"Well, that's fine, that's wonderful," he muttered from the bed, "and I kept being afraid we would have to go. It's so nice here, it's better than anywhere... You won't leave me? Oh, you haven't left me!"
"Here," however, was not so nice at all. He did not want to know anything about her difficulties; his head was filled with nothing but fantasies. His illness he considered a fleeting thing, a trifle, and he gave no thought to it, but thought only of how they would go and sell "these books." He asked her to read him the Gospel.
"It's a long time since I've read it ... in the original. Otherwise someone may ask and I'll make a mistake; one must also be prepared, after all."
She sat down beside him and opened the book.
"You read beautifully," he interrupted her at the very first line. "I see, I see, I was not mistaken!" he added obscurely but rapturously. And generally he was in a constant state of rapture. She read the Sermon on the Mount. [204]
"Assez, assez, mon enfant,[ccv]enough... You can't think that thatis not enough!"
And he closed his eyes strengthlessly. He was very weak, but did not yet lose consciousness. Sofya Matveevna moved to get up, thinking he wanted to sleep. But he stopped her:
"My friend, I've been lying all my life. Even when I was telling the truth. I never spoke for the truth, but only for myself, I knew that before, but only now do I see... Oh, where are those friends whom I have insulted with my friendship all my life? And everyone, everyone!
Savez-vous,
[ccvi]
"Stepan Trofimovich," Sofya Matveevna asked timidly, "shouldn't we send to the 'big town' for a doctor?"
He was terribly struck.
"What for?
Est-ce que je suis si malade?
Mais rien de sérieux.
[ccvii]
"You know," he said after a silence, "read me something more, just so, don't choose, something, wherever your eye falls."
Sofya Matveevna opened and started to read.
"Wherever it opens, wherever it happens to open," he repeated.
“‘And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write...’” [205]
"What? What is that? From where?"
"It's from the Apocalypse."
" O, je m'en souviens, oui, l'Apocalypse. Lisez, lisez, [ccviii]I want to divine our future by the book, I want to know what comes out; read from the angel, from the angel..."
“‘And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot! Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’”
"That. . . and that is in your book!" he exclaimed, flashing his eyes and raising himself from his pillow. "I never knew that great place! Do you hear: sooner cold, sooner cold than lukewarm, than onlylukewarm. Oh, I'll prove to them. Only don't leave me, don't leave me alone! We'll prove to them, we'll prove to them!"
"No, I won't leave you, Stepan Trofimovich, I'll never leave you, sir!" she seized his hands and pressed them in hers, bringing them to her heart, looking at him with tears in her eyes. ("I pitied him so very much at that moment," she recounted later.) His lips quivered as if convulsively.
"However, Stepan Trofimovich, what are we going to do, sir?
Shouldn't we let some one of your acquaintances know, or maybe your relations?"
But at this he became so frightened that she regretted mentioning it. He implored her, trembling and shaking, not to send for anyone, not to do anything; he made her promise, he insisted: "No one, no one! We alone, only alone, nous partirons ensemble." [ccix]
Another very bad thing was that the proprietors also began to worry, grumbling and pestering Sofya Matveevna. She paid them and made sure they saw she had money; this softened them for a time; but the proprietor demanded Stepan Trofimovich's "identity." With a haughty smile the sick man pointed to his little bag; in it Sofya Matveevna found the certificate of his resignation or something of the sort, with which he had lived all his life. The proprietor would not leave off and said that "he ought to be put someplace or other, because we're not a hospital, and if he dies there might be consequences; we'd all be in for it." Sofya Matveevna tried to speak with him about a doctor, but it turned out that sending to the "big town" would be so expensive that any thought of a doctor had, of course, to be abandoned. In anguish she went back to her patient. Stepan Trofimovich was growing weaker and weaker.
"Now read me one more passage... about the swine," he said suddenly.
"What, sir?" Sofya Matveevna was terribly frightened.
"About the swine... it's there... ces cochons [ccx]... I remember, demons entered into the swine and they all drowned. You must read it to me; I'll tell you why afterwards. I want to recall it literally. I need it literally."
Sofya Matveevna knew the Gospel well and immediately found in Luke the same passage I have placed as an epigraph to my chronicle. I quote it here again:
"Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed."
"My friend," Stepan Trofimovich said in great excitement,
"savez-vous,this wonderful and... extraordinary passage has been a stumbling block for me all my life...
dans ce livre... so that I have remembered this passage ever since childhood. And now a thought has occurred to me;
une comparaison.Terribly many thoughts occur to me now: you see, it's exactly like our Russia. These demons who come out of a sick man and enter into swine—it's all the sores, all the miasmas, all the uncleanness, all the big and little demons accumulated in our great and dear sick man, in our Russia, for centuries, for centuries!
Oui, cette Russie que j'aimais toujours.
[ccxi]