Chapter 1
By way of an introduction: some details from the biography of the highly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky
Chapter 1
By way of an introduction: some details from the biography of the highly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
1
In setting out to describe the recent and very strange events that occurred in our hitherto completely undistinguished little town, I am compelled by my own lack of talent to begin from some time back, that is, with a few biographical details about the talented and highly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. Let these details serve merely as an introduction to the present chronicle; the actual story I intend to relate will follow later.
I can state forthwith that Stepan Trofimovich always played a rather special role among us, a civic role so to speak, and he loved this role so passionately that it seems to me he couldn’t have existed without it. It’s not that I’d compare him to an actor on stage: God forbid, all the more since I myself respect him. Perhaps it was all a matter of habit, or, more precisely, his constant and noble tendency since childhood to indulge in pleasant fantasies about his own splendid civic standing. For example, he enjoyed his position as a ‘persecuted’ man, even, so to speak, an ‘exile’. There’s a certain traditional glamour contained in these two little words that had seduced him once and for all, and, over p. 4↵many years, gradually elevated him in his own estimation, and finally placed him on a pedestal that was highly gratifying to his vanity. In an English satirical novel of the last century a certain Gulliver, returning from the land of the Lilliputians where the people were only a few inches tall, had grown so accustomed to thinking of himself as a giant that, as he walked along the streets of London, he kept shouting at passers-by and carriages to be careful and get out of his way so he wouldn’t trample them, imagining that he was still a giant and they were very tiny. People laughed at him and made fun of him, and rough coachmen even lashed him with their whips. But was that fair? What is habit not capable of? Habit had driven Stepan Trofimovich almost as far as that, but in a more innocent and inoffensive way, if one can put it like that, because he was such a splendid man.
I’m actually inclined to think he was entirely forgotten in the end; on the other hand, it can’t be said that he was completely unknown earlier on. There’s no doubt that at one time he belonged to our famous galaxy of illustrious men of the last generation; at one time, though only for a brief moment, his name was uttered by many impulsive people of the day almost in the same breath with Chaadaev, Belinsky, Granovsky, and Herzen* (who was then just embarking on his activities abroad). But Stepan Trofimovich’s activity ended almost as soon as it began as a result, so to speak, of a ‘whirlwind of concurrent circumstances’. And what do you think? It turned out later there had been neither ‘whirlwind’ nor ‘circumstances’, at least not in this instance. Only a few days ago I learned to my great amazement, but from a most reliable source, that Stepan Trofimovich had been living in our province not as an exile, as we’d been led to believe; nor had he ever been under police surveillance. Such is the power of imagination! All his life he devoutly believed that in certain spheres he was regarded with apprehension, that his every step was being watched, and that three successive governors in the last twenty years arrived to take over the administration of our province with a certain preconceived notion about him inculcated from p. 5↵above and handed down with their appointment as governor. Had anyone tried to persuade the honourable Stepan Trofimovich with irrefutable evidence that he really had nothing to fear, he would certainly have been highly offended. And yet he was a very intelligent and talented man, even, so to say, a scholar, although, in fact, his scholarship… well, in a word, his scholarship had accomplished very little, in fact, it seems, it had accomplished nothing at all. But then that happens all the time with men of learning in Russia.
He returned from abroad and distinguished himself as a university lecturer towards the end of the 1840s. He managed to deliver only a few lectures, on the Arabs, I believe; he also succeeded in defending a brilliant dissertation on the potential civic and Hanseatic significance of the little German town of Hanau between 1413 and 1428, including the peculiar and obscure reasons why that significance never materialized. His dissertation was a clever and painful dig at the Slavophiles* of the day and immediately made him many bitter enemies. Later on, after he lost his university ; position, he managed to publish (as a form of revenge, so to speak, just to show them what sort of man they’d lost) in a progressive monthly journal* which translated the works of Dickens and advocated the ideas of George Sand, the beginning of some very profound piece of research; I believe it was about the causes of the extraordinary moral nobility of certain knights at some time or other, or something of that sort. In any case it expounded some lofty and exceptionally noble idea. It was said afterwards that the continuation of his research had been hastily forbidden and that even the progressive journal suffered as a result of having published the first part. That may very well have been so, since all sorts of things were possible in those days. But in this case it was more likely that nothing of the kind occurred and the author himself was simply too lazy to complete the work. He curtailed his lectures on the Arabs because somehow someone (obviously one of his reactionary enemies) had intercepted a letter to someone else which contained an account of certain ‘circumstances’, as a result of which someone was demanding some kind of explanation from him. p. 6↵I don’t know whether it’s true, but it was also asserted that at the same time in Petersburg an enormous, unnatural, and subversive organization of some thirteen members was uncovered, one that had almost shaken the foundations of society. It was said that they were planning to translate the works of Fourier himself.* As bad luck would have it, at the same time in Moscow a poem written by Stepan Trofimovich was confiscated, a work he’d written six years earlier in Berlin, during the first flowering of his youth, which had circulated in manuscript among two admirers and one student. This poem lies before me now on the table; I acquired it about a year ago from Stepan Trofimovich, recopied by the author himself quite recently, bearing his signature and bound in sumptuous red morocco. It isn’t lacking in poetry, moreover, and actually reveals some talent. It’s strange, but in those days (that is, to be more precise, during the thirties) people frequently wrote like that. I find it difficult to describe the subject, since, to tell the truth, I can’t understand a thing. It’s some sort of allegory in lyrical-dramatic form, reminiscent of the second part of Faust.* The scene opens with a chorus of women, followed by a chorus of men, then a chorus of forces of some sort, and finally a chorus of human souls who have not yet lived, but who would very much like a chance to do so. All these choruses sing about something very obscure, primarily about someone’s curse, but with a hint of supreme humour. Then the scene suddenly changes and a ‘Festival of Life’ begins during which some insects sing, a turtle appears to chant sacramental Latin words, and even, if I remember correctly, a mineral (that is, a completely inanimate object) bursts into song about something or other. In general everyone is singing all the time, and if they speak, it’s simply to abuse one another in the vaguest of terms, but always with an element of higher meaning. Finally the scene changes once more to some wild place; a very civilized young man wanders among the rocks picking and sucking herbs of some sort. In reply to a fairy who asks why he’s sucking herbs, he says that, aware of an abundance of life within him, he’s searching p. 7↵for oblivion and finds it in the juice of these herbs. But his principal desire is to lose his mind as soon as possible (a desire that may be quite superfluous). Then suddenly a youth of indescribable beauty rides in on a black horse followed by a huge crowd of people from many nations. The youth represents Death, which all peoples yearn for. Last but not least, in the final scene, the Tower of Babel suddenly appears; athletes of some sort are finishing it off, singing a song of new hope. When at last they reach the top, the lord, perhaps of Olympus, runs away in comic fashion; then mankind, grasping the situation, assumes his place and immediately begins leading a new life with fresh insight into all things.
So, this was the poem that was considered so dangerous at the time. Last year I proposed to Stepan Trofimovich that he publish it, since nowadays it would be considered perfectly innocuous; he rejected my suggestion with obvious displeasure. He didn’t appreciate my view of the poem’s complete innocuousness; I’m even tempted to ascribe to this a certain coolness on his part towards me which lasted for two whole months. And what do you think? Suddenly, almost at the same time I was proposing to publish it here, the poem was published over there, that is, abroad, in a revolutionary anthology, entirely without Stepan Trofimovich’s knowledge. At first he was alarmed, ran to the governor and wrote the most noble letter of self-justification to Petersburg, which he read to me twice, but never sent off because he didn’t know how to address it. In short, he was upset about it for one whole month; but I’m convinced that in the innermost recesses of his heart he was extremely flattered. He practically slept with the copy of the journal procured for him; during the day he kept it hidden under his mattress, and wouldn’t even allow the maid to make his bed. Although he daily expected to receive a telegram, he viewed the matter with disdain. No telegram ever came. At the same time he made peace with me, which testifies to the extreme goodness of his gentle and unresentful heart.
