Demons

5: A Traveler

I

The catastrophe with Liza and the death of Marya Timofeevna produced an overwhelming impression on Shatov. I have already mentioned that I saw him that morning in passing; he seemed to me as if he were not in his right mind. He told me, incidentally, that the evening before, at around nine o'clock (that is, some three hours before the fire), he had been at Marya Timofeevna's. He went in the morning to have a look at the corpses, but as far as I know he did not give any evidence anywhere that morning. Meanwhile, towards the end of the day, a whole storm arose in his soul and... and I believe I can say positively that there was a certain moment at dusk when he wanted to get up, go, and—declare all. What this all was—he himself well knew. Of course, he would have achieved nothing, and would simply have betrayed himself. He had no proofs to expose the just-committed evildoing; and what he did have were only vague guesses about it, which for him alone were equal to full conviction. But he was ready to ruin himself just in order to "crush the scoundrels"—his own words. Pyotr Stepanovich had in part correctly divined this impulse in him and knew he was running a great risk in postponing his new, terrible design until the next day. Here, as usual, there was on his part much presumption and disdain for all this "trash," and for Shatov especially. He had long disdained Shatov for his "tearful idiocy," as he had said about him while still abroad, and firmly trusted that he could handle such an unclever man—that is, not lose sight of him all that day and stop him at the first sign of danger. And yet the "scoundrels" were spared a little longer only through a completely unexpected and, by them, totally unforeseen circumstance.

Somewhere between seven and eight in the evening (it was precisely the time when our people were gathered at Erkel's, waiting indignantly and anxiously for Pyotr Stepanovich), Shatov, with a headache and a slight chill, was lying stretched out on his bed, in the dark, without a candle, tormented by perplexity, angry, deciding and then unable to decide finally, and anticipating with a curse that anyhow it would all lead nowhere. Gradually he dozed off into a momentary, light sleep, and in his dreams had something like a nightmare; he dreamed he was on his bed all tangled up in ropes, bound and unable to move, and meanwhile the whole house was resounding from a terrible knocking on the fence, on the gate, on his door, in Kirillov's wing, so that the whole house was trembling, and some distant, familiar, but, for him, tormenting voice was piteously calling him. He suddenly came to his senses and raised himself on his bed. To his surprise, the knocking on the gate continued, and though it was hardly as strong as it had seemed in his dream, it was rapid and persistent, and the strange and "tormenting" voice, though not piteous but, on the contrary, impatient and irritable, still came from below at the gate, alternating with another more restrained and ordinary voice. He jumped up, opened the vent window, and stuck his head out.

"Who's there?" he called, literally going stiff with fright.

"If you are Shatov," the answer came sharply and firmly from below, "then please be so good as to announce directly and honestly whether you agree to let me in or not?"

Right enough; he recognized the voice!

"Marie! ... Is it you?"

"It's me, me, Marya Shatov, and I assure you that I cannot keep the coachman any longer."

"Wait ... let me ... a candle..." Shatov cried weakly. Then he rushed to look for matches. The matches, as usual on such occasions, refused to be found. He dropped the candlestick and candle on the floor, and as soon as the impatient voice came again from below, he abandoned everything and flew headlong down his steep stairway to open the gate.

"Kindly hold the bag till I finish with this blockhead," Mrs. Marya Shatov met him below and shoved into his hands a rather light, cheap canvas handbag with brass studs, of Dresden manufacture. And she herself irritably fell upon the coachman:

"I venture to assure you that you are charging too much. If you dragged me for a whole extra hour around your dirty streets, it's your own fault, because it means you yourself did not know where this stupid street and asinine house were. Be so good as to accept your thirty kopecks, and rest assured that you will not get any more."

"Eh, little lady, wasn't it you who jabbed at Voznesensky Street, and this here is Bogoyavlensky: Voznesensky Lane is way over that way. You just got my gelding all in a stew."

"Voznesensky, Bogoyavlensky—you ought to know all these stupid names more than I,^[188] since you're a local inhabitant, and, besides, you're wrong: I told you first thing that it was Filippov's house, and you precisely confirmed that you knew it. In any case, you can claim from me tomorrow at the justice of the peace, and now I ask you to leave me alone."

"Here, here's another five kopecks!" Shatov impetuously snatched out a five-kopeck piece from his pocket and gave it to the coachman.

"Be so good, I beg you, don't you dare do that!" Madame Shatov began to seethe, but the coachman started his "gelding," and Shatov, seizing her by the hand, drew her through the gate.

"Quick, Marie, quick... it's all trifles and—how soaked you are! Careful, there are steps up—sorry there's no light—the stairs are steep, hold on tighter, tighter, well, so here's my closet. Excuse me, I have no light... wait!"

He picked up the candlestick, but the matches took a long time to be found. Mrs. Shatov stood waiting in the middle of the room, silent and motionless.

"Thank God, at last!" he cried out joyfully, lighting up the closet. Marya Shatov took a cursory look around the place.

"I was told you lived badly, but still I didn't think it was like this," she said squeamishly, and moved towards the bed.

"Oh, I'm tired!" and with a strengthless air she sat on the hard bed. "Please put the bag down, and take a chair yourself. As you wish, however; you're sticking up in front of me. I'll stay with you for a time, until I find work, because I know nothing here and have no money. But if I'm cramping you, be so good, I beg you, as to announce it to me, which is your duty if you're an honest man. I can still sell something tomorrow and pay at the hotel, but you must be so good as to take me there yourself... Oh, only I'm so tired!"

Shatov simply started shaking all over.

"No need, Marie, no need for the hotel! What hotel? Why? Why?"

He pressed his hands together imploringly.

"Well, if it's possible to do without the hotel, it's still necessary to explain matters. Remember, Shatov, that you and I lived maritally in Geneva for two weeks and a few days; we separated three years ago, though without any special quarrel. But don't think I've come back to resume any of the former foolishness. I've come back to look for work, and if I've come directly to this town, it's because it makes no difference to me. I did not come to repent of anything; kindly don't think of that stupidity either."

"Oh, Marie! There's no need, no need at all!" Shatov was muttering vaguely.

"And if so, if you're developed enough to be able to understand that as well, then I'll allow myself to add that if I've now turned directly to you and come to your apartment, it's partly because I've always regarded you as far from a scoundrel, and perhaps a lot better than other... blackguards! ..."

Her eyes flashed. She must have endured her share of one thing and another from certain "blackguards."

"And please rest assured that I was by no means laughing at you just now when I declared that you are good. I spoke directly, without eloquence, which, besides, I can't stand. However, it's all nonsense. I always hoped you'd be intelligent enough not to be a nuisance ... Oh, enough, I'm tired!"

