Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (583 page)

I dismissed Matvey and told him to come to my lodging for me at nine o’clock.

CHAPTER V

1

I was late for dinner, but they had not yet sat down to table, they had waited for me.  Perhaps because I did not often dine with them, some special additions to the menu had been made on my account: with the savouries there were sardines and so on.  But to my surprise and regret, I found them all rather worried and out of humour.  Liza scarcely smiled when she saw me, and mother was obviously uneasy; Versilov gave me a smile, but it was a forced one.  “Have they been quarrelling?” I wondered.  Everything went well at first, however; Versilov only frowned over the soup with dumplings in it, and made wry faces when he was handed the beef olives.

“I have only to mention that a particular dish does not suit me, for it to reappear next day,” he pronounced in vexation.

“But how’s one to invent things, Andrey Petrovitch?  There’s no inventing a new dish of any sort,” my mother answered timidly.

“Your mother is the exact opposite of some of our newspapers, to whom whatever is new is good,” Versilov tried to make a joke in a more playful and amiable voice; but it somehow fell flat, and only added to the discomfiture of my mother, who of course could make nothing of the comparison of herself with the newspapers, and looked about her in perplexity.  At that moment Tatyana Pavlovna came in, and announcing that she had already dined, sat down near mother, on the sofa.

I had not yet succeeded in gaining the good graces of that lady, quite the contrary in fact; she used to fall foul of me more than ever, for everything, and about everything.  Her displeasure had of late become more accentuated than ever; she could not endure the sight of my foppish clothes, and Liza told me that she almost had a fit when she heard that I kept a coachman and a smart turn-out. I ended by avoiding meeting her as far as possible.  Two months before, when the disputed inheritance was given up to Prince Sergay, I had run to Tatyana Pavlovna, meaning to talk over Versilov’s conduct with her, but I met with no trace of sympathy; on the contrary she was dreadfully angry: she was particularly vexed that the whole had been given back, instead of half the fortune; she observed sharply:

“I’ll bet you are persuaded that he has given up the money and challenged the prince to a duel, solely to regain the good opinion of Arkady Makarovitch.”

And indeed she was almost right.  I was in reality feeling something of the sort at the time.

As soon as she came in I saw at once that she would infallibly attack me.  I was even inclined to believe that she had come in expressly with that object, and so I immediately became exceptionally free-and-easy in my manner; this was no effort to me, for what had just happened had left me still radiant and joyful.  I may mention once and for all that a free-and-easy manner never has been right for me, that is to say, it never suits me, but always covers me with disgrace.  So it happened now.  I instantly said the wrong thing, with no evil intent, but simply from thoughtlessness; noticing that Liza was horribly depressed, I suddenly blurted out, without thinking of what I was saying:

“I haven’t dined here for such ages, and now I have come, see how bored you are, Liza!”

“My head aches,” answered Liza.

“Good gracious!” said Tatyana Pavlovna, instantly catching at it.  “What if you are ill?  Arkady Makarovitch has deigned to come to dinner, you must dance and be merry.”

“You really are the worry of my life, Tatyana Pavlovna.  I will never come again when you are here!” and I brought my hand down on the table with genuine vexation; mother started, and Versilov looked at me strangely.  I laughed at once and begged their pardon.

“Tatyana Pavlovna, I take back the word ‘worry,’” I said, turning to her, with the same free-and-easy tone.

“No, no,” she snapped out, “it’s much more flattering to be a worry to you than to be the opposite, you may be sure of that.”

“My dear boy, one must learn to put up with the small worries of life,” Versilov murmured with a smile, “life is not worth living without them.”

“Do you know, you are sometimes a fearful reactionary,” I cried, laughing nervously.

“My dear boy, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does!  Why not tell the blunt truth to an ass, if he is an ass?”

“Surely you are not speaking of yourself?  To begin with, I can’t judge anyone, and I don’t want to.”

“Why don’t you want to, why can’t you?”

“Laziness and distaste.  A clever woman told me once that I had no right to judge others because ‘I don’t know how to suffer,’ that before judging others, one must gain the right to judge, from suffering.  Rather exalted, but, as applied to me, perhaps it’s true, so that I very readily accepted the criticism.”

“Wasn’t it Tatyana Pavlovna who told you that?” I cried.

