The Adolescent (5 page)

I

ON THAT NINETEENTH day of the month, I was also to receive my first pay for the first month of my Petersburg service at my “private” post. They never even asked me about this post, but simply sent me there, it seems, on the very first day of my arrival. That was very crude, and I was almost obliged to protest. The post turned out to be in the house of old Prince Sokolsky. But to protest right then would have meant breaking with them at once, which, though it didn’t frighten me at all, would have harmed my essential aims, and therefore I accepted the post silently for the time being, my silence protecting my dignity. I’ll explain from the outset that this Prince Sokolsky, a rich man and a privy councillor,
⁵
was in no way related to those Princes Sokolsky from Moscow (impoverished wretches for several generations in a row) with whom Versilov had his lawsuit. They were merely namesakes. Nevertheless, the old prince took great interest in them and especially liked one of these princes, the head of the family, so to speak—a young officer. Still recently, Versilov had had enormous influence on this old man’s affairs and had been his friend, a strange friend, because the poor prince, as I noticed, was terribly afraid of him, not only at the time when I entered, but, it seems, throughout their friendship. However, they hadn’t seen each other for a long time; the dishonorable act Versilov was accused of concerned precisely the prince’s family; but Tatyana Pavlovna turned up, and it was through her mediation that I was placed with the old man, who wanted to have “a young man” in his office. It so happened that he also wanted terribly much to do Versilov a good turn, to make, so to speak, a first step, and Versilov
allowed
it. The old prince made the arrangements in the absence of his daughter, a general’s widow, who probably would not have allowed him this step. Of that later, but I’ll note that it was this strangeness of his relations with Versilov that struck me in his favor. It stood to reason that if the head of the insulted family still went on respecting Versilov, it meant that the rumor spread about Versilov’s baseness was absurd or at least ambiguous. It was partly this circumstance that forced me not to protest at taking the post: in taking it, I precisely hoped to verify all that.

This Tatyana Pavlovna played a strange role at the time when I found her in Petersburg. I had almost forgotten about her entirely and had never expected that she had such significance. Previously, she had come my way three or four times in my Moscow life, appearing from God knows where, on somebody’s instructions, each time I had to be settled somewhere—on entering Touchard’s little boarding school,
⁶
or two and a half years later, when I was transferred to high school and lodged in the quarters of the unforgettable Nikolai Semyonovich. Having appeared, she’d spend the whole day with me, inspecting my linen, my clothes, drive with me to Kuznetsky and downtown, buy me everything I needed, in short, set up my whole trousseau to the last little box and penknife; and she would hiss at me all the while, scold me, reprimand me, quiz me, hold up to me the example of some other fantastic boys, her acquaintances and relations, who supposedly were all better than I was, and, really, she even pinched me and positively shoved me, even several times, and painfully. Once she had settled me and installed me in place, she would vanish without a trace for several years. So it was she who, just as I arrived, appeared and got me installed again. She was a small, dry little figure, with a sharp, birdlike little nose and sharp, birdlike little eyes. She served Versilov like a slave, and bowed down to him as to a pope, but out of conviction. But I soon noticed with astonishment that she was decidedly respected by everyone and everywhere, and, above all—decidedly everywhere and everyone knew her. Old Prince Sokolsky treated her with extraordinary deference; so did his family; so did those proud Versilov children; so did the Fanariotovs—and yet she lived by doing sewing, washing some sort of lace, taking work from a shop. She and I quarreled from the first word, because she decided to hiss at me at once, as she had done six years before; after that we kept quarreling every day; but that did not prevent us from talking occasionally, and, I confess, by the end of the month I began to like her—for the independence of her character, I suppose. However, I did not inform her of that.

