Demons

8: Ivan the Tsarevich

They left. Pyotr Stepanovich first rushed back to the "meeting" in order to quiet the chaos, but, probably considering it not worth the trouble, abandoned everything and in two minutes was already flying down the road after the departing men. As he ran he recalled a lane which was a closer way to Filippov's house; sinking to his knees in mud, he started down the lane and in fact arrived at a run the very moment Stavrogin and Kirillov were going through the gate.

"Here already?" Kirillov remarked. "That is well. Come in."

"How is it you said you lived alone?" asked Stavrogin, passing through the entryway where a samovar had been prepared and was already beginning to boil.

"You'll see now who I live with," Kirillov muttered, "come in."

As soon as they entered, Verkhovensky at once pulled out the anonymous letter he had taken earlier from Lembke and placed it in front of Stavrogin. All three sat down. Stavrogin silently read the letter.

"Well?" he asked.

"The scoundrel will do as he says," Verkhovensky explained. "Since he's at your disposal, instruct me how to act. I assure you he may go to Lembke tomorrow."

"Well, let him."

"How, let him? Especially since there are ways to avoid it."

"You're mistaken, he's not dependent on me. And anyway I don't care; he's no danger to me, only to you."

"You, too."

"I don't think so."

"But others may not spare you, don't you understand? Listen, Stavrogin, this is just playing with words. Can you be sorry about the money?"

"So there's a need for money?"

"Certainly, about two thousand, or a minimum of fifteen hundred. Give it to me tomorrow, or even today, and by tomorrow evening I'll have sent him packing off to Petersburg for you, and that is precisely what he wants. If you wish, with Marya Timofeevna—mark that."

There was something completely thrown off in him, he spoke somehow imprudently, ill-considered words escaped him. Stavrogin was watching him in surprise.

"I have no need to send Marya Timofeevna away."

"Maybe you don't even want to?" Pyotr Stepanovich smiled ironically.

"Maybe I don't."

"In short, will there be money or won't there be?" he shouted at Stavrogin in spiteful impatience and as if peremptorily. The latter looked him over seriously.

"There'll be no money."

"Eh, Stavrogin! Do you know something, or have you done something already? You're—on a spree!"

His face became distorted, the corners of his mouth twitched, and he suddenly burst into somehow altogether pointless laughter, inappropriate to anything.

"You got money from your father for the estate," Nikolai Vsevolodovich observed calmly. "Maman gave you about six or eight thousand for Stepan Trofimovich. So you can pay fifteen hundred of your own. I don't want, finally, to pay for other people, I've given out a lot as it is, it makes me feel bad..." he grinned at his own words.

"Ah, you're beginning to joke..."

Stavrogin rose from his chair, and Verkhovensky instantly jumped up as well and mechanically turned his back to the door, as if blocking the way out. Nikolai Vsevolodovich had already made a motion to push him away from the door and go out, but he suddenly stopped.

"I won't let you have Shatov," he said. Pyotr Stepanovich gave a start; the two men stood looking at each other.

"I told you earlier why you need Shatov's blood," Stavrogin flashed his eyes. "You want to stick your crews together with that muck. You drove Shatov out superbly just now: you knew very well he wouldn't have said, 'I won't inform,' and he would have regarded it as baseness to lie in front of you. But me, what do you need me for now? You've been pestering me almost since abroad. The way you've been explaining it to me all along is just sheer raving. And yet what you're driving at is that by giving fifteen hundred to Lebyadkin, I would thus be giving Fedka an occasion for putting a knife into him. I know you've got the notion that I'd like to have my wife killed at the same time. By binding me with a crime you think, of course, you'll be getting power over me, right? What do you want that power for? Why the devil do you need me? Take a good look once and for all: am I your man? And leave me alone."

"Did Fedka come to you on his own?" Verkhovensky asked, short of breath.

"Yes, he did; his price is also fifteen hundred... But he'll confirm it himself, he's standing right here..." Stavrogin reached out his arm.

Pyotr Stepanovich quickly turned around. On the threshold, out of the darkness, a new figure emerged—Fedka, in a sheepskin jacket, but without a hat, as if at home. He stood and chuckled, baring his white, even teeth. His black eyes with their yellow cast darted cautiously around the room, watching the gentlemen. There was something he could not understand; he had obviously just been brought by Kirillov, and it was to him that his questioning eyes turned; he stood on the threshold but would not come into the room.

