The Adolescent (46 page)

“Andrei Petrovich,” I seized his hand without thinking and almost in inspiration, as often happened with me (we were almost in the dark), “Andrei Petrovich, I’ve been silent—you’ve seen that, I’ve kept silent up to now, and do you know why? To avoid your secrets. I’ve simply resolved never to know them. I’m a coward, I’m afraid that your secrets will tear you out of my heart completely, and I don’t want that. And if so, then why should you know my secrets? Let it be all the same to you, wherever I may go! Isn’t it so?”

“You’re right, but not a word more, I beg you!” he said, and left my room. Thus we accidentally had a bit of a talk. But he only added to my agitation before my new step in life the next day, so that I spent the whole night constantly waking up. But I felt good.

III

THE NEXT DAY, though I left the house at ten o’clock in the morning, I tried as hard as I could to leave on the quiet, without saying good-bye or telling anybody—to slip away, as they say. Why I did that I don’t know, but if even mama had seen me going out and started talking to me, I would have answered with something angry. When I found myself outside and breathed the cold outdoor air, I shuddered from a very strong sensation—almost an animal one, and which I’d call
carnivorous
. Why was I going, where was I going? It was completely indefinite and at the same time
carnivorous
. I felt frightened and joyful—both at once.

“And will I dirty myself today, or not?” I thought dashingly to myself, though I knew all too well that today’s step, once taken, would be decisive and irreparable for my whole life. But there’s no use speaking in riddles.

I went straight to the prince’s prison. For three days already I had had a note from Tatyana Pavlovna to the warden, and he gave me an excellent reception. I don’t know whether he’s a good man, and I don’t think it matters; but he allowed me to meet with the prince and arranged it in his own room, kindly yielding it to us. The room was like any room—an ordinary room in the government apartment of an official of a known sort—that also, I think, we can omit describing. So the prince and I were left alone.

He came out to me in some half-military housecoat, but with a very clean shirt, a fancy necktie, washed and combed, and along with that terribly thin and yellow. I noticed this yellowness even in his eyes. In short, his looks were so changed that I even stopped in perplexity.

“How changed you are!” I cried.

“Never mind! Sit down, my dear,” he half-foppishly showed me to an armchair and sat down facing me. “Let’s go on to the main thing: you see, my dear Alexei Makarovich . . .”

“Arkady,” I corrected.

“What? Ah, yes—well, well, it makes no difference. Ah, yes!” he suddenly realized, “excuse me, dear heart, let’s go on to the main thing . . .”

In short, he was in a terrible hurry to go on to something. He was all pervaded with something, from head to foot, with some sort of main idea, which he wished to formulate and present to me. He talked terribly much and quickly, with strain and suffering, explaining and gesticulating, but in the first moments I understood decidedly nothing.

“To put it briefly” (he had already used the phrase “to put it briefly” ten times before then), “to put it briefly,” he concluded, “if I have troubled you, Arkady Makarovich, and summoned you so insistently yesterday through Liza, then, though things are ablaze, still, since the essence of the decision should be extraordinary and definitive, we . . .”

“Excuse me, Prince,” I interrupted, “did you summon me yesterday? Liza told me precisely nothing.”

“What!” he cried, suddenly stopping in great bewilderment, even almost in fright.

“She told me precisely nothing. Last night she came home so upset that she didn’t even manage to say a word to me.”

The prince jumped up from his chair.

“Can this be true, Arkady Makarovich? In that case, it’s . . . it’s...”

“But, anyhow, what of it? Why are you so disturbed? She simply forgot or something . . .”

He sat down, but it was as if stupefaction came over him. The news that Liza hadn’t told me anything simply crushed him. He suddenly began speaking quickly and waving his arms, but again it was terribly difficult to understand.

“Wait!” he said suddenly, falling silent and holding up his finger. “Wait, it’s . . . it’s . . . unless I’m mistaken . . . these are—tricks, sir! . . .” he murmured with a maniac’s smile. “And it means that . . .”

“It means precisely nothing!” I interrupted. “And I only don’t understand why such an empty circumstance torments you so . . . Ah, Prince, since that time, ever since that night—remember . . .”

“Since what night, and what of it?” he cried fussily, obviously vexed that I had interrupted him.

“At Zershchikov’s, where we saw each other for the last time—well, before your letter? You were also terribly disturbed then, but between then and now there’s such a difference that I’m even horrified at you . . . Or don’t you remember?”

“Ah, yes,” he said, in the voice of a worldly man, and as if suddenly recalling, “ah, yes! That evening . . . I heard . . . Well, how is your health, and how are you now after all this, Arkady Makarovich? . . . But, anyway, let’s go on to the main thing. You see, I am essentially pursuing three goals; there are three tasks before me, and I . . .”

