Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (579 page)

“As though I were a ‘friend’ too?  How have I earned that?” I laughed.

“You will earn it.”  Again he rocked his whole person forward on a level with me, and was again holding up his fingers.

“Stebelkov!  Speak without flourishing your fingers or I go.”

“I say, he may marry Anna Andreyevna!” and he screwed up his left eye fiendishly.

“Listen, Stebelkov, your conversation is taking such a scandalous turn. . . .  How dare you utter the name of Anna Andreyevna!”

“Don’t lose your temper.”

“I am listening, though it’s against the grain, for I see clearly you have something up your sleeve, and I want to find out what it is . . . but you may try my patience too far, Stebelkov!”

“Don’t be angry, don’t be proud.  Humble your pride a little and listen; and then you’ll be proud again.  You know, of course, about Anna Andreyevna.  The prince may make a match . . . you know, of course . . .”

“I have heard of the idea, of course, I know all about it, but I have never spoken to Prince Sergay about it, I only know that the idea originated with old Prince Sokolsky, who is ill now; but I have never talked to him about it and I have had nothing to do with it.  I tell you this, simply to make things clear.  I will ask you in the first place: what is your object in mentioning it to me?  And secondly, can Prince Sergay possibly discuss such subjects with YOU?”

“He does not discuss them with me; he does not want to discuss them with me, but I mention them to him, and he does not want to listen.  He shouted at me this morning.”

“I should think so!  I commend him.”

“Old Prince Sokolsky will give Anna Andreyevna a good dowry; she’s a favourite.  Then when the prince marries her, he’ll repay me all the money he owes.  And he will pay other debts as well.  He’ll certainly pay them!  But now he has nothing to pay with.”

“What do you want of me?”

“To answer the great question: you are known everywhere, you go everywhere, you can find out anything.”

“Oh, damnation . . . find out what?”

“Whether Prince Sergay wishes it, whether Anna Andreyevna wishes it, whether the old prince wishes it.”

“And you dare to propose that I should be your spy, and — for money!” I burst out indignantly.

“Don’t be too proud, don’t be too proud, humble your pride only a little, only for five minutes.”  He made me sit down again.  He was evidently not intimidated by my words or gestures; but I made up my mind to hear him out.

“I must find out quickly, find out quickly, because . . . because it will soon be too late.  You saw how he swallowed the pill this morning, when the officer mentioned the baron for Mme. Ahmakov.”

I certainly demeaned myself by listening further, but my curiosity was irresistibly aroused.

“Listen, you worthless fellow!” I said resolutely.  “Though I’m sitting here listening, and allow you to speak of such persons . . . and even answer you, it’s not in the least that I admit your right to do so.  I simply see in it some piece of rascality. . . .  And in the first place, what hopes can Prince Sergay have in reference to Katerina Nikolaevna?”

“None whatever, yet he is furious.”

“That’s untrue!”

“Yes, he is.  Mme. Ahmakov is no go, then, now.  He has lost that stake.  Now he has only Anna Andreyevna to fall back on.  I will give you two thousand . . . without interest and without an IOU.”

Having delivered himself of this, he sat back in his chair, with a determined and important expression, and stared goggle-eyed at me.  I too stared.

“You’ve a suit from Bolshaya Milliona; you need money, you want money; my money’s better than his.  I will give you more than two thousand . . .”

“But what for? what for? damn it all!”  I stamped my foot.  He bent towards me and brought out impressively:

“For you not to hinder.”

“But I’m not interfering as it is,” I shouted.

“I know that you are holding your tongue, that’s excellent.”

“I don’t want your approbation.  For my part I am very anxious for it myself, but I consider it’s not my business, and in fact that it would be unseemly for me to meddle.”

“There, you see, you see, unseemly!” he held up his finger.

“What do you see?”

“Unseemly . . . Ha!” and he suddenly laughed.  “I understand, I understand, that it would be unseemly of you, but you won’t interfere?” he winked; but in that wink there was something so insolent, so low and even jeering: evidently he was assuming some meanness on my part and was reckoning upon it; that was clear, but I hadn’t a notion what was meant.

“Anna Andreyevna is your sister, too,” he pronounced insinuatingly.

