Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (609 page)

My heart began to ache; and, as she had been reckoning on rousing my indignation, I did in fact begin to feel indignant, but not with “that woman,” but for the time being with Anna Andreyevna herself.  I got up.

“As an honourable man, I ought to warn you, Anna Andreyevna, that your expectations . . . in regard to me . . . may turn out to be utterly unfounded. . . .”

“I expect you to be my champion,” she said, looking at me resolutely: “abandoned as I am by every one . . . your sister, if you care to have it so, Arkady Makarovitch.”

Another instant, and she would have burst into tears.

“Well, you had better not expect anything, for, ‘perhaps’ nothing will come of it,” I muttered with an indescribable feeling of disgust.

“How am I to understand your words?” she said, showing her consternation too plainly.

“Why, that I am going away from you all, and — that’s the end of it!” I suddenly exclaimed almost furiously, “and the LETTER — I shall tear up.  Good-bye.”

I bowed to her, and went out without speaking, though at the same time I scarcely dared to look at her, but had hardly gone downstairs when Darya Onisimovna ran after me, with a half sheet of paper folded in two.  Where Darya Onisimovna had sprung from, and where she had been sitting while I was talking with Anna Andreyevna, I cannot conceive.  She did not utter a word, but merely gave me the paper, and ran away.  I unfolded it: on the paper, clearly and distinctly written, was Lambert’s address, and it had apparently been got ready several days before.  I suddenly recalled that when Darya Onisimovna had been with me that day, I had told her that I did not know where Lambert lived, meaning, “I don’t know and don’t want to know.”  But by this time I had learned Lambert’s address from Liza, whom I had specially asked to get it for me from the address bureau.  Anna Andreyevna’s action seemed to me too definite, even cynical: although I had declined to assist her, she was simply sending me straight to Lambert, as though she had not the slightest faith in my refusal.  It was quite clear to me that she knew everything about the letter, and from whom could she have learnt it if not from Lambert, to whom she was sending me that I might co-operate with him.

There was no doubt that they all, every one of them, looked upon me as a feeble boy without character or will, with whom they could do anything, I thought with indignation.

2

Nevertheless, I did go to Lambert’s.  Where else could I have satisfied my curiosity?  Lambert, as it appeared, lived a long way off, in Cross Alley, close to the Summer Gardens, still in the same lodgings; but when I ran away from him that night I had so completely failed to notice the way and the distance, that when I got his address from Liza, four days earlier, I was surprised and could scarcely believe that he lived there.  As I was going upstairs I noticed at the door of the flat, on the third storey, two young men, and thought they had rung the bell before I came and were waiting for the door to be opened.  While I was mounting the stairs they both, turning their backs on the door, scrutinized me very attentively.  “The flat is all let out in rooms, and they must be going to see another lodger,” I thought, frowning, as I went up to them.  It would have been very disagreeable to me to find anyone else at Lambert’s.  Trying not to look at them, I put out my hand to the bell.

“Attendez!” one of them cried to me.

“Please, please don’t ring again yet,” said the other young man in a soft musical voice, slightly drawling the words.  “Here we’ll finish this, and then we’ll all ring altogether.  Shall we?”

I waited.  They were both very young men, about twenty or twenty- two; they were doing something rather strange at the door, and I began to watch them with surprise.  The one who had cried “attendez” was a very tall fellow, over six feet, thin and lean, but very muscular, with a very small head in proportion to his height, and with a strange, as it were comic expression of gloom on his rather pock-marked though agreeable and by no means stupid face.  There was a look as it were of exaggerated intentness and of unnecessary and excessive determination in his eyes.  He was very badly dressed: in an old wadded overcoat, with a little fur collar of mangy-looking raccoon; it was too short for him and obviously second-hand.  He had on shabby high boots almost like a peasant’s, and on his head was a horribly crushed, dirty-looking top-hat.  His whole appearance was marked by slovenliness; his ungloved hands were dirty and his long nails were black.  His companion, on the other hand, was smartly dressed, judging from his light skunk fur coat, his elegant hat, and the light new gloves on his slender fingers; he was about my height, and he had an extremely charming expression on his fresh and youthful face.

The tall fellow was taking off his tie — an utterly threadbare greasy ribbon, hardly better than a piece of tape — and the pretty- looking youth, taking out of his pocket another newly purchased black tie, was putting it round the neck of the tall fellow, who, with a perfectly serious face, submissively stretched out his very long neck, throwing his overcoat back from his shoulders.

