“Whom.”
“Ivan the Tsarevitch.”
“Who-m?”
“Ivan the Tsarevitch. You! You!”
Stavrogin thought a minute.
“A pretender?” he asked suddenly, looking with intense-surprise at his frantic companion. “Ah! so that's your plan at last!”
“We shall say that he is 'in hiding,'” Verhovensky said softly, in a sort of tender whisper, as though he really were drunk indeed. “Do you know the magic of that phrase, 'he is in hiding'? But he will appear, he will appear. We'll set a legend going better than the Skoptsis'. He exists, but no one has seen him. Oh, what a legend one can set going! And the great thing is it will be a new force at work! And we need that; that's what they are crying for. What can Socialism do: it's destroyed the old forces but hasn't brought in any new.. But in this we have a force, and what a force! Incredible. We only need one lever to lift up the earth. Everything will rise up!”
“Then have you been seriously reckoning on me?” Stavrogin said with a malicious smile.
“Why do you laugh, and so spitefully? Don't frighten me. Iam like a little child now. I can be frightened to death by one-smile like that. Listen. I'll let no one see you, no one. So it-must be. He exists, but no one has seen him; he is in hiding. And do you know, one might show you, to one out of a hundred-thousand, for instance. And the rumour will spread over all the land, 'We've seen him, we've seen him.'
“Ivan Filipovitch the God of Sabaoth, has been seen, too, when he ascended into heaven in his chariot in the sight of men. They saw him with their own eyes. And you are not an Ivan Filipovitch. You are beautiful and proud as a God; you are seeking nothing for yourself, with the halo of a victim round you, 'in hiding.' The great thing is the legend. You'll conquer them, you'll have only to look, and you will conquer them. He is 'in hiding,' and will come forth bringing a new truth. And, meanwhile, we'll pass two or three judgments as wise as Solomon's. The groups, you know, the quintets — we've no need of newspapers. If out of ten thousand petitions only one is granted, all would come with petitions. In every parish, every peasant will know that there is somewhere a hollow tree where petitions are to be put. And the whole land will resound with the cry, 'A new just law is to come,' and the sea will be troubled and the whole gimcrack show will f all to the ground, and then we shall consider how to build up an edifice of stone. For the first time! Weare going to build it, we, and only we!”
“Madness,” said Stavrogin.
“Why, why don't you want it? Are you afraid? That's why I caught at you, because you are afraid of nothing. Is it unreasonabe? But you see, so far I am Columbus without America. Would Columbus without America seem reasonable?”
Stavrogin did not speak. Meanwhile they had reached the house and stopped at the entrance.
“Listen,” Verhovensky bent down to his ear. “I'll do it for you without the money. I'll settle Marya Timofyevna to-morrow! . . . Without the money, and to-morrow I'll bring you Liza. Will you have Liza to-morrow?”
“Is he really mad?” Stavrogin wondered smiling. The front door was opened.
“Stavrogin — is America ours?” said Verhovensky, seizing his hand for the last time.
“What for?” said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, gravely and sternly.
“You don't care, I knew that!” cried Verhovensky in an access of furious anger. “You are lying, you miserable, profligate, perverted, little aristocrat! I don't believe you, you've the
*The reference is to the legend current in the sect of Flagellants.— Translator's note.
appetite of a wolf! . . . Understand that you've cost me such a price, I can't give you up now! There's no one on earth but you! I invented you abroad; I invented it all, looking at you. If I hadn't watched you from my corner, nothing of all this would have entered my head!”
Stavrogin went up the steps without answering.
“Stavrogin!” Verhovensky called after him, “I give you a day . . . two, then . . . three, then; more than three I can't — and then you're to answer!”
Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:22 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.
The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chapter IX. A Raid at Stefan Trofimovitch's
meanwhile an incident had occurred which astounded me and shattered Stepan Trofimovitch. At eight o'clock in the morning Nastasya ran round to me from him with the news that her master was “raided.” At first I could not make out what she meant; I could only gather that the “raid” was carried out by officials, that they had come and taken his papers, and that a soldier had tied them up in a bundle and “wheeled them away in a barrow.” It was a fantastic story. I hurried at once to Stepan Trofimovitch.
I found him in a surprising condition: upset and in great agitation, but at the same time unmistakably triumphant. On the table in the middle of the room the samovar was boiling, and there was a glass of tea poured out but untouched and forgotten. Stepan Trofimovitch was wandering round the table and peeping into every corner of the room, unconscious of what he was doing. He was wearing his usual red knitted jacket, but seeing me, he hurriedly put on his coat and waistcoat — a thing he had never done before when any of his intimate friends found him in his jacket. He took me warmly by the hand at once.
“ Enfin un ami!” (He heaved a deep sigh.) “ Cher,I've sent to you only, and no one knows anything. We must give Nastasya orders to lock the doors and not admit anyone, except, of course them. . . . Vous comprenez?”
He looked at me uneasily, as though expecting a reply. I made haste, of course, to question him, and from his disconnected and broken sentences, full of unnecessary parentheses, I succeeded in learning that at seven o'clock that morning an official of the province had 'all of a sudden' called on him.
“ Pardon, j'ai oublie son nom, Il n'est pas du pays,but I think he came to the town with Lembke, quelque chose de bete et d'Allemand dans la physionomie. Il s'appelle Bosenthal.”
“Wasn't it Blum?”
“Yes, that was his name. Vous le connaissez? Quelque chose d'Maite et de tres content dans la figure, pomtant tres severe, roide et serieux.A type of the police, of the submissive subordinates, je m'y connais.I was still asleep, and, would you believe it, he asked to have a look at my books and manuscripts! Oui, je m'en souviens, il a employe ce mot.He did not arrest me, but only the books. Il se tenait a distance,and when he began to explain his visit he looked as though I ... enfin il avait Vair de croire que je tomberai sur lui immediatement et que je commen-cerai a le battre comme platre. Tous ces gens du bas etage sont comme cawhen they have to do with a gentleman. I need hardly say I understood it all at once. Voild vingt ans que je m'y prepare.I opened all the drawers and handed him all the keys; I gave them myself, I gave him all. J'etais digne et calme.From the books he took the foreign edition of Herzen, the bound volume of The Sell,four copies of my poem, et enfin tout fa.Then he took my letters and my papers et quelques-unes de mes ebauches historiques, critiques et politiques.All that they carried off. Nastasya says that a soldier wheeled them away in a barrow and covered them with an apron; oui, c'est cela,with an apron.” It sounded like delirium. Who could make head or tail of it? I pelted him with questions again. Had Blum come alone, or with others? On whose authority? By what right? How had he dared? How did he explain it?