2
p. 8↵Of course, I’m not claiming that he didn’t suffer for his convictions; it’s just that now I’m absolutely convinced he could have carried on writing about those Arabs of his to his heart’s content, if only he’d provided the necessary explanations. But at the time he was carried away by pride, and with notable haste managed to convince himself that his career had been shattered once and for all by a ‘whirlwind of circumstances’. But if truth be told, the real reason for the change in his career was the extremely delicate proposition made previously and brought up once again by Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina; the wife of a lieutenant-general and a woman of wealth and importance. This was to be responsible, in the capacity of head tutor and friend, for the education and intellectual development of her only son, not to mention a handsome salary. This proposal was first made to him in Berlin, at the very time he was first widowed. His first wife was a rather frivolous girl from our province whom he’d married in his early, impetuous youth. I believe he endured much sorrow with that young woman, attractive though she was, as a result of having insufficient means to support her, as well as other, somewhat more delicate considerations. She died in Paris after living apart from him for three years; she left him a five-year-old son, ‘the fruit of our first, joyous, as yet unclouded love’, as the grief-stricken Stepan Trofimovich once declared to me.
From the start the fledgling had been sent back to Russia where he was to be brought up by some distant aunts in a remote region. Stepan Trofimovich had declined Varvara Petrovna’s proposal at that time, and, in less than a year, swiftly married a taciturn German girl from Berlin, without any need to do so. But, in addition, there turned out to be other reasons for declining the position of tutor: he was fascinated by the resounding fame of a certain professor at the time; he, in turn, hastened back to the department where he’d studied, hoping to put his own eagle’s wings to the test. And then, when his wings had been singed, he naturally recalled the proposal which had previously given him pause. p. 9↵The sudden death of his second wife, who’d lived with him for less than a year, decided the matter once and for all. I can state quite candidly: everything was resolved by the passionate sympathy and precious, so to speak classical friendship of Varvara Petrovna, if such an expression may be used to describe friendship. He threw himself into the embrace of that friendship, and the matter was settled for over twenty years. I use the expression ‘threw himself into the embrace’, but God forbid anyone should jump to unwarranted and frivolous conclusions; this embrace must be understood only in the loftiest possible moral sense. The most subtle and delicate of ties united these two extraordinary human beings for ever.
Stepan Trofimovich also accepted the position as tutor because the property left him by his first wife was very small indeed and was located next to Skvoreshniki, the Stavrogins’ magnificent estate on the outskirts of town in our province. Besides, it was always possible, in the quiet of his own study, no longer distracted by the weight of university affairs, to devote himself to the cause of learning and enrich the literature of his country through his most profound scholarship. No scholarship ever materialized; on the other hand, it did prove possible to spend the rest of his life, more than twenty years, as a ‘reproach incarnate’, so to speak, to his native land. In the words of the people’s poet:*
A reproach incarnate You stand before your fatherland, A liberal idealist.
However, the person to whom that poet of the people was referring may have had the right to assume that pose for his entire life, if he so desired, boring though it might be. But our Stepan Trofimovich, to tell the truth, was merely an impostor compared with such figures; he grew tired of standing, and frequently preferred to lie down for a while. But, to do him full justice, though lying down, he remained a ‘reproach incarnate’ even in this recumbent position, p. 10↵which was certainly good enough for the inhabitants of our province. You should have seen him at our club when he sat down to play cards. His whole demeanour proclaimed, ‘Cards! Imagine me sitting down to play a game of whist with you! Is it fitting? Who’s responsible for this? Who’s destroyed my career and turned me to whist? Ah, perish Russia!’ Then he’d majestically trump with a heart.
To be perfectly honest, he was very fond of a game of cards, as a result of which, especially during his later years, he had frequent and unpleasant squabbles with Varvara Petrovna, particularly since he always lost. But more about this later. I shall merely mention that he was a man with a conscience (sometimes, that is), and therefore was often depressed. Throughout his twenty-year friendship with Varvara Petrovna he regularly, three or four times a year, sank into a state of ‘civic grief’, as it was known among us, that is, into depression, but our much esteemed Varvara Petrovna preferred the former phrase. Later on, in addition to civic grief, he began sinking into champagne; but all his life the vigilant Varvara Petrovna strove to protect him from all such petty proclivities. As a matter of fact, he really needed a nanny, because there were times when he became very strange indeed: in the midst of the most sublime grief, he would suddenly start laughing in a very uncouth way. There ! were even moments when he would start making humorous remarks about himself. There was nothing Varvara Petrovna feared as much as humour. She was a woman of the classical type, a female Maecenas,* who acted only with the loftiest of intentions. The twenty years of influence this superior lady had on her poor friend were of the greatest consequence. It will be necessary to talk about her separately, which I will now proceed to do.
3
There are some very strange friendships: both friends are practically ready to devour one another; they live their whole lives like that, yet are unable to part. In fact, there’s absolutely no way they can part: the one who, in a fit of petulance, decided to end the relationship would in fact be p. 11↵the first to fall ill and perhaps even die, if this should ever happen. I know for a fact that Stepan Trofimovich, on several occasions, and sometimes following the most intimate, tête-à-tête sessions with Varvara Petrovna, would, jump up from the sofa immediately after her departure and begin pounding the wall with his fists.
There was nothing in the least allegorical about this; once he even knocked some plaster off the wall. Perhaps you’ll ask how I could have discovered such intimate details. Well, what if I witnessed it with my own eyes? What if on more than one occasion Stepan Trofimovich sobbed on my shoulder, depicting in vivid colours every last circumstance of the affair? (The things he said at such times!) But here’s what used to happen after almost every one of these sobbing fits of his: by the following day he was fully prepared to crucify himself for his own ingratitude. He would summon me hastily or else come running over, simply to tell me that Varvara Petrovna was ‘an angel of honour and delicacy, while he himself was the complete opposite’. Not only did he come running to me, but very often he would describe all this to her in the most eloquent letters, confessing over his full signature, that, for example, only the day before he’d told a third party that she was supporting him merely out of vanity; that she envied his learning and talents; that she hated him and was simply afraid to reveal that hatred openly, for fear he’d leave and thus damage her literary reputation; that as a result of all this, he despised himself and had decided to die a violent death; that he was waiting for a final word from her to settle everything, once and for all, and so on and so forth, much in the same vein. After all this one can well imagine the pitch of hysteria reached on occasion by the nervous outbursts of this most innocent of fifty-year-old babes! Once I myself read one of his letters after some quarrel between them trivial in its cause, but venomous in its conduct. I was horrified and implored him not to send it.
‘Impossible… it’s more honest… my duty… I’ll die if I don’t confess everything to her, absolutely everything!’ he replied, almost in a fever, and sent the letter off anyway.
p. 12↵That was the difference between them: Varvara Petrovna would never have sent such a letter. It’s true he was passionately fond of writing and wrote even though he lived in the same house with her, and in moments of hysteria he even wrote twice a day. I know for a fact that she always read these letters with the most careful attention, even when she received two in one day; after she read them, she always folded them up and stored them away in a special drawer, all sorted and labelled. Furthermore, she stored them away in her heart. But then, after keeping her friend waiting all day for a reply, she’d greet him as if nothing at all had happened, as if nothing special had transpired the day before. Little by little she trained him so well that he himself would never dare remind her of what had occurred, but would merely gaze into her eyes for a while. But she never forgot a thing, while he sometimes forgot all too soon, and, emboldened by her serenity, would often be found laughing and joking over a glass of champagne if friends arrived. How venomously she must have glared at him at such moments, but he didn’t notice a thing! Only afterwards, a week later perhaps, or a month, or even six months, at some particular moment he’d accidentally recall a phrase from one of his letters, then the whole letter with all its attendant circumstances, and suddenly he’d be overwhelmed by shame; he’d be so tormented that he’d fall ill with one of his bilious attacks. These kind of bilious attacks were peculiar to him, often the regular outcome of nervous distress, and constituted a curious constitutional idiosyncrasy.
