What It Is
On the night of the ball of Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke, the district of Zarechye, on the other side of the river, catches fire in three places at once, and an entire street burns until dawn. The fire had been announced: Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky counts it among the means of his program, the governor has feared it since the summer, and the town already knows whom to accuse before the flames die down. The next morning, an isolated little house that had also burned, though not entirely, reveals three people killed by knife. The fire does four things on the same night: it is the method of a conspiracy, it is a spectacle for a town that watches, it is a screen for a crime, and it is proof that no one decided alone what happened.
Where It Appears
In Chapter VI of Part Two, Andrei Antonovich von Lembke grows gloomier by the day, with cholera coming, cattle dying, the summer fires, and the rumor that someone is setting them. On the same day, Pyotr gives Karmazinov the date on which Russia will collapse: it begins in early May and ends on the feast of Pokrov.
In Chapter VIII of Part Two, in the street, after the meeting, Pyotr lays out for Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin what must come before the hidden chief: proclaim destruction, set fires and spread legends until Russia is clouded and the earth weeps for the old gods. Only then is Ivan Tsarevich released.
In Chapter X of Part Two, the chronicler anticipates, while recounting the march of the workers from the Chpigulin factory, that three days later the town's fire will have two workers beside Fedka.
In Chapter II of Part Three, the ball has already dissolved into shame when the cry comes that all of Zarechye is in flames. A woman shouts that they were gathered there on purpose so as to set fire over there, and Lembke, who had turned pale on hearing the word buccaneers in a corner of the hall, points at his own wife, Yulia Mikhailovna, orders her arrested and searched, and says the ball was organized to provoke a fire.
Арестовать первую! [...] Обыскать первую! Бал устроен с целью поджога, arrest the first one! [...] Search the first one! The ball was organized for the purpose of arson.
In Zarechye, the chronicler sets down what is known with certainty: three men from the factory took part, one was arrested and confessed, two fled, all the other workers have been cleared, and Fedka took part. He describes the spectacle and includes himself among the spectators.
Большой огонь по ночам всегда производит впечатление раздражающее и веселящее; на этом основаны фейерверки; но там огни располагаются по изящным, правильным очертаниям и, при полной своей безопасности, производят впечатление игривое и легкое, как после бокала шампанского. Другое дело настоящий пожар: тут ужас и всё же как бы некоторое чувство личной опасности, при известном веселящем впечатлении ночного огня, производят в зрителе (разумеется, не в самом погоревшем обывателе) некоторое сотрясение мозга и как бы вызов к его собственным разрушительным инстинктам, которые, увы! таятся во всякой душе, a large fire at night always makes an impression that is both irritating and exhilarating; fireworks are built on this; but there the lights are arranged in elegant, regular outlines and, in complete safety, produce an impression that is playful and light, like after a glass of champagne. A real fire is another matter: there is horror, and yet a certain sense of personal danger, together with the known exhilarating effect of night fire, produce in the spectator (certainly not in the townsman who has lost his home) a certain concussion of the brain and, as it were, a challenge to his own destructive instincts, which, alas! lurk in every soul.
Lembke, hatless on the remains of a fence, gives orders that no one obeys and says, without meaning to, what the night showed.
Пожар в умах, а не на крышах домов, the fire is in minds, not on the roofs of houses.
At dawn, the new little house, fifty paces from the others, caught fire before all of them and was saved from being consumed only because its owner threw away the burning firewood that had been leaning against the wall. Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, his sister, and a maid lived there, and all three were killed and robbed.
In Chapter III of Part Three, at Skvorechniki, Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina watches from the large room the glow that fades at six in the morning. Pyotr, in the anteroom, takes up the idea and rejects the occasion: what angers him is that the fire was lit before the appointed hour.
ну да, у меня уже давно эта идейка об огне созревала, так как она столь народна и популярна; но ведь я берег ее на критический час, на то драгоценное мгновение, well, yes, this little idea of fire had been ripening in me for a long time, since it is so popular and so beloved of the people; but I was saving it for the critical hour, for that precious moment.
In Chapter IV of Part Three, Liputin and the others of the quintet complain about Pyotr, and Shigalyov hands him back the program he himself drew up. Pyotr does not rebut the argument and only shouts that the fire was lit on its own.
систематическою обличительною пропагандой беспрерывно ронять значение местной власти, произвести в селениях недоумение, зародить цинизм и скандалы, полное безверие во что бы то ни было, жажду лучшего и, наконец, действуя пожарами, как средством народным по преимуществу, ввергнуть страну, в предписанный момент, если надо, даже в отчаяние, by means of systematic denunciatory propaganda, continually undermine the authority of local government, sow bewilderment in the villages, breed cynicism and scandal, total unbelief in anything whatever, thirst for something better and, finally, by acting through fires, as the people's means par excellence, plunge the country, at the prescribed moment, if need be even into despair.
What It Means
The fire carries two things the book never separates. One is method: arson as the people's means par excellence, to throw the province into disbelief and despair at the prescribed moment. The other is appetite: the unconfessable pleasure of watching a house burn, which the chronicler attributes to every soul, and which draws half the town to Zarechye in search of the spectacle the ball did not provide. Pyotr claims ownership of the first and blames the haste of others for the second. The facts the chronicler keeps tell a different story: three workers, Fedka, people from the quintet who drank and danced until the shout, each for his own reason, and none under an order that can be proved.
The fire is the only crime in the book whose authorship empties out from an excess of candidates. Pyotr has the idea and misses the hour, Liputin and Tolkachenko speak to the workers on their own, Fedka takes advantage, and Lembke, who no longer commands, sees a conspiracy where there was only coincidence. The fire can be read as Pyotr's method fulfilling itself, and the haste he condemns as the price of depending on men who do not obey in silence. It can also be read, as the chronicler reads it, as what the town wanted to see, and then Pyotr is only the one who knew how to be in the right place when the ground gave way. The text supports both, and that is why the little house of the Lebyadkins, where the fire failed, weighs more than the street that burned.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Revolution, Guilt, Individual and society.
- Themes in the work: Revolution, Guilt, Individual and society.
- Characters: Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke, Andrei Antonovich von Lembke, Karmazinov, Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, Fedka, Ignat Lebyadkin, Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina, Liputin, Shigalyov.
- Neighboring symbols: The leaflets, the other means of Pyotr's program, and The spider, the image of the web in which the quintet feels trapped at the meeting after the fire.