He quickly began speaking again about his “main thing.” I realized, finally, that I saw before me a man who ought at least to have a napkin with vinegar put to his head at once, if not to have his blood let. His whole incoherent conversation, naturally, turned around his trial, around the possible outcome; also around the fact that the regimental commander himself had visited him and spent a long time talking him out of something, but that he had not obeyed; around a note he had just written and submitted somewhere; around the prosecutor; about the fact that he would probably be stripped of his rights and exiled somewhere to the northern reaches of Russia; about the possibility of becoming a colonist and earning back his rights in Tashkent;
¹⁶
that he would teach his son (the future one, from Liza) this, and pass on that, “in the back-woods, in Arkhangelsk, in Kholmogory.”
¹⁷
“If I wished for your opinion, Arkady Makarovich, then believe me, I value so much the feeling . . . If you only knew, if you only knew, Arkady Makarovich, my dear, my brother, what Liza means to me, what she has meant to me here, now, all this time!” he cried suddenly, clutching his head with both hands.

“Sergei Petrovich, can it be that you’ll ruin her and take her away? To Kholmogory!” suddenly burst from me irrepressibly. Liza’s lot with this maniac all her life suddenly presented itself to my consciousness clearly and as if for the first time. He looked at me, stood up again, took a step, turned around, and sat down again, still holding his head with his hands.

“I keep dreaming of spiders!” he said suddenly.

“You’re terribly agitated, Prince, I’d advise you to lie down and send for the doctor at once.”

“No, excuse me, that can wait. I mainly asked you to come so that I could explain to you about the marriage. The marriage, you know, will take place right here in the church, I’ve already said so. Approval has been granted, and they even encourage . . . As for Liza . . .”

“Prince, have mercy on Liza, my dear,” I cried, “don’t torment her now at least, don’t be jealous!”

“What!” he cried, looking at me point-blank, his eyes almost popping out, and his face twisted into some sort of long, senselessly questioning smile. It was clear that the words “don’t be jealous” for some reason struck him terribly.

“Forgive me, Prince, it was inadvertent. Oh, Prince, I’ve come to know an old man recently, my nominal father . . . Oh, if you could see him you’d be calmer . . . Liza also appreciates him so.”

“Ah, yes, Liza . . . ah, yes, it’s your father? Or . . . pardon, mon cher,
⁶⁸
something like that . . . I remember . . . she told me . . . a little old man . . . To be sure, to be sure. I also knew a little old man . . . Mais passons,
⁶⁹
the main thing, in order to clarify the whole essence of the moment, we must . . .”

I got up to leave. It was painful for me to look at him.

“I do not understand!” he uttered sternly and imposingly, seeing that I had gotten up to leave.

“It’s painful for me to look at you,” I said.

“Arkady Makarovich, one word, one word more!” He suddenly seized me by the shoulders with a completely different look and gesture, and sat me down in the armchair. “Have you heard about those . . . you understand?” he leaned towards me.

“Ah, yes, Dergachev. It must be Stebelkov!” I cried, unable to restrain myself.

“Yes, Stebelkov and . . . you don’t know?”

He stopped short and again stared at me with the same popping eyes and the same long, convulsive, senselessly questioning smile, which spread wider and wider. His face gradually grew pale. It was as if something suddenly shook me: I remembered Versilov’s look the day before, when he was telling me about Vasin’s arrest.

“Oh, can it be?” I cried fearfully.

“You see, Arkady Makarovich, this is why I summoned you, in order to explain . . . I wanted . . .” he was whispering quickly.

“It was you who denounced Vasin!” I cried.

“No, you see, there was this manuscript. Before the very last day, Vasin gave it to Liza . . . for safekeeping. And she left it here for me to look at, and then it so happened that they quarreled the next day . . .”

“You turned the manuscript over to the authorities!”

“Arkady Makarovich! Arkady Makarovich!”

“And so you,” I cried, jumping up and rapping out the words, “you, with no other motive, with no other purpose, but solely because the unfortunate Vasin is
your rival
, solely out of jealousy, you gave the
manuscript entrusted to Liza
. . . gave it to whom? To whom? To the prosecutor?”

But he didn’t have time to answer, and he hardly would have answered anything, because he stood before me like an idol, still with the same morbid smile and fixed gaze; but suddenly the door opened and Liza came in. She almost fainted, seeing us together.

“You here? So you are here?” she cried with a suddenly distorted face and seizing me by the hands. “So you . . .
know
?”

But she had already read in my face that I “knew.” I quickly and irrepressibly embraced her, tightly, tightly! And only at that moment did I grasp for the first time, in its full force, what hopeless, endless grief, with no dawn, lay forever over the whole destiny of this . . . voluntary seeker of suffering!

“But is it possible to speak with him now?” she suddenly tore herself away from me. “Is it possible to be with him? Why are you here? Look at him! Look! And is it possible, is it possible to judge him?”

Endless misery and commiseration were in her face as she exclaimed this, pointing to the unfortunate man. He was sitting in the armchair, covering his face with his hands. And she was right: this was a man in high delirium and irresponsible; and maybe for three days now he had already been irresponsible. That same morning he had been put in the hospital, and by evening he had come down with brain fever.

