The Adolescent (28 page)

III

ON ENTERING, I suddenly found Liza with her. It almost struck me. I was very well aware that they had seen each other before; it had happened at the “nursing baby’s.” I may tell later, if there’s space, about this fantasy of the proud and modest Anna Andreevna’s to see this baby, and about her meeting Liza there; but all the same I never expected that Anna Andreevna would ever invite Liza to her place. This struck me pleasantly. Not letting it show, naturally, I greeted Anna Andreevna and, warmly pressing Liza’s hand, sat down beside her. The two women were busy with
work
: on the table and on their knees lay an evening dress of Anna Andreevna’s, expensive but old, that is, worn three times, which she wanted to alter somehow. Liza was a great “expert ” in such matters and had taste, and so a solemn council of “wise women” was taking place. I remembered Versilov and laughed; and anyhow I was in the most radiant spirits.

“You’re very cheerful today, and that’s very pleasant,” said Anna Andreevna, articulating the words imposingly and distinctly. Her voice was a dense and sonorous contralto, but she always spoke calmly and softly, always lowering her long lashes slightly, and with a smile barely flitting over her pale face.

“Liza knows how unpleasant I am when I’m not cheerful,” I replied cheerfully.

“Maybe Anna Andreevna knows about that, too,” the mischievous Liza needled me. The dear! If only I had known what was in her heart then!

“What are you doing now?” asked Anna Andreevna. (I’ll note that she had precisely even asked me to call on her today.)

“I’m now sitting here and asking myself: why is it always more pleasant for me to find you over a book than over handwork? No, really, handwork doesn’t suit you for some reason. In that sense I take after Andrei Petrovich.”

“You still haven’t made up your mind to enter the university?”

“I’m only too grateful that you haven’t forgotten our conversations; that means you think of me occasionally; but . . . I haven’t formed my idea yet concerning the university, and besides I have goals of my own.”

“That is, he has his secret,” observed Liza.

“Drop your jokes, Liza. A certain intelligent man said the other day that, with all this progressive movement of ours in the last twenty years, we’ve proved first of all that we’re filthily uneducated. Here, of course, he was also speaking of our university men.”

“Well, surely papa said that; you repeat his thoughts terribly often,” observed Liza.

“Liza, it’s as if you don’t believe I have a mind of my own.”

“In our time it’s useful to listen to the words of intelligent people and remember them,” Anna Andreevna defended me a little.

“Precisely, Anna Andreevna,” I picked up hotly. “Whoever doesn’t think about Russia’s present moment is not a citizen! Maybe I look at Russia from a strange viewpoint: we lived through the Tartar invasion, then through two centuries of slavery,
²¹
and that, certainly, because both the one and the other were to our liking. Now we’ve been given freedom, and we have to endure freedom. Will we be able to? Will freedom prove as much to our taste? That’s the question.”

Liza glanced quickly at Anna Andreevna, who looked down at once and began searching for something around her; I saw that Liza was trying as hard as she could to control herself, but somehow accidentally our eyes suddenly met, and she burst out laughing. I flared up:

“Liza, you’re inconceivable!”

“Forgive me!” she said suddenly, ceasing to laugh and almost with sadness. “I’ve got God knows what in my head . . .”

And it was as if tears suddenly trembled in her voice. I felt terribly ashamed; I took her hand and kissed it hard.

“You’re very kind,” Anna Andreevna observed to me softly, seeing me kiss Liza’s hand.

“I’m glad most of all, Liza, that I find you laughing this time,” I said. “Would you believe it, Anna Andreevna, these past few days she met me each time with some strange look, and in this look there was as if a question: ‘So, have you found anything out? Is everything going well?’ Really, there’s something like that with her.”

Anna Andreevna gave her a slow and keen look. Liza dropped her eyes. I could see very well, however, that the two were much better and more closely acquainted than I’d have supposed when I came in earlier. The thought pleased me.

“You just said I was kind; you won’t believe how the whole of me changes for the better with you, and how pleasant it is for me to be with you, Anna Andreevna,” I said with feeling.

“And I’m very glad you say that to me precisely now,” she replied meaningly. I must say that she never talked to me about my disorderly life and of the abyss I had plunged into, though I knew she not only knew about it all, but even made inquiries indirectly. So that now it was like a first hint, and—my heart turned to her still more.

“How’s our invalid?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s much better. He’s walking, and he went for a ride yesterday and today. But didn’t you go to see him today either? He’s waiting so much for you.”

“I’m guilty towards him, but you visit him now and have fully replaced me. He’s a great traitor and has exchanged me for you.”

She made a very serious face, very possibly because my joke was trivial.

“I was at Prince Sergei Petrovich’s today,” I began to mutter, “and I . . . By the way, Liza, did you go to see Darya Onisimovna today?”

“Yes, I did,” she answered somehow curtly, not raising her head. “It seems you go to see the sick prince every day?” she asked somehow suddenly, maybe in order to say something.

“Yes, I go to see him, only I don’t get there,” I smiled. “I go in and turn left.”

