The Adolescent (47 page)

I

AS SOON AS I was announced, Anna Andreevna dropped her sewing and hurriedly came out to meet me in her front room—something that had never happened before. She held out both hands to me and quickly blushed. Silently she led me to her room, sat down to her handwork again, sat me down beside her; but she didn’t take her sewing now, but went on examining me with the same warm concern, not saying a word.

“You sent Nastasya Egorovna to me,” I began directly, somewhat burdened by this all-too-spectacular concern, though it pleased me.

She suddenly spoke, not answering my question.

“I’ve heard everything, I know everything. That terrible night . . . Oh, how you must have suffered! Is it true, is it true that you were found unconscious in the freezing cold?”

“You got that . . . from Lambert . . .” I murmured, reddening.

“I learned everything from him right then; but I’ve been waiting for you. Oh, he came to me so frightened! At your apartment . . . where you were lying ill, they didn’t want to let him in to see you . . . and they met him strangely . . . I really don’t know how it was, but he told me all about that night; he said that, having just barely come to your senses, you mentioned me to him and . . . your devotion to me. I was moved to tears, Arkady Makarovich, and I don’t even know how I deserved such warm concern on your part, and that in such a situation as you were in! Tell me, is Mr. Lambert your childhood friend?”

“Yes, but this incident . . . I confess, I was imprudent, and maybe told him far too much then.”

“Oh, I would have learned of this black, terrible intrigue even without him! I always, always had a presentiment that they would drive you to that. Tell me, is it true that Bjoring dared to raise his hand against you?”

She spoke as if it was only because of Bjoring and
her
that I had wound up under the wall. And it occurred to me that she was right, but I flared up:

“If he had raised his hand against me, he wouldn’t have gone unpunished, and I wouldn’t be sitting in front of you now unavenged,” I replied heatedly. Above all, it seemed to me that she wanted to provoke me for some reason, to rouse me up against somebody (however, it was clear whom); and all the same I succumbed.

“If you say you had a presentiment that they would drive me
to
that
, then on Katerina Nikolaevna’s part, of course, there was only a misunderstanding . . . though it’s also true that she was all too quick in exchanging her good feelings towards me for this misunderstanding . . .”

“That’s precisely it, that she was all too quick!” Anna Andreevna picked up, even in some sort of rapture of sympathy. “Oh, if you knew what an intrigue they’ve got there now! Of course, Arkady Makarovich, it’s hard for you now to understand all the ticklishness of my position,” she said, blushing and looking down. “Since that same morning when we saw each other last, I have taken a step that not every person can understand and grasp as one with your as-yet-uncontaminated mind, with your loving, unspoiled, fresh heart would understand it. Rest assured, my friend, that I am capable of appreciating your devotion to me, and I will repay you with eternal gratitude. In society, of course, they will take up stones against me, and they already have. But even if they were right, from their vile point of view, which of them could, which of them dared even then to condemn me? I have been abandoned by my father since childhood; we Versilovs—an ancient, highborn Russian family—are all strays, and I eat other people’s bread on charity. Wouldn’t it be natural for me to turn to the one who ever since childhood has replaced my father, whose kindness towards me I have seen for so many years? God alone can see and judge my feelings for him, and I do not allow society to judge me for the step I’ve taken! And when, on top of that, there is the darkest, most perfidious intrigue, and a daughter conspires to ruin her own trusting, magnanimous father, can that be endured? No, let me even ruin my reputation, but I will save him! I am ready to live in his house simply as a nurse, to watch over him, to sit by his sickbed, but I will not give the triumph to cold, loathsome society calculation!”

She spoke with extraordinary animation, very possibly half-affected, but nevertheless sincere, because it could be seen to what degree she had been wholly drawn into this affair. Oh, I could feel that she was lying (though sincerely, because one can also lie sincerely) and that she was now bad; but it’s astonishing how it happens with women: this air of respectability, these lofty forms, this unapproachability of social heights and proud chastity—all this threw me off, and I began to agree with her in everything, that is, while I sat with her; at least I didn’t dare contradict her. Oh, man is decidedly in moral slavery to woman, especially if he is magnanimous! Such a woman can convince a magnanimous man of anything. “She and Lambert—my God!” I thought, looking at her in bewilderment. However, I’ll say all: even to this day I don’t know how to judge her; indeed God alone could see her feelings, and besides, a human being is such a complex machine that in some cases there’s no figuring him out, and all the more so if that being is—a woman.

