The Adolescent (10 page)

I

KRAFT USED TO be in government service somewhere, and along with that had also helped the late Andronikov (for a remuneration from him) to conduct some private affairs, which the latter had always engaged in on top of his government work. For me the important thing was that Kraft, owing to his particular closeness to Andronikov, might be informed of much that so interested me. But I knew from Marya Ivanovna, the wife of Nikolai Semyonovich, with whom I lived for so many years while I was in school—and who was the niece, the ward, and the favorite of Andronikov—that Kraft had even been “charged” with delivering something to me. I had been waiting for him that whole month.

He lived in a small two-room apartment, completely separate, and at the present moment, having only just returned, was even without a servant. The suitcase, though unpacked, had not been put away; things were strewn over chairs, and laid out on the table in front of the sofa were a valise, a traveling strongbox, a revolver, and so on. Coming in, Kraft was extremely pensive, as if he had totally forgotten about me; he may not even have noticed that I hadn’t spoken to him on the way. He at once began looking for something, but, glancing into the mirror in passing, he stopped and studied his face closely for a whole minute. Though I noticed this peculiarity (and later recalled it very well), I was sad and very confused. I couldn’t concentrate. There was a moment when I suddenly wanted to up and leave and thus abandon all these matters forever. And what were all these matters essentially? Weren’t they simply self-inflicted cares? I was beginning to despair that I was maybe spending my energy on unworthy trifles out of mere sentimentality, while I had an energetic task before me. And meanwhile my incapacity for serious business was obviously showing itself, in view of what had happened at Dergachev’s.

“Kraft, will you go to them again?” I suddenly asked him. He slowly turned to me, as if he hadn’t quite understood me. I sat down on a chair.

“Forgive them!” Kraft said suddenly.

To me, of course, this seemed like mockery; but, looking at him attentively, I saw such a strange and even astonishing ingenuousness in his face, that I was even astonished at how seriously he had asked me to “forgive” them. He moved a chair and sat down beside me.

“I myself know that I’m maybe a rag-bag of all the vanities and nothing more,” I began, “but I don’t ask forgiveness.”

“And there’s no one to ask,” he said softly and seriously. He spoke softly and very slowly all the time.

“Let me be guilty before myself . . . I like being guilty before myself . . . Kraft, forgive me for babbling here with you. Tell me, can it be that you’re also in that circle? That’s what I wanted to ask.”

“They’re no more stupid than others, nor more intelligent; they’re crazy, like everybody.”

“So everybody’s crazy?” I turned to him with involuntary curiosity.

“Among the better sort of people now, everybody’s crazy. Only mediocrity and giftlessness are having a heyday . . . However, that’s all not worth . . .”

As he spoke, he somehow stared into space, began phrases and broke them off. Especially striking was a sort of despondency in his voice.

“Can it be that Vasin’s with them? Vasin has a mind, Vasin has a moral idea!” I cried.

“There aren’t any moral ideas now; suddenly not one can be found, and, above all, it looks as if there never were any.”

“Before there weren’t?”

“Better drop that,” he said with obvious fatigue.

I was touched by his woeful seriousness. Ashamed of my egoism, I started to fall into his tone.

“The present time,” he began himself, after a couple of minutes of silence and still staring somewhere into space, “the present time is a time of the golden mean and insensibility, a passion for ignorance, idleness, an inability to act, and a need to have everything ready-made. No one ponders; rarely does anyone live his way into an idea.”

He broke off again and was silent for a little while. I listened.

“Now they’re deforesting Russia, exhausting her soil, turning it into steppe, and preparing it for the Kalmyks.
¹⁹
If a man of hope were to appear and plant a tree, everyone would laugh: ‘Do you think you’ll live so long?’ On the other hand, those who desire the good talk about what will be in a thousand years. The binding idea has disappeared completely. Everyone lives as if in a flophouse, and tomorrow it’s up and out of Russia; everyone lives only so far as there’s enough for him . . .”

“Excuse me, Kraft, you said, ‘They’re concerned about what will be in a thousand years.’ Well, but your despair . . . about the fate of Russia . . . isn’t it the same sort of concern?”

“That . . . that is the most urgent question there is!” he said irritably and quickly got up from his place.

