The possessed : $b or, The devilsDostoyevsky, Fyodor
General
The possessed : $b or, The devils
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Nihilism -- Fiction; Political fiction; Russia -- Social life and customs -- 1533-1917 -- Fiction; Terrorists -- Russia -- Fiction
Pyotr Stepanovitch turned round quickly. A new figure, Fedka, wearing a
sheep-skin coat, but without a cap, as though he were at home, stepped
out of the darkness in the doorway. He stood there laughing and showing
his even white teeth. His black eyes, with yellow whites, darted
cautiously about the room watching the gentlemen. There was something he
did not understand. He had evidently been just brought in by Kirillov,
and his inquiring eyes turned to the latter. He stood in the doorway,
but was unwilling to come into the room.
"I suppose you got him ready here to listen to our bargaining, or
that he may actually see the money in our hands. Is that it?" asked
Stavrogin; and without waiting for an answer he walked out of the house.
Verhovensky, almost frantic, overtook him at the gate.
"Stop! Not another step!" he cried, seizing him by the arm. Stavrogin
tried to pull away his arm, but did not succeed. He was overcome with
fury. Seizing Verhovensky by the hair with his left hand he flung him
with all his might on the ground and went out at the gate. But he had
not gone thirty paces before Verhovensky overtook him again.
"Let us make it up; let us make it up!" he murmured in a spasmodic
whisper.
Stavrogin shrugged his shoulders, but neither answered nor turned round.
"Listen. I will bring you Lizaveta Nikolaevna to-morrow; shall I? No?
Why don't you answer? Tell me what you want. I'll do it. Listen. I'll
let you have Shatov. Shall I?"
"Then it's true that you meant to kill him?" cried Stavrogin.
"What do you want with Shatov? What is he to you?" Pyotr Stepanovitch
went on, gasping, speaking rapidly. He was in a frenzy, and kept running
forward and seizing Stavrogin by the elbow, probably unaware of what he
was doing. "Listen. I'll let you have him. Let's make it up. Your price
is a very great one, but... Let's make it up!"
Stavrogin glanced at him at last, and was amazed. The eyes, the voice,
were not the same as always, or as they had been in the room just now.
What he saw was almost another face. The intonation of the voice was
different. Verhovensky besought, implored. He was a man from whom what
was most precious was being taken or had been taken, and who was still
stunned by the shock.
"But what's the matter with you?" cried Stavrogin. The other did not
answer, but ran after him and gazed at him with the same imploring but
yet inflexible expression.
"Let's make it up!" he whispered once more. "Listen. Like Fedka, I have
a knife in my boot, but I'll make it up with you!"
"But what do you want with me, damn you?" Stavrogin cried, with intense
anger and amazement. "Is there some mystery about it? Am I a sort of
talisman for you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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