Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (152 page)

I begged him not to do like this in the future, but to speak to me directly. But this explanation did not altogether satisfy me.

“Well, but why did you run away from me this morning?” I asked.

“This morning I really had business. I’m not telling the least little fib.”

“Not with the prince?”

“Do you like our tea?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, in honied accents. For the last five minutes she had been waiting for me to praise the tea, but it never occurred to me.

“It’s splendid, Alexandra Semyonovna, superb. I have never drunk anything like it.”

Alexandra Semyonovna positively glowed with satisfaction and flew to pour me out some more.

“The prince!” cried Masloboev, “the prince! That prince, my boy, is a rogue, a rascal such as …. Well! I can tell you, my boy, though I’m a rogue myself, from a mere sense of decency I shouldn’t care to be in his skin. But enough. Mum’s the word! That’s all I can tell you about him.”

“But I’ve come, among other things, on purpose to ask you about him. But that will do later. Why did you give my Elena sweetmeats and dance for her when I was away yesterday? And what can you have been talking about for an hour and a half!”

“Elena is a little girl of twelve, or perhaps eleven, who is living for the time at Ivan Petrovitch’s,” Masloboev exclaimed, suddenly addressing Alexandra Semyonovna. “Look, Vanya, look,” he went on, pointing at her, “how she flushed up when she heard I had taken sweets to an unknown girl. Didn’t she give a start and turn red as though we’d fired a pistol at her? … I say, her eyes are flashing like coals of fire! It’s no use, Alexandra Semyonovna, it’s no use to try and hide it! She’s jealous. If I hadn’t explained that it was a child of eleven she’d have pulled my hair and the bergamot wouldn’t have saved me!”

“It won’t save you as it is!”

And with these words Alexandra Semyonovna darted at one bound from behind the tea-table, and before Masloboev had time to protect his head she snatched at a tuft of his hair and gave it a good pull.

“So there! So there! Don’t dare to say I’m jealous before a visitor! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”

She was quite crimson, and though she laughed, Masloboev caught it pretty hotly.

“He talks of all sorts of shameful things,” she added seriously turning to me.

“Well, Vanya, you see the sort of life I lead! That’s I must have a drop of vodka,” Masloboev concluded, setting his hair straight and going almost at a trot to the decanter But Alexandra Semyonovna was beforehand with him. She skipped up to the table, poured some out herself, handed it him, and even gave him a friendly pat on the cheek. Masloboev winked at me, triumphantly clicked with his tongue, an solemnly emptied his glass.

“As for the sweets, it’s difficult to say,” he began, sitting down on the sofa beside me. “I bought them at a greengrocer’s shop the other day when I was drunk, I don’t know why. Perhaps it was to support home industries and manufactures, don’t know for sure. I only remember that I was walking along the street drunk, fell in the mud, clutched at my hair and cried at being unfit for anything. I forgot about the sweets, of course so they remained in my pocket till yesterday when I sat down on your sofa and sat on them. The dances, too, were a question of inebriety. Yesterday I was rather drunk, and when I’m drunk, if I’m contented with my lot I sometimes dance. That’s all. Except, perhaps, that that little orphan excited my pity besides, she wouldn’t talk to me, she seemed cross. And so danced to cheer her up and gave her the fruit-drops.”

“And you weren’t bribing her to try and find something out from her? Own up, honestly, didn’t you come then on purpose knowing I shouldn’t be at home, to talk to her tete-a-tete, to get something out of her? You see, I know you spent an hour and a half with her, declared that you had known her dead mother, and that you questioned her about something.” Masloboev screwed up his eyes and laughed roguishly.

“Well, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea,” he said. “Vanya, that was not so. Though, indeed, why shouldn’t I question her if I got a chance; but it wasn’t that. Listen, my friend, though as usual I’m rather drunk now, yet you may be sure that with evil intent Filip will never deceive you, with evil intent, that is.”

“Yes, but without evil intent?

“Well … even without evil intent. But, damn it all, let’s have a drink and then to business. It’s not a matter of much consequence,” he went on after a drink; “that Bubnov woman had no sort of right to keep the girl. I’ve gone into it all. There was no adoption or anything of that sort. The mother owed her money, and so she got hold of the child. Though the Bubnov woman’s a sly hag and a wicked wretch, she’s a silly woman like all women. The dead woman had a good passport and so everything was all right. Elena can live with you, though it would be a very good thing if some benevolent people with a family would take her for good and bring her up. But meanwhile, let her stay with you. That’s all right. I’ll arrange it all for you. The Bubnov woman won’t dare to stir a finger. I’ve found out scarcely anything certain about Elena’s mother. She was a woman of the name of Salzmann.”