“Why, how do you know?” said Versilov, glancing at me with some surprise.

“I knew it from Tatyana Pavlovna’s face: she gave a sudden start.”

I guessed by chance.  The phrase, as it appeared later, actually had been uttered by Tatyana Pavlovna, the evening before, in a heated discussion.  And indeed, I repeat, I had, brimming over with joy and expansiveness, swooped down upon them at an unfortunate moment; all of them had their separate troubles, and they were heavy ones.

“I don’t understand it,” I went on, “because it’s all so abstract; it’s dreadful how fond you are of abstract discussion, Andrey Petrovitch; it’s a sign of egoism; only egoists are fond of generalization.”

“That’s not a bad saying, but don’t persecute me.”

“But let me ask,” I insisted expansively, “what’s the meaning of ‘gaining the right to judge?’  Anyone who is honest may be a judge, that’s my idea.”

“You won’t find many judges in that case.”

“I know one anyway.”

“Who’s that?”

“He is sitting and talking to me now.”

Versilov laughed strangely, he stooped down to my ear, and taking me by the shoulder whispered, “He is always lying to you.”

I don’t know to this day what was in his mind, but evidently he was in some agitation at the time (in consequence of something he had learned, as I found out later).  But those words, “he is always lying to you,” were so unexpected and uttered so earnestly, and with such a strange and far from playful expression, that it gave me a nervous shudder.  I was almost alarmed and looked at him wildly; but Versilov made haste to laugh.

“Well, thank God!” murmured my mother, who was uneasy at seeing him whisper to me, “I was almost thinking. . . .  Don’t be angry with us, Arkasha; you’ll have clever friends apart from us, but who is going to love you, if we don’t love one another?”

“The love of one’s relations is immoral, mother, just because it’s undeserved; love ought to be earned.”

“You’ll earn it later on, but here you are loved without.”

Every one suddenly laughed.

“Well, mother, you may not have meant to shoot, but you hit your bird!” I cried, laughing, too.

“And you actually imagined that there’s something to love you for,” cried Tatyana Pavlovna, falling upon me again:  “You are not simply loved for nothing, you are loved in spite of loathing.”

“Oh not a bit of it,” I cried gaily; “do you know, perhaps, some one told me to-day I was loved.”

“Said it laughing at you!” Tatyana Pavlovna said suddenly with a sort of unnatural malignity, as though she had just been waiting for me to say that, “yes, a person of delicacy, especially a woman, would be moved to disgust by the uncleanness of your soul.  Your hair is done with a smart parting, you have fine linen, and a suit made by a French tailor, but it’s all uncleanness really!  Who’s paid your tailor’s bill, who keeps you, and gives you money to play roulette with?  Think who it is you’ve been so shameless as to sponge on!”

My mother flushed painfully, and I had never seen a look of such shame on her face before.  Everything seemed to be giving way within me.

“If I am spending money it’s my own, and I am not bound to give an account of it to anyone,” I blurted out, turning crimson.

“Whose own?  What money’s your own?”

“If it’s not mine, it’s Andrey Petrovitch’s.  He won’t refuse it me. . . .  I borrowed from what Prince Sergay owes Andrey Petrovitch. . . .”

“My dear boy,” Versilov said firmly, all of a sudden, “not a farthing of that money is mine.”

The phrase was horribly significant.  I was dumbfoundered.  Oh, of course, considering my paradoxical and careless attitude at that time, I might quite well have turned it off with some outburst of “generous” feeling, or high-sounding phrase, or something, but I suddenly caught on Liza’s face a resentful accusing expression, an expression I had not deserved, almost a sneer, and a devil seemed to prompt me.

“You seem,” I said, turning to her suddenly, “to visit Darya Onisimovna very often at Prince Sergay’s flat, miss, so will you be pleased to give her this three hundred roubles, which you’ve given me such a nagging about already to-day?”

I took out the money and held it out to her.  But will it be believed that those mean words were uttered entirely without motive, that is, without the faintest allusion to anything.  And indeed there could have been no such allusion, for at that moment I knew absolutely nothing.  Perhaps I had just a desire to vex her by something comparatively most innocent, by way of a gibe, “Since you are such an interfering young lady, wouldn’t you like to return the money yourself to the prince, a charming young man and a Petersburg officer, as you are so anxious to meddle in young men’s business.”  But what was my amazement when my mother got up, and, with a menacing gesture, cried:

“How dare you!  How dare you!”

