The Adolescent

I rang the bell, and the cook opened for me at once and silently let me in. All these details are precisely needed, to make it possible to understand how the crazy adventure could take place, which had such enormous influence on all that came afterwards. And, first, about the cook. She was a spiteful, snub-nosed Finn, who seemed to hate her mistress, Tatyana Pavlovna, who, on the contrary, could not part with her, owing to some sort of partiality, something like what old maids feel for wet-nosed pugs or eternally sleeping cats. The Finn was either angry and rude, or, having quarreled, would be silent for weeks on end in order to punish her lady. I must have hit on one of those silent days, because even to my question, “Is the lady at home?”—which I positively remember having asked her—she gave no reply and silently went to her kitchen. After which, naturally convinced that the lady was at home, I went in and, finding no one, began to wait, supposing that Tatyana Pavlovna would presently come out of the bedroom; otherwise why would the cook have let me in? I did not sit down and waited for two or three minutes; it was almost evening, and Tatyana Pavlovna’s dark little apartment looked still more cheerless because of the endless chintz that hung everywhere. Two words about this vile little apartment, in order to understand the terrain where the thing happened. Tatyana Pavlovna, with her stubborn and imperious character, and as a result of her old landowning preferences, could not have lived in furnished rooms along with other tenants, and rented this parody of an apartment only so as to live separately and be her own mistress. These two rooms were exactly like two canary cages placed side by side, one smaller than the other, on the third floor, with windows facing the courtyard. Entering the apartment, you stepped directly into a narrow little corridor less than four feet wide, to the left were the above-mentioned canary cages, and straight down the corridor, at the bottom of it, was the door to the tiny kitchen. There might have been in these little rooms the ten cubic feet of air a man needs for twelve hours, but hardly more. They were grotesquely low, but the stupidest thing was that the windows, the doors, the furniture—all, all of it was hung or upholstered with chintz, fine French chintz, and adorned with little festoons; but this made the room seem twice as dark and like the interior of a traveling coach. In the room where I was waiting, you could still turn around, though it was all cluttered with furniture, and, by the way, not bad furniture: there were various little inlaid tables with bronze fittings, chests, an elegant and even costly toilet table. But the next room, from which I expected her to come, the bedroom, separated from this room by a heavy curtain, consisted, as it turned out later, literally of nothing but a bed. All these details are necessary in order to understand the stupid thing I did.

And so I was waiting and suspecting nothing, when the bell rang. I heard the cook pass through the corridor with unhurried steps and silently, exactly as with me earlier, let the people in. They were two ladies, and both were talking loudly, but what was my amazement when I recognized by their voices that one of them was Tatyana Pavlovna and the other precisely the woman whom I was least of all prepared to meet now, and in such circumstances at that! I couldn’t be mistaken: I had heard that sonorous, strong, metallic voice yesterday, for only three minutes, true, but it had remained in my soul. Yes, it was “yesterday’s woman.” What was I to do? I’m not asking the reader this question, I’m only imagining that moment to myself, and I’m utterly unable to explain even now how it happened that I suddenly rushed behind the curtain and found myself in Tatyana Pavlovna’s bedroom. In short, I hid, and barely had time to jump there as they came in. Why I didn’t go to meet them, but hid myself—I don’t know. It all happened accidentally, in the highest degree unaccountably.

Having jumped into the bedroom and stumbled over the bed, I noticed at once that there was a door from the bedroom to the kitchen, which meant a way out of my trouble and a possibility of escape, but—oh, horror!—the door was locked and the key was not in the lock. I lowered myself onto the bed in despair; I saw clearly that it meant I would now be eavesdropping, and from the first phrases, from the first sounds of the conversation, I realized that it was a secret and ticklish one. Oh, of course, an honest and noble person ought to have gotten up, even now, come out and said loudly, “I’m here, wait!”—and, despite his ridiculous position, walked past; but I did not get up and come out; I didn’t dare, I turned coward in the meanest way.

“My dear Katerina Nikolaevna, you upset me deeply,” Tatyana Pavlovna implored. “Calm yourself once and for all, it doesn’t even suit your character. Wherever you are, there is joy, and now suddenly . . . At least me, I think, you continue to trust, knowing how devoted I am to you. Surely no less than to Andrei Petrovich, to whom, once again, I do not conceal my eternal devotion . . . Well, believe me, then, I swear to you on my honor, he doesn’t have this document in his hands, and maybe no one does; and he’s incapable of such skulduggery, it’s sinful of you even to suspect it. The two of you have simply invented this hostility . . .”

“The document exists, and he is capable of anything. Why, I came in yesterday and the first thing I met was ce petit espion²⁷ that he foisted on the prince.”

“Eh, ce petit espion. First of all, he’s not an espion at all, because it was I, I who insisted on placing him with the prince, otherwise he’d go crazy in Moscow, or starve to death—that was how they attested him from there; and above all, the crude brat is even a perfect little fool, how could he be a spy?”

“Yes, some little fool, which, however, doesn’t prevent him from becoming a scoundrel. I was vexed yesterday, otherwise I’d have died of laughter: he turned pale, rushed to me, bowed and scraped, spoke French. And in Moscow, Marya Ivanovna assured me he was a genius. That this unfortunate letter has survived and exists somewhere in a most dangerous place—that I concluded mainly from Marya Ivanovna’s face.”

“My beauty! But you yourself said she had nothing!”

“The thing is that she has, she’s merely lying, and what a crafty one she is, let me tell you! Back before Moscow I still had hopes that no papers had been left, but here, here . . .”

“Ah, my dear, on the contrary, they say she’s a kind and sensible being, Andronikov valued her above any of his nieces. True, I don’t know her that well, but—you could seduce her, my beauty! It’s nothing for you to win people over, I’m an old woman and here I am in love with you, and in a minute I’ll start kissing you . . . Well, what would it cost you to seduce her!”

“I tried to seduce her, Tatyana Pavlovna, I did, I even sent her into raptures, but she’s also very clever . . . No, there’s a whole character here, and a special one, a Moscow one . . . And imagine, she advised me to address a certain man here, Kraft, Andronikov’s former assistant, she said he might know something. I already have an idea of this Kraft, and I even remember him fleetingly; but when she told me about this Kraft, I became convinced at once that it wasn’t simply that she didn’t know, but that she was lying and knew everything.”

“But why, why? Anyway, perhaps it might be possible to consult him! He’s German, this Kraft, not a babbler, and, as I recall, a most honest man—really, why not question him! Only it seems he’s not in Petersburg now . . .”

“Oh, he came back yesterday, I was just at his place . . . I’ve come precisely to you in such anxiety, my arms and legs are trembling, I wanted to ask you, my angel, Tatyana Pavlovna, since you know everybody, couldn’t we find out from his papers at least, because surely he left some papers, so where would they go now from him? Perhaps they’ll fall into dangerous hands again? I’ve come running to ask your advice.”

“What papers do you mean?” Tatyana Pavlovna did not understand. “And you say you yourself were just at Kraft’s?”

“I was, I was, just now, but he shot himself. Yesterday evening.”

I jumped up from the bed. I could sit it out when they called me a spy and an idiot; and the further they went in their conversation, the less possible it seemed for me to appear. It would have been unimaginable! I had decided to myself that I would sit it out, with a sinking heart, until Tatyana Pavlovna sent her visitor away (if I was lucky and she didn’t come into the bedroom earlier for something), and later, once Mme. Akhmakov was gone, I might just have a fight then with Tatyana Pavlovna! . . . But suddenly now, when I heard about Kraft, I jumped up from the bed, I was all seized as if by a convulsion. Not thinking of anything, not reasoning or imagining, I took a step, raised the portière, and appeared before the two of them. There was still enough light for them to make me out, pale and trembling . . . They both screamed. How could they not?

“Kraft?” I murmured, addressing Mme. Akhmakov. “Shot himself? Yesterday? At sunset?”

“Where were you? Where did you come from?” shrieked Tatyana Pavlovna, and she literally clutched my shoulder. “Have you been spying? Eavesdropping?”

“What was I just telling you?” Katerina Nikolaevna got up from the sofa, pointing at me.

I lost my temper.

“Lies, nonsense!” I interrupted her furiously. “You just called me a spy, oh, God! Is it worth not only spying, but even living in the world alongside such people as you? A magnanimous man commits suicide; Kraft has shot himself—because of an idea, because of Hecuba . . . However, you don’t know about Hecuba!⁵² . . . And here—go and live amidst your intrigues, hang around with your lies, deceptions, snares . . . Enough!”

“Slap his face! Slap his face!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna, and since Katerina Nikolaevna, though she looked at me (I remember it all down to the smallest trace) without taking her eyes away, didn’t move from her place, Tatyana Pavlovna would probably have carried out her own advice in a moment, so that I inadvertently raised my hand to protect my face; and from this gesture it seemed to her that I was swinging my own arm.

“Yes, hit me, hit me! Prove you’re a born lout! You’re stronger than women, why stand on ceremony!”

“Enough of your slander, enough!” I cried. “I’ve never raised my hand against a woman! You’re shameless, Tatyana Pavlovna, you’ve always despised me. Oh, one must deal with people without respecting them! You, Katerina Nikolaevna, are probably laughing at my figure; yes, God hasn’t given me a figure like your adjutants. And, nevertheless, I don’t feel humiliated before you, but, on the contrary, exalted . . . Well, it makes no difference how it’s expressed, only I’m not to blame! I wound up here accidentally, Tatyana Pavlovna, the one to blame is your Finnish cook, or, better to say, your partiality for her: why did she refuse to answer my question and bring me straight here? And then, you must agree, it seemed so monstrueuse²⁸ to me to come jumping out of a woman’s bedroom, that I decided sooner to endure your spitting silently than to show myself . . . You’re laughing again, Katerina Nikolaevna?”

“Get out, get out, go away!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna, almost pushing me. “Don’t take his pack of lies for anything, Katerina Nikolaevna, I told you they attested him as crazy there!”

“As crazy? There? Who would that be, and from where? Enough, it makes no difference. Katerina Nikolaevna! I swear to you by all that’s holy, this conversation and all that I’ve heard will remain between us . . . Is it my fault that I learned your secrets? The more so as I’m ending my work with your father tomorrow, so that, as regards the document you’re looking for, you may be at peace!”

“What’s that? . . . What document are you talking about?” Katerina Nikolaevna was at a loss, so much so that she even turned pale, or maybe it just seemed so to me. I realized that I had said too much.

I left quickly; they followed me silently with their eyes, and there was the highest degree of astonishment in their gaze. In short, I had set them a riddle . . .

Chapter Nine

I

I WAS HURRYING home and—wondrous thing—I was very pleased with myself. Of course, one doesn’t speak that way with women, and with such women at that—or, more precisely, with such a woman, because I didn’t count Tatyana Pavlovna. Maybe it’s quite impossible to tell a woman of that category to her face: “I spit on your intrigues,” but I had said it and was pleased precisely with that. Not to mention other things, I was sure at least that by that tone I had blotted out all that was ridiculous in my position. But I had no time to think very much about it: Kraft was sitting in my head. Not that he tormented me so much, but all the same I was shaken to my foundations; and even to the point that the ordinary human feeling of a certain pleasure at another’s misfortune, that is, when somebody breaks a leg, loses his honor or a beloved being, and so on, even that ordinary feeling of mean satisfaction yielded in me without a trace to another extremely wholesome sensation, namely grief, regret for Kraft, that is, I don’t know whether it was regret, but some very strong and kindly feeling. I was also very pleased by that. It’s astonishing how many extraneous thoughts can flash through your mind precisely when you’re all shaken by some colossal news, which in reality, it seems, ought to overpower all other feelings and scatter all extraneous thoughts, especially petty ones; but it’s the petty ones, on the contrary, that get at you. I also remember that I was gradually overcome by a rather palpable nervous trembling, which went on for several minutes, and even all the while I was at home and having a talk with Versilov.

This talk took place under strange and extraordinary circumstances. I have already mentioned that we lived in a separate wing in the yard; this apartment bore the sign of number thirteen. Even before I went through the gate, I heard a woman’s voice asking someone loudly, with impatience and vexation, “Where’s apartment number thirteen?” It was a lady asking, just by the gate, opening the door of a grocery shop; but it seems they gave her no reply or even chased her away, and she was coming down the steps in distress and anger.

“But where’s the caretaker here?” she cried, stamping her foot. I had long since recognized the voice.

“I’m going to apartment number thirteen,” I went up to her, “whom do you want?”

“For a whole hour I’ve been looking for the caretaker, I’ve asked everybody, climbed all the stairs.”

“It’s in the yard. Don’t you recognize me?”

But she had already recognized me.

“You want Versilov; you have business with him, and so do I,” I went on. “I’ve come to say good-bye to him forever. Come along.”

“Are you his son?”

“That means nothing. However, let’s suppose I am his son, though my name is Dolgoruky. I’m illegitimate. This gentleman has endless illegitimate children. When conscience and honor demand, a son can leave home. It’s in the Bible.⁵³ Besides, he got an inheritance, but I don’t want my share, I go by the labor of my hands. When need be, a magnanimous man even sacrifices his life; Kraft shot himself, Kraft, because of an idea, imagine, a young man, who gave one hopes . . . This way, this way! We’re in a separate wing. It’s in the Bible that children leave their fathers and start their own nest . . . If an idea beckons . . . if there’s an idea! The idea’s the main thing, the idea’s everything . . .”

I babbled to her like that all the while we were climbing up to our place. The reader has probably noticed that I don’t spare myself much and, where needed, give myself an excellent attestation: I want to learn to tell the truth. Versilov was at home. I came in, but didn’t take off my coat, and neither did she. Her clothes were terribly flimsy: over a dark dress hung a scrap of something intended to be a cape or a mantilla; on her head was an old, peeling sailor hat, very unbecoming to her. When we entered the drawing room, my mother was sitting in her usual place over her work, and my sister came out of her room and stopped in the doorway. Versilov was doing nothing, as usual, and rose to meet us; he fixed me with a stern, questioning look.

“I have nothing to do with it.” I hastened to wave it away and stood to one side. “I met this person by the gate; she was looking for you, and nobody could direct her. I’ve come on business of my own, which I shall have the pleasure of explaining after her . . .”

Versilov nevertheless went on looking at me curiously.

“Permit me,” the girl began impatiently. Versilov turned to her. “I’ve long been thinking about why you decided to leave money with me yesterday . . . I . . . in short . . . Here’s your money!” she almost shrieked, as earlier, and flung a wad of banknotes on the table. “I had to look for you through the address bureau, otherwise I’d have brought it sooner. Listen, you!” She suddenly turned to my mother, who became all pale. “I don’t want to insult you, you have an honest look and maybe this is even your daughter. I don’t know if you’re his wife, but you should know that this gentleman cuts out newspaper advertisements that governesses and teachers publish with their last money, and goes to these unfortunate women, looking for a dishonorable profit and getting them into trouble through money. I don’t understand how I could have taken money from him yesterday! He looked so honest! . . . Away, not one word! You’re a blackguard, my dear sir! Even if you had honest intentions, I don’t want your charity. Not a word! Not a word! Oh, how glad I am to have exposed you now in front of your women! A curse on you!”

She quickly ran out, but turned on the threshold for a moment, only to shout:

“They say you’ve received an inheritance!”

And then she vanished like a shadow. I remind you once more: she was beside herself. Versilov was deeply struck; he stood as if pondering and trying to understand; at last he turned suddenly to me:

“You don’t know her at all?”

“Earlier today I accidentally saw her raging in the corridor at Vasin’s, shrieking and cursing you; but I didn’t get into conversation with her and know nothing, and just now we met by the gate. She’s probably yesterday’s teacher ‘who gives lessons in arithmetic’?”

“The very same. Once in my life I did a good deed and . . . But, anyhow, what have you got?”

“Here’s this letter,” I answered. “I consider it unnecessary to explain: it comes from Kraft, who got it from the late Andronikov. You’ll find out from the contents. I’ll add that no one in the whole world knows of this letter now except me, because Kraft, having given me the letter yesterday, shot himself just after I left . . .”

While I spoke, breathless and hurrying, he took the letter and, holding it out in his left hand, watched me attentively. When I announced Kraft’s suicide to him, I peered into his face with particular attention to see the effect. And what?—the news didn’t make the slightest impression on him; he didn’t even raise his eyebrows! On the contrary, seeing that I had stopped, he pulled out his lorgnette, which never left him and hung on a black ribbon, brought the letter over to a candle, and, after glancing at the signature, began to study it closely. I can’t express how I was even offended by this arrogant unfeelingness. He must have known Kraft very well; besides, it was in any case such extraordinary news! Finally, I naturally wanted it to produce an effect. Having waited for half a minute, and knowing that the letter was long, I turned and went out. My suitcase had long been ready, I only had to pack several things into a bundle. I thought of my mother and that I had not gone over to her. Ten minutes later, when I was quite ready and wanted to go for a cab, my sister came into my room.

“Here, mama sends you your sixty roubles and again asks you to forgive her for having told Andrei Petrovich about it, and there’s another twenty roubles. You gave her fifty roubles yesterday for your keep; mother says it’s simply impossible to take more than thirty from you, because she hadn’t spent fifty on you, so she’s sending you twenty roubles in change.”

“Well, thanks, if only she’s telling the truth. Good-bye, sister, I’m going away!”

“Where to now?”

“To an inn for the time being, only so as not to spend the night in this house. Tell mama that I love her.”

“She knows that. She knows that you also love Andrei Petrovich. You ought to be ashamed to have brought that unfortunate girl!”

“I swear to you, it wasn’t me; I met her by the gate.”

“No, you brought her.”

“I assure you . . .”

“Think, ask yourself, and you’ll see that you, too, were the reason.”

“I was only very glad that Versilov was disgraced. Imagine, he has a nursing baby by Lydia Akhmakov . . . however, why am I telling you . . .”

“He has? A nursing baby? But it’s not his baby! Where did you hear such a lie?”

“Well, as if you’d know.”

“Who else should know? It was I who took care of this baby in Luga. Listen, brother: I saw long ago that you know nothing about anything, and yet you insult Andrei Petrovich, well, and mama, too.”

“If he’s right, then I’ll be wrong, that’s all, and I don’t love you any less. Why did you blush so, sister? And still more now! Well, all right, but even so I’ll challenge that princeling to a duel for Versilov’s slap in Ems. The more so if Versilov was in the right with Miss Akhmakov.”

“Brother, come to your senses, really!”

“Since the court has now closed the case . . . Well, and now you’ve turned pale.”

“But the prince won’t fight a duel with you,” Liza smiled a pale smile through her fright.

“Then I’ll disgrace him publicly. What’s wrong, Liza?”

She became so pale that she couldn’t stand on her feet and lowered herself onto the sofa.

“Liza!” mother called from downstairs.

She put herself to rights and stood up; she was smiling tenderly at me.

“Brother, leave these trifles, or wait for a while, till you learn much more: you know so terribly little.”

“I’ll remember, Liza, that you turned pale when you learned I’d be going to a duel!”

“Yes, yes, remember that, too!” she smiled once more in farewell and went downstairs.

I called a cab and, with the driver’s help, carried my things out of the apartment. None of my family opposed me or stopped me. I did not go to say good-bye to my mother, so as not to meet Versilov. When I was already sitting in the cab, a thought suddenly flashed in me.

“To the Fontanka, the Semyonovsky Bridge,” I ordered suddenly, and went to Vasin’s again.