“Yes, so Nellie told me.”

“Well, so there the matter ends. Now, Vanya,” he began with a certain solemnity, “I’ve one great favour to ask of you. Mind you grant it. Tell me as fully as you can what it is you’re busy about, where you’re going, and where you spend whole days at a time. Though I have heard something, I want to know about it much more fully.”

Such solemnity surprised me and even made me uneasy.

“But what is it? Why do you want to know? You ask so solemnly.”

“Well, Vanya, without wasting words, I want to do you a service. You see, my dear boy, if I weren’t straight with you I could get it all out of you without being so solemn. But you suspect me of not being straight — just now, those fruit-drops; I understood. But since I’m speaking with such seriousness, you may be sure it’s not my interest but yours I’m thinking of. So don’t have any doubts, but speak out the whole truth.”

“But what sort of service? Listen, Masloboev, why won’t you tell me anything about the prince? That’s what I want. That would be a service to me.”

“About the prince? H’m! Very well, I’ll tell you straight out. I’m going to question you in regard to the prince now.”

“How so?”

“I’ll tell you how. I’ve noticed, my boy, that he seems to be somehow mixed up in your affairs; for instance, he questioned me about you. How he found out that we knew each other is not your business. The only thing that matters is that you should be on your guard against that man. He’s a treacherous Judas, and worse than that too. And so, when I saw that he was mixed up in your affairs I trembled for you. But of course I knew nothing about it; that’s why I asked you to tell me, that I may judge…. And that’s why I asked you to come her to-day. That’s what the important business is. I tell you straight out.”

“You must tell me something, anyway, if only why I need to be afraid of the prince.”

“Very good, so be it. I am sometimes employed, my boy, in certain affairs. But I’m trusted by certain persons just because I’m not a chatterbox. Judge for yourself whether I should talk to you. So you mustn’t mind if I speak somewhat generally, very generally in fact, simply to show what a scoundrel he is. Well, to begin with, you tell your story.”

I decided there was really no need to conceal anything in my affairs from Masloboev. Natasha’s affairs were not a secret; moreover I might expect to get some help for her from Masloboev. Of course I passed over certain points as far as possible in my story. Masloboev listened particularly attentively to all that related to Prince Valkovsky; he stopped me in many places, asked me about several points over again, so that in the end I told him the story rather fully. The telling of it lasted half an hour.

“H’m! That girl’s got a head,” Masloboev commented. “If she hasn’t guessed quite correctly about the prince, it’s a good thing anyway that she recognized from the first the sort of man she had to deal with, and broke off all relations with him. Bravo, Natalya Nikolaevna! I drink to her health.” (He took a drink.) “It’s not only brains, it must have been her heart too, that saved her from being deceived. And her heart didn’t mislead her. Of course her game is lost. The prince will get his way and Alyosha will give her up. I’m only sorry for Ichmenyev — to pay ten thousand to that scoundrel. Why, who took up his case, who acted for him? Managed it himself, I bet! E-ech! just like all these noble, exalted people! They’re no good for anything! That’s not the way to deal with the prince. I’d have found a nice little lawyer for Ichmenyev — ech!”

And he thumped on the table with vexation.

“Well, now about Prince Valkovsky?”

“Ah, you’re still harping on the prince. But what am I to say about him? I’m sorry I’ve offered to, I only wanted, Vanya, to warn you against that swindler, to protect you, so to say, from his influence. No one is safe who comes in contact with him. So keep your eyes open, that’s all. And here you’ve been imagining I had some mysteries of Paris I wanted to reveal to you. One can see you’re a novelist. Well, what am I to tell you about the villain? The villain’s a villain…. Well, for example, I’ll tell you one little story, of course without mentioning places, towns, or persons, that is, without the exactitude of a calendar. You know that when he was very young and had to live on his official salary, he married a very rich merchant’s daughter. Well, he didn’t treat that lady very ceremoniously, and though we’re not discussing her case now, I may mention in passing, friend Vanya, that he has all his life been particularly fond of turning such affairs to profit. Here’s another example of it. He went abroad. There… .”

“Stop, Masloboev, what journey abroad are you speaking of? In what year?”

