Demons

"So you've seriously been counting on me?" Stavrogin grinned maliciously.

"Why do you laugh, and so maliciously? Don't scare me. I'm like a child now, I can be scared to death by just one such smile. Listen, I won't show you to anybody, not to anybody: it must be that way. He exists, but no one has seen him, he's in hiding. And, you know, it's even possible to show you, for example, to some one person out of a hundred thousand. And it will start spreading all over the earth: 'We've seen him, we've seen him.' Even with Ivan Filippovich God-of-Sabaoth, they saw how he ascended to heaven in a chariot in front of the people, saw it with their 'own' eyes. And you're no Ivan Filippovich; you're beautiful, proud as a god, seeking nothing for yourself, with the halo of a victim, 'in hiding.' The main thing is the legend! You'll win them over, you'll look and win them over. He's bringing the new truth and is 'in hiding.' And here we'll get two or three judgments of Solomon going. ^[160]These crews, these fivesomes—no need for the newspapers! If just one petition in ten thousand is granted, everyone will come with petitions. In every village, every peasant will have heard tell that there exists somewhere this hollow in a tree where petitions are to be put. And the earth will groan a great groan: 'A new, just law is coming,' and the sea will boil up and the whole showhouse will collapse, and then we'll see how to build up an edifice of stone. For the first time! Wewill do the building, we, we alone!"

"Frenzy!" said Stavrogin.

"Why, why don't you want it? Afraid? But that's why I seized upon you, because you're afraid of nothing. Is it unreasonable, or what? But so far I'm a Columbus without an America; is a Columbus without an America reasonable?"

Stavrogin was silent. Meanwhile they had come right up to the house and stopped at the entrance.

"Listen," Verkhovensky bent towards his ear, "I'll do it for you without money; I'll end it tomorrow with Marya Timofeevna... without money, and by tomorrow I'll bring you Liza. Want Liza tomorrow?"

"Has he really gone crazy?" Stavrogin thought, smiling. The front doors opened.

"Stavrogin, is America ours?" Verkhovensky seized his hand one last time.

"What for?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich said seriously and sternly.

"No desire, I just knew it!" the other cried out in a burst of frenzied spite. "You're lying, you rotten, lascivious, pretentious little squire, I don't believe you, you've got a wolf's appetite! ... Understand, you've run up too big an account now, I really can't renounce you! There's no one else in the world like you! I've been inventing you since abroad; inventing you as I looked at you. If I hadn't been looking at you from a corner, nothing would have come into my head! ..."

Stavrogin went up the steps without answering.

"Stavrogin!" Verkhovensky shouted after him, "I'll give you a day ... or, say, two days... three days; more than three I can't do, and then—your answer!"

9: Stepan Trofimovich Perquisitioned

Meanwhile we had an adventure which surprised me and shocked Stepan Trofimovich. In the morning, at eight o'clock, Nastasya came running to me from him with the news that her master had been "perquisitioned." At first I could understand nothing: all I got was that he had been "perquisitioned" by officials, who had come and taken papers, and a soldier had tied them into a bundle and "carted them away in a wheelbarrow." It was wild news. I hastened at once to Stepan Trofimovich.

I found him in a surprising state: upset and greatly agitated, but at the same time with an unquestionably triumphant air. On the table, in the middle of the room, the samovar was boiling and there stood a full but untouched and forgotten glass of tea. Stepan Trofimovich was dawdling around the table and going into all the corners of the room, not conscious of his movements. He was wearing his usual red dressing jacket, but, seeing me, hastened to put on his waistcoat and frock coat—something he had never done before when any close friend found him in his dressing jacket. He seized me at once and ardently by the hand.

"Enfin un ami.'"^[xcvii](He drew a deep breath.) "Cher,I sent only to you, and no one knows anything. Nastasya must be ordered to lock the door and let no one in, except them,of course... Vous comprenez?"^[xcviii]

He looked at me worriedly, as if waiting for a reply. Of course, I fell to questioning him and learned somehow from his incoherent speech, full of interruptions and unnecessary additions, that at seven o'clock in the morning a governor's official had "suddenly" come to him ...

"Pardon, j'ai oublié son nom. Il n 'est pas du pays,but I believe Lembke brought him here, quelque chose de bête et d'allemand dans la physionomie.Il s'appelle Rosenthal."^[xcix]

"Not Blum?"

"Blum. Precisely the name he gave. Vous le connaissez? Quelque chose d'hébété et de très content dans la figure, pourtant très sévère, roide et sérieux, ^[c] A police figure, the obedient sort, je m'y connais. ^[ci]I was still asleep, and, imagine, he asked 'to have a glance' at my books and manuscripts, oui, je m'en souviens, il a employé ce mot. ^[cii]He didn't arrest me, only books ... Il se tenait à distance, ^[ciii] and when he began explaining his visit to me, he looked as though I... enfin, il avait l'air de croire que je tomberai sur lui immédiatement et que je commencerai à le battre comme plâtre. Tous ces gens du bas étage sont comme ça, ^[civ] when they're dealing with a decent man. Needless to say, I understood everything at once. Voilà vingt ans que je m'y prépare, ^[cv]I unlocked all the drawers for him, and gave him all the keys; I personally handed them over, I handed everything over. J'étais digne et calme. ^[cvi] Of the books, he took foreign editions of Herzen, a bound volume of The Bell,four copies of my poem, et, enfin, tout ça. ^[cvii] Then papers and letters et quelques-unes de mes ébauches historiques, critiques et politiques. ^[cviii]All this they carried off. Nastasya says a soldier carted it away in a wheelbarrow, and they covered it with an apron, oui, c'est cela, ^[cix] with an apron."

It was all raving. Who could understand any of it? Once again I showered him with questions: had Blum come alone or not? on whose behalf? by what right? how dared he? did he explain?

"Il était seul, bien seul, ^[cx]though there was someone else dans l'anti-chambre, oui, je m'en souviens, et puis ^[cxi]. . . Though there did seem to be someone else, and a guard was standing in the entryway. We must ask Nastasya; she knows it all better. J'étais surexcité, voyez-vous. Il parlait, il parlait. . . un tas de choses; ^[cxii]though he talked very little, it was I who kept talking ... I told him my life, from that point of view only, of course... J'étais surexcité, mais digne, je vous l'assure. ^[cxiii]I'm afraid, though, that I seem to have wept. The wheelbarrow they got from a shopkeeper next door."