II

IT SUDDENLY OCCURRED to me that Vasin already knew about Kraft, and maybe a hundred times more than I did; and that’s how it turned out to be. Vasin at once and dutifully told me all the details—without great warmth, however; I concluded that he was tired, and so he was. He had been at Kraft’s himself that morning. Kraft had shot himself with a revolver (that same one) the night before, in full darkness, as was made clear by his diary. The last entry in the diary was made just before the shot, and he notes in it that he was writing almost in the dark, barely making out the letters; and he didn’t want to light a candle for fear of leaving a fire behind him. “And I don’t want to light it, only to put it out again before the shot, like my life,” he added strangely in almost the last line. He had undertaken this death diary two days earlier, as soon as he returned to Petersburg, before the visit to Dergachev; after I left, he wrote in it every quarter of an hour; the very last three or four entries were written every five minutes. I voiced my surprise that Vasin, having had this diary under his eyes for so long (it was given him to read), had not made a copy, the more so as it was no more than a printer’s sheet in all, and the entries were short—“at least the last page!” Vasin observed to me with a smile that he remembered it as it was, and moreover the notes were without any system, about whatever came to mind. I tried to argue that that was the precious thing in this case, but dropped it and began pestering him to remember at least something, and he remembered several lines, about an hour before the shot, saying “that he had chills; that he contemplated drinking a glass in order to warm up, but the thought that it would perhaps cause a bigger hemorrhage stopped him.”—“It’s almost all that sort of thing,” concluded Vasin.

“And you call that trifles!” I exclaimed.

“When did I call it that? I simply didn’t make a copy. But though it’s not trifles, the diary is actually quite ordinary, or, rather, natural, that is, precisely as it ought to be in this case . . .”

“But it’s his last thoughts, his last thoughts!”

“Last thoughts can sometimes be extremely insignificant. One such suicide precisely complains in the same sort of diary that at such an important hour at least one ‘lofty thought’ should have visited him, but, on the contrary, they were all petty and empty.”

“And that he had chills is also an empty thought?”

“That is, you mean the chills proper, or the hemorrhage? Yet it’s a known fact that a great many of those who are capable of contemplating their imminent death, self-willed or not, are quite often inclined to be concerned with the handsome appearance in which their corpse will be left. In this sense, Kraft, too, feared an excessive hemorrhage.”

“I don’t know whether that’s a known fact . . . or whether it’s so,” I murmured, “but I’m surprised that you consider it all so natural, and yet was it long ago that Kraft spoke, worried, sat among us? Can it be that you’re not at least sorry for him?”

“Oh, of course I’m sorry for him, and that’s quite another matter; but in any case Kraft himself pictured his death as a logical conclusion. It turns out that everything said about him at Dergachev’s was correct: he left behind a notebook this big, full of learned conclusions, based on phrenology, craniology, and even mathematics, proving that the Russians are a second-rate breed of people, and that, consequently, it’s not at all worth living as a Russian. If you wish, what’s most characteristic here is that it’s possible to draw any logical conclusion you like, but to up and shoot oneself as the result of a conclusion—that, of course, doesn’t happen all the time.”

“At least we must give credit to his character.”

“And maybe not only that,” Vasin observed evasively, but clearly he had in mind stupidity or weakness of reason. All this irritated me.

“You yourself spoke about feelings yesterday, Vasin.”

“Nor do I deny them now; but in view of the accomplished fact, something in him presents itself as so badly mistaken that a severe view of the matter somehow unwillingly drives out pity itself.”

“You know, I could tell earlier by your eyes that you would revile Kraft, and so as not to hear it, I decided not to seek your opinion; but you’ve voiced it yourself, and I’m unwillingly forced to agree with you; but still I’m displeased with you! I feel sorry for Kraft!”

“You know, we’ve gone too far . . .”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “but it’s comforting at least that in such cases those who are left alive, the judges of the deceased, can always say of themselves, ‘Though the man who shot himself was worthy of all regret and indulgence, we’re still left, and therefore there’s no point in grieving too much.’”

“Yes, naturally, if you see it from that angle . . . Ah, yes, it seems you were joking! And most wittily. This is my tea time and I’ll have it brought at once—you’ll probably keep me company.”

And he went out, measuring my suitcase and bundle with his eyes.

I actually had wanted to say something malicious, in revenge for Kraft; and I had said it as I could, but, curiously, he had first taken my thought that “the likes of us are left ” as serious. But be that as it may, he was still more right than I in everything, even feelings. I admitted all that without any displeasure, but I decidedly felt that I did not like him.

When tea was brought, I explained to him that I was asking for his hospitality for only one night, and that if it was impossible, he should say so and I would move to the inn. Then I briefly told him my reasons, stating simply and directly that I had quarreled definitively with Versilov, without going into details. Vasin listened attentively, but without any emotion. Generally, he only answered questions, though he answered affably and with sufficient fullness. I passed over in total silence the letter with which I had come to him previously to ask for advice; and I explained my previous call as a simple visit. Having given Versilov my word that no one would know of the letter besides me, I considered myself as no longer having the right to tell anyone about it. For some reason it became particularly repugnant to me to inform Vasin of certain things. Of certain things, but not of others: I still managed to get him interested in my stories about those scenes in the corridor and with the women in the neighboring room, culminating in Versilov’s apartment. He listened with great attention, especially about Stebelkov. He asked me to repeat twice how Stebelkov inquired about Dergachev, and he even fell to pondering; however, he still smiled in the end. It suddenly seemed to me at that moment that nothing could ever disconcert Vasin; however, the first thought of it, I remember, presented itself to me in a form quite flattering to him.

“Generally, I couldn’t gather much from what Mr. Stebelkov said,” I concluded about Stebelkov. “He speaks somehow confusedly . . . and there seemed to be something light-minded in him . . .”

Vasin immediately assumed a serious look.

“He indeed has no gift of eloquence, but that’s only at first sight. He has managed to make extremely apt observations; and generally—these are more people of business, of affairs, than of generalizing thought; they should be judged from that angle . . .”

Exactly as I had guessed earlier.

“Anyhow he acted up terribly at your neighbors’, and God knows how it might have ended.”

About the neighbors, Vasin told me that they had lived there for about three weeks and had come from somewhere in the provinces; that their room was extremely small, and everything indicated that they were very poor; that they were sitting and waiting for something. He didn’t know that the young one had advertised in the newspapers as a teacher, but he had heard that Versilov had visited them; this had happened while he was away, and the landlady had told him. The neighbors, on the contrary, avoided everybody, even the landlady herself. In the last few days he had begun to notice that something was indeed not right with them, but there had been no such scenes as today’s. All this talk of ours about the neighbors I recall now with a view to what followed; meanwhile a dead silence reigned behind their door. Vasin listened with particular interest when I said that Stebelkov thought it necessary to talk with the landlady about them, and that he had twice repeated, “You’ll see, you’ll see!”

“And you will see,” Vasin added, “that it didn’t come into his head for nothing; he has a very keen eye in that regard.”

“So, then, in your opinion, the landlady should be advised to throw them out?”

“No, I’m not saying they should be thrown out, but so that some sort of story doesn’t happen . . . However, all such stories end one way or another . . . Let’s drop it.”

As for Versilov’s visit to the women, he resolutely refused to offer any conclusion.

“Everything is possible; the man felt money in his pocket . . . However, it’s also probable that he simply offered charity; it suits his tradition, and maybe also his inclination.”

I told him what Stebelkov had babbled that day about the “nursing baby.”

“Stebelkov in this case is completely mistaken,” Vasin said with particular seriousness and particular emphasis (and that I remember all too well).

“Stebelkov,” he went on, “sometimes trusts all too much in his practical sense, and because of that rushes to a conclusion in accordance with his logic, which is often quite perspicacious; yet the event may in fact have a much more fantastic and unexpected coloration, considering the characters involved. And so it happened here: having partial knowledge of the matter, he concluded that the baby belongs to Versilov; however, the baby is not Versilov’s.”

I latched on to him, and here is what I learned, to my great astonishment: the baby was Prince Sergei Sokolsky’s. Lydia Akhmakov, either owing to her illness, or simply because of her fantastic character, sometimes behaved like a crazy woman. She became infatuated with the prince still before Versilov, and the prince “had no qualms about accepting her love,” as Vasin put it. The liaison lasted only a moment: they quarreled, as is already known, and Lydia chased the prince away, “of which, it seems, the man was glad.”

“She was a very strange girl,” Vasin added, “it’s even very possible that she was not always in her right mind. But, as he was leaving for Paris, the prince had no idea of the condition in which he had left his victim, and he didn’t know it to the very end, until his return. Versilov, having become the young person’s friend, offered to marry her precisely in view of the emergent circumstance (which it seems the parents did not suspect almost to the end). The enamored girl was delighted, and saw in Versilov’s proposal ‘not only his self-sacrifice,’ which, however, she also appreciated. However, he certainly knew how to do it,” Vasin added. “The baby, a girl, was born a month or six weeks before term, was placed somewhere in Germany, then Versilov took it back, and it is now somewhere in Russia, maybe in Petersburg.”

“And the phosphorus matches?”

“I know nothing about that,” concluded Vasin. “Lydia Akhmakov died two weeks after the delivery; what happened there—I don’t know. The prince, only just returned from Paris, found out that there was a baby, and, it seems, did not believe at first that it was his . . . Generally, the story is kept secret on all sides even to this day.”

“But how about this prince!” I cried in indignation. “How about the way he behaved with the sick girl!”

“She wasn’t so sick then . . . Besides, she chased him away herself . . . True, maybe he was unnecessarily quick to take advantage of his dismissal.”

“You vindicate such a scoundrel?”

“No, I merely don’t call him a scoundrel. There’s much else here besides direct meanness. Generally, it’s a very ordinary affair.”

“Tell me, Vasin, did you know him closely? I’d especially like to trust your opinion, in view of a circumstance that concerns me greatly.”

But here Vasin’s answers became somehow all too restrained. He knew the prince, but with obvious deliberateness he said nothing about the circumstances under which he had made his acquaintance. Next he said that his character was such that he merited a certain indulgence. “He’s full of honest inclinations and he’s impressionable, but he possesses neither the sense nor the strength of will to sufficiently control his desires. He’s an uneducated man; there is a host of ideas and phenomena that are beyond him, and yet he throws himself upon them. For instance, he would insistently maintain something like this: ‘I am a prince and a descendant of Rurik,⁵⁴ but why shouldn’t I be a shoemaker’s apprentice, if I have to earn my bread and am incapable of doing anything else? My shingle will say: “Prince So-and-so, Shoemaker”—it’s even noble.’ He’ll say it, and he’ll do it—that’s the main thing,” Vasin added, “and yet there’s no strength of conviction here, but just the most light-minded impressionability. But afterwards repentance would undoubtedly come, and then he would always be ready for some totally contrary extreme; and so for his whole life. In our age many people come a cropper like that,” Vasin concluded, “precisely because they were born in our time.”

I involuntarily fell to thinking.

“Is it true that he was thrown out of his regiment earlier?” I inquired.

“I don’t know if he was thrown out, but he did indeed leave the regiment on account of some unpleasantness. Is it known to you that last autumn, precisely being retired, he spent two or three months in Luga?”

“I . . . I knew that you were living in Luga then.”

“Yes, I, too, for a while. The prince was also acquainted with Lizaveta Makarovna.”

“Oh? I didn’t know. I confess, I’ve spoken so little with my sister . . . But can it be that he was received in my mother’s house?” I cried.

“Oh, no. He was too distantly acquainted, through a third house.”

“Yes, what was it my sister told me about this baby? Wasn’t the baby in Luga as well?”

“For a while.”

“And where is it now?”

“Undoubtedly in Petersburg.”

“Never in my life will I believe,” I cried in extreme agitation, “that my mother participated in any way in this story with this Lydia!”

“Apart from all these intrigues, which I don’t undertake to sort out, the personal role of Versilov in this story had nothing particularly reprehensible about it,” Vasin observed, smiling condescendingly. It was apparently becoming hard for him to speak with me, only he didn’t let it show.

“Never, never will I believe,” I cried again, “that a woman could give up her husband to another woman, that I will not believe! . . . I swear that my mother did not participate in it!”

“It seems, however, that she didn’t oppose it.”

“In her place, out of pride alone, I wouldn’t have opposed it!”

“For my part, I absolutely refuse to judge in such a matter,” Vasin concluded.

Indeed, Vasin, for all his intelligence, may have had no notion of women, so that a whole cycle of ideas and phenomena remained unknown to him. I fell silent. Vasin was working temporarily in a joint-stock company, and I knew that he brought work home. To my insistent question, he confessed that he had work then, too, some accounts, and I warmly begged him not to stand on ceremony with me. That seemed to afford him pleasure; but before sitting down with his papers, he began to make a bed for me on the sofa. First of all he tried to yield me his bed, but when I didn’t accept, that also seemed to please him. He obtained a pillow and a blanket from the landlady. Vasin was extremely polite and amiable, but it was somehow hard for me to see him going to such trouble on my account. I had liked it better when once, about three weeks ago, I had chanced to spend the night on the Petersburg side, at Efim’s. I remember him concocting a bed for me, also on a sofa and in secret from his aunt, supposing for some reason that she would get angry on learning that his comrades came to spend the night. We laughed a lot, spread out a shirt instead of a sheet, and folded an overcoat for a pillow. I remember Zverev, when he had finished work, giving the sofa a loving flick and saying to me:

“Vous dormirez comme un petit roi.”²⁹

Both his stupid gaiety and the French phrase, which suited him like a saddle on a cow, had the result that I slept with extreme pleasure then at this buffoon’s place. As for Vasin, I was extremely glad when he finally sat down to work, his back turned to me. I sprawled on the sofa and, looking at his back, thought long and about much.

III

AND THERE WAS plenty to think about. My soul was very troubled, and there was nothing whole in it; but some sensations stood out very definitely, though no one of them drew me fully to itself, owing to their abundance. Everything flashed somehow without connection or sequence, and I remember that I myself had no wish to stop at anything or introduce any sequence. Even the idea of Kraft moved imperceptibly into the background. What excited me most of all was my own situation, that here I had already “broken away,” and my suitcase was with me, and I wasn’t at home, and was beginning everything entirely anew. Just as if up to now all my intentions and preparations had been a joke, and only “now, suddenly and, above all, unexpectedly, everything had begun in reality.” This idea heartened me and, however troubled my soul was about many things, cheered me up. But . . . but there were other sensations as well; one of them especially wanted to distinguish itself from the others and take possession of my soul, and, strangely, this sensation also heartened me, as if summoning me to something terribly gay. It began, however, with fear: I had been afraid for a long while, since that very moment earlier when, in my fervor and taken unawares, I had told Mme. Akhmakov too much about the document. “Yes, I said too much,” I thought, “and perhaps they’ll guess something . . . that’s bad! Naturally, they won’t leave me in peace if they begin to suspect, but . . . let them! Perhaps they won’t even find me—I’ll hide! But what if they really start running after me . . .” And then I began to recall down to the last detail and with growing pleasure how I had stood before Katerina Nikolaevna and how her bold but terribly astonished eyes had looked straight at me. And I had gone out leaving her in that astonishment, I recalled; “her eyes are not quite black, however . . . only her eyelashes are very black, that’s what makes her eyes, too, look so dark . . .”

And suddenly, I remember, it became terribly loathsome for me to recall . . . and I was vexed and sickened, both at them and at myself. I reproached myself for something and tried to think about other things. “Why is it that I don’t feel the least indignation at Versilov for the story with the woman next door?” suddenly came into my head. For my part, I was firmly convinced that his role here had been amorous and that he had come in order to have some fun, but that in itself did not make me indignant. It even seemed to me that he couldn’t be imagined otherwise, and though I really was glad that he had been disgraced, I didn’t blame him. That was not important for me. What was important for me was that he had looked at me so angrily when I came in with the woman, looked at me as he never had before. “He finally looked at me seriously!” I thought, and my heart stood still. Oh, if I hadn’t loved him, I wouldn’t have been so glad of his hatred!

I finally dozed off and fell sound asleep. I only remember through my sleep that Vasin, having finished his work, put things away neatly, gave my sofa an intent look, undressed, and blew out the candle. It was past midnight.

IV

ALMOST EXACTLY TWO hours later I awoke with a start like a halfwit and sat up on my sofa. Dreadful cries, weeping and howling, were coming from behind the neighbors’ door. Our door was wide open, and in the already lighted corridor people were shouting and running. I was about to call Vasin, but guessed that he was no longer in bed. Not knowing where to find matches, I felt for my clothes and hurriedly began to dress in the darkness. The landlady, and maybe also the tenants, had obviously come running to the neighbors’ room. One voice was screaming, however, that of the elderly woman, while yesterday’s youthful voice, which I remembered only too well, was completely silent; I remember that that was the first thought that came to my head then. Before I had time to dress, Vasin came hurrying in; instantly, with an accustomed hand, he found the matches and lighted the room. He was only in his underwear, dressing gown, and slippers, and he immediately began to dress.

“What’s happened?” I cried to him.

“A most unpleasant and troublesome business!” he replied almost angrily. “This young neighbor, the one you were telling me about, has hanged herself in her room.”

I let out a cry. I can’t convey how much my heart was wrung! We ran out to the corridor. I confess, I didn’t dare go into the women’s room, and I saw the unfortunate girl only later, when she had been taken down, and then, to tell the truth, at some distance, covered with a sheet, from under which the two narrow soles of her shoes stuck out. For some reason I never looked at her face. The mother was in a dreadful state; our landlady was with her, not much frightened, however. All the tenants of the apartments came crowding around. There weren’t many: only one elderly sailor, always very gruff and demanding, though now he became very quiet; and some people from Tver province, an old man and woman, husband and wife, quite respectable and civil-service people. I won’t describe the rest of that night, the fuss, and then the official visits; till dawn I literally shivered and considered it my duty not to go to bed, though, anyhow, I didn’t do anything. And everybody had an extremely brisk look, even somehow especially brisk. Vasin even drove off somewhere. The landlady turned out to be a rather respectable woman, much better than I had supposed her to be. I persuaded her (and I put it down to my credit) that the mother couldn’t be left like that, alone with her daughter’s corpse, and that she should take her to her room at least till the next day. She agreed at once and, no matter how the mother thrashed and wept, refusing to leave the corpse, in the end, nevertheless, she still moved in with the landlady, who at once ordered the samovar prepared. After that, the tenants went to their rooms and closed the doors, but I still wouldn’t go to bed and sat for a long time at the landlady’s, who was even glad of an extra person, and one who could, for his part, tell a thing or two about the matter. The samovar proved very useful, and generally the samovar is a most necessary Russian thing, precisely in all catastrophes and misfortunes, especially terrible, unexpected, and eccentric ones; even the mother had two cups, of course after extreme entreaties and almost by force. And yet, sincerely speaking, I had never seen more bitter and outright grief than when I looked at this unfortunate woman. After the first bursts of sobbing and hysterics, she even began speaking eagerly, and I listened greedily to her account. There are unfortunate people, especially among women, for whom it is even necessary that they be allowed to speak as much as possible in such cases. Besides, there are characters that are, so to speak, all too worn down by grief, who have suffered all their lives long, who have endured extremely much both from great griefs and from constant little ones, and whom nothing can surprise anymore, no sort of unexpected catastrophes, and who, above all, even before the coffin of the most beloved being, do not forget a single one of the so-dearly-paid-for rules of ingratiating behavior with people. And I don’t condemn them; it’s not the banality of egoism or coarseness of development; in these hearts maybe one can find even more gold than in the most noble-looking heroines; but the habit of longtime abasement, the instinct of self-preservation, a long intimidation and inhibition finally take their toll. The poor suicide did not resemble her mother in this. Their faces, however, seemed to resemble each other, though the dead girl was positively not bad-looking. The mother was not yet a very old woman, only about fifty, also blond, but with hollow eyes and cheeks, and with big, uneven yellow teeth. And everything in her had some tinge of yellowness: the skin of her face and hands was like parchment; her dark dress was so threadbare that it also looked quite yellow; and the nail on the index finger of her right hand was, I don’t know why, plastered over thoroughly and neatly with yellow wax.

The poor woman’s story was incoherent in some places. I’ll tell it as I understood it and as I have remembered it.

