Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (578 page)

“I believe you saw a great deal of Katerina Nikolaevna Ahmakov abroad?” the visitor asked Prince Sergay.

“Oh yes, I knew her. . . .”

“I believe we shall soon be hearing a piece of news about her.  They say she’s engaged to Baron Büring.”

“That’s true!” cried Darzan.

“Do you know it for a fact?” Prince Sergay asked Nastchokin with evident agitation, bringing out his question with peculiar emphasis.

“I’ve been told so, and people are talking about it; but I don’t know it for a fact.”

“Oh, it is a fact!” said Darzan, going up to him.  “Dubasov told me so yesterday, he’s always the first to know news like that.  Yes, and the prince ought to know. . . .”

Nastchokin waited till Darzan had finished, and turned to Prince Sergay again.

“She’s not very often seen now.”

“Her father has been ill for the last month,” Prince Sergay observed drily.

“She’s a lady of many adventures!” Darzan blurted out suddenly.

I raised my head and sat up.

“I have the pleasure of knowing Katerina Nikolaevna personally, and I take upon myself the duty of declaring that all scandalous stories about her are mere lies and infamy . . . and invented by those who have sought her favour without success.”

After this stupid outburst I relapsed into silence, still sitting upright and gazing at them all with a flushed face.  Every one turned to me, but Stebelkov suddenly guffawed; Darzan, too, simpered and seemed surprised.

“Arkady Makarovitch Dolgoruky,” said Prince Sergay, indicating me to Darzan.

“Oh, believe me, PRINCE,” said Darzan, frankly and good-naturedly addressing me, “I am only repeating what I’ve heard; if there are rumours they have not been of my spreading.”

“I did not mean it for you!” I answered quickly, but Stebelkov had burst into an outrageous roar of laughter, caused as he explained afterwards by Darzan’s having addressed me as prince.  My diabolical surname had got me into a mess again.  Even now I blush at the thought that I had not the courage — through shame, of course — to set right this blunder and to protest aloud that I was “simply Dolgoruky.”  It was the first time in my life I had let it pass. Darzan looked in perplexity at me and at Stebelkov’s laughter.

“Ah yes!  Who was the pretty girl I met on the stairs just now, a slim, fair little thing?” he suddenly asked Prince Sergay.

“I really don’t know,” the latter answered quickly, reddening.

“How should you?” laughed Darzan.

“Though . . . it . . . it might have been. . . .” Prince Sergay faltered oddly.

“It was . . . this gentleman’s sister, Lizaveta Makarovna!” said Stebelkov suddenly pointing to me, “for I met her just now too. . . .”

“Ah indeed!” Prince Sergay put in quickly, speaking this time, however, with an extremely grave and dignified expression, “it must have been Lizaveta Makarovna, who is a great friend of Anna Fyodorovna Stolbyeev, in whose flat I am staying; she must have come to-day to see Darya Onisimovna, another of Anna Fyodorovna’s great friends, whom she left in charge of the house when she went away. . . .”

This was all true.  Darya Onisimovna was the mother of poor Olya, whose story I have told already.  Tatyana Pavlovna had found a refuge for the poor woman at last with Mme. Stolbyeev.  I know very well that Liza had been sometimes at Mme. Stolbyeev’s, and had lately visited there Darya Onisimovna, of whom every one at home was very fond; but after this statement by Prince Sergay — sensible as it was, however — and still more Stebelkov’s stupid outburst, and perhaps because I had been called prince, I suddenly flushed all over.  Luckily at that very instant Nastchokin stood up to take leave; he offered his hand to Darzan also.  At the moment Stebelkov and I were left alone; he nodded his head to me in the direction of Darzan, who was standing in the doorway with his back to us; I shook my fist at Stebelkov.

A minute later Darzan, too, got up to go, after arranging with Prince Sergay to meet him next day at some place, a gambling house, I believe.  As he went out he shouted something to Stebelkov, and made me a slight bow.  Hardly had he gone out when Stebelkov jumped up and stood in the middle of the room, pointing to the ceiling with his finger:

“I’ll tell you the trick that fine young gentleman played last week.  He gave an IOU to Averyanov and signed a false name to it.  That IOU is still in existence, but it’s not been honoured!  It’s criminal!  Eight thousand!”

“And no doubt that IOU is in your hands?” I cried, glaring at him savagely.

