"The Dresden Madonna? You mean the Sistine Madonna?[108] Chère Varvara Petrovna, I sat for two hours in front of that painting and went away disappointed. I understood nothing, and was greatly surprised. Karmazinov also says it's hard to understand. No one now, Russian or English, finds anything in it. All this fame was just the old men shouting."
"So there's a new fashion?"
"And I think our young people shouldn't be neglected either. They shout that they're communists, but in my opinion they should be spared and appreciated. I read everything now—all the newspapers, communes, natural sciences—I subscribe to everything, because one should finally know where one lives and whom one is dealing with. One cannot live all one's life on the heights of one's fantasy. I have arrived at the conclusion and accepted it as a rule to indulge young people and thereby keep them on the brink. Believe me, Varvara Petrovna, only we of society, by our beneficial influence and, namely, by indulgence, can keep them from the abyss they are being pushed into by the intolerance of all these old codgers. However, I'm glad to have learned from you about Stepan Trofimovich. You've given me an idea: he could be useful at our literary reading. You know, I am organizing a whole day of entertainment by subscription for the benefit of the poor governesses of our province. They're scattered all over Russia; there are about six from our district alone; then there are two telegraph girls, two are studying at the academy, the rest would like to but have no means. The lot of the Russian woman is terrible, Varvara Petrovna! They're now making it a university question, and there has even been a meeting of the state council.[109] In our strange Russia one can do whatever one likes. And therefore, again, just by indulgence and by the direct, warm participation of all society, we could guide this great common cause onto the right path. Oh, God, do we really have so many shining lights! There are a few, of course, but they're scattered. Let us join together and be stronger. In short, I'll have a literary morning first, then a light luncheon, then an intermission, and a ball that same evening. We wanted to start the evening with tableaux vivants, but it seems the expenses would be too great, so for the public there will be one or two quadrilles in masks and character costumes representing famous literary trends. This playful idea was suggested by Karmazinov; he is a great help to me. You know, he's going to read his last thing here, as yet unknown to anyone. He's laying down his pen and will not write anymore; this last article is his farewell to the public. A lovely little thing called Merci. The title is French, but he finds it more playful and even more subtle. So do I—it was even I who suggested it. I think Stepan Trofimovich could also read, if it's short and ... not really too learned. It seems Pyotr Stepanovich and someone else will read something or other. Pyotr Stepanovich will run by and tell you the program; or, better still, allow me to bring it to you."
"And you also allow me to put my name on your subscription list. I will tell Stepan Trofimovich and ask him myself."
Varvara Petrovna returned home utterly enchanted; she stood like a rock for Yulia Mikhailovna, and for some reason was now thoroughly angry with Stepan Trofimovich; and he, poor man, sat at home and did not even know anything.
"I'm in love with her, I don't understand how I could have been so mistaken about this woman," she said to Nikolai Vsevolodovich and to Pyotr Stepanovich, who ran by that evening.
"But you still ought to make peace with the old man," Pyotr Stepanovich proposed, "he's in despair. You've exiled him to the kitchen altogether. Yesterday he met your carriage, bowed, and you turned away. You know, we'll bring him forward; I have some designs on him, and he can still be useful."
"Oh, he's going to read."
"That's not all I meant. And I also wanted to run by and see him today myself. So shall I tell him?"
"If you wish. I don't know how you'll arrange it, though," she said irresolutely. "I intended to talk with him myself and wanted to fix a day and place." She frowned deeply.
"Well, no point in fixing a day. I'll simply tell him."
"Please do. Add, however, that I'll be sure to fix a day. Be sure to add that."
Pyotr Stepanovich ran off, grinning. Generally, as far as I recall, he was somehow especially angry at that time and even allowed himself extremely impatient escapades with almost everyone. Strangely, everyone somehow forgave him. Generally, the opinion became established that he should be looked upon somehow specially. I will observe that he was extremely angry about Nikolai Vsevolodovich's duel. It caught him off guard; he even turned green when he was told. Perhaps his vanity suffered here: he learned of it only the next day, when everybody knew.
"But you really had no right to fight," he whispered to Stavrogin five days later, meeting him by chance in the club. Remarkably, they had not met anywhere during those five days, though Pyotr Stepanovich ran by Varvara Petrovna's almost every day.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich looked at him silently, with a distracted air, as if not understanding what it was about, and went on without stopping. He was going through the big hall of the club towards the buffet.
"You've also been to see Shatov... you want to publish Marya Timofeevna," he went running after him and somehow distractedly seized his shoulder.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich suddenly shook his hand off and quickly turned to him with a menacing frown. Pyotr Stepanovich looked at him, smiling a strange, long smile. It all lasted only a moment. Nikolai Vsevolodovich walked on.
II
He ran over to the old man straight from Varvara Petrovna's, and if he hurried so, it was from sheer spite, to take revenge for a previous offense of which I had no idea until then. The thing was that at their last meeting—namely, a week ago Thursday—Stepan Trofimovich, who, incidentally, had started the argument himself, ended by driving Pyotr Stepanovich out with a stick. He concealed this fact from me then; but now, as soon as Pyotr Stepanovich ran in with his usual smirk, so naively supercilious, and with his unpleasantly curious eyes darting into every corner, Stepan Trofimovich at once gave me a secret sign not to leave the room. Thus their real relations were disclosed to me, for this time I listened to the whole conversation.
Stepan Trofimovich was sitting stretched out on the sofa. He had grown thin and yellow since that Thursday. Pyotr Stepanovich sat down next to him with a most familiar air, tucking his legs under him unceremoniously, and taking up much more space on the sofa than respect for a father demanded. Stepan Trofimovich silently and dignifiedly moved aside.
On the table lay an open book. It was the novel What Is to Be Done?[110] Alas, I must admit one strange weakness in our friend: the fancy that he ought to emerge from his solitude and fight a last battle was gaining more and more of a hold on his seduced imagination. I guessed that he had obtained and was studying the novel with a single purpose, so that in the event of an unquestionable confrontation with the "screamers," he would know their methods and arguments beforehand from their own "catechism," and, being thus prepared, would solemnly refute them all in her eyes. Oh, how this book tormented him! At times he would throw it aside in despair and, jumping up from his seat, pace the room almost in a frenzy.
"I agree that the author's basic idea is correct," he said to me feverishly, "but so much the more horrible for that! It's our same idea, precisely ours; we, we were the first to plant it, to nurture it, to prepare it—and what new could they say on their own after us! But, God, how it's all perverted, distorted, mutilated!" he exclaimed, thumping the book with his fingers. "Are these the conclusions we strove for? Who can recognize the initial thought here?"