V

THEY CAME FROM Moscow. She had long been a widow, “though the widow of a court councillor,”⁵⁵ her husband had been in the service, left almost nothing “except two hundred roubles, though, in a pension. Well, what is two hundred roubles?” She raised Olya, though, and had her educated in high school . . . “And how she studied, how she studied; she was awarded a silver medal at graduation . . .” (Long tears here, naturally.) The deceased husband had lost nearly four thousand in capital with one merchant here in Petersburg. Suddenly this merchant became rich again. “I had papers, got some advice, they said, ‘Make a claim, you’re sure to get everything . . .’ So I began, and the merchant started to agree. ‘Go in person,’ they said. Olya and I made ready and came a month ago now. Our means were only so much; we took this room because it was the smallest, and we saw it was an honorable house, and that was the most important thing for us. We’re inexperienced women, anybody can offend us. Well, we paid you for a month, with one thing and another, Petersburg’s expensive, our merchant flatly refused us. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ and the paper I had was not in order, I understood that myself. So they advise me, ‘Go to this famous lawyer, he was a professor, not simply a lawyer, but a jurist, he’ll tell you for certain what to do.’ I took my last fifteen roubles to him; the lawyer came out, and didn’t listen to me for even three minutes: ‘I see,’ he says, ‘I know,’ he says, ‘if he wants to,’ he says, ‘the merchant will pay you back, if he doesn’t, he won’t, but if you start a case, you may have to pay more, best of all is to make peace.’ And he made a joke from the Gospel: ‘Agree with thine adversary,’ he says, ‘whiles thou art in the way, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’⁵⁶ He sends me away, laughing. That was the end of my fifteen roubles! I came to Olya, we sit facing each other, I began to weep. She doesn’t weep, she sits there proud, indignant. And she’s always been like that, all her life, even when she was little, she never sighed, never wept, so she sits, glaring terribly, it’s even eerie to look at her. And, would you believe it, I was afraid of her, completely afraid, long afraid; and I’d feel like whining now and then, but I don’t dare in front of her. I went to the merchant for a last time, wept my fill there. ‘All right,’ he says, and doesn’t even listen. Meanwhile, I must confess, since we hadn’t counted on staying so long, we’d already been without money for some time. I gradually began to pawn my clothes, and we lived on that. We pawned everything we had, she began giving up her last bit of linen, and here I started weeping bitter tears. She stamped her foot, jumped up, and ran to the merchant herself. He’s a widower; he talked to her: ‘Come the day after tomorrow at five o’clock,’ he said, ‘maybe I’ll tell you something.’ She came back cheered up: ‘See,’ she says, ‘maybe he’ll tell me something.’ Well, I was glad, too, only my heart somehow went cold in me: what’s going to happen, I think, but I don’t dare ask her. Two days later she came back from the merchant pale, all trembling, threw herself on the bed—I understood everything, but I don’t dare ask. What do you think: he gave her fifteen roubles, the robber, ‘and if I meet with full honor in you,’ he says, ‘I’ll add another forty roubles.’ That’s what he said right to her face, shamelessly. She rushed at him then, she told me, but he pushed her back and even locked himself away from her in another room. And meanwhile, I confess to you in all conscience, we have almost nothing to eat. We took and sold a jacket lined with rabbit fur, and she went to the newspaper and advertised: preparation in all subjects, and also arithmetic. ‘They’ll pay at least thirty kopecks,’ she says. And towards the very end, dear lady, I even began to be horrified at her: she says nothing to me, sits for hours on end at the window, looking at the roof of the house opposite, and suddenly shouts: ‘At least to do laundry, at least to dig the earth!’ She’d shout just some word like that and stamp her foot. And we have no acquaintances here, there’s nobody to go to: ‘What will become of us?’ I think. And I keep being afraid to talk to her. Once she slept in the afternoon, woke up, opened her eyes, looked at me; I sit on the chest, also looking at her; she got up silently, came over to me, embraced me very, very tightly, and then the two of us couldn’t help ourselves and wept, we sit and weep, without letting go of each other’s arms. It was the first time like that in her whole life. So we’re sitting like that with each other, and your Nastasya comes in and says, ‘There’s some lady asking to see you.’ This was just four days ago. The lady comes in. We see she’s very well dressed, speaks Russian, but with what seems like a German accent: ‘You advertised in the newspaper,’ she says, ‘that you give lessons?’ We were so glad then, asked her to sit down, she laughs so sweetly: ‘It’s not me,’ she says, ‘but my niece has small children; if you like, kindly come to see us, we’ll discuss things there.’ She gave the address, by the Voznesensky Bridge, number such-and-such, apartment number such-and-such. She left. Olechka set off, she went running that same day, and what then? She came back two hours later in hysterics, thrashing. Later she told me: ‘I asked the caretaker,’ she says, ‘where apartment number such-and-such was. The caretaker looked at me,’ she says. ‘ “And what,” he says, “do you want with that apartment?” He said it so strangely that I might have thought better of it.’ But she was imperious, impatient, she couldn’t stand these questions and rudeness. ‘Go,’ he says, jabbing his finger towards the stairs, turned and went back to his lodge. And what do you think? She goes in, asks, and women come running at once from all sides: ‘Come in, come in!’—all the women, laughing, painted, foul, piano-playing, rush to her and pull her. ‘I tried to get out of there,’ she says, ‘but they wouldn’t let me go.’ She got frightened, her legs gave way under her, they don’t let her go, and then it’s all sweet talk, coaxing her, they opened a bottle of port, give it to her, insist. She jumped up, shouting with all her might, trembling: ‘Let me go, let me go!’ She rushed to the door, they hold the door, she screams; then the one that had come to us ran up to her, slapped my Olya twice in the face, and shoved her out the door: ‘You’re not worthy, you slut,’ she says, ‘to be in a noble house!’ And another shouts after her on the stairs: ‘You came here yourself, since you’ve got nothing to eat, but we wouldn’t even look at such a mug!’ All that night she lay in a fever, raving, and the next morning her eyes flashed, she’d get up and pace: ‘To court,’ she says, ‘I’ll take her to court!’ I said nothing: well, I thought, what can you do about it in court, what can you prove? She paces, she wrings her hands, her tears pour down, her lips are pressed together, unmoving. And since that same time, her whole face turned dark till the very end. On the third day she felt better, she was silent, she seemed to have calmed down. It was then, at four o’clock in the afternoon, that Mr. Versilov paid us a visit.

“And I’ll say it outright: I still can’t understand how Olya, mistrustful as she was, could have begun to listen to him then almost from the first word. What attracted us both most of all then was that he had such a serious look, stern even, he speaks softly, thoroughly, and so politely—ever so politely, even respectfully, and yet there’s no self-seeking to be seen in him: you see straight off that the man has come with a pure heart. ‘I read your advertisement in the newspaper,’ he says. ‘You didn’t write it correctly, miss,’ he says, ‘and you may even do yourself harm by it.’ And he began to explain, I confess I didn’t understand, there was something about arithmetic, only I can see Olya blushed, and became as if animated, she listens, gets into conversation so willingly (he really must be an intelligent man!), I hear how she even thanks him. He asked her about everything so thoroughly, and you could see he’d lived a long time in Moscow, and, it turned out, knew the directress of her high school personally. ‘I’m sure I’ll find lessons for you,’ he says, ‘because I have many acquaintances here and can even appeal to many influential persons, so that if you want a permanent position, then that, too, can be kept in view . . . and meanwhile,’ he says, ‘forgive me one direct question to you: may I not be of use to you right now in some way? It will not be I who give you pleasure,’ he says, ‘but, on the contrary, you who give it to me, if you allow me to be of use to you in any way at all. Let it be your debt,’ he says, ‘and once you get a position, you can pay it back to me in the shortest time. And, believe me on my honor, if I ever fell into such poverty afterwards, while you were provided with everything—I’d come straight to you for a little help, I’d send my wife and daughter . . .’ That is, I don’t remember all his words, only at this point I shed a few tears, because I saw Olya’s lips quiver with gratitude. ‘If I accept,’ she answers him, ‘it’s because I trust an honorable and humane man who could be my father . . .’ She said it to him so beautifully, briefly and nobly: ‘a humane man,’ she says. He stood up at once: ‘I’ll find lessons and a post for you without fail, without fail,’ he says, ‘I’ll busy myself with it starting today, because you have quite enough qualifications for that . . .’ And I forgot to say that at the very beginning, when he came in, he looked over all her documents from high school, she showed them to him, and he examined her in various subjects . . . ‘He examined me in some subjects, mama,’ Olya says to me later, ‘and how intelligent he is,’ she says, ‘it’s not every day you get to talk with such a developed and educated man . . .’ And she’s just beaming all over. The money, sixty roubles, is lying on the table. ‘Put it away, mama,’ she says, ‘we’ll get a post and pay it back to him first thing, we’ll prove that we’re honest, and that we’re delicate he’s already seen.’ She fell silent then, I see, she’s breathing so deeply: ‘You know, mama,’ she suddenly says to me, ‘if we were coarse people, maybe we wouldn’t have accepted it out of pride, but now that we’ve accepted it, we’ve proved our delicacy to him, showing that we trust him in everything, as a respectable, gray-haired man, isn’t it true?’ At first I didn’t understand right and said, ‘Why not accept the benevolence of a noble and wealthy man, Olya, if on top of that he’s kindhearted?’ She frowned at me: ‘No, mama,’ she says, ‘it’s not that, we don’t need his benevolence, what’s precious is his “humaneness.” And as for the money, it would even be better not to take it, mama. Since he’s promised to find me a position, that would be enough . . . though we are in need.’ ‘Well, Olya,’ I say, ‘our need is such that we simply can’t refuse’—I even smiled. Well, in myself I’m glad, only an hour later she slipped this in for me: ‘You wait, mama,’ she says, ‘and don’t spend the money.’ She said it so resolutely. ‘What?’ I say. ‘Just don’t,’ she said, broke off, and fell silent. She was silent the whole evening; only past one o’clock at night I wake up and hear Olya tossing on her bed. ‘You’re not asleep, mama?’ ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m not.’ ‘Do you know,’ she says, ‘that he wanted to insult me?’ ‘How can you, how can you?’ I say. ‘It has to be so; he’s a mean man, don’t you dare spend one kopeck of his money.’ I tried to talk to her, I even cried a little right there in bed—she turned to the wall: ‘Be quiet,’ she says, ‘let me sleep!’ The next morning I watch her, she goes about not looking herself; and believe me or not, I’ll say it before God’s judgment seat: she wasn’t in her right mind then! Ever since they insulted her in that mean house, she got troubled in her heart . . . and in her mind. I look at her that morning and I have doubts about her; I feel frightened; I won’t contradict her, I thought, not in a single word. ‘Mama,’ she says, ‘he didn’t even leave his address.’ ‘Shame on you, Olya,’ I say, ‘you heard him yourself yesterday, you praised him yourself afterwards, you were about to weep grateful tears yourself.’ As soon as I said it, she shrieked, stamped her foot: ‘You’re a woman of mean feelings,’ she says, ‘you’re of the old upbringing on serfdom!’ . . . and despite all I said, she snatched her hat, ran out, and I shouted after her. ‘What’s the matter with her,’ I think, ‘where has she run to?’ And she ran to the address bureau, found out where Mr. Versilov lived, came back. ‘Today,’ she says, ‘right now, I’ll bring him the money and fling it in his face; he wanted to insult me,’ she says, ‘like Safronov’ (that’s our merchant); ‘only Safronov insulted me like a crude peasant, and this one like a cunning Jesuit.’ And here suddenly, as bad luck would have it, that gentleman from yesterday knocked: ‘I heard you speaking about Versilov, I can give you information.’ When she heard about Versilov, she fell on the man, totally beside herself, she talks and talks, I look at her, wondering: she’s so taciturn, she never speaks like that with anyone, and here it’s a complete stranger. Her cheeks are burning, her eyes flashing . . . And he up and says, ‘You’re perfectly right, miss,’ he says. ‘Versilov,’ he says, ‘is exactly like these generals here, that they describe in the newspapers; the general would deck himself out with all his medals and go calling on governesses who advertise in the newspapers, he’d go about and find what he wanted; and if he didn’t find what he wanted, he’d sit and talk and promise heaps of things, and go away—even so he provides himself with entertainment.’ Olya even burst out laughing, only so spitefully, and this gentleman, I see, takes her hand, puts it to his heart. ‘I, too, miss,’ he says, ‘have capital of my own, and I could always offer it to a beautiful girl, but it’s better,’ he says, ‘if I first kiss her sweet little hand . . .’ And I see him pulling her hand to kiss it. She just jumped up, but here I jumped up with her, and the two of us chased him out. Then, before evening, Olya snatched the money from me, ran out, comes back: ‘Mama,’ she says, ‘I took revenge on the dishonorable man!’ ‘Ah, Olya, Olya,’ I say, ‘maybe we’ve missed our chance, you’ve insulted a noble, benevolent man!’ I wept from vexation at her, I couldn’t help myself. She shouts at me: ‘I don’t want it,’ she shouts, ‘I don’t want it! Even if he’s the most honorable man, even then I don’t want his charity! If anybody pities me, even that I don’t want!’ I lay down, and there was nothing in my thoughts. How many times I had looked at that nail in your wall, left over from the mirror—it never occurred to me, never once occurred to me, not yesterday, not before, and I never thought of it, never dreamed of it at all, and never, ever expected it of Olya. I usually sleep soundly, I snore, it’s the blood flowing to my head, but sometimes it goes to my heart, I cry out in my sleep, so that Olya wakes me up in the night: ‘You sleep so soundly, mama,’ she says, ‘it’s even impossible to wake you up if I need to.’ ‘Oh, Olya,’ I say, ‘soundly, so soundly!’ So I must have started snoring last night, she waited a while, and then she was no longer afraid, and she got up. This long strap from the suitcase was there all the time, this whole month, I was still thinking about it yesterday morning: ‘Put it away, finally, so that it doesn’t lie about.’ And the chair she must have pushed away with her foot, and she spread her skirt beside it so that it wouldn’t make any noise. And I must have woken up long, long after, a whole hour or more. ‘Olya!’ I call, ‘Olya!’ I suspected something at once. I call her. It was either that I couldn’t hear her breathing in bed, or perhaps I made out in the darkness that her bed was empty—only I suddenly got up and felt with my hand: there was no one in the bed, and the pillow was cold. My heart just sank, I stand where I am as if senseless, my mind goes dim. ‘She went out,’ I thought—took a step, and I see her there by the bed, in the corner, near the door, as if she’s standing there herself. I stand, silent, look at her, and she also seems to be looking at me out of the darkness, without stirring . . . ‘Only why,’ I think, ‘did she get up on a chair?’ ‘Olya,’ I whisper, getting scared, ‘Olya, do you hear?’ Only suddenly it was as if it all dawned on me, I took a step, thrust both arms out, straight at her, put them around her, and she sways in my arms, I clutch her, and she sways, I understand everything, and I don’t want to understand . . . I want to cry out, but no cry comes . . . ‘Ah!’ I think. I dropped to the floor, and then I cried out . . .”

“Vasin,” I said in the morning, already past five o’clock, “if it hadn’t been for your Stebelkov, maybe this woudn’t have happened.”

“Who knows, it probably would. It’s impossible to judge like that here, it was all prepared for even without that . . . True, this Stebelkov sometimes . . .”

He didn’t finish and winced very unpleasantly. Before seven he went out again; he kept bustling about. I was finally left completely alone. Dawn had broken. My head was spinning slightly. I kept imagining Versilov; this lady’s story presented him in a totally different light. To think it over more comfortably, I lay down on Vasin’s bed, as I was, dressed and with my boots on, for a moment, with no intention of sleeping—and suddenly fell asleep. I don’t even remember how it happened. I slept for nearly four hours; nobody woke me up.

Chapter Ten

I

I WOKE UP at around half-past ten and for a long time could not believe my eyes: on the sofa where I had slept the night before sat my mother, and beside her—the unfortunate neighbor, the mother of the suicide. They were holding each other’s hands, speaking in whispers, probably so as not to wake me up, and both were weeping. I got out of bed and rushed straight to kiss mama. She beamed all over, kissed me, and crossed me three times with her right hand. We had no time to say a word: the door opened, and Versilov and Vasin came in. Mama stood up at once and took the neighbor with her. Vasin gave me his hand, but Versilov didn’t say a word to me and lowered himself into an armchair. He and mama had evidently been there for some time. His face was somber and preoccupied.

“I regret most of all,” he began saying measuredly to Vasin, obviously continuing a conversation already begun, “that I didn’t manage to settle it last evening, and—surely this dreadful thing wouldn’t have come about! And there was time enough: it wasn’t eight o’clock yet. As soon as she ran away from us last night, I at once resolved mentally to follow her here and reassure her, but this unforeseen and urgent matter, which, however, I could very well have put off until today . . . or even for a week—this vexatious matter hindered and ruined everything. That things should come together like that!”

“But maybe you wouldn’t have managed to reassure her; even without you, it seems a lot was seething and smoldering there,” Vasin remarked in passing.

“No, I’d have managed, I’d surely have managed. And the thought occurred to me of sending Sofya Andreevna in my place. It flashed, but only flashed. Sofya Andreevna alone would have won her over, and the unfortunate girl would have remained alive. No, never again will I meddle . . . with ‘good deeds’ . . . Just once in my life I tried meddling! And here I’m thinking that I haven’t lagged behind your generation and understand contemporary youth. Yes, our old folk grow old almost before they mature. Incidentally, there are actually an awful lot of people nowadays who, out of habit, still consider themselves the younger generation, because yesterday they still were, and they don’t notice that they’re already verbannte.” ³⁰

“A misunderstanding occurred here, all too clear a misunderstanding,” Vasin observed sensibly. “Her mother says that after the cruel insult in the public house, it was as if she lost her mind. Add to that the surroundings, the original insult from the merchant . . . all this could have happened in the same way in former times, and I don’t think it’s in any way especially characteristic of present-day youth.”

“They’re a bit impatient, these present-day youth, and besides, naturally, there’s little understanding of actualities, which, though it’s characteristic of any youth at any time, is somehow especially so of our youth . . . Tell me, and what mischief did Mr. Stebelkov do here?”

“Mr. Stebelkov,” I suddenly cut in, “is the cause of it all. If it hadn’t been for him, nothing would have happened; he poured oil on the fire.”

Versilov listened, but he didn’t look at me. Vasin frowned.

“I also reproach myself for one ridiculous circumstance,” Versilov went on unhurriedly and drawing the words out as before. “It seems that I, as is my nasty habit, allowed myself a certain sort of merriment then, this light-minded little laugh—in short, I was insufficiently sharp, dry, and gloomy, three qualities that seem to be of great value among the contemporary younger generation . . . In short, I gave her reasons to take me for a wandering Céladon.”⁵⁷ “Quite the contrary,” I again cut in abruptly, “her mother affirms in particular that you made an excellent impression precisely by your seriousness, sternness even, sincerity—her own words. The deceased girl praised you for it after you left.”

“D-did she?” Versilov mumbled, giving me a fleeting glance at last. “Take this scrap of paper, it’s necessary to the case”—he handed a tiny bit of paper to Vasin. The latter took it and, seeing that I was looking with curiosity, gave it to me to read. It was a note, two uneven lines scrawled with a pencil and maybe in the dark.

“Mama dear, forgive me for having stopped my life’s debut. Your distressing Olya.”

“It was found only in the morning,” Vasin explained.

“What a strange note!” I exclaimed in astonishment.

“Strange in what way?” asked Vasin.

“How can one write in humorous expressions at such a moment?”

Vasin looked at me questioningly.

“And the humor’s strange,” I went on, “the conventional high-school language among schoolmates . . . Well, at such a moment and in such a note to an unfortunate mother—and it turns out she did love her mother—who could write ‘stopped my life’s debut’!”

“Why can’t one write it?” Vasin still didn’t understand.

