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Demons · Part One

The slap

GuiltFamilyTruth and LiesThe Individual and Society

Summary of the part

In a single scene, the salon of the Stavrogin house does what the town had been promising for weeks: it exposes all at once what each person knew by half. The scene has four movements. In the first, Varvara Petrovna defends herself against Praskovia Ivanovna and questions Darya and the captain, trying to recover control over what she does not know. In the second, Pyotr Stepanovich enters and talks without stopping, and then Nikolai Vsevolodovich, to whom his mother puts the question she never asked: is Marya Timofeyevna his wife? In the third, while Nikolai is out, Pyotr offers Varvara Petrovna a version that flatters her, and the captain confirms it with his head bowed. In the fourth, Nikolai returns, Pyotr reads his father's letter, Varvara Petrovna expels Stepan, and Shatov crosses the room and strikes. Nikolai never, at any moment, gives the answer asked of him. What the chapter shows is how each person fabricates the version that suits them.

Chapter V: Varvara Petrovna's Salon

GuiltFamilyTruth and Lies

Chapter summary

Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina rings the bell, drops into an armchair by the window, and has Marya Timofeyevna Lebyadkina sit at the round table in the middle of the room. She asks Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky what this is, that he look at this woman, and he only stammers. She asks for coffee "especially and as quickly as possible," and the carriage is not to be unharnessed. When Stepan exclaims in French, Marya claps her hands, delighted: high society, indeed. The chronicler notices Lizaveta Nikolaevna, seated in a corner almost beside Ivan Shatov, her eyes moving from the mistress of the house to the limp and back, with a crooked smile that Varvara Petrovna also sees. Marya examines the room with pleasure, the furniture, the painted ceiling, the large bronze crucifix, and suddenly recognizes Darya Pavlovna's brother: "Chatuchka! I have been seeing you for a long time and thinking: it is not him, how would he come here!" Varvara Petrovna turns to him: does she know this woman? Shatov mutters that yes, she lives in the house where he lives, with her brother, an officer, and then falls silent, red with his own decision. For her it is clear that everyone knows something and hides it, and that there is nothing to expect from Shatov. Then the room fills. Praskovia Ivanovna, Liza's mother, arrives furious, and the two old friends quarrel over the scandal each attributes to the other, until Darya calmly explains the money she handed to Captain Lebyadkin and Varvara Petrovna absolves her before everyone. The captain appears sober and ridiculous, and Pyotr Stepanovich, Stepan's son, enters soon after, talking without stopping. When Nikolai arrives, his mother asks him whether Marya is his lawful wife; he does not answer, treats the lame woman with delicacy, and takes her away. In his absence, Pyotr tells a version of the story that makes Nikolai a generous benefactor, and the captain confirms it with his head bowed. On Nikolai's return, Pyotr summarizes the letter in which Stepan writes that he is marrying for other people's sins, and Varvara Petrovna, offended, expels her old friend from the house. Then Shatov, who had stayed silent in a corner, crosses the room and strikes Nikolai in the face; Nikolai seizes him, controls himself and does not strike back, and Liza faints.

Analysis

Varvara Petrovna asks the question in front of everyone and standing, with the carriage waiting, and this is how she defends herself: what she does not know, she wants to know in front of the whole town. The chronicler records the anger of someone who perceives that "everyone knows something" and spares her. Shatov, whom she addresses, is the one who has the most to say and the least wish to say it.

Marya, on receiving coffee from the footman, says "merci" and gives a little giggle; Varvara Petrovna's gaze frightens her; she asks, in a playful tone, whether the "aunt" is angry. Varvara Petrovna jumps: who gave her the right to call her aunt? Marya trembles: Liza called her that. "What Liza?" "That young lady." She returns the black shawl she forgot to return, and Varvara Petrovna orders her to put it on again and keep it forever: she is beginning to understand her. She orders Darya Pavlovna, who is unwell, to be summoned; she is to come just as she is. At that moment Praskovia Ivanovna bursts in, breathless, leaning on Mavriky Nikolaevich: where is her daughter, what is Liza doing with this woman!

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Analysis

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