"You stashed him away here so he could listen to our bargaining, or even see the money in our hands, right?" asked Stavrogin, and without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the house. Verkhovensky caught up with him at the gate, nearly crazy.

"Stop! Not another step!" he cried, seizing him by the elbow. Stavrogin jerked his arm, but did not jerk it free. Fury came over him: seizing Verkhovensky by the hair with his left hand, he flung him down on the ground with all his might and went through the gate. But before he had walked even thirty steps, the man caught up with him again.

"Let's make peace, let's make peace," he whispered to him, in a convulsive whisper.

Nikolai Vsevolodovich heaved his shoulders, but did not stop or turn around.

"Listen, I'll bring you Lizaveta Nikolaevna tomorrow, do you want that? No? Why don't you answer? Tell me what you want and I'll do it. Listen, I'll give you Shatov, do you want that?"

"So it's true you've decided to kill him?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich cried.

"But what do you want Shatov for? What for?" the frenzied man went on in a breathless patter, running ahead all the time and seizing Stavrogin's elbow, probably without even noticing it. "Listen, I'll give him to you, let's make peace. You've run up a big account, but... let's make peace!"

Stavrogin finally glanced at him and was struck. This was not the same look, not the same voice as always, or as in the room just now; he saw almost a different face. The intonation of the voice was not the same: Verkhovensky was imploring, beseeching. This was a man still stunned because his most precious thing was being, or had already been, taken away.

"But what's the matter with you?" Stavrogin cried. The other did not answer, but kept running after him, looking at him with the same imploring and yet inexorable eyes.

"Let's make peace!" he whispered once more. "Listen, I've got a knife stashed in my boot, just like Fedka, but I'll make peace with you."

"But what the devil do you need me for, finally!" Stavrogin cried out, decidedly wrathful and amazed. "Is there some mystery in it, or what? What sort of talisman have you got me for?"

"Listen, we're going to stir up trouble," the other muttered quickly and almost as if in delirium. "You don't believe we're going to stir up trouble? We'll stir up such trouble that everything will go off its foundations. Karmazinov is right that there's nothing to cling to. Karmazinov is very intelligent. Just another ten crews like that all over Russia, and I'm uncatchable."

"Of the same sort of fools?" reluctantly escaped from Stavrogin.

"Oh, be a bit stupider, Stavrogin, be a bit stupider yourself! You know, you're not at all so smart that one should wish you that: you're afraid, you don't believe, you're frightened of the scale. And why are they fools? They're not such fools; nowadays nobody's mind is his own. Nowadays there are terribly few distinct minds. Virginsky is a most pure man, ten times purer than the likes of us; well, good for him, in that case. Liputin is a crook, but I know one point in him. There's no crook who doesn't have his point. Only Lyamshin doesn't have any, but he's in my hands to make up for it. A few more such crews, and I'll have passports and money everywhere, how about that alone? Just that alone? And safe places, and then let them search. They'll root out one crew but flub the next. We'll get trouble going... Do you really not believe that the two of us are quite enough?"

"Take Shigalyov, and let me in peace..."

"Shigalyov is a man of genius! Do you know he's a sort of genius like Fourier, but bolder than Fourier, but stronger than Fourier; I'm going to concern myself with him. He's invented 'equality'!"

"He's in a fever, and he's raving; something's happened to him, very peculiar," Stavrogin thought, looking at him once more. Both men walked on without stopping.

"He's got it all down nicely in his notebook," Verkhovensky continued. "He's got spying. He's got each member of society watching the others and obliged to inform. Each belongs to all, and all to each. They're all slaves and equal in their slavery. Slander and murder in extreme cases, but above all—equality. First, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of science and talents is accessible only to higher abilities—no need for higher abilities! Higher abilities have always seized power and become despots. Higher abilities cannot fail to be despots and have always corrupted rather than been of use; they are to be banished or executed. Cicero's tongue is cut off, Copernicus's eyes are put out, Shakespeare is stoned—this is Shigalyovism! Slaves must be equal: there has never yet been either freedom or equality without despotism, but within a herd there must be equality, and this is Shigalyovism! Ha, ha, ha, so you find it strange? I'm for Shigalyovism!"