“There’s no humor here at all,” Versilov finally observed. “The expression is, of course, inappropriate, totally in the wrong tone, and indeed might have come from high-school talk or some sort of conventional language among schoolmates, as you said, or from some sort of feuilletons, but the deceased girl used it in this terrible note quite simpleheartedly and seriously.”

“That can’t be, she completed her studies and graduated with a silver medal.”

“A silver medal means nothing here. Nowadays there are many who complete their studies.”

“Down on the youth again,” Vasin smiled.

“Not in the least,” Versilov replied, getting up from his place and taking his hat. “If the present generation is not so literary, then it undoubtedly possesses . . . other virtues,” he added with extraordinary seriousness. “Besides, ‘many’ is not ‘all,’ and I don’t accuse you, for instance, of poor literary development, and you’re also still a young man.”

“Yes, and Vasin didn’t find anything wrong in ‘debut ’!” I couldn’t help observing.

Versilov silently gave Vasin his hand; the latter also seized his cap to go out with him, and shouted good-bye to me. Versilov left without noticing me. I also had no time to lose: I had at all costs to run and look for an apartment—now I needed it more than ever! Mama was no longer with the landlady, she had left and taken the neighbor with her. I went outside feeling somehow especially cheerful . . . Some new and big feeling was being born in my soul. Besides, as if on purpose, everything seemed to contribute: I ran into an opportunity remarkably quickly and found a quite suitable apartment; of this apartment later, but now I’ll finish about the main thing.

It was just getting past one o’clock when I went back to Vasin’s again for my suitcase and happened to find him at home again. Seeing me, he exclaimed with a merry and sincere air:

“How glad I am that you found me, I was just about to leave! I can tell you a fact that I believe will interest you very much.”

“I’m convinced beforehand!” I cried.

“Hah, how cheerful you look! Tell me, did you know anything about a certain letter that had been kept by Kraft and that Versilov got hold of yesterday, precisely something to do with the inheritance he won? In this letter the testator clarifies his will in a sense opposite to yesterday’s court decision. The letter was written long ago. In short, I don’t know precisely what exactly, but don’t you know something?”

“How could I not? Two days ago Kraft took me to his place just for that . . . from those gentlemen, in order to give me that letter, and yesterday I gave it to Versilov.”

“Did you? That’s what I thought. Then imagine, the business Versilov mentioned here today—which kept him from coming last evening and persuading that girl—this business came about precisely because of that letter. Last evening Versilov went straight to Prince Sokolsky’s lawyer, gave him the letter, and renounced the entire inheritance he had won. At the present moment this renunciation has already been put in legal form. Versilov isn’t giving it to them, but in this act he recognizes the full right of the princes.”

I was dumbstruck, but delighted. In reality I had been completely convinced that Versilov would destroy the letter. Moreover, though I did talk with Kraft about how it would not be noble, and though I had repeated it to myself in the tavern, and that “I had come to a pure man, not to this one”—still deeper within myself, that is, in my innermost soul, I considered that it was even impossible to act otherwise than to cross out the document completely. That is, I considered it a most ordinary matter. If I were to blame Versilov later, I’d do it only on purpose, for appearances, that is, to retain my superior position over him. But, hearing about Versilov’s great deed now, I was sincerely delighted, fully so, condemning with repentance and shame my cynicism and my indifference to virtue, and that instant, having exalted Versilov infinitely above me, I nearly embraced Vasin.

“What a man! What a man! Who else would have done that?” I exclaimed in ecstasy.

“I agree with you that a great many would not have done it . . . and that, indisputably, the act is highly disinterested . . .”

“‘But ’? . . . finish what you’re saying, Vasin, you have a ‘but’?”

“Yes, of course there’s a ‘but.’ Versilov’s act, in my opinion, is a little bit hasty and a little bit not so straightforward,” Vasin smiled.

“Not straightforward?”

“Yes. There’s something like a ‘pedestal’ here. Because in any case he could have done the same thing without hurting himself. If not half, then still, undoubtedly, a certain portion of the inheritance could go to Versilov now, too, even taking the most ticklish view of the matter, the more so as the document did not have decisive significance, and he had already won the case. That is the opinion held by the lawyer of the opposite side; I’ve just spoken with him. The act would remain no less handsome, but owing solely to a whim of pride it has happened otherwise. Above all, Mr. Versilov became overexcited and—needlessly over-hasty. He said himself today that he could have put it off for a whole week . . .”

“You know what, Vasin? I can’t help agreeing with you, but . . . I like it better this way! It pleases me better this way!”

“Anyhow, it’s a matter of taste. You challenged me yourself; I would have kept silent.”

“Even if there is a ‘pedestal’ here, that’s all the better,” I went on. “A pedestal’s a pedestal, but in itself it’s a very valuable thing. This ‘pedestal’ is the same old ‘ideal,’ and it’s hardly better that it’s missing from some present-day souls. Let it be, even with a slight deformity! And surely you think so yourself, Vasin, my dear heart Vasin, my darling Vasin! In short, I’ve talked my head off, of course, but you do understand me. That’s what makes you Vasin; and in any case I embrace you and kiss you, Vasin!”

“With joy?”

“With great joy! For this man ‘was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found!’⁵⁸ Vasin, I’m a trashy little brat and not worthy of you. I confess it precisely because there are some moments when I’m quite different, higher and deeper. Two days ago I praised you to your face (and praised you only because you had humiliated and crushed me), and for that I’ve hated you for two whole days! I promised myself that very night that I would never go to you, and I came to you yesterday morning only from spite, do you understand: from spite. I sat here on a chair alone and criticized your room, and you, and each of your books, and your landlady, trying to humiliate you and laugh at you . . .”

“You shouldn’t be saying this . . .”

“Yesterday evening, concluding from one of your phrases that you didn’t understand women, I was glad to have been able to catch you in that. Earlier today, catching you on the ‘debut,’ I was again terribly glad, and all because I myself had praised you the other time . . .”

“Why, how could it be otherwise!” Vasin finally cried (he still went on smiling, not surprised at me in the least). “No, that’s how it always happens, with almost everybody, and even first thing; only nobody admits it, and there’s no need to, because in any case it will pass and nothing will come of it.”

“Can it be the same with everybody? Everybody’s like that? And you say it calmly? No, it’s impossible to live with such views!”

“And in your opinion:

Dearer to me than a thousand truths

Is the falsehood that exalts?”⁵⁹

“But that’s right!” I cried. “Those two lines are a sacred axiom!”

“I don’t know; I wouldn’t venture to decide whether those two lines are right or not. It must be that the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between; that is, in one case it’s a sacred truth, in another it’s a lie. I only know one thing for certain: that this thought will remain for a long time one of the chief points of dispute among people. In any case, I notice that you now want to dance. So, dance then: exercise is good for you, and I’ve had an awful lot of work piled on me all at once this morning . . . and I’m late because of you!”

“I’m going, I’m going, I’m off! Only one word,” I cried, seizing my suitcase. “If I just ‘threw myself on your neck’ again, it’s solely because when I came in, you told me about this fact with such genuine pleasure and ‘were glad’ that I came in time to find you here, and that after yesterday’s ‘debut’; by that genuine pleasure you all at once turned my ‘young heart’ in your favor again. Well, good-bye, good-bye, I’ll try to stay away for as long as possible, and I know that will be extremely agreeable to you, as I see even by your eyes, and it will even be profitable for both of us . . .”

Babbling like this and nearly spluttering from my joyful babble, I dragged my suitcase out and went with it to my apartment. I was, above all, terribly pleased that Versilov had been so unquestionably angry with me earlier, had not wanted to speak or look. Having transported my suitcase, I immediately flew to my old prince. I confess, it had even been somewhat hard for me those two days without him. And he had surely already heard about Versilov.

II

I JUST KNEW he’d be terribly glad to see me, and I swear I’d have called on him today even without Versilov. I was only frightened, yesterday and today, at the thought that I might somehow meet Katerina Nikolaevna; but now I no longer feared anything.

He embraced me joyfully.

“And Versilov? Have you heard?” I began straight off with the main thing.

“Cher enfant, my dear friend, it’s so sublime, it’s so noble—in short, even Kilyan” (that clerk downstairs) “was tremendously impressed! It’s not sensible on his part, but it’s brilliant, it’s a great deed! We must value the ideal!”

“Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true? You and I always agreed about that.”

“My dear, you and I have always agreed. Where have you been? I absolutely wanted to go to you myself, but I didn’t know where to find you . . . Because all the same I couldn’t go to Versilov . . . Though now, after all this . . . You know, my friend, it was with this, it seems, that he used to win women over, with these features, there’s no doubt of it . . .”

“By the way, before I forget, I’ve saved this precisely for you. Yesterday one most unworthy buffoon, denouncing Versilov to my face, said of him that he’s a ‘women’s prophet’; what an expression, eh? the expression itself? I saved it for you . . .”

“A ‘women’s prophet’! Mais . . . c’est charmant! ³¹ Ha, ha! But it suits him so well, that is, it doesn’t suit him at all—pah! . . . But it’s so apt . . . that is, it’s not apt at all, but . . .”

“Never mind, never mind, don’t be embarrassed, look at it just as a bon mot!”

“A splendid bon mot, and, you know, it has a most profound meaning . . . a perfectly right idea! That is, would you believe . . . In short, I’ll tell you a tiny secret. Did you notice that Olympiada? Would you believe it, her heart aches a little for Andrei Petrovich, and to the point that she even seems to be nurturing some . . .”

“Nurturing! How would she like this?” I cried out, making a fig⁶⁰ in my indignation.

“Mon cher, don’t shout, it’s just so, and perhaps you’re right from your point of view. By the way, my friend, what was it that happened to you last time in front of Katerina Nikolaevna? You were reeling . . . I thought you were going to fall down and was about to rush to support you.”

“Of that some other time. Well, in short, I simply got embarrassed for a certain reason . . .”

“You’re blushing even now.”

“Well, and you have to go smearing it around at once. You know there’s hostility between her and Versilov . . . well, and all that, well, and so I got excited: eh, let’s drop it, another time!”

“Let’s drop it, let’s drop it, I’m glad to drop it myself . . . In short, I’m extremely guilty before her, and, remember, I even murmured in front of you then . . . Forget it, my friend; she’ll also change her opinion of you, I have a real presentiment . . . But here’s Prince Seryozha!”

A young and handsome officer came in. I looked at him greedily, I had never seen him before. That is, I say handsome, just as everybody said it of him, yet there was something in that young and handsome face that was not entirely attractive. I precisely note this as the impression of the very first moment, of my first glance at him, which remained in me ever after. He was lean, of a fine height, dark blond, with a fresh face, though slightly yellowish, and with a resolute gaze. His fine dark eyes had a somewhat stern look, even when he was quite calm. But his resolute gaze precisely repelled one, because one felt for some reason that this resoluteness cost him all too little. However, I don’t know how to put it . . . Of course, his face was able to turn suddenly from a stern to a surprisingly gentle, meek, and tender expression, the transformation being, above all, unquestionably simplehearted. And this simpleheartedness was attractive. I’ll note another feature: despite the gentleness and simpleheartedness, this face never showed mirth; even when the prince laughed with all his heart, you still felt as if there was never any genuine, bright, easy mirth in his heart . . . However, it’s extremely hard to describe a face like his. I’m quite incapable of it. The old prince straightaway rushed to introduce us, as was his stupid habit.

“This is my young friend, Arkady Andreevich Dolgoruky” (again that “Andreevich”!).

The young prince turned to me at once with a doubly polite expression on his face, but it was clear that my name was totally unknown to him.

“He’s . . . a relation of Andrei Petrovich,” my vexatious prince murmured. (How vexatious these little old men sometimes are with their habits!) The young prince caught on at once.

“Ah! I heard so long ago . . .” he said quickly. “I had the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of your sister, Lizaveta Makarovna, last year in Luga . . . She also spoke to me about you . . .”

I was even surprised: a decidedly sincere pleasure shone in his face.

“Excuse me, Prince,” I babbled, putting both hands behind my back, “I must tell you sincerely—and I’m glad to be speaking before our dear prince—that I even wished to meet you, and wished it still recently, only yesterday, but with an entirely different intent. I say it directly, however surprised you may be. In short, I wanted to challenge you for insulting Versilov a year and a half ago in Ems. And though you, of course, might not accept my challenge, because I’m only a high-school boy and an underage adolescent, nevertheless, I would make the challenge anyway, however you might take it and whatever you might do . . . and, I confess, I’m still of the same intent.”

The old prince told me afterwards that I had managed to say it extremely nobly.

Sincere grief showed in the prince’s face.

“Only you didn’t let me finish,” he replied imposingly. “If I turned to you with words that came from the bottom of my heart, the reason was precisely my present genuine feelings for Andrei Petrovich. I’m sorry that I cannot tell you all the circumstances right now, but I assure you on my honor that for a long, long time I have looked upon my unfortunate act in Ems with the deepest regret. As I was preparing to come to Petersburg, I decided to give Andrei Petrovich all possible satisfaction, that is, directly, literally, to ask his forgiveness, in whatever form he indicated. The loftiest and most powerful influences were the cause of the change in my view. The fact that we had a lawsuit would not have influenced my decision in the least. His action towards me yesterday shook my soul, so to speak, and even at this moment, believe me, it’s as if I still haven’t come back to myself. And now I must tell you—I precisely came to the prince in order to tell him about an extraordinary circumstance: three hours ago, that is, exactly at the time when he and his lawyer were putting together this act, a representative of Andrei Petrovich’s came to bring me a challenge from him . . . a formal challenge on account of the incident in Ems . . .”

“He challenged you?” I cried, and felt my eyes begin to glow and the blood rush to my face.

“Yes, he did. I accepted the challenge at once, but I decided that before our encounter I would send him a letter in which I would explain my view of my act, and all my regret for this terrible mistake . . . because it was only a mistake—an unfortunate, fatal mistake! I’ll note that my position in the regiment made this risky; for such a letter before an encounter, I’d be subjecting myself to public opinion . . . you understand? But in spite even of that, I resolved on it, only I had no time to send the letter, because an hour after the challenge, I again received a note from him in which he asked me to forgive him for having troubled me and to forget the challenge, adding that he regretted this ‘momentary impulse of pusillanimity and egoism’—his own words. So he has now made the step with the letter quite easy for me. I haven’t sent it yet, but I precisely came to tell the prince a word or two about it . . . And believe me, I myself have suffered from the reproaches of my conscience far more, maybe, than anybody else . . . Is this explanation sufficient for you, Arkady Makarovich, at least now, for the time being? Will you do me the honor of believing fully in my sincerity?”

I was completely won over. I saw an unquestionable straightforwardness, which for me was highly unexpected. Nor had I expected anything like it. I murmured something in reply and held out both hands to him; he joyfully shook them in his. Then he took the prince away and talked with him for about five minutes in his bedroom.

“If you want to give me particular pleasure,” he addressed me loudly and openly, as he was leaving the prince, “come with me now, and I’ll show you the letter I’m about to send to Andrei Petrovich, along with his letter to me.”

I agreed with extreme willingness. My prince began bustling about as he saw me off, and also called me to his bedroom for a moment.

“Mon ami, how glad I am, how glad . . . We’ll talk about it all later. By the way, I have two letters here in my portfolio: one needs to be delivered and explained personally, the other is to the bank—and there, too . . .”

And here he charged me with two supposedly urgent errands, which supposedly called for extraordinary effort and attention. I had to go and actually deliver them, sign, and so on.

“Ah, you sly fox!” I cried, taking the letters. “I swear it’s all nonsense, and there’s nothing to it, but you invented these two errands to convince me that I’m working and not taking money for nothing!”

“Mon enfant, I swear to you, you’re mistaken about that: these are two most urgent matters . . . Cher enfant! ” he cried suddenly, waxing terribly emotional, “my dear youth!” (He placed both hands on my head.) “I bless you and your destiny . . . let us always be pure in heart, like today . . . kind and beautiful, as far as possible . . . let us love all that’s beautiful . . . in all its various forms . . . Well, enfin . . . enfin rendons grâce . . . et je te bénis!” ³²

He didn’t finish and began whimpering over my head. I confess, I almost wept, too; at least I embraced my old eccentric sincerely and with pleasure. We kissed warmly.

III

PRINCE SERYOZHA (that is, Prince Sergei Petrovich, and so I shall call him) brought me to his apartment in a jaunty droshky, and, first thing, I was surprised at the magnificence of his apartment. That is, not really magnificence, but this was an apartment such as the most “respectable people” have, with high, big, bright rooms (I saw two, the others were shut up), and the furniture once again was not God knows what Versailles or Renaissance, but soft, comfortable, abundant, in grand style; rugs, carved wood, figurines. Yet everyone said they were destitute, that they had precisely nothing. I had heard in passing, though, that this prince raised dust wherever he could, here, and in Moscow, and in his former regiment, and in Paris, that he even gambled and had debts. The frock coat I had on was wrinkled and moreover covered with down, because I had slept without undressing, and my shirt was going on its fourth day. However, my frock coat was still not totally bad, but, finding myself at the prince’s, I remembered Versilov’s offer to have clothes made for me.

“Imagine, on the occasion of a certain suicide, I slept in my clothes all night,” I remarked with an absentminded air, and since he paid attention at once, I briefly told him about it. But he was obviously occupied most of all with his letter. Above all, I found it strange that he not only had not smiled, but had not shown the smallest reaction in that sense, when I had told him directly earlier that I wanted to challenge him to a duel. Though I should have been able to prevent him from laughing, still it was strange from a man of his sort. We sat down facing each other in the middle of the room, at his enormous writing table, and he gave me an already finished fair copy of his letter to Versilov to read through. This document was very much like all he had told me earlier at my prince’s; it was even ardently written. True, I didn’t know yet how I should finally take this apparent straightforwardness and readiness for everything good, but I was already beginning to yield to it, because, in fact, why shouldn’t I have believed it? Whatever sort of man he was and whatever people told about him, he still could have good inclinations. I also looked through the last little seven-line note from Versilov—renouncing his challenge. Though he actually wrote about his “pusillanimity” and “egoism” in it, the note as a whole was as if distinguished by a certain arrogance . . . or, better, this whole action showed a sort of disdain. However, I didn’t say so out loud.

“You, though, how do you look at this renunciation?” I asked. “You don’t think he turned coward?”

“Of course not,” the prince smiled, but with a somehow very serious smile, and generally he was becoming more and more preoccupied. “I know all too well that he’s a courageous man. Here, of course, there’s a special view . . . his own disposition of ideas . . .”

“Undoubtedly,” I interrupted warmly. “A certain Vasin says that his action with this letter and the renouncing of the inheritance are a ‘pedestal’ . . . In my opinion, such things aren’t done for show, but correspond to something basic, inner.”

“I know Mr. Vasin very well,” remarked the prince.

“Ah, yes, you must have seen him in Luga.”

We suddenly looked at each other and, I remember, it seems I blushed a little. In any case he broke off the conversation. I, however, wanted very much to talk. The thought of one meeting yesterday tempted me to ask him some questions, only I didn’t know how to approach it. And in general I was somehow quite out of sorts. I was also struck by his astonishing courtesy, politeness, ease of manner—in short, all that polish of their tone, which they assume almost from the cradle. In his letter I found two gross errors in grammar. And generally, in such encounters, I never belittle myself, but become more curt, which sometimes may be bad. But in the present case it was especially aggravated by the thought that I was covered with down, so that several times I even blundered into familiarity . . . I noticed on the sly that the prince occasionally studied me very intently.

“Tell me, Prince,” I suddenly popped out with a question, “don’t you find it ridiculous within yourself that I, who am still such a ‘milksop,’ wanted to challenge you to a duel, and for somebody else’s offense at that?”

“One can be very offended by an offense to one’s father. No, I don’t find it ridiculous.”