Indeed, Varvara Petrovna must have hated him on numerous occasions; but the only thing about her he failed to notice until the very end was that he’d finally become like a son to her, her own creation, one might even say, her invention. He’d become flesh of her flesh; she supported and maintained him not only because she ‘envied his talents’. How offended she would have been by such suppositions! In her heart there lay hidden unmitigated love for him, amidst the constant hatred, jealousy, and contempt. She protected him from every speck of dust and fussed over p. 13↵him for twenty-two years; she would have endured nights without sleep if anything had threatened his reputation as a poet, scholar, or public figure. She had invented him and she herself was the first to believe in her own invention. He was like a daydream of hers… But in return she demanded a great deal from him, sometimes amounting to servitude. She was incredibly unforgiving. Now I’ll relate several episodes about that.
4
Once, when the first rumours* about emancipation of the serfs began circulating, and all Russia was suddenly rejoicing and preparing to be completely reborn, Varvara Petrovna was visited by a baron from Petersburg, a man of the best connections who was intimately involved in the reforms. Varvara Petrovna valued such visits very highly because since the death of husband her own connections in high society had weakened and finally dissolved altogether. The baron sat with her for about an hour and had tea. No one else was present, but Varvara Petrovna had invited Stepan Trofimovich to show him off. The baron had actually heard something about him, or else pretended he had, but during tea paid him very little attention. Naturally, Stepan could keep his end up and his manners were elegant. Although, I believe, of modest origin, he had in fact been raised from childhood in an aristocratic household in Moscow and consequently was very well brought up; he spoke French like a Parisian. Therefore the baron was supposed to realize from the outset the sort of people Varvara Petrovna surrounded herself with, even though she lived in provincial isolation. However, things turned out differently. When the baron positively confirmed the absolute truth of the first rumours circulating about the great reform, Stepan Trofimovich couldn’t restrain himself: he suddenly cried, ‘Hurrah!’ and even made a gesture expressing his delight. His cry was not very loud, was even quite graceful; the expression of delight may even have been premeditated, the gesture carefully rehearsed in front of a mirror half an hour before tea. But somehow it failed to come off, and the baron permitted p. 14↵himself the faintest of smiles, though he did so with extraordinary politeness, and ventured some phrase or other about the universal and proper emotion shared by all true Russian hearts on such a great occasion. He soon left, and in doing so, didn’t forget to extend two fingers for Stepan Trofimovich to shake. On returning to the drawing-room Varvara Petrovna remained silent for a few minutes, apparently looking for something on the table. Then she suddenly turned to Stepan Trofimovich and with pale face and flashing eyes hissed at him in a whisper:
‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’
The next day she greeted her friend as if nothing had happened; she never referred to the incident again. But thirteen years later, at a certain tragic moment, she recalled it and reproached him for it, and grew very pale in the same way she had some thirteen years before when she’d first reproached him. Only twice in her entire life did she say to him, ‘I’ll, never forgive you for this!’ The episode with the baron was the second time, but the first was so typical, and, I believe, so relevant to Stepan Trofimovich’s fate, that I’ve decided to relate it as well.
It was in the spring of 1855, in May, just after news of Lieutenant-General Stavrogin’s death had reached Skvoreshniki; the foolish old man had died of a stomach disorder as he was hastening to the Crimea on active service. Varvara Petrovna was left a widow and went into full mourning. It’s true she couldn’t grieve very much, since she’d been separated from her husband for the last four years on account of the incompatibility of their temperaments, and had been providing him with an allowance. (The Lieutenant-General himself had only about a hundred and fifty serfs and his salary, apart from his social position and connections; all the wealth and Skvoreshniki itself belonged to Varvara Petrovna, the only daughter of a very rich tax-farmer.*) Nevertheless she was shaken by the unexpected news and withdrew into total seclusion. Of course, Stepan Trofimovich was constantly at her side.
May was in full splendour; the evenings were marvellous. The wild cherry trees were in bloom. Every evening the p. 15↵two friends would stroll in the garden and sit in the summer-house until nightfall, pouring out their thoughts and feelings to each other. These were poetic moments. Under the influence of the change in her position, Varvara Petrovna talked more than usual. She seemed to be clinging to her friend’s heart, and this went on for several evenings. A strange thought suddenly occurred to Stepan Trofimovich: ‘By any chance was the inconsolable widow relying on him and expecting him to make her a proposal at the end of her year of mourning?’ It was a cynical thought; but then the loftiness of man’s nature sometimes actually contributes to his propensity for cynical thoughts, if for no other reason than the complexity of his development. When he considered the idea more carefully, he found that it was just as he suspected. He pondered: ‘True, she’s enormously wealthy, but she’s so…’ Indeed, Varvara Petrovna couldn’t exactly be described as a great beauty: she was a tall, bony woman with a sallow complexion and an extremely long face, somewhat resembling a horse. Stepan Trofimovich hesitated more and more; he was plagued by doubt. Once or twice he even shed a few tears in his indecision (he wept rather frequently). In the evenings, in the summer-house, that is, his face involuntarily began to assume a kind of capricious and ironical expression, somewhat flirtatious, yet arrogant at the same time. This occurs unintentionally, involuntarily; and in fact, the nobler the man, the more noticeable it is. Goodness knows what to make of it all, but it’s most likely that nothing was stirring in Varvara Petrovna’s heart such as fully to have justified Stepan Trofimovich’s suspicions. Besides, she would never have exchanged the name Stavrogin for his, no matter how famous it was. Perhaps it was all merely feminine wiles on her part, a manifestation of some unconscious female need, entirely natural in certain extreme feminine situations. I can’t swear to it, however; the depths of a woman’s heart are uncharted territory to this very day! But I’ll proceed.
It must be supposed that soon she guessed the meaning of the strange expression on her friend’s face; she was sensitive and observant, while he was all too often innocent. p. 16↵But their evenings continued just as before, and their conversations were just as poetic and interesting. Then once, at nightfall, after a most animated and poetic conversation, they parted amicably, pressing each other’s hands warmly as they stood near the steps of the annexe in which Stepan Trofimovich resided. Every summer he used to move from the large manor-house at Skvoreshniki into this little annexe which stood virtually in the garden. He’d just returned to his apartment and, in a state of agitated meditation, had taken out a cigar, though not yet lit it, when he stopped, exhausted, motionless, by the open window, looking out at some white clouds that drifted light as a feather near the bright moon, when suddenly a light rustle caused him to shudder and turn around. Before him stood Varvara Petrovna, whom he’d left only a few minutes ago. Her rather sallow face had turned almost blue; her lips were pressed together tightly and trembled at the corners. She looked him right in the eye for ten full seconds with a firm, implacable glare; then all of a sudden she whispered rapidly:
‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’
Ten years later, when Stepan Trofimovich related this gloomy episode to me in a whisper, after first closing his door, he swore that at the time he was so dumbfounded that he’d neither seen nor heard Varvara Petrovna leave his room. Since she never once alluded to the incident afterwards, and everything went on exactly as it had before, he’d been inclined ever since to consider it a hallucination preceding sickness, particularly since that very evening he really did fall ill and remained so for two whole weeks, which, by the way, put an end to their evening meetings in the summer-house.
But in spite of his suspicion that it was merely a hallucination, every day of his life he waited, as it were, for what might be the continuation and, so to speak, the denouement of this episode. He didn’t believe that would be the end of it! That being so, at times he must have given his friend some very strange looks.