And she gave him a long, worn-out, tired look. Shatov stood facing her across the room, five steps away, and listened to her timidly, but somehow in a renewed way, with some never-seen radiance in his face. This strong and rough man, his fur permanently bristling, was suddenly all softness and brightness. Something unusual, altogether unexpected, trembled in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of broken marriage, had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, the dear being who had once said to him: "I love you." Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he could never have admitted in himself even the dream that some woman might say "I love you" to him. He was wildly chaste and modest, considered himself terribly ugly, hated his face and his character, compared himself with some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all that, he placed honesty above all things, and gave himself up to his convictions to the point of fanaticism, was gloomy, proud, irascible, and unloquacious. But now this sole being who had loved him for two weeks (he always, always believed that!)—a being he had always regarded as immeasurably above him, despite his perfectly sober understanding of her errors; a being to whom he could forgive everything, everything (there could have been no question of that, but even somewhat the opposite, so that in his view it came out that he himself was guilty before her for everything), this woman, this Marya Shatov, was again suddenly in his house, was again before him... this was almost impossible to comprehend! He was so struck, this event contained for him so much of something fearsome, and together with it so much happiness, that, of course, he could not, and perhaps did not wish to, was afraid to, recover his senses. This was a dream. But when she gave him that worn-out look, he suddenly understood that this so beloved being was suffering, had perhaps been offended. His heart sank. He studied her features with pain: the luster of first youth had long since disappeared from this tired face. True, she was still good-looking—in his eyes a beauty, as before. (In reality she was a woman of about twenty-five, of rather strong build, taller than average (taller than Shatov), with dark blond, fluffy hair, a pale oval face, and big dark eyes, now shining with a feverish glint.) But the former thoughtless, naive, and simplehearted energy, so familiar to him, had given place in her to sullen irritability, disappointment, cynicism, as it were, to which she was not yet accustomed and which was a burden to her. But, above all, she was ill, he could see that clearly. Despite all his fear before her, he suddenly went up to her and took her by both hands:

"Marie... you know... perhaps you're very tired, for God's sake, don't be angry ... If you'd accept, for instance, some tea at least, eh? Tea is very fortifying, eh? If you'd accept! ..."

"Why ask me to accept, of course I accept, what a child you are still. Give it if you can. What a small room! How cold it is!"

"Oh, right away, firewood, firewood ... I have some firewood!" Shatov got all stirred up. "Firewood... that is, but. . . tea, too, right away," he waved his hand as if with desperate resolution, and grabbed his cap.

"You're going out? So there's no tea in the house!"

"There will be, there will, there'll be everything, right away... I..." He grabbed the revolver from the shelf.

"I'll sell this revolver now ... or pawn it..."

"How stupid, and it will take so long! Here, take my money, if you have nothing, there's eighty kopecks, I think; that's all. It's like a crazy house here."

"There's no need, no need for your money, I'll go now, one moment, even without the revolver..."

And he rushed straight to Kirillov. This was probably still two hours before Kirillov was visited by Pyotr Stepanovich and Liputin. Shatov and Kirillov, who shared the same yard, hardly ever saw each other, and when they met they did not nod or speak: they had spent much too long "lying" beside each other in America.

"Kirillov, you always have tea; have you got tea and a samovar?"

Kirillov, who was pacing the room (as was his custom, all night, from corner to corner), suddenly stopped and looked intently at the man who had run in, though without any special surprise.

"There's tea, there's sugar, and there's a samovar. But no need for the samovar, the tea is hot. Just sit down and drink."

"Kirillov, we lay beside each other in America ... My wife has come to me... I... Give me the tea ... I need the samovar."

"If it's a wife, you need the samovar. But the samovar later. I have two. For now take the teapot from the table. Hot, the hottest. Take everything; take sugar; all of it. Bread ... A lot of bread; all of it. There's veal. A rouble in cash."

"Give it to me, friend, I'll pay it back tomorrow! Ah, Kirillov!"

"Is this the wife who was in Switzerland? That's good. And that you ran in like that is also good."

"Kirillov!" Shatov cried, taking the teapot under his arm and sugar and bread in both hands, "Kirillov! If ... if you could renounce your terrible fantasies and drop your atheistic ravings... oh, what a man you'd be, Kirillov!"

"One can see you love your wife after Switzerland. That's good, if it's after Switzerland. When you need tea, come again. Come all night, I don't sleep at all. There'll be a samovar. Take the rouble, here. Go to your wife, I'll stay and think about you and your wife."

Marya Shatov was visibly pleased by his haste and almost greedily got down to her tea, but there was no need to run for the samovar: she drank only half a cup and swallowed just a tiny piece of bread. The veal was squeamishly and irritably rejected.

"You're ill, Marie, it's all such illness in you..." Shatov remarked timidly, waiting timidly on her.

"Of course I'm ill, sit down, please. Where did you get tea, if there wasn't any?"

Shatov told her about Kirillov, slightly, briefly. She had heard something about him.

"He's mad, I know; no more, please. As if there weren't enough fools! So you were in America? I heard, you wrote."

"Yes, I... wrote to Paris."

"Enough, and please let's talk about something else. Are you a Slavophil by conviction?"

"I... not that I... Seeing it was impossible to be a Russian, I became a Slavophil," he grinned crookedly, with the strain of a man whose witticism is inappropriate and forced.

"So you're not a Russian?"

"No, I'm not."

"Well, this is all stupid. Sit down, finally, I beg you. What's all this back-and-forth? You think I'm raving? Maybe I will be raving. You say there are just the two of you in the house?"

"Two... downstairs..."

"And both such smart ones. What's downstairs? You said downstairs?"

"No, nothing."

"What, nothing? I want to know."

"I was just going to say that there are two of us on the yard now, and before the Lebyadkins used to live downstairs..."

"That's the woman who was killed last night?" she suddenly heaved herself up. "I heard about it. As soon as I arrived, I heard about it. You had a fire?"

"Yes, Marie, yes, and maybe I'm a terrible scoundrel this minute, because I forgive the scoundrels..." He suddenly got up and began to pace the room, his arms raised as if in a frenzy.

But Marie did not quite understand him. She listened distractedly to his replies; she asked, but did not listen.

"Nice things you've got going. Oh, how scoundrelly everything is! They're all such scoundrels. But do sit down, I beg you, finally—oh, how you irritate me!" and, exhausted, she lowered her head onto the pillow.

"Marie, I won't... Maybe you want to lie down, Marie?"

She did not answer and strengthlessly closed her eyes. Her pale face became like a dead woman's. She fell asleep almost instantly. Shatov looked around, straightened the candle, looked anxiously at her face one more time, clasped his hands tightly in front of him, and tiptoed out of the room into the hallway. At the top of the stairs he pressed his face into a corner and stood that way for about ten minutes, silently and motionlessly. He would have stood there longer, but suddenly he heard soft, cautious footsteps from below. Someone was coming up. Shatov remembered that he had forgotten to lock the gate.

"Who's there?" he asked in a whisper.

