"Pyotr Stepanovitch," Erkel brought out warily but resolutely, "what if you were going to Petersburg? Of course, I understand that you are only doing what"s necessary for the cause."
"I expected as much from you, Erkel. If you have guessed that I am going to Petersburg you can realise that I couldn"t tell them yesterday, at that moment, that I was going so far for fear of frightening them. You saw for yourself what a state they were in. But you understand that I am going for the cause, for work of the first importance, for the common cause, and not to save my skin, as Liputin imagines."
"Pyotr Stepanovitch, what if you were going abroad? I should understand... I should understand that you must be careful of yourself because you are everything and we are nothing. I shall understand, Pyotr Stepanovitch." The poor boy"s voice actually quivered.
"Thank you, Erkel.... Aie, you"ve touched my bad finger." (Erkel had pressed his hand awkwardly; the bad finger was discreetly bound up in black silk.) "But I tell you positively again that I am going to Petersburg only to sniff round, and perhaps shall only be there for twenty-four hours and then back here again at once. When I come back I shall stay at Gaganov"s country place for the sake of appearances. If there is any notion of danger, I should be the first to take the lead and share it. If I stay longer in Petersburg I"ll let you know at once ... in the way we"ve arranged, and you"ll tell them." The second bell rang.
"Ah, then there"s only five minutes before the train starts. I don"t want the group here to break up, you know. I am not afraid; don"t be anxious about me. I have plenty of such centres, and it"s not much consequence; but there"s no harm in having as many centres as possible. But I am quite at ease about you, though I am leaving you almost alone with those idiots. Don"t be uneasy; they won"t turn traitor, they won"t have the pluck.... Ha ha, you going to-day too?" he cried suddenly in a quite different, cheerful voice to a very young man, who came up gaily to greet him. "I didn"t know you were going by the express too. Where are you off to... your mother"s?"
The mother of the young man was a very wealthy landowner in a neighbouring province, and the young man was a distant relation of Yulia Mihailovna"s and had been staying about a fortnight in our town.
"No, I am going farther, to R--. I"ve eight hours to live through in the train. Off to Petersburg?" laughed the young man.
"What makes you suppose I must be going to Petersburg?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, laughing even more openly.
The young man shook his gloved finger at him.
"Well, you"ve guessed right," Pyotr Stepanovitch whispered to him mysteriously. "I am going with letters from Yulia Mihailovna and have to call on three or four personages, as you can imagine-bother them all, to speak candidly. It"s a beastly job!"
"But why is she in such a panic? Tell me," the young man whispered too. "She wouldn"t see even me yesterday. I don"t think she has anything to fear for her husband, quite the contrary; he fell down so creditably at the fire-ready to sacrifice his life, so to speak."
"Well, there it is," laughed Pyotr Stepanovitch. "You see, she is afraid that people may have written from here already... that is, some gentlemen.... The fact is, Stavrogin is at the bottom of it, or rather Prince K.... Ech, it"s a long story; I"ll tell you something about it on the journey if you like-as far as my chivalrous feelings will allow me, at least.... This is my relation, Lieutenant Erkel, who lives down here."
The young man, who had been stealthily glancing at Erkel, touched his hat; Erkel made a bow.
"But I say, Verhovensky, eight hours in the train is an awful ordeal. Berestov, the colonel, an awfully funny fellow, is travelling with me in the first cla.s.s. He is a neighbour of ours in the country, and his wife is a Garin (nee de Garine), and you know he is a very decent fellow. He"s got ideas too. He"s only been here a couple of days. He"s pa.s.sionately fond of whist; couldn"t we get up a game, eh? I"ve already fixed on a fourth-Pripuhlov, our merchant from T--with a beard, a millionaire-I mean it, a real millionaire; you can take my word for it.... I"ll introduce you; he is a very interesting money-bag. We shall have a laugh."
"I shall be delighted, and I am awfully fond of cards in the train, but I am going second cla.s.s."
"Nonsense, that"s no matter. Get in with us. I"ll tell them directly to move you to the first cla.s.s. The chief guard would do anything I tell him. What have you got?... a bag? a rug?"
"First-rate. Come along!"
Pyotr Stepanovitch took his bag, his rug, and his book, and at once and with alacrity transferred himself to the first cla.s.s. Erkel helped him. The third bell rang.
"Well, Erkel." Hurriedly, and with a preoccupied air, Pyotr Stepanovitch held out his hand from the window for the last time. "You see, I am sitting down to cards with them."