5
p. 17↵It was she herself who had designed the clothes he was to wear for the rest of his life. This outfit was elegant and very characteristic: a long black frock-coat, buttoned almost to the neck, but very stylishly cut; a soft hat (in summer, a straw hat) with a wide brim; a white cambric cravat tied in a large bow with dangling ends; a cane with a silver knob; in addition, hair hung to his shoulders. He had dark brown hair which had only recently begun to turn a little grey. He was clean-shaven. He’s said in his youth to have really been quite handsome. But in my opinion, he was an unusually impressive figure even in old age. Besides, what sort of old age is fifty-three? However, in keeping with a certain civic coquetry, he made no effort to appear younger, but even seemed to take pride in the respectability of his years; and in his appearance-tall, lean, with shoulder-length hair, he resembled a patriarch perhaps, or rather, a lithograph of the poet Kukolnik* in an edition of his works published in the thirties, especially when he sat in summer on a bench in the garden beneath a flowering lilac bush, with both hands resting on his cane, a book open beside him, lost in poetic reverie over the setting sun. As far as books are concerned, I must note that towards the end he seemed to give up reading. But that was only towards the very end. He would always read all the newspapers and journals to which Varvara Petrovna subscribed. He was also always interested in the achievements of Russian literature, although he never lost a sense of his own worth. Once he actually became involved in the study of our contemporary internal politics and foreign affairs, but soon he gave all that up. Here’s what else used to happen: he’d set out for the garden with a volume of de Tocqueville in his hands,* while in his pocket he’d have hidden a copy of Paul de Kock.* But that’s all by the way.
I must mention in parenthesis that picture of Kukolnik: Varvara Petrovna had first come across it as a young girl while attending the gentry boarding school in Moscow. She fell in love with the picture at once, as is usual for girls in p. 18↵boarding schools who fall in love with anything that comes their way, including their instructors, especially those who teach calligraphy and drawing. But the odd thing here is not the nature of the young girls, but that even at fifty Varvara Petrovna kept this picture as one of her most treasured possessions; it may very well have been solely because of this that she designed Stepan Trofimovich’s apparel to have some resemblance to that shown in the picture. But this, too, is a mere detail.
During the early years, or, to be more precise, during the first half of the time he spent at Varvara Petrovna’s, Stepan Trofimovich was still thinking about producing some great work and every day was about to begin in earnest. But during the second half of his time there he seemed to have forgotten everything he’d ever known. More and more frequently he told us, ‘It seems I’m ready to begin work. All the materials have been collected, but I just can’t get started! Nothing ever gets done!’ And his head would droop in despair. Undoubtedly this was meant to endow him with even greater dignity in our eyes, as if he were a martyr to scholarship; but he himself wanted something entirely different. ‘They’ve forgotten me; no one needs me any more!’ he’d exclaim on more than one occasion. This intense depression really took hold of him towards the end of the fifties. Varvara Petrovna finally realized it was a very serious matter. Besides, she too couldn’t bear the thought that her friend had been forgotten and was no longer needed. In order to distract him and, at the same time, revive his fame, she took him off to Moscow where she still had a number of distinguished literary and learned acquaintances; but as it turned out, Moscow also proved to be unsatisfactory.
It was a peculiar time; something new was in the air, quite unlike the previous tranquillity, something very peculiar indeed, and it was perceived everywhere, even in Skvoreshniki. All kinds of rumours were circulating. In general the facts were more or less known, but it was also apparent that in addition to facts, there were certain ideas accompanying them; the main thing was that there was a large number of these ideas. And this is what was most perplexing: in no p. 19↵way was it possible to orient oneself or be certain what these ideas meant. Varvara Petrovna, as a consequence of her feminine disposition, was always suspicious that they concealed some secret. She took to reading newspapers and journals, prohibited publications from abroad, and even political pamphlets which were just beginning to appear then (she had access to everything); but this merely made her head spin. She set about writing letters to which she received very few replies; and as time went on, the replies she did receive became more and more incomprehensible. Stepan Trofimovich was solemnly invited to explain ‘all these new ideas’ to her once and for all; but she remained decidedly dissatisfied with his explanations. Stepan Trofimovich’s view of the entire movement was arrogant in the extreme; according to him, it all came down to the fact that he’d been forgotten and was no longer needed. At last they remembered even him, at first in periodicals published abroad as a martyr in exile, and then later in Petersburg, as a former star in an illustrious constellation; for some reason they even compared him to Radishchev.* Then someone published a notice that he was dead and promised to write his obituary. Stepan Trofimovich was immediately resurrected and became even more dignified than before. All disdain for his contemporaries vanished at once, and his daydream was rekindled: to join the movement and demonstrate his power. Varvara Petrovna regained all her old faith in everything and became terribly active. They decided to leave for Petersburg without delay to witness everything on the spot, to investigate it all personally, and, if possible, to participate jointly in the new activity with all their heart and soul. Meanwhile, Varvara Petrovna declared that she was prepared to establish her own journal and devote the rest of her life to it. Seeing it had gone that far, Stepan Trofimovich became even more arrogant; along the way he began to treat Varvara Petrovna almost patronizingly, a fact which she promptly stored away in her heart. However, she had another very important reason for making this trip, namely, the renewal of her former connections. She thought it necessary to remind society of her existence, or at least p. 20↵to attempt to do so. The stated pretext for her journey was a meeting with her only son who was then completing his studies at a Petersburg lycée.
6
They went to Petersburg and spent almost the entire winter season there. But by Lent everything had burst like a rainbow-coloured soap bubble. Their dreams were shattered, and the confusion, instead of being resolved, became even more repugnant. In the first place, high social connections were not established, except perhaps on the most microscopic level and with humiliating effort. The offended Varvara Petrovna threw herself into the ‘new ideas’ wholeheartedly and began hosting soirées. She invited writers, and large numbers of them were produced almost immediately. Then they began to come of their own accord, without invitation; each one brought someone else. Never before had she seen such writers. They were unbelievably vain, though quite open about it, as if by being so they were fulfilling some obligation. Some of them (although by no means all) even showed up drunk, and appeared to see some new, recently discovered beauty in their condition. They were all curiously proud of something or other. It was written on every face that they had just come upon some extremely important secret. They abused each other, but considered it to their credit that they did so. It was rather hard to determine precisely what they wrote, but they included critics, novelists, playwrights, satirists, and investigatory journalists. Stepan Trofimovich penetrated into the very highest circle where the movement itself was directed. It was an incredibly long climb to reach that circle, but once there he was given a hearty welcome, although, of course, no one knew anything about him and no one had heard of him except that he ‘stood for some idea’. He manoeuvred among them so successfully that he even managed to get them to attend Varvara Petrovna’s salon once or twice, in spite of their Olympian grandeur. They were very serious people, very polite and well-behaved. The others were afraid of them, but it was clear they had no time to waste. Two p. 21↵or three former literary celebrities, who happened to be in Petersburg and with whom Varvara Petrovna had long maintained the most refined contacts, also showed up. But, to her surprise, these genuine and indubitable celebrities were as quiet and humble as church-mice; some of them simply attached themselves to this new rabble, ingratiating themselves disgracefully. At first Stepan Trofimovich was very lucky; they took him up and began showing him off at public literary gatherings. When he appeared on stage the first time as a reader at one of these gatherings, he was received with tempestuous applause lasting a full five minutes. Nine years later he still recalled this fact with tears in his eyes; however, he did so more on account of his artistic temperament than out of gratitude. ‘I swear to you and I’m ready to wager’, he once said to me (but to me alone and in confidence), ‘that not one person in the audience knew even the first thing about me!’ That’s a remarkable admission: it indicates what keen intelligence he had if, then and there, right on stage, he could have perceived his own predicament so clearly, in spite of his exalted mood. But it also indicates what keen intelligence he lacked, if nine years later he was unable to recall these events without feeling offended. They made him sign two or three collective letters of protest (against what he hadn’t the slightest idea); he signed them. They also made Varvara Petrovna sign to protest against some ‘disgraceful act’; and she signed too. However, even though the majority of these new people continued to visit Varvara Petrovna, they considered it necessary for some reason to regard her with contempt and unconcealed ridicule. Afterwards, in moments of bitterness, Stepan Trofimovich hinted to me that it was from then on that she came to envy him. She understood, of course, that she couldn’t really associate with these people; nevertheless, she received them eagerly, with all her hysterical feminine impatience; and above all, she still seemed to be expecting something from them. She spoke very little at her soirées, although she certainly might have said more; for the most part she listened. They talked about the abolition of censorship and a superfluous letter in the alphabet,* the p. 22↵replacement of cyrillic letters by roman ones, someone who was exiled the day before, about a scandal in the Shopping Arcade, the advantage of dividing Russia up into national communities united in a voluntary federation, about the abolition of the army and the navy, the restoration of Poland as far as the Dnieper, the emancipation of the serfs, political pamphlets, about abolishing inheritance, the family, children, and priests, the rights of women, about Kraevsky’s splendid house (no one would ever be able to forgive Mr Kraevsky*), and so on and so forth. It was clear that among this rabble of new people there were quite a few scoundrels, but undoubtedly there were also a number of very honest, even extremely attractive people, in spite of their rather astounding differences of opinion. The honest people were much less intelligible than the coarse, dishonest ones, but it was impossible to discern who was controlling whom. When Varvara Petrovna declared her intention to establish a new journal, an even larger crowd rushed to her, but straight away she was showered with accusations that she was a capitalist and exploiting labour. The bluntness of these accusations was matched only by their unexpectedness. Once the venerable General Ivan Ivanovich Drozdov, a former friend and colleague of the late General Stavrogin, a most worthy fellow (in his own way), known to all of us, an extremely obstinate and irritable man who had an enormously large appetite and was terribly afraid of atheism, quarrelled with one of the illustrious young men at one of Varvara Petrovna’s soirées. The young man was quick to reply, ‘You must be a general if you talk like that’, that is to say, he could conceive of no worse term of abuse than ‘general’. Ivan Ivanovich flew into a terrible rage: ‘Yes, sir, I am a general, and a lieutenant-general at that, and I’ve served my sovereign, while you, sir, are just a boy and an atheist to boot!’ An unconscionable scandal ensued. The next day the episode was ventilated in the press; signatures were collected for a collective letter of protest against Varvara Petrovna’s ‘disgraceful conduct’ in not throwing the general out of her house at once. A caricature appeared in an illustrated journal, caustically depicting Varvara Petrovna, p. 23↵the general, and Stepan Trofimovich in one picture as three reactionary friends; the caricature was accompanied by some verses written specially for the occasion by the people’s poet. I’ll just put in that many of those reaching the rank of general have indeed acquired the absurd habit of saying: ‘I’ve served my sovereign…’, that is, as if they had their own special sovereign, apart from the one who rules over us ordinary mortals.
Naturally it was impossible to remain in Petersburg any longer, the more so since Stepan Trofimovich was soon overtaken by an incredible fiasco. Unable to restrain himself, he began making declarations about the rights of art; they began laughing even louder at him. At his last reading he decided to impress them all with his civic eloquence, imagining that he could touch their hearts, relying on their respect for the years he spent ‘in exile’. He accepted without question the uselessness and absurdity of the word ‘fatherland’; he concurred with their views on the harmfulness of religion; but he loudly and firmly declared that Pushkin was more important than a pair of boots, and very much so. They hooted at him so mercilessly that he burst into tears right there on stage before the public. Varvara Petrovna carried him home more dead than alive. ‘On m’a traité comme un vieux bonnet de coton!’1 he babbled senselessly. She looked after him all night, gave him laurel water to drink, and repeated to him until dawn, ‘You’re still useful; you’ll make another appearance; they’ll learn to appreciate you… in some other place.’
The next day, early in the morning, five of the writers came to see Varvara Petrovna, including three total strangers she’d never seen before. With stern expressions they informed her that they’d considered the matter of her journal and had come to the following conclusion. Varvara Petrovna had never authorized anyone to consider her journal or come to any conclusions. They decided that, after establishing the journal, she should turn it over to them at once with the capital to run it as a free, co-operative association; she p. 24↵should leave for Skvoreshniki, not forgetting to take Stepan Trofimovich with her, who was now ‘out of date’. As a matter of courtesy they agreed to recognize her right of ownership and every year would send her one sixth of the net profit. What was most touching of all was that out of these five men, undoubtedly four had no motive of personal gain, and were merely acting on behalf of the ‘common cause’.
‘We left in a complete daze,’ Stepan Trofimovich said afterwards. ‘I couldn’t understand a thing. I remember muttering to the rumble of the train:
Vek and Vek and Lev Kambek, Lev Kambek and Vek and Vek…*
The devil knows what else I mumbled all the way to Moscow. It was only there I recovered my senses, as if expecting to find something different. Oh, my friends,’ he would sometimes exclaim in a moment of inspiration, ‘you can’t imagine what grief and bitterness envelop your entire soul when a great idea that you’ve long regarded as sacred is suddenly seized upon by ignorant people and dragged into the street before other fools, just like themselves, and you suddenly encounter it in the market-place in an unrecognizable form, covered with mud, presented from an absurd angle, without proportion or harmony, a mere plaything in the hands of stupid children! No! It was not like that in our day; that’s not what we were striving for. No, no, not at all for that. I don’t recognize a thing… Our time will come and once again we’ll restore everything that’s now tottering to a firm footing. Otherwise, what will happen?…’
7
Immediately upon their return from Petersburg Varvara Petrovna sent her friend abroad ‘for a rest’; besides, she felt it necessary for the two of them to be apart for a while. Stepan Trofimovich departed enthusiastically. ‘I’ll revive there,’ he exclaimed. ‘There at long last I’ll get to work!’ But in his very first letters from Berlin he struck the usual note. ‘My heart is broken,’ he wrote to Varvara Petrovna, p. 25↵‘I can’t forget a thing! Here in Berlin everything reminds me of my past, my first raptures and first torments. Where is she? Where are they both? Where are you, you two angels of whom I was never worthy? Where is my son, my beloved son? And where, last of all, am I, I myself, my former self, strong as steel, steadfast as a rock, when now some Andrejeff un Orthodox clown with a beard, peut briser mon existence en deux’,1 and so on and so forth. As for Stepan Trofimovich’s son, he’d seen him only twice in his entire life, first, when he was born, and second, recently in Petersburg where the young man was about to enter university. As stated above, all his life the boy had been brought up by aunts in a remote province (at Varvara Petrovna’s expense), some seven hundred miles from Skvoreshniki. And as for Andrejeff, that is, Andreev, he was simply a local merchant, a shopkeeper, a great eccentric, a self-taught archaeologist, a passionate collector of Russian antiquities, who would sometimes cross swords with Stepan Trofimovich on scholarly topics, but more often on political ones. This worthy shopkeeper, with a grey beard and large silver-rimmed glasses, still owed Stepan Trofimovich four hundred roubles for a few acres of timber he’d bought from Verkhovensky’s little estate (near Skvoreshniki). Although Varvara Petrovna had provided her friend with ample funds when she sent him off to Berlin, Stepan Trofimovich had really been counting on having those four hundred roubles before his departure, probably to cover his secret expenses, and he almost cried when Andrejeff asked him to wait another month; the latter, however, had every right to request such a delay since he’d paid the first instalment almost six months in advance when Stepan Trofimovich claimed special need at that time. Varvara Petrovna read his first letter eagerly; she underlined in pencil the exclamation, ‘Where are they both?’ She noted the date on the letter and locked it away in a drawer. He was referring to his two deceased wives, of course. The second letter she received from Berlin contained a variation on this theme: ‘I’m working twelve hours a day.’ (‘I’d settle p. 26↵for eleven,’ Varvara Petrovna muttered.) ‘I’m rummaging in libraries, collating, copying, running about; I’ve visited several professors. I’ve renewed my acquaintance with the wonderful Dundasov family. What a charming woman Nadezhda Nikolaevna remains even now! She sends you her regards. Her young husband and all three nephews are in Berlin. I spend my evenings with young people talking until dawn; we hold almost Athenian parties, but only in regard to refinement and splendour. Everything is very noble: lots of music, Spanish airs, dreams of human regeneration, ideas of eternal beauty, the Sistine Madonna, light alternating with darkness, but then, there are spots even on the sun! Oh, my friend, my noble, faithful friend! My heart is with you and I am yours, yours alone, en tout pays, and even dans le pays de Makar et de ses veaux, about which, you recall, we spoke so often with fear and trembling in Petersburg before my departure. I recall it with a smile. Only after crossing the border did I feel safe—a strange, novel sensation, the first time in so many years…’, and so on and so forth.
