Stepan Trofimovich (Part One)

In undertaking to describe the recent and strange events in our town, until now not remarkable for anything, I find myself forced, from lack of skill, to begin somewhat from afar, namely with some biographical details concerning the talented and much esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. Let these details serve only as an introduction to the chronicle that follows.

Stepan Trofimovich had always played a special and, so to speak, civic role among us, and he loved that role passionately — so much so that I think he could not have lived without it. He was a man of the forties, a liberal idealist who had once given a few lectures at the university in a brilliant period, written a dissertation, and been, he believed, persecuted for his ideas; he liked to think of himself as an exile, a man watched by the authorities, though nobody had watched him for years. For more than twenty years he had lived in our town as the friend, and in fact the dependant, of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, a rich, imperious widow, whose son Nikolai he had once tutored. She paid for his house, his clothes, and his debts at cards; and he wrote her letters every day, though they lived a hundred paces apart.

Their friendship was a strange one. She loved him, I think; she had created him, as one creates a work of art, and was jealous of him, and despised him, and would not let him go. He was handsome even in old age, liked to drink champagne, played whist at the club, dropped French phrases into his speech, and wept easily. He had a son, Pyotr, from his first marriage, whom he had sent away as a baby to be brought up by aunts and had seen perhaps twice in his life.

Varvara Petrovna's son, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, was the subject of much talk in our town. He had been an officer in the Guards in Petersburg, then fought duels, was demoted, mixed with the lowest company, came back, and astonished everybody. He was extraordinarily handsome — his hair was too black, his eyes too clear and calm, his complexion too pale and fresh, his teeth like pearls, his lips like coral — one would have said a paragon of beauty, yet there was something repellent in him; people said his face was like a mask. When he was in our town four years before, he had done three outrageous things without any reason: he had pulled the nose of a respected old gentleman, Gaganov, at the club, before everyone; he had kissed the wife of a minor official, Liputin, three times on the lips at a party; and when the governor took him aside to rebuke him, he had bent down and bitten the governor's ear. It was explained afterwards that he had been ill with brain fever, and he had been sent abroad. Now he was coming back.

Varvara Petrovna, meanwhile, had decided that Stepan Trofimovich should marry her ward, Dasha Shatova, a quiet, sensible girl of twenty, the sister of a former serf of the Stavrogins, Ivan Shatov. Stepan Trofimovich was horrified, then flattered, then frightened; it slowly dawned on him that he was perhaps being made to cover up "another man's sins" — that something had happened between Dasha and Nikolai abroad. He wrote frantic letters to everyone.

Also returning from abroad were Liza Tushina, a beautiful, rich, proud, nervous girl, the daughter of an old friend of Varvara Petrovna's, accompanied by her cousin and devoted admirer, Mavriky Nikolaevich, a tall, silent artillery officer; and Shatov himself, a clumsy, shaggy, honest young man who had once been a radical and now believed in Russia and the Russian God, and who was full of hatred for his former comrades.

There was also an engineer, Kirillov, who lived in the same house as Shatov — a young man with an unusual way of speaking, who did not eat in the evening and drank tea all night, and who had an idea. He explained it to me once, simply: man fears death because he fears pain, and because he fears the next world. God is the pain of the fear of death. "He who conquers pain and fear will himself become God. Then there will be a new life, a new man, everything will be new." A man who kills himself only to kill fear will become God. "I am bound to shoot myself," he said, "because the highest point of my self-will is to kill myself with my own hands." He was waiting only for the right moment.

And there was Captain Lebyadkin, a drunken, ruined braggart who wrote bad verses and beat his sister, and the sister herself, Marya Timofeevna, lame, simple-minded, with a painted face and a strange, sweet, childlike smile, who lived in her dreams and talked of a prince who would come for her. Lebyadkin hinted to everyone that he had a terrible secret about Nikolai Stavrogin, which would bring him money.

All these threads came together one Sunday in Varvara Petrovna's drawing room. That morning, coming out of church, Varvara Petrovna had found Marya Timofeevna kneeling in front of her, and, out of some strange impulse, had taken the lame woman home in her own carriage. In the drawing room were Liza and her mother, Dasha, Shatov, Stepan Trofimovich, and Captain Lebyadkin, who came looking for his sister and recited his verses. Everyone was waiting for Nikolai, who was due any day.

Then, unexpectedly, a young man burst into the room, talking without a pause: Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, Stepan Trofimovich's son, whom no one had expected, about twenty-seven, of medium height, with thin fair hair, a small beard, and a quick, jerky way of speaking, as though he were scattering little round beads. Behind him came Nikolai Stavrogin.

Varvara Petrovna rose and stopped her son in the middle of the room. "Nikolai Vsevolodovich, tell me at once, before you move from this spot: is it true that this unhappy, lame woman — there she is, look at her — is it true that she is your lawful wife?"

Stavrogin looked at her calmly. He said nothing. Then he went to Marya Timofeevna, bent over her with infinite gentleness, and said: "You must not stay here." She looked up at him in rapture. He gave her his arm and led her out with the greatest respect, as one leads out a lady of rank. Pyotr Stepanovich, chattering, explained to everyone that it was all an old, romantic whim of Nikolai's, a joke, a kind of noble charity to a poor half-crazy girl, nothing more; and that she was of course not his wife at all.

When Stavrogin came back, Shatov, who had been standing silent by the wall, walked across the room toward him, and stopped in front of him, and struck him in the face with all his force.

Stavrogin staggered. Then he seized Shatov by the shoulders — and at once let go and put his hands behind his back. He stood there, white as a sheet, looking at Shatov, and his eyes seemed to go out. He said nothing, and did nothing. Shatov lowered his eyes, and turned and went out. And Liza, who had been staring at Stavrogin, gave a scream and fell in a faint on the carpet.