin” that day, on horseback. . . . Every one was instantly silent. The general munched his lips, and suddenly proclaimed, twisting in his fingers his presentation gold snuff-box.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here some years ago ... I mean when I was at Carlsbad . . . H’m! I’m very much interested in that young man about whom I heard so many rumours at that time. H’m! And, I say, is it true that he’s mad? Some one told me so then. Suddenly I’m told that he has been insulted by some student here, in the presence of his cousins, and he slipped under the table to get away from him. And yesterday I heard from Stepan Vysotsky that Stavrogin had been fighting with Gaganov. And simply with the gallant object of offering himself as a target to an infuriated man, just to get rid of him. H’m! Quite in the style of the guards of the twenties. Is there any house where he visits here?”

  The general paused as though expecting an answer. A way had been opened for the public impatience to express itself.

  “What could be simpler?” cried Yulia Mihailovna, raising her voice, irritated that all present had turned their eyes upon her, as though at a word of command. “Can one wonder that Stavrogin fought Gaganov and took no notice of the student? He couldn’t challenge a man who used to be his serf!”

  A noteworthy saying! A clear and simple notion, yet it had entered nobody’s head till that moment. It was a saying that had extraordinary consequences. All scandal and gossip, all the petty tittle-tattle was thrown into the background, another significance had been detected. A new character was revealed whom all had misjudged; a character, almost ideally severe in his standards. Mortally insulted by a student, that is, an educated man, no longer a serf, he despised the affront because his assailant had once been his serf. Society had gossiped and slandered him; shallow-minded people had looked with contempt on a man who had been struck in the face. He had despised a public opinion, which had not risen to the level of the highest standards, though it discussed them.

  “And, meantime, you and I, Ivan Alexandrovitch, sit and discuss the correct standards,” one old club member observed to another, with a warm and generous glow of self-reproach.

  “Yes, Pyotr Mihailovitch, yes,” the other chimed in with zest, “talk of the younger generation!”

  “It’s not a question of the younger generation,” observed a third, putting in his spoke, “it’s nothing to do with the younger generation; he’s a star, not one of the younger generation; that’s the way to look at it.”

  “And it’s just that sort we need; they’re rare people.” The chief point in all this was that the “new man,” besides showing himself an unmistakabl
e nobleman, was the wealthiest landowner in the province, and was, therefore, bound to be a leading man who could be of assistance. I’ve already alluded in passing to the attitude of the landowners of our province. People were enthusiastic:

  “He didn’t merely refrain from challenging the student. He put his hands behind him, note that particularly, your excellency,” somebody pointed out.

  “And he didn’t haul him up before the new law-courts, either,” added another.

  “In spite of the fact that for a personal insult to a nobleman he’d have got fifteen roubles damages! He he he!”

  “No, I’ll tell you a secret about the new courts,” cried a third, in a frenzy of excitement, “if anyone’s caught robbing or swindling and convicted, he’d better run home while there’s yet time, and murder his mother. He’ll be acquitted of everything at once, and ladies will wave their batiste handkerchiefs from the platform. It’s the absolute truth!”

  “It’s the truth. It’s the truth!”

  The inevitable anecdotes followed: Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch’s friendly relations with Count K. were recalled. Count K.’s stern and independent attitude to recent reforms was well known, as well as his remarkable public activity, though that had somewhat fallen off of late. And now, suddenly, every one was positive that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was betrothed to one of the count’s daughters, though nothing had given grounds for such a supposition. And as for some wonderful adventures in Switzerland with Lizaveta Nikolaevna, even the ladies quite dropped all reference to it. I must mention, by the way, that the Drozdovs had by this time succeeded in paying all the visits they had omitted at first. Every one now confidently considered Lizaveta Nikolaevna a most ordinary girl, who paraded her delicate nerves. Her fainting on the day of Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch’s arrival was explained now as due to her terror at the student’s outrageous behaviour. They even increased the prosaicness of that to which before they had striven to give such a fantastic colour. As for a lame woman who had been talked of, she was forgotten completely. They were ashamed to remember her.

  “And if there had been a hundred lame girls — we’ve all been young once!”