"And you still count on helping me?" he asked.
"If you call me. But, you know what, there's one way that's best."
"I know your way."
"Ah, no, so far it's a secret. Only remember, secrets cost money."
"I even know how much," Stavrogin growled under his breath, but checked himself and fell silent.
"How much? What did you say?" Pyotr Stepanovich fluttered up.
"I said: to hell with you and your secret! Better tell me who you've got there. I know we're going to a name-day party, but who, namely, will be there?"
"Oh, all sorts of things, in the highest degree! Even Kirillov."
"All members of circles?"
"Devil take it, you rush so! Not even one circle has taken place here yet."
"Then how did you manage to spread so many tracts?"
"Where we're going only four of them are members of the circle. The rest, while they wait, are spying on each other as hard as they can and bringing everything to me. Trustworthy folk. It's all material for us to organize, and then we clear out. However, you wrote the rules yourself, there's no need to explain to you."
"So, what, the going's hard? Got stuck?"
"The going? Easy as could be. This'll make you laugh: what first of all affects them terribly is a uniform. There's nothing stronger than a uniform. I purposely invent ranks and positions: I have secretaries, secret stool pigeons, treasurers, chairmen, registrars, their adjuncts— it's all very much liked and has caught on splendidly. Then the next force, naturally, is sentimentality. You know, with us socialism spreads mostly through sentimentality. But the trouble here is with these biting lieutenants; you get burned every so often. Then come the out-and-out crooks; well, they can be nice folk, very profitable on occasion, but they take up a lot of time, require constant surveillance. Well, and finally the main force—the cement that bonds it all—is shame at one's own opinion. There is a real force! And who was it that worked, who was the 'sweetie'[142] that labored so that there isn't a single idea of one's own left in anyone's head! They consider it shameful."
"But if so, why are you bustling about like this?"
"But if it's just lying there gaping at everybody, how can one help filching it! As if you don't seriously believe success is possible? Eh, the belief is there, it's the wanting that's needed. Yes, precisely with their sort success is possible. I tell you, I can get them to go through fire, if I just yell at them that they're not liberal enough. Fools reproach me for having hoodwinked everyone here with my central committee and 'numerous branches.' You yourself once reproached me with that, but where is there any hoodwinking: the central committee is you and me, and there can be as many branches as they like."
"And all with these dregs!"
"It's material. They, too, will come in useful."
"And you're still counting on me?"
"You are the chief, you are the force; I'll just be at your side, a secretary. You know, we shall board our bark, and her oars will be of maple, and her sails of silk, and in the stern there sits a beautiful maiden, the fair Lizaveta Nikolaevna ... or how the devil does the song go..."[143]
"Muffed it!" Stavrogin burst out laughing. "No, I'd better give you the refrain. Here you're counting off on your fingers what forces make up a circle? All this officialdom and sentimentality—it's good glue, but there's one thing better stilclass="underline" get four members of a circle to bump off a fifth on the pretense of his being an informer, and with this shed blood you'll immediately tie them together in a single knot.[144] They'll become your slaves, they won't dare rebel or call you to accounts. Ha, ha, ha!"
"You, though... you're going to pay for those words, my friend," Pyotr Stepanovich thought to himself, "and even this very night. You allow yourself too much."
Thus, or almost thus, Pyotr Stepanovich must have reflected. However, they were already coming up to Virginsky's house.
"You've no doubt presented me there as some sort of member from abroad, connected with the Internationale, maybe an inspector?" Stavrogin suddenly asked.
"No, not an inspector; the inspector won't be you; you are a founding member from abroad who knows the most important secrets— that's your role. You are, of course, going to speak?"
"What gives you that idea?"
"You're obliged to speak now."
Stavrogin even stopped in surprise in the middle of the street, not far from a streetlamp. Pyotr Stepanovich met his gaze boldly and calmly. Stavrogin spat and walked on.
"And are you going to speak?" he suddenly asked Pyotr Stepanovich.
