Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (619 page)

“Tatyana Pavlovna, I tell you again, don’t torment me,” I persisted in my turn, not answering her question, for I was beside myself.  “Take care, Tatyana Pavlovna, that your hiding this from me may not lead to something worse . . . why, yesterday he was absolutely turning over a new leaf!”

“Go along, you idiot! you are like a love-sick sparrow yourself, I’ll be bound; father and son in love with the same idol!  Foo, horrid creatures!”

She vanished, slamming the door indignantly.  Furious at the impudent, shameless cynicism of these last words, a cynicism of which only a woman would have been capable, I ran away, deeply insulted.  But I won’t describe my vague sensations as I have vowed to keep to facts which will explain everything now; on my way of course, I called in at his lodging, and heard from the nurse that he had not been home at all.

“And isn’t he coming at all?”

“Goodness knows.”

3

Facts, facts! . . .  But will the reader understand?  I remember how these facts overwhelmed me and prevented me from thinking clearly, so that by the end of the day my head was in a perfect whirl.  And so I think I must say two or three words by way of introduction.

The question that tormented me was this: if he really had gone through a spiritual change and had ceased to love her, in that case where should he have been now?  The answer was: first of all with me whom he had embraced the evening before, and next with mother, whose portrait he had kissed.  And yet, in spite of these natural alternatives, he had suddenly, “as soon as it was light,” left home and gone off somewhere, and Darya Onisimovna had for some reason babbled of his not being likely to return.  What’s more, Liza had hinted at the “last chapter” of some “same old story,” and of mother’s having some news of him, and the latest news, too; moreover, they undoubtedly knew of Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter, too (I noticed that), and yet they did not believe in “his resurrection into a new life” though they had listened to me attentively.  Mother was crushed, and Tatyana Pavlovna had been diabolically sarcastic at the word “resurrection.”  But if all this was so, it must mean that some revulsion of feeling had come over him again in the night, another crisis, and this — after yesterday’s enthusiasm, emotion, pathos! So all his “resurrection” had burst like a soap-bubble, and he, perhaps, was rushing about somewhere again now, in the same frenzy as he had been after hearing the news of Buring!  There was the question, too, what would become of mother, of me, of all of us, and . . . and, finally, what would become of HER?  What was the deadly noose Tatyana had babbled of when she was sending me to Anna Andreyevna?  So that “deadly noose” was there, at Anna Andreyevna’s!  Why at Anna Andreyevna’s?  Of course I should run to Anna Andreyevna’s; I had said that I wouldn’t go on purpose, only in annoyance; I would run there at once, but what was it Tatyana had said about the “document”?  And hadn’t he himself said to me the evening before:  “Burn the document”?

These were my thoughts, this was what strangled me, too, in a deadly noose; but what I wanted most of all was HIM.  With him I could have decided everything — I felt that; we should have understood each other in two words!  I should have gripped his hands, pressed them; I should have found burning words in my heart — this was the dream that haunted me.  Oh, I would have calmed his frenzy. . . .  But where was he?  Where was he?

And, as though this were not enough, Lambert must needs turn up at such a moment, when I was so excited!  When I was only a few steps from my door I met him; he uttered a yell of delight on seeing me, and seized me by the arm.

“I’ve been to see you thr-r-ree times already. . . .  Enfin! come and have lunch.”

“Stay, have you been to my rooms; was Andrey Petrovitch there?”

“No, there was no one there.  Dr-r-rop them all!  You’re a fool, you were cross yesterday; you were drunk, and I’ve something important to tell you; I heard a splendid piece of news this morning, about what we were discussing yesterday. . . .”