“I have a bank, I have a mont-de-piété, I am not a broker.  Have you heard that there is a mont-de-piété in Paris?  Bread and benevolence for the poor; I have a mont-de-piété. . . .”

Prince Sergay rudely and angrily cut him short.

“What are you doing here?  What are you staying for?”

“But,” Stebelkov blinked rapidly, “what about that?  Won’t it do?”

“No, no, no,” Prince Sergay shouted, stamping; “I’ve said so.”

“Well, if so . . . that’s so. . . .  But that’s a mistake. . . .”

He turned abruptly and with bowed head and bent spine went quickly out of the room.  Prince Sergay called after him when he was in the doorway:

“You may as well know, sir, that I am not in the least afraid of you.”

He was very much irritated, he was about to sit down, but glancing at me, remained standing.  His eyes seemed to say to me also, “Why are you hanging about here too?”

“Prince, I . . .” I was beginning.

“I’ve really no time to listen, Arkady Makarovitch, I’m just going out.”

“One minute, prince, it’s very important; and, to begin with, take back your three hundred.”

“What’s this now?”

He was walking up and down, but he stopped short.

“This now is that after all that has passed . . . and what you’ve said about Versilov . . . that he was dishonourable, and in fact your tone all the time. . . . In short, I can’t possibly take it.”

“You’ve been TAKING it for the last month, though.”

He suddenly sat down on the chair.  I was standing at the table, and with one hand I patted the volume of Byelinsky, while I held my hat in the other.

“I had different feelings, prince . . . and, in fact, I would never have brought it to such a sum . . . it was the gambling . . . in short, I can’t!”

“You have not distinguished yourself to-day, and so you are in a rage; I’ll ask you to leave that book alone.”

“What does that mean: ‘not distinguished myself’?  And, in fact, before your visitors you almost put me on a level with Stebelkov.”

“So that’s the key to the riddle!” he said with a biting smile.  “You were abashed by Darzan’s calling you prince, too.”

He laughed spitefully.  I flared up.

“I simply don’t understand; I wouldn’t take your title as a gift.”

“I know your character.  How absurdly you cried out in defence of Mme. Ahmakov . . . let that book alone!”

“What’s the meaning of it?” I cried.

“L-l-let the book alone!” he yelled suddenly, drawing himself up in the low chair, with a ferocious movement, as though about to spring at me.

“This is beyond all limits,” I said, and I walked quickly out of the room, but before I had reached the end of the drawing-room, he shouted to me from the study:

“Arkady Makarovitch, come back!  Co-ome ba-ack!  Co-ome ba-ack!”

I went on without heeding.  He hastily overtook me, seized me by the arm, and dragged me back into the study.  I did not resist.

“Take it,” he said, pale with excitement, handing me the three hundred roubles I had thrown on the table.  “You must take it . . . or else we . . . you must!”

“Prince, how can I take it?”

“Oh, I’ll beg your pardon . . . if you like . . . all right, forgive me! . . .”

“I have always liked you, prince, and if you feel the same . . .”

“I do; take it. . . .”

I took the money.  His lips were trembling.

“I can understand, prince, that you are exasperated by that scoundrel . . . but I won’t take it, prince, unless we kiss each other, as we have done when we’ve quarrelled before.”

I was trembling, too, as I said this.

“Now for sentimentality,” muttered Prince Sergay, with an embarrassed smile, but he bent down and kissed me.  I shuddered; at the instant he kissed me I caught on his face an unmistakable look of aversion.

“Did he bring you the money, anyway? . . .”

“Aië, never mind.”

“I was asking on your account. . . .”

“Yes he did, he did.”

“Prince, we have been friends . . . and in fact, Versilov. . . .”

“Yes, yes.  That’s all right!”

“And in fact . . . I really don’t know . . . about this three hundred. . . .”

I was holding the money in my hand.

“Take it, ta-ake it!” he smiled again, but there was something very vicious in his smile.

I took the money.

CHAPTER III

1

I took the money because I loved him.  If anyone disbelieves this I must inform him that at the moment when I took the money I was firmly convinced that I could have obtained it from another source.  And so I really took it, not because I was in desperate straits, but from delicacy, not to hurt his feelings.  Alas, that was how I reasoned at the time!  But yet my heart was very heavy as I went out from him.  I had seen that morning an extraordinary change in his attitude to me; he had never taken such a tone before, and, as regards Versilov, it was a case of positive mutiny.  Stebelkov had no doubt annoyed him very much that morning, but he had begun to be the same before seeing Stebelkov.  I repeat once more; the change from his original manner might indeed have been noticed for some days past, but not in the same way, not in the same degree, that was the point.