‘Oh, what nonsense!’ decided Varvara Petrovna as she folded his letter. ‘If he’s up until dawn at Athenian parties, he’s certainly not sitting over his books twelve hours a day. Was he drunk when he wrote that letter? How dare that Dundasova woman send me her regards? Oh well, let him have a good time…’
The phrase ‘dans le pays de Makar et de ses veaux’ was a reference to the popular Russian saying: ‘Where Makar never drove his flock’. Sometimes Stepan Trofimovich intentionally translated Russian proverbs and popular sayings into French in the most absurd way; without doubt he understood them and was able to translate them correctly, but he did it as a way of showing off and because he thought it witty.
But his good time didn’t last very long; he stayed there less than four months and hurried back to Skvoreshniki. His subsequent letters consisted merely of outpourings of the most sentimental love for his absent friend and were literally soaked with tears over their separation. There are certain p. 27↵natures which are extremely attached to home, just like lap-dogs. The reunion of the two friends was ecstatic. A few days later everything was back to normal, even more boring than before. ‘My friend,’ Stepan Trofimovich said to me some two weeks later in secret, ‘my friend, I’ve discovered something terrible, for me, that is… je suis un ordinary hanger-on, a parasite, et rien de plus! Mais r-r-rien de plus!’1
8
A lull followed lasting almost nine years. The hysterical outbursts and sobbings on my shoulder recurring at regular intervals in no way interfered with our well-being. I’m amazed that Stepan Trofimovich didn’t put on weight during this period. His nose got a little redder and his equanimity increased; that was all. Little by little a circle of acquaintances formed around him, although it was never very large. Even though Varvara Petrovna had little contact with this circle, we all still acknowledged her as our patroness. After the lesson she’d received in Petersburg, she settled down once and for all in our town. In winter she lived in her town house; she spent the summers on her nearby estate. Never did she enjoy such importance and influence in our provincial society as during the last seven years, that is, up to the time our present governor was appointed. The former governor, the unforgettable and mild-mannered Ivan Osipovich, was a close relative of hers; she had once done him a very great favour. His wife trembled at the very thought of displeasing Varvara Petrovna, and the worship accorded her by our provincial society at times bordered on idolatry. Naturally, this meant that things were good for Stepan Trofimovich as well. He was a member of the club; he lost magnanimously at cards; and he was respected, even though many regarded him as a mere ‘scholar’. Subsequently, when Varvara Petrovna allowed him to live in a separate house, we enjoyed even more freedom. We gathered at his place twice a week; it was very merry, p. 28↵especially when he was generous with the champagne. The wine came from a shop belonging to that same Andreev. Varvara Petrovna paid the bill every six months, and the same day Stepan Trofimovich almost always suffered one of his bilious attacks.
The oldest member of the circle was Liputin, a provincial official, middle-aged and an avowed liberal with a reputation in our town of being an atheist. He was married to his second wife, an attractive young lady with a large dowry; besides that, he had three grown-up daughters. He kept his entire family under lock and key, in fear of God; he was extremely stingy and had managed on his salary to purchase a house and acquire some capital. He was an anxious sort of person, who had not risen far in the service; he was not very well respected in town and not received at all in the best circles. In addition he was a notorious gossip who’d been punished for it more than once, severely, once by an officer, and another time by a landowner and respected father of a family. But we loved his sharp wit, enquiring mind, and distinctive malicious gaiety. Varvara Petrovna didn’t like him, but somehow he always knew how to play up to her.
Nor did she like Shatov, who’d become a member of the club only during the last year. Shatov had been a student and was expelled from the university after a scandal. In his childhood he’d been a pupil of Stepan Trofimovich; he was born a serf on Varvara Petrovna’s estate, the son of her late former valet Pavel Fyodorov, and was greatly indebted to her. She didn’t care for him because of his pride and ingratitude, and could never forgive the fact that he failed to return to her immediately after his expulsion from the university. Quite the contrary: he never replied to the urgent letter she wrote him at the time, preferring instead to enslave himself to some cultivated merchant as a tutor to his children. He went abroad with this merchant’s family, more in the role of nursemaid than tutor; but at the time he was extremely eager to travel. The children had a governess, a lively young Russian lady, who’d also joined the household on the eve of their departure, chiefly because p. 29↵she came so cheap. Two months later the merchant dismissed her for ‘free thinking’. Shatov set out after her, and soon married her in Geneva. They lived together for three weeks and then separated as free and unfettered individuals; of course, their poverty was also a factor. He wandered around Europe alone for a long time after that; goodness knows how he managed to live. It’s said he used to shine shoes on the street and worked as a stevedore in some port. Finally, about a year ago, he returned home to his native town and settled down to live with an old aunt whom he buried a month later. He had very little contact with his sister, Dasha, who’d also been brought up by Varvara Petrovna and who was a favourite of hers and was even treated as an equal. With us, he was always gloomy and taciturn; but occasionally, whenever his convictions were called into question, he’d get extremely irritated and his tongue would loosen up. ‘Shatov has to be tied up before you can argue with him,’ Stepan Trofimovich would remark on occasion; but he was actually quite fond of him. During his time abroad some of Shatov’s former socialist convictions had radically altered, and he had embraced the opposite extreme. He was one of those idealistic Russian personalities who are suddenly struck by some compelling idea and seem overwhelmed by it immediately, sometimes even for ever. They’re never really able to cope with the idea, but they profess it passionately, and they spend their whole lives as it were writhing desperately under the weight of the stone that’s fallen on them and already half-crushed them to death. In appearance Shatov closely resembled his convictions: he was clumsy, fair-haired, dishevelled, short, broad-shouldered, thick-lipped with very heavy, overhanging pale blond eyebrows, a furrowed brow, and an unfriendly, stubbornly downcast gaze that seemed ashamed of something. There was always one tuft of hair on his head that refused to be smoothed down and stood straight up on end. He was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. ‘I’m not surprised his wife ran away from him,’ Varvara Petrovna declared once, after looking him over thoroughly. He attempted to dress neatly, in spite of his extreme poverty. p. 30↵Once again he did not ask Varvara Petrovna’s assistance, but managed to get by somehow or other. He used to work for various merchants. At one point he was employed in a shop; then he was about to set off on a steamer as an assistant clerk with some merchandise, but fell ill before departure. You can’t imagine the poverty he was capable of enduring without giving it a single thought. After his illness Varvara Petrovna sent him a hundred roubles anonymously, in secret. He discovered the secret, however, thought about it, accepted the money, and went to thank Varvara Petrovna. She received him warmly, but then he disappointed her expectations disgracefully; he stayed only five minutes and sat there in silence, staring blankly at the floor and smiling stupidly. Then suddenly, without allowing her to finish her sentence, and at the most interesting part of the conversation, he stood up, made a clumsy, sort of sideways bow, became terribly embarrassed, accidentally brushed against and knocked over an expensive inlaid table, which broke in pieces, and walked out, nearly dead with shame. Afterwards Liputin reproached him severely for not giving back those hundred roubles with contempt, since they’d come from his former despotic landowning mistress; instead, he’d not only accepted the money, but had even gone to thank her for it. He lived alone, on the outskirts of town, and didn’t like it when anyone, even one of us, dropped in on him. He regularly turned up at Stepan Trofimovich’s parties and borrowed newspapers and books from him to read.