“Ah, yes! I forgot!” he said suddenly in a completely different voice, looking at me in bewilderment. “I invited you on business, and meanwhile . . . For God’s sake, forgive me.”

It was as if he suddenly came out of some sort of dream, almost embarrassed; he took a letter from a briefcase that lay on the table and gave it to me.

“That is what I was to deliver to you. It is a document having a certain importance,” he began with attentiveness and with a most businesslike air.

Long afterwards I was struck when I remembered this ability of his (at such a time for him!) to treat another’s business with such heartfelt attentiveness, to tell of it so calmly and firmly.

“This is a letter of that same Stolbeev, following whose death a case arose between Versilov and the Princes Sokolsky over his will. That case is now being decided in court and will surely be decided in Versilov’s favor; the law is with him. Meanwhile, in this letter, a personal one, written two years ago, the testator himself sets forth his actual will, or, more correctly, his wish, and sets it forth rather in the princes’ favor than in Versilov’s. At least the points that the Princes Sokolsky base themselves on in disputing the will gain much strength from this letter. Versilov’s opponents would give a lot for this document, which, however, has no decisive legal significance. Alexei Nikanorovich (Andronikov), who was handling Versilov’s case, kept this letter and, not long before his death, gave it to me, charging me to ‘stow it away’—perhaps fearing for his papers in anticipation of his death. I have no wish now to judge Alexei Nikanorovich’s intentions in this matter, and, I confess, after his death I was painfully undecided about what to do with this document, especially in view of the impending decision of the court case. But Marya Ivanovna, in whom Alexei Nikanorovich seems to have confided very much while he lived, brought me out of this difficulty: three weeks ago she wrote to me very resolutely that I should give the document precisely to you, and that this would also
seem
(her expression) to coincide with Andronikov’s will. So here is the document, and I’m very glad that I can finally deliver it.”

“Listen,” I said, puzzled by such unexpected news, “what am I going to do now with this letter? How am I to act?”

“That’s as you will.”

“Impossible, I’m terribly unfree, you must admit! Versilov has been waiting so for this inheritance . . . and, you know, he’ll die without this help—and suddenly there exists such a document!”

“It exists only here in this room.”

“Can it be so?” I looked at him attentively.

“If you yourself can’t find how to act in this case, what advice can I give you?”

“But I can’t turn it over to Prince Sokolsky either; I’ll kill all Versilov’s hopes and, besides that, come out as a traitor before him . . . On the other hand, by giving it to Versilov, I’ll reduce innocent people to poverty, and still put Versilov in an impossible position: either to renounce the inheritance or to become a thief.”

“You greatly exaggerate the significance of the matter.”

“Tell me one thing. Does this document have a decisive, definitive character?”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m not much of a jurist. The lawyer for the opposing side would, of course, know how to put this document to use and derive all possible benefit from it; but Alexei Nikanorovich found positively that this letter, if presented, would have no great legal significance, so that Versilov’s case could be won anyway. This document sooner represents, so to speak, a matter of conscience . . .”

“But that’s the most important thing of all,” I interrupted, “that’s precisely why Versilov will be in an impossible position.”

“He can destroy the document, however, and then, on the contrary, he’ll deliver himself from any danger.”

“Do you have special grounds for supposing that of him, Kraft? That’s what I want to know, it’s for that that I’m here!”

“I think anyone in his place would do the same.”

“And you yourself would do the same?”

“I’m not getting an inheritance, and therefore don’t know about myself.”

“Well, all right,” I said, putting the letter in my pocket. “The matter’s finished for now. Listen, Kraft. Marya Ivanovna, who, I assure you, has revealed a lot to me, told me that you and you alone could tell the truth about what happened in Ems a year and a half ago between Versilov and the Akhmakovs. I’ve been waiting for you like a sun that would light up everything for me. You don’t know my position, Kraft. I beseech you to tell me the whole truth. I precisely want to know what kind of man
he
is, and now—now I need it more than ever!”

“I’m surprised that Marya Ivanovna didn’t tell you everything herself; she could have heard all about it from the late Andronikov and, naturally, has heard and knows maybe more than I do.”

