'And money? When you forgive the crimes, will you redistribute the money?'
'We will do more than that. Every so often, when people least expect it, we will declare the existing money worthless and print fresh money. That was the mistake the French made – to allow the old money to go on circulating. The French did not have a true revolution because they did not have the courage to push it all the way through. They got rid of the aristocrats but they didn't eliminate the old way of thinking. In our schools we will teach the people's way of thinking, that has been repressed all this time. Everyone will go to school again, even the professors. The peasants will be the teachers and the professors will be the students. In our schools we will make new men and new women. Everyone will be reborn with a new heart.'
'And God? What will God think of that?'
The young man gives a laugh of the purest exhilaration. 'God? God will be envious.'
'So you believe?'
'Of course we believe! What would be the point otherwise? – one might as well set a torch to everything, turn the world to ash. No; we will go to God and stand before his throne and call him off. And he will come! He will have no choice, he will have to listen. Then we will all be together on the same footing at last.'
'And the angels?'
'The angels will stand around us in circles singing their hosannas. The angels will be in transports. They will be freed as well, to walk on the earth like common men.'
'And the souls of the dead?'
'You ask so many questions! The souls of the dead too, Fyodor Mikhailovich, if you like. We shall have the souls of the dead walking the earth again – Pavel Isaev too, if you like. There are no bounds to what can be done.'
What a charlatan! Yet he no longer knows where the mastery lies – whether he is playing with Nechaev or Nechaev with him. All barriers seem to be crumbling at once: the barrier on tears, the barrier on laughter. If Anna Sergeyevna were here – the thought comes unbidden – he would be able to speak the words to her that have been lacking all this time.
He takes a step forward and with what seems to him the strength of a giant folds Nechaev to his breast. Embracing the boy, trapping his arms at his sides, breathing in the sour smell of his carbuncular flesh, sobbing, laughing, he kisses him on the left cheek and on the right. Hip to hip, breast to breast, he stands locked against him.
There is a clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Nechaev struggles free. 'So they are here!' he exclaims. His eyes gleam with triumph.
He turns. In the doorway stands a woman dressed in black, with an incongruous little white hat. In the dim light, through his tears, it is hard to tell her age.
Nechaev seems disappointed. 'Ah!' he says. 'Excuse us! Come in!'
But the woman stays where she is. Under her arm she bears something wrapped in a white cloth. The children's noses are keener than his. All together, without a word, they slither down from the bed and slip past the two men. The girl tugs the cloth loose and the smell of fresh bread fills the room. Without a word she breaks off lumps and gives them into her brothers' hands. Pressed against their mother's skirts, their eyes blank and vacant, they stand chewing. Like animals, he thinks: they know where it comes from and do not care.
16. The printing press
He bows to the woman. From beneath the silly hat a rather timid, girlish, freckled face peers out. He feels a quick flicker of sexual interest, but it dies down. He should wear a black tie, or a black band around his arm in the Italian manner, then his standing would be clearer – to himself too. Not a full man any longer: half a man. Or on his lapel a medal with Pavel's image. The better half taken, the half that was to come.
'I must go,' he says
Nechaev gives him a scornful look. 'Go,' he says. 'No one is stopping you.' And then, to the woman: 'He thinks I don't know where he is going.'
The remark strikes him as gratuitous. 'Where do you think I am going?'
'Do you want me to spell it out? Isn't this your chance for revenge?'
Revenge: after what has just passed, the word is like a pig's bladder thumped into his face. Nechaev's word, Nechaev's world – a world of vengeance. What has it to do with him? Yet the ugly word has not been thrust at him without reason. Something comes back to him: Nechaev's behaviour when they first met – the flurry of skirts against the back of his chair, the pressure of his foot under the table, the way he used his body, shameless yet gauche. Does the boy have any clear idea of what he wants, or does he simply try anything to see where it will lead? He is like me, I was like him, he thinks – only I did not have the courage. And then: Is that is, why Pavel followed him: because he was trying to learn courage? Is that why he climbed the tower in the night?
More and more it is becoming clear: Nechaev will not be satisfied till he is in the hands of the police, till he has tasted that too. So that his courage and his resolution can be put to the test. And he will come through – no doubt of that. He will not break. No matter how he is beaten or starved, he will never give in, not even fall sick. He will lose all his teeth and smile. He will drag his broken limbs around, roaring, strong as a lion.
'Do you want me to take revenge? Do you want me to go out and betray you? Is that what it is meant to achieve, all this charade of mazes and blindfolds?'
Nechaev laughs excitedly, and he knows that they understand each other. 'Why should I want that?' he replies in a soft, mischievous voice, giving the girl a sidelong glance as if drawing her into the joke. 'I'm not a youth who has lost his way, like your stepson. If you are going to the police, be frank about it. Don't sentimentalize me, don't pretend you are not my enemy. I know about your sentimentalizing. You do it to women too, I'm sure. Women and little girls.' He turns to the girl. 'You know all about it, don't you? How men of that type drop tears when they hurt you, to lubricate their consciences and give themselves thrills.'
For someone of his age, extraordinary how much he has picked up! More even than a woman of the streets, because he has his own shrewdness. He knows about the world. Pavel could have done with more of that. There was more real life in the filthy, waddling old bear in his story – what was his name? Karamzin? – than in the priggish hero he so painfully constructed. Slaughtered too soon – a bad mistake.
'I have no intention of betraying you,' he says wearily. 'Go home to your father. You have a father somewhere in Ivanovo, if I remember. Go to him, kneel, ask him to hide you. He will do it. There are no limits to what a father will do.'
There is a wild snort of laughter from Nechaev. He can no longer remain stilclass="underline" he stalks across the cellar, pushing the children out of his way. 'My father! What do you know about my father? I'm not a ninny like your stepson! I don't cling to people who oppress me! I left my father's house when I was sixteen and I've never been back. Do you know why? Because he beat me. I said, "Beat me once more and you will never see me again." So he beat me and he never saw me again. From that day he ceased to be my father. I am my own father now. I have made myself over. I don't need any father to hide me. If I need to hide, the people will hide me.
'You say there are no limits to what a father will do. Do you know that my father shows my letters to the police? I write to my sisters and he steals the letters and copies them for the police and they pay him. Those are his limits. It shows how desperate the police are, paying for that kind of thing, clutching at straws. Because there is nothing I have done that they can prove – nothing!'
Desperate. Desperate to be betrayed, desperate to find a father to betray him.
'They may not be able to prove anything, but they know and you know and I know that you are not innocent. You have gone further than drawing up lists, haven't you? There is blood on your hands, isn't there? I'm not asking you to confess. Nevertheless, in the most hypothetical of senses, why do you do it?