Stavrogin tried to quicken his pace and get home more quickly. "If the man is drunk, where did he manage to get drunk?" kept occurring to him. "Can it be the cognac?"

"Listen, Stavrogin: to level the mountains is a good idea, not a ridiculous one. I'm for Shigalyov! No need for education, enough of science! There's sufficient material even without science for a thousand years to come, but obedience must be set up. Only one thing is lacking in the world: obedience. The thirst for education is already an aristocratic thirst. As soon as there's just a tiny bit of family or love, there's a desire for property. We'll extinguish desire: we'll get drinking, gossip, denunciation going; we'll get unheard-of depravity going; we'll stifle every genius in infancy. Everything reduced to a common denominator, complete equality.^[154] 'We've learned a trade, and we're honest people, we don't need anything else'—that was the recent response of the English workers. Only the necessary is necessary— henceforth that is the motto of the whole globe. But there is also a need for convulsion; this will be taken care of by us, the rulers. Slaves must have rulers. Complete obedience, complete impersonality, but once every thirty years Shigalyov gets a convulsion going, and they all suddenly start devouring each other, up to a certain point, simply so as not to be bored. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation; in Shigalyovism there will be no desires. Desire and suffering are for us; and for the slaves—Shigalyovism."

"You exclude yourself?" again escaped from Stavrogin.

"And you. You know, I thought of handing the whole world over to the Pope. Let him come out on foot, unshod, and show himself to the mob, as if to say: 'Look what I've been driven to!'—and everyone will swarm after him, even the army. The Pope on top, us around him, and under us—Shigalyovism. It's only necessary that the Internationale agree to the Pope; but it will. And the old codger will instantly agree. Besides, he has no other choice, so remember my words, ha, ha, ha, stupid? Tell me, is it stupid, or not?"

"Enough," Stavrogin muttered in vexation.

"Enough! Listen, I'm dropping the Pope! To hell with Shigalyovism! To hell with the Pope! We need actuality, not Shigalyovism, because Shigalyovism is a piece of jewelry. It's an ideal, it's for the future. Shigalyov is a jeweler and as stupid as every philanthropist. We need dirty work, and Shigalyov despises dirty work. Listen, the Pope will be in the West, and we, we will have you!"

"Leave me alone, drunk man!" Stavrogin muttered, and quickened his pace.

"Stavrogin, you are beautiful!" Pyotr Stepanovich cried out, almost in ecstasy. "Do you know that you are beautiful! The most precious thing in you is that you sometimes don't know it. Oh, I've studied you! I've often looked at you from the side, from a corner! There's even simpleheartedness and naivety in you, do you know that? There is, there still is! You must be suffering, and suffering in earnest, from this simpleheartedness. I love beauty. I am a nihilist, but I love beauty. Do nihilists not love beauty? They just don't love idols, but I love an idol! You are my idol! You insult no one, yet everyone hates you; you have the air of being everyone's equal, yet everyone is afraid of you—this is good. No one will come up and slap you on the shoulder. You're a terrible aristocrat. An aristocrat, when he goes among democrats, is captivating! It's nothing for you to sacrifice life, your own or someone else's. You are precisely what's needed. I, I need precisely such a man as you. I know no one but you. You are a leader, you are a sun, and I am your worm..."

He suddenly kissed his hand. A chill ran down Stavrogin's spine, and he jerked his hand away in fright. They stopped.

"Madman!" whispered Stavrogin.

"Maybe I'm raving, maybe I'm raving!" the other went on in a patter. "But I've thought up the first step. Shigalyov could never think up the first step. The Shigalyovs are many! But one man, only one man in Russia has invented the first step and knows how to do it. That man is me. Why are you staring at me? It's you I need, you, without you I'm a zero. Without you I'm a fly, an idea in a bottle, Columbus without America."

Stavrogin stood looking fixedly into his insane eyes.