“Andronikov himself was unclear about the matter, that’s precisely what Marya Ivanovna says. It seems nobody can clear it up. The devil would break a leg here! I know, though, that you were in Ems yourself then . . .”

“I didn’t witness all of it, but what I know I’ll willingly tell you, if you like—only will that satisfy you?”

II

I WON’T QUOTE his story word for word, but will give only the brief essence of it.

A year and a half ago, Versilov, having become a friend of the Akhmakovs’ house through old Prince Sokolsky (they were all abroad then, in Ems), made a strong impression, first, on Akhmakov himself, a general and not yet an old man, but who, in the space of three years of marriage, had lost all the rich dowry of his wife, Katerina Nikolaevna, at cards, and had already had a stroke from his intemperate life. He had recovered from it and was convalescing abroad, but was living in Ems for the sake of his daughter from his first marriage. She was a sickly girl of about seventeen, who suffered from a weak chest, and was said to be extremely beautiful, but at the same time also fantastical. She had no dowry; hopes were placed, as usual, in the old prince. Katerina Nikolaevna was said to be a good stepmother. But the girl, for some reason, became especially attached to Versilov. He was then preaching “something passionate,” in Kraft’s expression, some new life, “was in a religious mood in the loftiest sense”—in the strange, and perhaps also mocking, expression of Andronikov, which was reported to me. But, remarkably, everyone soon took a dislike to him. The general was even afraid of him. Kraft in no way denies the rumor that Versilov somehow managed to instill it into the sick husband’s mind that Katerina Nikolaevna was not indifferent to the young Prince Sokolsky (who had then absented himself from Ems to Paris). And he did it not directly, but, “as was his wont”—by slander, hints, and various meanderings, “at which he was a great master,” as Kraft put it. Generally, I will say that Kraft considered him, and wished to consider him, sooner a crook and a born intriguer than a man indeed imbued with anything lofty or at least original. I knew even apart from Kraft that Versilov, who first exercised an extraordinary influence on Katerina Nikolaevna, gradually went so far as to break with her. What the whole game consisted of, I could not get from Kraft, but everyone confirmed the mutual hatred that arose between them after their friendship. Then a strange circumstance occurred: Katerina Nikolaevna’s sickly stepdaughter apparently fell in love with Versilov, or was struck by something in him, or was inflamed by his talk, or I have no idea what else; but it is known that for some time Versilov spent almost every day near this girl. It ended with the girl suddenly announcing to her father that she wished to marry Versilov. That this actually happened, everyone confirms—Kraft and Andronikov and Marya Ivanovna—and once even Tatyana Pavlovna let something slip about it in my presence. It was also affirmed that Versilov himself not only wished but even insisted on marrying the girl, and that this concord of two dissimilar beings, an old one and a young one, was mutual. But the father was frightened at the thought; to the extent that he was turning away from Katerina Nikolaevna, whom he had formerly loved very much, he had begun almost to idolize his daughter, especially after his stroke. But the most violent opponent of the possibility of such a marriage was Katerina Nikolaevna herself. There took place an extreme number of some sort of secret, extremely unpleasant family confrontations, arguments, grievances, in short, all kinds of nastiness. The father finally began to give in, seeing the persistence of his daughter, who was in love with and “fanaticized” by Versilov—Kraft’s expression. But Katerina Nikolaevna continued to rebel with implacable hatred. And here begins the tangle that no one understands. Here, however, is Kraft’s direct conjecture, based on the given facts, but still only a conjecture.

