Demons

sighs for the loss of, if indeed it ever existed.'

'Well, I just knew I was letting myself in for it,' Verkhovensky muttered again.

'Excuse me, sir,' the lame man was seething more and more, 'conversations and judgments about the future social organization are an almost imperative necessity of all modern thinking people. Herzen spent his whole life worrying about just that. Belinsky, as I know for certain, passed whole evenings with his friends debating and pre- resolving beforehand even the pettiest kitchen details, so to speak, in the future social arrangement.'

'Some even lose their minds,' the major suddenly remarked.

'Still, it's possible to agree on something at least, rather than sit looking like dictators and say nothing,' Liputin hissed, as if finally daring to begin an attack.

'When I said it was nonsense, I didn't mean Shigalyov,' mumbled Verkhovensky. 'You see, gentlemen,' he raised his eyes a bit, 'I think all these books, these Fouriers, Cabets, all these 'rights to work,' Shigalyovism ^[153]—it's all like novels, of which a hundred thousand can be written. An aesthetic pastime. I understand that you're bored in this wretched little town, so you fall on any paper with writing on it.'

'Excuse me, sir,' the lame man was twitching on his chair, 'though we are provincials, and are most certainly deserving of pity for that, nevertheless we know that so far nothing so new has happened in the world that we should weep over having missed it. Now it is being suggested to us, through various strewn-about leaflets of foreign manufacture, that we close ranks and start groups with the sole purpose of universal destruction, under the pretext that however you try to cure the world, you're not going to cure it, but by radically lopping off a hundred million heads, thereby relieving ourselves, we can more assuredly jump over the little ditch. A beautiful thought, no doubt, but one at least as incompatible with reality as 'Shigalyovism,' to which you adverted just now with such disdain.'

'Well, I really didn't come here for discussions,' Verkhovensky let slip this significant little phrase and, as if not noticing the slip at all, moved the candle towards him to have more light.

'It's a pity, sir, a great pity, that you didn't come here for discussions, and a great pity that you're so occupied now with your toilette.'

'And what is my toilette to you?'

'A hundred million heads are as hard to realize as remaking the world by propaganda. Maybe even harder, especially if it's in Russia,' Liputin ventured again.

'It's Russia they've now set their hopes on,' an officer said.

'We've heard about those hopes, too,' the lame man picked up. 'It is known to us that the mysterious index is pointed at our beautiful fatherland as the country most capable of fulfilling the great task. Only here's the thing, sir: in the event of a gradual resolution of the task by propaganda, I at least gain something personally, well, even if it's just pleasant chitchat, and I might indeed get a promotion from the authorities for services to the social cause. But in the other event—that is, this quick resolution by means of a hundred million heads—what in fact will be my reward? Once you start propagandizing, you may well have your tongue cut off.'

'Yours will certainly be cut off,' said Verkhovensky.

'You see, sir. And since under the most favorable circumstances it would take fifty, or, say, thirty years to finish such a slaughter, because they're not sheep, they may not just let themselves be slaughtered— isn't it better to pack bag and baggage and move somewhere beyond the peaceful seas to some peaceful islands and there serenely close your eyes? Believe me, sir,' he tapped the table significantly with his finger, 'you'll only provoke emigration with such propaganda, and nothing else, sir!'

He finished, visibly triumphant. Here was one of the powerful intellects of the province. Liputin was smiling insidiously, Virginsky was listening somewhat glumly, the rest followed the argument with great attention, especially the ladies and officers. Everyone realized that the agent of a hundred million heads had been driven into a corner, and waited to see what would come of it.

'That was well put, by the way,' Verkhovensky mumbled with still greater indifference than before, and even as if with boredom. 'Emigration is a good idea. But if, in spite of all the obvious disadvantages you anticipate, there are still more and more soldiers coming to the common cause every day, then it can do without you. Here, my dear, a new religion is on its way to replace the old one, that's why so many fighters are coming, and this is a big thing. Go ahead and emigrate! And, you know, I'd advise you to go to Dresden, not to any peaceful islands. First, it's a city that has never seen an epidemic, and you, being a developed man, are surely afraid of death; second, it's close to the Russian border, so that one can the sooner receive one's income from the beloved fatherland; third, it contains so-called treasures of art, and you are an aesthetic man, a former teacher of literature, I believe; well, and, finally, it contains its own pocket Switzerland—this now is for poetic inspiration, because you surely must scribble verses. In short, a treasure in a snuffbox!'

There was movement; the officers especially stirred. Another moment and everyone would start talking at once. But the lame man irritably fell upon the bait:

'No, sir, perhaps we won't leave the common cause yet! This must be understood, sir...'

'What, you mean you'd really join a fivesome if I offered it?' Verkhovensky suddenly blurted out and laid the scissors down on the table.

Everyone started, as it were. The mysterious man had suddenly disclosed himself too much. Had even spoken directly about a 'five-some.'

'Everyone feels himself an honest man and will not shirk the common cause,' the lame man went all awry, 'but...'

'No, sir, it's not a matter of any but, ' Verkhovensky interrupted imperiously and curtly. 'I declare to you, gentlemen, that I want a direct answer. I understand only too well that, having come here and gathered you all together myself, I owe you explanations' (again an unexpected disclosure), 'but I cannot give you any before I know what way of thinking you hold with. Talking aside—for we can't babble for another thirty years as we've been babbling for the past thirty—I ask you which is dearer to you: the slow way that consists in the writing of social novels and the bureaucratic predetermining of human destinies on paper for thousands of years to come, with despotism meanwhile gobbling up the roasted hunks that are flying into your mouths of themselves, but that you let go past your mouths; or do you hold with a quick solution, whatever it may consist in, which will finally untie all hands and give mankind the freedom to organize socially by itself, and that in reality, not on paper? 'A hundred million heads,' they shout, and maybe that's just a metaphor, but why be afraid of them if, with these slow paper reveries, despotism in some hundred years will eat up not a hundred but five hundred million heads? Note, too, that the incurable patient is not going to be cured anyway, no matter what prescriptions are given it on paper,