STEPAN: Well, if they come to get me . . .
That’s the way it is now: they come, they seize you, and then Siberia or worse. Consequently I sewed thirtyfive rubles into the lining of my waistcoat.
GRIGORIEV: But there’s no question of your being arrested.
STEPAN: They must have received a telegram from St. Petersburg.
GRIGORIEV: About you? But you haven’t done anything.
STEPAN: Yes, yes, I’ll be arrested. And off to prison, or else they forget you in a dungeon. (He bursts into sobs.)
GRIGORIEV: Come, come, calm yourself. You haven’t anything on your conscience. Why are you afraid?
STEPAN: Afraid? Oh, I’m not afraid! I mean, I’m not afraid of Siberia. There’s something else I fear. I fear shame.
GRIGORIEV: Shame? What shame? STEPAN; The whip!
GRIGORIEV: What do you mean, the whip? You frighten me, my friend.
STEPAN: Yes, they flog you too.
GRIGORIEV: But why should they flog you? You haven’t done anything.
STEPAN: That’s just it. They’ll see that I haven’t done anything and they’ll flog me.
GRIGORIEV: You should take a rest after you have seen Varvara Stavrogin.
STEPAN: What will she think? How will she react when she learns of my shame? Here she is. (He makes the sign of the cross,)
GRIGORIEV: You make the sign of the cross?
STEPAN: Oh, I’ve never believed in that. But, after all, it’s better not to take any chances.
(VARVARA STAVROGIN comes in. They rise.) VARVARA (to GRIGORIEV): Thank you, Anton. Would you be so kind as to leave us alone? . . . (To STEPAN TROFIMOVICH) Sit down, (GRIGORIEV leaves. She goes to the desk and writes a note rapidly. Meanwhile, STEPAN TROFIMOVICH squirms on his chair. Then she turns around toward him.) Stepan Trofimovich, we have questions to settle before separating definitively. I shall be blunt. (He cringes on his chair.) Don’t say a word. Let me do the talking. I consider myself committed to continuing your allowance of twelve hundred rubles. I am adding eight hundred rubles for exceptional expenses. Is that enough for you? It seems to me that it is not negligible. So you will take this money and go to live, as you will, in Petersburg, in Moscow, abroad, but not in my house. Do you understand?
STEPAN: Not long ago you made another arbitrary demand, just as urgent and just as categorical. I submitted to it. I disguised myself as a fiance and danced the minuet for love of you. . . .
VARVARA: You didn’t dance. You came to my house wearing a new necktie, pomaded and perfumed. You had an urgent desire to get married; it could be seen on your face, and, take my word for it, it was not pretty to see. Especially with an innocent young girl, almost a child . . .
STEPAN: Please let’s not talk about it any more. I shall go to a home for the aged.
VARVARA: People don’t go to a home for the aged when they have an income of two thousand rubles. [You say that because your son, who, by the way, is more intelligent than you say he is, joked one day about a home. But there are all sorts of homes and there are even some that take in generals. So you could have a game of whist there. . . .]
STEPAN: Passorts. Let’s not mention it. VARVARA: Passons? So you are becoming rude now? In that case, let’s end our conversation right here. You are forewarned: henceforth we shall live apart.
STEPAN: And that’s all? That’s all that remains of our twenty years together? Is that our final farewell?
VARVARA: Yes, what about those twenty years! Twenty years of vanity and posturing! Even the letters you sent me were written for posterity. You are not a friend; you are a stylist!
STEPAN: You talk like my son. I see that he has influenced you.
VARVARA: So you don’t think I’m big enough to think for myself? What have you done for me during these twenty years? You even refused me the books that I ordered for you. You wouldn’t give them to me until you had read them yourself, and since you never read them I had to wait for them twenty years. The truth is that you were jealous of my intellectual development.
STEPAN (in despair). But is it possible to break off everything for so little reason!
VARVARA: When I came back from abroad and wanted to tell you my impressions of the Sistine Madonna, you didn’t even listen to me; you simply smiled with an air of superiority.
STEPAN: I smiled, yes, but I didn’t feel superior. VARVAKA: There was no reason to, in any case! No one is interested in that Sistine Madonna except a few old simpletons like you. That’s obvious.
