Demons

After Stepan returns to the provincial town from Berlin, there’s a period of calm that lasts for nine years. During that time, a group of friends forms around Stepan. That group includes Liputin, Shatov, Virginsky, and Anton. Liputin is the senior member of the group. He’s a liberal, and rumors say he’s an atheist. He’s not of a high rank, but Stepan and his friends enjoy Liputin’s wit and inquisitiveness. Shatov is the son of Varvara’s valet. Varvara took Shatov and his sister, Darya, under her care after their father died.

Varvara adores Darya but doesn’t like Shatov. Varvara paid for Shatov to go to university, but Shatov was expelled. After he was expelled, Shatov became a tutor to a wealthy family traveling abroad. The family fired their governess for “freethinking,” and Shatov went with her. Shatov and the governess were married, but they parted ways after only three weeks. Shatov then spent an unknown amount of time traveling in poverty through Europe. He recently returned to the provincial town, where he now lives alone. He is almost always disheveled. He embraced atheism and socialism while in college but now he has firmly swung in the opposite direction and embraces Christianity.

One of the other members of Stepan’s group of friends is Virginsky. He is extremely quiet. He once had a run-in with a man named Lebyadkin. Virginsky’s wife told him that she was leaving him, and she took up with Lebyadkin. Lebyadkin said he was a staff captain on a ship, which turned out not to be true. Eventually, Lebyadkin even moved into Virginsky’s house. At first, Virginsky said he was not bothered by what was happening. But one day, while Virginsky, his wife, and Lebyadkin were on a picnic, Virginsky seized Lebyadkin by the hair and dragged him across the ground. Lebyadkin disappeared from town after that, but he recently returned.