The Theme in the Work
The town of Demons changes its mind over a sentence, laughs at what it should fear, falls silent when it should speak, and discovers what it thinks only after someone dares to say it. The novel shows this movement three times, each heavier than the last. First, the town that hated Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin begins to admire him. Second, it watches, laughing, the sacrilege against an icon, the suicide of a young man, the humiliation of a bride on her wedding night. Third, it produces a fire and a death without anyone deciding it. Among individuals, almost no one resists, and those who do resist by accident: a woman who kneels in the mud, a man who leaves the room without answering, a question asked aloud. Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky merely stays nearby, like a ghost in a governor's head.
In Part One, Chapter II, the town that was divided between love and hatred for Nicolas chooses the explanation that relieves it.
The town makes the diagnosis the alibi it needs: the illness is named only after the bite, the doctors push it back three days, and what was an affront becomes a symptom, because admitting that a lucid man humiliated them would be worse. The text leaves a gap open: the chronicler notes that some went on thinking the scoundrel had only been mocking everyone, and that even the governor judged him capable of anything while in full possession of his reason.
In Part Two, Chapter IV, a sentence from Yulia Mikhailovna von Lembke, spoken out of irritation, becomes everyone's opinion.
Разве возможно удивление, что Ставрогин дрался с Гагановым и не отвечал студенту? Не мог же он вызвать на поединок бывшего крепостного своего человека, but how can anyone be surprised that Stavrogin fought with Gaganov and did not answer the student? He could not challenge to a duel a former serf of his own!
In Part Two, Chapter V, while the cavalcade laughs at the desecrated icon, Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina is the only one who responds with her body.
Румянец негодования залил ее щеки; она сняла свою круглую шляпу, перчатки, упала на колени пред образом, прямо на грязный тротуар, и благоговейно положила три земных поклона, a flush of indignation spread across her cheeks; she took off her round hat and gloves, fell to her knees before the icon, straight onto the dirty pavement, and devoutly made three prostrations to the ground.
In Part Two, Chapter VII, at Virginsky's house, Pyotr extracts from a room a yes to an action he does not define.
что вам веселее: черепаший ли ход в болоте или на всех парах через болото?, which seems more cheerful to you: the tortoise's pace through the swamp, or going full steam through the swamp?
Then he asks the question that separates those who enter from those who leave.
Если бы каждый из нас знал о замышленном политическом убийстве, то пошел ли бы он донести, предвидя все последствия, или остался бы дома, ожидая событий?, if each of us knew of a political murder being planned, would he go and inform, foreseeing all the consequences, or would he stay at home, waiting for events?
In Part Three, Chapter I, the chronicler describes the exchange of places in the town, without saying why it happens.
первейшие люди, до тех пор так благополучно державшие верх, стали вдруг их слушать, а сами молчать, the foremost people, who until then had so comfortably held the upper hand, suddenly began to listen to them, and fell silent themselves.
At the matinee, the audience discovers that it can answer back, and the chronicler names the mistake of the one who spoke first.
Вот в том-то и вина его, что он первый заговорил; ибо, вызывая таким образом на ответ, тем самым дал возможность всякой сволочи тоже заговорить и, так сказать, даже законно, that is precisely his fault: he spoke first; for by thus provoking an answer, he gave every riffraff the chance to speak too, and, so to speak, even legitimately.
In Part Three, Chapter II, Pyotr tells Yulia Mikhailovna what respectable families do when the rabble runs loose.
А что у нас делают отцы семейств, сановники, жены, девы в подобных обстоятельствах? Молчат и дуются. Даже настолько, чтобы шалунов сдержать, общественной инициативы недостает, and what do our heads of families, dignitaries, wives, and maidens do in such circumstances? They keep silent and sulk. There is not even enough public initiative to restrain the naughty ones.
In Part Three, Chapter III, on the morning after the fire, the crowd surrounding the Lebyadkins' house recognizes Lizaveta Nikolaevna.
Вдруг я увидел, что над ее головой, сзади, поднялась и опустилась чья-то рука; Лиза упала, suddenly I saw that from behind, over her head, someone's hand rose and fell; Liza fell.
In Part Three, Chapter VI, the group that Pyotr tied together with blood shouts and falls apart before the body.
