Demons

One may suppose that within herself she soon understood the strange expression on her friend's face; she was alert and observant, whereas he was sometimes too i

"I will never forgive you for that!"

When, ten years later, Stepan Trofimovich told me this sad story in a whisper, having locked the door first, he swore he had been so dumbfounded then and there that he had not heard or seen how Varvara Petrovna disappeared. Since she never once alluded afterwards to what had taken place, and everything went on as if nothing had happened, he was inclined all his life to think it was just a hallucination before illness, all the more so as he actually did fall ill that same night for two whole weeks—which, incidentally, also put an end to the meetings in the gazebo.

But despite his fancy about the hallucination, he seemed every day of his life to be waiting for the sequel and, so to speak, the denouement of this event. He did not believe it could have ended just like that! And if so, what strange looks he must sometimes have given his friend.

V

She herself even invented a costume for him, in which he went about all his life. It was an elegant and characteristic costume: a long-skirted black frock coat, buttoned almost to the top, but with a dapper look; a soft hat (a straw one for summer) with a wide brim; a white batiste cravat with a big knot and hanging ends; a cane with a silver knob; and shoulder-length hair to go with it all. His hair was dark brown and only recently had begun to go a bit gray. He shaved his beard and moustache. He was said to have been extremely handsome as a young man. But, in my opinion, as an old man he was also remarkably imposing. And how old is fifty-three? Still, out of a certain civic coquetry, he not only did not try to look younger, but seemed to flaunt the solidity of his years, and in his costume, tall, lean, with hair falling to his shoulders, he resembled a patriarch, as it were, or, more precisely, the portrait of the poet Kukolnik[12] in a lithograph from some edition of the thirties, especially when he sat in the garden in summer, on a bench, under a flowering lilac bush, leaning with both hands on his cane, an open book beside him, poetically pondering the sunset. Speaking of books, I will note that towards the end he began somehow to withdraw from reading. That, however, was towards the very end. The newspapers and magazines Varvara Petrovna subscribed to in great numbers, he read constantly. He was also constantly interested in the successes of Russian literature, though without in the least losing his dignity. At some point he became involved in a study of the higher modern politics of our internal and external affairs, but soon abandoned the enterprise with a wave of the hand. And there was this, too: he would take Tocqueville with him to the garden, but with Paul de Kock tucked in his side pocket.'[13] That, however, is a trifle.

I will also note parenthetically about Kukolnik's portrait, that Varvara Petrovna had first chanced upon this picture while still a young girl at an upper-class boarding school in Moscow. She at once fell in love with the portrait, as is customary for all young girls in boarding schools, who fall in love with anything at all including their teachers, mainly of drawing and calligraphy. What is curious here is not the young girl's feelings, but that even at the age of fifty Varvara Petrovna still kept this picture among her most intimate treasures, so that perhaps only because of it had she invented a costume for Stepan Trofimovich somewhat resembling the one in the picture. But, of course, that is also a small thing.

For the first years, or, more precisely, for the first half of his residence at Varvara Petrovna's, Stepan Trofimovich still had thoughts of some sort of a work, and was seriously preparing every day to write it. But for the second half he must even have forgotten what it had all been about. More and more often he would say to us: "It seems I'm ready to work, the materials have all been collected, yet the work doesn't come! Nothing gets done!" And he would hang his head dejectedly. No doubt this was supposed to give him even more grandeur in our eyes as a martyr of learning; but he himself wanted something else. "I'm forgotten, no one needs me!" escaped him more than once. This intense spleen took particular hold of him at the end of the fifties. Varvara Petrovna finally understood that it was a serious matter. And she also could not bear the thought that her friend was forgotten and not needed. To distract him, and to patch up his fame at the same time, she then took him to Moscow, where she had a few refined literary and learned co

It was a peculiar time; something new was begi