Demons

turned out to be amusing, with the funny title of 'The Franco-Prussian War.' It began with the fearsome sounds of the 'Marseillaise':

Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!^[xc]

A bombastic challenge was heard, the intoxication of future victories. But suddenly, together with masterfully varied measures from the anthem, somewhere from the side, down below, in a corner, but very close by, came the vile little strains of 'Mein lieber Augustin.'^[114] The 'Marseillaise' does not notice them, the 'Marseillaise' is at the peak of her intoxication with her own grandeur; but 'Augustin' is gaining strength, 'Augustin' is turning insolent, and now the measures of 'Augustin' somehow unexpectedly begin to fall in with the measures of the 'Marseillaise.' She begins to get angry, as it were; she finally notices 'Augustin,' she wants to shake him off, to chase him away like an importunate, worthless fly, but 'Mein lieber Augustin' holds on tight; he is cheerful and confident; he is joyful and insolent; and the 'Marseillaise' somehow suddenly becomes terribly stupid; she no longer conceals that she is annoyed and offended; these are cries of indignation, these are tears and oaths, with arms outstretched to providence:

Pas un pouce de notre terrain, pas une pierre de nos forteresses! ^[xci]

But now she is forced to sing in time with 'Mein lieber Augustin.' Her strains somehow turn most stupidly into 'Augustin,' she is drooping, dying out. Only an occasional outburst, 'qu'un sang impur . . .' is heard again, but it jumps over at once, in a most vexing way, to the vile little waltz. She is thoroughly humbled: it is Jules Favre weeping on Bismarck's bosom and giving away everything, everything^[115]... But then 'Augustin' turns ferocious: one hears hoarse sounds, senses measureless quantities of beer being drunk, a frenzy of self-advertisement, demands for billions, slender cigars, champagne, and hostages; 'Augustin' turns into a furious bellowing... The Franco-Prussian War is over. Our group applauds, Yulia Mikhailovna smiles and says: 'Well, how can one chase him out?' Peace is made. The scoundrel did indeed have a bit of talent. Stepan Trofimovich once tried to convince me that the loftiest artistic talents can be the most terrible scoundrels, and that the one does not exclude the other. Rumor later had it that Lyamshin stole this little piece from a certain talented and modest young man, a visiting acquaintance of his, who remained unknown; but that is an aside. This blackguard, who for several years fluttered around Stepan Trofimovich, portraying on demand at his parties various little Jews, the confession of a deaf woman, or the birth of a child, now at Yulia Mikhailovna's produced killing caricatures, among them one of Stepan Trofimovich himself, entitled 'A Liberal of the Forties.' Everyone rocked with laughter, so that by the end it was decidedly impossible to chase him out; he had become too necessary a person. Besides, he fawned servilely on Pyotr Stepanovich, who, in his turn, had by that time acquired a strangely strong influence over Yulia Mikhailovna...

I would not have begun speaking in particular about this scoundrel, and he would not be worth dwelling upon, but at that time a certain outrageous incident occurred in which, it was asserted, he also took part, and this incident I can by no means omit from my chronicle.

One morning the news swept through town of an ugly and outrageous blasphemy. At the entrance to our vast marketplace stands the decrepit church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, which is a notable antiquity in our ancient town. Long ago a large icon of the Mother of God had been built into the wall behind a grating near the gates of the enclosure. And so, one night the icon was robbed, the glass of the frame was knocked out, the grating was broken, and a few stones and pearls were taken from the crown and setting, whether very valuable ones or not I do not know. But the main thing was that besides the theft a senseless, jeering blasphemy was committed: behind the broken glass of the icon a live mouse was said to have been found in the morning. It is known positively now, four months later, that the crime was committed by the convict Fedka, but for some reason Lyamshin's participation has also been added to it. At the time no one mentioned Lyamshin and he was not suspected at all, but now everyone insists that it was he who let in the mouse. I remember all our authorities being somewhat at a loss. People had been crowding around the scene of the crime since morning. There was a constant crowd standing there, though not a very big one, but still about a hundred people. Some came, others left. Those who came crossed themselves and kissed the icon; there were donations, a collection plate appeared, and a monk beside it, and it was three o'clock in the afternoon before the authorities realized that they could order people not to stand in a crowd, but to move on after praying, kissing, and donating. This unfortunate incident produced a very gloomy effect on von Lembke. As I am told Yulia Mikhailovna put it afterwards, from that sinister morning on she began to notice that strange despondency in her husband which never left him afterwards up to the very day of his departure from our town, two months ago, for reasons of ill health, and seems to be accompanying him now in Switzerland as well, where he continues to rest after his brief career in our province.

