Demons

peasant in particular.

'We, being hasty people, were in too great a hurry with our dear little peasants,' he concluded his series of remarkable thoughts. 'We brought them into fashion, and for several years in a row the whole literary sector fussed over them as over some newly discovered treasure. We placed laurels upon lousy heads. In all its thousand years, the Russian village has given us only the 'komarinsky.'^[27] A remarkable Russian poet, and one not wanting in wit, when he saw the great Rachel^[28] on stage for the first time, exclaimed in rapture: 'I'd never trade Rachel for a peasant!' I am prepared to go further: I will trade all Russian peasants for one Rachel. It is time to take a more sober look and stop mixing our lumpish native tar with bouquet de l'imperatrice.' ^[29]

Liputin agreed at once, but observed that for the moment it was still necessary to play the hypocrite and praise peasants for the sake of the trend; that even high-society ladies flooded themselves with tears reading Anton the Wretch,^[30] and some even wrote from Paris to their managers in Russia that henceforth they were to treat the peasants with all possible humaneness.

And, as if by design, just after the rumors about Anton Petrov,^[31] it so happened that in our province, too, and only ten miles from Skvoreshniki, a certain misunderstanding occurred, so that in the heat of the moment troops had to be sent. This time Stepan Trofimovich became so excited that he even frightened us. He shouted in the club that more troops were needed, that they should be summoned by telegraph from another district; he ran to the governor and assured him that he had nothing to do with it, begged that he not be somehow mixed up in the affair by force of habit, and suggested that his statement be communicated at once to the proper quarters in Petersburg. It was good that it all passed quickly and ended in nothing; but at the time I simply marveled at Stepan Trofimovich.

About three years later, as everyone knows, there began to be talk of nationhood, and 'public opinion' was born. Stepan Trofimovich had a good laugh.

'My friends,' he would instruct us, 'if our nationhood has indeed been 'born,' as they assure us nowadays in the newspapers, it is still sitting at school, in some German Peterschule,^[32] over a German book, grinding out its eternal German lesson, and its German teacher makes it go on its knees when necessary. All praise to the German teacher; but most likely nothing has happened, and nothing of the sort has been born, and everything is still going on as before, that is, by the grace of God. In my opinion, that should be enough for Russia, pour notre sainte Russie.^[vi] Besides, all these panslavisms and nationhoods—it's all too old to be new. Nationhood, if you like, has never appeared among us otherwise than as a gentlemen's clubroom fancy—a Moscow one at that! To be sure, I'm not talking about Igor's time.^[33] And, finally, it all comes of idleness. With us everything comes of idleness, even what is fine and good. It all comes of our dear, cultivated, whimsical, gentlemanly idleness. I've been repeating it for thirty thousand years. We are unable to live by our own labor. And what is all this fuss nowadays about some public opinion being 'born'—did it just drop from the sky, suddenly, for no rhyme or reason? Don't they understand that in order to acquire an opinion what is needed first of all is labor, one's own labor, one's own initiative and experience! Nothing can ever be acquired gratis. If we labor, we shall have our own opinion. And since we shall never labor, those who have been working for us all along will have the opinion instead—that is, Europe again, the Germans again, our teachers from two hundred years back. Besides, Russia is too great a misunderstanding for us to resolve ourselves, without the Germans and without labor. For twenty years now I've been ringing the alarm and calling to labor! I've given my life to this call, and—madman—I believed! Now I no longer believe, but I still ring and shall go on ringing to the end, to my grave; I shall pull on the rope until the bells ring for my funeral!'

Alas, we simply yessed him! We applauded our teacher, and with what ardor! But after all, gentlemen, even now do we not at times hear all around us the same 'dear,' 'intelligent,' 'liberal' old Russian nonsense?

Our teacher believed in God. 'I do not understand why everyone here makes me out to be a godless man,' he used to say occasionally. 'I believe in God, mais distinguons,^[vii] I believe as in a being who is conscious of himself in me. Why, I cannot go believing like my Nastasya' (the servingwoman) 'or like some grand sir who believes 'just in case'—or like our dear Shatov— but, no, Shatov doesn't count, Shatov believes perforce, like a Moscow Slavophil. So far as Christianity is concerned, for all my sincere respect for it, I am not a Christian. I am rather an ancient pagan, like the great Goethe, ^[34] or like an ancient Greek. Take this one thing alone, that Christianity has never understood woman—as has been so splendidly developed by George Sand in one of her brilliant novels.^[35] As for the bowings, the fasts, and the rest of it, I do not see why anyone should care about me. However our informers may bustle about here, I have no wish to become a Jesuit. In the year 'forty-seven Belinsky, while abroad, sent his famous letter in Gogol, in which he hotly reproached him with believing 'in some sort of God.'^[36] Entre nous soit dit,^[viii] I can imagine nothing more comical than the moment when Gogol (the Gogol of that time!) read this expression and... the whole letter! But, ridiculousness aside, since I still agree with the essence of the matter, I will point to them and proclaim: These were men! They knew how to love their people, they knew how to suffer for them, they knew how to sacrifice everything for them, and they knew at the same time how to disagree with them when necessary, not to indulge them in certain notions. Indeed, Belinsky could hardly seek salvation in Lenten oil or turnips and peas! ...'

But here Shatov would interrupt.

'These men of yours never loved the people, never suffered for them or sacrificed anything for them, no matter what they themselves imagined for their own good pleasure!' he growled gloomily, looking down and turning impatiently on his chair.

'Never loved the people, did they!' Stepan Trofimovich yelled. 'Oh, how they loved Russia!'

'Neither Russia nor the people!' Shatov also yelled, flashing his eyes. 'One cannot love what one does not know, and they understood nothing about the Russian people! All of them, and you along with them, turned a blind eye and overlooked the Russian people, and Belinsky especially; it's clear in that same letter to Gogol. Belinsky was just like Krylov's Inquisitive Man,^[37] who didn't notice the elephant in the museum, but gave all his attention to French socialist bugs; and that's where he ended up. Yet he was maybe more intelligent than all of you! Not only have you overlooked the people—you have treated them with loathsome contempt, which is enough to say that by people you meant only the French people, and even then only the Parisians, and were ashamed that the Russian people are not like them. And this is the naked truth! And those who have no people, have no God! You may be sure that all those who cease to understand their people and lose their connection with them, at once, in the same measure, also lose the faith of their fathers, and become either atheists or indifferent. It's right, what I'm saying! The fact will be borne out. That is why all of you, and all of us now, are either vile atheists or indifferent, depraved trash, and nothing more! And you, too, Stepan Trofimovich, I do not exclude you in the least, I've even said it on your account, be it known to you!'

Usually, after delivering such a monologue (and this often happened with him), Shatov would seize his cap and rush to the door, completely certain that it was all over now and that he had broken his friendly relations with Stepan Trofimovich utterly and forever. But the latter always managed to stop him in time.

'Why not make peace, Shatov, after all these nice little words?' he would say, offering his hand good-naturedly from his chair.