“But you are mistaken, prince. If I don’t want to get into your so-called ‘higher circle,’ it’s because in the first place it’s boring, and in the second I’ve nothing to do there; though, after all, I do sometimes….”
“I know; at Prince R.’s, once a year. I’ve met you there. But for the rest of the year you stagnate in your democratic pride, and languish in your garrets, though not all of you behave like that. Some of them are such adventurers that they sicken me….”
“I beg you, prince, to change the subject and not to return to our garrets.”
“Dear me, now you’re offended. But you know you gave me permission to speak to you as a friend. But it’s my fault; I have done nothing to merit your friendship. The wine’s very decent. Try it.”
He poured me out half a glass from his bottle.
“You see, my dear Ivan Petrovitch, I quite understand that to force one’s friendship upon anyone is bad manners. We’re not all rude and insolent with you as you imagine. I quite understand that you are not sitting here from affection for me, but simply because I promised to talk to you. That’s so, isn’t it?”
He laughed.
“And as you’re watching over the interests of a certain person you want to hear what I am going to say. That’s it, isn’t it?” he added with a malicious smile.
*The reference is to Gogol’s story “The Lost Coat.” — Translator’s note.
“You are not mistaken,” I broke in impatiently. (I saw that he was one of those men who if anyone is ever so little in their power cannot resist making him feel it. I was in his power. I could not get away without hearing what he intended to say, and he knew that very well. His tone suddenly changed and became more and more insolently familiar and sneering.) “You’re not mistaken, prince, that’s just what I’ve come for, otherwise I should not be sitting here…so late.”
I had wanted to say “I would not on any account have been supping with you,” but I didn’t say this, and finished my phrase differently, not from timidity, but from my cursed weakness and delicacy. And really, how can one be rude to a man to his face, even if he deserves it, and even though one may wish to be rude to him? I fancied the prince detected this from my eyes, and looked at me ironically as I finished my sentence, as though enjoying my faintheartedness, and as it were challenging me with his eyes: “So you don’t dare to be rude; that’s it, my boy!” This must have been so, for as I finished he chuckled, and with patronizing friendliness slapped me on the knee.
“You’re amusing, my boy!” was what I read in his eyes.
“Wait a bit!” I thought to myself.
“I feel very lively to-night!” said he,” and I really don’t know why. Yes, yes, my boy! It was just that young person I wanted to talk to you about. We must speak quite frankly; talk till we reach some conclusion, and I hope that this time you will thoroughly understand me. I talked to you just now about that money and that old fogey of a father, that babe of sixteen summers…. Well! It’s not worth mentioning it now. That was only talk, you know! Ha-ha-ha! You’re a literary man, you ought to have guessed that.”
I looked at him with amazement, I don’t think he was drunk.
“As for that girl, I respect her, I assure you; I like her in fact. She’s a little capricious but ‘there’s no rose without thorn,’ as they used to say fifty years ago, and it was well said too: thorns prick. But that’s alluring and though my Alexey’s a fool, I’ve forgiven him to some extent already for his good taste. In short, I like such young ladies, and I have” (and he compressed his lips with immense significance) “views of my own, in fact…. But of that later….”
“Prince! Listen, prince! “ I cried. “I don’t understand your quick change of front but … change the subject, if you please.”
“You’re getting hot again! Very good…. I’ll change it, I’ll change it! But I’ll tell you what I want to ask you, my good friend: have you a very great respect for her?”
“Of course,” I answered, with gruff impatience.
“Ah, indeed. And do you love her?” he continued, grinning revoltingly and screwing up his eyes.
“You are forgetting yourself!” I cried.
“There, there, I won’t! Don’t put yourself out! I’m in wonderful spirits to-day. I haven’t felt so gay for a long time. Shall we have some champagne? What do you say, my poet?
“I won’t have any. I don’t want it.”