I understood at once that I had been assigned a post with this ailing old man solely in order to “amuse” him, and that the whole job lay in that. Naturally, that humiliated me, and I was going to take measures at once; but soon afterwards the old eccentric produced a sort of unexpected impression in me, something like pity, and by the end of the month I grew somehow strangely attached to him, or at least I dropped my intention to be rude. He was, incidentally, no more than sixty. Here a whole story came out. A year and a half earlier he had suddenly had a fit; he had gone somewhere and had lost his mind on the way, so that something like a scandal had occurred, which was talked about in Petersburg. As is proper in such cases, he was immediately taken abroad, but about five months later he suddenly reappeared, and in perfect health, though he did leave government service. Versilov maintained seriously (and with notable warmth) that there was no insanity involved, but merely some sort of nervous fit. I immediately noticed this warmth of Versilov’s. However, I will note that I myself all but shared his opinion. The old man just seemed awfully light-minded at times, which didn’t go with his years, and they said he hadn’t been that way at all before. They said that before he had been some sort of adviser somewhere and had once somehow distinguished himself greatly in some mission he had been charged with. Having known him for a whole month, I would never have supposed any special ability in him for being an adviser. They noticed (though I did not) that after his fit a sort of special inclination developed in him to get married quickly, and that he supposedly set about this idea more than once in that year and a half. This was supposedly known in society, and was of interest to the right people. But since this impulse was far too discordant with the interests of certain persons around the prince, the old man was watched on all sides. His own family was small; he had been a widower for twenty years and had only one daughter, the general’s widow, who was now expected any day from Moscow, a young person whose character he unquestionably feared. But he had no end of various distant relations, mostly on his deceased wife’s side, who were all but destitute; besides, there was a multitude of various wards, male and female, who received his benefactions, and who all expected a share of his inheritance, and so they all assisted the general’s widow in supervising the old man. On top of that, ever since he was a young man, he had had a certain quirk—only I don’t know whether it was ridiculous or not—of marrying off impoverished girls. He had been marrying them off for twentyfive years on end—distant relations, or stepdaughters of his wife’s cousins, or his goddaughters; he even married off his doorkeeper’s daughter. He started by taking them into his house while they were still little girls, brought them up with governesses and French-women, then educated them in the best schools, and in the end gave them away with a dowry. All this constantly crowded around him. The wards, naturally, once they married, would produce more girls, all the girls thus produced also aimed at becoming wards, he had to go everywhere to baptisms, all this showed up with congratulations on his birthdays, and he found it all extremely agreeable.

On entering his service, I noticed at once that a certain painful conviction had nested in the old man’s mind—and it was quite impossible not to notice it—that everyone in society had supposedly begun to look at him strangely, that everyone had supposedly begun to treat him differently than before, when he had been in good health; this impression did not leave him even in the merriest social gatherings. The old man became insecure, began noticing something in everyone’s eyes. The thought that he was still suspected of insanity obviously tormented him; even me he sometimes studied with mistrust. And if he had learned that someone was spreading or maintaining this rumor about him, I believe this gentlest of men would have become his eternal enemy. It is this circumstance that I ask you to take note of. I will add that this also decided me from the first day not to be rude to him; I was even glad if I sometimes had the chance to cheer him up or divert him; I don’t think this confession can cast a shadow on my dignity.

The greater part of his money was invested. After his illness, he had joined a big shareholding company, a very solid one, by the way. And though the business was conducted by the others, he was also very interested in it, came to the shareholders’ meetings, was elected a founding member, sat on the board, delivered long speeches, refuted, made noise, all with obvious pleasure. He very much liked making speeches: at least everyone could see his intelligence. And in general he began to be terribly fond of inserting especially profound things and bons mots into his conversation, even in his most intimate private life; that I understand only too well. In his house, downstairs, something like a home office was set up, and a clerk took care of the business, the accounts, and the bookkeeping, and also managed the household. This clerk, who served, besides, in a government post, would have been quite enough by himself; but, at the wish of the prince, they added me as well, as if to assist the clerk; but I was transferred at once to the study and often had no work in front of me, no papers, no books, not even for pretense.

I’m writing now like a man who has long since sobered up, and in many respects almost like an outsider; but how shall I depict my sadness of that time (which I vividly recall right now), as it lodged itself in my heart, and, above all, my agitation of that time, which would reach such a troubled and fervid state that I even didn’t sleep at night—from my impatience, from the riddles that I set myself.

II

ASKING FOR MONEY is a vile affair, even when it’s your salary, if you feel somewhere in the folds of your conscience that you haven’t quite earned it. Meanwhile, the day before, my mother and sister were whispering together, in secret from Versilov (“so as not to upset Andrei Petrovich”), intending to go to a pawnshop with an icon from her icon stand, which for some reason was very dear to her. I was working for fifty roubles a month, but I had no idea how I would receive it; when I was appointed here, nobody told me anything. Some three days earlier, meeting the clerk downstairs, I had asked him who was responsible for the salaries here. The man looked at me with the smile of one astonished (he didn’t like me):

“But do you get a salary?”

I thought that right after my reply he would add:

“And what for, sir?”

But he only answered drily that he “knew nothing” and buried himself in his ruled notebook, in which he was copying out accounts from some scraps of paper.

He was not unaware, however, that I did do something. Two weeks earlier I had sat for exactly four days over a job he himself had given me, making a copy from a rough draft, and it had almost come down to rewriting it. It was a whole crowd of the prince’s “thoughts,” which he had prepared to submit to the shareholders’ committee. I had to put it together into a whole and touch up the style. Afterwards I spent a whole day sitting over this paper with the prince, and he argued with me very vehemently, though he remained pleased; only I don’t know whether he submitted the paper or not. I won’t even mention the two or three letters, also on business, which I wrote at his request.