“Anna Andreevna, precisely what do you expect of me?” I asked, however, rather resolutely.

“How’s that? What does your question mean, Arkady Makarovich?”

“It seems to me by all . . . and by certain other considerations . . .” I explained, getting confused, “that you sent to me expecting something from me. So what was it precisely?”

Not answering my question, she instantly began speaking again, just as quickly and animatedly:

“But I cannot, I’m too proud to enter into discussions and deals with unknown persons like Mr. Lambert! I’ve been waiting for you, not for Mr. Lambert. My position is extreme, terrible, Arkady Makarovich! Surrounded by that woman’s schemes, I’m obliged to be devious—and it’s unbearable for me. I almost stoop to intrigues, and I’ve been waiting for you as for a savior. I cannot be blamed that I look eagerly around me to find at least one friend, and so I couldn’t help rejoicing over a friend: one who, even on that night, nearly frozen, could remember me and repeat only my name alone, is of course devoted to me. So I’ve been thinking all this time, and therefore I put my hopes in you.”

She looked into my eyes with impatient inquiry. And here again I lacked the courage to dissuade her and to explain to her directly that Lambert had deceived her and that I had never told him then that I was so especially devoted to her, and hadn’t remembered “only her name alone.” Thus, by my silence, it was as if I confirmed Lambert’s lie. Oh, I’m sure she herself understood very well that Lambert had exaggerated and even simply lied to her, solely in order to have a decent pretext for coming to see her and establishing contacts with her; and if she looked into my eyes as though convinced of the truth of my words and of my devotion, then, of course, she knew that I wouldn’t have dared deny it, so to speak, out of delicacy and on account of my youth. But, anyhow, whether this guess of mine is right or wrong—I don’t know. Maybe I’m terribly depraved.

“My brother will stand up for me,” she pronounced suddenly with ardor, seeing that I didn’t want to reply.

“I was told that you came to my apartment with him,” I murmured in embarrassment.

“But poor Prince Nikolai Ivanovich has almost nowhere to escape to now from the whole intrigue, or, better, from his own daughter, except to your apartment, that is, to a friend’s apartment; for he does have the right to consider you at least a friend! . . . And then, if only you want to do something for his benefit, you can do it—if only you can, if only there is magnanimity and courage in you . . . and, finally, if it’s true that you can do something. Oh, it’s not for me, not for me, but for a poor old man, who alone loved you sincerely, who managed to become attached to you in his heart as to his own son, and who longs for you even to this day! For myself I expect nothing, even from you—if even my own father has played such a perfidious, such a malicious escapade with me!”

“It seems to me that Andrei Petrovich . . .” I tried to begin.

“Andrei Petrovich,” she interrupted with a bitter smile, “Andrei Petrovich, to my direct question, answered me then on his word of honor that he never had the least intentions towards Katerina Nikolaevna, which I fully believed when taking my step; and yet it turned out that he was calm only until the first news about some Mr. Bjoring.”

“It’s not that!” I cried. “There was a moment when I, too, believed in his love for this woman, but it’s not that . . . and even if it was that, it would seem he could be perfectly calm now . . . since this gentleman has been dismissed.”

“What gentleman?”

“Bjoring.”

“Who told you about his dismissal? This gentleman has perhaps never been in so strong a position,” she smiled caustically; it even seemed to me that she gave me a mocking look.

“Nastasya Egorovna told me,” I murmured in embarrassment, which I was unable to conceal and which she noticed only too well.

“Nastasya Egorovna is a very sweet person, and I certainly cannot forbid her to love me, but she has no means of knowing what doesn’t concern her.”

My heart was wrung; and since she was counting precisely on firing my indignation, indignation did boil up in me, not against
that
woman, but so far only against Anna Andreevna herself. I got up from my place.

“As an honest man, I must warn you, Anna Andreevna, that your expectations . . . concerning me . . . may prove vain in the highest degree . . .”

“I expect you to stand up for me,” she looked at me firmly, “for me, who am abandoned by everyone . . . your sister, if you want that, Arkady Makarovich!”

Another moment and she would have started crying.