“And to me it seems terribly ridiculous . . . in someone else’s eyes . . . that is, of course, not in my own. The more so as I’m Dolgoruky and not Versilov. And if you’re not telling me the truth or are softening it somehow from the decency of social polish, then does it mean you’re also deceiving me in everything else?”

“No, I don’t find it ridiculous,” he replied terribly seriously. “How can you not feel your father’s blood in you? . . . True, you’re still young, because . . . I don’t know . . . it seems someone who is not of age cannot fight a duel, and his challenge cannot be accepted . . . according to the rules . . . But, if you like, there can be only one serious objection here: if you make a challenge without the knowledge of the offended person, for whose offense you are making the challenge, you are thereby expressing, as it were, a certain lack of respect for him on your own part, isn’t that true?”

Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a footman, who came to announce something. Seeing him, the prince, who seemed to have been expecting him, stood up without finishing what he was saying and quickly went over to him, so that the footman made his announcement in a low voice, and I, of course, didn’t hear what it was.

“Excuse me,” the prince turned to me, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

And he went out. I was left alone; I paced the room and thought. Strangely, I both liked him and terribly disliked him. There was something in him that I could not name myself, but something repellent. “If he’s not laughing at me a bit, then without doubt he’s terribly straightforward, but if he was laughing at me . . . then maybe he’d seem more intelligent . . .” I thought somehow strangely. I went over to the table and read Versilov’s letter once more. I was so absorbed that I even forgot about the time, and when I came to my senses, I suddenly noticed that the prince’s little minute had indisputably lasted a whole quarter of an hour already. That began to trouble me a little; I paced up and down once more, finally took my hat and, I remember, decided to step out so as to meet someone, to send for the prince, and, when he came, to take leave of him at once, assuring him that I had things to do and could not wait any longer. It seemed to me that this would be most proper, because I was slightly pained by the thought that, in leaving me for so long, he was treating me negligently.

The two closed doors to this room were at two ends of the same wall. Having forgotten which door we came in by, or, rather, out of absentmindedness, I opened one of them and suddenly saw, sitting on a sofa in a long and narrow room—my sister Liza. There was no one there except her, and she was, of course, waiting for someone. But before I had time even to be surprised, I suddenly heard the voice of the prince, talking loudly to someone and going back to his study. I quickly closed the door, and the prince, coming in through the other door, noticed nothing. I remember he started apologizing and said something about some Anna Fyodorovna . . . But I was so confused and astounded that I made out almost none of it, and only muttered that I had to go home, and then insistently and quickly left. The well-bred prince, of course, must have looked at my manners with curiosity. He saw me off to the front hall and kept talking, but I did not reply and did not look at him.

IV

GOING OUTSIDE, I turned left and started walking at random. Nothing added up in my head. I walked slowly and, it seems, had gone quite far, some five hundred steps, when I suddenly felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw Liza: she had caught up with me and tapped me lightly with her umbrella. There was something terribly gay and a bit sly in her shining eyes.

“Well, how glad I am that you went this way, otherwise I wouldn’t have met you today!” She was slightly breathless from walking quickly.

“How breathless you are.”

“I ran terribly to catch up with you.”

“Liza, was it you I just met?”

“Where?”

“At the prince’s . . . Prince Sokolsky’s . . .”

“No, not me, you didn’t meet me . . .”

I said nothing, and we walked on some ten paces. Liza burst into loud laughter:

“Me, me, of course it was me! Listen, you saw me yourself, you looked into my eyes, and I looked into your eyes, so how can you ask whether you met me? Well, what a character! And you know, I wanted terribly to laugh when you stared into my eyes there, it was terribly funny the way you stared.”

She laughed terribly. I felt all the anguish leave my heart at once.

“But, tell me, how did you wind up there?”

“I was at Anna Fyodorovna’s.”

“What Anna Fyodorovna?”

“Stolbeev. When we lived in Luga, I sat with her for whole days; she received mama at her place and even called on us. And she called on almost nobody there. She’s a distant relation of Andrei Petrovich’s and a relation of the Princes Sokolsky; she’s some sort of grandmother to the prince.”

“So she lives with the prince?”

“No, the prince lives with her.”

“So whose apartment is it?”

“It’s her apartment, the apartment has been all hers for a whole year now. The prince has just arrived and is staying with her. And she herself has only been four days in Petersburg.”

“ Well . . . you know what, Liza, God be with the apartment, and the woman herself . . .”

“No, she’s wonderful . . .”

“Let her be, and in spades. We’re wonderful ourselves! Look, what a day, look, how good! How beautiful you are today, Liza. However, you’re a terrible child.”

“Arkady, tell me, that girl, the one yesterday.”

“Ah, what a pity, Liza, what a pity!”

“Ah, what a pity! What a fate! You know, it’s even sinful that you and I go along so merrily, and her soul is now flying somewhere in the darkness, in some bottomless darkness, sinner that she is, and offended . . . Arkady, who’s to blame for her sin? Ah, how frightful it is! Do you ever think about that darkness? Ah, how afraid I am of death, and how sinful that is! I don’t like the dark, I much prefer this sun! Mama says it’s sinful to be afraid . . . Arkady, do you know mama well?”

“Little so far, Liza, I know her very little.”

“Ah, what a being she is; you must, must get to know her! She has to be understood in a special way . . .”

“But see, I didn’t know you either, and now I know the whole of you. I came to know the whole of you in one minute. Though you’re afraid of death, Liza, it must be that you’re proud, bold, courageous. Better than I, much better than I! I love you terribly, Liza! Ah, Liza! Let death come when it must, and meanwhile—live, live! We’ll pity that unfortunate girl, but even so we’ll bless life, right? Right? I have an ‘idea,’ Liza. Liza, do you know that Versilov renounced the inheritance?”

“How could I not know! Mama and I already kissed each other.”

“You don’t know my soul, Liza, you don’t know what this man has meant for me . . .”

“Well, how could I not know, I know everything.”

“You know everything? Well, what else! You’re intelligent; you’re more intelligent than Vasin. You and mama—you have penetrating, humane eyes, that is, looks, not eyes, I’m wrong . . . I’m bad in many ways, Liza.”

“You need to be taken in hand, that’s all.”

“Take me, Liza. How nice it is to look at you today. Do you know that you’re very pretty? I’ve never seen your eyes before . . . Only now I’ve seen them for the first time . . . Where did you get them today, Liza? Where did you buy them? How much did you pay? Liza, I’ve never had a friend, and I look upon the idea as nonsense; but with you it’s not nonsense . . . If you want, let’s be friends! You understand what I want to say? . . .”

“I understand very well.”

“And you know, without any conditions, any contract—we’ll simply be friends!”

“Yes, simply, simply, only with one condition: if we ever accuse each other, if we’re displeased with something, if we ourselves become wicked, bad, if we even forget all this—let’s never forget this day and this very hour! Let’s promise ourselves. Let’s promise that we will always remember this day, when we walked hand in hand, and laughed so, and were so merry . . . Yes? Yes?”

“Yes, Liza, yes, and I swear it; but, Liza, it’s as if I’m hearing you for the first time . . . Liza, have you read a lot?”

“He never asked till now! Only yesterday, when I made a slip in speaking, he deigned to pay attention for the first time, my dear sir, Mister Wise Man.”

“But why didn’t you start talking to me yourself, since I was such a fool?”

“I kept waiting for you to become smarter. I saw through you from the very beginning, Arkady Makarovich, and once I saw through you, I began to think like this: ‘He’ll come, he’ll surely end up by coming’—well, and I supposed it was better to leave that honor to you, so that it was you who made the first step: ‘No,’ I thought, ‘now you run after me a little!’”

“Ah, you little coquette! Well, Liza, confess outright: have you been laughing at me all this month or not?”

“Oh, you’re very funny, you’re terribly funny, Arkady! And you know, it may be that I loved you most of all this month because you’re such an odd duck. But in many ways you’re also a silly duck—that’s so you don’t get too proud. Do you know who else laughed at you? Mama laughed at you, mama and I together: ‘What an odd duck,’ we’d whisper, ‘really, what an odd duck!’ And you sat there and thought all the while that we’re sitting there and trembling before you.”

“Liza, what do you think of Versilov?”

“I think a great many things about him; but you know, we’re not going to talk about him now. There’s no need to talk about him today, right?”

“Perfectly right! No, you’re terribly intelligent, Liza! You’re certainly more intelligent than I am. You just wait, Liza, I’ll finish with all this, and then maybe I’ll tell you something . . .”

“Why are you frowning?”

“I’m not frowning, Liza, I’m just . . . You see, Liza, it’s better to be direct: I have this feature, I don’t like it when someone puts a finger on certain ticklish things in my soul . . . or, better to say, if you keep letting out certain feelings for everybody to admire, it’s shameful, isn’t it? And so I sometimes prefer to frown and say nothing. You’re intelligent, you must understand.”

“Not only that, I’m the same way myself; I understand you in everything. Do you know that mama is the same way, too?”

“Ah, Liza! If only we could live longer in this world! Eh? What did you say?”

“No, I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re just looking?”

“Yes, and you’re looking, too. I look at you and love you.”

I took her almost all the way home and gave her my address. Saying good-bye, I kissed her for the first time in my life . . .

V

AND ALL THAT would have been fine, but there was one thing that wasn’t fine: one oppressive idea had been throbbing in me since nightfall and would not leave my mind. This was that when I had met that unfortunate girl by the gate last evening, I had told her that I myself was leaving my home, my nest, that one could leave wicked people and start one’s own nest, and that Versilov had many illegitimate children. These words about a father from a son had most certainly confirmed in her all her suspicions about Versilov and about his having insulted her. I had accused Stebelkov, but maybe it was I myself, above all, who had poured oil on the fire. This thought was terrible, it’s terrible even now . . . But then, that morning, though I was already beginning to suffer, it had still seemed nonsense to me: “Eh, even without me, a lot was ‘seething and smoldering’ there,” I repeated at times. “Eh, never mind, it’ll pass! I’ll come right! I’ll make up for it . . . by some good deed . . . I’ve still got fifty years ahead of me!”

But the idea still throbbed.

PART TWO

Chapter One

I

I FLY OVER a space of nearly two months; let the reader not worry: everything will be clear from the further account. I sharply mark off the day of the fifteenth of November—a day all too memorable to me for many reasons. And first of all, nobody would have recognized me who had seen me two months earlier, at least externally; that is, they’d have recognized me, but wouldn’t have known what to make of it. I’m dressed like a fop—that’s the first thing. That “conscientious Frenchman and with taste,” whom Versilov once wanted to recommend me to, had not only already made all my clothes, but had already been rejected by me: other tailors stitch for me, higher class, the foremost, and I even have an account with them. I also have an account in a certain famous restaurant, but here I’m still afraid, and the moment I have money I pay it at once, though I know it’s mauvais ton³³ and that I compromise myself by it. A French barber on Nevsky Prospect is on familiar terms with me, and when he does my hair, he tells me anecdotes. I confess, I practice my French with him. Though I know the language, and even quite decently, I’m still somehow afraid to start speaking it in grand society; besides, my pronunciation must be far from Parisian. I have Matvei, a coachman with a trotter, and he appears to serve me when I send for him. He has a light bay stallion (I don’t like grays). There are, however, also some irregularities: it’s the fifteenth of November, and the third day since winter settled in, but my fur coat is old, a raccoon from Versilov’s shoulders, worth twenty-five roubles if I were to sell it. I must buy a new one, but my pockets are empty, and besides, I must provide myself with money for this evening, and that at all costs—otherwise I’m “wretched and forlorn,” those were my own utterances at the time. Oh, meanness! What then, where have they suddenly come from, these thousands, these trotters, and les Borel?¹ How could I so suddenly forget everything and change so much? Disgrace! Reader, I am now beginning the history of my shame and disgrace, and nothing in life can be more shameful for me than these memories!

I speak thus as a judge, and I know that I’m guilty. In that whirl in which I then spun, though I was alone, without guide or counselor, I swear, I was already aware of my fall, and therefore had no excuse. And yet all those two months I was almost happy—why almost? I was only too happy! And even to the point that the consciousness of disgrace, flashing at moments (frequent moments!), which made my soul shudder—that very awareness—will anyone believe me?—intoxicated me still more: “And so what, if I fall, I fall; but I won’t fall, I’ll get out! I have my star!” I was walking on a slender bridge made of splinters, without railings, over an abyss, and it was fun for me to walk like that; I even peeked into the abyss. It was risky, and it was fun. And the “idea”? “The idea” later, the idea was waiting; all that was going on—“was only a deviation to the side”: “why not amuse myself ?” The bad thing about “my idea,” I’ll repeat it once more, is that it allows for decidedly all deviations; had it not been so firm and radical, I might have been afraid to deviate.

And meanwhile I still continued to occupy my wretched little apartment, to occupy it, but not to live in it: there lay my suitcase, bag, and some things; my main residence was at Prince Sergei Sokolsky’s. I sat there, slept there, and did so for whole weeks even . . . How it happened, I shall tell presently, but meanwhile I’ll tell about this wretched little apartment. It was already dear to me: here Versilov came to see me, of himself, for the first time after that quarrel, and later came many times. I repeat, this was a time of terrible disgrace, but also of enormous happiness . . . And everything turned out so well then, everything smiled at me! “And why all that former gloom?” I thought in some rapturous moments. “Why all those old, morbid strains, my lonely and sullen childhood, my stupid dreams under the blanket, vows, calculations, and even the ‘idea’? I had imagined and invented all that, and it turned out that the world wasn’t like that at all; here I am feeling so joyful and light: I have a father—Versilov; I have a friend—Prince Seryozha; I also have . . .” But let’s drop that “also.” Alas, it was all done in the name of love, magnanimity, honor, and later it turned out ugly, impudent, dishonorable.

Enough.

II

HE CAME TO see me for the first time on the third day after our breakup then. I wasn’t at home, and he stayed to wait. When I came into my tiny closet, even though I had been waiting for him all those three days, my eyes clouded over, as it were, and my heart gave such a throb that I even stopped in the doorway. Fortunately, he was sitting with my landlord, who found it necessary, so that the visitor would not be bored waiting, to become acquainted at once and begin telling him heatedly about something. He was a titular councillor,² about forty years old, very pockmarked, very poor, burdened with a consumptive wife and a sick child; of an extremely gregarious and placid character, though also rather tactful. I was glad of his presence, and he even helped me out, because what would I have said to Versilov? I knew, seriously knew, all those three days, that Versilov would come on his own, first—exactly as I wanted, because I would not have gone to him first for anything in the world, and not out of contrariness, but precisely out of love for him, out of some sort of jealous love—I don’t know how to express it. And generally the reader won’t find any eloquence in me. But though I had been waiting for him all those three days, and had imagined to myself almost continuously how he would come in, still I had been quite unable to picture beforehand, though I tried as hard as I could to picture it, what he and I would suddenly start talking about after all that had happened.

“Ah, here you are.” He held out his hand to me amicably, without getting up from his seat. “Sit down with us. Pyotr Ippolitovich tells the most interesting story about this stone, near the Pavlovsky barracks . . . or somewhere there . . .”

“Yes, I know that stone,” I answered quickly, lowering myself into a chair beside them. They were sitting at the table. The whole room was precisely two hundred square feet. I took a deep breath.

A spark of pleasure flashed in Versilov’s eyes: it seemed he had doubts and thought I might want to make gestures. He calmed down.

“Start again from the beginning, Pyotr Ippolitovich.” They were already addressing each other by first name and patronymic.

“So, this happened under the late sovereign,³ sir,” Pyotr Ippolitovich addressed me, nervously and somewhat painfully, as if suffering ahead of time over the success of the effect. “You know that stone—a stupid stone in the street, why, what for, it’s in everybody’s way, right, sir? The sovereign drove by many times, and each time there was this stone. In the end, the sovereign didn’t like it, and indeed, a whole mountain, a mountain is standing in the street, ruining the street: ‘The stone must not be!’ Well, he said it must not be—you understand what ‘it must not be’ means? Remember the late tsar? What to do with the stone? Everybody’s at their wit’s end, including the Duma,⁴ and mainly, I don’t remember who precisely, but it was one of the foremost courtiers of the time who was charged with it. So this courtier listens: they say it would cost fifteen thousand, not less, in silver, sir (because paper banknotes had just been converted to silver under the late sovereign). ‘How come fifteen thousand, that’s wild!’ First the Englishmen wanted to bring rails up to it, put it on rails, and take it away by steam; but what would that have cost? There were no railroads yet then, except for the one to Tsarskoe Selo⁵ . . .”

“Well, look, they could have sawed it in pieces.” I was beginning to frown; I was terribly vexed and ashamed in front of Versilov, but he listened with visible pleasure. I understood that he, too, was glad of the landlord, because he also felt abashed with me, I could see it; for me, I remember, that even seemed touching in him.

“Precisely saw it in pieces, sir, they precisely hit upon that idea, and it was precisely Montferrand; he was then building St. Isaac’s Cathedral.⁶ Saw it up, he says, and then take it away. Yes, sir, but what will that cost?”

“It won’t cost anything. Simply saw it up and take it away.”

“No, pardon me, but here you’d have to set up a machine, a steam engine, and then again, take it away where? And then again, such a mountain? Ten thousand, they say, you won’t get away with less, ten or twelve thousand.”

“Listen, Pyotr Ippolitovich, that’s nonsense, it wasn’t like that . . .” But just then Versilov winked at me inconspicuously, and in that wink I saw such delicate compassion for the landlord, even commiseration with him, that I liked it terribly much, and I burst out laughing.

“Well, so, so,” rejoiced the landlord, who hadn’t noticed anything and was terribly afraid, as such storytellers always are, that he would be thrown off by questions, “only just then some tradesman comes up to them, still a young man, well, you know, a Russian, wedge-shaped beard, in a long-skirted kaftan, and on the verge of being a little drunk . . . though, no, not drunk, sir. So this tradesman stands there while they’re talking about it, the Englishmen and Montferrand, and this person who’s in charge also drives up in a carriage, listens, and gets angry: how is it they keep deciding and can’t decide? And suddenly he notices this little tradesman standing some distance away and smiling sort of falsely, that is, not falsely, I got it wrong, but how should I say . . .”

“Mockingly,” Versilov put in cautiously.

“Mockingly, sir, that is, slightly mockingly, with this kindly Russian smile, you know; well, the person, of course, takes it with vexation, you know: ‘You in the beard, what are you waiting here for? Who are you?’

“‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I’m just looking at this little stone, Your Highness.’ Precisely, I believe, ‘Your Highness’—it was all but Prince Suvorov of Italy, a descendant of the generalissimo⁷ . . . Though, no, not Suvorov, and it’s a pity I’ve forgotten precisely who, only you know, though he’s a highness, he’s such a pure Russian man, this Russian type, a patriot, a developed Russian heart, so he guessed it: ‘What are you going to do,’ he says, ‘take the stone away? What are you grinning at?’ ‘More at the Englishmen, Your Highness, the price they’re asking is way out of proportion, sir, because the Russian purse is fat, and they’ve got nothing to eat at home. Allot me a hundred little roubles, Your Highness, and by tomorrow night we’ll remove this little stone.’ Well, can you imagine such an offer? The Englishmen, of course, want to eat him up; Montferrand laughs; only this highness prince, he’s a Russian heart: ‘Give him a hundred roubles!’ he says. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you’ll really take it away?’ ‘By tomorrow night it’ll be to your satisfaction, Your Highness.’ ‘And how will you do it?’ ‘That—no offense to Your Highness—is our secret, sir,’ he says, and you know, in such Russian language. This was liked: ‘Eh, give him everything he asks for!’ Well, so they left him there; and what do you think he did?”

The landlord paused and began looking at us with a sweet gaze.

“I don’t know,” Versilov smiled. I was frowning deeply.