It was also vexing for me to ask for my salary, because I had already decided to give up my position, anticipating that I’d be forced to leave here as well, owing to ineluctable circumstances. Waking up that morning and getting dressed upstairs in my little closet, I felt my heart pound, and though I spat as I entered the prince’s house, I again felt the same agitation: that morning the person was to arrive here, the woman from whose arrival I expected an explanation of all that tormented me! This was precisely the prince’s daughter, General Akhmakov’s widow, the young woman of whom I have already spoken and who was at bitter enmity with Versilov. At last I’ve written that name! Of course, I had never seen her, and could not imagine how I would speak to her, or whether I would; but I imagined to myself (perhaps on sufficient grounds) that her arrival would disperse the darkness that surrounded Versilov in my eyes. I couldn’t remain firm: it was terribly vexing that from the very first step I was so pusillanimous and awkward; it was terribly curious, and above all disgusting—three full impressions. I remember that whole day by heart!

My prince knew nothing as yet about the probable arrival of his daughter, and assumed she would return from Moscow maybe in a week. But I learned of it the evening before, quite by accident: Tatyana Pavlovna, who had received a letter from the general’s widow, let it slip to my mother in my presence. Though they whispered and used remote phrases, I guessed it. Of course, I wasn’t eavesdropping; I simply couldn’t help listening when I saw my mother suddenly become so agitated at the news of this woman’s arrival. Versilov was not at home.

I didn’t want to inform the old man of it, because I couldn’t help noticing in all that time how afraid he was of her coming. He had even let slip three days earlier, though timidly and remotely, that he was afraid of her coming on account of me—that is, that on account of me he would get a scolding. I must add, however, that in family relations he still maintained his independence and domination, especially in managing money. My first conclusion about him was that he was a real woman; but then I had to re-conclude, in the sense that, even if he was a woman, all the same there remained in him at times a sort of stubbornness, if not real courage. There were moments when it was almost impossible to do anything with his apparently cowardly and susceptible character. Versilov explained it to me later in more detail. I mention now, with curiosity, that he and I hardly ever spoke of the general’s widow—that is, avoided speaking, as it were; I especially avoided it, and he in turn avoided speaking of Versilov, and I surmised at once that he wouldn’t answer me, if I were to ask any of the ticklish questions that interested me so much.

If anyone wants to know what we talked about during that whole month, I will reply that, essentially, it was about everything in the world, but all of it somehow strange. I very much liked the extreme artlessness with which he treated me. I sometimes studied the man with extreme perplexity, asking myself, “Where was he sitting before? He’s just right for our high school, and for the fourth class at that—he’d make the nicest schoolmate.” I also wondered more than once at his face: it looked extremely serious (almost handsome) and dry; thick, gray, curly hair, an open gaze; and his whole figure was lean, of a good height; but his face had a sort of unpleasant, almost indecent property of changing suddenly from the extraordinarily serious to the much-too-playful, so that someone seeing it for the first time would never expect it. I spoke of it with Versilov, who heard me out with curiosity; it seemed he hadn’t expected me to be able to make such observations; yet he observed in passing that this property had appeared in the prince after his illness and maybe only quite recently.

We talked for the most part about two abstract subjects: about God and his being—that is, whether he exists or not—and about women. The prince was very religious and sentimental. In his office hung an enormous icon case with an icon lamp. But something would come over him—and he’d suddenly begin to doubt God’s existence and say astonishing things, obviously challenging me to reply. My attitude to this idea was rather indifferent, generally speaking, but even so the two of us would get carried away, and always sincerely. Generally, even now I recall all those conversations with pleasure. But the sweetest thing of all for him was to chat about women, and since I, given my dislike of conversations on that topic, could not be a good interlocutor, he would sometimes even get upset.

He had just begun talking in this vein as I came in that morning. I found him in a playful mood, while the previous evening I had left him extremely sad for some reason. Yet I absolutely had to be done that day with the matter of my salary—before the arrival of certain persons. I calculated that we would be
interrupted
that day without fail (not for nothing was my heart pounding)—and then perhaps I wouldn’t venture to talk about money. But since one couldn’t just start talking about money, I naturally got angry at my own stupidity and, as I remember it now, vexed at some much-too-merry question he asked me, I fired all my views of women at him at once, and that with extreme ardor. But the result was that he got still more carried away, worse luck for me.