Chapter 21 Chapter 9 Nechayev (2)

Although her back was turned to the window, he now understood why she was wearing so much powder.Her skin was densely covered with the scars of smallpox.What a pity, he thought to himself: she wasn't exactly a beauty, but she was pretty. Her foot touched his again, and the back of her foot rested there against the back of her foot. An uneasy excitement rose through him.Like a game of chess, he thought: two chess players across a small table, making deliberate moves.The opponent raised his foot like picking up a chess piece, and put it on his foot—is it this kind of deliberation that excites him?As for the third person, the observer who didn't see, the puppet who looked elsewhere, did she also play a role?Thoughtful and cheesy, cheesy that can cause excitement.How did they know him so well, his desires?

A singer, an alto singer: the contralto queen. "You know my son," he said. "He's a follower. A mascot." He understood the meaning of the name and was displeased.In college circles, the mascot is the follower, the errand runner. "Is he your friend?" She shrugged. "Friends is too effeminate. We don't need friends." Femininity: This word is really different from a woman's mouth!He had a feeling that he already knew more than he wanted to know.The foot still rested on his, but now its pressure felt dull, dull, lifeless, even threatening.No longer a foot, but a boot.Pavel would not like such a trick.Pavel's vision reappears, and Pavel walks towards him.The girl beside him, his bride, became a blur.Pavel was smiling, a smile that seemed to burst into a halo.He thought: My friend!Strong love broke his heart.He thought: Must I accept this instead of you?

"If you don't need friends, God bless you," he whispered. He got up from the table and turned his back on the two women.He doesn't know what he looks like.There are no mirrors in the house.When he sat down again, the tears that almost welled up in his eyes were gone. "What have you done to my son?" he asked hoarsely. The woman leaned over the table and studied him carefully with blue eyes.Through that layer of powder, in the depression of the skin of the chin, he found the beard that the razor hadn't removed.The eyebrows above the bridge of the nose are also too thick.The woman's consciousness will remind him to use tweezers to pull it out.Dare the Finnish girl to be a boy too, a fat little boy?The two suddenly made him sick.

She, or he, is talking.There is no doubt that it was Nechayev himself.The camouflage suddenly became transparent.The memory suddenly became very clear: in the hall of the peace conference, during the interval between meetings, Nechayev sat alone in the corner, devouring a sandwich while staring coldly at the adults in the room: "Okay, you guys Laugh if you dare, laugh at middle school students!The expression on his face was that of a kid whose trousers were down to his knees and who was bumped into sitting on the toilet, defenseless but still stubborn.Just laugh, one day I will settle accounts with you!

He remembered a line said by Mrochekovsky's mistress, Princess Obolenskaya: "He may be an anarchist little troublemaker, but first of all he should treat the pimples on his face!" "Considering what the police did to your son," Nechayev said, "I am surprised that you are not angry. The Gospels say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." "You fellow, there's no such thing in the Gospels! What are you talking about Pavel? Why are you wearing such a ridiculous dress?" "Surely you don't believe in suicide. Isayev didn't commit suicide—it was a lie made up by the police. They couldn't bring the law against us, so they committed these nasty murders. You must have doubts—otherwise What are you doing here?"

The man's pretended gentleness was gone: he spoke with his natural voice.His blue clothes rustled as he walked to and fro.What are you wearing inside?Pants or bare legs?What does it feel like to walk around with bare legs in long clothes, rubbing each other? "Do you think we're not in danger? Do you think I like to dress up and walk softly in my own city, in the city where I was born? Do you know what it's like to be a woman on the streets of Petersburg?" ?” He was swayed by anger, and his voice was getting higher and higher. "You know what you have to hear? Men are after you, whispering dirty things you can't imagine, and you have nothing to do with them!" He controlled his emotions. "Perhaps you can imagine it perfectly. Perhaps the circumstances I describe are all too familiar to you."

The Finnish girl came with a pot of potatoes, put them on her lap, and began to peel them.She looked serene; she really looked like a little old lady. "It's getting colder," she said. Both are crazy!he thought.what am i doing hereI must go back to Pavel! "Please . . . please tell me what you told me about my son," he said. "Very well, let me tell you about your son. The official conclusion is that he committed suicide. If you believe it, you are too gullible and stupid. If I remember correctly, you yourself participated in the Ever had a revolution? You must understand that the struggle has never stopped. Have you made peace alone? People on the front lines of the struggle are constantly being hunted, tortured, and killed. I really hope you understand this and write it down ... especially because the truth about your son and his kind will never be seen in our disgraceful Russian press."

Nechayev's voice was lower and tense. "What happened to your son could happen to me any day, or to another of our comrades. You say you don't understand anything. You might as well go to the street, to the market, to the tavern where people meet, and you It will be found that the people understand. They will understand! On Judgment Day, the people will not forget who suffered for them, who died for them, or who stood by!" Angry Christ, he thought, that's what he was after. The Christ in the "Bible Old Testament", the Christ who drove the usurers out of the temple.Even the clothes are appropriate: not skirts, but gowns.Parody, impersonation, profanity.

"Don't threaten me!" he replied. "What right do you have to speak in the name of the people? The people are not vindictive. The people don't spend their time plotting." "The people know who their enemy is, and when the enemy is finished, the people will not waste their tears for them! Take us, at least we know what to do, and we are already doing it! Maybe you knew it before, but now you only know what to do. Mutter, shake your head, cry. That's weakness. We're not weak people, we don't believe in tears, we don't waste time talking about things. There are some things we can talk about, and some things we can't talk about, we have to do. We don't talk, We don't cry, we don't think endlessly about this and that, we just act!"

"Excellent! You are just acting. But where do you get your instructions? Do you listen to the voice of the people, or your own voice, which is only slightly disguised and does not need to be acknowledged by yourself?" "Another smart question! Another waste of time! We're tired of being smart. The days of being smart are numbered. Smart is one of those things we're going to kill. The day of the average man has come. The average man isn't smart. Ordinary people only want to do things down-to-earth. After one thing is done, ordinary people decide what to do next, and decide whether to allow cleverness to continue to exist!"

"Are smart books and that sort of thing allowed to survive?" the Finn put in, briskly, even excitedly.