She sat down beside him and opened the book.
"You read beautifully," he interrupted her after the first line. "I see, I see I was not mistaken," he added obscurely but ecstatically. He was, in fact, in a continual state of enthusiasm. She read the Sermon on the Mount.
"a.s.sez, a.s.sez, mon enfant, enough.... Don"t you think that that is enough?"
And he closed his eyes helplessly. He was very weak, but had not yet lost consciousness. Sofya Matveyevna was getting up, thinking that he wanted to sleep. But he stopped her.
"My friend, I"ve been telling lies all my life. Even when I told the truth I never spoke for the sake of the truth, but always for my own sake. I knew it before, but I only see it now.... Oh, where are those friends whom I have insulted with my friendship all my life? And all, all! Savez-vous... perhaps I am telling lies now; no doubt I am telling lies now. The worst of it is that I believe myself when I am lying. The hardest thing in life is to live without telling lies... and without believing in one"s lies. Yes, yes, that"s just it.... But wait a bit, that can all come afterwards.... We"ll be together, together," he added enthusiastically.
"Stepan Trofimovitch," Sofya Matveyevna asked timidly, "hadn"t I better send to the town for the doctor?"
He was tremendously taken aback.
"What for? Est-ce que je suis si malade? Mais rien de serieux. What need have we of outsiders? They may find, besides-and what will happen then? No, no, no outsiders and we"ll be together."
"Do you know," he said after a pause, "read me something more, just the first thing you come across."
Sofya Matveyevna opened the Testament and began reading.
"Wherever it opens, wherever it happens to open," he repeated.
""And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans...""
"What"s that? What is it? Where is that from?"
"It"s from the Revelation."
"Oh, je m"en souviens, oui, l"Apocalypse. Lisez, lisez, I am trying our future fortunes by the book. I want to know what has turned up. Read on from there...."
""And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of G.o.d;
""I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot.
""So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
""Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing: and thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.""
"That too... and that"s in your book too!" he exclaimed, with flashing eyes and raising his head from the pillow. "I never knew that grand pa.s.sage! You hear, better be cold, better be cold than lukewarm, than only lukewarm. Oh, I"ll prove it! Only don"t leave me, don"t leave me alone! We"ll prove it, we"ll prove it!"
"I won"t leave you, Stepan Trofimovitch. I"ll never leave you!" She took his hand, pressed it in both of hers, and laid it against her heart, looking at him with tears in her eyes. ("I felt very sorry for him at that moment," she said, describing it afterwards.)
His lips twitched convulsively.
"But, Stepan Trofimovitch, what are we to do though? Oughtn"t we to let some of your friends know, or perhaps your relations?"
But at that he was so dismayed that she was very sorry that she had spoken of it again. Trembling and shaking, he besought her to fetch no one, not to do anything. He kept insisting, "No one, no one! We"ll be alone, by ourselves, alone, nous partirons ensemble."
Another difficulty was that the people of the house too began to be uneasy; they grumbled, and kept pestering Sofya Matveyevna. She paid them and managed to let them see her money. This softened them for the time, but the man insisted on seeing Stepan Trofimovitch"s "papers." The invalid pointed with a supercilious smile to his little bag. Sofya Matveyevna found in it the certificate of his having resigned his post at the university, or something of the kind, which had served him as a pa.s.sport all his life. The man persisted, and said that "he must be taken somewhere, because their house wasn"t a hospital, and if he were to die there might be a bother. We should have no end of trouble." Sofya Matveyevna tried to speak to him of the doctor, but it appeared that sending to the town would cost so much that she had to give up all idea of the doctor. She returned in distress to her invalid. Stepan Trofimovitch was getting weaker and weaker.
"Now read me another pa.s.sage.... About the pigs," he said suddenly.
"What?" asked Sofya Matveyevna, very much alarmed.
"About the pigs... that"s there too... ces cochons. I remember the devils entered into swine and they all were drowned. You must read me that; I"ll tell you why afterwards. I want to remember it word for word. I want it word for word."
Sofya Matveyevna knew the gospel well and at once found the pa.s.sage in St. Luke which I have chosen as the motto of my record. I quote it here again:
""And there was there one herd of many swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.
""Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.
""When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.
""Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind; and they were afraid.""
