The Adolescent (9 page)

I stopped, breathless, and looked around.

“That’s not it at all,” someone said.

“The fact you cite, though not of the same kind as the given case, still resembles it and clarifies the matter,” Vasin turned to me.

IV

HERE I MUST confess why I was delighted with Vasin’s argument about the “idea-feeling,” and along with that I must confess to an infernal shame. Yes, I was scared to go to Dergachev’s, though not for the reason Efim supposed. I was scared because I had already been afraid of them in Moscow. I knew that they (that is, they or others of their sort—it makes no difference) were dialecticians and would perhaps demolish “my idea.” I was firmly convinced in myself that I would not betray or tell my idea to them; but they (that is, again, they or their sort) might tell me something on their own that would make me disappointed in my idea, even without my mentioning it to them. There were questions in “my idea” that I hadn’t resolved yet, but I didn’t want anyone to resolve them except me. In the last two years I had even stopped reading books, afraid of coming across some passage that would not be in favor of the “idea,” that might shake me. And suddenly Vasin resolves the problem at a stroke and sets me at peace in the highest sense. Indeed, what was I afraid of, and what could they do to me with no matter what dialectics? Perhaps I was the only one there who understood what Vasin said about the “idea-feeling”! It’s not enough to refute a beautiful idea, one must replace it with something equally beautiful; otherwise, in my heart, unwilling to part with my feeling for anything, I will refute the refutation, even by force, whatever they may say. And what could they give me instead? And therefore I should have been braver, I was obliged to be more courageous. Delighted with Vasin, I felt shame, felt myself an unworthy child!

This resulted in yet another shame. Not the vile little urge to boast of my intelligence that had made me break the ice there and start talking, but also a desire to “throw myself on their necks.” This desire to throw myself on people’s necks so that they recognize me as good and start embracing me or something like that (swinishness, in short), I consider the most loathsome of all my shames, and I had suspected it in myself for a very long time—namely, ever since the corner I had kept myself in for so many years, though I don’t regret it. I knew that I had to be gloomier among people. What comforted me, after each such disgrace, was simply that the “idea” was with me all the same, in secret as always, and that I hadn’t betrayed it to them. With a sinking feeling, I sometimes imagined that once I had spoken my idea to someone, I would suddenly have nothing left, so that I’d become like everybody else, and might even abandon the idea; and so I preserved and cherished it and trembled at the thought of babbling. And then at Dergachev’s, almost with the first encounter, I had been unable to hold out, I hadn’t betrayed anything, of course, but I had babbled inadmissibly; the result was disgrace. A nasty recollection! No, it’s impossible for me to live with people; I think so even now; I say it for forty years to come. My idea is—my corner.

V

AS SOON AS VASIN praised me, I suddenly felt an irrepressible urge to speak.

“In my opinion, each of us has the right to have his own feelings . . . if it’s from conviction . . . so that no one should reproach him for them,” I addressed Vasin. Though I spoke glibly, it was as if it wasn’t me, but as if somebody else’s tongue was moving in my mouth.

“Re-e-eally, sir?” a voice picked up at once, drawling ironically, the same that had interrupted Dergachev and had shouted to Kraft that he was a German.

Considering him a total nonentity, I turned to the teacher, as if it was he who had shouted.

“My conviction is that I cannot judge anyone,” I trembled, already knowing that I was going to fly off.

“Why such secrecy?” the nonentity’s voice rang out again.

“Each of us has his idea,” I looked point-blank at the teacher, who, on the contrary, was silent and studied me with a smile.

“Do you?” shouted the nonentity.

“It’s too long to tell . . . But part of my idea is precisely that I should be left in peace. As long as I’ve got two roubles, I want to live alone, not depending on anybody (don’t worry, I know the objections), and not doing anything—even for that great future of mankind for which Mr. Kraft has been invited to work. Personal freedom, I mean my own, sir, is foremost, and I do not want to know anything beyond that.”

My mistake was that I got angry.

“That is, you preach the placidity of a sated cow?”

“Let it be so. There’s no insult in a cow. I don’t owe anyone anything, I pay society money in the form of fiscal impositions, so that I won’t be robbed, beaten, or killed, and no one dares to demand anything more from me. I personally may have other ideas, and would like to serve mankind, and will, and maybe even ten times more than all the preachers, but I only want it to be so that no one
dares to demand
it of me, or forces me, like Mr. Kraft; my full freedom, even if I don’t lift a finger. And to run around throwing yourself on other people’s necks out of love for mankind, and burn with tears of tenderness—that is merely a fashion. And why should I necessarily love my neighbor or your future mankind, which I’ll never see, which will not know about me, and which in its turn will rot without leaving any trace or remembrance (time means nothing here), when the earth in its turn will become an icy stone and fly through airless space together with an infinite multitude of identical icy stones, that is, more meaningless than anything one can possibly imagine! There’s your teaching! Tell me, why should I necessarily be noble, especially if it all lasts no more than a minute?”