“You don’t say so! You really must keep me company to-day. I feel so jolly, and as I’m soft-hearted to sentimentality I can’t bear to be happy alone. Who knows, we may come to drinking to our eternal friendship. Ha-ha-ha! No, my young friend, you don’t know me yet! I’m certain you’ll grow to love me. I want you this evening to share my grief and my joy, my tears and my laughter, though I hope that I at least may not shed any. Come, what do you say, Ivan Petrovitch? You see, you must consider that if I don’t get what I want, all my inspiration may pass, be wasted and take wing and you’ll hear nothing. And you know you’re only sitting here in the hope of hearing something. Aren’t you?” he added, winking at me insolently again. “So make your choice.”
The threat was a serious one. I consented. “Surely he doesn’t want to make me drunk?” I thought. This is the place, by the way, to mention a rumour about the prince which had reached me long before. It was said that though he was so elegant and decorous in society he sometimes was fond of getting drunk at night, of drinking like a fish, of secret debauchery, of loathsome and mysterious vices…. I had heard awful rumours about him. It was said that Alyosha knew his father sometimes drank, and tried to conceal the fact from everyone, especially from Natasha. Once he let something slip before me, but immediately changed the subject and would not answer my questions. I had not heard it from him, however, and I must admit I had not believed it. Now I waited to see what was coming.
The champagne was brought; the prince poured out a glass for himself and another for me.
“A sweet, sweet girl, though she did scold me,” he went on, sipping his wine with relish, “but these sweet creatures are particularly sweet just at those moments…. And, you know, she thought no doubt she had covered me with shame; do you remember that evening when she crushed me to atoms? Ha-ha-ha! And how a blush suits her! Are you a connoisseur in women? Sometimes a sudden flush is wonderfully becoming to a pale cheek. Have you noticed that? Oh dear, I believe
you’re angry again!”
“Yes, I am angry!” I cried, unable to restrain myself. “And I won’t have you speak of Natalya Nikolaevna…that is, speak in that tone…I…I won’t allow you to do it!”
“Oho! Well, as you like, I’ll humour you and change the conversation. I am as yielding and soft as dough. Let’s talk of you. I like you, Ivan Petrovitch. If only you knew what a friendly, what a sincere interest I take in you.”
“Prince, wouldn’t it be better to keep to the point?” I interrupted.
“You mean talk of our affair. I understand you with half a word, mon ami, but you don’t know how closely we are touching on the point if we speak of you and you don’t interrupt me of course. And so I’ll go on. I wanted to tell you, my priceless Ivan Petrovitch, that to live as you’re living is simply self-destruction, Allow me to touch on this delicate subject; I speak as a friend. You are poor, you ask your publisher for money in advance, you pay your trivial debts, with what’s left you live for six months on tea, and shiver in your garret while you wait for your novel to be written for your publisher’s magazine. That’s so, isn’t it?
“If it is so, anyway it’s….”
“More creditable than stealing, cringing, taking bribes, intriguing and so on, and so on. I know, I know what you want to say, all that’s been printed long ago.”
“And so there’s no need for you to talk about my affairs. Surely, prince, I needn’t give you a lesson in delicacy!”
“Well, certainly you needn’t. But what’s to be done if it’s just that delicate chord we must touch upon? There’s no avoi
ding it. But there, let’s leave garrets alone. I’m by no means fond of them, except in certain cases,” he added with a loathsome laugh. “But what surprises me is that you should be so set on playing a secondary part. Certainly one of you authors, I remember, said somewhere that the greatest achievement is for a man to know how to restrict himself to a secondary role in life… . I believe it’s something of that sort. I’ve heard talk of that somewhere too, but you know Alyosha has carried off your fiancee. I know that, and you, like some Schiller, are ready to go to the stake for them, you’re waiting upon them, and almost at their beck and call…. You must excuse me, my dear fellow, but it’s rather a sickening show of noble feeling. I should have thought you must be sick of it! It’s really shameful! I believe I should die of vexation in your place, and worst of all the shame of it, the shame of it!”
“Prince, you seem to have brought me here on purpose to insult me!” I cried, beside myself with anger.
“Oh no, my dear boy, not at all. At this moment I am simply a matter-of-fact person, and wish for nothing but your happiness. In fact I want to put everything right. But let’s lay all that aside for a moment; you hear me to the end, try not to lose your temper if only for two minutes. Come, what do you think, how would it be for you to get married? You see, I’m talking of quite extraneous matters now. Why do you look at me in such astonishment?”
