Demons

But now it suddenly formulated itself, and in the most unexpected way. That desperate idea with which he had come to Kirillov's, after hearing Pyotr Stepanovich's "moron" on the sidewalk, consisted in abandoning everything tomorrow at daybreak and expatriating abroad! Whoever does not believe that such fantastic things happen in our everyday reality even now, may consult the biographies of all real Russian émigrés abroad. Not one of them fled in a more intelligent or realistic way. It is all the same unbridled kingdom of phantoms, and nothing more.

Having run home, he began by locking himself in, getting a valise, and begi

He clearly felt and suddenly became conscious of the fact that he might indeed be ru

5: A Traveler

I

The catastrophe with Liza and the death of Marya Timofeevna produced an overwhelming impression on Shatov. I have already mentioned that I saw him that morning in passing; he seemed to me as if he were not in his right mind. He told me, incidentally, that the evening before, at around nine o'clock (that is, some three hours before the fire), he had been at Marya Timofeevna's. He went in the morning to have a look at the corpses, but as far as I know he did not give any evidence anywhere that morning. Meanwhile, towards the end of the day, a whole storm arose in his soul and... and I believe I can say positively that there was a certain moment at dusk when he wanted to get up, go, and—declare all. What this all was—he himself well knew. Of course, he would have achieved nothing, and would simply have betrayed himself. He had no proofs to expose the just-committed evildoing; and what he did have were only vague guesses about it, which for him alone were equal to full conviction. But he was ready to ruin himself just in order to "crush the scoundrels"—his own words. Pyotr Stepanovich had in part correctly divined this impulse in him and knew he was ru

Somewhere between seven and eight in the evening (it was precisely the time when our people were gathered at Erkel's, waiting indignantly and anxiously for Pyotr Stepanovich), Shatov, with a headache and a slight chill, was lying stretched out on his bed, in the dark, without a candle, tormented by perplexity, angry, deciding and then unable to decide finally, and anticipating with a curse that anyhow it would all lead nowhere. Gradually he dozed off into a momentary, light sleep, and in his dreams had something like a nightmare; he dreamed he was on his bed all tangled up in ropes, bound and unable to move, and meanwhile the whole house was resounding from a terrible knocking on the fence, on the gate, on his door, in Kirillov's wing, so that the whole house was trembling, and some distant, familiar, but, for him, tormenting voice was piteously calling him. He suddenly came to his senses and raised himself on his bed. To his surprise, the knocking on the gate continued, and though it was hardly as strong as it had seemed in his dream, it was rapid and persistent, and the strange and "tormenting" voice, though not piteous but, on the contrary, impatient and irritable, still came from below at the gate, alternating with another more restrained and ordinary voice. He jumped up, opened the vent window, and stuck his head out.

"Who's there?" he called, literally going stiff with fright.

"If you are Shatov," the answer came sharply and firmly from below, "then please be so good as to a

Right enough; he recognized the voice!

"Marie! ... Is it you?"

"It's me, me, Marya Shatov, and I assure you that I ca