The Adolescent (22 page)

III

PRINCE SERYOZHA (that is, Prince Sergei Petrovich, and so I shall call him) brought me to his apartment in a jaunty droshky, and, first thing, I was surprised at the magnificence of his apartment. That is, not really magnificence, but this was an apartment such as the most “respectable people” have, with high, big, bright rooms (I saw two, the others were shut up), and the furniture once again was not God knows what Versailles or Renaissance, but soft, comfortable, abundant, in grand style; rugs, carved wood, figurines. Yet everyone said they were destitute, that they had precisely nothing. I had heard in passing, though, that this prince raised dust wherever he could, here, and in Moscow, and in his former regiment, and in Paris, that he even gambled and had debts. The frock coat I had on was wrinkled and moreover covered with down, because I had slept without undressing, and my shirt was going on its fourth day. However, my frock coat was still not totally bad, but, finding myself at the prince’s, I remembered Versilov’s offer to have clothes made for me.

“Imagine, on the occasion of a certain suicide, I slept in my clothes all night,” I remarked with an absentminded air, and since he paid attention at once, I briefly told him about it. But he was obviously occupied most of all with his letter. Above all, I found it strange that he not only had not smiled, but had not shown the smallest reaction in that sense, when I had told him directly earlier that I wanted to challenge him to a duel. Though I should have been able to prevent him from laughing, still it was strange from a man of his sort. We sat down facing each other in the middle of the room, at his enormous writing table, and he gave me an already finished fair copy of his letter to Versilov to read through. This document was very much like all he had told me earlier at my prince’s; it was even ardently written. True, I didn’t know yet how I should finally take this apparent straightforwardness and readiness for everything good, but I was already beginning to yield to it, because, in fact, why shouldn’t I have believed it? Whatever sort of man he was and whatever people told about him, he still could have good inclinations. I also looked through the last little seven-line note from Versilov—renouncing his challenge. Though he actually wrote about his “pusillanimity” and “egoism” in it, the note as a whole was as if distinguished by a certain arrogance . . . or, better, this whole action showed a sort of disdain. However, I didn’t say so out loud.

“You, though, how do you look at this renunciation?” I asked. “You don’t think he turned coward?”

“Of course not,” the prince smiled, but with a somehow very serious smile, and generally he was becoming more and more preoccupied. “I know all too well that he’s a courageous man. Here, of course, there’s a special view . . . his own disposition of ideas . . .”

“Undoubtedly,” I interrupted warmly. “A certain Vasin says that his action with this letter and the renouncing of the inheritance are a ‘pedestal’ . . . In my opinion, such things aren’t done for show, but correspond to something basic, inner.”

“I know Mr. Vasin very well,” remarked the prince.

“Ah, yes, you must have seen him in Luga.”

We suddenly looked at each other and, I remember, it seems I blushed a little. In any case he broke off the conversation. I, however, wanted very much to talk. The thought of one meeting yesterday tempted me to ask him some questions, only I didn’t know how to approach it. And in general I was somehow quite out of sorts. I was also struck by his astonishing courtesy, politeness, ease of manner—in short, all that polish of their tone, which they assume almost from the cradle. In his letter I found two gross errors in grammar. And generally, in such encounters, I never belittle myself, but become more curt, which sometimes may be bad. But in the present case it was especially aggravated by the thought that I was covered with down, so that several times I even blundered into familiarity . . . I noticed on the sly that the prince occasionally studied me very intently.

“Tell me, Prince,” I suddenly popped out with a question, “don’t you find it ridiculous within yourself that I, who am still such a ‘milksop,’ wanted to challenge you to a duel, and for somebody else’s offense at that?”

“One can be very offended by an offense to one’s father. No, I don’t find it ridiculous.”

“And to me it seems terribly ridiculous . . . in someone else’s eyes . . . that is, of course, not in my own. The more so as I’m Dolgoruky and not Versilov. And if you’re not telling me the truth or are softening it somehow from the decency of social polish, then does it mean you’re also deceiving me in everything else?”

“No, I don’t find it ridiculous,” he replied terribly seriously. “How can you not feel your father’s blood in you? . . . True, you’re still young, because . . . I don’t know . . . it seems someone who is not of age cannot fight a duel, and his challenge cannot be accepted . . . according to the rules . . . But, if you like, there can be only one serious objection here: if you make a challenge without the knowledge of the offended person, for whose offense you are making the challenge, you are thereby expressing, as it were, a certain lack of respect for him on your own part, isn’t that true?”

Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a footman, who came to announce something. Seeing him, the prince, who seemed to have been expecting him, stood up without finishing what he was saying and quickly went over to him, so that the footman made his announcement in a low voice, and I, of course, didn’t hear what it was.

“Excuse me,” the prince turned to me, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

And he went out. I was left alone; I paced the room and thought. Strangely, I both liked him and terribly disliked him. There was something in him that I could not name myself, but something repellent. “If he’s not laughing at me a bit, then without doubt he’s terribly straightforward, but if he was laughing at me . . . then maybe he’d seem more intelligent . . .” I thought somehow strangely. I went over to the table and read Versilov’s letter once more. I was so absorbed that I even forgot about the time, and when I came to my senses, I suddenly noticed that the prince’s little minute had indisputably lasted a whole quarter of an hour already. That began to trouble me a little; I paced up and down once more, finally took my hat and, I remember, decided to step out so as to meet someone, to send for the prince, and, when he came, to take leave of him at once, assuring him that I had things to do and could not wait any longer. It seemed to me that this would be most proper, because I was slightly pained by the thought that, in leaving me for so long, he was treating me negligently.

The two closed doors to this room were at two ends of the same wall. Having forgotten which door we came in by, or, rather, out of absentmindedness, I opened one of them and suddenly saw, sitting on a sofa in a long and narrow room—my sister Liza. There was no one there except her, and she was, of course, waiting for someone. But before I had time even to be surprised, I suddenly heard the voice of the prince, talking loudly to someone and going back to his study. I quickly closed the door, and the prince, coming in through the other door, noticed nothing. I remember he started apologizing and said something about some Anna Fyodorovna . . . But I was so confused and astounded that I made out almost none of it, and only muttered that I had to go home, and then insistently and quickly left. The well-bred prince, of course, must have looked at my manners with curiosity. He saw me off to the front hall and kept talking, but I did not reply and did not look at him.

IV

GOING OUTSIDE, I turned left and started walking at random. Nothing added up in my head. I walked slowly and, it seems, had gone quite far, some five hundred steps, when I suddenly felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw Liza: she had caught up with me and tapped me lightly with her umbrella. There was something terribly gay and a bit sly in her shining eyes.

“Well, how glad I am that you went this way, otherwise I wouldn’t have met you today!” She was slightly breathless from walking quickly.

“How breathless you are.”

“I ran terribly to catch up with you.”

“Liza, was it you I just met?”

“Where?”

“At the prince’s . . . Prince Sokolsky’s . . .”

“No, not me, you didn’t meet me . . .”

I said nothing, and we walked on some ten paces. Liza burst into loud laughter:

“Me, me, of course it was me! Listen, you saw me yourself, you looked into my eyes, and I looked into your eyes, so how can you ask whether you met me? Well, what a character! And you know, I wanted terribly to laugh when you stared into my eyes there, it was terribly funny the way you stared.”

She laughed terribly. I felt all the anguish leave my heart at once.

“But, tell me, how did you wind up there?”

“I was at Anna Fyodorovna’s.”

“What Anna Fyodorovna?”

“Stolbeev. When we lived in Luga, I sat with her for whole days; she received mama at her place and even called on us. And she called on almost nobody there. She’s a distant relation of Andrei Petrovich’s and a relation of the Princes Sokolsky; she’s some sort of grandmother to the prince.”

“So she lives with the prince?”

“No, the prince lives with her.”

“So whose apartment is it?”

“It’s her apartment, the apartment has been all hers for a whole year now. The prince has just arrived and is staying with her. And she herself has only been four days in Petersburg.”

“ Well . . . you know what, Liza, God be with the apartment, and the woman herself . . .”

“No, she’s wonderful . . .”

“Let her be, and in spades. We’re wonderful ourselves! Look, what a day, look, how good! How beautiful you are today, Liza. However, you’re a terrible child.”

“Arkady, tell me, that girl, the one yesterday.”

“Ah, what a pity, Liza, what a pity!”

“Ah, what a pity! What a fate! You know, it’s even sinful that you and I go along so merrily, and her soul is now flying somewhere in the darkness, in some bottomless darkness, sinner that she is, and offended . . . Arkady, who’s to blame for her sin? Ah, how frightful it is! Do you ever think about that darkness? Ah, how afraid I am of death, and how sinful that is! I don’t like the dark, I much prefer this sun! Mama says it’s sinful to be afraid . . . Arkady, do you know mama well?”