Versilov supposedly managed to instill into the young person,
in his own way
, subtly and irrefutably, that the reason why Katerina Nikolaevna would not consent was that she was in love with him herself and had long been tormenting him with her jealousy, pursuing him, intriguing, had already made him a declaration, and was now ready to burn him up for loving another woman—in short, something like that. The worst of it was that he supposedly also “hinted” it to the father, the husband of the “unfaithful” wife, explaining that the prince was only an amusement. Naturally, there began to be real hell in the family. According to some versions, Katerina Nikolaevna loved her stepdaughter terribly, and now, being slandered before her, was in despair, to say nothing of her relations with the sick husband. But then, next to that there exists another version, in which, to my sorrow, Kraft fully believed, and in which I also believed myself (I had already heard about all that). It was affirmed (Andronikov is said to have heard it from Katerina Nikolaevna herself ) that, on the contrary, Versilov, still earlier, before the beginning of the young girl’s feelings, had offered Katerina Nikolaevna his love; that she, being his friend, and even in exaltation over him for some time, though constantly disbelieving and contradicting him, met this declaration of Versilov’s with extreme hatred and mocked him venomously. She formally drove him away from her, because the man had proposed directly that she be his wife, in view of her husband’s supposedly impending second stroke. Thus Katerina Nikolaevna must have felt a particular hatred for Versilov when she saw afterwards that he was openly seeking her stepdaughter’s hand. Marya Ivanovna, conveying all this to me in Moscow, believed both the one variant and the other, that is, all of it together: she precisely affirmed that it could all occur at once, that it was something like
la haine dans l’amour
,
¹⁹
an offended love’s pride on both sides, etc., etc., in short, something in the way of some most subtle novelistic entanglement, unworthy of any serious and sober-minded person, and with meanness to boot. But Marya Ivanovna herself had been stuffed with novels from childhood and read them day and night, despite her excellent character. As a result, Versilov’s obvious meanness was displayed, a lie and an intrigue, something black and vile, the more so in that the end was indeed tragic: they say the poor inflamed girl poisoned herself with phosphorus matches; however, I don’t know even now whether this last rumor was accurate; at least they tried their best to stifle it. The girl was sick for no more than two weeks and then died. The matches thus remained in doubt, but Kraft firmly believed in them as well. Soon after that, the girl’s father also died—of grief, they say, which caused a second stroke, though not before three months had passed. But after the girl’s funeral, the young Prince Sokolsky, having returned to Ems from Paris, gave Versilov a slap in the face publicly in the garden, and the latter did not respond with a challenge; on the contrary, the very next day he appeared at a promenade as if nothing had happened. It was then that everyone turned away from him, in Petersburg as well. Versilov, though he continued to have acquaintances, had them in a totally different circle. His society acquaintances all accused him, though, incidentally, very few of them knew all the details; they only knew something about the novelistic death of the young lady and about the slap. Only two or three persons had possibly full information; the late Andronikov, who had long had business connections with the Akhmakovs, and particularly with Katerina Nikolaevna on a certain matter, knew most of all. But he kept all these secrets even from his own family, and only revealed something to Kraft and Marya Ivanovna, and that out of necessity.

“Above all, there’s now a certain document involved,” Kraft concluded, “which Mme. Akhmakov is extremely afraid of.”

And here is what he told me about that as well.

Katerina Nikolaevna had had the imprudence, while the old prince, her father, was abroad and had already begun to recover from his fit, to write to Andronikov in great secret (Katerina Nikolaevna trusted him fully) an extremely compromising letter. At that time, they say, the recuperating prince indeed showed an inclination to spend his money and all but throw it to the winds: while abroad he started buying totally unnecessary but valuable objects, paintings, vases; gave and donated large sums to God knows what, even to various institutions there; he almost bought a ruined estate, encumbered with litigations, from a Russian society squanderer, sight unseen, for an enormous sum; finally, he seemed indeed to begin dreaming of marriage. And so, in view of all that, Katerina Nikolaevna, who never left her father’s side during his illness, sent to Andronikov, as a lawyer and an “old friend,” the inquiry, “Would it be possible legally to declare the prince under guardianship or somehow irresponsible; and if so, what would be the best way to do it without a scandal, so that no one could accuse anyone and her father’s feelings would be spared, etc., etc.” They say Andronikov brought her to reason then and advised against it; and afterwards, when the prince had fully recovered, it was no longer possible to go back to the idea; but the letter stayed with Andronikov. And now he dies. Katerina Nikolaevna remembered at once about the letter. If it should be discovered among the deceased’s papers and get into the hands of the old prince, he would undoubtedly throw her out for good, disinherit her, and not give her a kopeck while he lived. The thought that his own daughter had no faith in his reason, and even wanted to declare him mad, would turn this lamb into a savage beast. While she, having become a widow, was left without any means, thanks to her gambler husband, and had only her father to count on; she fully hoped to get a new dowry from him as rich as the first one!