“Even the prince has noticed that you go to see Katerina Nikolaevna very often. He mentioned it yesterday and laughed,” said Anna Andreevna.

“At what? What did he laugh at?”

“He was joking, you know. He said that, on the contrary, a young and beautiful woman always produces an impression of indignation and wrath in a young man your age . . .” Anna Andreevna suddenly laughed.

“Listen . . . you know, that was a terribly apt remark he made,” I cried. “Probably it wasn’t he, but you who said it to him?”

“Why so? No, it was he.”

“Well, but if this beauty pays attention to him, despite his being so insignificant, standing in the corner, angry at being ‘little,’ and suddenly prefers him to the whole crowd of surrounding admirers, what then?” I asked suddenly, with a most bold and defiant look. My heart began to pound.

“Then you’ll just perish right in front of her,” Liza laughed.

“Perish?” I cried. “No, I won’t perish. I don’t believe I’ll perish. If a woman stands across my path, then she must follow after me. You don’t block my path with impunity . . .”

Liza once said to me in passing, recalling it long afterwards, that I uttered this phrase then terribly strangely, seriously, and as if suddenly growing pensive; but at the same time “so ridiculously that it was impossible to control oneself.” Indeed, Anna Andreevna again burst out laughing.

“Laugh, laugh at me!” I exclaimed in intoxication, because I was terribly pleased with this whole conversation and the direction it had taken. “From you it only gives me pleasure. I love your laughter, Anna Andreevna! You have this feature: you keep silent and suddenly burst out laughing, instantly, so that even an instant earlier one couldn’t have guessed it by your face. I knew a lady in Moscow, distantly, I watched her from a corner. She was almost as beautiful as you are, but she couldn’t laugh the way you do, and her face, which was as attractive as yours—lost its attraction; but yours is terribly attractive . . . precisely for that ability . . . I’ve long been wanting to tell you.”

When I said of the lady that “she was as beautiful as you are,” I was being clever: I pretended that it had escaped me accidentally, as if I hadn’t even noticed; I knew very well that women value such “escaped” praise more highly than any polished compliment you like. And much as Anna Andreevna blushed, I knew it pleased her. And I invented the lady; I didn’t know any such lady in Moscow, it was only so as to praise Anna Andreevna and please her.

“One truly might think,” she said with a charming smile, “that you’ve been under the influence of some beautiful woman recently.”

It was as if I were flying off somewhere . . . I even wanted to reveal something to them . . . but I restrained myself.

“And by the way, not long ago you spoke of Katerina Nikolaevna quite hostilely.”

“If I ever said anything bad,” I flashed my eyes, “the blame for it goes to the monstrous slander against her that she was Andrei Petrovich’s enemy; the slander against him, too, that he was supposedly in love with her, had proposed to her, and similar absurdities. This idea is as outrageous as another slander against her, that, supposedly while her husband was still alive, she had promised Prince Sergei Petrovich that she would marry him when she was widowed, and then didn’t keep her word. But I know firsthand that all this wasn’t so, but was only a joke. I know it firsthand. Abroad there, once, in a joking moment, she indeed told the prince ‘maybe,’ in the future; but what could it have signified besides just a light word? I know only too well that the prince, for his part, cannot attach any value to such a promise, and he has no intentions anyway,” I added, catching myself. “He seems to have quite different ideas,” I put in slyly. “Today Nashchokin said at his place that Katerina Nikolaevna is supposedly going to marry Baron Bjoring: believe me, he bore this news in the best possible way, you may be sure.”

“Nashchokin was there?” Anna Andreevna suddenly asked weightily and as if in surprise.

“Oh, yes. He seems to be one of those respectable people . . .”

“And Nashchokin spoke with him about this marriage to Bjoring?” Anna Andreevna suddenly became very interested.

“Not about the marriage, but just so, of the possibility, as a rumor; he said there was supposedly such a rumor in society; as for me, I’m sure it’s nonsense.”

Anna Andreevna pondered, and bent over her sewing.

“I like Prince Sergei Petrovich,” I suddenly added warmly. “He has his shortcomings, indisputably, I’ve already told you—namely, a certain one-idea-ness—but his shortcomings also testify to a nobility of soul, isn’t it true? Today, for instance, he and I nearly quarreled over an idea: his conviction that if you speak about nobility, you should be noble yourself, otherwise all you say is a lie. Well, is that logical? And yet it testifies to the lofty demands of honor in his soul, of duty, of justice, isn’t it true? . . . Ah, my God, what time is it?” I suddenly cried, happening to glance at the face of the mantelpiece clock.

“Ten minutes to three,” she said calmly, glancing at the clock. All the while I spoke of the prince, she listened to me, looking down with a sort of sly but sweet smile: she knew why I was praising him so. Liza listened, her head bent over her work, and for some time had not interfered in the conversation.

I jumped up as if burnt.

“Are you late somewhere?”