“Well, it would be better not to, because ‘maybe’ nothing will happen,” I babbled with an inexpressibly heavy feeling.

“How am I to take your words?” she asked somehow too warily.

“Like this, that I will leave you all and—
basta!
” I suddenly exclaimed almost in fury. “And as for the document—I’ll tear it up! Farewell!”

I bowed to her and left silently, at the same time almost not daring to glance at her; but I had not yet reached the bottom of the stairs when Nastasya Egorovna overtook me with a folded half-page of note paper. Where Nastasya Egorovna had come from, and where she had been sitting while I was talking with Anna Andreevna—I can’t even comprehend. She didn’t say a single word, but only handed me the paper and ran back. I unfolded it: Lambert’s address was written on it legibly and clearly, and it had been prepared, obviously, several days earlier. I suddenly remembered that on the day when Nastasya Egorovna had come to see me, I had let slip to her that I didn’t know where Lambert lived, but in the sense that “I didn’t know and didn’t want to know.” But by that time I had already learned Lambert’s address through Liza, whom I had asked especially to make inquiries at the information bureau. Anna Andreevna’s escapade seemed to me too resolute, even cynical: despite my refusal to assist her, she, as if not believing me a whit, was sending me straight to Lambert. It became only too clear to me that she had already learned all about the document—and from whom else if not from Lambert, to whom she was therefore sending me to arrange things?

“Decidedly every last one of them takes me for a little boy with no will or character, with whom anything can be done!” I thought with indignation.

II

NEVERTHELESS I WENT to Lambert’s anyway. How could I overcome my curiosity at that time? Lambert, it turned out, lived very far away, in Kosoy Lane, by the Summer Garden, incidentally in the same furnished rooms; but the other time, when I had fled from him, I had been so oblivious of the way and the distance that, when I got his address from Liza four days earlier, I was even surprised and almost didn’t believe he lived there. While still going up the stairs, I noticed two young men at the door to his rooms, on the third floor, and thought they had rung before me and were waiting to be let in. As I came up the stairs, they both turned their backs to the door and studied me carefully. “These are furnished rooms, and they, of course, are going to see other lodgers,” I frowned as I approached them. It would have been very unpleasant for me to find somebody at Lambert’s. Trying not to look at them, I reached out my hand for the bell-pull.

“Atanday,”
⁷⁰
one of them shouted at me.

“Please wait to ring,” the other young man said in a ringing and gentle little voice, drawing the words out somewhat. “We’ll finish this, and then we can all ring together if you like.”

I stopped. They were both still very young men, about twenty or twenty-two years old; they were doing something strange there by the door, and in surprise I tried to grasp what it was. The one who had shouted
atanday
was a very tall fellow, about six foot six, not less, gaunt and haggard, but very muscular, with a very small head for his height, and a strange, sort of comically gloomy expression on his somewhat pockmarked but not at all stupid and even pleasant face. His eyes looked with a somehow excessive intentness, and even a sort of unnecessary and superfluous resolution. He was quite vilely dressed, in an old quilted cotton overcoat with a small, shabby raccoon collar, too short for his height—obviously from someone else’s back—and vile, almost peasant boots, and with a terribly crumpled, discolored top hat on his head. In all he was clearly a sloven: his gloveless hands were dirty, and his long nails were in mourning. His comrade, on the contrary, was foppishly dressed, judging by his light polecat coat, his elegant hat, and the light, fresh gloves on his slender fingers; he was the same height as I, but with an extremely sweet expression on his fresh and young little face.

The long fellow was pulling off his necktie—a completely tattered and greasy ribbon or almost tape—and the pretty boy, having taken from his pocket another new, black tie, just purchased, was tying it around the neck of the long fellow, who obediently and with a terribly serious face, was stretching out his very long neck, throwing his overcoat back from his shoulders.

“No, it’s impossible if the shirt’s so dirty,” the young man thus occupied said. “There not only won’t be any effect, but it will seem still dirtier. I told you to put on a collar . . . I can’t do it . . . Maybe you can?” he suddenly turned to me.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Here, you know, tie his necktie. You see, it has to be done in some way so that his dirty shirt doesn’t show, otherwise there’ll be no effect, no matter what. I just bought him a necktie from Filipp, the barber, for a rouble.”

“Was it that rouble?” the long one murmured.

