The Adolescent (32 page)

IV

AS IF ON PURPOSE, the nag crawled on for an unnaturally long time, though I had promised a whole rouble. The driver kept whipping her up and, of course, whipped her enough for a rouble. My heart was sinking; I tried to start talking with the driver, but I couldn’t even get the words out, and mumbled some sort of nonsense. That was the state I was in when I ran up to the prince’s. He had just returned; he had taken Darzan home and was alone. Pale and angry, he was pacing his study. I repeat once more: he had lost terribly. He looked at me with some sort of distracted perplexity.

“You again!” he said, frowning.

“So as to have done with you, sir!” I said breathlessly. “How dared you act that way with me?”

He looked at me questioningly.

“If you were going with Darzan, you might just have told me you were going with Darzan, instead of which you started the horse, and I . . .”

“Ah, yes, it seems you fell in the snow,” and he laughed in my face.

“The response to that is a challenge, and therefore we shall first finish with our accounts . . .”

And with a trembling hand I began taking my money out and placing it on the sofa, on a little marble table, and even into some open book, in piles, handfuls, wads; several coins rolled onto the carpet.

“Ah, yes, it seems you won? . . . One can tell it by your tone.”

Never before had he spoken so impudently with me. I was very pale.

“Here . . . I don’t know how much . . . has to be counted. I owe you up to three thousand . . . or how much? . . . more or less?”

“I don’t believe I’m forcing you to pay.”

“No, sir, I myself want to pay, and you should know why. I know there’s a thousand roubles in this wad—here!” And I started counting with trembling hands, but stopped. “Never mind, I know it’s a thousand. So I’m taking this thousand for myself, and all the rest, these piles, you can take for my debt, part of my debt. I think there’s as much as two thousand here, or maybe more!”

“But you’re still keeping a thousand for yourself ?” the prince bared his teeth.

“Do you need it? In that case . . . I wanted . . . I thought you wouldn’t want . . . but if you need it—here . . .”

“No, no need,” he turned away from me contemptuously and again began pacing the room.

“And devil knows what makes you pay it back,” he suddenly turned to me with a frightful challenge in his face.

“I’m paying it back in order to demand an accounting from you!” I yelled in my turn.

“Get out of here with your eternal words and gestures!” He suddenly stamped his feet at me as if in frenzy. “I wanted to throw you out long ago, you and your Versilov.”

“You’re out of your mind!” I cried. And it did look like it.

“The two of you have worn me out with your catchy phrases, nothing but phrases, phrases, phrases! About honor, for instance! Pah! I’ve long wanted to break . . . I’m glad, glad that the moment has come. I considered myself bound, and I blushed at being obliged to receive you . . . both! But now I don’t consider myself bound by anything, not by anything, know that! Your Versilov set me on to attack Mme. Akhmakov and disgrace her . . . Don’t you dare speak to me about honor after that. Because you’re dishonorable people . . . both, both! And weren’t you ashamed to take money from me?”

Everything went dark in my eyes.

“I took it from you as a comrade,” I began terribly softly. “You yourself offered, and I trusted in your goodwill . . .”

“I’m not your comrade! I didn’t give you money for that, and you yourself know what it was for.”

“I took it against Versilov’s money; of course, it was stupid, but I . . .”

“You couldn’t have taken it against Versilov’s money without his permission, and I couldn’t have given you his money without his permission . . . I gave you my own, and you knew it—knew it and took it—and I suffered this hateful comedy in my own house!”

“What did I know? What comedy? Why did you give me the money?”

“Pour vos beaux yeux, mon cousin!”
⁴³
he guffawed right in my face.

“Ah, the devil!” I yelled, “take all of it, here’s the thousand for you! We’re quits now, and tomorrow . . .”

And I hurled the wad of banknotes at him that I had been keeping for my further needs. The wad hit him right in the waistcoat and dropped to the floor. In three huge strides, he quickly came up close to me.

“Do you dare to tell me,” he said ferociously and distinctly, syllable by syllable, “that while you were taking my money all this month, you didn’t know that your sister is pregnant by me?”

“What? How?” I cried, and my legs suddenly became weak, and I sank strengthlessly onto the sofa. He himself told me later that I literally turned as pale as a sheet. My mind became addled. I remember we went on gazing silently into each other’s faces. Fear seemed to pass over his face; he suddenly bent down, seized me by the shoulders, and began to support me. I remember very well his fixed smile; there was mistrust and astonishment in it. No! He had never expected his words would have such an effect, because he was convinced of my guilt.

It ended with my fainting, but only for a minute; I recovered, got to my feet, gazed at him and reflected—and suddenly the whole truth was revealed to my long-sleeping reason! If someone had told me beforehand and asked, “What would you do to him at that moment?” I would probably have answered that I would tear him to pieces. But something quite different took place, and totally beyond my will: I suddenly covered my face with both hands, and wept and sobbed bitterly. It came out that way of itself! The little child suddenly betrayed himself in the young man. Which meant that the little child was still living in my soul by a whole half. I fell on the sofa weeping. “Liza! Liza! Poor, unfortunate girl!” The prince suddenly and completely believed me.

“God, how guilty I am before you!” he cried in deep sorrow. “Oh, what vile thoughts I had of you in my suspiciousness . . . Forgive me, Arkady Makarovich!”

I suddenly jumped up, wanted to say something to him, stood in front of him, but, having said nothing, ran out of the room and out of the house. I plodded home on foot and barely remember the way. I threw myself on my bed, buried my face in the pillow, in the darkness, and thought and thought. At such moments one’s thinking is never orderly and consistent. It was as if the thread of my mind and imagination kept snapping, and, I remember, I would even start dreaming of something totally irrelevant and even of God knows what. But grief and calamity would suddenly come back to my mind with pain and heartache, and I would wring my hands again and exclaim, “Liza, Liza!” and weep again. I don’t remember how I fell asleep, but I slept soundly, sweetly.

I

I WOKE UP in the morning at around eight o’clock, instantly locked my door, sat by the window, and started to think. I sat like that until ten o’clock. The maid knocked at my door twice, but I sent her away. Finally, between ten and eleven, there came another knock. I shouted again, but it was Liza. Along with her the maid came in, brought me coffee, and set about lighting the stove. To send the maid away was impossible, and all the while Fekla was putting in the wood and blowing up the fire, I paced my small room with big strides, not starting a conversation and even trying not to look at Liza. The maid worked with inexpressible slowness, and that on purpose, as all maids do in such cases, when they notice that their presence is keeping the masters from talking. Liza sat on a chair by the window and watched me.

“Your coffee will get cold,” she said suddenly.

I looked at her: not the least embarrassment, perfect calm, and even a smile on her lips.

“Women!” I couldn’t stand it and heaved my shoulders. Finally the maid got the stove lighted and began tidying up, but I hotly chased her out and locked the door at last.

“Tell me, please, why you locked the door again?” asked Liza.

I planted myself in front of her:

“Liza, I would never have thought you could deceive me like this!” I exclaimed suddenly, not even thinking at all that I would begin that way, and it was not tears this time, but almost some sort of spiteful feeling that suddenly stung my heart, so much so that I didn’t even expect it. Liza blushed, yet did not answer, but only went on looking me straight in the eye.

“Wait, Liza, wait, oh, how stupid I was! But was I? The hints all came together into one heap only yesterday, and before that how could I have known? From the fact that you went to see Mrs. Stolbeev and this . . . Darya Onisimovna? But I looked upon you as the sun, Liza, and how could anything have occurred to me? Remember how I met you that time, two months ago, in
his
apartment, and how we walked in the sun then and rejoiced . . . was it already then? Was it?”

She responded by inclining her head affirmatively.

“So you were already deceiving me then! Here it’s not from my stupidity, Liza, the reason here is sooner my egoism, not stupidity, my heart’s egoism and—and, perhaps, the certainty of your holiness. Oh, I was always certain that you were all infinitely higher than I, and—now look! Finally, yesterday, in the course of one day, I didn’t manage to figure it out, despite all the indications . . . But that’s not at all what I was occupied with yesterday!”

Here I suddenly remembered Katerina Nikolaevna, and again something stung my heart painfully, as with a pin, and I blushed all over. Naturally, I couldn’t be kind at that moment.

“But why are you justifying yourself? It seems you’re in a hurry to justify yourself for something, Arkady—what is it?” Liza asked softly and meekly, but in a very firm and convinced voice.

“What is it? Why, what am I to do now?—there’s at least that question! And you say ‘what is it?’ I don’t know how to act! I don’t know how brothers act on such occasions . . . I know marriages can be forced with a pistol in the hand . . . I’ll act as an honorable man should! But, you see, I don’t know how an honorable man should act here! . . . Why? Because we’re not nobility, but he’s a prince and is making his career; he won’t listen to us honorable people. We’re not even brother and sister, but some sort of illegitimates, without a family name, a household serf’s children. Do princes marry household serfs? Oh, how vile! And, on top of that, you sit there and get surprised at me.”

“I believe that you’re suffering,” Liza blushed again, “but you’re in a rush and make yourself suffer.”

“In a rush? So I’m really not behind enough, in your opinion! Is it for you, for you, Liza, to speak to me like that?” I got carried away, finally, by total indignation. “And how much disgrace I endured, and how this prince must have despised me! Oh, it’s all clear to me now, and the whole picture stands before me: he fully imagined that I had guessed about his liaison with you long ago, but that I was keeping quiet or even putting on airs and boasting about ‘honor’—he might even have thought that of me! And that I was taking money for my sister, for my sister’s disgrace! That’s what he found so repulsive to see, and I fully justify him: to see and receive a scoundrel every day, because he’s her brother, and what’s more, he talks about honor . . . it could make the heart wither, even his heart! And you allowed all that, you didn’t warn me! He despised me so much that he talked about me with Stebelkov, and yesterday he told me himself that he wanted to throw both me and Versilov out. And that Stebelkov! ‘Anna Andreevna is as much a sister to you as Lizaveta Makarovna,’ and then he shouts after me: ‘My money’s better.’ And me, me, sprawling insolently on
his
sofas and foisting myself on his acquaintances as an equal, devil take them! And you allowed all that! Perhaps Darzan knows now, too, at least judging by his tone yesterday evening . . . Everybody, everybody knows, except me!”

“Nobody knows anything, he hasn’t and
couldn’t
have told any of his acquaintances,” Liza interrupted me, “and about this Stebelkov I know only that Stebelkov torments him, and that this Stebelkov could only have guessed it . . . And I told him about you several times, and he believed me completely that you didn’t know anything, and I simply don’t know why and how it came out between you yesterday.”

“Oh, at least I paid him back yesterday, and that’s a load off my heart anyway! Liza, does mama know? But how could she not know? Yesterday, yesterday, how she rose up against me! . . . Ah, Liza! Can it be that you consider yourself right in decidedly everything, that you don’t blame yourself the tiniest bit? I don’t know how these things are judged nowadays and of what thoughts you are—that is, as regards me, mama, your brother, your father . . . Does Versilov know?”

“Mama hasn’t said anything to him; he doesn’t ask; it must be that he doesn’t want to ask.”

“He knows, but he doesn’t want to know, that’s so, that’s like him! Well, you can make fun of your brother’s role, your stupid brother, talking about pistols, but your mother, your mother! Can it be that you didn’t think, Liza, how this is a reproach to mama? I was suffering over that all night. Mama’s first thought will be, ‘It’s because I was also guilty, and like mother, like daughter!’”

“Oh, how spitefully and cruelly you said that!” Liza cried with tears bursting from her eyes, got up, and went quickly towards the door.

“Wait, wait!” I caught hold of her, sat her back down, and sat down beside her, my arm still around her.

“I just thought it would all be like this, as I was coming here, and that you were sure to want to make sure that I acknowledge my guilt. As you wish, I acknowledge it. It was only out of pride that I was silent just now and didn’t say anything, but I pity you and mama much more than I do myself . . .” She didn’t finish, and suddenly burst into hot tears.

“Come, Liza, don’t, don’t say anything. I’m not your judge. Liza, how is mama? Tell me, has she known for long?”

“I think so; but I told her myself not long ago, when
this
happened,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes.

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘Keep it!’” Liza said still more softly.

“Ah, yes, Liza, ‘keep it’! Don’t do anything to yourself, God forbid!”

“I won’t,” she replied firmly and again raised her eyes to me. “Don’t worry,” she added, “that’s not it at all.”

“Liza, dear, I see only that I don’t know anything here, but instead I’ve only now found out how much I love you. There’s only one thing I don’t understand, Liza: it’s all clear to me, there’s only one thing I can’t understand at all: what makes you love him? How could you have fallen in love with such a man? That’s the question!”

“And you probably also suffered over that at night?” Liza smiled gently.

“Wait, Liza, it’s a stupid question, and you’re laughing; laugh, then, but it’s impossible not to be surprised: you and he are such opposites! He—I’ve studied him—he’s gloomy, suspicious, maybe he’s very kind, let it be so, but he’s highly inclined to see evil in everything first of all (in that, however, he’s quite like me!). He passionately respects nobility—I admit that, I see it—but only, it seems, in the ideal. Oh, he’s inclined to repentance, he spends all his life constantly blaming himself and repenting, but on the other hand he never improves; however, maybe that’s also like me. A thousand prejudices and false thoughts and—no thoughts at all! He seeks a great deed and does dirty little tricks. Forgive me, Liza, anyhow I’m a fool: I say this, I hurt you and know it; I understand that . . .”

“The portrait would be true,” Liza smiled, “but you’re too angry with him over me, and therefore none of it is true. He’s been mistrustful of you from the beginning, and you couldn’t see the whole of him, but with me even in Luga . . . He’s seen only me alone, ever since Luga. Yes, he’s suspicious and morbid, and without me he would have lost his mind; and if he leaves me, he will lose his mind or shoot himself; it seems he’s realized that and knows it,” Liza added as if to herself and pensively. “Yes, he’s constantly weak, but these weak ones are occasionally capable of doing something very strong . . . How strangely you said that about the pistol, Arkady; there’s no need for any of that, and I know what will happen myself. It’s not I who am after him, but he who is after me. Mama weeps, she says, ‘If you marry him, you’ll be unhappy, he’ll stop loving you.’ I don’t believe that. Maybe I’ll be unhappy, but he won’t stop loving me. That’s not why I haven’t accepted him all along, but for another reason. For two months now I haven’t given him my acceptance, but today I told him, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ Arkasha, you know, yesterday” (her eyes shone and she suddenly put her arms around my neck), “yesterday he went to Anna Andreevna and told her directly, in all sincerity, that he couldn’t love her . . . Yes, he gave a complete explanation, and that thought is now finished! He never had any part in that thought, it was all dreamed up by Prince Nikolai Ivanovich, and those tormentors, Stebelkov and another one, kept pushing him . . . And so for that I said
yes
to him today. Dear Arkady, he’s calling for you very much, and don’t be offended with him for yesterday; he’s not feeling well today, and will be at home all day. He’s really unwell, Arkady, don’t think it’s a pretext. He sent me specially and asked me to tell you that he ‘needs’ you, that he has much to tell you, and it wouldn’t be convenient here in this apartment. Well, good-bye! Ah, Arkady, I’m ashamed even to say it, but as I was coming here, I was terribly afraid that you had stopped loving me, I kept crossing myself on the way, but—you’re so kind, so sweet! I’ll never forget it! I’m going to see mama. And you try to love him a little, hm?”

I embraced her warmly and told her:

“I think, Liza, that you’re a strong character. Yes, I believe it’s not you who are after him, but he who is after you, only still . . .”

“Only still, ‘What makes you love him—that’s the question!’” Liza picked up with a suddenly mischievous smile, as she used to, and said “that’s the question!” terribly like me. And what’s more, exactly as I do with this phrase, she raised her index finger in front of her. We kissed each other, but when she left, my heart was wrung again.

II

I’LL NOTE HERE just for myself : there were, for instance, moments after Liza left when a whole crowd of the most unexpected thoughts came to my head, and I was even very pleased with them. “Well, why do I fuss so,” I thought, “what is it to me? It’s the same with everyone, or almost. So what if it happened with Liza? Do I have to save ‘the family honor’ or what?” I mark all these meannesses in order to show how poorly fortified I was in the understanding of evil and good. The only saving thing was feeling: I knew that Liza was unhappy, that mama was unhappy, and I knew it through feeling, when I remembered about them, and therefore I felt that all that had happened must not be good.

Now I’ll state beforehand that from this day right up to the catastrophe of my illness, events raced on so quickly that, recalling them now, I’m even surprised myself at how I could hold out against them, how fate failed to crush me. They weakened my mind and even my feelings, and if, in the end, I hadn’t held out and had committed a crime (and a crime almost was committed), the jury might very well have acquitted me. But I will try to describe it all in strict order, though I tell you beforehand that there was little order in my thoughts then. Events came pressing like the wind, and thoughts whirled in my mind like dry leaves in autumn. Since I consisted entirely of other people’s thoughts, where could I get my own, when I needed them for an independent decision? And I had no guide at all.

I decided to go to see the prince in the evening, so that we could discuss everything in perfect freedom, and until evening I stayed at home. But at twilight I again received a note from Stebelkov by the city mail, three lines, with an insistent and “earnest” request to call on him the next morning at around eleven o’clock on “most important business, and you will see yourself that it is business.” Having thought it over, I decided to act according to the circumstances, since tomorrow was still a long way off.

It was already eight o’clock. I would have left long ago, but I kept waiting for Versilov; there was much I wanted to express to him, and my heart was burning. But Versilov wouldn’t come and didn’t come. For the time being I couldn’t show myself at mama’s and Liza’s, and I had a feeling that Versilov probably hadn’t been there all day. I went on foot, and it occurred to me on the way to peek into yesterday’s tavern on the canal. Versilov happened to be sitting in yesterday’s place.

“I just thought you’d come here,” he said, smiling strangely and looking at me strangely. His smile was unkind, such as I hadn’t seen on his face in a long time.

I sat down at his table and first told him all the facts about the prince and Liza from the beginning, and about my scene yesterday at the prince’s after the roulette; and I didn’t forget my winning at roulette. He listened very attentively and asked again about the prince’s decision to marry Liza.

“
Pauvre enfant
, maybe she won’t gain anything by that. But most likely it won’t happen . . . though he’s capable . . .”

“Tell me, as a friend: you did know about it, you had a presentiment?”

“My friend, what could I do here? It’s all a matter of feelings and another person’s conscience, if only on the side of this poor little girl. I repeat to you: I did enough poking into other people’s consciences once upon a time—it’s a most inconvenient maneuver! I won’t refuse to help in misfortune, as much as my strength allows and if I can sort it out myself. And you, my dear, you really suspected nothing all the while?”

“But how could you,” I cried, flushing all over, “how could you, with even a drop of suspicion that I knew about Liza’s liaison with the prince, and seeing that at the same time I was taking the prince’s money—how could you talk to me, sit with me, offer me your hand—me, whom you should have considered a scoundrel! Because I bet you certainly suspected that I knew everything and was knowingly taking the prince’s money for my sister!”

“Once again it’s a matter of conscience,” he smiled. “And how do you know,” he added distinctly, with a certain enigmatic feeling, “how do you know that I wasn’t afraid, too, like you yesterday on a different occasion, to lose my ‘ideal’ and, instead of my ardent and honest boy, to confront a blackguard? Fearing it, I postponed the moment. Why not suppose in me, instead of laziness or perfidy, something more innocent, well, stupid perhaps, but of a more noble sort?
Que diable!
I’m all too often stupid and without nobility. What use would you be to me, if you had the same inclinations? To persuade and reform in such cases is mean; you’d have lost all value in my eyes, even if you were reformed . . .”

“And Liza—are you sorry, are you sorry for her?”

“Very sorry, my dear. What makes you think I’m so unfeeling? . . . On the contrary, I’ll try as hard as I can . . . Well, and how are
you
? How are
your
affairs?”

“Let’s leave my affairs out of it; I have no affairs of my own now. Listen, why do you doubt that he’ll marry her? Yesterday he was at Anna Andreevna’s and positively renounced . . . well, I mean, that a stupid idea . . . conceived by Prince Nikolai Ivanovich—to get them married. He renounced it positively.”

“Oh? When was that? And from whom precisely did you hear it?” he inquired with curiosity. I told him all I knew.

“Hm . . .” he said pensively and as if figuring something out for himself, “meaning that it happened precisely an hour . . . before a certain other talk. Hm . . . well, yes, of course, such a talk could have taken place between them . . . though, incidentally, I’m informed that so far nothing has been said or done on one side or the other . . . Of course, two words are enough for such a talk. But, look here,” he suddenly smiled strangely, “I have a piece of quite extraordinary information, which will, of course, interest you right now: even if your prince had made a proposal to Anna Andreevna yesterday (which I, suspecting about Liza, would have done everything in my power to prevent, entre nous soit dit
⁴⁴
), Anna Andreevna would certainly and in any case have refused him at once. You seem to love Anna Andreevna very much, to respect and value her? That’s very nice on your part, and therefore you will probably be very glad for her: she’s getting married, my dear, and, judging by her character, it seems she will certainly get married, and I—well, I, of course, will give her my blessing.”

“Getting married? To whom?” I cried, terribly surprised.

“Try to guess. But I won’t torment you: to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich, your dear old man.”

I stared at him all eyes.

“She must have been nursing this idea for a long time, and, of course, she worked it out artistically on all sides,” he went on lazily and distinctly. “I suppose it happened exactly an hour after the visit of ‘Prince Seryozha.’ (See how inopportunely he came galloping!) She simply went to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich and made him a proposal.”

“How, ‘made him a proposal’? You mean he proposed to her?”

“He? Come now! It was she, she herself. That’s just it, that he’s perfectly delighted. They say he sits there now, surprised at how it hadn’t occurred to him. I’ve heard he’s even slightly ill . . . also from delight, it must be.”

“Listen, you speak so mockingly . . . I almost can’t believe it. And how could she propose? What did she say?”

“Rest assured, my friend, that I’m sincerely glad,” he replied, suddenly assuming a terribly serious air. “He’s old, of course, but he can marry, according to all laws and customs, while she—here again it’s a matter of another person’s conscience, something I’ve already repeated to you, my friend. However, she’s more than competent enough to arrive at her own view and her own decision. As for the details proper and the words in which she expressed it, I’m unable to tell you, my friend. But she, of course, was able to do it, and maybe in a way such as you and I would never have come up with. The best thing in all this is that there’s no scandal involved, everything’s très comme il faut
⁴⁵
in the world’s eyes. Of course, it’s only too clear that she wanted a position for herself in the world, but then, too, she deserves it. All this, my friend, is a completely worldly thing. And she must have proposed splendidly and gracefully. She’s a stern type, my friend, a girl-nun, as you once defined her; a ‘calm young lady,’ as I’ve long been calling her. She’s almost his ward, you know, and has seen his kindness towards her more than once. She’s been assuring me for a long time now that she ‘so respects and values, so pities and sympathizes with him,’ well, and all the rest, that I was even partly prepared. I was told of it all this morning, on her behalf and at her request, by my son and her brother, Andrei Andreevich, with whom it seems you’re not acquainted, and with whom I meet regularly twice a year. He respectfully approbates her step.”

“Then it’s already public? God, I’m so amazed!”

“No, it’s not public at all yet, not for some time . . . I don’t know about them, generally I’m quite outside of it. But it’s all true.”

“But now Katerina Nikolaevna . . . What do you think, is Bjoring going to like this little snack?”

“That I don’t know . . . what, essentially, there is for him not to like; but, believe me, Anna Andreevna is a highly decent person in that sense as well. And what a one she is, though, this Anna Andreevna! Yesterday morning, just before that, she inquired of me whether I was or was not in love with the widow Akhmakov! Remember, I told you that yesterday with surprise: she wouldn’t be able to marry the father if I married the daughter. Do you understand now?”

“Ah, indeed!” I cried. “But can it be, indeed, that Anna Andreevna supposed you . . . might wish to marry Katerina Nikolaevna?”

“It looks that way, my friend, however . . . however, it seems it’s time you went wherever you’re going. You see, I keep having these headaches. I’ll tell them to play
Lucia.
I love the solemnity of boredom—however, I’ve already told you that . . . I repeat myself unpardonably . . . However, maybe I’ll leave here. I love you, my dear, but good-bye; when I have a headache or a toothache, I always yearn for solitude.”

Some tormented wrinkle appeared on his face; I believe now that his head did ache then, his head especially . . .

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

“What about tomorrow, what’s happening tomorrow?” he smiled crookedly.

“I’ll come to you, or you to me.”

“No, I won’t come to you, but you’ll come running to me . . .” There was something all too unkind in his face, but I had other things to think about: such an event!