“Here’s what he did, sir,” the landlord said with such triumph as if he had done it himself. “He hired some peasants with spades, simple Russian ones, and started digging a hole right by the stone, at the very edge; they dug all night, made an enormous hole, exactly the size of the stone, only a couple of inches deeper, and when they were done, he told them to gradually and carefully dig the ground from under the stone. Well, naturally, when they dug away under it, the stone had no support, and the balance got tipsy; and once the balance got tipsy, they pushed the stone from the other side with their hands, with a hurrah, Russian-style: the stone plopped right into the hole! They straight away shoveled the dirt back over it, tamped it down with a tamper, paved it over—smooth, the stone vanished!”

“Fancy that!” said Versilov.

“I mean, people, people come running, untold numbers of them; those Englishmen, who had guessed long ago, stand there angry. Montferrand arrives: This is a peasant job, he says, it’s too simple, he says. But that’s the whole trick, that it’s simple, and it didn’t occur to you fools! And I’ll tell you, that superior, that state personage, he just gasped, hugged him, kissed him: ‘And where might the likes of you be from?’ ‘Yaroslavl province, Your Highness, myself I’m a tailor by trade, but in summer I come to the capital to sell fruit, sir.’ Well, it reached the authorities; the authorities ordered a medal hung on him; he went around like that with the medal on his neck, and later they say he drank himself up; you know, a Russian man, can’t help himself! That’s why the foreigners prey on us to this day, yes, sir, so there, sir!”

“Yes, of course, the Russian mind . . .” Versilov began.

But here, fortunately for him, the storyteller was summoned by his ailing wife, and he ran off, otherwise I couldn’t have stood it. Versilov was laughing.

“My dear, he entertained me for a whole hour before you came. That stone . . . that’s everything there is of the most patriotically indecent among such stories, but how interrupt him? You saw him, he was melting with pleasure. And besides, the stone, it seems, is still standing there, unless I’m mistaken, and isn’t buried in a hole at all . . .”

“Ah, my God!” I cried, “but that’s true. How did he dare! . . .”

“What’s with you? No, come now, it seems you’re quite indignant. And he actually got it confused: I heard some such story about a stone back in the time of my childhood, only, naturally, it wasn’t the same and wasn’t about that stone. Good heavens, ‘it reached the authorities.’ His whole soul sang at that moment when it ‘reached the authorities.’ In this sorry milieu, it’s impossible to do without such anecdotes. They have a host of them—above all from their lack of restraint. They haven’t studied anything, they don’t know anything precisely, well, and besides cards and promotions, they want to talk about something generally human, poetic . . . What is he, who is he, this Pyotr Ippolitovich?”

“The poorest of beings, and also unfortunate.”

“Well, so you see, maybe he doesn’t even play cards! I repeat, while telling this rubbish, he satisfies his love for his neighbor: you see, he wanted to make us happy as well. The feeling of patriotism is also satisfied; for instance, they also have an anecdote that the English offered Zavyalov⁸ a million only so that he wouldn’t stamp his brand on his products . . .”

“Ah, my God, I’ve heard that anecdote.”

“Who hasn’t heard it, and he knows perfectly well, as he tells it, that you’ve certainly heard it already, but still he tells it, deliberately imagining that you haven’t. It seems the vision of the Swedish king⁹ has become outdated with them; but in my youth they repeated it with gusto, and in a mysterious whisper, as well as the one about somebody at the beginning of the century supposedly kneeling before the senators in the Senate.¹⁰ There were also many anecdotes about Commandant Bashutsky¹¹ and how the monument was taken away. They’re terribly fond of anecdotes about the court; for instance, the stories about Chernyshov,¹² a minister in the previous reign, how as a seventy-year-old man he made himself up so that he looked like a thirty-year-old, so much so that the late sovereign was astonished at his receptions . . .”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

“Who hasn’t? All these anecdotes are the height of indecency, but you should know that this type of the indecent is much deeper and more widespread than we think. Even in our most decent society, you meet with the wish to lie with the purpose of making your neighbor happy, for we all suffer from this unrestraint of the heart. Only with us the stories are of a different kind; what they tell about America alone is something awful, and that’s even statesmen! I confess, I myself belong to this indecent type and have suffered from it all my life . . .”

“I’ve told the story about Chernyshov several times myself.”

“Have you really?”

“There’s another tenant here besides me, a clerk, also pockmarked, and already old, but he’s a terribly prosaic man, and as soon as Pyotr Ippolitovich starts talking, he immediately sets about confusing and contradicting him. And he’s driven him to such a state that Pyotr Ippolitovich serves him like a slave and humors him, only so as he listens.”

“That’s already another type of the indecent, and maybe even more loathsome than the first. The first is all rapture! ‘Just let me tell you a lie—you’ll see how well it comes out.’ The second is all spleen and prose: ‘I won’t let you lie—when, where, in what year?’ In short, he has no heart. My friend, always let a man lie a little—it’s innocent. Even let him lie a lot. First, it will show your delicacy, and second, you’ll also be allowed to lie in return—two enormous profits at once. Que diable! ³⁴ one must love one’s neighbor! But it’s time I left. You’ve settled in quite nicely,” he added, getting up from his chair. “I’ll tell Sofya Andreevna and your sister that I called and found you in good health. Good-bye, my dear.”

What, could that be all? No, this was by no means what I needed; I was waiting for something else, the main thing, though I understood perfectly well that it couldn’t be otherwise. I began showing him to the stairs with a candle; the landlord also jumped over, but, in secret from Versilov, I seized his arm with all my strength and shoved him away fiercely. He looked at me in amazement, but effaced himself at once.

“These stairs . . .” Versilov mumbled, drawing out the words, evidently so as to say something, and evidently for fear I might say something, “these stairs—I’m not used to them, and you’re on the third floor, but, anyhow, I’ll find my way now . . . Don’t trouble yourself, my dear, you’ll catch cold.”

But I didn’t leave. We were going down the second flight of stairs.

“I’ve been waiting for you all these three days,” escaped me suddenly, as if of itself; I was breathless.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“I knew you wouldn’t fail to come.”

“And I knew you knew I wouldn’t fail to come. Thank you, my dear.”

He fell silent. We had already reached the front door, and I was still walking behind him. He opened the door; the wind burst in at once and blew out my candle. Here I suddenly seized him by the hand; it was completely dark. He gave a start, but said nothing. I bent to his hand and suddenly began kissing it greedily, several times, many times.

“My dear boy, what makes you love me so much?” he said, but now in a quite different voice. His voice trembled, and something quite new rang in it, as if it was not he who was speaking.

I wanted to answer something but couldn’t, and ran upstairs. He waited without moving from the spot, and only when I reached my apartment did I hear the street door downstairs open and slam shut noisily. I slipped into my room past the landlord, who for some reason turned up there again, fastened the latch, and, without lighting a candle, threw myself onto the bed, face to the pillow, and—wept, wept. It was the first time I had wept since Touchard’s! Sobs burst from me with such force, and I was so happy . . . but why describe it!

I’ve written this down now without being ashamed, because maybe it was all good, despite all its absurdity.

III

BUT, OH, DID he get it from me for that! I became a terrible despot. Needless to say, we never mentioned this scene afterwards. On the contrary, we met three days later as if nothing had happened—what’s more, I was almost rude that second evening, and he was also as if dry. It happened at my place again; for some reason I still wouldn’t go to him myself, despite my desire to see my mother.

We talked all this time, that is, for these two whole months, only about the most abstract subjects. And that surprises me: all we did was talk about abstract subjects—the generally human and most necessary ones, of course, but not concerned in the least with the essential. Yet much, very much, of the essential needed to be defined and clarified, even urgently so, but of those things we didn’t speak. I even said nothing about mother and Liza and . . . well, and finally about myself, about my whole story. Whether that was all from shame, or from some sort of youthful stupidity—I don’t know. I suppose it was from stupidity, because shame could still have been surmounted. And I despotized him terribly and more than once even drove it as far as insolence, and even against my own heart: it was all done somehow of itself, uncontrollably, I couldn’t control myself. His tone was of a subtle mockery, as before, though always extremely affectionate despite all. It also struck me that he much preferred coming to me himself, so that in the end I began to see mama terribly seldom, once a week, not more, especially in the most recent time, when I got into quite a whirl. He would come in the evening, sit in my room and chat; he was also very fond of chatting with the landlord; this last infuriated me in such a man as he. The thought also came to me: can it be that he has no one to go to except me? But I knew for certain that he had acquaintances; lately he had even renewed many former connections in high society circles, which he had abandoned during that last year; but it seems he wasn’t especially tempted by them, and many were renewed only officially, while he preferred coming to me. It sometimes touched me very much that, on coming in of an evening, he seemed to grow timid almost every time as he opened the door, and in the first moment always peeked into my eyes with a strange anxiousness, as if to say, “Won’t I be bothering you? Tell me and I’ll go away.” He even said it sometimes. Once, for instance, precisely in the most recent time, he came in when I was already fully dressed in a suit I had just received from the tailor and was about to go to “Prince Seryozha,” so as to set off with him where I had to go (I’ll explain where later). But he came in and sat down, probably not noticing that I was about to leave; there were moments when he was overcome by an extremely strange absentmindedness. As if on purpose, he began talking about the landlord. I blew up:

“Eh, devil take the landlord!”

“Ah, my dear,” he suddenly got up from his place, “it seems you’re about to go out, and I’m bothering you . . . Forgive me, please.”

And he humbly hastened to leave. This humility towards me from such a man, from such a worldly and independent man, who had so much of his own, at once resurrected in my heart all my tenderness for him and all my trust in him. But if he loved me so, why didn’t he stop me then in the time of my disgrace? A word from him then—and maybe I would have held back. However, maybe not. But he did see this foppishness, this fanfaronade, this Matvei (once I even wanted to give him a ride in my sledge, but he wouldn’t get in, and it even happened several times that he didn’t want to get in), he did see that I was throwing money around—and not a word, not a word, not even out of curiosity! That astonishes me to this day, even now. And I, naturally, was not the least bit ceremonious with him then and let everything show, though, of course, also without a word of explanation. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t speak.

However, two or three times it was as if we did also start speaking about the essential. I asked him once, at the beginning, soon after he renounced the inheritance, how he was going to live now.

“Somehow, my friend,” he said with extraordinary calm.

Now I know that even Tatyana Pavlovna’s tiny capital of about five thousand was half spent on Versilov in these last two years.

Another time we somehow began talking about mama:

“My friend,” he suddenly said sadly, “I often said to Sofya Andreevna at the beginning of our union—at the beginning, and the middle, and the end as well, however: ‘My dear, I’m tormenting you, and I’ll torment you thoroughly, and I’m not sorry, as long as you’re before me; but if you should die, I know I’d do myself in with punishment.’”

However, I remember he was especially open that evening:

“If only I were a weak-tempered nonentity and suffered from the awareness of it! But no, I know that I’m infinitely strong, and what do you think my strength is? Precisely this spontaneous power of getting along with anything, which is so characteristic of all intelligent people of our generation. Nothing can destroy me, nothing can exterminate me, nothing can astonish me. I’m as tenacious as a yard dog. I can feel in the most comfortable way two contrary feelings at the same time—and that, of course, not by my own will. But nonetheless I know it’s dishonest, mainly because it’s all too reasonable. I’ve lived to be nearly fifty, and so far I don’t know whether it’s good that I’ve done so, or bad. Of course, I love life, and that follows directly from things, but for a man like me, to love life is base. Lately something new has begun, and the Krafts don’t survive, they shoot themselves. But it’s clear that the Krafts are stupid; well, and we’re intelligent—so it’s impossible to draw any analogy here, and the question still remains open. And can it be only for such as we that the earth stands? Yes, in all likelihood; but that is too cheerless an idea. However . . . however, the question still remains open.”

He spoke with sadness, and even so I didn’t know whether he was sincere or not. There was always some wrinkle in him that he wouldn’t drop for anything.

IV

I SHOWERED HIM with questions then, I threw myself on him like a hungry man on bread. He always answered me readily and straightforwardly, but in the final end he always brought it down to the most general aphorisms, so that, in essence, nothing could be drawn from it. And yet all these questions had troubled me all my life, and, I confess frankly, while still in Moscow, I postponed their resolution precisely until our meeting in Petersburg. I even told it to him directly, and he didn’t laugh at me—on the contrary, I remember, he shook my hand. On general politics and social questions, I could extract almost nothing from him, and it was these questions that troubled me most, in view of my “idea.” Of the likes of Dergachev, I once tore the observation from him “that they were beneath any criticism,” but at the same time he added strangely that he “reserved for himself the right not to attach any importance to his opinion.” Of how the contemporary states and world would end and what would bring about a renewal of the social world, he kept silent for terribly long, but one day I finally tortured a few words out of him:

“I think it will all come about somehow in an extremely ordinary way,” he said once. “Quite simply, all the states, despite all balancing of budgets and ‘absence of deficits,’ un beau matin³⁵ will become utterly confused, and each and every one of them will refuse to pay up, so that each and every one of them will be renewed in a general bankruptcy. Meanwhile, all the conservative elements of the whole world will be opposed to that, for it will be they who are the shareholders and creditors, and they will not want to allow the bankruptcy. Then, of course, there will begin a general oxidation, so to speak; the Yid will arrive in quantity, and a kingdom of Yids will begin; but all those who never had any shares, and generally never had anything, that is, all the beggars, naturally will not want to participate in the oxidation . . . A struggle will begin, and after seventy-seven defeats, the beggars will annihilate the shareholders, take their shares from them, and sit in their place—as shareholders, of course. And maybe they’ll say something new, or maybe not. Most likely they’ll also go bankrupt. Beyond that, my friend, I can’t predict anything in the destinies that will change the face of this world. However, look in the Apocalypse . . .”

“But can it all be so material? Can the present-day world end only because of finances?”

“Oh, naturally, I’ve taken only one little corner of the picture, but that corner is connected with everything by, so to speak, indissoluble bonds.”

“What, then, is to be done?”

“Ah, my God, don’t be in a hurry; it won’t all come so soon. Generally, it’s best to do nothing; at least your conscience is at peace, since you haven’t taken part in anything.”

“Eh, come on, talk business. I want to know precisely what I’m to do and how I’m to live.”

“What are you to do, my dear? Be honest, never lie, don’t covet your neighbor’s house, in short, read the ten commandments: everything’s written there for all time.”

“Come on, come on, that’s all so old, and besides—it’s just words, and I need action.”

“Well, if you’re quite overcome with boredom, try loving someone, or something, or even simply becoming attached to something.”

“You just laugh! And besides, what am I alone to do with your ten commandments?”

“But if you fulfill them, despite all your questions and doubts, you’ll be a great man.”

“Unknown to anyone.”

“Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest.”¹³

“No, you’re decidedly laughing!”

“Well, if you take it so much to heart, then it would be best to try and specialize quickly, take up construction or law; then you’ll be occupied with real and serious business, and you can settle down and forget about trifles.”

I said nothing—well, what could I get from that? And yet after each such conversation, I was more troubled than before. Besides, I saw clearly that there was always as if some mystery left in him; it was this that drew me to him more and more.

“Listen,” I interrupted him one day, “I always suspected that you were saying all this just so, from spite and out of suffering, but secretly, within yourself, it’s you who are a fanatic of some higher idea and are only hiding it or ashamed to admit it.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“Listen, there’s nothing higher than being useful. Tell me, how can I be of greatest use at this given moment? I know you can’t decide that; but I’m only seeking your opinion: you tell me, and I’ll go and do as you tell me, I swear to you! Well, what is the great thought?”

“Well, to turn stones into bread—there’s a great thought.”¹⁴

“The greatest? No, truly, you’ve pointed out a whole path; tell me, then: is it the greatest?”

“A very great one, my friend, a very great one, but not the greatest; great, but secondary, and only great in the given moment. Man eats and doesn’t remember it; on the contrary, he’ll say at once: ‘Well, so I’ve eaten, and now what do I do?’ The question remains eternally open.”

“You once talked about ‘Geneva ideas.’ I didn’t understand—what are ‘Geneva ideas’?”

“Geneva ideas—it’s virtue without Christ, my friend, today’s ideas, or, better to say, the idea of the whole of today’s civilization.¹⁵ In short, it’s—one of those long stories that are very boring to begin, and it would be much better if we talked about other things, and still better if we were silent about other things.”

“All you want to do is be silent!”

“My friend, remember that to be silent is good, safe, and beautiful.”

“Beautiful?”

“Of course. Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.”

“But to talk as you and I do is, of course, the same as being silent. Devil take that sort of beauty, and furthermore, devil take that sort of profit!”

“My dear,” he said to me suddenly, in a somewhat changed tone, even with feeling and with a sort of special insistence, “my dear, I by no means want to seduce you with any sort of bourgeois virtue instead of your ideals, nor do I insist that ‘happiness is better than heroism’; on the contrary, heroism is higher than any happiness, and the capacity for it alone already constitutes happiness. So that’s settled between us. I respect you precisely for being able, in our soured time, to cultivate some sort of ‘idea of your own’ in your soul (don’t worry, I remember it very well). But all the same it’s impossible not to think about measure, too, because now you precisely want a resounding life, to set something on fire, to smash something, to rise higher than all Russia, to sweep over like a storm cloud and leave everyone in fear and admiration, and disappear into the North American States. Surely there’s something of that kind in your soul, and that’s why I consider it necessary to warn you, because I’ve sincerely come to love you, my dear.”

What could I get from that as well? Here there was only a worry about me, about my material fate; it spoke for the father, with his prosaic though kindly feelings; but was that what I needed, in view of the ideas for which every honest father should send his son even to his death, as the ancient Horatius sent his sons for the idea of Rome?¹⁶

I often pestered him with religion, but here the fog was thickest of all. To the question, What am I to do in this sense? he replied in the stupidest way, as to a little boy: “You must believe in God, my dear.”

“Well, and what if I don’t believe in all that?” I once cried in irritation.

“Splendid, my dear.”

“How, splendid?”

“A most excellent sign, my friend; even the most trustworthy, because our Russian atheist, if only he’s a true atheist and has a bit of intelligence, is the best man in the whole world and always inclined to treat God nicely, because he’s unfailingly kind, and he’s kind because he’s immeasurably pleased that he’s an atheist. Our atheists are respectable people and trustworthy in the highest degree, the support, so to speak, of the fatherland . . .”

That, of course, was something, but not what I wanted; only once did he speak his mind, only so strangely that he surprised me most of all then, especially in view of all these Catholicisms and chains I had heard about in connection with him.

“My dear,” he said to me once, not at home, but one time in the street, after a long conversation; I was seeing him off. “My friend, to love people as they are is impossible. And yet one must. And therefore do good to them, clenching your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes (this last is necessary). Endure evil from them, not getting angry with them if possible, ‘remembering that you, too, are a human being.’ Naturally, you’re in a position to be severe with them, if it’s been granted you to be a little bit smarter than the average. People are mean by nature and love to love out of fear; don’t give in to such love and don’t cease to despise it. Somewhere in the Koran, Allah bids the prophet to look upon the ‘recalcitrant’ as mice, to do good to them and pass by—somewhat arrogant, but right. Know how to despise them even when they’re good, for most often it’s just here that they’re nasty. Oh, my dear, I’m judging by myself in saying that! He who is only a little bit better than stupid cannot live and not despise himself—whether he’s honest or dishonest makes no difference. To love one’s neighbor and not despise him is impossible. In my opinion, man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor. There’s some mistake in words here, from the very beginning, and ‘love for mankind’ should be understood as just for that mankind which you yourself have created in your soul (in other words, you’ve created your own self and the love for yourself ), and which therefore will never exist in reality.”

“Never exist?”

“My friend, I agree that this would be rather stupid, but here the blame isn’t mine; and since I wasn’t consulted at the time of the creation of the world, I reserve for myself the right to have my own opinion about it.”

“How can they call you a Christian after that,” I cried, “a monk with chains, a preacher? I don’t understand!”

“But who calls me that?”

I told him; he listened very attentively, but stopped the conversation.