“Yes, that one; now I don’t even have a kopeck. So you can’t do it? In that case we’ll have to ask Alphonsinka.”

“To see Lambert?” the long one suddenly asked me abruptly.

“To see Lambert,” I replied with no less resolution, looking him in the eye.

“Dolgorowky?”
¹⁹
he repeated in the same tone and the same voice.

“No, not Korovkin,” I replied just as abruptly, having misheard.

“
Dolgorowky?!
” the long one almost shouted, repeating himself, and coming at me almost menacingly. His comrade burst out laughing.

“He’s saying
Dolgorowky
, not Korovkin,” he clarified. “You know how the French in the Journal des débats often distort Russian last names . . .”

“In the Indépendance,”
²⁰
the long one grunted.

“. . . Well, in the Indépendance, too, it makes no difference. Dolgoruky, for instance, is written Dolgorowky, I’ve read it myself, and V—v is always Comte Wallonie f.”

“
Doboyny!
” cried the long one.

“Yes, there’s also some
Doboyny
. I read it myself and we both laughed: some Russian
Mme
.
Doboyny
, abroad . . . only, you see, why mention them all?” he suddenly turned to the long one.

“Excuse me, are you Mr. Dolgoruky?”

“Yes, I’m Dolgoruky, but how do you know?”

The long one suddenly whispered something to the pretty boy, who frowned and made a negative gesture; but the long one suddenly turned to me:

“Monsieur le prince, vous n’avez pas de rouble d’argent pour nous, pas deux, mais un seul, voulez-vous?”
⁷¹

“Ah, how vile you are!” cried the boy.

“Nous vous rendons,”
⁷²
the long one concluded, pronouncing the French words crudely and awkwardly.

“He’s a cynic, you know,” the boy smiled to me. “And do you think he doesn’t know how to speak French? He speaks like a Parisian, and he’s only mocking those Russians who want to speak French aloud among themselves in society, but don’t know how . . .”

“Dans les wagons,”
⁷³
the long one clarified.

“Well, yes, in railway carriages, too—ah, what a bore you are, there’s nothing to clarify! A nice fancy to pretend you’re a fool.”

Meanwhile I took out a rouble and offered it to the long one.

“
Nous vous rendons
,” the man said, pocketing the rouble, and, suddenly turning to the door, with a perfectly immobile and serious face he began banging on it with the toe of his enormous, crude boot and, above all, without the slightest irritation.

“Ah, you’re going to have a fight with Lambert again!” the boy observed uneasily. “You’d better ring!”

I rang, but the long one still went on banging with his boot.

“Ah, sacré . . .”
⁷⁴
; Lambert’s voice suddenly came from behind the door, and he quickly opened it.

“Dites donc, voulez-vous que je vous casse la tête, mon ami!”
he shouted at the long one.

“Mon ami, voilà Dolgorowky, l’autre mon ami,”
⁷⁵
the long one pronounced importantly and seriously, looking point-blank at Lambert, who had turned red with anger. As soon as he saw me, he was as if all transformed at once.

“It’s you, Arkady! At last! So you’re well now, you’re well at last?”

He seized me by the hands, pressing them hard; in short, he was so sincerely delighted that I instantly felt terribly pleased, and even began to like him.

“You’re the first one I’m calling on!”

“Alphonsine!” cried Lambert.

The woman instantly leaped out from behind the screen.

“Le voilà!”
⁷⁶

“C’est lui!”
⁷⁷
exclaimed Alphonsine, clasping her hands, and, spreading them wide again, she rushed to embrace me, but Lambert came to my defense.

“No, no, no, down!” he shouted at her as if she were a puppy. “You see, Arkady, a few of us fellows have arranged to have dinner at the Tartar’s today. I won’t let you off, come with us. We’ll have dinner; I’ll chase these boys out at once—and then we can talk as much as we like. But do come in! We’re leaving right away, just stay for a little minute . . .”

I went in and stood in the middle of that room, looking around and remembering. Lambert was hastily changing his clothes behind the screen. The long one and his comrade also came in with us, despite Lambert’s words. We all remained standing.

“Mlle. Alphonsine, voulez-vous me baiser?”
⁷⁸
the long one grunted.

“Mlle. Alphonsine,” the younger one made a movement, pointing to the little tie, but she fell fiercely on them both.