The unknown visitor kept coming up without haste and without answering. When he reached the landing, he stopped; to make him out in the darkness was impossible; suddenly there came his cautious question:

"Ivan Shatov?"

Shatov gave his name, and immediately reached his hand out to stop him; but the man himself seized him by the hand and—Shatov gave a start, as if he had touched some horrible viper.

"Stop there," he whispered quickly, "don't come in, I can't receive you now. My wife has come back to me. I'll bring a candle out."

When he came back with the candle, there stood some young little officer; he did not know his name, but he had seen him somewhere.

"Erkel," the man introduced himself. "You saw me at Virginsky's."

"I remember; you sat and wrote. Listen," Shatov suddenly boiled up, frenziedly stepping close to him, but speaking in a whisper as before, "you gave me a sign just now with your hand, when you seized mine. But know that I could spit on all these signs! I don't acknowledge ... I don't want to ... I could chuck you down the stairs now, do you know that?"

"No, I don't know any of it, and I don't know at all why you got so angry," the visitor replied, mildly and almost simpleheartedly. "I only have to tell you something, and that is why I've come, wishing above all not to waste any time. You have a press that does not belong to you, and for which you are accountable, as you know yourself. I was told to demand that you hand it over tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, to Liputin. Furthermore, I was told to inform you that nothing else will ever be demanded of you."

"Nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing. Your request is being granted, and you are removed forever. I was told to inform you positively of this."

"Who told you to inform me?"

"Those who gave me the sign."

"Are you from abroad?"

"That... that, I think, is irrelevant for you."

"Eh, the devil! And why didn't you come sooner, if you were told?"

"I followed certain instructions and was not alone."

"I understand, I understand that you weren't alone. Eh ... the devil! And why didn't Liputin come himself?"

"And so I will come for you tomorrow at exactly six o'clock in the evening, and we will go there on foot. There will be no one there except the three of us."

"Will Verkhovensky be there?"

"No, he won't. Verkhovensky is leaving town tomorrow, in the morning, at eleven o'clock."

"Just as I thought," Shatov whispered furiously and struck himself on the hip with his fist, "he ran away, the dog!"

He lapsed into agitated thought. Erkel was looking intently at him, waiting silently.

"And how are you going to take it? It can't be picked up in one piece and carried away."

"There will be no need to. You'll just point out the place, and we'll just make sure it really is hidden there. We know just the whereabouts of the place, but not the place itself. And have you pointed the place out to anyone else?"

Shatov looked at him.

"And you, and you, such a boy—such a silly boy—you, too, have gotten into it up to your neck, like a sheep? Eh, but that's what they need, such sap. Well, go! Ehh! That scoundrel hoodwinked you all and ran away."

Erkel looked at him serenely and calmly, but seemed not to understand.

"Verkhovensky ran away! Verkhovensky!" Shatov rasped furiously.

"But he's still here, he hasn't left yet. He's only leaving tomorrow," Erkel observed gently and persuadingly. "I especially invited him to be present as a witness; my instructions all had to do with him" (he confided like a young, inexperienced boy). "But, unfortunately, he did not agree, on the pretext of his departure, and he really seems to be in a hurry."

Shatov again glanced pityingly at the simpleton, but suddenly waved his hand as if thinking: "What's there to pity?"

"All right, I'll come," he suddenly broke off, "and now get out of here, go!"

"And so I'll come at exactly six o'clock," Erkel bowed politely and went unhurriedly down the stairs.

"Little fool!" Shatov could not help shouting at his back from upstairs.

"What's that, sir?" the man responded from below.

"Never mind, go."

"I thought you said something."

II

Erkel was the sort of "little fool" whose head lacked only the chief sense; he had no king in his head, but of lesser, subordinate sense he had plenty, even to the point of cunning. Fanatically, childishly devoted to the "common cause," and essentially to Pyotr Verkhovensky, he acted on his instructions, given him at that moment during the meeting of our people when the roles for the next day were arranged and handed out. Pyotr Stepanovich, assigning him the role of messenger, managed to have about a ten-minute talk with him aside. The executive line was what was required by this shallow, scant-reasoning character, eternally longing to submit to another's will—oh, to be sure, not otherwise than for the sake of a "common" or "great" cause. But that, too, made no difference, for little fanatics like Erkel simply cannot understand service to an idea otherwise than by merging it with the very person who, in their understanding, expresses this idea. Sentimental, tender, and kindly Erkel was perhaps the most unfeeling of the murderers who gathered against Shatov, and, having no personal hatred, could be present at his murder without batting an eye. Among other things, for instance, he had been told to spy out Shatov's situation thoroughly while going about his errand, and when Shatov, receiving him on the stairs, blurted out in his heat, most likely without noticing it, that his wife had returned to him—Erkel at once had enough instinctive cunning not to show the slightest further curiosity, despite the surmise flashing in his head that the fact of the returned wife was of great significance for the success of their undertaking...

And so it was, essentially: this fact alone saved the "blackguards" from Shatov's intention, and at the same time helped them to "get rid" of him... First of all, it excited Shatov, unsettled him, deprived him of his usual perspicacity and caution. Now least of all could any sort of notion of his own safety enter his head, occupied as it was by something quite different. On the contrary, he passionately believed that Pyotr Verkhovensky was going to run away the next day: it coincided so well with his suspicions! Having returned to his room, he again sat down in the corner, leaned his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands. Bitter thoughts tormented him...

And then he would raise his head again, get up, and go on tiptoe to look at her: "Lord! By tomorrow she'll be running a fever, by morning, it may have started already! She caught cold, of course. Unused to this terrible climate, and then the train, third class, rain and storm all around, and her cape is so light, no clothes to speak of... And to leave her here, abandon her without any help! Her bag, such a tiny bag, light, shriveled, ten pounds! Poor thing, how wasted, how much she's endured! She's proud, that's why she doesn't complain. But irritated, so irritated! It's the illness: even an angel would get irritated in illness. How dry, how hot her forehead must be, so dark under her eyes, and... and yet how beautiful the oval of her face and this fluffy hair, how..."

And he would hasten to look away, would hasten to get away, as if fearing the mere thought of seeing anything in her but an unfortunate, worn-out being in need of help—"what hopes could there be here! Oh, how low, how mean man is!"—and he would go back to his corner, sit down, cover his face with his hands, and again dream, again recall... and again picture hopes.

"Oh, I'm tired, so tired!" he recalled her exclamations, her weak, strained voice. "Lord! To abandon her now, and she with her eighty kopecks; she offered her purse, old, tiny! She's come to look for a position—well, what does she understand about positions, what do they understand in Russia? They're like whimsical children, all they have are their own fantasies, made up by themselves; and she's angry, poor thing, why doesn't Russia resemble their little foreign dreams! Oh, unfortunate, oh, innocent ones! ... However, it really is cold here..."