“Lambert,” I interrupted hurriedly, breathing hard and unconsciously declaiming a little.  “I am only stopping with you now to finish with you for good.  I told you yesterday, but you still won’t understand.  Lambert, you’re a baby and as stupid as a Frenchman. You persist in thinking that it’s the same as it was at Touchard’s, and that I’m as stupid as at Touchard’s. . . .  But I’m not so silly as I was at Touchard’s. . . .  I was drunk yesterday, but not from wine, but because I was excited; and if I seemed to agree with the stuff you talked, it was because I pretended, so as to find out what you were driving at.  I deceived you, and you were delighted and believed it and went on talking nonsense.  Let me tell you that marrying her is such nonsense that it wouldn’t take in a schoolboy in the first form.  How could you imagine I should believe it?  Did you believe it?  You believed it because you have never been in aristocratic society, and don’t know how things are done among decent people.  Things aren’t done so simply in aristocratic society, and it’s not possible for her so simply to go and get married. . . .  Now I will tell you plainly what it is you want: you mean to entice me, so as to make me drunk, and to get me to give up the document, and to join you in some scoundrelly plot against Katerina Nikolaevna!  So I tell you it’s nonsense!  I’ll never come to you.  And you may as well know that to-morrow or the day after that letter will be in her own hands, for it belongs to her, for it was written by her, and I’ll give it to her myself, and if you care to know where, I can tell you that through Tatyana Pavlovna, her friend, I shall give it at Tatyana Pavlovna’s, and in Tatyana Pavlovna’s presence, and I’ll take nothing from her for giving it her.  And now be off and keep away from me for ever, or else . . . or else, I shan’t treat you so civilly next time, Lambert. . . .”

As I finished I was in a slight shudder all over.  A very serious thing and the nastiest habit in life, which vitiates everything in all one does, is . . . is showing off.  Some evil spirit prompted me to work myself up with Lambert, till rapping out the words with relish, and raising my voice higher and higher, in my heat I ended up by dragging in the quite unnecessary detail, that I should return the document through Tatyana Pavlovna, and in her lodging!  But I had such a longing to crush him!  When I burst out so directly about the letter, and suddenly saw his stupid alarm, I immediately felt a desire to overwhelm him by giving him precise details.  And this womanish, boastful babbling was afterwards the cause of terrible misfortunes, for that detail about Tatyana Pavlovna and her lodging was naturally caught up and retained by a scoundrel who had a practical mind for little things; in more exalted and important matters he was useless and unintelligent, but for such trifles he had a keen sense, nevertheless.  If I had held my tongue about Tatyana Pavlovna, great disasters would not have occurred.  Yet when he heard what I said, for the first minute he was terribly upset.

“Listen,” he muttered.  “Alphonsine . . . Alphonsine will sing. . . . Alphonsine has been to see HER; listen.  I have a letter, almost a letter, in which Mme. Ahmakov writes of you; the pock-marked fellow got it for me, do you remember him — and you will see, you will see, come along!”

“You are lying; show me the letter!”

“It’s at home, Alphonsine has got it; come along!”

He was lying and talking wildly, of course, trembling for fear I should run away from him; but I suddenly abandoned him in the middle of the street, and when he seemed disposed to follow me I stood still and shook my fist at him.  But he already stood hesitating, and let me get away; perhaps a new plan had dawned upon him.  But the meetings and surprises in store for me were not yet over. . . .  And when I remember the whole of that disastrous day, it always seems as though all those surprises and unforeseen accidents were somehow conspiring together and were showered on my head from some accursed horn of plenty.  I had scarcely opened the door of my lodging when in the entry I jostled against a tall young man, of dignified and elegant exterior with a long pale face, wearing a magnificent fur coat.  He had a pince-nez on his nose; but as soon as he saw me he took it off (evidently as a mark of politeness), and courteously lifting his top-hat, but without stopping, however, said to me with an elegant smile:  “Hullo, bonsoir,” and passing me went downstairs.  We recognized each other at once, though I had only once seen him for a moment in Moscow.  It was Anna Andreyevna’s brother, the young kammer-junker, Versilov’s son, and consequently almost my brother.  He was accompanied by my landlady.  (The landlord was not yet back from his office.)  As soon as he had gone, I simply pounced on her:

“What has he been doing here?  Has he been in my room?”

“He’s not been in your room at all.  He came to see me . . ,” she snapped out briefly and dryly, and returned to her room.

“No, you can’t put me off like that,” I cried.  “Kindly answer me; why did he come?”

“My goodness!  Am I always to tell you why people come to see me?  We may have our own interests to consider, mayn’t we?  The young man may have wanted to borrow money; he found out an address from me.  Perhaps I promised it him last time. . . .”

“Last time?  When?”

“Oh my goodness, why it’s not the first time he’s been!”

She went away.  The chief thing I gathered was the change of tone.  They had begun to be rude to me.  It was clear that this was another secret; secrets were accumulating with every step, with every hour.  For the first time young Versilov had come with his sister, with Anna Andreyevna, when I was ill; I remember that perfectly, as well as Anna Andreyevna’s amazing words the day before, that, perhaps, the old prince would stay at my rooms. . . .  But all this was so mixed up and so monstrous that I could scarcely gather anything from it.  Clapping my hands to my forehead, and not even sitting down to rest, I ran to Anna Andreyevna’s; it appeared that she was not at home, and I received from the porter the information that “she had gone to Tsarskoe; and might, perhaps, not be back till about this time to-morrow.”

