STAVROGIN: Alexey has gone on horseback to get news. In a few minutes we shall know all. It is said that a part of the suburb has already burned down. The fire broke out between eleven and midnight.
(LISA turns around suddenly and goes over and sits down in an armchair.)
LISA: Listen to me, Nicholas. We haven’t much longer to be together and I want to say all I have to say.
STAVROGIN: What do you mean, Lisa? Why haven’t we much longer to be together? LISA: Because I am dead.
STAVROGIN: Dead? Why, Lisa? You must live. LISA: You have forgotten that as we arrived here yesterday I told you that you had brought a dead woman. I have lived since then. I have had my hour of life on earth, and that is enough. I don’t want to be like Christofor Ivanovich. You remember?
STAVROGIN: Yes.
LISA: He bored you dreadfully, didn’t he, at Lausanne? He always used to say: «I have come just for a minute» and then he would stay all day. I don’t want to be like him.
STAVROGIN: Don’t talk that way. You are hurting yourself and hurting me too. I swear to you that I love you more at this moment than I did yesterday when we arrived here.
LISA: What an odd declaration!
STAVROGIN: We shan’t separate again. We shall leave together.
LISA: Leave? Why? To be reborn together, as you said. No, all that is too sublime for me. If I were to leave with you, it would be for Moscow, to have a home and live among friends. That is my ideal, a very middleclass ideal. But, as you are married, all this is pointless.
STAVROGIN: But, Lisa, have you forgotten that you gave yourself to me?
LISA: I haven’t forgotten it. I want to leave you now.
STAVROGIN: YOU are taking revenge on me lor your whim of yesterday.
LISA: That is a thoroughly vulgar thought. STAVROGIN: Then why did you do it?
LISA: What do you care? You are guilty of nothing; you don’t have to answer to anyone. STAVROGIN: Don’t despise me that way. I fear nothing except losing the hope you gave me. I was lost, like a drowning man, and I thought that your love would save me. Do you have any idea what that new hope cost rile? I paid for It with life itself.
LISA: Your life or someone else’s? STAVROGIN (thoroughly upset): What do you mean? Tell me at once what you mean!
LISA: I simply asked you if you had paid for that hope with your life or mine. Why do you stare at me so? What did you think? You look as if you were afraid, as if you had been afraid for some time. . . . You are so pale now. . . . STAVROGIN: If you know something, / know nothing, I swear. That’s not what I meant.
LISA (terrified): I don’t understand you. STAVROGIN (siting doavn and hiding his face in his hands): A bad dream … A nightmare . . . We were talking of two different things.
LISA: I don’t know what you were talking about. . . . (She stares at him.) Nicholas . . . (He raises his head.) Is it possible that you didn’t guess yesterday that I would leave you today? Did you know it—yes or no? Don’t lie: did you know it? STAVROGIN: I knew it.
LISA: You knew it and yet you took me. STAVROGIN: Yes, condemn me. You have the right to do so. I knew also that I didn’t love you and yet I took you. I have never felt love for anyone. I desire, that’s all. And I took advantage of you. But I have always hoped that someday I could love, and I have always hoped that it would be you. The fact that you were willing to follow
me gave strength to that hope. I shall love, yes, I shall love you. » . .
LISA: You will love me! And I imagined . . .
Ah! I followed you through pride, in order to rival you in generosity; I followed you to ruin myself with you and to share your misfortune. (She weeps.) But, despite everything, I imagined that you loved me madly. And you . . . You hope to love me someday. What a little fool I was! Don’t make fun of these tears. I love being sentimental about myself. But that is enough! I am not capable of anything and you are not capable of anything either. Let us console ourselves by sticking out our tongues at each other. That way our pride at least will not suffer. STAVROGIN: Don’t weep. I can’t endure it.
LISA: I am calm. I gave my life for an hour with you. Now I am calm. As for you, you will forget. You will have other hours and other moments.
STAVROGIN: Never, never! No one but you . . . LISA (looking at him with a wild hope): Ah! You . . .