Kraft knew very little about the fate of this letter, but he observed that Andronikov “never tore up necessary papers” and, besides, was a man not only of broad intelligence, but also of “broad conscience.” (I even marveled then at such an extraordinarily independent view on the part of Kraft, who had so loved and respected Andronikov.) But all the same Kraft was certain that the compromising document had fallen into the hands of Versilov, through his closeness to Andronikov’s widow and daughters. It was known that they had presented Versilov at once and dutifully with all the papers the deceased had left behind. He also knew that Katerina Nikolaevna was informed that Versilov had the letter, and that this was what she feared, thinking that Versilov would at once go to the old prince with the letter; that, having returned from abroad, she had already searched for the letter in Petersburg, had visited the Andronikovs, and was now continuing to search, since the hope still remained in her that the letter was perhaps not with Versilov, and, in conclusion, that she had also gone to Moscow solely with that aim and had pleaded with Marya Ivanovna there to look among the papers she had kept. She had found out about Marya Ivanovna’s existence and her relations with the late Andronikov quite recently, on returning to Petersburg.

“Do you think she didn’t find it at Marya Ivanovna’s?” I asked, having a thought of my own.

“If Marya Ivanovna didn’t reveal anything even to you, then maybe she doesn’t have anything.”

“So you suppose that Versilov has the document?”

“Most likely he does. However, I don’t know, anything is possible,” he said with visible fatigue.

I stopped questioning him. What was the point? All the main things had become clear to me, in spite of this unworthy tangle; everything I was afraid of—had been confirmed.

“That’s all like dreams and delirium,” I said in profound sorrow, and took my hat.

“Is this man very dear to you?” Kraft asked with visible and great sympathy, which I read on his face at that moment.

“I anticipated,” I said, “that I wouldn’t learn the full story from you anyway. Mme. Akhmakov is the one remaining hope. I did have hope in her. Maybe I’ll go to see her, and maybe not.”

Kraft looked at me in some perplexity.

“Good-bye, Kraft! Why foist yourself on people who don’t want you? Isn’t it better to break with it all—eh?”

“And then where?” he asked somehow sternly and looking down.

“To yourself, to yourself! Break with it all and go to yourself !”

“To America?”

“To America! To yourself, to yourself alone! That’s the whole of ‘my idea,’ Kraft!” I said ecstatically.

He looked at me somehow curiously.

“And you have this place: ‘to yourself ’?”

“I do. Good-bye, Kraft. I thank you, and I’m sorry to have troubled you! In your place, since you’ve got such a Russia in your head, I’d send everybody to the devil: away with you, scheme, squabble among yourselves—what is it to me!”

“Stay a while,” he said suddenly, having already seen me to the front door.

I was a little surprised, went back, and sat down again. Kraft sat down facing me. We exchanged smiles of some sort, I can see it all as if it were now. I remember very well that I somehow wondered at him.

“What I like about you, Kraft, is that you’re such a polite man,” I said suddenly.

“Oh?”

“It’s because I’m rarely able to be polite myself, though I’d like to be able . . . But then, maybe it’s better that people insult us. At least they deliver us from the misfortune of loving them.”

“What time of day do you like best?” he asked, obviously not listening.

“What time? I don’t know. I don’t like sunset.”

“Oh?” he said with a sort of special curiosity, but at once lapsed into thought again.

“Are you going somewhere again?”

“Yes . . . I am.”

“Soon?”

“Soon.”

“Do you really need a revolver to get to Vilno?” I asked without the least second thought: it didn’t even enter my thoughts! I just asked, because the revolver flashed there, and I was at pains to find something to talk about.

He turned and looked intently at the revolver.

“No, I just do it out of habit.”

“If I had a revolver, I’d have hidden it somewhere under lock and key. You know, by God, it’s tempting! Maybe I don’t believe in epidemics of suicides, but if that sticks up in front of your eyes—really, there are moments when it might be tempting.”

“Don’t speak of that,” he said, and suddenly got up from his chair.

“I don’t mean me,” I added, also getting up. “I wouldn’t use it. You could give me three lives—it would still be too little.”

“Live more,” as if escaped from him.

He smiled distractedly and, strangely, walked straight to the front hall, as if leading me out personally, naturally without knowing what he was doing.