The Possessed

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Possessed, The

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Title: The Possessed The Devils
Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8117] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 15, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POSSESSED ***
Produced by David Moynihan
THE POSSESSED (The Devils)
A NOVEL IN THREE PARTS BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Scanned by David Moynihan ([email protected])
Additional proofing by James Rusk.
Please send all corrections to [email protected].


PART I


CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY


CHAPTER II.
PRINCE HARRY. MATCHMAKING.


CHAPTER III.
THE SINS OF OTHERS


CHAPTER IV.
THE CRIPPLE


CHAPTER V.
THE SUBTLE SERPENT


PART II


CHAPTER I.
NIGHT


CHAPTER II.
NIGHT (continued)


CHAPTER III.
THE DUEL


CHAPTER IV.
ALL IN EXPECTATION


CHAPTER V.
ON THE EVE OP THE FETE


CHAPTER VI.
PYOTR STEPANOVITCH IS BUSY


CHAPTER VII.
A MEETING


CHAPTER VIII.
IVAN THE TSAREVITCH


CHAPTER IX.
A RAID AT STEFAN TROFIMOVITCH'S


CHAPTER X.
FILIBUSTERS. A FATAL MORNING


PART III


CHAPTER I.
THE FETEFIRST PART


CHAPTER II.
THE END OF THE FETE


CHAPTER III.
A ROMANCE ENDED


CHAPTER IV.
THE LAST RESOLUTION


CHAPTER V.
A WANDERER


CHAPTER VI.
A BUSY NIGHT


CHAPTER VII.
STEPAN TROFIMOVITCH'S LAST WANDERING


CHAPTER VIII.
CONCLUSION
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
1916
"Strike me dead, the track has vanished, Well, what now? We've lost the way, Demons have bewitched our horses, Led us in the wilds astray.
What a number! Whither drift they? What's the mournful dirge they sing? Do they hail a witch's marriage Or a goblin's burying?"
A. Pushkin.
"And there was one herd of many swine feeding on this mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.
"Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked.
"When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.
"Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid."
Luke, ch. viii. 32-37.


CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY ">
PART I

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY
SOME DETAILS OF THE BIOGRAPHY OF THAT HIGHLY RESPECTED GENTLEMAN STEFAN TEOFIMOVITCH VERHOVENSKY.
IN UNDERTAKING to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till lately wrapped in uneventful obscurity, I find' myself forced in absence of literary skill to begin my story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical details concerning that talented and highly-esteemed gentleman, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky. I trust that these details may at least serve as an introduction, while my projected story itself will come later.
I will say at once that Stepan Trofimovitch had always filled a particular role among us, that of the progressive patriot, so to say, and he was passionately fond of playing the partso much so that I really believe he could not have existed without it. Not that I would put him on a level with an actor at a theatre, God forbid, for I really have a respect for him. This may all have been the effect of habit, or rather, more exactly of a generous propensity he had from his earliest years for indulging in an agreeable day-dream in which he figured as a picturesque public character. He fondly loved, for instance, his position as a "persecuted" man and, so to speak, an "exile." There is a sort of traditional glamour about those two little words that fascinated him once for all and, exalting him gradually in his own opinion, raised him in the course of years to a lofty pedestal very gratifying to vanity. In an English satire of the last century, Gulliver, returning from the land of the Lilliputians where the people were only three or four inches high, had grown so accustomed to consider himself a giant among them, that as he walked along the streets of London he could not help crying out to carriages and passers-by to be careful and get out of his way for fear he should crush them, imagining that they were little and he was still