Another young man who used to appear at these parties was named Virginsky, a local official, who bore some resemblance to Shatov, although he was obviously his complete opposite in all respects. But he too was ‘a family man’. He was a pathetic, extremely quiet young man, although already thirty years old, and well educated, though chiefly self-taught. He was poor, married, worked in the civil service, and supported both an aunt and a sister-in-law. His wife and these other ladies shared the most liberal convictions, but it all assumed a rather crude form, like, ‘some idea that’s landed in the streets’, as Stepan Trofimovich had once expressed it in another context. They derived it all from p. 31↵books, and at the first hint of a rumour from our progressive circles in the capital, they were ready to throw everything out of the window, if they were but told to do so. Madame Virginskaya practised as a midwife in town; as a girl she’d spent a long time in Petersburg. Virginsky himself was a man of remarkable purity of heart; rarely have I encountered more genuine spiritual fervour. ‘I’ll never, never give up these bright hopes,’ he used to tell me with sparkling eyes. He always talked about his ‘bright hopes’ quietly, sweetly, in a half-whisper, as if in confidence. He was rather tall, but extremely thin and narrow-shouldered, with unusually sparse reddish hair. He meekly accepted all Stepan Trofimovich’s condescending remarks about his views, though sometimes he objected with great seriousness and often left him confounded. Stepan Trofimovich treated him affectionately; in general, he behaved like a father to us all.
‘You’re all only “half-baked!” ’ he jokingly observed to Virginsky, ‘They’re all like you, though I haven’t noticed the same nar-row-mind-ed-ness in you, Virginsky, that I’ve encountered in Petersburg chez ces séminaristes;* still, you’re all only “half-baked”! Shatov would love to have been fully-baked, but even he’s only half-baked.’
‘And what about me?’ asked Liputin.
‘Why, you’re simply the golden mean that gets along everywhere… in your own way.’
Liputin was offended.
It was said about Virginsky, and, unfortunately, it was all too true, that his wife, after spending less than a year with him in legal wedlock, suddenly announced that he was redundant and that she preferred a certain Lebyadkin. This Lebyadkin, a stranger to our town, later turned out to be an extremely suspicious fellow, and actually not the retired staff-captain he claimed to be. He merely knew how to twirl his moustache, drink, and spout the most absurd nonsense imaginable. In the most indelicate manner this fellow moved immediately into Virginsky’s house, glad to partake of another man’s bread; he ate and slept there, and eventually began to slight the master of the house. It was also reported that on hearing his wife’s announcement that she was finished p. 32↵with him, Virginsky replied, ‘My dear, up to this point I’ve only loved you, but now I respect you.’* I doubt whether such an ancient Roman pronouncement was ever really uttered. On the contrary, they say he wept profusely. Once, two weeks after his dismissal, all of them, the whole ‘family’, went to have tea in the woods outside town along with some acquaintances. Virginsky was in a feverishly excited mood and took part in the dancing; but suddenly, without any provocation, he grabbed hold of the giant Lebyadkin who was doing a solo can-can, seized his hair with both hands, pushed him over, and began dragging him around with all manner of screeches, shouts, and tears. The giant was so cowardly that he put up no defence, and all the while he was being dragged around he hardly uttered a squeak. But afterwards he took offence with all the ardour of a man of honour. Virginsky spent the whole night on his knees begging his wife for forgiveness; but he didn’t obtain it because he steadfastly refused to apologize to Lebyadkin. Moreover, he was attacked for the poverty of his convictions and his stupidity; the latter charge was based on the fact that he’d knelt while explaining himself to a woman. The staff-captain disappeared soon afterwards and reappeared in town only quite recently, together with his sister and some new goals to accomplish; but more about him later. It’s no wonder the poor ‘family man’ unburdened his heart to us and was in such need of our society. However, he never spoke about his domestic affairs. Only once, returning from Stepan Trofimovich’s house with me, he was about to make some roundabout reference to his own situation, when all of a sudden, grabbing my hand, he declared passionately:
‘It’s nothing; it’s merely a private matter; in no way, no way whatever will it affect our “common cause”.’
Occasional visitors would turn up in our circle; a Jew named Lyamshin, as well as a Captain Kartuzov. At one time an inquisitive old man used to attend, but he died. Liputin brought along an exiled Catholic priest named Slonczewski; for a while we received him on principle, but later stopped doing so.
p. 339
At one time it used to be said in town that our circle was a hotbed of free-thinking, depravity, and atheism; this rumour circulated for some time. And yet, all that we did was indulge in the most innocent, pleasant, typically Russian, cheerful liberal banter. ‘Higher liberalism’ and the ‘higher liberal’, that is, a liberal without goals, are possible only in Russia. Stepan Trofimovich, like every witty man, needed an audience; besides that, he needed the sense that he was fulfilling some higher obligation in propagating ideas. Finally, he needed someone to drink champagne with and someone with whom, over a glass of wine, he could exchange pleasant ideas of a certain kind about Russia and the ‘Russian spirit’, about God in general and the ‘Russian God’ in particular; to repeat for the hundredth time the same scandalous little anecdotes known to everyone and repeated over and over again. We were not averse to hearing local gossip, after which we sometimes arrived at stern and highly moral judgements. We even fell into talking about humanity in general, making stern pronouncements about the fate of Europe and all mankind. We predicted categorically that after Caesarism* France would immediately decline to the rank of second-rate power; we were absolutely convinced that this could happen very easily and quite soon. We’d predicted long ago that the pope would assume the role of a simple archbishop in a unified Italy; we were completely convinced that this thousand-year-old question was a mere detail in our age of humanitarianism, industry, and railways. Then again, that’s the only way ‘higher Russian liberalism’ can treat such matters. Sometimes Stepan Trofimovich would talk about art, always very eloquently, though rather abstractly. He’d sometimes recall the friends of his youth, names that had left their mark on the history of our development; he would recall them with tender emotion and reverence, though sometimes with a tinge of envy. And, if things really got too boring, the Jew Lyamshin (a little post-office clerk), a real virtuoso on the piano, would sit down to play; in the intervals he’d imitate a pig, a thunder p. 34↵storm, or childbirth (including the baby’s first cry), and so on and so forth. That was the only reason he was invited. If we’d had a great deal to drink, and that sometimes happened, but not too often, we’d go into raptures; once we even sang the Marseillaise in chorus to Lyamshin’s accompaniment, but I don’t know how well it came off. The great day, the 19th of February,* we celebrated enthusiastically and began drinking toasts in its honour way in advance. This was a long time ago, before Shatov and Virginsky joined us, and Stepan Trofimovich was still living in the same house with Varvara Petrovna. Some time before the great day Stepan Trofimovich had fallen into the habit of muttering to himself some well-known, though rather bizarre verses, probably composed by some former liberal landowner:
The peasants are coming and bringing their axes, Something terrible is about to happen.*
It went something like that, I don’t remember exactly. Varvara Petrovna overheard him once and cried, ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ and went away in a rage. Liputin, who happened to see this, observed rather sarcastically to Stepan Trofimovich,
‘What a shame it would be if during the celebration the serfs really do create some unpleasantness for their former owners.’
And he drew his forefinger across his neck.
‘Cher ami,’ Stepan Trofimovich remarked good-naturedly, ‘believe me, this’ (he repeated the gesture across his own neck) ‘will yield no benefit whatever either to our landowners or anyone else. We’ll never be able to organize anything without our heads, even if it’s our heads more than anything that prevent us from understanding.’
I should observe that many people assumed something unusual would occur on the day of the proclamation, something of the sort predicted by Liputin; all these were our so-called experts on the people and the government. It seems that Stepan Trofimovich also shared their views, to such an extent that almost on the eve of the great day he p. 35↵began asking Varvara Petrovna’s permission to go abroad; in short, he’d begun to worry. But the great day came and went, more time elapsed, and once again an arrogant smile appeared on Stepan Trofimovich’s face. He uttered some noteworthy thoughts* on the character of Russians in general and Russian peasants in particular.