“Ah, le petit vilain! ” she cried to the younger one. “Ne m’approcher pas, ne me salissez pas, et vous, le grand dadais, je vous flanque à la porte tous les deux, savez-vous cela!”
⁷⁹
;

The younger one, in spite of her waving him away scornfully and squeamishly, as if she really was afraid to dirty herself by touching him (which I couldn’t understand, because he was so pretty and turned out to be so well dressed when he threw off his fur coat)—the younger one began begging her insistently to tie the necktie on his long friend, after first tying one of Lambert’s clean collars on him. She almost started beating them, she was so indignant at this suggestion, but Lambert, having heard it, cried to her from behind the screen that she shouldn’t hamper them and should do as she was asked, “otherwise they won’t leave you alone,” he added, and Alphonsine instantly seized the collar and began tying it on the long one, now without the slightest squeamishness. Just as on the stairs, the man stretched his neck out for her while she tied it.

“Mlle. Alphonsine, avez-vous vendu votre bologne?”
⁸⁰
he asked.

“Qu’est-ce que ça, ma bologne?”
⁸¹

The younger one explained that ma bologne signified her little Bolognese lap dog.

“Tiens, quel est ce baragouin?”
⁸²

“Je parle comme une dame russe sur les eaux minérales,”
⁸³
; observed le grand dadais, his neck still stretched out.

“Qu’est-ce que ça qu’une dame russe sure les eaux minérales et . . . où est donc votre jolie montre, que Lambert vous a donné?”
she suddenly turned to the younger one.

“What, no watch again?” Lambert echoed irritably from behind the screen.

“We ate it up!” le grand dadais grunted.

“I sold it for eight roubles. It was gilded silver, and you told me it was gold. Ones like that, in a shop now, cost only sixteen roubles,” the younger one replied to Lambert, justifying himself with reluctance.

“We must put an end to this!” Lambert went on still more irritably. “I don’t buy you clothes, my young friend, and give you beautiful things, so that you can waste it all on your long friend . . . What’s this tie you’ve bought?”

“That was only a rouble; it wasn’t yours. He didn’t have any tie at all, and he still needs to buy a hat.”

“Nonsense!” Lambert was now angry indeed. “I gave him enough for a hat as well, and he up and bought oysters and champagne. He smells; he’s a sloven; he can’t be taken anywhere. How can I take him to dinner?”

“In a cab,” the dadais grunted. “Nous avons un rouble d’argent que nous avons prêté chez notre nouvel ami.”
⁸⁴

“Don’t give them anything, Arkady!” Lambert cried again.

“Excuse me, Lambert, I demand outright that you give me ten roubles here and now,” the boy suddenly became angry and even turned all red, which made him twice as good-looking, “and don’t you ever dare to say foolish things, as you just did to Dolgoruky. I demand ten roubles, one rouble to give back to Dolgoruky right now, and the rest to buy Andreev a hat at once—you’ll see for yourself.”

Lambert came from behind the screen:

“Here’s three yellow notes, three roubles, and nothing more till Tuesday, and don’t you dare . . . or else . . .”

Le grand dadais
snatched the money from him.

“Dolgorowky, here’s the rouble,
nous vous rendons avec beaucoup
de grâce.
⁸⁵
Petya, let’s go!” he cried to his comrade, and then, holding up the two notes, waving them and looking point-blank at Lambert, he suddenly screamed with all his might:

“Ohé, Lambert! où est Lambert, as-tu vu Lambert?”
⁸⁶

“Don’t you dare, don’t you dare!” Lambert also screamed in the most terrible wrath. I saw that there was something previous in all this, totally unknown to me, and I gazed in astonishment. But the long one wasn’t frightened in the least by Lambert’s wrath; on the contrary, he screamed still louder: “
Ohé, Lambert!
” and so on. With this shouting they went out to the stairs. Lambert started after them, but then came back.

“Eh, soon I’ll thr-r-row them out on their ears! They cost more than they bring in . . . Come on, Arkady! I’m late. There’s yet another necessary man . . . waiting for me . . . Also a brute . . . They’re all brutes! Tghrash, tghrash!” he cried again and almost ground his teeth; but all at once he came fully to his senses. “I’m glad you finally came. Alphonsine, not a step from the house! Let’s go!”