"No, I'd rather listen to you."
"Devil take you! In fact, you're giving me an idea!"
"What idea?" Pyotr Stepanovich popped up.
"Maybe I will speak there, in fact, but then I'm going to give you a beating, and a good one, you know."
"By the way, I told Karmazinov about you this morning, that you supposedly said about him that he ought to get a whipping, and not just an honorary one, but painful, the way they whip a peasant."
"But I never said that, ha, ha!"
"Never mind. Se non è vero . . ."[145]
"Well, thanks, I'm sincerely grateful."
"You know what else Karmazinov says? That essentially our teaching is a denial of honor, and that it's easiest of all to carry the Russian man with us by an open right to dishonor."
"Excellent words! Golden words!" Stavrogin cried. "He's put his finger on it! The right to dishonor—and everyone will come running to us, no one will stay there! Listen, Verkhovensky, you're not from the higher police, eh?"
"Whoever has such questions in his mind doesn't voice them."
"I understand, but we're among ourselves."
"No, so far I'm not from the higher police. Enough, we're here. Concoct your physiognomy, Stavrogin; I always do when I come to them. Add some extra gloom, that's all, no need for anything else; it's quite a simple thing."
7: With Our People
I
Virginsky lived in his own house, that is, in his wife's house, on Muravyiny Street. It was a one-story wooden house, and there were no other lodgers in it. Under the pretense of the host's birthday about fifteen guests had gathered; but the party in no way resembled an ordinary provincial name-day party. From the very beginning of their cohabitation, the Virginsky spouses mutually resolved once and for all that to invite guests for one's name day was perfectly stupid, and besides "there's nothing at all to be glad about." In a few years they had somehow managed to distance themselves completely from society. He, though a man of ability, and by no means a "poor sort," for some reason seemed to everyone an odd man who loved solitude and, moreover, spoke "arrogantly." While Madame Virginsky herself, who practiced the profession of midwife, by that alone stood lowest of all on the social ladder, even lower than the priest's wife, despite her husband's rank as an officer. As for the humility befitting her station, this could not be observed in her at all. And after a most stupid and unforgivably open liaison, on principle, with a certain crook, one Captain Lebyadkin, even the most lenient of our ladies turned away from her with remarkable disdain. Yet Madame Virginsky took it all as if it were just what she wanted. Remarkably, the very same severe ladies, should they happen to be in an interesting condition, turned if possible to Arina Prokhorovna (Virginsky, that is), bypassing the other three accoucheuses of our town. She was summoned even by country landowners' wives—so great was everyone's belief in her knowledge, luck, and adroitness in critical cases. The end was that she began to practice solely in the wealthiest houses; and she loved money to the point of greed. Having fully sensed her power, she finally stopped restraining her character altogether. Perhaps it was even on purpose that, while working in the most distinguished houses, she would frighten a nervous woman in childbed with some unheard-of nihilistic forgetting of decency, or, finally, with her mockery of "all that's holy," precisely at moments when "the holy" might have been most useful. Our army doctor, Rozanov, an accoucheur himself, bore positive witness that once, when a woman in labor was howling in pain and calling on the almighty name of God, it was precisely one of these freethinking outbursts from Arina Prokhorovna, sudden "like a rifle shot," that, by affecting the patient with fright, contributed to a most speedy delivery. But, though a nihilist, in case of necessity Arina Prokhorovna would not shrink at all, not only from social, but even from age-old, most prejudiced customs, if they could be of use to her. Not for anything would she miss, for example, the baptism of a baby she had delivered, and she would appear wearing a green silk dress with a train, and with her chignon combed into curls and ringlets, while at all other times she reached the point of reveling in her own slovenliness. And though she always maintained "a most insolent air" during the performance of the sacrament, to the embarrassment of the clergy, once the rite had been performed, it was she who unfailingly brought out the champagne (this was why she came, and got so dressed up), and woe to anyone who tried to take a glass from her without paying something "into the pot."