He remembered that she had complained, that he had promised to light the stove. "The firewood's there, I could fetch it, as long as I don't wake her up. I could do it, however. And what do I decide about the veal? She'll get up, she may want to eat... Well, that can wait; Kirillov doesn't sleep all night. What shall I cover her with, she's so fast asleep, but she must be cold, ah, cold!"

And he went over yet again to look at her; her dress was turned back a little, and her right leg was half bared to the knee. He suddenly turned away, almost in fear, took off his warm coat, and, remaining in a wretched old jacket, covered the bare part, trying not to look at it.

Lighting the stove, walking on tiptoe, looking at the sleeping woman, dreaming in the corner, then looking at the sleeping woman again, took a long time. Two or three hours went by. It was during this time that Verkhovensky and Liputin managed to visit Kirillov. Finally he, too, dozed off in the corner. A groan came from her; she awoke, she was calling him; he jumped up like a criminal.

"Marie! I fell asleep... Ah, what a scoundrel I am, Marie!"

She raised herself, looking around in surprise, as if not recognizing where she was, and suddenly became all stirred with indignation, with wrath:

"I took your bed, I fell asleep, beside myself with fatigue; how dared you not wake me up? How dared you think I intend to burden you?"

"How could I wake you, Marie?"

"You could; you should have! There's no other bed for you here, and I took yours. You shouldn't have put me in a false position. Or do you think I came to take advantage of your charity? Be so good as to take your bed right now, and I will lie down in the corner, on some chairs ..."

"Marie, I don't have so many chairs, or anything to make a bed from."

"Well, then simply on the floor. Otherwise you yourself will have to sleep on the floor. I want the floor, now, now!"

She got up, tried to take a step, but suddenly it was as if a most violent convulsive pain took away all her strength and all her resolve at once, and with a loud groan she fell back on the bed. Shatov ran to her, but Marie, her face buried in the pillows, seized his hand in hers and began to squeeze it and wring it with all her might. This went on for about a minute.

"Marie, darling, if you need, there's a Doctor Frenzel here, an acquaintance of mine, a very ... I could run over to him."

"Nonsense!"

"Why nonsense? Tell me, Marie, what hurts you? How about compresses ... on your stomach, for instance ... That I could do without a doctor ... Or else mustard plasters."

"What is this?" she asked strangely, raising her head and looking at him fearfully.

"What do you mean, Marie?" Shatov failed to understand. "What are you asking about? Oh, God, I'm completely lost, Marie, forgive me for not understanding anything."

"Eh, leave me alone, it's not your business to understand. And it would be very funny..." she grinned bitterly. "Talk to me about something. Walk around the room and talk. Don't stand over me and stare at me, that I particularly ask you for the five hundredth time!"

Shatov began to walk around the room, looking at the floor and trying as hard as he could not to glance at her.

"Here—don't be cross, Marie, I beg you—I have some veal here, not far away, and tea... You ate so little before..."

She waved her hand squeamishly and angrily. Shatov bit his tongue in despair.

"Listen, I intend to open a bookbinding shop here, on rational co-operative principles.^[189] Since you live here, what do you think: will it succeed or not?"

"Eh, Marie, they don't even read books here, and there aren't any at all. And why would he suddenly go binding them?"

"He who?"

"The local reader, the local inhabitant in general, Marie."

"Well, speak more clearly, then; otherwise you say he and nobody knows who he is. You never learned grammar."

"It's in the spirit of the language, Marie," Shatov muttered.

"Ah, go on, you and your spirit, it's boring. Why won't the local inhabitant or reader have his books bound?"

"Because to read a book and to bind it are two whole periods of development, and enormous ones. First, he gradually gets accustomed to reading—over centuries, of course—but he tears books and throws them around, not considering them serious things. Now, binding signifies a respect for books, it signifies that he has not only come to love reading, but has recognized it as a serious thing. Russia as a whole has not yet reached this period. Europe has been binding for a long time."

"Pedantically put, but still it's not such a stupid thing to have said. It reminds me of three years ago. You were sometimes rather witty three years ago."

She uttered this as squeamishly as all her earlier capricious remarks.

"Marie, Marie," Shatov addressed her with tender emotion, "oh, Marie! If you knew how much has passed and gone in these three years! I heard later that you supposedly despised me for changing my convictions. But whom did I abandon? The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year 'ninety-three^[190]... And scoundrels, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere!"

"Yes, there are many scoundrels," she said haltingly and painfully. She was lying stretched out, motionless and as if afraid to stir, her head thrown back on the pillow, slightly to one side, looking at the ceiling with tired but hot eyes. Her face was pale, her lips dry and parched.

"You understand, Marie, you understand!" Shatov exclaimed. She was about to shake her head, but suddenly the same convulsion came over her. Again she hid her face in the pillow, and again for a whole minute she clung painfully, with all her might, to the hand of Shatov, who rushed to her and was out of his mind with terror.

"Marie, Marie! But this may be very serious, Marie!"

"Keep still... I don't want it, I don't want it," she kept exclaiming, almost in fury, turning her face up again, "don't you dare look at me with your compassion! Walk around, say something, talk..."

Shatov, like a lost man, tried to begin muttering something again.

"What do you do here?" she asked, interrupting him with squeamish impatience.

"I go to a merchant's office. You know, Marie, if I really wanted to, I could even get good money here."

"So much the better for you..."

"Ah, don't think anything, Marie, I just said it..."

"And what else are you doing? What are you preaching? Surely you can't help preaching, with such a character!"

"I preach God, Marie."

"In whom you don't believe yourself. That's an idea I never could understand."

"Let's drop it, Marie, save it for later."

"What was this Marya Timofeevna here?"

"That, too, we can save for later, Marie."

"Don't you dare make such remarks to me! Is it true that this death can be put down to these people's... villainy?"

"Absolutely true," Shatov ground out.

Marie suddenly raised her head and cried out painfully:

"Don't you dare say any more to me about it, ever, ever!"

And she fell back on the bed again in a seizure of the same convulsive pain; this was the third time now, but this time her moans grew louder, turned into cries.

"Oh, unbearable man! Oh, insufferable man!" she was thrashing about, no longer sparing herself, pushing away Shatov, who was standing over her.

"Marie, I'll do whatever you like... I'll walk, talk..."

"But can't you see it's begun?"

"What's begun, Marie?"

"How do I know. Do I know anything about it?... Oh, curse it! Oh, curse it all beforehand!"

"Marie, if you'd say what has begun... otherwise I... what am I to understand, then?"

"You're an abstract, useless babbler. Oh, curse everything in the world!"

"Marie! Marie!"

He seriously thought she was beginning to go mad.

"But can't you finally see that I'm in labor?" she raised herself a little, looking at him with a terrible, painful spite that distorted her whole face. "Curse it beforehand, this child!"

"Marie," Shatov exclaimed, realizing at last what it was about, "Marie... but why didn't you tell me sooner?" He suddenly collected himself and, with energetic determination, grabbed his cap.