‘Like all people in a hurry, we’ve been too hasty with our peasants,’ he concluded his series of noteworthy thoughts. ‘We’ve made them the rage; for several years a whole branch of our literature has fussed over them as if they were some newly discovered treasure. We’ve crowned their lice-ridden heads with laurel wreaths. During the last thousand years the Russian village has given us nothing more than the Komarinsky dance. One wonderful Russian poet, who wasn’t short on wit, upon seeing the great Rachel* on stage for the first time, exclaimed in ecstasy, “I wouldn’t trade Rachel for a single peasant!” I’m prepared to go even further: I would trade all the peasants in Russia for one Rachel. It’s time to see things in a sober light and no longer confuse our own rough home-made pitch for bouquet de l’impératrice.’
Liputin agreed at once, but observed that it was still necessary to act against the dictates of one’s own conscience and praise the peasants for the sake of the cause; even high society ladies dissolved in tears upon reading Anton Goremyka,* and several even wrote letters from Paris to their stewards back home in Russia, directing them to treat their peasants as humanely as possible.
It so happened, as if on purpose right after the rumours concerning Anton Petrov,* that in our very own province, only a few miles from Skvoreshniki, there occurred a certain misunderstanding, as a result of which a detachment of soldiers was dispatched in the heat of the moment. This time Stepan Trofimovich was so upset that he even managed to scare the rest of us. He shouted in the club that more troops were necessary and should be requested by telegraph from another district; he ran off to the governor to assure him that he had absolutely nothing to do with the affair; he asked that his name not be linked to it in any way as a result of his previous associations; and he urged that word p. 36↵of his declaration be sent to the proper authorities in Petersburg at once. It’s a good thing it all blew over fairly quickly and went nowhere; but at the time I was surprised at Stepan Trofimovich’s behaviour.
Three years later, as is well known, people began talking about nationalism and then ‘public opinion’ came into being. Stepan Trofimovich was highly amused.
‘My friends,’ he instructed us, ‘if our nationalism has really “come into being”, as they now assure us in the press, it’s still at school, in some German Peterschule,* poring over a German textbook, repeating its endless German lessons, and some German teacher makes it go down on its knees whenever necessary. I can vouch for the German teacher; but it’s much more likely that nothing at all has happened, nothing of the sort has come into being, and everything is going along just as it did before, that is, under God’s protection. In my opinion, that should be enough for Russia, pour notre sainte Russie. Moreover, all this Pan-Slavism* and nationalism is much too old to be considered new. Nationalism, if you like, has never existed among us except as a form of amusement in a gentlemen’s club, and only in Moscow at that. Of course I’m not talking about the age of Igor.* And, last of all, it’s the consequence of idleness. With us everything is the consequence of idleness, including what’s fine and what is good. Everything is the consequence of our nice, aristocratic, well-educated, whimsical idleness. I’ve been saying that over and over for the last thirty thousand years. We don’t know how to live by our own labour. And as for this fuss they’re making now about some “engendering” of public opinion, where has it come from all of a sudden, just dropped from the sky? Don’t they understand that in order to have such public opinion, first of all work is required, our own work, our own initiative, our own experience! You can’t get something for nothing. If we work, we’ll have our own opinions. But since we’ll never work, our opinions will be formulated by those who’ve worked instead of us up to now, that is, by the same old Europe, the same old Germans—our teachers for the last two hundred years. Besides, Russia is too great a problem p. 37↵for us to solve alone without the Germans and without work. For the last twenty years I’ve been sounding the alarm and summoning people to work! I’ve given my life to this task, and, fool that I am, I myself believed in it! Now I no longer believe, but I can still call and will continue to do so right up to the end, to the grave; I’ll pull the bell-rope until it tolls my own requiem!’
Alas! We could only agree. We applauded our teacher, and with such enthusiasm! In fact, gentlemen, one can still hear this kind of ‘nice’, ‘clever’, old ‘liberal’ Russian nonsense all over the place!
Our teacher believed in God. ‘I don’t understand why everyone around here says I’m an atheist!’ he would declare on occasion. ‘I believe in God, mais distinguons,1 I believe in Him as a being who is conscious of Himself only through me. I can’t believe as my servant Nastasya does, or as some gentleman landowner does, “just in case”, or as our dear Shatov does, but Shatov doesn’t count. Shatov makes himself believe, like a Muscovite Slavophile. And as far as Christianity is concerned, in spite of my sincere respect for it, I’m not a Christian. I’m more like an ancient pagan, like the great Goethe or a classical Greek. The fact that Christianity doesn’t really understand women is enough, as George Sand has splendidly shown in one of her brilliant novels.* And as for genuflections, fasting, and all the rest of it, I don’t understand why it matters to anyone else what I do. However busy our local informers are, I don’t want to become a hypocrite. In 1847 Belinsky sent his famous letter to Gogol* from abroad; in it he strongly reproached him for believing “in some kind of God”. Entre nous soit dit,2 I can imagine nothing more comical than the moment Gogol (Gogol as he was at that time) read that expression and… the entire letter! But, joking apart, since I still agree with the heart of the matter, I declare and maintain, “They were real men!” They knew how to love the people, they knew how to suffer for them, they knew how to sacrifice p. 38↵for them, and they knew how to stay away from them when necessary, how not to pander to them in certain matters. Could Belinsky really have sought salvation in lenten oil or radishes and peas?’
But at this point Shatov intervened.
‘Those characters of yours never really loved the people, never suffered for them, never sacrificed for them, no matter what they thought up to console themselves!’ he muttered gloomily, lowering his eyes and twisting in his chair impatiently.
‘How can you say they never loved the people?’ cried Stepan Trofimovich. ‘Oh, they loved Russia!’
‘Neither Russia, nor the people!’ cried Shatov, his eyes gleaming. ‘It’s impossible to love something you don’t know; they understood nothing about the Russian people! All of them, and that includes you, and especially Belinsky, have closed your eyes to the Russian people; that’s obvious even from Belinsky’s letter to Gogol. Belinsky is just like the inquisitive fellow in Krylov’s fable* who didn’t even notice the elephant in the museum of curiosities, but directed all his attention to French social insects; he never saw anything else. Yet he may have been smarter than all the rest of you! Not only have you overlooked the Russian people, but you’ve treated them with scornful contempt, all because you couldn’t conceive of any people except for the French, and then only the Parisians, and you were ashamed that Russians were not just like them. That’s the naked truth! He who has no people has no God! You can be certain that all who cease to understand their own people and lose contact with them, immediately and to that same extent lose the faith of their forefathers; they become either atheists or indifferent. I’m telling the truth! It’s a fact that will prove to be true. That’s why all of you, and all of us now, are either vile atheists or apathetic, dissolute rubbish, nothing more! And you too, Stepan Trofimovich, I don’t exclude you one bit, in fact, I want you to know that I’ve had you in mind as I said all this!’
Normally, after delivering a monologue like this (as he very often did), Shatov would grab his cap and rush to the p. 39↵door, absolutely convinced that now everything was at an end and he’d severed friendly relations with Stepan Trofimovich once and for all. But the latter always managed to stop him just in time.
‘Hadn’t we better make it up, Shatov, after exchanging, all these pleasantries?’ he’d say good-naturedly, extending his hand from his armchair.
The awkward but bashful Shatov didn’t care for displays of affection. The man’s exterior was coarse, but inside, it seems, he was extremely sensitive. Although he often went too far, he was always the first to suffer as a result. Muttering something under his breath in response to Stepan Trofimovich’s offer, and shuffling his feet about like a bear, he would suddenly and unexpectedly grin, take off his cap, and sit down again in his former place, staring stubbornly at the floor. Of course some wine would be brought in and Stepan Trofimovich would propose an appropriate toast, to the memory of some social activist from the past, for example.