"Why explain, Pyotr Stepanovitch? I understand, I understand it all!"
"Well, au revoir," Pyotr Stepanovitch turned away suddenly on his name being called by the young man, who wanted to introduce him to his partners. And Erkel saw nothing more of Pyotr Stepanovitch.
He returned home very sad. Not that he was alarmed at Pyotr Stepanovitch"s leaving them so suddenly, but... he had turned away from him so quickly when that young swell had called to him and... he might have said something different to him, not "Au revoir," or... or at least have pressed his hand more warmly. That last was bitterest of all. Something else was beginning to gnaw in his poor little heart, something which he could not understand himself yet, something connected with the evening before.
CHAPTER VII. STEPAN TROFIMOVITCH"S LAST WANDERING
I am persuaded that Stepan Trofimovitch was terribly frightened as he felt the time fixed for his insane enterprise drawing near. I am convinced that he suffered dreadfully from terror, especially on the night before he started-that awful night. Nastasya mentioned afterwards that he had gone to bed late and fallen asleep. But that proves nothing; men sentenced to death sleep very soundly, they say, even the night before their execution. Though he set off by daylight, when a nervous man is always a little more confident (and the major, Virginsky"s relative, used to give up believing in G.o.d every morning when the night was over), yet I am convinced he could never, without horror, have imagined himself alone on the high road in such a position. No doubt a certain desperation in his feelings softened at first the terrible sensation of sudden solitude in which he at once found himself as soon as he had left Nastasya, and the corner in which he had been warm and snug for twenty years. But it made no difference; even with the clearest recognition of all the horrors awaiting him he would have gone out to the high road and walked along it! There was something proud in the undertaking which allured him in spite of everything. Oh, he might have accepted Varvara Petrovna"s luxurious provision and have remained living on her charity, "comme un humble dependent." But he had not accepted her charity and was not remaining! And here he was leaving her of himself, and holding aloft the "standard of a great idea, and going to die for it on the open road." That is how he must have been feeling; that"s how his action must have appeared to him.
Another question presented itself to me more than once. Why did he run away, that is, literally run away on foot, rather than simply drive away? I put it down at first to the impracticability of fifty years and the fantastic bent of his mind under the influence of strong emotion. I imagined that the thought of posting tickets and horses (even if they had bells) would have seemed too simple and prosaic to him; a pilgrimage, on the other hand, even under an umbrella, was ever so much more picturesque and in character with love and resentment. But now that everything is over, I am inclined to think that it all came about in a much simpler way. To begin with, he was afraid to hire horses because Varvara Petrovna might have heard of it and prevented him from going by force; which she certainly would have done, and he certainly would have given in, and then farewell to the great idea for ever. Besides, to take tickets for anywhere he must have known at least where he was going. But to think about that was the greatest agony to him at that moment; he was utterly unable to fix upon a place. For if he had to fix on any particular town his enterprise would at once have seemed in his own eyes absurd and impossible; he felt that very strongly. What should he do in that particular town rather than in any other? Look out for ce marchand? But what marchand? At that point his second and most terrible question cropped up. In reality there was nothing he dreaded more than ce marchand, whom he had rushed off to seek so recklessly, though, of course, he was terribly afraid of finding him. No, better simply the high road, better simply to set off for it, and walk along it and to think of nothing so long as he could put off thinking. The high road is something very very long, of which one cannot see the end-like human life, like human dreams. There is an idea in the open road, but what sort of idea is there in travelling with posting tickets? Posting tickets mean an end to ideas. Vive la grande route and then as G.o.d wills.
After the sudden and unexpected interview with Liza which I have described, he rushed on, more lost in forgetfulness than ever. The high road pa.s.sed half a mile from Skvoreshniki and, strange to say, he was not at first aware that he was on it. Logical reasoning or even distinct consciousness was unbearable to him at this moment. A fine rain kept drizzling, ceasing, and drizzling again; but he did not even notice the rain. He did not even notice either how he threw his bag over his shoulder, nor how much more comfortably he walked with it so. He must have walked like that for nearly a mile or so when he suddenly stood still and looked round. The old road, black, marked with wheel-ruts and planted with willows on each side, ran before him like an endless thread; on the right hand were bare plains from which the harvest had long ago been carried; on the left there were bushes and in the distance beyond them a copse.