"How did I know when I came in? Would I have come to you? I was told it would be another ten days! Where, where are you going, don't you dare!"

"To fetch a midwife! I'll sell my revolver; money's the first thing now!"

"Don't you dare do anything, no midwife, just some peasant woman, any old woman, I have eighty kopecks in my purse ... Village women give birth without midwives... And if I drop dead, so much the better..."

"You'll have both a midwife and a peasant woman. Only how, how can I leave you alone, Marie!"

But realizing that it was better to leave her alone now, despite all her frenzy, than leave her without help later on, he paid no attention to her moans and wrathful exclamations, and, trusting to his legs, started headlong down the stairs.

III

To Kirillov, first of all. It was already one o'clock in the morning. Kirillov was standing in the middle of the room.

"Kirillov, my wife's giving birth!"

"How's that?"

"Giving birth, to a baby!"

"You're not... mistaken?"

"Oh, no, no, she's having spasms! ... I need a woman, some old woman, right now... Can I get one now? You used to have lots of old women..."

"It's a great pity that I'm not able to give birth," Kirillov answered pensively, "that is, not that I'm not able to give birth, but that I'm not able to make it so that there is birth... or... No, I'm not able to say it."

"That is, you yourself can't help in childbirth; but that's not what I mean; a woman, an old woman, I'm asking for an old woman, a nurse, a servant!"

"You'll have an old woman, only maybe not now. If you like, instead, I'll..."

"Oh, impossible; I'll go right now to the Virginsky woman, the midwife."

"A harpy!"

"Oh, yes, Kirillov, yes, but she's the best one! Oh, yes, it will all be without awe, without joy, squeamish, with curses, with blasphemy— this great mystery, the appearance of a new being! ... Oh, she's already cursing it now! ..."

"If you wish, I..."

"No, no, but while I'm running around (oh, I'll drag that Virginsky woman here!), you should go to my stairway every once in a while and listen quietly, but don't you dare go in, you'll frighten her, don't go in for anything, only listen... just in some terrible case. Well, if something extreme happens, then go in."

"I understand. There's one more rouble. Here. I wanted a chicken for tomorrow, but no more. Run quickly, run as hard as you can. There's a samovar all night."

Kirillov knew nothing about the intentions concerning Shatov, and even before he never knew the full extent of the danger that threatened him. He knew only that he had some old scores with "those people," and though he himself was partly mixed up in the affair through some instructions conveyed to him from abroad (rather superficial ones, however, for he had never participated closely in anything), he had lately dropped everything, all assignments, removed himself completely from all affairs, and in the first place from the "common cause," and given himself to a life of contemplation. Although at the meeting Pyotr Verkhovensky had summoned Liputin to Kirillov's to make sure he would take the "Shatov case" upon himself at the proper moment, nevertheless, in his talk with Kirillov he did not say a word about Shatov, not even a hint—probably regarding it as impolitic, and Kirillov even as unreliable—and had left it till the next day, when everything would already be done, and it would therefore "make no difference" to Kirillov; so, at least, Pyotr Stepanovich's reasoning about Kirillov went. Liputin also noticed very well that, despite the promise, not a word was mentioned about Shatov, but Liputin was too agitated to protest.

Shatov ran like the wind to Muravyiny Street, cursing the distance and seeing no end to it.

It would take a lot of knocking at Virginsky's: everyone had long been asleep. But Shatov started banging on the shutters as hard as he could and without any ceremony. The dog tied in the yard strained and went off into a furious barking. All the dogs down the street joined in; a clamor of dogs arose.

"Why are you knocking and what is it you want?" the soft voice of Virginsky, quite incommensurate with the "outrage," came at last from a window. The shutter opened a bit, as did the vent.

"Who's there, what scoundrel?" the female voice of the old maid, Virginsky's relative, this time fully commensurate with the outrage, angrily shrieked.

"It's me, Shatov, my wife has come back to me and is now presently giving birth..."

"Well, let her! Away with you!"

"I've come for Arina Prokhorovna, I won't leave without Arina Prokhorovna!"

"She can't just go to everybody. Night practice is a separate thing ... Away with you to the Maksheev woman, and don't you dare make any more noise!" the irate female voice rattled on. One could hear Virginsky trying to stop her; but the old maid kept pushing him away and would not give in.

"I won't leave!" Shatov shouted again.

"Wait, wait!" Virginsky finally raised his voice, overpowering the maid. "I beg you, Shatov, wait five minutes, I'll wake up Arina Prokhorovna, and please don't knock or shout... Oh, how terrible this all is!"

After five endless minutes, Arina Prokhorovna appeared.

"Your wife has come to you?" her voice issued from the vent window and, to Shatov's surprise, was not at all angry, merely peremptory as usual; but Arina Prokhorovna could not speak any other way.

"Yes, my wife, and she's in labor."

"Marya Ignatievna?"

"Yes, Marya Ignatievna. Of course, Marya Ignatievna!"

Silence ensued. Shatov waited. There was whispering in the house.

"Did she come long ago?" Madame Virginsky asked again.

"Tonight, at eight o'clock. Please hurry."

Again there was whispering and again an apparent discussion.

"Listen, you're not mistaken, are you? Did she send for me herself?"

"No, she didn't send for you, she wants a woman, a peasant woman, so as not to burden me with the expense, but don't worry, I'll pay." "All right, I'll come, pay or no pay. I've always thought highly of Marya Ignatievna's independent feelings, though she may not remember me. Do you have the most necessary things?" "I have nothing, but I'll get it all, I will, I will..." "So there's magnanimity in these people, too!" Shatov thought, as he headed for Lyamshin's. "Convictions and the man—it seems they're two different things in many ways. Maybe in many ways I'm guilty before them! ... We're all guilty, we're all guilty, and ... if only we were all convinced of it! ..."

He did not have to knock long at Lyamshin's; surprisingly, the man instantly opened the window, having jumped out of bed barefoot, in his underwear, at the risk of catching cold—he who was so nervous and constantly worried about his health. But there was a particular reason for such sensitiveness and haste; Lyamshin had been trembling all night and was still so agitated that he could not sleep, as a consequence of the meeting of our people; he kept imagining visits from some uninvited and altogether unwanted guests. The news about Shatov's denunciation tormented him most of all... And then suddenly, as if by design, there came such terrible, loud knocking at the window! ...

He got so scared when he saw Shatov that he immediately slammed the window and ran for his bed. Shatov started knocking and shouting furiously.

"How dare you knock like that in the middle of the night?" Lyamshin, though sinking with fear, shouted threateningly, venturing to open the window again after a good two minutes and making sure finally that Shatov had come alone.

"Here's your revolver; take it back, give me fifteen roubles." "What, are you drunk? This is hooliganism; I'll simply catch cold. Wait, let me throw a plaid over me."

"Give me fifteen roubles right now. If you don't, I'll knock and shout till dawn; I'll break your window."