STAVROGIN: Yes, yes. I shall love you. Now I am sure of it. Someday my heart will relax at last, I shall bow my head and forget myself in your arms. You alone can cure me. . . .
LISA (who has recovered possession of herself, with a dull tone of despair): Cure you! I don’t want to. I don’t want to be a Sister of Charity for you. Ask Dasha instead; she will follow you everywhere like a dog. And don’t worry about me. I knew in advance what was in store for me. I always knew that if I followed you, you would lead me to a spot inhabited by a monstrous spider as big as a man, that we would spend our life watching the spider and trembling with fear, and that our love would go no farther. . . .
(ALEXEY YEGOROVICH comes in.)
ALEXEY: Sir, sir, they have found . . . (He stops as he sees LISA.) I . . . Sir, Peter Verkhovensky wishes to see you.
STAVROGIN: Lisa, wait in this room. (She goes toward it. ALEXEY YEGOROVICH goes out.) Lisa . . . (She stops.) If you hear anything, you might as well know now that / am the guilty one.
(She looks at him in fright and slowly backs into the study, PETER VERKHOVENSKY comes in.)
PETER: Let me tell you first of all that none of us is guilty. It was a mere coincidence. Legally you are not involved. . . .
STAVROGIN: They were burned? Assassinated? PETER: Assassinated. Unfortunately, the house only half burned and the bodies were found. Lebyatkin’s throat was slit. His sister had been slashed over and over again with a knife. But it was a prowler, most certainly. I have heard that, the night before, Lebyatkin was drunk and showed everybody the fifteen hundred rubles I had given him.
STAVROGIN: You had given him fifteen hundred rubles?
PETER: Yes. Quite deliberately. And from you. STAVROGIN: From me?
PETER: Yes. I was afraid he would denounce us and I gave him the money so that he could get to St. Petersburg. . . . (STAVROGIN takes a few steps with an absentminded stare.) But listen at least to the way things turned out. . . . (He grasps STAVROGIN by the lapel of his Prince Albert, STAVROGIN gives him a violent blow.) Oh, you might have broken my arm! Of course, he boasted of having that money. Fedka saw it, that’s all. I’m sure now that it was Fedka. He must not have understood your true intentions. . . .
STAVROGIN (oddly absentminded): Was it Fedka who lighted the fire?
PETER: No. No. You know that such fires were planned in our group action. It’s a very Russian way of starting a revolution. . . . But it came too soon! I was disobeyed, that’s all, and I’ll have to take steps. But don’t forget that this misfortune has its advantages. For instance, you are a widower and you can marry Lisa tomorrow. Where is she? I want to give her the good news. (STAVROGIN laughs suddenly, but with a sort of wild laugh.) You are laughing?
STAVROGIN: Yes. I am laughing at one who apes me, I am laughing at you. Good news, indeed! But don’t you think that those corpses will upset her somewhat?
PETER: Not at all! Why? Besides, legally . . . And she’s a young lady who isn’t fazed by anything. You’ll be amazed to see the way she steps over those corpses. Once she’s married, she’ll forget
STAVROGIN: There will be no marriage. Lisa will remain alone.
PETER: No? As soon as I saw you together, I realized that it hadn’t worked. Ah! A complete flop? [I’ll bet you spent the whole night seated on different chairs, wasting precious time discussing very serious things.] Besides, I was sure that it would all end in nonsense. . . . Good. I shall easily marry her off to Maurice Nicolaevich, who must be waiting for her outside now in the rain. As for the others—the ones who were killed —it’s better not to tell her anything about that. She’ll find out soon enough.
(LISA comes in.)
LISA: What shall I find out soon enough? Who has killed someone? What did you say about Maurice Nicolaevich?
PETER: Well, young lady, so we listen at doors! LISA: What did you say about Maurice Nicolaevich? Has he been killed?
STAVSOGIN: No, Lisa. It was only my wife and her brother who were killed.
PETER (in a hurry): A strange, a monstrous coincidence! Someone took advantage of the fire to kill and rob them. It must have been Fedka.
