Demons

But I will allow myself some comments by way of clarification.

I believe that all these gentlemen had indeed gathered then in the pleasant hope of hearing something especially curious, and had been so informed before they gathered. They represented the flower of the most bright red liberalism in our ancient town and had been quite carefully selected by Virginsky for this 'meeting.' I will also note that some among them (though very few) had never visited him before. Of course, the majority of the guests had no clear notion of why they had been so informed. True, at that time they all took Pyotr Stepanovich for a visiting foreign emissary with plenary powers; this idea had somehow immediately taken root and, naturally, was flattering. And yet in this bunch of citizens gathered under the pretense of a name-day celebration, there were some to whom certain proposals had already been made. Pyotr Verkhovensky had managed to slap up a 'fivesome' in our town, similar to the one he already had going in Moscow and also, as it now turns out, among the officers in our district. They say he had one in Kh—— province as well. These five elect were now sitting at the general table and managed to feign quite skillfully the look of the most ordinary people, so that no one could recognize them. These were—since it is no longer a secret—first, Liputin, then Virginsky himself, long-eared Shigalyov (Mrs. Virginsky's brother), Lyamshin, and, finally, a certain Tolkachenko—a strange character, already a man of forty, and famous for his vast study of the people, predominantly crooks and robbers, for which purpose he frequented the pot-houses (not only to study the people, however), and who flaunted among us his bad clothing, tarred boots, squintingly sly look, and frilly folk expressions. Lyamshin had already brought him once or twice to Stepan Trofimovich's evenings, where, however, he had produced no special effect. He would appear in town every so often, mostly when he was out of a job, and he used to work for the railroad. All five of these activists made up this first crew in the warm belief that it was just one unit among hundreds and thousands of fivesomes of the same sort scattered all over Russia, and that they all depended on some central, enormous, but secret place, which in turn was organically linked with Europe's world revolution. But, unfortunately, I must confess that even then there had begun to be discord among them. The thing was that though they had been expecting Pyotr Verkhovensky since spring, as had been announced to them first by Tolkachenko and then by the newly arrived Shigalyov, though they were expecting extraordinary miracles from him, and though they had all come at once, without the slightest criticism and at his first call, to join the circle, yet they had no sooner made up the fivesome than they all at once became offended, as it were, and precisely, I suppose, because of the quickness of their consent. They had joined, of course, out of a magnanimous sense of shame, so that no one could say later that they had not dared to join; but, still, Pyotr Verkhovensky ought really to have appreciated their noble deed and at least have told them some foremost anecdote as a reward. But Verkhovensky did not have the slightest wish to satisfy their legitimate curiosity, and would not tell them anything unnecessary; generally, he treated them with remarkable sternness and even casualness. This was decidedly irritating, and member Shigalyov was already instigating the others 'to demand an accounting,' but, of course, not now, at Virginsky's, where so many outsiders had gathered.

Speaking of outsiders, I also have an idea that the above-named members of the first fivesome were inclined to suspect that among Virginsky's guests that evening there were members of other groups unknown to them, also started in town from the same secret organization, and by the selfsame Verkhovensky, so that in the end all of those gathered suspected each other, and assumed various postures in front of each other, which indeed lent the whole gathering a rather incoherent and even partly romantic appearance. However, there were also people there who were beyond any suspicion. Such, for example, was one active army major, Virginsky's close relative, a completely innocent man, who had not even been invited, but had come on his own to celebrate the name day, so that it was simply impossible not to receive him. But anyhow Virginsky was not worried, because the major 'simply could not denounce them'; for, despite all his stupidity, he had been fond throughout his life of scurrying around all those places where extreme liberals are to be found; did not sympathize himself, but liked very much to listen. Moreover, he had even been compromised once: it so happened that in his youth whole warehouses of The Bell^[147] and various tracts had passed through his hands, and though he had been afraid even to unfold them, he would still have regarded the refusal to disseminate them as perfect baseness—and there are some Russians of his sort even to this day. The remainder of the guests represented either the type of noble amour-propre crushed to the point of bile, or the type of the first and noblest impulse of fervent youth. These were two or three teachers, one of whom was lame, already about forty-five, an instructor in the high school, an extremely venomous and remarkably vain man, and two or three officers. Of the latter, one was a very young artillerist who had arrived just the other day from some military school, a silent boy who had not yet had time to make acquaintances, and who now suddenly turned up at Virginsky's with a pencil in his hand and, almost without taking part in the conversation, kept jotting things down in his notebook. Everyone saw this, but for some reason everyone tried to make it seem as if they had not noticed. There was also the loaf-about seminarian who together with Lyamshin had slipped the vile photographs into the book-hawker's bag, a big fellow with a free and easy but at the same time mistrustful manner, with a perpetually accusatory smile, and along with that a calm look of triumphant perfection contained within himself. There was, I have no idea why, also the son of our mayor, that same nasty boy, dissipated beyond his years, whom I have already mentioned while telling the story of the lieutenant's little wife. He was silent all evening. And finally, in conclusion, there was a high-school student, a very hot-headed and disheveled boy of about eighteen, who sat with the glum look of a young man whose dignity has been insulted, and suffered visibly on account of his eighteen years. This mite of a lad was already the head of an independent crew of conspirators formed in the upper grade of the high school, which fact was discovered afterwards to general amazement. I have not mentioned Shatov: he was sitting right there at the far corner of the table, his chair moved slightly out of line; he looked down, was gloomily silent, refused tea and bread, and would not let go of his peaked cap all the while, as if wishing thereby to declare that he was not a guest but had come on business, and could get up and leave whenever he liked. Not far from him sat Kirillov, also quite silent, though he did not look down but, on the contrary, examined each speaker point-blank with his fixed, lusterless stare, and listened to everything without the least emotion or surprise. Some of the guests who had never seen him before studied him stealthily and pensively. It is not known whether Madame Virginsky herself knew anything about the existence of the fivesome. I suppose she knew everything, and precisely from her husband. The girl student, of course, did not participate in any way, but she had her own concern: she intended to stay only for a day or two, and then go on farther and farther, to all the university towns, to 'share the suffering lot of the poor students and arouse them to protest.' She was bringing with her several hundred lithographed copies of an appeal— of her own composition, it would seem. Remarkably, the high-school boy hated her from first sight almost to the point of blood vengeance, though it was the first time he had seen her in his life, and she him. The major was her uncle, and met her that day for the first time in ten years. When Stavrogin and Verkhovensky entered, her cheeks were as red as cranberries: she had just had a spat with her uncle over their views of the woman question.

II

Verkhovensky sprawled himself with remarkable casualness on a chair at the upper corner of the table, greeting almost no one. His look was squeamish, and even arrogant. Stavrogin politely made his bows, but, despite the fact that everyone had been waiting only for them, everyone, as if on command, pretended that they had scarcely noticed them. The hostess sternly addressed Stavrogin as soon as he sat down.

'Stavrogin, you want tea?'

'Thanks,' he replied.

'Tea for Stavrogin,' she commanded the pouring woman, 'and what about you?' (this was now to Verkhovensky).

'Of course I do, what a thing to ask a guest! And give me cream, too. You always serve such vileness instead of tea—and for a name-day party at that.'

'What, you also recognize name days?' the girl student suddenly laughed. 'We were just talking about that.'