“I’m waiting for you to finish,” I said, staring at him indeed with astonishment.
“But there’s no need to enlarge. I simply wanted to know what you’d say if any one of your friends, anxious to secure your genuine permanent welfare, not a mere ephemeral happiness, were to offer you a girl, Young and pretty, but … of some little experience; I speak allegorically but you’ll understand, after the style of Natalya Nikolaevna, say, of course with a suitable compensation (observe I am speaking of an irrelevant case, not of our affair); well, what would you say?”
“I say you’re…mad.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Bah! Why, you’re almost ready to beat me!”
I really was ready to fall upon him. I could not have restrained myself longer. He produced on me the impression of some sort of reptile, some huge spider, which I felt an intense desire to crush. He was enjoying his taunts at me. He was playing with me like a cat with a mouse, supposing that I was altogether in his power. It seemed to me (and I understood it) that he took a certain pleasure, found a certain sensual gratification in the shamelessness, in the insolence, in the cynicism with which at last he threw off his mask before me. He wanted to enjoy my surprise, my horror. He had a genuine contempt for me and was laughing at me.
I had a foreboding from the very beginning that this was all premeditated, and that there was some motive behind it, but I was in such a position that whatever happened I was bound to listen to him. It was in Natasha’s interests and I was obliged to make up my mind to everything and endure it, for perhaps the whole affair was being settled at that moment. But how could I listen to his base, cynical jeers at her expense, how could I endure this coolly! And, to make things worse, he quite realized that I could not avoid listening to him, and that redoubled the offensiveness of it. Yet he is in need of me himself, I reflected, and I began answering him abruptly and rudely. He understood it.
“Look here, my young friend,” he began, looking at me seriously, “we can’t go on like this, you and I, and so we’d better come to an understanding. I have been intending, you see, to speak openly to you about something, and you are bound to be so obliging as to listen, whatever I may say. I want to speak as I choose and as I prefer; yes, in the present case that’s necessary. So how is it to be, my young friend, will you be so obliging?”
I controlled myself and was silent, although he was looking at me with such biting mockery, as though he were challenging me to the most outspoken protest. But he realized that I had already agreed not to go, and he went on,
“Don’t be angry with me, my friend! You are angry at something, aren’t you? Merely at something external, isn’t it? Why, you expected nothing else of me in substance, however I might have spoken to you, with perfumed courtesy, or as now; so the drift would have been the same in any case. You despise me, don’t you? You see how much charming simplicity there is in me, what candour, what bonhomie! I confess everything to you, even my childish caprices. Yes, mon cher, yes, a little more bonhomie on your side too, and we should agree and get on famously, and understand one another perfectly in the end. Don’t wonder at me. I am so sick of all this innocence, all these pastoral idyllics of Alyosha’s, all this Schillerism, all the loftiness of this damnable intrigue with this Natasha (not that she’s not a very taking little girl) that I am, so to speak, glad of an opportunity to have my fling at them. Well, the opportunity has come. Besides, I am longing to pour out my heart to you. Ha! ha! ha!”
“You surprise me, prince, and I hardly recognize you. You are sinking to the level of a Polichinello. These unexpected revelations….”
“Ha! ha! ha! to be sure that’s partly true! A charming comparison, ha-ha-ha! I’m out for a spree, my boy, I’m out for a spree! I’m enjoying myself! And you, my poet, must show me every possible indulgence. But we’d better drink,” he concluded filling up his glass, perfectly satisfied with himself. “I tell you what, my boy, that stupid evening at Natasha’s, do you remember, was enough to finish me off completely. It’s true she was very charming in herself, but I came away feeling horribly angry, and I don’t want to forget it. Neither to forget it nor to conceal it. Of course our time will come too, and it’s coming quickly indeed, but we’ll leave that for now. And among other things, I wanted to explain to you that I have one peculiarity of which you don’t know yet, that is my hatred for all these vulgar and worthless naivities and idyllic nonsense; and one of the enjoyments I relish most has always been putting on that style myself, falling in with that tone, making much of some ever-young Schiller, and egging him on, and then, suddenly, all at once, crushing him at one blow, suddenly taking off my mask before him, and suddenly distorting my ecstatic countenance into a grimace, putting out my tongue at him when he is least of all expecting such a surprise. What? You don’t understand that, you think it nasty, stupid, undignified perhaps, is that it?”