"My friend," said Stepan Trofimovitch in great excitement "savez-vous, that wonderful and... extraordinary pa.s.sage has been a stumbling-block to me all my life... dans ce livre.... so much so that I remembered those verses from childhood. Now an idea has occurred to me; une comparaison. A great number of ideas keep coming into my mind now. You see, that"s exactly like our Russia, those devils that come out of the sick man and enter into the swine. They are all the sores, all the foul contagions, all the impurities, all the devils great and small that have multiplied in that great invalid, our beloved Russia, in the course of ages and ages. Oui, cette Russie que j"aimais toujours. But a great idea and a great Will will encompa.s.s it from on high, as with that lunatic possessed of devils... and all those devils will come forth, all the impurity, all the rottenness that was putrefying on the surface ... and they will beg of themselves to enter into swine; and indeed maybe they have entered into them already! They are we, we and those... and Petrusha and les autres avec lui... and I perhaps at the head of them, and we shall cast ourselves down, possessed and raving, from the rocks into the sea, and we shall all be drowned-and a good thing too, for that is all we are fit for. But the sick man will be healed and "will sit at the feet of Jesus," and all will look upon him with astonishment.... My dear, vous comprendrez apres, but now it excites me very much.... Vous comprendrez apres. Nous comprendrons ensemble."
He sank into delirium and at last lost consciousness. So it went on all the following day. Sofya Matveyevna sat beside him, crying. She scarcely slept at all for three nights, and avoided seeing the people of the house, who were, she felt, beginning to take some steps. Deliverance only came on the third day. In the morning Stepan Trofimovitch returned to consciousness, recognised her, and held out his hand to her. She crossed herself hopefully. He wanted to look out of the window. "Tiens, un lac!" he said. "Good heavens, I had not seen it before!..." At that moment there was the rumble of a carriage at the cottage door and a great hubbub in the house followed.
III It was Varvara Petrovna herself. She had arrived, with Darya Pavlovna, in a closed carriage drawn by four horses, with two footmen. The marvel had happened in the simplest way: Anisim, dying of curiosity, went to Varvara Petrovna"s the day after he reached the town and gossiped to the servants, telling them he had met Stepan Trofimovitch alone in a village, that the latter had been seen by peasants walking by himself on the high road, and that he had set off for Spasov by way of Ustyevo accompanied by Sofya Matveyevna. As Varvara Petrovna was, for her part, in terrible anxiety and had done everything she could to find her fugitive friend, she was at once told about Anisim. When she had heard his story, especially the details of the departure for Ustyevo in a cart in the company of some Sofya Matveyevna, she instantly got ready and set off post-haste for Ustyevo herself.
Her stern and peremptory voice resounded through the cottage; even the landlord and his wife were intimidated. She had only stopped to question them and make inquiries, being persuaded that Stepan Trofimovitch must have reached Spasov long before. Learning that he was still here and ill, she entered the cottage in great agitation.
"Well, where is he? Ah, that"s you!" she cried, seeing Sofya Matveyevna, who appeared at that very instant in the doorway of the next room. "I can guess from your shameless face that it"s you. Go away, you vile hussy! Don"t let me find a trace of her in the house! Turn her out, or else, my girl, I"ll get you locked up for good. Keep her safe for a time in another house. She"s been in prison once already in the town; she can go back there again. And you, my good man, don"t dare to let anyone in while I am here, I beg of you. I am Madame Stavrogin, and I"ll take the whole house. As for you, my dear, you"ll have to give me a full account of it all."
The familiar sounds overwhelmed Stepan Trofimovitch. He began to tremble. But she had already stepped behind the screen. With flashing eyes she drew up a chair with her foot, and, sinking back in it, she shouted to Dasha:
"Go away for a time! Stay in the other room. Why are you so inquisitive? And shut the door properly after you."
For some time she gazed in silence with a sort of predatory look into his frightened face.
"Well, how are you getting on, Stepan Trofimovitch? So you"ve been enjoying yourself?" broke from her with ferocious irony.
"Chere," Stepan Trofimovitch faltered, not knowing what he was saying, "I"ve learnt to know real life in Russia... et je precherai l"Evangile."
"Oh, shameless, ungrateful man!" she wailed suddenly, clasping her hands. "As though you had not disgraced me enough, you"ve taken up with... oh, you shameless old reprobate!"
"Chere..." His voice failed him and he could not articulate a syllable but simply gazed with eyes wide with horror.
"Who is she?"
"C"est un ange; c"etait plus qu"un ange pour moi. She"s been all night... Oh, don"t shout, don"t frighten her, chere, chere..."
With a loud noise, Varvara Petrovna pushed back her chair, uttering a loud cry of alarm.
"Water, water!"
Though he returned to consciousness, she was still shaking with terror, and, with pale cheeks, looked at his distorted face. It was only then, for the first time, that she guessed the seriousness of his illness.
"Darya," she whispered suddenly to Darya Pavlovna, "send at once for the doctor, for Salzfish; let Yegorytch go at once. Let him hire horses here and get another carriage from the town. He must be here by night."