STEPAN: What is obvious, after all these cruel words, is that I must leave. Mark my words: I shall take up my beggar’s staff and bag; I shall leave all your gifts and I’ll start out on foot to end my life as a tutor in the home of some shopkeeper or die of hunger in a ditch. Farewell. (VARVARA STAVROGIN rises, exploding.)
VARVARA: I was sure of it. I have known for years that you were simply waiting for the chance to dishonor me. You are capable of dying just so that my house will be slandered.
STEPAN: You have always despised me. But I shall end my life like a knight faithful to his lady. From this minute forward, I shall accept nothing more from you and shall honor you in a disinterested way.
VARVARA: That will be new.
STEPAN: I know, you have never had any regard for me. Yes, I was your parasite and I was occasionally weak. But to live as a parasite never was the ruling principle of my conduct. It just happened, I don’t know how. I always thought there was something between us over and above eating and drinking, and I never was vulgar. Well, now I’ll take to the road to right my wrongs! It is very late, the autumn is well along, the countryside is thick in fog, the frost of old age covers anyway, and in the howling of the wind I can hear the call of the grave. En route, cependant! Oh, I say farewell to you, my dreams! Vingt ans! (His face is covered with tears.) Allans!
VARVARA (she is deeply moved, but stamps her foot): [This is just one more bit of childishness. You will never be capable of carrying out your selfish threats. You won’t go anywhere, you won’t find any shopkeepers, and you will remain on my neck, continuing to draw your allowance and to receive your dreadful friends every Tuesday.] Farewell, Stepan Trofimovich! STEPAN: Alea jacta est. (He rushes out.) VARVARA: Stepan!
(But he has disappeared. She walks in circles, tearing her muff to pieces, then flings herself on the sofa in tears. Outside, vague noises.) GRIGORIEV (coming in): Where was Stepan Trofimovich going? And there is an uprising in town! VARVARA: An uprising?
GRIGORIEV: Yes. The workers from Spigulin’s factory are holding a demonstration in front of the governor’s house. The governor himself is reported to have gone mad.
VARVARA: Good Lord, Stepan may get caught in the uprising!
(There enter, ushered in by ALEXEY YEGOROVICH: PRASCOVYA DROZDOV, LISA, MAURICE NICOLAEVICH, and DASHA.)
PRASCOVYA: Oh! Good heavens! It’s the revolution! And my poor legs that can’t drag me any further, (There enter VIRGINSKY, LIPUTIN, and PETER VERKHOVENSKY.)
PETER: Things are stirring, things are stirring. That idiot of a governor had an attack of brain fever.
VARVARA: Have you seen your father? PETER: No, but he’s not running any risk. He might be flogged, but that will do him good.
(STAVROGIN appears. His necktie is twisted out of place. He looks a bit mad, for the first time.) VARVARA: Nicholas, what’s the matter with you? STAVROGIN: Nothing. Nothing. It seemed to me that someone was calling me. No . . . No . . . Who would call me?
(LISA takes a step forward.)
LISA: Nicholas Stavrogin, a certain Lebyatkin, who calls himself your wife’s brother, is sending me improper letters claiming to have revelations to make about you. If he is really your relative, keep him from bothering me.
(VARVARA rushes toward LISA.)
STAVROGIN (with strange simplicity): I have in fact the misfortune of being related to that man. It is four years now since I married his sister, nee Lebyatkin, in Petersburg.
(VARVARA lifts up her right arm as if to shield her face and falls in a faint. All rush toward her except LISA and STAVROGIN.)
STAVROGIN (in the same tone of voice): Now is the time to follow me, Lisa. We shall go to my country house at Skvoreshniki.
LISA walks toward him like an automaton. MAURICE NICOLAEVICH, who was paying attention to VARVARA PETROVNA, rises and rushes toward her.) MAURICE: Lisa!
(A gesture on her part stops him.)
LISA: Have pity on me. (She follows STAVROGIN.)
BLACKOUT
THE NARRATOR (in front of a curtain lighted by the burning city): The fire that had been smoldering for so long finally burst forth. It first burst out in reality the night that Lisa followed Stavrogin. The fire destroyed the suburb separating Stavrogin’s country house from the town. In that suburb stood the house lived in by Lebyatkin and his sister, Maria. But the fire burst forth likewise in people’s souls. After Lisa’s flight, misfortune followed misfortune.
SCENE 16
The drawing room of the country house at Skvoreshniki. Six a.m. LISA, wearing the same dress, which is now rumpled and badly hooked up, is standing by the French window watching