“Don’t you dare to speak of that.  And in fact don’t dare to speak of Anna Andreyevna at all.”

“Don’t be too proud, only one more minute!  Listen! he will get the money and provide for every one,” Stebelkov said impressively, “every one, EVERY ONE, you follow?”

“So you think I’ll take money from him?”

“You are taking it now.”

“I am taking my own.”

“How is it your own?”

“It’s Versilov’s money, he owes Versilov twenty thousand.”

“Versilov then, not you.”

“Versilov is my father.”

“No, you are a Dolgoruky, not a Versilov.”

“It’s all the same.”  Yes, indeed, I was able to argue like that then!  I knew it was not the same, I was not so stupid as all that, but again it was from “delicacy” that I reasoned so.

“Enough!” I cried.  “I can’t make out what you are talking about, and how dare you ask me to come for such nonsense.”

“Can you really not understand?  Is it on purpose or not?” Stebelkov brought out slowly, looking at me with a penetrating and incredulous smile.

“I swear I don’t understand.”

“I tell you he’ll be able to provide for every one, EVERY ONE; you’ve only not to interfere, and don’t try to persuade him.”

“You must have gone out of your mind.  Why do you keep trotting out that ‘every one.’  Do you mean he’ll provide for Versilov?”

“You’re not the only one, nor Versilov either . . . there is some one else, too, and Anna Andreyevna is just as much your sister AS LIZAVETA MAKAROVNA!”

I gazed at him open-eyed.  There was a sudden glimpse of something like compassion for me in his loathsome eyes:

“You don’t understand, so much the better!  That’s good, very good, that you don’t understand.  It’s very laudable . . . if you really don’t understand.”

I was absolutely furious.

“Go to hell with your silly nonsense, you madman!” I shouted, taking up my hat.

“It’s not silly nonsense!  So you are going, but you’ll come again, you know.”

“No,” I rapped out in the doorway.

“You’ll come, and then we shall have another talk.  That will be the real talk.  Two thousand, remember!”

2

He made such a filthy and confused impression on me, that when I got out I tried not to think of it at all, but dismissed it with a curse.  The idea that Prince Sergay was capable of talking to him of me and of that money stabbed me like a pin.  “I’ll win and pay him back to-day,” I thought resolutely.  Stupid and inarticulate as Stebelkov was, I had seen the full-blown scoundrel in all his glory.  And what mattered most to me, it was impossible to avoid intrigue in this business.  Only I had not the time just then to go into any sort of intrigues, and that may have been the chief reason why I was as blind as a hen!  I looked anxiously at my watch, but it was not yet two o’clock; so it was still possible to pay a call; otherwise I should have been worn out with excitement before three o’clock.  I went to Anna Andreyevna Versilov, my sister.  I had got to know her some time before at my old prince’s, during his illness.  He thought that I had not seen him for three or four days fretted my conscience, but I was reckoning on Anna Andreyevna: the old prince had become extremely attached to her of late, and even spoke of her to me as his guardian angel.  And by the way, the idea of marrying her to Prince Sergay really had occurred to the old prince, and he had even expressed it more than once to me, in secret of course.  I had mentioned this suggestion to Versilov, for I had noticed that though he was so indifferent to all the practical affairs of life, he seemed particularly interested whenever I told him of my meeting Anna Andreyevna.  When I mentioned the old prince’s idea, Versilov muttered that Anna Andreyevna had plenty of sense, and was quite capable of getting out of a delicate position without the advice of outsiders.  Stebelkov was right, of course, in saying that the old man meant to give her a dowry, but how could he dare to reckon on getting anything out of it!  Prince Sergay had shouted after him that morning that he was not in the least afraid of him: surely Stebelkov had not actually spoken to him of Anna Andreyevna in the study?  I could fancy how furious I should have been in Prince Sergay’s place.

I had been to see Anna Andreyevna pretty often of late.  But there was one queer thing about my visits: it always happened that she arranged for me to come, and certainly expected me, but when I went in she always made a pretence of my having come unexpectedly and by chance; I noticed this peculiarity in her, but I became much attached to her nevertheless.  She lived with Mme. Fanariotov, her grandmother, as an adopted child, of course (Versilov had never contributed anything for her keep), but she was very far from being in the position in which the protégées of illustrious ladies are usually described as being; for instance, the one in the house of the old countess, in Pushkin’s “Queen of Spades.”

