The general fell silent, as if waiting for an answer. The door for public impatience had been opened.
"What could be simpler?" Yulia Mikhailovna suddenly raised her voice, annoyed by the fact that everyone, as if on command, turned their eyes towards her. "How can there be anything surprising in Stavrogin fighting with Gaganov and not responding to a student? Could he challenge his own former serf to a duel?"
Portentous words! A clear and simple thought which, however, had so far not occurred to anyone. Words with extraordinary consequences. Everything scandalous and gossipy, everything petty and anecdotal, was immediately pushed into the background; a different meaning was set forth; a new person was brought forth, in whom everyone had been mistaken, a person of an almost ideal strictness of notions. Mortally offended by a student—that is, by an educated man and no longer a serf—he scorns the insult, because the offender is his former serf. Noise and gossip in society; frivolous society looks with scorn on the man who has been slapped in the face; he scorns the opinion of society, which has not yet attained to real notions and yet talks about them.
"And yet you and I, Ivan Alexandrovich, sit and talk about correct notions, sir," one little old clubman observes to another, with the noble vehemence of self-accusation.
"Yes, Pyotr Mikhailovich, yes, sir," the other yesses him delightedly, "talk about the young folk after that."
"The young folk aren't the point, Ivan Alexandrovich," a third turns up and observes. "This isn't a question of the young folk; this is a star, sir, not one of the young folk; that's how it should be understood."
"And that's just what we need; there's a dearth of such people."
The main thing here lay in the fact that the "new man," besides having shown himself an "unquestionable nobleman," was moreover the wealthiest landowner in the province, and therefore could not but come forth as a helper and an active figure. However, I have already referred in passing to the moods of our landowners.
They would even become vehement:
"Not only did he not challenge the student, he even put his hands behind his back—make special note of that, Your Excellency," one of them put forth.
"And he didn't haul him into the new courts," another added.
"Though the new courts would adjudge him fifteen roubles for a nobleman's personal offense, sir, heh, heh, heh!"
"No, I'll tell you, here's the secret of our new courts," the third would get frantic. "Suppose a man steals or cheats and gets caught and clearly exposed—so, run home quickly, while there's still time, and kill your mother. You'll be acquitted instantly, and the ladies will wave their cambric handkerchiefs from the gallery—it's unquestionably true!"[107]
"True, true!"
There was no doing without anecdotes. Nikolai Vsevolodovich's connections with Count K. were recalled. The stern, solitary opinions of Count K. concerning the recent reforms were well known. Well known, too, was his remarkable activity, which had ceased somewhat of late. And now suddenly it became unquestionable for everyone that Nikolai Vsevolodovich was engaged to one of Count K.'s daughters, though nothing gave any precise grounds for such a rumor. As far as certain wondrous Swiss adventures and Lizaveta Nikolaevna were concerned, even the ladies ceased mentioning them. We may mention, incidentally, that just at that time the Drozdovs succeeded in paying all the visits they had failed to pay so far. Everyone now found Lizaveta Nikolaevna unquestionably a most ordinary girl who was "making a show" of her bad nerves. They now explained her swoon on the day of Nikolai Vsevolodovich's arrival simply by her fright at the student's outrageous act. They even emphasized the prosaicness of the very thing they had previously been at such pains to endow with some fantastic coloring; and they finally forgot all about the poor lame girl; they were even ashamed to recall it. "Let there be a hundred lame girls—we were all young once!" They drew attention to Nikolai Vsevolodovich's deference to his mother, sought out various virtues in him, spoke benevolently of his learning, acquired during four years in German universities. Artemy Pavlovich's act was finally declared tactless—"their own knew not their own"—and Yulia Mikhailovna was finally acknowledged as a woman of supreme perceptivity.
Thus, when Nikolai Vsevolodovich himself appeared at last, everyone met him with the most naïve earnestness; one could read the most impatient expectations in all the eyes turned to him. Nikolai Vsevolodovich at once withdrew into the most strict silence, which certainly satisfied everyone far more than if he had talked a whole cartload. In a word, he succeeded in everything, he was in fashion. In provincial society, once a person makes his appearance, there is no way he can hide. Nikolai Vsevolodovich began, as before, to follow all the provincial rules to the point of finesse. He was not found cheerfuclass="underline" "The man has suffered, the man is not like everyone else, there are things on his mind." Even his pride and that squeamish unapproachability for which he had been so hated among us four years earlier, were now respected and liked.
Varvara Petrovna was most triumphant of all. I cannot say whether she grieved much over her collapsed dreams concerning Lizaveta Nikolaevna. Of course, family pride was a help here. One thing was strange: Varvara Petrovna suddenly believed in the highest degree that Nicolas had indeed "made his choice" at Count K.'s, but, strangest of all, she believed it from rumors that came to her, as to everyone else, on the wind. She was afraid to ask Nikolai Vsevolodovich directly. Some two or three times, however, she could not help herself and chided him gaily and slyly for not being more open with her; Nikolai Vsevolodovich smiled and went on being silent. The silence was taken as a sign of assent. And just think: for all that, she never forgot about the poor lame girl. The thought of her lay on her heart like a stone, like a nightmare, tormented her with strange phantoms and forebodings, and all that together and simultaneously with her dreams about Count K.'s daughters. But more of that later. To be sure, in society Varvara Petrovna was once again treated with extreme and deferential respect, but she made little use of it and went out extremely rarely.
She did, however, pay a solemn visit to the governor's wife. To be sure, no one had been more charmed and captivated by the above-mentioned portentous words of Yulia Mikhailovna's at the evening for the wife of the marshal of nobility: they had lifted much anguish from her heart, and at once resolved much of what had so tormented her since that unfortunate Sunday. "I had not understood the woman!" she uttered, and directly, with her customary impetuousness, she announced to Yulia Mikhailovna that she had come to thank her. Yulia Mikhailovna was flattered, but bore herself independently. At that time she had already begun to feel her own worth, perhaps even a bit too much. She announced, for example, in the middle of the conversation, that she had never heard anything about the activity or learning of Stepan Trofimovich.
"I receive young Verkhovensky, of course, and indulge him. He's reckless, but then he's still young; of considerable education, however. In any case he's not some former retired critic."
Varvara Petrovna at once hastened to observe that Stepan Trofimovich had never been a critic, but, on the contrary, had lived all his life in her house. And he was famous for the circumstances of his early career, "known only too well to the whole world," and, lately, for his works on Spanish history; he also intended to write something about the present situation in German universities and, it seemed, something about the Dresden Madonna as well. In short, Varvara Petrovna did not want to surrender Stepan Trofimovich to Yulia Mikhailovna.