“No; it won’t do if the shirt is so dirty,” said the younger one, “the effect won’t be good, it will only make it look dirtier.  I told you to put on a collar.  I don’t know how . . . do you know how to do it,” he said, turning suddenly to me.

“What?” I asked.

“Why, fasten his tie.  You see it ought to go like this, to hide his dirty shirt, or else the whole effect is spoilt whatever we do.  I have just bought the tie for a rouble at Filip’s, the hairdresser’s, on purpose for him.”

“Was it — that rouble?” muttered the tall one.

“Yes, I haven’t a farthing now.  Then you can’t do it?  In that case we must ask Alphonsine.”

“To see Lambert?” the tall fellow asked me abruptly.

“Yes,” I answered with no less determination, looking him in the face.

“Dolgorowky?” he went on with the same air and the same voice.

“No, not Korovkin,” I answered as abruptly, mistaking what he said.

“Dolgorowky?” the tall fellow almost shouted again, and he took a step towards me almost menacingly.  His companion burst out laughing.

“He says ‘Dolgorowky’ and not Korovkin,” he explained to me.  “You know in the Journal des Débats the French constantly distort Russian names. . . .”

“In the Indépendance,” growled the tall fellow.

“Well, it’s just the same in the Indépendance.  Dolgoruky, for instance, they write Dolgorowky — I have seen it myself, and Valonyev is always written comte Wallonieff.”

“Doboyny! “cried the tall fellow.

“Yes, there’s Doboyny, too, I’ve seen it myself; and we both laughed; some Russian Madame Doboyny abroad . . . but there’s no need to mention them all, you know,” he said, turning suddenly to the tall fellow.

“Excuse me, are you M. Dolgoruky?”

“Yes, my name is Dolgoruky; how do you know it?”

The tall one suddenly whispered something to the pretty-looking lad; the latter frowned and shook his head, but the tall fellow immediately addressed me;

“Monsieur le prince, vous n’avez pas de rouble d’argent pour nous, pas deux, mais un seul, voulez-vous?”

“Oh, how horrid you are,” cried the boy.

“Nous vous rendons,” concluded the tall one, mispronouncing the French words coarsely and clumsily.

“He’s a cynic, you know,” the boy laughed to me; “and do you suppose he can’t speak French?  He speaks like a Parisian, but he is mimicking those Russians who are awfully fond of talking aloud in French together before other people, though they can’t speak it themselves. . . .”

“Dans les wagons,” the tall fellow explained.

“To be sure, in railway carriages; oh, what a bore you are!  There’s no need to explain.  Why will you always pretend to be a fool?”

Meanwhile I took out a rouble and offered it to the tall fellow.

“Nous vous rendons,” said the latter, pocketing the rouble; and turning to the door with a perfectly unmoved and serious face, he proceeded to kick it with his huge coarse boot and without the faintest sign of ill-humour. . . .

“Ah, you will be fighting with Lambert again!” the boy observed uneasily.  “You had much better ring the bell!”

I rang the bell, but the tall fellow continued kicking the door nevertheless.

“Ah, sacré . . ,” we heard Lambert’s voice the other side of the door, and he quickly opened it.

“Dites donc, voulez-vous que je vous casse la tête, mon ami!” he shouted to the tall man.

“Mon ami, voilà Dolgorowky, l’autre mon ami,” the tall fellow replied with dignified gravity, staring at Lambert, who was red with anger.  As soon as the latter saw me, he seemed suddenly transformed.

“It’s you, Arkady!  At last!  Then you are better, better are you at last?”

He seized my hands, pressing them warmly; he was in fact so genuinely delighted that I felt pleased at once, and even began to like him.

“I’ve come to you first of all!”

“Alphonsine!” cried Lambert.

She instantly skipped out from behind the screen.

“Le voilà!”

“C’est lui!” cried Alphonsine, clasping and unclasping her hands; she would have rushed to embrace me, but Lambert protected me.

“There, there, there, down, down!” he shouted to her as though she were a dog.  “It’s like this, Arkady: some fellows have agreed to dine together to-day at the Tatars’.  I shan’t let you go, you must come with us.  We’ll have dinner; I’ll get rid of these fellows at once, and then we can have a chat.  Come in, come in!  We’ll set off at once, only wait a minute . . .”