IV

FROM THE PRINCE, whom I left then with Liza, I went at around one o’clock to my former apartment. I forgot to mention that it was a damp, dull day, with the beginnings of a thaw and with a warm wind, capable of upsetting even an elephant’s nerves. The landlord met me rejoicing, hustling and bustling, something I terribly dislike precisely at such moments. I treated him drily and went straight to my room, but he followed me, and though he didn’t dare ask any questions, curiosity simply shone in his eyes, and at the same time he looked as if he even had some right to be curious. I had to treat him politely for my own good; but though it was all too necessary for me to find out a thing or two (and I knew I would), still I was loath to start asking questions. I inquired after his wife’s health, and we went to see her. She met me courteously, though with an extremely businesslike and taciturn air; this reconciled me a little. Briefly, this time I learned some quite wondrous things.

Well, naturally, Lambert had been there, but then he had come twice more and “looked the rooms all over,” saying he might rent them. Nastasya Egorovna had come several times, God alone knew why. “She was also very curious,” the landlord added, but I didn’t gratify him, I didn’t ask what she was curious about. In general, I didn’t ask any questions, it was he who spoke, and I pretended to be rummaging in my suitcase (in which there was almost nothing left). But the most vexing thing was that he also decided to play mysterious and, noticing that I refrained from asking questions, also thought it his duty to become more clipped, almost enigmatic.

“The young lady was also here,” he added, looking at me strangely.

“What young lady?”

“Anna Andreevna. She came twice; got acquainted with my wife. Very nice person, very agreeable. Such an acquaintance one can appreciate only too well, Arkady Makarovich . . .” And, having brought that out, he even took a step towards me: so much did he want me to understand something.

“Twice, really?” I was surprised.

“The second time she came with her brother.”

“Meaning with Lambert,” occurred to me involuntarily.

“No, sir, not with Mr. Lambert,” he guessed at once, as if jumping into my soul with his eyes, “but with her brother, the real one, the young Mr. Versilov. A kammerjunker,
¹⁸
it seems?”

I was very embarrassed; he looked on, smiling terribly affectionately.

“Ah, there was someone else here asking for you—that mamzelle, the Frenchwoman, Mamzelle Alphonsine de Verdaigne. Ah, how well she sings, and she also declaims beautifully in verse! She was on her way in secret to see Prince Nikolai Ivanovich then, in Tsarskoe, to sell him a little dog, she said, a rarity, black, no bigger than your fist . . .”

I begged him to leave me alone, excusing myself with a headache. He instantly satisfied me, not even finishing the phrase, and not only without the least touchiness, but almost with pleasure, waving his hand mysteriously and as if saying, “I understand, sir, I understand,” and though he didn’t say it, instead he left the room on tiptoe, he gave himself that pleasure. There are very vexatious people in this world.

I sat alone, thinking things over for about an hour and a half—not thinking things over, however, but just brooding. Though I was confused, I was not in the least surprised. I even expected something more, some still greater wonders. “Maybe they’ve already performed them by now,” I thought. I had been firmly and long convinced, still at home, that their machine was wound up and running at full speed. “It’s only me they lack, that’s what,” I thought again, with a sort of irritable and agreeable smugness. That they were waiting for me with all their might—and setting something up to happen in my apartment—was clear as day. “Can it be the old prince’s wedding? The beaters are all after him. Only will I allow it, gentlemen, that’s the thing,” I concluded again with haughty satisfaction.

“Once I start, I’ll immediately get drawn into the whirlpool again, like a chip of wood. Am I free now, this minute, or am I no longer free? Going back to mama tonight, can I still say to myself, as in all these past days, ‘I am on my own’?”

That was the essence of my questions or, better, of the throbbings of my heart, during that hour and a half that I spent then in the corner on the bed, my elbows resting on my knees, my head propped in my hands. But I knew, I already knew even then, that all these questions were complete nonsense, and I was drawn only by
her
—her and her alone! At last I’ve said it straight out and written it with pen on paper, for even now, as I write, a year later, I still don’t know how to call my feeling of that time by its name!

Oh, I felt sorry for Liza, and there was a most unhypocritical pain in my heart! Just by itself this feeling of pain for her might, it seems, have restrained and effaced, at least for a time, the
carnivorousness
in me (again I mention that word). But I was drawn by boundless curiosity and a sort of fear, and some other feeling as well—I don’t know which; but I know, and already knew then, that it was not good. Maybe I yearned to fall at
her
feet, or maybe I wanted to give her over to every torment and “quickly, quickly” prove something to her. No pain and no compassion for Liza could stop me now. Well, could I get up and go home . . . to Makar Ivanovich?

“But is it really impossible simply to go to them, find out everything from them, and suddenly go away from them forever, passing unharmed by the wonders and monsters?”

At three o’clock, catching myself and realizing that I was almost late, I quickly went out, caught a cab, and flew to Anna Andreevna.