“Little so far, Liza, I know her very little.”

“Ah, what a being she is; you must, must get to know her! She has to be understood in a special way . . .”

“But see, I didn’t know you either, and now I know the whole of you. I came to know the whole of you in one minute. Though you’re afraid of death, Liza, it must be that you’re proud, bold, courageous. Better than I, much better than I! I love you terribly, Liza! Ah, Liza! Let death come when it must, and meanwhile—live, live! We’ll pity that unfortunate girl, but even so we’ll bless life, right? Right? I have an ‘idea,’ Liza. Liza, do you know that Versilov renounced the inheritance?”

“How could I not know! Mama and I already kissed each other.”

“You don’t know my soul, Liza, you don’t know what this man has meant for me . . .”

“Well, how could I not know, I know everything.”

“You know everything? Well, what else! You’re intelligent; you’re more intelligent than Vasin. You and mama—you have penetrating, humane eyes, that is, looks, not eyes, I’m wrong . . . I’m bad in many ways, Liza.”

“You need to be taken in hand, that’s all.”

“Take me, Liza. How nice it is to look at you today. Do you know that you’re very pretty? I’ve never seen your eyes before . . . Only now I’ve seen them for the first time . . . Where did you get them today, Liza? Where did you buy them? How much did you pay? Liza, I’ve never had a friend, and I look upon the idea as nonsense; but with you it’s not nonsense . . . If you want, let’s be friends! You understand what I want to say? . . .”

“I understand very well.”

“And you know, without any conditions, any contract—we’ll simply be friends!”

“Yes, simply, simply, only with one condition: if we ever accuse each other, if we’re displeased with something, if we ourselves become wicked, bad, if we even forget all this—let’s never forget this day and this very hour! Let’s promise ourselves. Let’s promise that we will always remember this day, when we walked hand in hand, and laughed so, and were so merry . . . Yes? Yes?”

“Yes, Liza, yes, and I swear it; but, Liza, it’s as if I’m hearing you for the first time . . . Liza, have you read a lot?”

“He never asked till now! Only yesterday, when I made a slip in speaking, he deigned to pay attention for the first time, my dear sir, Mister Wise Man.”

“But why didn’t you start talking to me yourself, since I was such a fool?”

“I kept waiting for you to become smarter. I saw through you from the very beginning, Arkady Makarovich, and once I saw through you, I began to think like this: ‘He’ll come, he’ll surely end up by coming’—well, and I supposed it was better to leave that honor to you, so that it was you who made the first step: ‘No,’ I thought, ‘now you run after me a little!’”

“Ah, you little coquette! Well, Liza, confess outright: have you been laughing at me all this month or not?”

“Oh, you’re very funny, you’re terribly funny, Arkady! And you know, it may be that I loved you most of all this month because you’re such an odd duck. But in many ways you’re also a silly duck—that’s so you don’t get too proud. Do you know who else laughed at you? Mama laughed at you, mama and I together: ‘What an odd duck,’ we’d whisper, ‘really, what an odd duck!’ And you sat there and thought all the while that we’re sitting there and trembling before you.”

“Liza, what do you think of Versilov?”

“I think a great many things about him; but you know, we’re not going to talk about him now. There’s no need to talk about him today, right?”

“Perfectly right! No, you’re terribly intelligent, Liza! You’re certainly more intelligent than I am. You just wait, Liza, I’ll finish with all this, and then maybe I’ll tell you something . . .”

“Why are you frowning?”

“I’m not frowning, Liza, I’m just . . . You see, Liza, it’s better to be direct: I have this feature, I don’t like it when someone puts a finger on certain ticklish things in my soul . . . or, better to say, if you keep letting out certain feelings for everybody to admire, it’s shameful, isn’t it? And so I sometimes prefer to frown and say nothing. You’re intelligent, you must understand.”

“Not only that, I’m the same way myself; I understand you in everything. Do you know that mama is the same way, too?”

“Ah, Liza! If only we could live longer in this world! Eh? What did you say?”

“No, I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re just looking?”

“Yes, and you’re looking, too. I look at you and love you.”

I took her almost all the way home and gave her my address. Saying good-bye, I kissed her for the first time in my life . . .