The Possessed | Page 3

short his lectures on the Arabs because,
somehow and by some one (probably one of his reactionary enemies) a
letter had been seized giving an account of certain circumstances, in
consequence of which some one had demanded an explanation from
him. I don't know whether the story is true, but it was asserted that at
the same time there was discovered in Petersburg a vast, unnatural, and
illegal conspiracy of thirty people which almost shook society to its
foundations. It was said that they were positively on the point of
translating Fourier. As though of design a poem of Stepan
Trofimovitch's was seized in Moscow at that very time, though it had
been written six years before in Berlin in his earliest youth, and
manuscript copies had been passed round a circle consisting of two
poetical amateurs and one student. This poem is lying now on my table.
No longer ago than last year I received a recent copy in his own
handwriting from Stepan Trofimovitch himself, signed by him, and
bound in a splendid red leather binding. It is not without poetic merit,
however, and even a certain talent. It's strange, but in those days (or to
be more exact, in the thirties) people were constantly composing in that
style. I find it difficult to describe the subject, for I really do not
understand it. It is some sort of an allegory in lyrical-dramatic form,

recalling the second part of Faust. The scene opens with a chorus of
women, followed by a chorus of men, then a chorus of incorporeal
powers of some sort, and at the end of all a chorus of spirits not yet
living but very eager to come to life. All these choruses sing about
something very indefinite, for the most part about somebody's curse,
but with a tinge of the higher humour. But the scene is suddenly
changed. There begins a sort of "festival of life" at which even insects
sing, a tortoise comes on the scene with certain sacramental Latin
words, and even, if I remember aright, a mineral sings about something
that is a quite inanimate object. In fact, they all sing continually, or if
they converse, it is simply to abuse one another vaguely, but again with
a tinge of higher meaning. At last the scene is changed again; a
wilderness appears, and among the rocks there wanders a civilized
young man who picks and sucks certain herbs. Asked by a fairy why he
sucks these herbs, he answers that, conscious of a superfluity of life in
himself, he seeks forgetfulness, and finds it in the juice of these herbs,
but that his great desire is to lose his reason at once (a desire possibly
superfluous). Then a youth of indescribable beauty rides in on a black
steed, and an immense multitude of all nations follow him. The youth
represents death, for whom all the peoples are yearning. And finally, in
the last scene we are suddenly shown the Tower of Babel, and certain
athletes at last finish building it with a song of new hope, and when at
length they complete the topmost pinnacle, the lord (of Olympia, let us
say) takes flight in a comic fashion, and man, grasping the situation and
seizing his place, at once begins a new life with new insight into things.
Well, this poem was thought at that time to be dangerous. Last year I
proposed to Stepan Trofimovitch to publish it, on the ground of its
perfect harmlessness nowadays, but he declined the suggestion with
evident dissatisfaction. My view of its complete harmlessness evidently
displeased him, and I even ascribe to it a certain coldness on his part,
which lasted two whole months.
And what do you think? Suddenly, almost at the time I proposed
printing it here, our poem was published abroad in a collection of
revolutionary verse, without the knowledge of Stepan Trofimovitch. He
was at first alarmed, rushed to the governor, and wrote a noble letter in
self-defence to Petersburg. He read it to me twice, but did not send it,
not knowing to whom to address it. In fact he was in a state of agitation

for a whole month, but I am convinced that in the secret recesses of his
heart he was enormously flattered. He almost took the copy of the
collection to bed with him, and kept it hidden under his mattress in the
daytime; he positively would not allow the women to turn his bed, and
although he expected every day a telegram, he held his head high. No
telegram came. Then he made friends with me again, which is a proof
of the extreme kindness of his gentle and unresentful heart.
II
Of course I don't assert that he had never suffered for his convictions at