I simply can’t remember what occasioned this conversation, which was so memorable for me; but he even became irritated, which almost never happened with him. He had spoken passionately and without mockery, as if he weren’t saying it to me. But once again I didn’t believe him: could he really speak seriously about such things with the likes of me?

Chapter Two

I

ON THAT MORNING, the fifteenth of November, I precisely found him with “Prince Seryozha.” It was I who brought him together with the prince, but they had enough points of contact even without me (I’m speaking of those former stories abroad and so on). Besides that, the prince had given his word to allot him at least one-third of the inheritance, which would certainly come to about twenty thousand. To me, I remember, it was terribly strange then that he allotted him only a third and not a whole half; but I said nothing. The prince gave this promise then on his own; Versilov had no part in it, never mentioned it by half a little word; the prince himself popped up with it, and Versilov only allowed it silently and never once recalled it afterwards, never even showed by a look that he remembered anything at all about the promise. I’ll note incidentally that the prince was decidedly charmed by him at first, especially by his talk, he even went into raptures and several times spoke of it to me. Sometimes, alone with me, he exclaimed about himself, almost in despair, that he was “so uneducated, that he was on such a false path! . . .” Oh, we were still such friends then! . . . I kept trying then to instill only good things about the prince into Versilov, I defended his failings, though I saw them myself; but Versilov kept silent or smiled.

“If he does have failings, he has at least as many virtues as failings!” I once exclaimed, alone with Versilov.

“God, how you flatter him,” he laughed.

“How do you mean, flatter?” I didn’t understand at first.

“As many virtues! Why, then his relics will be revealed,¹⁷ if he has as many virtues as he has failings!”

But, of course, this was not an opinion. Generally he somehow avoided speaking about the prince then, as he generally did about all essentials; but about the prince especially. I already suspected even then that he went to see the prince without me as well, and that they had special relations, but I allowed for that. I also wasn’t jealous that he talked with him as if more seriously than with me, more positively, so to speak, and was less given to mockery; but I was so happy then that it even pleased me. I also excused it by the fact that the prince was slightly limited, and therefore liked precision in words, and even didn’t understand certain witticisms at all. And then, recently, he somehow began to emancipate himself. His feelings towards Versilov began to change, as it were. The sensitive Versilov noticed it. I’ll also say beforehand that at that time the prince changed towards me as well, even all too visibly; there remained only some dead forms of our original, almost ardent friendship. Yet I still kept going to see him; I could hardly not go, however, having been drawn into all that. Oh, how unskillful I was then, and can it be that stupidity of heart alone can drive a person to such incompetence and humiliation? I took money from him and thought that it was nothing, that it was even right. Not so, however; I knew even then that it was wrong, but—I simply gave it little thought. It wasn’t for money that I went to see him, though I needed money terribly. I knew that I didn’t go there because of money, but I realized that I came every day to take money. But I was in a whirl and, besides all that, something else was in my soul then—was singing in my soul!

When I came in, at around eleven o’clock in the morning, I found Versilov just finishing some long tirade; the prince was listening, pacing the room, and Versilov was sitting down. The prince seemed to be somewhat agitated. Versilov could almost always make him agitated. The prince was an extremely susceptible being, naïvely so, which on many occasions made me look on him condescendingly. But, I repeat, in the last few days something spitefully tooth-baring had appeared in him. He stopped when he saw me, and something as if twitched in his face. I knew in myself what explained that shadow of displeasure that morning, but I hadn’t expected his face to twitch so much. It was known to me that he had accumulated all sorts of troubles, but the disgusting thing was that I knew only the tenth part of them—the rest was a hard and fast secret for me. Therefore it was disgusting and stupid that I got at him so often with my consolations, with advice, and even grinned condescendingly at his weakness of getting beside himself “over such trifles.” He said nothing, but it was impossible for him not to hate me terribly at such moments; I was in all too false a position and didn’t even suspect it. Oh, God is my witness, I didn’t suspect the main thing!

Nevertheless, he politely offered me his hand, and Versilov nodded his head without interrupting his speech. I sprawled on the sofa. What tone I had then, what manners! I pranced still more, treating his acquaintances as my own . . . Oh, if it were possible to do it all over again now, I’d know how to behave myself very differently!

Two words, so as not to forget: the prince was living in the same apartment then, but occupied almost all of it; the owner of the apartment, Mrs. Stolbeev, had stayed for only a month and gone off somewhere again.

II

THEY WERE TALKING about the nobility. I’ll note that this idea sometimes troubled the prince very much, despite all his air of progressism, and I even suspect that much that was bad in his life came and originated from this idea; valuing his princehood and being destitute, he squandered money all his life out of false pride and got entangled in debts. Versilov hinted to him several times that this was not what made for princehood, and wanted to implant a higher notion in his heart; but in the end it was as if the prince began to be offended at being taught. Evidently there had been something of the sort that morning, but I didn’t catch the beginning. Versilov’s words seemed retrograde to me at first, but then he got better.

“The word ‘honor’ means duty,” he said (I’m conveying only the sense, as far as I remember it). “When the state is ruled by a dominant estate, the land stands firm. The dominant estate always has its honor and its profession of honor, which may also be wrong, but which almost always serves to bind and strengthen the land; it is useful morally, but more so politically. But the slaves suffer, that is, all who do not belong to that estate. So that they won’t suffer, they are granted equal rights. That has been done with us as well, and it’s splendid. But by all experience, everywhere so far (in Europe, that is), with the equalizing of rights has come a lowering of the sense of honor and therefore of duty. Egoism has replaced the former binding idea, and everything has broken down into the freedom of persons. Set free, left without a binding thought, they have finally lost all higher connection to such a degree that they have even stopped defending the freedom they obtained. But the Russian type of nobility has never resembled the European. Even now our nobility, having lost its rights, could remain a higher estate as the guardian of honor, light, science, and the higher idea, and, above all, without shutting itself up in a separate caste, which would be the death of the idea. On the contrary, the gateway to this estate was thrown open with us all too long ago; and now the time has come to open it definitively. Let every deed of honor, science, and valor give anyone the right to join the higher category of people. In this way the estate turns by itself into what is merely a gathering of the best people, in the literal and true sense, and not in the former sense of a privileged caste. In this new or, better, renewed form, the estate might hold out.”

The prince bared his teeth:

“What kind of nobility would it be then? That’s some sort of Masonic lodge you’re planning, not a nobility.”

I repeat, the prince was terribly uneducated. I even swung around on the sofa in vexation, though I did not quite agree with Versilov. Versilov understood only too well that the prince was showing his teeth.

“I don’t know in what sense you spoke of Masonry,” he replied, “however, if even a Russian prince rejects such an idea, then, naturally, its time hasn’t come yet. The idea of honor and enlightenment as the covenant of each one who wants to join the estate, which is open and continually renewed, is of course a utopia, but why is it impossible? If this thought still lives, though only in a few heads, it’s not lost yet, but shines like a fiery spot in the deep darkness.”

“You love to use the words ‘higher thought,’ ‘great thought,’ ‘binding idea,’ and so on. I’d like to know, what essentially do you mean by the words ‘a great thought’?”

“I really don’t know how to answer you on that, my dear prince.” Versilov smiled subtly. “If I confess to you that I’m unable to answer it myself, that would be more accurate. A great thought is most often a feeling that sometimes goes without definition for too long. I know only that it was always that from which living life flowed—that is, not mental and contrived, but, on the contrary, amusing and gay; so that the higher idea from which it flows is decidedly necessary, to the general vexation, of course.”

“Why vexation?”

“Because it’s boring to live with ideas, and without ideas it’s always fun.”

The prince ate the pill.

“And what, in your opinion, is this living life?” (He was obviously angry.)

“I don’t know that either, Prince; I only know that it must be something terribly simple, most ordinary, staring us in the face every day and every minute, and so simple that we just can’t believe it could be so simple, and naturally we’ve been passing it by for many thousands of years now without noticing or recognizing it.”

“I only wanted to say that your idea of the nobility is at the same time a denial of the nobility,” said the prince.

“Well, since you’re so insistent, maybe the nobility never existed among us.”

“This is all terribly obscure and vague. If you speak, then, in my opinion, you have to develop . . .”

The prince furrowed his brow and glanced fleetingly at the wall clock. Versilov got up and took his hat.

“Develop?” he said. “No, better not develop, and what’s more it’s my passion—to speak without developing. That’s really so. And here’s another strange thing: if it happens that I begin to develop a thought I believe in, the result is almost always that by the end of the explanation I myself have ceased to believe in what I’ve explained. I’m afraid I’ll fall into that now, too. Good-bye, dear Prince; I’m always unpardonably garrulous with you.”

He left. The prince politely saw him off, but I felt offended.

“What are you so ruffled up for?” he suddenly shot out, not looking and walking past me to the desk.

“I’m ruffled up,” I began with a tremor in my voice, “because, finding such a strange change in your tone towards me and even towards Versilov, I . . . Of course, Versilov maybe did begin in a somewhat retrograde way, but he got better and . . . his words maybe contained a profound thought, but you simply didn’t understand and . . .”

“I simply don’t want anybody popping up to teach me and considering me a little boy!” he snapped almost with wrath.

“Prince, such words . . .”

“Please, no theatrical gestures—do me a favor. I know that what I’m doing is mean, that I’m a squanderer, a gambler, maybe a thief . . . yes, a thief, because I lost my family’s money at gambling, but I don’t want any judges over me. Don’t want it and won’t allow it. I’m my own judge. And why these ambiguities? If he wanted to say something to me, then speak directly and don’t prophesy in a foggy muddle. But to say that to me, you’ve got to have the right, you’ve got to be honorable yourself . . .”

“First of all, I didn’t catch the beginning and don’t know what you were talking about, and second, how is Versilov dishonorable, may I ask?”

“Enough, I beg you, enough. Yesterday you asked for three hundred roubles—here it is . . .” He put the money on the table in front of me, and himself sat in an armchair, leaned back nervously, and crossed one leg over the other. I stopped in embarrassment.

“I don’t know . . .” I murmured, “I did ask you . . . and I need the money very badly now, but in view of such a tone . . .”

“Forget the tone. If I said anything sharp, forgive me. I assure you, I have other things on my mind. Listen to this: I’ve received a letter from Moscow; my brother Sasha—he’s still a child, you know—died four days ago. My father, as you’re also aware, has been paralyzed for two years, and now they write that he’s worse, can’t say a word, and doesn’t recognize anybody. They’re glad of the inheritance there and want to take him abroad; but the doctor writes to me that it’s unlikely he’ll live even two weeks. Which means that mother, my sister, and I are left, and that means I’m almost alone now . . . Well, in short, I’m alone . . . This inheritance . . . This inheritance—oh, maybe it would be better if it didn’t come at all! But here’s precisely what I wanted to tell you: I promised Andrei Petrovich a minimum of twenty thousand from this inheritance . . . And meanwhile, imagine, owing to formalities, so far it’s been impossible to do anything. I even . . . we, that is . . . that is, my father hasn’t come into possession of this estate yet. Meanwhile, I’ve lost so much money these last three weeks, and that scoundrel Stebelkov charges such interest . . . I’ve now given you almost the last . . .”

“Oh, Prince, if so . . .”

“I don’t mean that, I don’t mean that. Stebelkov is sure to bring some today, and I’ll have enough to tide me over, but devil knows about this Stebelkov! I begged him to get me ten thousand, so that I could at least give ten thousand to Andrei Petrovich. My promise to allot him a third torments me, tortures me. I gave my word and I must keep it. And, I swear to you, I’m dying to free myself of obligations at least on that side. They’re a burden to me, a burden, unbearable! This burdensome connection . . . I can’t see Andrei Petrovich, because I can’t look him straight in the eye . . . Why, then, does he abuse it?”

“What does he abuse, Prince?” I stopped before him in amazement. “Has he ever as much as hinted to you?”

“Oh, no, and I appreciate that, but I’ve hinted to myself. And, finally, I’m getting sucked in deeper and deeper . . . This Stebelkov . . .”

“Listen, Prince, please calm down. I see that the longer you go on, the more troubled you become, and yet maybe it’s all just a mirage. Oh, I’ve gotten in deep myself, unpardonably, meanly; but I know it’s only temporary . . . I just need to win back a certain figure, and then tell me, with this three hundred, I owe you about two thousand five hundred, is that right?”

“I don’t believe I asked you for it,” the prince suddenly snarled.

“You say: ten thousand to Versilov. If I do borrow from you now, then, of course, this money will be credited against Versilov’s twenty thousand; I won’t allow it otherwise. But . . . but I’ll probably pay it back myself . . . No, can you possibly think Versilov comes to you for money?”

“It would be easier for me if he did come to me for money,” the prince uttered mysteriously.

“You speak of some ‘burdensome connection’ . . . If you mean with Versilov and me, then, by God, that is offensive. And, finally, you say, why isn’t he like what he teaches—that’s your logic! And, first of all, it’s not logic, allow me to inform you of that, because even if he weren’t, he could still preach the truth . . . And, finally, what is this word ‘preaches’? You say ‘prophet.’ Tell me, was it you who called him a ‘women’s prophet’ in Germany?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Stebelkov told me it was you.”

“He lied. I’m no expert at giving mocking nicknames. But if a man preaches honor, let him be honorable himself—that’s my logic, and if it’s wrong, it makes no difference. I want it to be so, and it will be so. And no one, no one dares to come and judge me in my own house and consider me a baby! Enough,” he cried, waving his hand to keep me from going on. “Ah, at last!”

The door opened and Stebelkov came in.

III

HE WAS STILL the same, dressed in the same foppish clothes, thrust his chest out in the same way, looked with the same stupid gaze, had the same fancy about his own slyness, and was greatly pleased with himself. This time, as he came in, he looked around somehow strangely; there was something peculiarly cautious and keen in his gaze, as if he wanted to guess something from our physiognomies. However, he instantly calmed down, and a selfconfident smile shone on his lips, that “ingratiatingly insolent ” smile, which I still found unutterably vile.

I had long known that he tormented the prince greatly. He had already come once or twice while I was there. I . . . I also had had one contact with him that past month, but this time, for a certain reason, I was slightly surprised at his coming.

“One moment,” the prince said to him without greeting him, and, turning his back to us, began taking the necessary papers and accounts out of his desk. As for me, I was decidedly offended by the prince’s last words; the allusion to Versilov being dishonorable was so clear (and so astonishing!) that it was impossible to let it go without a radical explanation. But this was impossible in front of Stebelkov. I sprawled on the sofa again and opened a book that was lying in front of me.

“Belinsky, part two!¹⁸ That’s something new; you wish to enlighten yourself ?” I called out to the prince—very affectedly, it seems.

He was very busy and hurried, but he suddenly turned at my words.

“Leave that book alone, I beg you,” he said sharply.

This was going beyond the limits, and above all—in front of Stebelkov! As if on purpose, Stebelkov grinned slyly and disgustingly, and nodded furtively to me towards the prince. I turned away from the stupid fellow.

“Don’t be angry, Prince; I yield you up to the most important person, and efface myself for the time being . . .”

I decided to be casual.

“Is that me—the most important person?” Stebelkov picked up, merrily pointing his finger at himself.

“Yes, you; the most important person is you, and you know it yourself.”

“No, sir, excuse me. There’s a second person everywhere in the world. I am a second person. There’s a first person, and there’s a second person. The first person acts, and the second person takes. Which means the second person comes out as the first person, and the first person as the second person. Is that so or not?”

“It may be so, only as usual I don’t understand you.”

“Excuse me. There was a revolution in France and everybody was executed. Napoleon came and took everything. The revolution is the first person, and Napoleon the second person. But it turned out that Napoleon became the first person, and the revolution became the second person. Is that so or not?”

I’ll note, incidentally, that in his speaking to me about the French Revolution, I saw something of his earlier slyness, which amused me greatly: he still continued to regard me as some sort of revolutionary, and each time he met me, he found it necessary to speak about something of that sort.

“Let’s go,” said the prince, and they both went out to the other room. Left alone, I decided definitively to give him back his three hundred roubles as soon as Stebelkov left. I had extreme need of this money, but I decided.

They stayed there for about ten minutes quite unheard, and suddenly began talking loudly. They both began talking, but the prince suddenly started to shout, as if in strong irritation, reaching the point of fury. He could sometimes be very hot-tempered, so that even I let it pass. But at that moment a footman came in to announce someone; I pointed him to their room, and everything instantly quieted down there. The prince quickly came out with a preoccupied face, but smiling; the footman rushed off, and half a minute later the prince’s visitor came in.

This was an important visitor, with aiguillettes and a coronet, a gentleman of no more than thirty, of a high-society and rather stern appearance. I warn the reader that Prince Sergei Petrovich did not yet belong in any real sense to Petersburg high society, despite all his passionate desire (I knew about the desire), and so he must have terribly appreciated such a call. This acquaintance, as I was informed, had only just begun, after great efforts on the prince’s part; the guest was now returning a visit, but unfortunately he had caught the host unawares. I saw with what suffering and what a lost look the prince turned for an instant to Stebelkov; but Stebelkov endured his gaze as if nothing was wrong and, without the slightest thought of effacing himself, casually sat down on the sofa and began ruffling his hair with his hand, probably as a token of independence. He even made some sort of important face—in short, he was decidedly impossible. As for me, I was certainly able to behave myself by then and, of course, would not have disgraced anyone, but what was my amazement when I caught that same lost, pitiful, and spiteful gaze of the prince on myself as well: it meant he was ashamed of us both and put me on a par with Stebelkov. This idea drove me to fury; I sprawled still more and began flipping through the book with such an air as if nothing concerned me. Stebelkov, on the contrary, goggled his eyes, leaned forward, and began listening to their conversation, probably supposing that this was both polite and amiable. The guest glanced once or twice at Stebelkov—and also at me, incidentally.

They began talking of family news; this gentleman had once known the prince’s mother, who belonged to a well-known family. As far as I could conclude, the guest, despite his amiability and seeming ingenuousness of tone, was very stiff and, of course, valued himself enough to consider his visit a great honor even for whoever it might be. If the prince had been alone—that is, without us—I’m sure he would have been more dignified and resourceful; now, though, something peculiarly tremulous in his smile, maybe much too amiable, and some strange distractedness betrayed him.

They had not yet been sitting for five minutes when suddenly another guest was announced and, as if on purpose, also of a compromising sort. I knew this one well and had heard a lot about him, though he didn’t know me at all. He was still a very young man, though already about twenty-three years old, charmingly dressed, of a good family, and a handsome fellow himself, but—unquestionably of bad society. A year ago he had still been serving in one of the most distinguished horse-guard regiments, but he had been forced to retire, and everyone knew the reasons why. His relations even published in the newspapers that they were not answerable for his debts, but he continued his carousing even now, obtaining money at ten percent a month, gambling terribly in the gambling houses, and squandering all he had on a notorious Frenchwoman. The thing was that about a week earlier he had managed to win some twelve thousand in one evening, and he was triumphant. He was on a friendly footing with the prince; they often gambled together as partners; but the prince even gave a start on seeing him, I noticed it from where I sat: this boy was as if in his own home everywhere, spoke loudly and gaily, was unembarrassed by anything, and said whatever came to his mind, and naturally it would never have come into his head that our host was trembling so before his guest on account of his company.

He came in, interrupting their conversation, and at once began telling about yesterday’s gambling, even before he sat down.

“I believe you were also there,” he turned at the third phrase to the important guest, taking him for one of his circle, but, seeing better immediately, he cried, “Ah, forgive me, but I took you also for someone from yesterday!”

“Alexei Vladimirovich Darzan, Ippolit Alexandrovich Nashchokin,” the prince hastily introduced them. The boy could, after all, be presented: the family name was good and well-known, but he hadn’t introduced us earlier, and we went on sitting in our corners. I decidedly did not want to turn my head to them; but Stebelkov, at the sight of the young man, began to grin joyfully and obviously threatened to start talking. I was even beginning to find it all amusing.