“Yes . . . no . . . I am late, though, but I’ll go right now. Just one word, Anna Andreevna,” I began excitedly, “I can’t help telling you today! I want to confess to you that I’ve already blessed several times the kindness and delicacy with which you have invited me to visit you . . . Being acquainted with you has made a very strong impression on me. It’s as if here in your room my soul is purified and I go away better than I am. It’s really so. When I sit beside you, I not only can’t speak about bad things, but I can’t even have bad thoughts; they disappear in your presence, and if I remember something bad in your presence, I’m at once ashamed of this bad thing, grow timid, and blush in my soul. And, you know, it was especially pleasing to me to meet my sister here with you today . . . It testifies to such nobility of your . . . to such a beautiful attitude . . . In short, it speaks for something so
brotherly
, if you will allow me to break this ice, that I . . .”

As I spoke, she was rising from her seat, turning more and more red; but it was as if she was suddenly frightened by something, by some line that ought not to have been overleaped, and she quickly interrupted me:

“Believe me, I shall know how to appreciate your feelings with all my heart . . . I understood them without words . . . and already long ago . . .”

She paused in embarrassment, pressing my hand. Suddenly Liza tugged at my sleeve unobserved. I said good-bye and went out; but in the next room Liza caught up with me.

IV

“LIZA, WHY DID you tug at my sleeve?” I asked.

“She’s nasty, she’s cunning, she’s not worth . . . She keeps you in order to worm things out of you,” she whispered in a quick, spiteful whisper. I’d never seen her with such a face before.

“Liza, God help you, she’s such a lovely girl!”

“Well, then I’m nasty.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m very bad. She’s maybe the loveliest of girls, but I’m bad. Enough, drop it. Listen: mama asks you about something ‘that she doesn’t dare speak of,’ as she said. Arkady, darling! Stop gambling, dear, I beseech you . . . mama, too . . .”

“Liza, I know it myself, but . . . I know it’s a pathetic weakness, but . . . it’s only trifles and nothing more! You see, I got into debt, like a fool, and I want to win only so as to pay it back. It’s possible to win, because I played without calculation, off the cuff, like a fool, but now I’ll tremble over each rouble . . . I won’t be myself if I don’t win! I haven’t taken to it; it’s not the main thing, it’s just in passing, I assure you! I’m too strong not to stop when I want to. I’ll pay back the money, and then I’m yours undividedly, and tell mama that I’ll never leave you . . .”

“Those three hundred roubles today cost you something!”

“How do you know?” I gave a start.

“Darya Onisimovna heard everything . . .”

But at that moment Liza suddenly pushed me behind the curtain, and the two of us found ourselves in what’s known as a “lantern,” that is, a round, bay-windowed little room. Before I managed to come to my senses, I heard a familiar voice, the clank of spurs, and guessed at the familiar stride.

“Prince Seryozha,” I whispered.

“Himself,” she whispered.

“Why are you so frightened?”

“I just am. I don’t want him to meet me for anything . . .”

“Tiens, he’s not dangling after you, is he?” I grinned. “He’ll get it from me if he is. Where are you going?”

“Let’s leave. I’ll go with you.”

“Did you say good-bye in there?”

“Yes, my coat’s in the front hall . . .”

We left. On the stairs an idea struck me:

“You know, Liza, he may have come to propose to her!”

“N-no . . . he won’t propose . . .” she said firmly and slowly, in a low voice.

“You don’t know, Liza, I did quarrel with him today—since you’ve already been told of it—but, by God, I love him sincerely and wish him good luck here. We made peace today. When we’re happy, we’re so kind . . . You see, he has many splendid inclinations . . . and humaneness . . . The rudiments at least . . . and in the hands of such a firm and intelligent girl as Miss Versilov, he’d straighten out completely and be happy. It’s too bad I have no time . . . ride with me a little, I could tell you something . . .”

“No, ride alone, I’m not going that way. Will you come for dinner?”

“I’ll come, I’ll come, as promised. Listen, Liza, a certain rotter—in short, the vilest of beings, well, Stebelkov, if you know him—has a terrible influence on his affairs . . . promissory notes . . . well, in short, he’s got him in his hands, and has him so cornered, and he feels so humiliated himself, that the two of them see no other solution than to propose to Anna Andreevna. She really ought to be warned. However, it’s nonsense, she’ll set the whole matter to rights later. But will she refuse him? What do you think?”

“Good-bye, I have no time,” Liza cut me off, and I suddenly saw so much hatred in her fleeting glance that I at once cried out in fright:

“Liza, dear, why that look?”

“It’s not at you; only don’t gamble . . .”

“Ah, you mean gambling! I won’t, I won’t.”

“You just said, ‘when we’re happy’—so you’re very happy?”

“Terribly, Liza, terribly! My God, it’s already three o’clock, and past! . . . Good-bye, Lizok. Lizochka, dear, tell me: can one keep a woman waiting? Is that permissible?”

“At a rendezvous, you mean?” Liza smiled faintly, with some sort of dead, trembling little smile.

“Give me your hand for luck.”

“For luck? My hand? Not for anything!”

And she quickly walked away. And, above all, she had cried out so seriously. I jumped into my sledge.

Yes, yes, and this “happiness” was the main reason why I, like a blind mole, neither understood nor saw anything except myself then!