"Listen, first we'll get trouble going," Verkhovensky was hurrying terribly, and kept seizing Stavrogin by the left sleeve every moment. "I've already told you: we'll penetrate among the people themselves. Do you know that we're already terribly strong now? Ours aren't only the ones who knife and burn, or perform classic pistol shots, or bite people. That kind only gets in the way. I can conceive of nothing without discipline. I'm a crook, really, not a socialist, ha, ha! Listen, I've counted them all up: the teacher who laughs with children at their God and at their cradle, is already ours. The lawyer who defends an educated murderer by saying that he's more developed than his victims and couldn't help killing to get money, is already ours. Schoolboys who kill a peasant just to see how it feels, are ours. Jurors who acquit criminals right and left, are ours. The prosecutor who trembles in court for fear of being insufficiently liberal, is ours, ours. Administrators, writers—oh, a lot of them, an awful lot of them are ours, and they don't know it themselves! On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and little fools has reached the highest point; their mentors all have burst gallbladders; everywhere there is vanity in immeasurable measure, appetites beastly, unheard-of... Do you know, do you know how much we can achieve with little ready-made ideas alone? When I left, Littré's thesis that crime is insanity was raging; I come back— crime is no longer insanity but precisely common sense itself, almost a duty, at any rate a noble protest: 'But how can a developed murderer not murder, if he needs money!'^[155] And this is just the fruit. The Russian God has already folded in the face of 'rotgut.' The people are drunk, mothers are drunk, children are drunk, the churches are empty, and in the courts it's 'two hundred strokes, or fetch us a pot.' Oh, just let this generation grow up! Only it's a pity there's no time to wait, otherwise they could get themselves even drunker! Ah, what a pity there are no proletarians! But there will be, there will be, we're getting there..."

"It's also a pity we've grown more stupid," Stavrogin muttered, and moved on his way.

"Listen, I myself saw a six-year-old child leading his drunken mother home, and she was swearing at him in foul language. You think I'm glad of that? When it's in our hands, we may even cure it ... if need be we'll drive them into the desert for forty years^[156]... But one or two generations of depravity are necessary now, an unheard-of, mean little depravity, that turns men into vile, cowardly, cruel, self-loving slime—that's what's needed! And with a bit of 'fresh blood' to boot, for the sake of habit. Why are you laughing? I'm not contradicting myself. I'm only contradicting the philanthropists and Shigalyovism, not myself. I'm a crook, not a socialist. Ha, ha, ha! It's just a pity there's so little time. I promised Karmazinov I'd start in May and be done by the Protection. Too soon? Ha, ha! Do you know what I'm going to tell you, Stavrogin: so far there's been no cynicism in the Russian people, though they swear in foul language. Do you know that the enslaved serf had more self-respect than Karmazinov? He got flogged, but he upheld his gods, and Karmazinov did not."

"Well, Verkhovensky, I'm listening to you for the first time, and listening in amazement," said Nikolai Vsevolodovich. "So you're really not a socialist, but some sort of political... climber?"

"A crook, a crook. You're concerned about who I am? I'll tell you presently who I am, that's what I'm driving at. It was not for nothing that I just kissed your hand. But we need the people also to believe that we know what we want, and that the others are merely 'brandishing their cudgel and striking their own.' Eh, if only there was time! That's the one trouble—no time. We'll proclaim destruction... why, why, again this little idea is so captivating! But we've got to limber up. We'll get fires going... We'll get legends going... Here every mangy 'crew' will be of use. I'll find such zealots for you in these same 'crews' as would be ready for any kind of shooting and would even be grateful for the honor. Well, sir, so the trouble will start! Such a heaving will set in as the world has never seen ... Russia will be darkened with mist, the earth will weep for the old gods ... Well, sir, and then we'll bring out... whom?"

"Whom?"

"Ivan the Tsarevich."^[157]

"Wh-o-om?"

"Ivan the Tsarevich—you, you!"

Stavrogin thought for a minute or so.

"An impostor?"^[158] he suddenly asked in profound surprise, looking at the frenzied man. "Eh! so this at last is your plan."

"We'll say he's 'in hiding,’” Verkhovensky said softly, in a sort of amorous whisper, as if he were indeed drunk. "Do you know what this little phrase—'he is in hiding'—means? But he will appear, he will appear. We'll get a legend going better than the castrates'.^[159] He exists, but no one has seen him. Oh, what a legend we can get going! And mainly—a new force is on the way. And this is what's needed, this is what the people are weeping for. What is there in socialism: it destroyed the old forces, but didn't bring any new ones. And here we have a force, and such a force, unheard-of! We need it just this once as a lever, to raise up the earth. Everything will rise!"

"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! We will 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!"