I remember stopping in the square then, at one o'clock in the afternoon; the crowd was silent, the faces significantly somber. A merchant, fat and sallow, drove up in a droshky, climbed out, bowed to the ground, planted a kiss, donated a rouble, clambered back, groaning, into the droshky, and drove off again. A carriage also drove up with two of our ladies, accompanied by two of our pranksters. The young men (one of whom was no longer so young) got out of the vehicle as well and forced their way through the crowd to the icon, rather negligently pushing people aside. Neither of them took his hat off, and one placed a pince-nez on his nose. There was murmuring among the people, dull but disagreeable. The fine fellow in the pince-nez took a brass kopeck from a purse chock- full of bills and threw it into the dish; laughing and talking loudly, they both went back to the carriage. At that moment Lizaveta Nikolaevna, accompanied by Mavriky Nikolaevich, suddenly rode up. She jumped from the horse, handed the bridle to her companion, who on her orders remained mounted, and went up to the icon precisely at the moment when the kopeck was thrown. A flush of indignation covered her cheeks; she took off her round hat, her gloves, fell on her knees before the icon, right on the dirty sidewalk, and reverently bowed three times to the ground. Then she took out her purse, but as there were only a few ten-kopeck pieces in it, she instantly removed her diamond earrings and put them on the plate. 'May I? May I? To ornament the setting?' she asked the monk, all agitated.

'It is permissible,' the monk replied, 'every gift is good.' The people were silent, showing neither reproach nor approval; Lizaveta Nikolaevna mounted her horse in her soiled dress and rode off.

II

Two days after the incident just described, I met her in a numerous company, setting out for somewhere in three carriages surrounded by men on horseback. She beckoned to me with her hand, stopped the carriage, and demanded insistently that I join their party. Space was found for me in the carriage, and she laughingly introduced me to her companions, magnificent ladies, and explained to me that they were all setting out on an extremely interesting expedition. She laughed loudly and seemed somehow happy beyond measure. In the most recent time she had become gay to the point of friskiness. The undertaking was indeed an eccentric one: they were all going across the river, to the house of the merchant Sevostyanov, in whose wing, for about ten years now, our blessed man and prophet Semyon Yakovlevich, famous not only among us but in the neighboring provinces and even in the capitals, had been living in retirement, in ease and comfort. Everyone visited him, especially those from out of town, trying to get a word from the holy fool, venerating him, and leaving donations. The donations, sometimes significant ones, unless Semyon Yakovlevich disposed of them at once, were piously conveyed to God's church, mainly to our Bogorodsky monastery; for this purpose a monk sent from the monastery was constantly on duty at Semyon Yakovlevich's. They were all looking forward to having great fun. No one in the group had yet been to see Semyon Yakovlevich. Lyamshin alone had visited him once before, and now insisted that he had ordered him driven out with a broom and with his own hand had sent two big boiled potatoes flying after him. Among the riders I noticed Pyotr Stepanovich, again on a hired Cossack horse, which he sat rather poorly, and Nikolai Vsevolodovich, also on horseback. On occasion the latter did not shun the general amusement, and at such times was always of decently