The stupid gossip about that major, Baron Büring, might have some effect on him. . . .  I too had been disturbed by it, but . . . the fact is, I had something else in my heart at that time that shone so resplendent that I heedlessly let many things pass unnoticed, made haste to let them pass, to get rid of them, and to go back to that resplendence. . . .

It was not yet one o’clock.  From Prince Sergay’s I drove with my Matvey straight off to — it will hardly be believed to whom — to Stebelkov!  The fact is that he had surprised me that morning, not so much by turning up at Prince Sergay’s (for he had promised to be there) as by the way he had winked at me; he had a stupid habit of doing so, but that morning it had been apropos of a different subject from what I had expected.  The evening before, a note had come from him by post, which had rather puzzled me.  In it he begged me to go to him between two and three to-day, and that “he might inform me of facts that would be a surprise to me.”

And in reference to that letter he had that morning, at Prince Sergay’s, made no sign whatever.  What sort of secrets could there be between Stebelkov and me?  Such an idea was positively ridiculous; but, after all that had happened, I felt a slight excitement as I drove off to him.  I had, of course, a fortnight before applied to him for money, and he was ready to lend it, but for some reason we did not come to terms, and I did not take the money: on that occasion, too, he had muttered something vague, as his habit was, and I had fancied he wanted to make me some offer, to suggest some special conditions; and as I had treated him disdainfully every time I had met him at Prince Sergay’s, I proudly cut short any idea of special terms, though he pursued me to the door.  I borrowed the money afterwards from Prince Sergay.

Stebelkov lived in a very comfortable style.  He had his own establishment, a flat of four rooms, with handsome furniture, men and women servants, and a housekeeper, who was, however, by no means young.  I went in angrily.

“Listen, my good man,” I began from the door; “to begin with, what’s the meaning of that letter?  I don’t care for letters to be passing between us.  And why did you not make any statement you wanted to make at Prince Sergay’s this morning?  I was at your service.”

“And why did you hold your tongue, too, this morning, instead of questioning me?” he said with a broad grin of intense self- satisfaction.

“Because it’s not I want something of you, but you want something of me,” I cried, suddenly growing hot.

“Why have you come to see me, if that’s so?” he cried, almost jumping out of his chair with glee.  I turned instantly, and would have gone out, but he seized me by the shoulder.

“No, no, I was joking, it’s a matter of importance, as you’ll see for yourself.”

I sat down, I must admit I was inquisitive.  We were seated facing one another at the end of a big writing table.  He smiled slyly, and was just holding up his finger.

“None of your slyness, please, and no fingers either, and above all, none of your allegories!  Come straight to the point, or I’ll go away at once,” I cried angrily again.

“You . . . are proud!” he pronounced in a tone of stupid reproach, rocking in his easy-chair and turning his wrinkled forehead towards the ceiling.

“One has to be with you!”

“You . . . took money from Prince Sergay to-day, three hundred roubles; I have money too, my money is better than his.”

“How do you know I took it?” I asked, greatly astonished.  “Can he have told you that himself?”

“He told me; don’t worry yourself, in the course of conversation it happened to come up, it just happened to come up, it was not on purpose.  He told me.  And you need not have taken it.  Is that so, or not?”

“But I hear that you squeeze out an exorbitant interest.”

“I have a mont-de-piété, but I don’t squeeze.  I only lend to friends, and not to other people, the mont-de-piété is for them. . . .”

This mont-de-piété was an ordinary pawnbroker’s shop, which flourished under another name, in a different quarter of the town.

“But I lend large sums to friends.”

“Why, is Prince Sergay such a friend of yours?”

“A fri-iend; but . . . he plays the fool, and he’d better not dare to play the fool.”

“Why is he so much in your power?  Does he owe you a great deal?”

“He . . . does owe a great deal.”

“He’ll pay you; he has come into a fortune . . .”

“That is not his fortune; he owes money, and owes something else, too.  The fortune’s not enough.  I’ll lend to you without interest.”