Anna Andreyevna was more in the position of the countess herself.  She lived quite independently in the house, that is to say, though on the same storey and in the same flat as the Fanariotovs she had two rooms completely apart, so that I, for instance, never once met any of the family as I went in or came out.  She was free to receive any visitors she liked, and to employ her time as she chose.  It is true that she was in her twenty-third year.  She had almost given up going out into society of late, though Mme. Fanariotov spared no expense for her granddaughter, of whom I was told she was very fond.  Yet what I particularly liked about Anna Andreyevna was that I always found her so quietly dressed and always occupied with something, a book or needlework.  There was something of the convent, even of the nun about her, and I liked it very much.  She was not very talkative, but she always spoke with judgment and knew how to listen, which I never did.  When I told her that she reminded me of Versilov, though they had not a feature in common, she always flushed a little.  She often blushed and always quickly, invariably with a faint flush, and I particularly liked this peculiarity in her face.  In her presence I never spoke of Versilov by his surname, but always called him Andrey Petrovitch, and this had somehow come to pass of itself.  I gathered indeed that the Fanariotovs must have been ashamed of Versilov, though indeed I only drew this conclusion from Anna Andreyevna, and again I’m not sure that the word “ashamed” is appropriate in this connection; but there was some feeling of that sort.  I talked to her too about Prince Sergay, and she listened eagerly, and was, I fancy, interested in what I told her of him; but it somehow happened that I always spoke of him of my own accord, and she never questioned me about him.  Of the possibility of a marriage between them I had never dared to speak, though I often felt inclined to, for the idea was not without attraction for me.  But there were very many things of which, in her room, I could not have ventured to speak, yet on the other hand I felt very much at home there.  Another thing I liked was that she was so well educated, and had read so much — real books too; she had read far more than I had.

She had invited me the first time of her own accord.  I realized even at the time that she might be reckoning on getting some information out of me at one time or another.  Oh, lots of people were able to get information of all sorts out of me in those days!  “But what of it,” I thought, “it’s not only for that that she’s asking me.”  In fact I was positively glad to think I might be of use to her . . . and when I sat with her I always felt that I had a sister sitting beside me, though we never once spoke of our relationship by so much as a word or a hint, but behaved as though it did not exist at all.  When I was with her it was absolutely unthinkable to speak of it, and indeed looking at her I was struck with the absurd notion that she might perhaps know nothing of our relationship — so completely did she ignore it in her manner to me.

3

When I went in I found Liza with her.  This almost astonished me.  I knew very well that they had seen each other before; they had met over the “baby.”  I will perhaps later on, if I have space, tell how Anna Andreyevna, always so proud and so delicate, was possessed by the fantastic desire to see that baby, and how she had there met Liza.  But yet I had not expected that Anna Andreyevna would ever have invited Liza to come to see her.  It was a pleasant surprise to me.  Giving no sign of this, of course, I greeted Anna Andreyevna, and warmly pressing Liza’s hand sat down beside her.  Both were busily occupied: spread out on the table and on their knees was an evening dress of Anna Andreyevna’s, expensive but “old,” that is, worn three times; and Anna Andreyevna wanted to alter it.  Liza was “a master-hand” at such work, and had real taste, and so a “solemn council of wise women” was being held.  I recalled Versilov’s words and laughed; and indeed I was in a radiantly happy state of mind.

“You are in very good spirits to-day and that’s very pleasant,” observed Anna Andreyevna, uttering her words gravely and distinctly.  Her voice was a rich mellow contralto, and she always spoke quietly and gently, with a droop of her long eyelashes, and a faint smile on her pale face.

“Liza knows how disagreeable I am when I am not in good spirits,” I answered gaily.

“Perhaps Anna Andreyevna knows that too,” mischievous Liza gibed at me.  My darling!  If I had known what was on her mind at that time!

“What are you doing now?” asked Anna Andreyevna.  (I may remark that she had asked me to come and see her that day.)

“I am sitting here wondering why I always prefer to find you reading rather than with needlework.  Yes, really needlework doesn’t suit you, somehow.  I agree with Andrey Petrovitch about that.”