I went in and stood in the middle of that room, looking about me, and remembering it.  Lambert behind the screen hurriedly dressed.  The tall fellow and his companion followed us in, in spite of Lambert’s words.  We all remained standing.

“Mlle. Alphonsine, voulez-vous me baiser?” growled the tall man.

“Mlle. Alphonsine,” the younger one was beginning, showing her the tie, but she flew savagely at both of them.

“Ah, le petit vilain! “ she shouted to the younger one; “ne m’approchez pas, ne me salissez pas, et vous, le grand dadais, je vous planque à la porte tous les deux, savez vous cela!”

Though she warned him off with contempt and disgust, as though she were really afraid of being soiled by contact with him (which I could not at all understand because he was such a pretty fellow, and turned out to be just as well dressed when he took off his overcoat), the younger of the two men kept asking her to tie his tall friend’s cravat for him, and to put him on one of Lambert’s clean collars first.  She was on the point of beating them in her indignation at such a suggestion, but Lambert overhearing, shouted to her behind the screen not to hinder them, but to do as they asked; “they won’t leave off if you don’t,” he added, and Alphonsine instantly produced a collar and began to fasten the tall man’s cravat without the slightest sign of disinclination.  The man stretched out his neck just as he had done on the stairs, while she tied his cravat.

“Mlle. Alphonsine, avez vous vendu votre bologne?” he asked.

“Qu’est-ce que ça, ma bologne?”

The younger man explained that “ma bologne” meant a lapdog.

“Tiens, quel est ce baragouin?”

“Je parle comme une dame russe sur les eaux minérales,” observed le grand dadais, still with his neck outstretched.

“Qu’est-ce que ça qu’une dame russe sur les eaux minérales et . . . où est donc votre jolie montre, que Lambert vous a donnée,” she said suddenly to the younger one.

“What, no watch again,” Lambert chimed in irritably behind the screen.

“We’ve eaten it up!” growled le grand dadais.

“I sold it for eight roubles: it was only silver gilt, and you said it was gold; so now at the shop it’s only sixteen roubles,” the younger answered Lambert, defending himself reluctantly.

“We must put an end to this!” Lambert said even more irritably.  “I don’t buy you clothes, my young friend, and give you good things, for you to spend them on your tall friend. . . .  What was that tie too that you bought him?”

“That was only a rouble; that was not with your money.  He had no cravat at all, and he ought to buy a hat too.”

“Nonsense!” Lambert was really angry.  “I gave him enough for a hat too, and he goes off and wastes it on oysters and champagne.  He positively reeks; he’s dirty and untidy; you can’t take him anywhere.  How can I take him out to dinner?”

“I’m a cad,” growled the dadais.  “Nous avons un rouble d’argent que nous avons prêté chez notre nouvel ami.”

“Don’t you give him anything, Arkady,” Lambert cried again.

“Excuse me, Lambert; I ask you plainly for ten roubles,” cried the boy, growing suddenly angry and flushing, which made him look twice as handsome as before; “and don’t ever dare to say such stupid things as you did just now to Dolgoruky.  I must have ten roubles to pay Dolgoruky back that rouble at once, and with the rest I’ll buy Andreyev a hat, so you see.”

Lambert came out from behind the screen:

“Here are three yellow notes, and three roubles, and there’s nothing more till Tuesday, and don’t dare . . . or else. . . .”

Le grand dadais fairly snatched the money from him.

“Dolgorowky, here is the rouble nous vous rendons avec beaucoup de grâce.  Petya, come along!” he called to his companion.  Then holding up the two notes and waving them in the air, while he stared fixedly at Lambert, he yelled at the top of his voice:

“Ohé Lambert!  Oû est Lambert, as-tu vu Lambert?”

“How dare you, how dare you,” Lambert yelled too, in terrible wrath: I saw that underlying all this was something in the past of which I knew nothing, and I looked on in astonishment.  But the tall fellow was not in the least alarmed by Lambert’s wrath; on the contrary, he yelled louder than ever:  “Ohé Lambert!” and so on.  And so shouting, they went out on the stairs.  Lambert was running after them, but he turned back.

“I’ll throw them out by the scr-r-ruff of their necks!  They cost more than they are worth. . . .  Come along, Arkady!  I’m late.  I am expected there by another . . . fellow I need . . . a beast too. . . .  They’re all beasts!  A low lot, a low lot!” he shouted again, almost gnashing his teeth; but all at once he recovered himself completely.