I could never have conceived of anything like it from her, and I too jumped up from my seat, not exactly in alarm, but with a sort of anguish, a poignant wound in my heart, suddenly realizing that something dreadful had happened.  But unable to control herself, mother hid her face in her hands and ran out of the room.  Liza followed her out without so much as a glance at me.  Tatyana Pavlovna gazed at me for half a minute in silence.

“Can you really have meant to jeer?” she exclaimed enigmatically, looking at me in profound astonishment, but without waiting for me to answer, she, too, ran out to join them.  With an unsympathetic, almost angry expression, Versilov got up from the table, and took his hat from the corner.

“I imagine that you are not so much a fool as an innocent,” he mumbled to me ironically.  “If they come back, tell them to have their pudding without waiting for me.  I am going out for a little.”

I remained alone; at first I felt bewildered, then I felt resentful, but afterwards I saw clearly that I was to blame.  However, I did not know exactly how I was to blame, I simply had a feeling of it.  I sat in the window and waited.  After waiting ten minutes, I, too, took my hat, and went upstairs to the attic, which had been mine.  I knew that they, that is my mother and Liza, were there, and that Tatyana Pavlovna had gone away.  And so I found them on my sofa, whispering together about something.  They left off whispering at once, when I appeared; to my amazement they were not angry with me; mother anyway smiled at me.

“I am sorry, mother,” I began.

“Never mind!” mother cut me short, “only love each other and never quarrel and God will send you happiness.”

“He is never nasty to me, mother, I assure you,” Liza said with conviction and feeling.

“If it hadn’t been for that Tatyana Pavlovna nothing would have happened,” I cried; “she’s horrid!”

“You see, mother?  You hear?” said Liza with a motion towards me.

“What I want to tell you both is this,” I declared: “if there is anything nasty in the world, it’s I that am nasty, and all the rest is delightful!”

“Arkasha, don’t be angry, darling, but if you really would give up . . .”

“Gambling, you mean, gambling?  I will give it up, mother.  I am going there for the last time to-day — especially since Andrey Petrovitch himself has declared that not a farthing of that money is his, you can’t imagine how I blush. . . .  I must go into it with him, though . . . Mother darling, last time I was here I said something clumsy . . . it was nonsense, darling; I truly want to believe, it was only swagger, I love Christ. . . .”

On my last visit there had been a conversation about religion.  Mother had been much grieved and upset.  When she heard my words now, she smiled at me as though I were a little child.

“Christ forgives everything, Arkasha; he forgives your wrongdoing and worse than yours.  Christ is our Father, Christ never fails us, and will give light in the blackest night. . . .”

I said good-bye to them, and went away, thinking over the chances of seeing Versilov that day; I had a great deal to talk over with him, and it had been impossible that afternoon.  I had a strong suspicion that he would be waiting for me at my lodging.  I walked there on foot; it had turned colder and begun to freeze and walking was very pleasant.

2

I lived near the Voznesenky Bridge, in a huge block of flats overlooking the courtyard.  Almost as I went into the gate I ran into Versilov coming out.

“As usual when I go for a walk, I only get as far as your lodging, and I’ve been to Pyotr Ippolitovitch’s, but I got tired of waiting for you; your people there are for ever quarrelling, and to-day his wife is even a little tearful; I looked in and came away.”

For some reason I felt annoyed.

“I suppose you never go to see anyone except me and Pyotr Ippolitovitch; you have no one else in all Petersburg to go to.”

“My dear fellow . . . but it doesn’t matter.”

“Where are you going now?”

“I am not coming back to you.  If you like we’ll go for a walk, it’s a glorious evening.”

“If instead of abstract discussions, you had talked to me like a human being, and had for instance given me the merest hint about that confounded gambling, I should perhaps not have let myself be drawn into it like a fool,” I said suddenly.

“You regret it?  That’s a good thing,” he answered, bringing out his words reluctantly; “I always suspected that play was not a matter of great consequence with you, but only a temporary aberration. . . .  You are right, my dear boy, gambling is beastly, and what’s more one may lose.”