“I met you often last year at Countess Verigin’s,” said Darzan.

“I remember you, but then, I believe, you were in uniform,” Nashchokin replied benignly.

“Yes, in uniform, but thanks to . . . Ah, Stebelkov, so you’re here? What brings him here? It’s precisely thanks to these fine sirs that I’m no longer in uniform,” he pointed straight at Stebelkov and burst out laughing. Stebelkov, too, laughed joyfully, probably taking it as a compliment. The prince blushed and hastily turned to Nashchokin with some question, while Darzan went over to Stebelkov and began talking to him very vehemently about something, but now in a low voice.

“It seems you became very well acquainted with Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakov abroad?” the guest asked the prince.

“Oh, yes, I knew . . .”

“It seems there will be some news here soon. They say she’s going to marry Baron Bjoring.”

“That’s right!” cried Darzan.

“You . . . know it for certain?” the prince asked Nashchokin, visibly agitated and uttering his question with particular emphasis.

“I was told so; it seems people are already talking about it; however, I don’t know for certain.”

“Oh, it’s certain!” Darzan went over to them. “Dubasov told me yesterday; he’s always the first to know such news. And the prince ought to know . . .”

Nashchokin paused for Darzan and again addressed the prince:

“She rarely appears in society now.”

“Her father has been sick this last month,” the prince observed somehow drily.

“She seems to be an adventurous lady!” Darzan blurted out suddenly.

I raised my head and straightened up.

“I have the pleasure of knowing Katerina Nikolaevna personally and take upon myself the duty of assuring you that all the scandalous rumors are nothing but lies and infamy . . . and have been invented by those . . . who circled around but didn’t succeed.”

Having broken off so stupidly, I fell silent, still looking at them all with a flushed face and sitting bolt upright. They all turned to me, but suddenly Stebelkov tittered; Darzan was struck at first, but then grinned.

“Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky,” the prince indicated me to Darzan.

“Ah, believe me, Prince,” Darzan addressed me frankly and goodnaturedly, “I’m not speaking for myself; if there was any gossip, it wasn’t I who spread it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you!” I answered quickly, but Stebelkov had already burst into inadmissible laughter, and that precisely, as became clear later, because Darzan had called me “prince.” My infernal last name mucked things up here as well. Even now I blush at the thought that I—from shame, of course—did not dare at that moment to pick up this stupidity and declare aloud that I was simply Dolgoruky. It was the first time in my life that this had happened. Darzan gazed in perplexity at me and at the laughing Stebelkov.

“Ah, yes! Who was that pretty thing I just met on your stairs, sharp-eyed and fair-haired?” he suddenly asked the prince.

“I really don’t know,” the latter answered quickly, blushing.

“Then who would know?” Darzan laughed.

“Though it . . . it might have been . . .” the prince somehow faltered.

“It . . . but it was precisely his sister, Lizaveta Makarovna!” Stebelkov suddenly pointed at me. “Because I also met her earlier . . .”

“Ah, indeed!” the prince picked up, but this time with an extremely solid and serious expression on his face. “It must have been Lizaveta Makarovna, a close friend of Anna Fyodorovna Stolbeev, whose apartment I’m now living in. She must have come calling today on Darya Onisimovna, who is also a good friend of Anna Fyodorovna’s and in charge of the house in her absence . . .”

That was all exactly how it was. This Darya Onisimovna was the mother of poor Olya, whose story I have already told and whom Tatyana Pavlovna finally sheltered with Mrs. Stolbeev. I knew perfectly well that Liza used to visit Mrs. Stolbeev and later occasionally visited poor Darya Onisimovna, whom they all came to love very much; but suddenly, after this, incidentally, extremely sensible statement from the prince, and especially after Stebelkov’s stupid outburst, or maybe because I had just been called “prince,” suddenly, owing to all that, I blushed all over. Fortunately, just then Nashchokin got up to leave; he offered his hand to Darzan as well. The moment Stebelkov and I were left alone, he suddenly started nodding to me towards Darzan, who was standing in the doorway with his back to us. I shook my fist at Stebelkov.

A minute later Darzan also left, having arranged with the prince to meet the next day without fail at some place they had already settled on—a gambling house, naturally. On his way out he shouted something to Stebelkov and bowed slightly to me. As soon as he went out, Stebelkov jumped up from his place and stood in the middle of the room with a raised finger:

“Last week that little squire pulled off the following stunt: he gave a promissory note and falsified Averyanov’s name on it. And the nice little note still exists in that guise, only one doesn’t do such things! It’s criminal. Eight thousand.”

“And surely it’s you who have this note?” I glanced at him ferociously.

“I have a bank, sir, I have a mont-de-piété,³⁶ not promissory notes. Have you heard of such a mont-de-piété in Paris? Bread and charity for the poor. I have a mont-de-piété . . .”

The prince stopped him rudely and spitefully:

“What are you doing here? Why did you stay?”

“Ah!” Stebelkov quickly began nodding with his eyes. “And that? What about that?”

“No, no, no, not that,” the prince shouted and stamped his foot, “I told you!”

“Ah, well, if so . . . then so . . . Only it’s not so . . .”

He turned sharply and, inclining his head and rounding his back, suddenly left. The prince called after him when he was already in the doorway:

“Be it known to you, sir, that I am not afraid of you in the least!”

He was highly vexed, made as if to sit down, but, having glanced at me, did not. It was as if his glance was also saying to me, “Why are you also sticking around?”

“Prince,” I tried to begin . . .

“I really have no time, Arkady Makarovich, I’m about to leave.”

“One moment, Prince, it’s very important to me; and, first of all, take back your three hundred.”

“What’s this now?”

He was pacing, but he paused.

“It’s this, that after all that’s happened . . . and what you said about Versilov, that he’s dishonorable, and, finally, your tone all the rest of the time . . . In short, I simply can’t accept.”

“You’ve been accepting for a whole month, though.”

He suddenly sat down on a chair. I stood by the table, flipping through Belinsky’s book with one hand and holding my hat with the other.

“The feelings were different, Prince . . . And, finally, I’d never have brought it as far as a certain figure . . . This gambling . . . In short, I can’t!”

“You simply haven’t distinguished yourself in anything, and so you’re frantic. I beg you to leave that book alone.”

“What does ‘haven’t distinguished yourself ’ mean? And, finally, you almost put me on a par with Stebelkov in front of your guests.”

“Ah, there’s the answer!” he grinned caustically. “Besides, you were embarrassed that Darzan called you ‘prince.’”

He laughed maliciously. I flared up:

“I don’t even understand . . . I wouldn’t take your princehood gratis . . .”

“I know your character. It was ridiculous the way you cried out in defense of Mme. Akhmakov . . . Leave the book alone!”

“What does that mean?” I also shouted.

“Le-e-eave the book alo-o-one!” he suddenly yelled, sitting up fiercely in his armchair, as if ready to charge.

“This goes beyond all limits,” I said and quickly left the room. But before I reached the end of the hall, he called out to me from the door of the study:

“Come back, Arkady Makarovich! Come ba-a-ack! Come ba-a-ack right now!”

I paid no attention and walked on. He quickly overtook me, seized my arm, and dragged me back to the study. I didn’t resist!

“Take it!” he said, pale with agitation, handing me the three hundred roubles I had left there. “You absolutely must take it . . . otherwise we . . . you absolutely must!”

“How can I take it, Prince?”

“Well, I’ll ask your forgiveness, shall I? Well, forgive me! . . .”

“Prince, I always loved you, and if you also . . .”

“I also; take it . . .”

I took it. His lips were trembling.

“I understand, Prince, that you were infuriated by this scoundrel . . . but I won’t take it, Prince, unless we kiss each other, as with previous quarrels . . .”

I was also trembling as I said it.

“Well, what softheartedness,” the prince murmured with an embarrassed smile, but he leaned over and kissed me. I shuddered: in his face, at the moment of the kiss, I could decidedly read disgust.

“Did he at least bring you the money? . . .”

“Eh, it makes no difference.”

“It’s for you that I . . .”

“He did, he did.”

“Prince, we used to be friends . . . and, finally, Versilov . . .”

“Well, yes, yes, all right!”

“And, finally, I really don’t know ultimately, this three hundred . . .”

I was holding it in my hands.

“Take it, ta-a-ake it!” he smiled again, but there was something very unkind in his smile.

I took it.

Chapter Three

I

I TOOK IT because I loved him. To whoever doesn’t believe it, I’ll reply that at least at the moment when I took this money from him, I was firmly convinced that, if I had wanted to, I could very well have gotten it from another source. And therefore it means that I took it not out of extremity, but out of delicacy, only so as not to offend him. Alas, that was how I reasoned then! But even so I felt very oppressed on leaving him: I had seen an extraordinary change towards me that morning; there had never yet been such a tone; and against Versilov there was positive rebellion. Stebelkov, of course, had vexed him greatly with something earlier, but he had started even before Stebelkov. I’ll repeat once more: it had been possible to notice a change compared with the beginning in all those recent days, but not like that, not to such a degree—that’s the main thing.

The stupid news about this imperial aide-de-camp Baron Bjoring might have had an influence as well . . . I also left in agitation, but . . . That’s just it, that something quite different was shining then, and I let so much pass before my eyes light-mindedly: I hastened to let it pass, I drove away all that was gloomy and turned to what was shining . . .

It was not yet one in the afternoon. From the prince, my Matvei drove me straight—will you believe to whom?—to Stebelkov! That’s just it, that earlier that day he had surprised me not so much by his calling on the prince (because he had promised him to come), as by the fact that, though he winked at me out of his stupid habit, it was not at all on the subject I had expected. The evening before, I had received from him, through the city mail, a note I found quite mysterious, in which he urgently requested that I visit him precisely today, between one and two o’clock, and “that he could inform me of things I was not expecting.” And yet just now, there at the prince’s, he hadn’t let anything show about the letter. What secrets could there be between Stebelkov and me? The idea was even ridiculous; but in view of everything that had happened, as I was going to him now, I even felt a little excited. Of course, I turned to him for money once a couple of weeks before, and he was about to give it, but for some reason we had a falling-out then, and I didn’t take it; he began muttering something vaguely then, as he usually does, and it seemed to me that he wanted to offer something, some special conditions; and since I treated him with decided condescension each time I met him at the prince’s, I proudly cut off any thought of special conditions and left, despite the fact that he chased after me to the door. That time I borrowed from the prince.

Stebelkov lived completely by himself, and lived prosperously: an apartment of four splendid rooms, fine furniture, male and female servants, and some sort of housekeeper, rather elderly, however. I came in wrathfully.

“Listen, my dear fellow,” I began from the doorway, “what, first of all, is the meaning of this note? I don’t allow for any correspondence between myself and you. And why didn’t you tell me what you wanted to earlier, right there at the prince’s? I was at your service.”

“And why did you also keep silent earlier and not ask?” he extended his mouth into a most self-satisfied smile.

“Because it’s not I who have need of you, but you who have need of me,” I cried, suddenly getting angry.

“Then why have you come to me, in that case?” he nearly jumped up and down with pleasure. I turned instantly and was about to leave, but he seized me by the shoulder.

“No, no, I was joking. It’s an important matter; you’ll see for yourself.”

I sat down. I confess I was curious. We were sitting by the edge of a big writing table, facing each other. He smiled slyly and raised his finger.

“Please, without your sly tricks and without the finger, and above all without any allegories, but straight to business—otherwise I’m leaving!” I cried again in wrath.

“You’re . . . proud!” he pronounced with some sort of stupid reproach, swinging himself towards me in his armchair and raising all the wrinkles on his forehead.

“One has to be with you!”

“You . . . took money from the prince today, three hundred roubles. I have money. My money’s better.”

“How do you know I took money?” I was terribly surprised. “Can he have told you that himself ?”

“He told me. Don’t worry, it was just so, side talk, it came up by the way, only just by the way, not on purpose. He told me. But it was possible not to take it from him. Is that so or not?”

“But I hear you fleece people at an unbearable rate.”

“I have a mont-de-piété, but I don’t fleece. I keep it only for friends, I don’t lend to others. For others the mont-de-piété . . .”

This mont-de-piété was the most ordinary lending of money on pledges, under some other name, in a different apartment, and it was flourishing.

“But I lend large sums to friends.”

“What, is the prince such a friend of yours?”

“A frie-e-end; but . . . he talks through his hat. And he dare not talk through his hat.”

“Why, is he so much in your hands? Does he owe a lot?”

“He . . . owes a lot.”

“He’ll pay you back; he’s come into an inheritance . . .”

“That’s not his inheritance. He owes me money, and he owes me other things. The inheritance isn’t enough. I’ll lend to you without interest.”

“Also as ‘to a friend’? How have I deserved it?” I laughed.

“You will deserve it.” He again thrust his whole body towards me and was about to raise his finger.

“Stebelkov! No fingers, or else I leave.”

“Listen . . . he may marry Anna Andreevna!” And he squinted his left eye infernally.

“Listen here, Stebelkov, the conversation is taking on such a scandalous character . . . How dare you mention the name of Anna Andreevna?”

“Don’t be angry.”

“I’m only listening unwillingly, because I clearly see some sort of trick here and want to find out . . . But I may lose control, Stebelkov!”

“Don’t be angry, don’t be proud. Don’t be proud for a little while and listen; then you can be proud again. You do know about Anna Andreevna? That the prince may marry her . . . you do know?”

“I’ve heard about this idea, of course, and I know everything, but I’ve never said anything to the prince about this idea. I only know that this idea was born in the mind of old Prince Sokolsky, who is still sick; but I’ve never said anything or taken part in anything. As I’m telling you that solely by way of explanation, I’ll allow myself to ask you, first: what made you start talking with me about this? And, second, can it be that the prince talks about such things with you?”

“He doesn’t talk with me; he doesn’t want to talk with me, but I talk with him, and he doesn’t want to listen. He started yelling earlier.”

“What else! I approve of him.”

“Prince Sokolsky, the little old man, will give a big dowry with Anna Andreevna. She pleases him. Then Prince Sokolsky the suitor will pay me back all the money. And the non-money debt as well. He’s sure to! But now he has no means to pay it back.”

“But me, what do you need me for?”

“For the main question: you’re an acquaintance; you know everybody there. You can find everything out.”

“Ah, the devil . . . find what out?”

“Whether the prince wants it, whether Anna Andreevna wants it, whether the old prince wants it. Find out for certain.”

“And you dare suggest that I be your spy, and do it for money!” I cried in indignation.

“Don’t be proud, don’t be proud. For just a little longer, don’t be proud, for another five minutes.” He sat me down again. He was evidently not afraid of my gestures and exclamations; but I decided to listen to the end.

“I need to find out soon, very soon, because . . . because soon it may be too late. Did you see how he ate the pill earlier, when the officer began talking about the baron and Mme. Akhmakov?”

It was decidedly humiliating to listen further, but my curiosity was invincibly enticed.

“Listen, you . . . you worthless man!” I said resolutely. “If I sit here and listen and allow you to speak of such persons . . . and even answer you myself, it’s not at all because I allow you that right. I simply see some sort of meanness . . . And, first of all, what hopes can the prince have regarding Katerina Nikolaevna?”

“None, but he’s frantic.”

“That’s not true.”

“Frantic. Which means that Mme. Akhmakov is now—a pass. He’s lost a trick here. Now he’s only got Anna Andreevna. I’ll give you two thousand . . . with no interest and no promissory note.”

Having said this, he leaned back resolutely and importantly in his chair and goggled his eyes at me. I was also all eyes.

“Your suit comes from Bolshaya Millionnaya;¹⁹ you need money, money; my money’s better than his. I’ll give you more than two thousand.”

“But what for? What for, devil take it?”

I stamped my foot. He leaned towards me and said expressively:

“So that you won’t interfere.”

“But it’s no concern of mine anyway,” I cried.

“I know you’re keeping quiet. That’s good.”

“I don’t need your approval. For my own part, I very much wish for it, but I consider that it’s none of my business, and that it would even be indecent of me.”

“You see, you see—indecent!” he raised his finger.

“See what?”

“Indecent . . . Heh!” and he suddenly laughed. “I understand, I understand that it’s indecent for you, but . . . you’re not going to interfere?” he winked, but in this winking there was something so insolent, even jeering, base! He precisely supposed some sort of baseness in me and was counting on that baseness . . . That was clear, but I still didn’t understand what it was about.

“Anna Andreevna is also your sister, sir,” he uttered imposingly.

“Don’t you dare speak of that. And generally don’t you dare speak of Anna Andreevna.”

“Don’t be proud, just for one more little minute! Listen: he’ll get the money and provide for everybody,” Stebelkov said weightily, “everybody, everybody, you follow?”

“So you think I’ll take money from him?”

“Aren’t you taking it now?”

“I’m taking my own!”

“What’s your own?”

“This is Versilov’s money; he owes Versilov twenty thousand.”

“Versilov, not you.”

“Versilov’s my father.”

“No, you’re Dolgoruky, not Versilov.”

“That makes no difference!”

Indeed, I was able to reason like that then. I knew it made a difference, I wasn’t so stupid, but I reasoned like that then, again, out of “delicacy.”

“Enough!” I cried. “I understand precisely nothing. And how dared you summon me for such trifles?”

“Can it be you really don’t understand? Are you doing it on purpose or not?” Stebelkov said slowly, staring at me piercingly and with some sort of mistrustful smile.

“By God, I don’t!”

“I say he can provide for everybody, everybody, only don’t interfere and don’t talk him out of it . . .”

“You must have lost your mind! What’s this ‘everybody’ you keep trotting out? Is it Versilov he’ll provide for?”

“You’re not the only one in it, nor is Versilov . . . there are others. And Anna Andreevna is as much a sister to you as Lizaveta Makarovna!”

I stared at him goggle-eyed. Suddenly something like pity for me flashed in his vile gaze:

“You don’t understand, and so much the better! It’s good, it’s very good that you don’t understand. It’s praiseworthy . . . if you really don’t understand.”

I became completely furious:

“Away with you and your trifles, you crazy man!” I cried, seizing my hat.

“They’re not trifles! So it’s a deal? But, you know, you’ll come again.”

“No,” I snapped from the doorway.

“You’ll come, and then . . . then there’ll be a different talk. That will be the main talk. Two thousand, remember!”

II

HE MADE SUCH a filthy and murky impression on me that, going out, I even tried not to think of it and only spat. The idea that the prince could speak with him about me and this money pricked me as if with a pin. “I’ll win and pay him back today,” I thought resolutely.

Stupid and tongue-tied as Stebelkov was, I had seen a blazing scoundrel in all his splendor, and, above all, there certainly was some intrigue here. Only I had no time to go into any intrigues, and that was the main reason for my hen-blindness! I glanced worriedly at my watch, but it wasn’t even two yet; that meant I could still make one visit, otherwise I’d have died of excitement before three o’clock. I drove to see Anna Andreevna Versilov, my sister. I had long ago become close with her at my little old prince’s, precisely during his illness. The thought that I hadn’t seen him for three or four days now nagged at my conscience, but it was precisely Anna Andreevna who helped me out: the prince was extremely taken with her and, to me, even called her his guardian angel. Incidentally, the thought of marrying her to Prince Sergei Petrovich had indeed been born in the old man’s head, and he had even told me of it more than once, in secret, of course. I had conveyed this idea to Versilov, having noticed before that, for all the essential things to which Versilov was so indifferent, nevertheless he was always somehow especially interested when I told him something about my meetings with Anna Andreevna. Versilov had muttered to me then that Anna Andreevna was all too intelligent and, in such a ticklish matter, could do without other people’s advice. Naturally, Stebelkov was right that the old man would give her a dowry, but how could he dare to count on anything here? Today the prince had shouted after him that he wasn’t afraid of him at all. Had Stebelkov indeed talked with him in his study about Anna Andreevna? I can imagine how infuriated I’d have been in his place.