She was at Tsarskoe, and no doubt with the old prince, and her brother was examining my lodgings!  “No, that shall not be,” I cried, gnashing my teeth; “and if there really is some ‘deadly noose’ I will defend ‘the poor woman’!”

From Anna Andreyevna’s I did not return home, for there suddenly flashed upon my feverish brain the thought of the restaurant on the canal side, where Andrey Petrovitch had the habit of going in his gloomy hours.  Delighted at this conjecture, I instantly ran thither; it was by now four o’clock and was already beginning to get dark.  In the restaurant I was told that he had been there, stayed a little while and had gone away, but, perhaps, he would come back.  I suddenly determined to wait for him, and ordered dinner; there was a hope any how.

I ate my dinner, ate, indeed, more than I wanted, so as to have a right to stay as long as possible, and I stayed, I believe, four hours.  I won’t describe my disappointment and feverish impatience, everything within me seemed shaking and quivering.  That organ, those diners — oh, all the dreariness of it is stamped upon my soul, perhaps for the rest of my life!  I won’t describe the ideas that whirled in my head like a crowd of dry leaves in autumn after a hurricane; it really was something like that, and I confess that I felt at times that my reason was beginning to desert me.

But what worried me till it was a positive pain (in a side-current, of course, besides my chief torment) was a persistent poisonous impression, persistent as a venomous autumn fly, which one does not think about but which whirls about one, pesters one, and suddenly bites one painfully; it was only a reminiscence, an incident of which I had never spoken to anyone in the world before.  This was what it was, since it seems I must tell this, too.

4

When it was settled that I was to leave Moscow and come to Petersburg, I received instructions through Nikolay Semyonovitch to wait for money to be sent me for the journey.  From whom the money was coming I did not ask; I knew it was from Versilov, and as I dreamed day and night of my meeting with him, making exalted plans about it while my heart almost swooned within me, I had quite given up speaking about him aloud even to Marie Ivanovna.  I remember that I had money of my own, but I proceeded to wait expectantly for the money to come by post.

Suddenly, however, Nikolay Semyonovitch, returning home, informed me (as usual briefly and without going off into explanations) that I was to go next day to Myasnitsky, at eleven o’clock in the morning, to Prince V.’s flat, and that there Andrey Petrovitch’s son, the kammer-junker, Versilov, who had just arrived from Petersburg and was staying with his schoolfellow, Prince V. would hand over to me a sum of money for my journey.  On the face of it the arrangement was simple enough: Andrey Petrovitch might well send the money by his son rather than by post; but the news crushed me and filled me with alarm.  I had no doubt that Versilov wished to bring his son, my brother, and me together; this threw a light upon the intentions and feelings of the man of whom I dreamed; but a question of the utmost magnitude presented itself to me: how should I, and how must I behave at this utterly unexpected interview, and how could I best keep up my dignity?

Next day, exactly at eleven o’clock, I turned up at Prince V.’s flat, which, as I was able to judge, was splendidly furnished, though it was a bachelor’s establishment.  I was kept waiting in the hall where there were several lackeys in livery.  And from the next room came sounds of loud talk and laughter: Prince V. had other visitors besides the kammer-junker.  I told the footman to announce me, and, I fancy, in rather haughty terms.  Anyway, he looked at me strangely, and, as I fancied, not so respectfully as he should have done.  To my amazement he was a very long time in announcing me, five minutes, and all the while the same laughter, and the same sounds of conversation reached me.

I waited standing, knowing that it would be impossible and unseemly for me, “just as much a gentleman,” to sit down in a hall where there were footmen.  My pride would have prevented me under any circumstances from entering the drawing-room without a special invitation; over-fastidious pride perhaps it was, but that was only fitting.  To my amazement the two lackeys who were left in the hall had the impertinence to sit down.  I turned away to avoid noticing it, and yet I could not help quivering all over, and suddenly turning and stepping up to one of the footmen, I ORDERED him to go “at once” and take in my name again.  In spite of my stern expression and extreme excitement, the lackey looked at me lazily, without getting up, and the other one answered for him: