The Adolescent (42 page)

“There are, Makar Ivanovich,” Versilov suddenly confirmed, “there are such, and ‘there must needs be.’”

“There certainly are and ‘there must needs be’!” escaped from me irrepressibly and vehemently, I don’t know why; but I was carried away by Versilov’s tone and was captivated as if by some sort of idea in the words “there must needs be.” This conversation was totally unexpected for me. But at that moment something suddenly happened that was also totally unexpected.

IV

IT WAS AN extremely bright day; the blinds in Makar Ivanovich’s room were usually not raised all day, on the doctor’s orders; but there was not a blind but a curtain over the window, so that the uppermost part of the window was uncovered; this was because the old man had been upset, with the former blind, at not seeing the sun at all. And we just went on sitting there till the moment when a ray of sunlight suddenly struck Makar Ivanovich right in the face. He paid no attention at first, while he was talking, but several times as he spoke he mechanically inclined his head to the side, because the bright ray strongly troubled and irritated his ailing eyes. Mama, who was standing next to him, had already glanced worriedly at the window several times; she had simply to cover the window completely with something, but, so as not to hinder the conversation, she decided to try and pull the little bench Makar Ivanovich was sitting on a bit to the right. She only had to move it five inches, six at the most. She had bent down several times and taken hold of the bench, but she coudn’t pull it; the bench, with Makar Ivanovich sitting on it, wouldn’t move. Feeling her effort, but being in the heat of conversation, Makar Ivanovich, quite unconsciously, tried several times to raise himself, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. Mama nevertheless went on straining and pulling, and all this finally angered Liza terribly. I remember her several flashing, irritated glances, only in the first moment I didn’t know what to ascribe them to; besides, I was distracted by the conversation. And then suddenly we heard her almost shout sharply at Makar Ivanovich:

“At least raise yourself a little, you can see how hard it is for mama!”

The old man quickly glanced at her, understood at once, and instantly hastened to raise himself, but nothing came of it; he rose a couple of inches and fell back on the bench.

“I can’t, dear heart,” he answered Liza as if plaintively, looking at her somehow all obediently.

“You can talk whole books full, but you haven’t got the strength to stir yourself ?”

“Liza!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna. Makar Ivanovich again made an extreme effort.

“Take your crutch, it’s lying beside you, you can raise yourself with your crutch!” Liza snapped once more.

“Right you are,” said the old man, and at once hurriedly seized his crutch.

“We simply have to lift him!” Versilov stood up, the doctor also moved, Tatyana Pavlovna also jumped up, but before they had time to approach him, Makar Ivanovich leaned on the crutch with all his strength, suddenly rose, and stood where he was, looking around in joyful triumph.

“And so I got up!” he said with all but pride, smiling joyfully. “Thank you, dear, for teaching me reason, and I thought my little legs wouldn’t serve me at all . . .”

But he didn’t go on standing for long. He hadn’t even managed to finish speaking when his crutch, on which he had rested the whole weight of his body, suddenly slipped on the rug, and as his “little legs” hardly supported him at all, he toppled from his full height onto the floor. This was almost terrible to see, I remember. Everybody gasped and rushed to lift him up, but, thank God, he hadn’t hurt himself; he had only struck the floor heavily, noisily, with both knees, but he had managed to put his right hand in front of him and brace himself with it. He was picked up and seated on the bed. He was very pale, not from fright, but from shock. (The doctor had also found a heart ailment in him, along with everything else.) But mama was beside herself with fright. And suddenly Makar Ivanovich, still pale, his body shaking, and as if not yet quite recovered, turned to Liza and in an almost tender, quiet voice, said to her:

“No, dear, my little legs just won’t stand up! ”

I cannot express my impression at the time. The thing was that there wasn’t the slightest sound of complaint or reproach in the poor old man’s words; on the contrary, you could see straight off that, from the very beginning, he had decidedly noticed nothing spiteful in Liza’s words, but had taken her shouting at him as something due, that is, that he ought to have been “reprimanded” for his fault. All this affected Liza terribly as well. At the moment of his fall, she had jumped up, like everybody else, and stood all mortified and, of course, suffering, because she had been the cause of it all, but, hearing such words from him, she suddenly, almost instantly, became flushed all over with the color of shame and repentance.

“Enough!” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly commanded. “It all comes from talk! Time we were in our places; what’s the good of it if the doctor himself starts babbling!”

“Precisely,” Alexander Semyonovich picked up, bustling around the patient. “I’m to blame, Tatyana Pavlovna, he needs rest!”

But Tatyana Pavlovna wasn’t listening: for half a minute she had been silently and intently watching Liza.

“Come here, Liza, and kiss me, old fool that I am—if you want to,” she said unexpectedly.

And she kissed her, I don’t know what for, but that was precisely what needed to be done; so that I almost rushed myself to kiss Tatyana Pavlovna. It was precisely necessary not to crush Liza with reproach, but to greet with joy and felicitation the new beautiful feeling that undoubtedly must have been born in her. But, instead of all these feelings, I suddenly stood up and began, firmly rapping out the words:

“Makar Ivanovich, you have again used the word ‘seemliness,’ and just yesterday and for all these days I’ve been suffering over that word . . . and all my life I’ve been suffering, only before I didn’t know over what. I consider this coincidence of words fateful, almost miraculous . . . I announce it in your presence . . .”

But I was instantly stopped. I repeat: I didn’t know about their agreement concerning mama and Makar Ivanovich; and judging by my former doings, they certainly considered me capable of any scandal of that sort.

“Stifle him, stifle him!” Tatyana Pavlovna turned utterly ferocious. Mama began to tremble. Makar Ivanovich, seeing everyone’s fright, also became frightened.

“Arkady, enough!” Versilov cried sternly.

“For me, ladies and gentlemen,” I raised my voice still more, “for me to see you all next to this babe” (I pointed to Makar) “is unseemly. There’s only one saint here, and that’s mama, but she, too . . .”

“You’ll frighten him!” the doctor said insistently.

“I know I’m the whole world’s enemy,” I began to babble (or something of the sort), but, turning around once more, I looked defiantly at Versilov.

“Arkady,” he cried again, “there has already been exactly the same scene here between us! I beg you, restrain yourself now!”

I cannot express with what strong feeling he uttered this. Extreme sadness, the most sincere, the fullest, was expressed in his features. Most surprising of all was that he looked as if he were guilty: I was the judge, and he was the criminal. All this finished me off.

“Yes!” I cried to him in reply, “there has already been exactly the same scene, when I buried Versilov and tore him out of my heart . . . But then there followed the resurrection from the dead, while now . . . now there will be no dawn! but . . . but all of you here will see what I’m capable of! You don’t even expect what I can prove!”

Having said this, I rushed to my room. Versilov ran after me . . .

V

I SUFFERED A relapse of my illness; I had a very strong attack of fever, with delirium towards nightfall. But it was not all delirium: there were countless dreams, a whole series and without measure, among which there was one dream or fragment of a dream that I’ve remembered all my life. I’ll recount it without any explanations. It was prophetic and I cannot omit it.

I suddenly found myself, with some grand and proud design in my heart, in a big and lofty room; but not at Tatyana Pavlovna’s: I remember the room very well; I make note of that, running ahead. But though I’m alone, I constantly feel, with uneasiness and torment, that I’m not alone at all, that I’m expected and that something is expected of me. Somewhere behind the doors, people sit and expect me to do something. The sensation is unbearable: “Oh, if only I were alone!” And suddenly
she
comes in. She looks timid, she’s terribly afraid, she peeks into my eyes.
The document is
in my hand.
She smiles in order to charm me, she fawns on me; I’m sorry, but I begin to feel disgust. Suddenly she covers her face with her hands. I fling the “document ” on the table with inexpressible contempt: “Don’t beg, take it, I need nothing from you! I revenge myself for all my insults with contempt! ” I walk out of the room, breathless with immeasurable pride. But in the doorway, in the darkness, Lambert seizes me: “Cghretin, cghretin!” he whispers, holding me back by the arm with all his might. “She’ll have to open a boarding school for high-born girls on Vassilievsky Island” (N.B. that is, to support herself, if her father, learning about the document from me, deprives her of her inheritance and drives her out of the house. I set down Lambert’s words literally as I dreamed them).

“Arkady Makarovich is searching for ‘seemliness,’” comes Anna Andreevna’s little voice, somewhere nearby, right there on the stairs; but it is not praise but unbearable mockery that sounds in her words. I return to the room with Lambert. But, seeing Lambert,
she
suddenly begins to guffaw. My first impression is horrible fright, such fright that I stop and do not want to go closer. I look at her and can’t believe it; it’s as if she has suddenly taken a mask from her face: the same features, but as if each line of her face has been distorted by boundless impudence. “The ransom, lady, the ransom!” shouts Lambert, and the two of them guffaw still more, and my heart sinks: “Oh, can this shameless woman possibly be the same one at whose mere glance my heart boiled over with virtue?”

“That’s what they’re capable of, these proud ones, in their high society, for money!” exclaims Lambert. But the shameless woman is not embarrassed even by that; she guffaws precisely because I’m so frightened. Oh, she’s ready for the ransom, I can see that and . . . and what’s with me? I no longer feel either pity or loathing; I tremble as never before . . . I’m overcome by a new, inexpressible feeling, such as I’ve never known, and strong as the whole world . . . Oh, I’m no longer able to go away now for anything! Oh, how I like that it’s so shameless! I seize her by the hands, the touch of her hands makes me shiver painfully, I bring my lips to her impudent crimson lips, trembling with laughter and inviting me.

Oh, away with this base memory! A cursed dream! I swear that before this loathsome dream there had been nothing in my mind even resembling this disgraceful thought! There hadn’t even been any involuntary thought of that sort (though I kept the “document” sewn up in my pocket, and I would sometimes snatch at my pocket with a strange smile). Where did this all come from, quite ready-made? It’s because I had the soul of a spider! It means that everything was already born and lying in my depraved heart, lying in my
desire
, but in a waking state my heart was ashamed and my mind still didn’t dare to imagine anything like that consciously. But in a dream my soul herself presented and laid out all that was in my heart, with perfect precision and in the fullest picture and—in prophetic form. And can it have been
this
that I wanted to
prove
to them when I ran out of Makar Ivanovich’s room that morning? But enough, nothing of that for the time being! This dream I dreamed is one of the strangest adventures of my life.

I

THREE DAYS LATER I got up in the morning and suddenly felt, standing on my legs, that I wouldn’t stay in bed anymore. I fully felt the nearness of recovery. All these little details are maybe not worth including, but then came several days which, though nothing special happened, have all remained in my memory as something delightful and calm, and that is a rare thing in my memories. My inner state I will not meanwhile formulate; if the reader learned what it consisted in, he certainly wouldn’t believe it. Better if everything becomes clear later from the facts. And meanwhile I’ll just say one thing: let the reader remember about
the soul of a spider
. And that in a man who wanted to go away from them all and from the whole world in the name of “seemliness”! The yearning for seemliness was there in the highest degree, that was certainly so, but how it could be combined with God knows what other yearnings—is a mystery to me. And it has always been a mystery, and I’ve marveled a thousand times at this ability of man (and, it seems, of the Russian man above all) to cherish the highest ideal in his soul alongside the greatest baseness, and all that in perfect sincerity. Whether it’s a special breadth in the Russian man, which will take him far, or simply baseness—that’s the question!

But let’s leave that. One way or another, a lull came. I simply understood that I had to get well at all costs and as soon as possible, so that I could begin to act as soon as possible, and therefore I resolved to live hygienically and obey the doctor (whoever he was), and with extreme reasonableness (the fruit of breadth) I put off stormy designs till the day of my going out, that is, till my recovery. How all these peaceful impressions and the enjoyment of the lull could combine with a painfully sweet and anxious throbbing of the heart at the anticipation of imminent, stormy decisions—I don’t know, but, again, I attribute it all to “breadth.” But the former recent restlessness was no longer in me; I put it all off for a while, no longer trembling before the future as just recently, but like a rich man assured of his means and powers. My arrogance and defiance of the fate awaiting me swelled more and more, partly, I suppose, from my now actual recovery and the quick return of my vital forces. It is these several days of final and even actual recovery that I recall now with full pleasure.

Oh, they forgave me everything, that is, my outburst, and these were the very same people I had called unseemly to their faces! I like that in people, I call it intelligence of the heart; at least it attracted me at once—to a certain degree, of course. Versilov and I, for instance, went on speaking like the best acquaintances, but to a certain degree: as soon as there was a glimpse of too much expansiveness (and there were glimpses), we both restrained ourselves at once, as if a bit ashamed of something. There are occasions when the victor can’t help being ashamed before the one he has vanquished, precisely for having overcome him. The victor was obviously I; and I was ashamed.

That morning, that is, when I got out of bed after the relapse of my illness, he came to see me, and then I learned from him for the first time about their agreement concerning mama and Makar Ivanovich; he also observed that, though the old man felt better, the doctor would not answer positively for him. I gave him my heartfelt promise to behave more prudently in the future. As Versilov was telling me all that, I then suddenly noticed for the first time that he himself was extremely and sincerely concerned for this old man, that is, far more than I would have expected from a man like him, and that he looked upon him as a being for some reason especially dear to him, and not only because of mama. This interested me at once, almost surprised me, and, I confess, without Versilov I might out of inattention have missed and failed to appreciate much in this old man, who left one of the most lasting and original impressions in my heart.

Versilov seemed to have fears about my attitude towards Makar Ivanovich; that is, he trusted neither my intelligence nor my tact, and therefore he was extremely pleased later, when he discerned that I could occasionally understand how to treat a person of totally different notions and views—in short, that I was able to be both yielding and broad when necessary. I also confess (without humiliating myself, I think) that in this being who was from the people I found something totally new for me in regard to certain feelings and views, something unknown to me, something much clearer and more comforting than the way I myself had understood these things before. Nevertheless, it was sometimes impossible not to get simply beside oneself from certain decided prejudices which he believed with the most shocking calmness and steadfastness. But here, of course, only his lack of education was to blame, while his soul was rather well organized, even so well that I’ve never yet come across anything better of its kind in people.

II

WHAT WAS MOST attractive about him, as I’ve already noted above, was his extreme candor and the absence of the slightest self-love; the feeling was of an almost sinless heart. There was “mirth” of heart, and therefore also “seemliness.” He loved the word “mirth” very much and used it often. True, one sometimes found a sort of morbid rapture in him, as it were, a sort of morbidity of tenderness—in part, I suppose, due also to the fever which, truly speaking, never left him all that time; but that did not interfere with the seemliness. There were also contrasts: alongside an astonishing simpleheartedness, sometimes completely unaware of irony (often to my vexation), there also lived in him a sort of clever subtlety, most often in polemical clashes. And he liked polemics, but only occasionally and in his own way. It was evident that he had walked a lot through Russia, had heard a lot, but, I repeat, he liked tender feeling most of all, and therefore all that led to it, and he himself liked to tell things that moved people to tenderness. Generally he liked telling stories. I heard a lot from him both about his own wanderings and various legends from the lives of the most ancient “ascetics.” I’m not familiar with these things, but I think he distorted a lot in these legends, having learned them mostly by word of mouth from simple folk. It was simply impossible to accept certain things. But alongside obvious alterations or simple lies, there were always flashes of something astonishingly wholesome, full of popular feeling, and always conducive to tenderness . . . Among these stories, for instance, I remember a long one, “The Life of Mary of Egypt.”
⁷
Up to that time I had had no conception of this “Life,” nor of almost any like it. I’ll say outright: it was almost impossible to endure it without tears, and not from tender feeling, but from some sort of strange rapture. You felt something extraordinary and hot, like that scorching sandy desert with its lions, in which the saint wandered. However, I don’t want to speak of it, and am also not competent.

Besides tenderness, I liked in him certain sometimes extremely original views of certain still quite disputable things in modern reality. He once told, for instance, a recent story about a discharged soldier; he was almost a witness to this event. A soldier came home from the service, back to the peasants, and he didn’t like living with the peasants again, and the peasants didn’t like him either. The man went astray, took to drinking, and robbed somebody somewhere; there was no firm evidence, but they seized him anyhow and took him to court. In court his lawyer all but vindicated him—there was no evidence, and that was that—when suddenly the man listened, listened, and suddenly stood up and interrupted the lawyer: “No, you quit talking.” And he told everything “to the last speck”; he confessed everything, with tears and repentance. The jury went and locked themselves in for the decision, then suddenly they all come out: “No, not guilty.” Everybody shouted, rejoiced, and the soldier just stood rooted to the spot, as if he’d turned into a post, didn’t understand anything; nor did he understand anything from what the magistrate told him in admonition as he let him go. The soldier was set free again, and still didn’t believe it. He began to be anguished, brooded, didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t speak to people, and on the fifth day he up and hanged himself. “That’s how it is to live with a sin on your soul!” Makar Ivanovich concluded. This story is, of course, a trifling one, and there’s an endless number of them now in all the newspapers, but I liked the tone of it, and most of all a few little phrases, decidedly with a new thought in them. Speaking, for instance, of how the soldier returned to his village and the peasants didn’t like him, Makar Ivanovich said, “And you know what a soldier is: a soldier is
a peasant gone bad
.” Speaking later about the lawyer who all but won the case, he also said: “And you know what a lawyer is: a lawyer is
a hired conscience
.” He uttered both of these expressions without any effort and unaware of having done so, and yet in these two expressions there is a whole special view of both subjects, and though, of course, it doesn’t belong to the whole people, still it’s Makar Ivanovich’s own and not borrowed! These ready notions among the people to do with certain subjects are sometimes wonderful in their originality.

“And how do you look at the sin of suicide, Makar Ivanovich?” I asked him on the same occasion.

“Suicide is the greatest human sin,” he answered with a sigh, “but the Lord alone is the only judge here, for He alone knows everything—every limit and every measure. But we’re bounden to pray for such a sinner. Each time you hear of such a sin, then before you go to sleep, pray for the sinner tenderly; at least sigh for him to God; even if you didn’t know him at all—your prayer for him will get through the better.”

“But will my prayer help him if he’s already condemned?”

“But how do you know? There are many, oh, many who don’t believe and deafen ignorant people’s ears with it; but don’t listen, for they don’t know where they’re straying themselves. A prayer from a still-living person for a condemned one truly gets through. How is it for someone who has nobody to pray for him? So when you stand and pray before you go to sleep, add at the end: ‘And have mercy, Lord Jesus, on all those who have nobody to pray for them.’ This prayer really gets through and is pleasing. And also for all the sinners who are still living: ‘Lord, who knowest all destinies, save all the unrepentant’—that’s also a good prayer.”

I promised him that I would pray, feeling that by this promise I would give him the greatest satisfaction. And in fact joy shone in his face; but I hasten to add that he never treated me condescendingly on such occasions, that is, as an old man would treat some adolescent; on the contrary, he quite often liked listening to me himself, even listened with delight, on various themes, supposing that, though he had to do with a “young one,” as he put it in his lofty style (he knew very well that the way to put it would be “youth,” and not “young one”), at the same time this “young one,” as he understood, was infinitely higher than he in education. He liked, for instance, to speak very often about the hermitic life and placed the “hermitage” incomparably higher than “wanderings.” I hotly objected to him, insisting on the egoism of those people, who abandon the world and the benefit they might produce for mankind solely for the egoistic idea of their own salvation. At first he didn’t understand, I even suspect he didn’t understand at all; but he defended the hermitic life very strongly: “At first you’re sorry for yourself, of course (that is, when you’ve settled in the hermitage)—well, but after that you rejoice more and more every day, and then you see God.” Here I developed before him a full picture of the useful activity in the world of the scholar, the doctor, or the friend of mankind in general, and I brought him to real ecstasy, because I myself spoke ardently; he yessed me every minute: “Right, dear, right, God bless you, you think according to the truth.” But when I finished, he still did not quite agree: “That’s all so,” he sighed deeply, “but how many are there who will endure and not get distracted? Though money is not a god yet, it’s at least a half-god—a great temptation; and then there’s the female sex, there’s self-conceit and envy. So they’ll forget the great cause and busy themselves with the little one. A far cry from the hermitic life. In the hermitage a man strengthens himself even for every sort of deed. My friend! What is there in the world?” he exclaimed with great feeling. “Isn’t it only a dream? Take some sand and sow it on a stone; when yellow sand sprouts for you on that stone, then your dream will come true in this world—that’s the saying among us. Not so with Christ: ‘Go and give away your riches and become the servant of all.’ And you’ll become inestimably richer than before; for not only in food, nor in costly clothing, nor in pride nor envy will you be happy, but in immeasurably multiplied love. Not little riches now, not a hundred thousand, not a million, but you’ll acquire the whole world! Now we gather without satiety and squander senselessly, but then there will be no orphans or beggars, for all are mine, all are dear, I’ve acquired them all, bought them all to a man! Now it’s not a rare thing that a very rich and noble man is indifferent to the number of his days, and doesn’t know what amusement to think up; but then our days will multiply as if a thousandfold, for you won’t want to lose a single minute, but will feel each one in your heart’s mirth. And then you’ll acquire wisdom, not from books only, but you’ll be with God himself face to face; and the earth will shine brighter than the sun, and there will be neither sadness nor sighing, but only a priceless paradise . . .”