And far, far away a scarcely perceptible line of the railway, running aslant, and on it the smoke of a train, but no sound was heard. Stepan Trofimovitch felt a little timid, but only for a moment. He heaved a vague sigh, put down his bag beside a willow, and sat down to rest. As he moved to sit down he was conscious of being chilly and wrapped himself in his rug; noticing at the same time that it was raining, he put up his umbrella. He sat like that for some time, moving his lips from time to time and firmly grasping the umbrella handle. Images of all sorts pa.s.sed in feverish procession before him, rapidly succeeding one another in his mind.
"Lise, Lise," he thought, "and with her ce Maurice.... Strange people.... But what was the strange fire, and what were they talking about, and who were murdered? I fancy Nastasya has not found out yet and is still waiting for me with my coffee... cards? Did I really lose men at cards? H"m! Among us in Russia in the times of serfdom, so called.... My G.o.d, yes-Fedka!"
He started all over with terror and looked about him. "What if that Fedka is in hiding somewhere behind the bushes? They say he has a regular band of robbers here on the high road. Oh, mercy, I... I"ll tell him the whole truth then, that I was to blame... and that I"ve been miserable about him for ten years. More miserable than he was as a soldier, and... I"ll give him my purse. H"m! J"ai en tout quarante roubles; il prendra les roubles et il me tuera tout de meme."
In his panic he for some reason shut up the umbrella and laid it down beside him. A cart came into sight on the high road in the distance coming from the town.
"Grace a Dieu, that"s a cart and it"s coming at a walking pace; that can"t be dangerous. The wretched little horses here... I always said that breed... It was Pyotr Ilyitch though, he talked at the club about horse-breeding and I trumped him, et puis... but what"s that behind?... I believe there"s a woman in the cart. A peasant and a woman, cela commence a etre ra.s.surant. The woman behind and the man in front- c"est tres ra.s.surant. There"s a cow behind the cart tied by the horns, c"est ra.s.surant au plus haut degre."
The cart reached him; it was a fairly solid peasant cart. The woman was sitting on a tightly stuffed sack and the man on the front of the cart with his legs hanging over towards Stepan Trofimovitch. A red cow was, in fact, shambling behind, tied by the horns to the cart. The man and the woman gazed open-eyed at Stepan Trofimovitch, and Stepan Trofimovitch gazed back at them with equal wonder, but after he had let them pa.s.s twenty paces, he got up hurriedly all of a sudden and walked after them. In the proximity of the cart it was natural that he should feel safer, but when he had overtaken it he became oblivious of everything again and sank back into his disconnected thoughts and fancies. He stepped along with no suspicion, of course, that for the two peasants he was at that instant the most mysterious and interesting object that one could meet on the high road.
"What sort may you be, pray, if it"s not uncivil to ask?" the woman could not resist asking at last when Stepan Trofimovitch glanced absent-mindedly at her. She was a woman of about seven and twenty, st.u.r.dily built, with black eyebrows, rosy cheeks, and a friendly smile on her red lips, between which gleamed white even teeth.
"You... you are addressing me?" muttered Stepan Trofimovitch with mournful wonder.
"A merchant, for sure," the peasant observed confidently. He was a well-grown man of forty with a broad and intelligent face, framed in a reddish beard.
"No, I am not exactly a merchant, I... I... moi c"est autre chose." Stepan Trofimovitch parried the question somehow, and to be on the safe side he dropped back a little from the cart, so that he was walking on a level with the cow.
"Must be a gentleman," the man decided, hearing words not Russian, and he gave a tug at the horse.
"That"s what set us wondering. You are out for a walk seemingly?" the woman asked inquisitively again.
"You... you ask me?"
"Foreigners come from other parts sometimes by the train; your boots don"t seem to be from hereabouts...."
"They are army boots," the man put in complacently and significantly.
"No, I am not precisely in the army, I..."
"What an inquisitive woman!" Stepan Trofimovitch mused with vexation. "And how they stare at me... mais enfin. In fact, it"s strange that I feel, as it were, conscience-stricken before them, and yet I"ve done them no harm."
The woman was whispering to the man.
"If it"s no offence, we"d give you a lift if so be it"s agreeable."
Stepan Trofimovitch suddenly roused himself.
"Yes, yes, my friends, I accept it with pleasure, for I"m very tired; but how am I to get in?"
"How wonderful it is," he thought to himself, "that I"ve been walking so long beside that cow and it never entered my head to ask them for a lift. This "real life" has something very original about it."