Pyotr speaks of "we" to men who have just shouted in terror, and what he gives them is a program, not comfort: a small group destined for power in the name of a future freedom, which rides on those who never knew they were being ridden. The scene adds the sight of him failing from within, for those who were to obey in silence break first. Pyotr's project needs men without bodies, and every man has a body.
The theme works in the opposite way to what its name promises. The individual of the book is the one who makes a gesture without an audience, and society is a crowd that discovers what it thinks only after someone speaks. No one leads: the mood does. Yulia dictates the town's opinion without knowing she does, Lembke shouts orders without knowing he is going to shout them, Karmazinov gives the signal that one may talk back and the rabble talks back, the crowd knocks down a woman without the chronicler seeing who. Pyotr counts on this. His method is to be in the right place when the others give way, and what he calls the cement, the shame of having an opinion of one's own, is the name of a mechanism the town was already using before him.
Who Embodies It
Yulia Mikhailovna is society as vanity: she wants to be the one who explains, and the phrase that one could not challenge a serf takes over the town for that reason. Andrei Antonovich von Lembke is authority emptying itself: he shouts "On your knees!" and "Rods!" without knowing he is going to shout them, and his wife ignores him in the drawing room. Karmazinov is society as audience, and he leaves it with a "merci." Shigalyov is society thought through to the end, a tenth ruling over nine. Lizaveta Nikolaevna is the individual who acts, and Shatov the one who refuses to answer.
Where It Appears
- Part One, Chapter II: The town calls Nicolas's bite of the governor an illness, the doctors push the fever back three days, and Liputin, they say, was the first to guess.
- Part Two, Chapter IV: A sentence from Yulia Mikhailovna about the serf makes the town, which had hated Stavrogin for four years, begin to admire him, including for being the largest landowner in the province.
- Part Two, Chapter V: The cavalcade of young men laughs at the desecrated icon, the humiliated bride, and the beaten woman, and only Lizaveta Nikolaevna kneels on the dirty pavement.
- Part Two, Chapter VI: Karmazinov tells Pyotr that the essence of the Russian revolutionary idea is the denial of honor, and Pyotr tells Stavrogin that the group's cement is the shame of having an opinion of one's own.
- Part Two, Chapter VII: Pyotr extracts from a drawing room a yes to an action without saying which, and then asks who would denounce a political murder, and only Shatov leaves without answering.
- Part Two, Chapter IX: Stepan Trofimovich has his papers taken by an official, orders a lamp lit for the police to see, and fears the disgrace less than Siberia.
- Part Two, Chapter X: Lembke has seventy workers take off their caps and kneel, calls for rods, and the governor's wife walks past him in the drawing room without a word.
- Part Three, Chapter I: At the matinee, the audience boos Karmazinov, laughs at Lebyadkin's verses, and applauds the professor who disgraces Russia, while the people at the top fall silent.
- Part Three, Chapter II: The broken-up ball ends in fire, and Pyotr tells Yulia Mikhailovna that heads of families, dignitaries, and wives fall silent and sulk, without the social initiative to restrain the naughty ones.
- Part Three, Chapter III: Lizaveta Nikolaevna is knocked down in the crowd by a hand the chronicler does not identify, amid shouts that link her to Stavrogin.
Where the Readings Diverge
Two readings compete over who the collective agent of the book is. In one, it is the elite that comes apart: the governor, the governor's wife, the writer, the old liberal, and the conspirator only needs to be nearby, like a ghost in the first one's head. The outcome of this reading is the bill the book charges a class that gave way out of vanity. In the other, the agent is the rabble discovering its voice: the seminarist who accuses Stepan, the professor who disgraces Russia before an enraptured audience, the crowd at Zarechye. The outcome is the bill of a town that stayed silent for too long.
The text sustains both, and joins them at one point: no one commands. The elite is not overthrown, it falls silent; the rabble does not take the floor, it is invited by the first person who speaks wrongly. The chronicler gives the rule that unites the two, that whoever speaks first in a hostile room opens the right of reply, and what follows is a consequence. If there is a political lesson, it is a negative one: the town stops giving way only when someone acts without an audience, as Lizaveta Nikolaevna does on the pavement by the icon, and the book shows what happens to the one who does it, in Part Three, Chapter III.