"And I'll shout for help and you'll be locked up." "And I'm mute, am I? Do you think I won't shout for help? Who should be more afraid of shouting for help, you or me?"

"How can you nurse such mean convictions ... I know what you're hinting at. . . Wait, wait, for God's sake, don't knock! Good heavens, who has money at night? What do you need money for, if you're not drunk?"

"My wife has come back to me. I've chopped off ten roubles for you, I never once fired it; take the revolver, take it this minute."

Lyamshin mechanically reached his hand out the window and accepted the revolver; he waited a little, and all at once, quickly popping his head out the window, started babbling, as if forgetting himself, and with a chill in his spine:

"You're lying, your wife hasn't come back to you at all. It's... it's that you simply want to run away somewhere."

"You're a fool, where am I going to run to? Let your Pyotr Verkhovensky run away, not me. I just left the midwife Virginsky, and she agreed at once to come to me. Ask her. My wife's in labor; I need money; give me money!"

A whole fireworks of ideas flashed in Lyamshin's shifty mind. Everything suddenly took a different turn, yet fear still prevented him from reasoning.

"But how... aren't you separated from your wife?"

"I'll smash your head in for such questions."

"Ah, my God, forgive me, I understand, it's just that I was flabbergasted... But I understand, I understand. But... but—will Arina Prokhorovna really go? Didn't you just say she went? You know, that's not true. See, see, see, at every step you say things that aren't true."

"She must be with my wife now, don't keep me, it's not my fault that you're so stupid."

"That's not true, I'm not stupid. Excuse me, I really can't..."

And, completely at a loss now, he started to close the window for the third time, but Shatov raised such a cry that he immediately stuck himself out again.

"But this is a total infringement upon a person! What are you demanding of me, well, what, what?—formulate it! And in the middle of the night, note that, note that!"

"I'm demanding fifteen roubles, muttonhead!"

"But maybe I don't wish to take the revolver back. You have no right. You bought the thing—and that's that, and you have no right. There's no way I can produce such a sum at night. Where can I get such a sum?"

"You always have money; I've taken off ten roubles for you, but you're a notorious little Jew."

"Come the day after tomorrow—do you hear, the day after tomorrow, in the morning, at twelve sharp, and I'll give you all of it, agreed?"

Shatov knocked furiously at the window for the third time:

"Give me ten roubles, and five tomorrow at daybreak."

"No, five the day after tomorrow, and tomorrow nothing, by God. You'd better not come, you'd better not come."

"Give me ten—oh, you scoundrel!"

"Why such abuse? Wait, I need a light; look, you've broken the window... Why such abuse in the night? Here!" he held a note out to him through the window.

Shatov grabbed the note—it was five roubles.

"By God, I can't, strike me dead, but I can't, the day after tomorrow I can give you all of it, but nothing now."

"I won't leave!" Shatov bellowed.

"Well, here, take more, you see, more, and that's it. You can shout your head off, I won't give you more, whatever happens, I won't, I won't, I won't!"

He was in a frenzy, in despair, covered with sweat. The two notes he had added were for a rouble each. Altogether, Shatov had collected seven roubles.

"Well, devil take you, I'll come tomorrow. I'll give you a beating, Lyamshin, if you haven't got eight roubles ready."

"And I won't be home, you fool!" Lyamshin thought to himself quickly.

"Wait, wait!" he called frenziedly after Shatov, who was already running off. "Wait, come back. Tell me, please, is it true what you said about your wife coming back to you?"

"Fool!" Shatov spat and ran home as hard as he could.

IV

I will note that Arina Prokhorovna knew nothing about the intentions adopted at the previous day's meeting. Virginsky, coming home stunned and weakened, did not dare tell her the adopted decision; but even so he could not help himself and did reveal half—that is, all that Verkhovensky had reported to them about Shatov's definite intention to denounce them; but he declared at the same time that he did not quite trust this report. Arina Prokhorovna was terribly frightened. That was why, when Shatov came running to fetch her, she immediately decided to go, tired though she was from having toiled over a woman in childbirth all the night before. She had always been sure that "such trash as Shatov was capable of civic meanness"; yet the arrival of Marya Ignatievna placed the matter in a new perspective. Shatov's fright, the desperate tone of his appeals, his pleas for help, signified a turnabout in the traitor's feelings: a man who had even resolved to betray himself just so as to ruin others would, it seemed, have a different look and tone than the reality presented. In short, Arina Prokhorovna resolved to examine it all herself, with her own eyes. Virginsky remained very pleased with her resolution—as if five tons had been lifted from him! A hope was even born in him: Shatov's look seemed to him to the highest degree incompatible with Verkhovensky's supposition ...

Shatov was not mistaken; on his return he found Arina Prokhorovna already with Marie. She had just arrived, had disdainfully chased away Kirillov, who was sticking about at the foot of the stairs; had hastily made the acquaintance of Marie, who did not recognize her as an old acquaintance; had found her "in a very bad state"—that is, angry, upset, and in "the most fainthearted despair"—and in some five minutes had decidedly gained the upper hand over all her objections.

"What's all this carping about not wanting an expensive midwife?" she was saying the very moment Shatov entered. "Sheer nonsense, false notions, from the abnormal state you're in. You'd have fifty chances of ending badly with the help of some simple old woman, some peasant granny; and then there'd be more troubles and costs than with an expensive midwife. How do you know I'm an expensive midwife? You can pay later, I won't take too much from you, and I guarantee you success; with me you won't die, I've seen lots worse cases. And I'll send the baby to the orphanage, tomorrow even, if you like, and then to the country to be brought up, and that'll be the end of that. Then you can recover, settle down to some rational work, and in a very short time reward Shatov for the lodging and expenses, which won't be all that great..."

"It's not that ... I have no right to be a burden..."

"Rational and civic feelings, but, believe me, Shatov will spend almost nothing, if he decides to turn himself, at least a little, from a fantastic gentleman into a man of right ideas. All he has to do is not commit any follies, not beat the drum, not run around town with his tongue hanging out. If he's not tied down, he'll rouse all the doctors in town before morning; he certainly roused all the dogs on my street. There's no need for doctors, I've already said I guarantee everything. You could maybe hire an old woman to serve you, that won't cost anything. Though he himself could be of use for something besides just foolishness. He's got arms, he's got legs, he can run over to the pharmacy without insulting your feelings in any way by his charity. The devil it's charity! Isn't he the one who got you into this state? Wasn't it he who made you quarrel with the family where you were governess, with the egoistic purpose of marrying you? We heard about that... Though he himself just came running like a lunatic and shouting for the whole street to hear. I'm not forcing myself on anybody, I came solely for you, on the principle that our people are all bound by solidarity; I announced that to him before I left the house. If I'm unnecessary in your opinion, then good-bye; only you may be asking for trouble that could easily be avoided."

And she even got up from her chair.