“B-bah!” shouted the voice.

I had fired all this off nervously and spitefully, snapping all the ropes. I knew I was falling into a pit, but I hurried for fear of objections. I sensed only too well that I was pouring as if through a sieve, incoherently, and skipping ten thoughts to get to the eleventh, but I was in a hurry to convince and reconquer them. This was so important for me! I’d been preparing for three years! But, remarkably, they suddenly fell silent, said absolutely nothing, and listened. I went on addressing the teacher:

“Precisely, sir. A certain extremely intelligent man said, among other things, that there is nothing more difficult than to answer the question, ‘Why must one necessarily be noble?’ You see, sir, there are three sorts of scoundrels in the world: naïve scoundrels, that is, those who are convinced that their meanness is the highest nobility; ashamed scoundrels, that is, those who are ashamed of their meanness, but fully intend to go through with it anyway; and, finally, sheer scoundrels, purebred scoundrels. With your permission, sir: I had a friend, Lambert, who at the age of sixteen said to me that when he was rich, his greatest pleasure would be to feed dogs bread and meat, while the children of the poor were dying of hunger, and when they had no wood for their stoves, he would buy a whole lumberyard, stack it up in a field, and burn it there, and give not a stick to the poor. Those were his feelings! Tell me, what answer should I give this purebred scoundrel when he asks, ‘Why should I necessarily be noble?’ And especially now, in our time, which you have so refashioned. Because it has never been worse than it is now. Things are not at all clear in our society, gentlemen. I mean, you deny God, you deny great deeds, what sort of deaf, blind, dull torpor can make me act this way, if it’s more profitable for me otherwise? You say, ‘A reasonable attitude towards mankind is also to my profit’; but what if I find all these reasonablenesses unreasonable, all these barracks and phalansteries?
¹⁸
What the devil do I care about them, or about the future, when I live only once in this world? Allow me to know my own profit myself: it’s more amusing. What do I care what happens to this mankind of yours in a thousand years, if, by your code, I get no love for it, no future life, no recognition of my great deed? No, sir, in that case I shall live for myself in the most impolite fashion, and they can all go to blazes!”

“An excellent wish!”

“However, I’m always ready to join in.”

“Even better!” (This was still that same voice.)

The rest went on being silent, they went on peering at me and studying me; but tittering gradually began to come from different ends of the room, still quiet, but they all tittered right in my face. Only Vasin and Kraft did not titter. The one with the black side-whiskers also grinned; he looked at me point-blank and listened.

“Gentlemen,” I was trembling all over, “I won’t tell you my idea for anything, but, on the contrary, I will ask you from your own point of view—don’t think it’s mine, because it may be that I love mankind a thousand times more than all of you taken together! Tell me—and you absolutely must answer me now, you are duty bound, because you’re laughing—tell me, how will you entice me to follow you? Tell me, how will you prove to me that with you it will be better? Where are you going to put the protest of my person in your barracks? I have long wished to meet you, gentlemen! You will have barracks, communal apartments,
stricte necessaire
,
¹⁸
atheism, and communal wives without children—that’s your finale, I know it, sirs. And for all that, for that small share of middling profit that your reasonableness secures for me, for a crust and some warmth, you take my whole person in exchange! With your permission, sir: say my wife is taken away; are you going to subdue my person so that I won’t smash my rival’s head in? You’ll say that I myself will become more reasonable then; but what will the wife of such a reasonable husband say, if she has the slightest respect for herself? No, it’s unnatural, sirs; shame on you!”

“And you’re what—a specialist in the ladies’ line?” the gleeful voice of the nonentity rang out.

For a moment I had the thought of throwing myself at him and pounding him with my fists. He was a shortish fellow, red-haired and freckled . . . but, anyhow, devil take his looks!

“Don’t worry, I’ve never yet known a woman,” I said curtly, addressing him for the first time.

“Precious information, which might have been given more politely, in view of the ladies!”

But they all suddenly began stirring densely; they all started taking their hats and preparing to leave—not on account of me, of course, but because the time had come; but this silent treatment of me crushed me with shame. I also jumped to my feet.

“Allow me, however, to know your name, you did keep looking at me,” the teacher suddenly stepped towards me with the meanest smile.

“Dolgoruky.”

“Prince Dolgoruky?”