“Just ninety-nine years and three months ago. Well, there he seduced the daughter of a certain father, and carried her off with him to Paris. And this is what he did! The father was some sort of a manufacturer, or was a partner in some enterprise of that sort. I don’t know for sure. What I tell you is what I’ve gathered from my own conjectures, and what I’ve concluded from other facts. Well, the prince cheated him, worming himself into his business too. He swindled him out and out, and got hold of his money. The old man, of course, had some legal documents to prove that the prince had had the money from him. The prince didn’t want to give it back; that is, in plain Russian, wanted to steal it. The old man had a daughter, and she was a beauty, and she had an ideal lover, one of the Schiller brotherhood, a poet, and at the same time a merchant, a young dreamer; in short a regular German, one Pfefferkuchen.”

“Do you mean to say Pfefferkuchen was his surname?”

“Well, perhaps it wasn’t Pfefferkuchen. Hang the man, he doesn’t matter. But the prince made up to the daughter, and so successfully that she fell madly in love with him. The prince wanted two things at that time, first to possess the daughter, and secondly the documents relating to the money he had had from the old man. All the old man’s keys were in his daughter’s keeping. The old man was passionately fond of his daughter, so much so that he didn’t want her to be married. Yes, really. He was jealous of every suitor she had, he didn’t contemplate parting with her, and he turned Pfefferkuchen out. He was a queer fish the father, an Englishman… .”

“An Englishman? But where did it all happen?”

“I only called him an Englishman, speaking figuratively, and you catch me up. It happened in the town of Santa-fe-da-Bogota, or perhaps it was Cracow, but more likely it was in the principality of Nassau, like the label on the seltzer-water bottles; certainly it was Nassau. Is that enough for you? Well, so the prince seduced the girl and carried her off from her father, and managed to induce the girl to lay hands on the documents and take them with her. There are cases of love like that, you know, Vanya. Fugh! God have mercy upon us! She was an honest girl, you know, noble, exalted. It’s true she very likely didn’t know much about the documents. The only thing that troubled her was that her father might curse her. The prince was equal to the occasion this time too; he gave her a formal, legal promise of marriage in writing. By so doing he persuaded her that they were only going abroad for a time, for a holiday tour, and that when the old father’s anger had subsided they would return to him married, and would, the three of them, live happy ever after, and so on, to infinity. She ran away, the old father cursed her and went bankrupt. She was followed to Paris by Frauenmilch, who chucked up everything, chucked up his business even; he was very much in love with her.”

“Stop, who’s Frauenmilch?”

“Why, that fellow! Feurbach, wasn’t it? Damn the fellow, Pfefferkuchen! Well, of course, the prince couldn’t marry her: what would Countess Hlestov* have said? What would Baron Slops have thought? So he had to deceive her. And he did deceive her, too brutally. To begin with, he almost beat her, and secondly, he purposely invited Pfefferkuchen to visit them. Well, he used to go and see them and became her friend. They would spend whole evenings alone, whimpering together, weeping over their troubles, and he would comfort her. To be sure, dear, simple souls! The prince brought things to this pass on purpose. Once, he found them late at night, and pretended that they had an intrigue, caught at some pretext; said he’d seen it with his own eyes. Well, he turned them both out of the house, and took his departure to London for a time. She was

*The Russian “Mrs. Grundy.” — Translator’s note.

just on the eve of her confinement; when he turned her out she gave birth to a daughter, that is, not a daughter but a son, to be sure, a little son. He was christened Volodka. Pfefferkuchen stood godfather. Well, so she went off with Pfefferkuchen. He had a little money. She travelled in Switzerland and Italy, through all the poetical places to be sure, most appropriately. She cried all the time, and Pfefferkuchen whimpered, and many years passed like that, and the baby grew into a little girl. And everything went right for the prince, only one thing was wrong, he hadn’t succeeded in getting back the promise of marriage. ‘You’re a base man,’ she had said to him at parting. ‘You have robbed me, you have dishonoured me and now you abandon me. Good-bye. But I won’t give you back your promise. Not because I ever want to marry you, but because you’re afraid of that document. So I shall always keep it in my hands.’ She lost her temper in fact, but the prince felt quite easy. Such scoundrels always come off well in their dealings with so-called lofty souls. They’re so noble that it’s always easy to deceive them, and besides they invariably confine themselves to lofty and noble contempt instead of practically applying the law to the case if it can be applied. That young mother, for instance, she took refuge in haughty contempt, and though she kept the promise of marriage, the prince knew, of course, that she’d sooner hang herself than make use of it; so he felt secure for the time. And though she spat in his nasty face, she had her Volodka left on her hands; if she had died what would have become of him? But she didn’t think about that. Bruderschaft, too, encouraged her and didn’t think about it. They read Schiller. At last Bruderschaft sickened of something and died.”