Marie was so helpless, she was suffering so much, and, to tell the truth, was so afraid of what lay ahead of her, that she did not dare let her go. But the woman suddenly became hateful to her: what she was saying was not it, was not at all what was in Marie's soul! But the prophecy of possible death at the hands of an inexperienced midwife overcame her revulsion. To make up for it, she became, from that moment on, even more exacting, more merciless to Shatov. It finally reached a point where she forbade him not only to look at her but even to stand facing her. The pains were becoming worse. The curses and even profanities were becoming more violent.

"Eh, why don't we send him out," Arina Prokhorovna snapped, "he looks awful, he just frightens you, he's pale as a corpse! What is it to you, tell me please, you funny fellow? What a comedy!"

Shatov did not reply; he resolved not to reply.

"I've seen foolish fathers on such occasions; they, too, lose their minds. But at least they..."

"Stop it, or leave me and let me die! Nobody say a word! I don't want it, I don't want it!" Marie started shouting.

"It's impossible not to say a word, or are you out of your mind yourself? That's how I understand you in the state you're in. We have to talk business at least: tell me, do you have anything ready? You answer, Shatov, she can't be bothered with it."

"Tell me what precisely is necessary?"

"In other words, nothing's ready."

She counted off all the needful things necessary and, one must do her justice, limited herself to sheer necessities, to beggarliness. It turned out that Shatov had some things. Marie took her key and gave it to him to look in her bag. His hands were trembling and he fumbled somewhat longer than he should have in opening the unfamiliar lock. Marie lost her temper, but when Arina Prokhorovna ran to take the key from him, she refused to let her peek into the bag, and insisted with capricious cries and tears that the only one who should open the bag was Shatov.

For certain things he had to run over to Kirillov. As soon as Shatov turned to go, she immediately began calling him back frenziedly, and calmed down only when Shatov rushed madly back from the stairs and explained to her that he was leaving only for a minute, to get the most necessary things, and would come back at once.

"Well, lady, you're a hard one to please," Arina Prokhorovna laughed. "One minute he has to stand facing the wall and not dare look at you, the next he mustn't dare leave for a moment or you'll cry. He might think something this way. Now, now, don't be capricious, don't pout, I'm just laughing."

"He dare not think anything."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, if he wasn't in love with you like a sheep, he wouldn't be running around town with his tongue hanging out, and he wouldn't have roused all the local dogs. He broke my window."

V

Shatov found Kirillov, who was still pacing his room from corner to corner, so distracted that he had even forgotten about the wife's arrival and listened uncomprehendingly.

"Ah, yes," he remembered suddenly, as if tearing himself away with effort, and only for a moment, from some idea that held him fascinated, "yes ... an old woman ... A wife or an old woman? Wait: both a wife and an old woman, right? I remember; I went; the old woman will come, only not now. Take the pillow. Anything else? Yes... Wait, Shatov, do you ever have moments of eternal harmony?"

"You know, Kirillov, you mustn't go on not sleeping at night."

Kirillov came to himself and—strangely—began to speak even far more coherently than he usually spoke; one could see that he had long been formulating it all, and perhaps had written it down:

"There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it's heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true.^[191] God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: 'Yes, this is true, this is good.'^[192]This... this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don't forgive anything, because there's no longer anything to forgive. You don't really love—oh, what is here is higher than love! What's most frightening is that it's so terribly clear, and there's such joy. If it were longer than five seconds—the soul couldn't endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it's worth it. To endure ten seconds one would have to change physically. I think man should stop giving birth. Why children, why development, if the goal has been achieved? It's said in the Gospel that in the resurrection there will be no birth, but people will be like God's angels.^[193] A hint. Your wife's giving birth?"

"Kirillov, does it come often?"

"Once in three days, once a week."

"You don't have the falling sickness?"

"No."

"Then you will. Watch out, Kirillov, I've heard that this is precisely how the falling sickness starts. An epileptic described to me in detail this preliminary sensation before a fit, exactly like yours; he, too, gave it five seconds and said it couldn't be endured longer. Remember Muhammad's jug that had no time to spill while he flew all over paradise on his horse?^[194] The jug is those same five seconds; it's all too much like your harmony, and Muhammad was an epileptic. Watch out, Kirillov, it's the falling sickness!"

"It won't have time," Kirillov chuckled softly.

VI

The night was passing. Shatov was sent out, abused, called back. Marie reached the last degree of fear for her life. She shouted that she wanted to live, that "she must live, she must!" and was afraid to die. "Not that, not that!" she kept repeating. Had it not been for Arina Prokhorovna, things would have been very bad. Gradually she gained complete control over the patient, who started obeying her every word, her every bark, like a child. Arina Prokhorovna used severity, not kindness, but her work was masterful. Dawn broke. Arina Prokhorovna suddenly came up with the idea that Shatov had just run out to the stairs to pray to God, and she began to laugh. Marie also laughed, spitefully, caustically, as if it made her feel better. Finally, they chased Shatov out altogether. A damp, cold morning came. He leaned his face to the wall in the corner, exactly as the evening before when Erkel came. He was trembling like a leaf, afraid to think, yet his thought clung to everything that presented itself to his mind, as happens in dreams. Reveries incessantly carried him away, and incessantly snapped off like rotten threads. Finally, it was no longer groans that came from the room, but terrible, purely animal sounds, intolerable, impossible. He wanted to stop his ears, but could not, and fell to his knees, unconsciously repeating "Marie, Marie!" And then, finally, there came a cry, a new cry, at which Shatov gave a start and jumped up from his knees, the cry of an infant, weak, cracked. He crossed himself and rushed into the room. In Arina Prokhorovna's hands a small, red, wrinkled being was crying and waving its tiny arms and legs, a terribly helpless being, like a speck of dust at the mercy of the first puff of wind, yet crying and proclaiming itself, as if it, too, somehow had the fullest right to life... Marie was lying as if unconscious, but after a minute she opened her eyes and gave Shatov a strange, strange look: it was somehow quite a new look, precisely how he was as yet unable to understand, but he did not know or remember her ever having such a look before.

"A boy? A boy?" she asked Arina Prokhorovna in a pained voice.

"A little boy!" she shouted in reply, swaddling the baby.

For a moment, once she had swaddled him and before laying him across the bed between two pillows, she handed him to Shatov to hold. Marie, somehow on the sly and as if she were afraid of Arina Prokhorovna, nodded to him. He understood at once and brought the baby over to show her.

"How... pretty..." she whispered weakly, with a smile.

"Pah, what a look!" the triumphant Arina Prokhorovna laughed merrily, peeking into Shatov's face. "Just see the face on him!"

"Be glad, Arina Prokhorovna... This is a great joy..." Shatov babbled with an idiotically blissful look, radiant after Marie's two words about the baby.

"What's this great joy of yours?" Arina Prokhorovna was amusing herself, while bustling about, tidying up, and working like a galley slave.

"The mystery of the appearance of a new being, a great mystery and an inexplicable one, Arina Prokhorovna, and what a pity you don't understand it!"

Shatov was muttering incoherently, dazedly, and rapturously. It was as if something were swaying in his head, and of itself, without his will, pouring from his soul.

"There were two, and suddenly there's a third human being, a new spirit, whole, finished, such as doesn't come from human hands; a new thought and a new love, it's even frightening ... And there's nothing higher in the world!"

"A nice lot of drivel! It's simply the further development of the organism, there's nothing to it, no mystery," Arina Prokhorovna was guffawing sincerely and merrily. "That way every fly is a mystery. But I tell you what: unnecessary people shouldn't be born. First reforge everything so that they're not unnecessary, and then give birth to them. Otherwise, you see, I've got to drag him to the orphanage tomorrow... Though that's as it should be."

"Never will he go from me to the orphanage!" Shatov said firmly, staring at the floor.

"You're adopting him?"

"He is my son."

"Of course, he's a Shatov, legally he's a Shatov, and there's no point presenting yourself as a benefactor of mankind. They just can't do without their phrases. Well, well, all right, only I tell you what, ladies and gentlemen," she finally finished tidying up, "it's time for me to go. I'll come again in the morning, and in the evening if need be, and now, since it's all gone off so very well, I must also run to the others, they've been waiting a long time. Shatov, you've got an old woman sitting somewhere; the old woman is fine, but you, dear husband, don't you leave her either; stay by her, just in case you can be useful; and I don't suppose Marya Ignatievna will chase you away... well, well, I'm just laughing..."

At the gate, where Shatov went to see her off, she added, to him alone:

"You've made me laugh for the rest of my life: I won't take any money from you; I'll laugh in my sleep. I've never seen anything funnier than you last night."

She left thoroughly pleased. From Shatov's look and his talk, it became clear as day that the man "was going to make a father of himself, and was a consummate dishrag." She ran over to her place, though it would have been closer to go directly to her next patient, on purpose to tell Virginsky about it.

"Marie, she said you should wait and not sleep for a while, though that, I see, is terribly difficult. . ." Shatov began timidly. "I'll sit here by the window and keep watch on you, hm?"

And he sat down by the window behind the sofa so that there was no way she could see him. But before a minute had passed, she called him and squeamishly asked him to straighten her pillow. He began to straighten it. She was looking angrily at the wall.

"Not like that, oh, not like that... What hands!"

Shatov straightened it again.

"Bend down to me," she suddenly said wildly, trying all she could not to look at him.

He gave a start, but bent down.

"More... not like that... closer," and suddenly her left arm impetuously went around his neck, and he felt on his forehead her firm, moist kiss.

"Marie!"

Her lips were trembling, she tried to restrain herself, but suddenly she sat up and, flashing her eyes, said:

"Nikolai Stavrogin is a scoundrel!"

And strengthlessly, as if cut down, she fell with her face in the pillow, sobbing hysterically and squeezing Shatov's hand tightly in her own.

From that moment on she no longer let him leave her, she demanded that he sit by her head. She could talk little, but kept looking at him with a blessed smile on her face. It was as if she had suddenly turned into some silly fool. Everything seemed transformed. Shatov now wept like a little boy, now said God knows what, wildly, dazedly, inspiredly; he kissed her hands; she listened with rapture, perhaps not even understanding, but tenderly touching his hair with a weakened hand, smoothing it, admiring it. He talked to her of Kirillov, of how they were now going to start living "anew and forever," of the existence of God, of everyone being good ... In rapture they again took the baby out to look at him.

"Marie," he cried, holding the baby in his arms, "an end to the old delirium, disgrace, and carrion! Let us work, and on a new path, the three of us, yes, yes! ... Ah, yes, what name are we going to give him, Marie?"

"Him? What name?" she repeated in surprise, and a terribly rueful look suddenly came to her face.

She clasped her hands, glanced reproachfully at Shatov, and threw herself facedown on the pillow.

"Marie, what is it?" he cried out with rueful fright.

"How could you, how could you... Oh, you ungrateful man!"

"Marie, forgive me, Marie ... I just asked what to name him. I don't know..."

"Ivan, Ivan," she raised her flushed face, wet with tears, "could you really suppose it would be some other, terrible name?"

"Marie, calm down, oh, you're so upset!"

"More rudeness! Why ascribe it to my being upset? I bet if I told you to give him that... terrible name, you'd agree at once and wouldn't even notice! Oh, ungrateful, mean, all of you, all of you!"

A minute later, of course, they made peace. Shatov convinced her to get some sleep. She fell asleep, but still without letting go of his hand; she kept waking up, looking at him as if fearing he might leave, and falling asleep again.

Kirillov sent the old woman up with "congratulations," and with hot tea, besides, some just-fried cutlets, and bouillon with white bread for "Marya Ignatievna." The patient drank the bouillon greedily, the old woman changed the baby, Marie also made Shatov eat the cutlets.

Time was passing. Shatov, strengthless, fell asleep in the chair himself, his head on Marie's pillow. Thus they were found by Arina Prokhorovna, true to her word, who cheerfully woke them up, discussed whatever was necessary with Marie, looked the baby over, and again told Shatov not to leave her side. Then, cracking a joke about the "spouses" with a shade of scorn and superciliousness, she left as well pleased as before.

It was already quite dark when Shatov woke up. He hastened to light the candle and ran for the old woman; but as soon as he started down the stairs, he was struck by someone's soft, unhurried footsteps of a man coming up towards him. Erkel came in.

"Don't come in!" Shatov whispered, and seizing him impetuously by the arm, he dragged him back to the gate. "Wait here, I'll come out right away, I totally, totally forgot about you! Oh, what a reminder!"

He began hurrying so much that he did not even run over to see Kirillov and only called the old woman out. Marie was in despair and indignation that he "could even think of leaving her alone."

"But," he cried rapturously, "this is the very last step! And then the new path, and we'll never, ever remember the old horror!"

He somehow managed to convince her and promised to be back at nine o'clock sharp; he gave her a big kiss, kissed the baby, and quickly ran down to Erkel.

The two men set off for Stavrogin's park at Skvoreshniki, where about a year and a half earlier, in a solitary place at the very edge of the park where the pine forest already began, he had buried the printing press that had been entrusted to him. The place was wild and deserted, totally inconspicuous, quite far from the Skvoreshniki house. It was about a two-mile walk from Filippov's house, maybe even two and a half.

"Not on foot, really? I'll hire a carriage."

"I beg you very much not to," Erkel objected, "they precisely insisted on that. A driver is also a witness."

"Well... the devil! No matter, just to be done with it, done with it!"

They were walking very quickly.

"Erkel, you little boy, you!" Shatov cried out, "have you ever been happy?"

"And you seem to be very happy now," Erkel observed with curiosity.