Demons

"Don't trouble, I'll do it myself," he said charmingly—that is, once he had fully noted that I was not going to pick up his reticule—picked it up as if forestalling me, nodded his head once more, and went on his way, having made a fool of me. It was the same as if I had picked it up myself. For about five minutes I considered myself disgraced utterly and forever; but coming up to Stepan Trofimovich's house, I suddenly burst out laughing. The encounter seemed so funny to me that I immediately decided to amuse Stepan Trofimovich by telling him about it and even acting out the whole scene.

III

But this time, to my surprise, I found him in an extreme change. True, he fell upon me with a sort of greediness as soon as I entered, and began listening to me, but with such a lost look that at first he appeared not to understand what I was saying. But as soon as I uttered the name of Karmazinov, he suddenly flew into a complete frenzy.

"Don't tell me, don't utter!" he exclaimed, all but in a rage. "Here, here, look, read! read!"

He pulled open the drawer and threw onto the table three small scraps of paper, hastily written on in pencil, all of them from Varvara Petrovna. The first note was from two days ago, the second from yesterday, and the last had come today, just an hour earlier; they were all of the most vapid content, to do with Karmazinov, betraying Varvara Petrovna's vain and ambitious concern for fear that Karmazinov might forget to call on her. Here is the first one, from two days ago (there had probably also been one from three days ago, and perhaps one from four days ago):

If he finally honors you today, not a word about me, I beg you. Not the slightest hint. No mention, no reminder.

V.S.

And yesterday's:

If he finally decides to call on you this morning, I think the most noble thing would be not to receive him at all. That is my opinion, I don't know what yours is.

V.S.

And today's, the latest:

I'm sure you have a whole heap of litter there and clouds of tobacco smoke. I'll send you Marya and Fomushka; they'll tidy up in half an hour. And don't get in their way, just sit in the kitchen while they're tidying up. I'm sending you a Bukhara rug and two Chinese jars—I've long been meaning to give them to you—and also my Teniers ^[48](for a time). You can put the vases on the windowsill and hang the Teniers to the right above Goethe's portrait, it's a more conspicuous place and always light in the morning. If he finally appears, receive him with refined courtesy, but try to talk about trifles, about something learned, and make it seem as if you parted only yesterday. Not a word about me. Perhaps I'll stop by for a look this evening.

V.S. P.S. If he doesn't come today, he won't come at all.

I read and was surprised that he was so agitated over such trifles. Glancing at him questioningly, I suddenly noticed that he had had time, while I was reading, to change his usual white tie for a red one. His hat and stick lay on the table. He was pale, and his hands were even trembling.

"I won't hear of her worries!" he cried out frenziedly, in response to my questioning glance. "Je m'en fiche! ^[xxxiii] She has the heart to worry about Karmazinov, and yet she doesn't answer my letters! Here, here is a letter she returned to me unopened yesterday, here on the table, under the book, under L'Homme qui rit. ^[49] What do I care if she's grieving over Ni-ko-lenka! Je m'en fiche et je proclame ma liberté. Au diable le Karmazinoff! Au diable la Lembke! ^[xxxiv] I put the vases away in the front hall, and Teniers into the chest, and demanded that she receive me at once. Do you hear: demanded! I sent her an identical scrap of paper, in pencil, unsealed, through Nastasya, and I am waiting. I want Darya Pavlovna herself to tell me with her own lips, and before the face of heaven, or at least before you. Vous me seconderez, n 'est-ce pas, comme ami et témoin. ^[xxxv] I do not want to blush, I do not want to lie, I do not want secrets, I will not allow secrets in this matter! Let them confess everything to me sincerely, guilelessly, nobly, and then... then perhaps I'll surprise the whole generation with my magnanimity! ... Am I a scoundrel or not, my dear sir?" he concluded suddenly, giving me a menacing look, as though it were I who considered him a scoundrel.

I suggested that he drink some water; I had never before seen him like this. All the while he was speaking, he kept running from one corner of the room to the other, but suddenly he stopped before me in some extraordinary attitude.

"Can you really think," he began again, with morbid haughtiness, looking me up and down, "can you really suppose that I, Stepan Verkhovensky, will not find moral strength enough to take my box— my beggar's box—and, heaving it onto my weak shoulders, go out the gate and disappear from here forever, if honor and the great principle of independence demand? This is not the first time that Stepan Verkhovensky will have to repel despotism with magnanimity, be it only the despotism of a crazy woman—that is, the most offensive and cruel despotism that can possibly exist in the world, despite the fact that you now permit yourself, it seems, to smile at my words, my dear sir! Oh, you do not believe that I can find enough magnanimity in myself to be able to end my life as a tutor in some merchant's house, or die of hunger in a ditch! Answer me, answer me at once: do you believe it, or do you not?"

But I purposely held my tongue. I even pretended that I did not dare to offend him with a negative answer, but could not answer positively either. There was something in all this irritation that decidedly offended me, and not personally—oh, no! But... I will explain myself later.

He even turned pale.

"Perhaps you're bored with me, G——v" (that is my last name), "and would prefer... not to come to me at all?" he said, in that tone of pale composure that usually precedes some extraordinary explosion. I jumped up in fright; at the same moment, Nastasya walked in and silently handed Stepan Trofimovich a piece of paper with something written on it in pencil. He glanced at it and threw it over to me. On the piece of paper, in Varvara Petrovna's hand, were written just two words: "Stay home."

Stepan Trofimovich silently grabbed his hat and stick and went quickly to the door; I followed him mechanically. Suddenly voices and the sound of someone's rapid footsteps came from the hallway. He stopped as if thunderstruck.

"That's Liputin, and I am a lost man!" he whispered, seizing my arm.

At the same moment, Liputin entered the room.

IV

Why he should be a lost man as the result of Liputin I did not know, nor did I attach much importance to his words; I ascribed it all to nerves. But even so his fright was extraordinary, and I decided to watch closely.

By his look alone the entering Liputin already announced that this time he had a special right to enter, in spite of all prohibitions. He led in an unknown gentleman who must have been a newcomer to town. In reply to the senseless stare of the dumbfounded Stepan Trofimovich, he at once loudly proclaimed:

"I bring you a visitor, and a special one! I make so bold as to break in upon your seclusion. Mr. Kirillov, a remarkable structural engineer. And the main thing is that he knows your boy, the much respected Pyotr Stepanovich; very closely, sir; and he has an errand from him. He has just arrived, if you please."

"You added that about the errand," the visitor remarked curtly, "there was never any errand, but it's true I know Verkhovensky. I left him in Kh—— province, ten days before here."