“Of course it is.”
“You are candid. I dare say, but what am I to do if they plague me? I’m stupidly candid too, but such is my character. But I want to tell you some characteristic incidents in my life. It will make you understand me better, and it will be very interesting. Yes, I really am, perhaps, like a Polichinello today, but a Polichinello is candid, isn’t he?”
“Listen, prince, it’s late now, and really….”
“What? Good heavens, what impatience! Besides what’s the hurry? You think I’m drunk. Never mind. So much the better. Ha-ha-ha! These friendly interviews are always remembered so long afterwards, you know, one recalls them with such enjoyment. You’re not a good-natured man, Ivan Petrovitch. There’s no sentimentality, no feeling about you. What is a paltry hour or two to you for the sake of a friend like me? Besides, it has a bearing on a certain affair…. Of course you must realize that, and you a literary man too; yes, you ought to bless the chance. You might create a type from me, ha-haha! My word, how sweetly candid I am to-day!”
He was evidently drunk. His face changed and began to assume a spiteful expression. He was obviously longing to wound, to sting, to bite, to jeer. “In a way it’s better he’s drunk,” I thought, “men always let things out when they’re drunk.” But he knew what he was about.
“My young friend,” he began, unmistakably enjoying himself, “I made you a confession just now, perhaps an inappropriate one, that I sometimes have an irresistible desire to put out my tongue at people in certain cases. For this naive and simple-hearted frankness you compare me to Polichinello, which really amuses me. But if you wonder or reproach me for being rude to you now, and perhaps as unmannerly as a peasant, with having changed my tone to you in fact, in that case you are quite unjust. In the fi
rst place it happens to suit me, and secondly I am not at home, but out with you…by which I mean we’re out for a spree together like good friends, and thirdly I’m awfully given to acting on my fancies. Do you know that once I had a fancy to become a metaphysician and a philanthropist, and came round almost to the same ideas as you? But that was ages ago, in the golden days of my youth. I remember at that time going to my home in the country with humane intentions, and was, of course, bored to extinction. And you wouldn’t believe what happened to me then. In my boredom I began to make the acquaintance of some pretty little girls…. What, you’re not making faces already? Oh, my young friend! Why, we’re talking as friends now! One must sometimes enjoy oneself, one must sometimes let oneself go! I have the Russian temperament, you know, a genuine Russian temperament, I’m a patriot, I love to throw off everything; besides one must snatch the moment to enjoy life.. We shall die — and what comes then! Well, so I took to dangling after the girls. I remember one little shepherdess had a husband, a handsome lad he was. I gave him a sound thrashing and meant to send him for a soldier (past pranks, my poet), but I didn’t send him for a soldier. He died in my hospital. I had a hospital in the village, with twelve beds, splendidly fitted up; such cleanliness, parquet floors. I abolished it long ago though, but at that time I was proud of it: I was a philanthropist. Well, I nearly flogged the peasant to death on his wife’s account…. Why are you making faces again? It disgusts you to hear about it? It revolts your noble feelings? There, there, don’t upset yourself! All that’s a thing of the past. I did that when I was in my romantic stage. I wanted to be a benefactor of humanity, to found a philanthropic society… . That was the groove I was in at that time. And then it was I went in for thrashing. Now I never do it; now one has to grimace about it; now we all grimace about it — such are the times…. But what amuses me most of all now is that fool Ichmenyev. I’m convinced that he knew all about that episode with the peasant…and what do you think? In the goodness of his heart, which is made, I do believe, of treacle, and because he was in love with me at that time, and was cracking me up to himself, he made up his mind not to believe a word of it, and he didn’t believe a word of it; that is, he refused to believe in the fact and for twelve years he stood firm as a rock for me, till he was touched himself. Ha-ha-ha! But all that’s nonsense! Let us drink, my young friend. Listen: are you fond of women?”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 124