“No, simply Dolgoruky, the son of the former serf Makar Dolgoruky and the illegitimate son of my former master, Mr. Versilov. Don’t worry, gentlemen, I’m not saying it so that you’ll throw yourselves on my neck and we’ll all start lowing like calves from tenderness!”

A loud and most unceremonious burst of laughter came at once, so that the baby who had fallen asleep behind the door woke up and squealed. I was trembling with fury. They all shook hands with Dergachev and left, paying no attention to me.

“Let’s go,” Kraft nudged me.

I went up to Dergachev, squeezed his hand as hard as I could, and shook it several times, also as hard as I could.

“I apologize for the constant insults from Kudriumov” (that was the red-haired one), Dergachev said to me.

I followed Kraft out. I wasn’t ashamed of anything.

VI

OF COURSE, BETWEEN me as I am now and me as I was then there is an infinite difference.

Continuing to be “not ashamed of anything,” I caught up with Vasin while still on the stairs, having left Kraft behind as second-rate, and with the most natural air, as if nothing had happened, asked:

“It seems you know my father—that is, I mean to say, Versilov?”

“We’re not, in fact, acquainted,” Vasin answered at once (and without a whit of that offensive, refined politeness assumed by delicate people when speaking with someone who has just disgraced himself ), “but I know him slightly; I’ve met him and listened to him.”

“If you’ve listened to him, then, of course, you know him, because you are—you! What do you think of him? Forgive the hasty question, but I need to know. Precisely what
you
would think,
your own
proper opinion is necessary.”

“You’re asking a lot of me. It seems to me that the man is capable of placing enormous demands on himself and, perhaps, of fulfilling them—but he renders no account to anyone.”

“That’s right, that’s very right, he’s a very proud man! But is he a pure man? Listen, what do you think of his Catholicism? However, I forgot that you may not know . . .”

If I hadn’t been so excited, I naturally would not have fired off such questions, and so pointlessly, at a man I had never spoken with, but had only heard about. It surprised me that Vasin seemed not to notice my madness.

“I’ve also heard something about that, but I don’t know how correct it might be,” he answered as calmly and evenly as before.

“Not a bit! It’s not true about him! Do you really think he can believe in God?”

“He’s a very proud man, as you just said yourself, and many very proud people like to believe in God, especially those who are somewhat contemptuous of people. In many strong people there seems to be a sort of natural need—to find someone or something to bow down to. It’s sometimes very hard for a strong man to bear his own strength.”

“Listen, that must be terribly right!” I cried out again. “Only I wish I could understand . . .”

“Here the reason is clear: they choose God so as not to bow down before people—naturally, not knowing themselves how it comes about in them: to bow down before God is not so offensive. They become extremely ardent believers—or, to put it more correctly, they ardently desire to believe; but they take the desire for belief itself. In the end they very often become disappointed. As for Mr. Versilov, I think there are also extremely sincere traits of character in him. And generally he interests me.”

“ Vasin!” I cried out, “you make me so glad! I’m not surprised at your intelligence, I’m surprised that you, a man so pure and so immeasurably far above me—that you can walk with me and speak so simply and politely, as if nothing had happened!”

Vasin smiled.

“You praise me too much, and all that happened there was that you’re too fond of abstract conversation. You were probably silent for a very long time before this.”

“I was silent for three years, I’ve been preparing to speak for three years . . . To you, naturally, I couldn’t have seemed a fool, because you are extremely intelligent yourself, though it would be impossible to behave more stupidly than I did—but a scoundrel!”

“A scoundrel?”

“Yes, undoubtedly! Tell me, don’t you secretly despise me for saying that I was Versilov’s illegitimate son . . . and boasting that I was the son of a serf ?”

“You torment yourself too much. If you find that you spoke badly, you need only not speak that way the next time; you still have fifty years ahead of you.”

“Oh, I know I should be very silent with people. The meanest of all debauches is to throw yourself on people’s necks; I just said it to them, and here I am throwing myself on yours! But there’s a difference, isn’t there? If you’ve understood that difference, if you were capable of understanding it, I’ll bless this moment!”

Vasin smiled again.

“Come and see me, if you want to,” he said. “I have work now and am busy, but you’ll give me pleasure.”

“I concluded earlier, from your physiognomy, that you were all too firm and uncommunicative.”

“That may very well be so. I knew your sister, Lizaveta Makarovna, last year in Luga . . . Kraft has stopped and seems to be waiting for you; he has to turn there.”

I firmly shook Vasin’s hand and ran to join Kraft, who had gone ahead of us while I was talking with Vasin. We silently went as far as his quarters; I did not want to speak to him yet, and could not. One of the strongest traits of Kraft’s character was his delicacy.