It was these ecstatic outbursts that Versilov seemed to like greatly. That time he was there in the room.

“Makar Ivanovich!” I interrupted him suddenly, growing excited myself beyond all measure (I remember that evening), “but in that case it’s communism you’re preaching, decidedly communism!”

And as he knew decidedly nothing about communist doctrine, and was hearing the word itself for the first time, I immediately began to expound for him everything I knew on the subject. I confess I knew little and that confusedly, and I’m not quite competent now either, but what I knew I expounded with great ardor, heedless of anything. To this day I recall with pleasure the extraordinary impression I made on the old man. It wasn’t even an impression, but almost a shock. At the same time he was terribly interested in the historical details: “Where? How? Who set it up? Who said it?” Incidentally, I’ve noticed that this is generally a quality of simple people: they won’t be satisfied with a general idea, if they get very interested, but will unfailingly demand the most firm and precise details. I was confused about the details, though, and as Versilov was there, I was a little embarrassed before him, and that made me still more excited. The end was that Makar Ivanovich, moved to tenderness, finally could only repeat “Right, right!” after each word, obviously without understanding and having lost the thread. I became vexed, but Versilov suddenly interrupted the conversation, stood up, and announced that it was time to go to bed. We were all together then, and it was late. When he peeked into my room a few minutes later, I asked him at once how he looked at Makar Ivanovich in general, and what he thought of him. Versilov smiled merrily (but not at all at my mistakes about communism—on the contrary, he didn’t mention them). I repeat again: he decidedly cleaved, as it were, to Makar Ivanovich, and I often caught an extremely attractive smile on his face as he listened to the old man. However, the smile did not prevent criticism.

“Makar Ivanovich, first of all, is not a peasant, but a household serf,” he pronounced with great readiness, “a former household serf and a former servant, born a servant and from a servant. Household serfs and servants shared a great deal in the interests of their masters’ private, spiritual, and intellectual life in the old days. Note that Makar Ivanovich to this day is interested most of all in the events of life among the gentry and in high society. You don’t know yet to what degree he’s interested in certain recent events in Russia. Do you know that he’s a great politician? He’d give anything to know who is at war, and where, and whether we’ll go to war. In former times I used to bring him to a state of bliss with such conversations. He has great respect for science, and of all sciences he likes astronomy the most. For all that, he has worked out something so independent in himself that he won’t be budged from it for anything. He has convictions, firm ones, rather clear . . . and true. For all his perfect ignorance, he’s capable of astounding you by being unexpectedly familiar with certain notions you wouldn’t suppose him to have. He delights in praising the hermitic life, but not for anything would he go to a hermitage or a monastery, because he is in the highest degree a ‘vagrant,’ as Alexander Semyonovich nicely called him—with whom, to mention it in passing, you needn’t be angry. Well, what else, finally: he’s something of an artist, has many words of his own, but also not of his own. He’s somewhat lame in logical explanations, at times very abstract; has fits of sentimentality, but of a completely popular sort, or, better, has fits of that generally popular tenderness that our people introduce so broadly into their religious feeling. Of his purity of heart and lack of malice I won’t speak: it’s not for us to get started on that theme . . .”