The Finnish cook opened the door: “Not at home!” she said and would have shut it at once.
“Not at home?” I cried, and rushed headlong into the passage. “Impossible! Makar Ivanovitch is dead!”
“Wha — at!” I heard Tatyana Pavlovna cry out in her drawing-room, through the closed door.
“He is dead! Makar Ivanovitch is dead! Andrey Petrovitch begs you to go this minute!”
“What nonsense you’re talking.”
The bolt clicked, but the door only opened an inch. “What has happened, tell me! . . .”
“I don’t know, he was dead when I arrived. Andrey Petrovitch says it’s rupture of the heart!”
“I’ll come at once, this minute. Run and tell them I’m coming, run along! run along! run along! What are you stopping for?”
But through the half-opened door I had distinctly seen some one come suddenly out from behind the curtain that screened Tatyana Pavlovna’s bed, and that some one was standing at the back of the room behind Tatyana Pavlovna. Mechanically and instinctively I clutched at the look and would not let the door be shut.
“Arkady Makarovitch, is it really true that he’s dead?” I heard a soft, smooth, ringing voice, a well-known voice that thrilled everything in my heart at once. In the question was a note of some emotion that deeply stirred HER heart.
“Oh, if that’s how it is,” cried Tatyana Pavlovna, abandoning the door, “if that’s how it is — you may settle it to please yourself. It’s your own doing!”
She ran full speed out of the flat, flinging on her kerchief and her fur coat as she went downstairs. We were left alone. I threw off my fur coat, took a step forward, and shut the door. She stood before me as she had done that time before, with a bright face, and just as she had done then, she held out both hands to me. As though I had been struck down I literally fell at her feet.
3
I was beginning to cry, I don’t know why; I don’t remember how she made me sit down beside her, I only remember, as one of my most precious memories, that we sat side by side, hand in hand, and talked eagerly: she was questioning me about the old man and his death, and I was telling her about him — so that it might have been supposed that I had been crying over Makar Ivanovitch, though that would have been the acme of absurdity; and I know that she could not possibly have suspected me of such childish banality. All at once I pulled myself together and felt ashamed. I imagine now that I cried simply from joy, and I believe she knew that perfectly well, so that my heart is quite at rest when I remember it.
It suddenly struck me as very strange that she should go on questioning me about Makar Ivanovitch.
“Why, did you know him?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes. I have never seen him, but he has played a part in my life, too. I was told a great deal about him at one time, by that man whom I fear. You know what man I mean.”
“All I know is that ‘that man’ has been in the past much nearer to your heart than you told me before,” I said. I don’t know what I meant to express by this, but I spoke as it were reproachfully and with a frown.
“You say he was kissing your mother just now? Holding her in his arms? You saw that yourself?” she did not hear what I said, but went on cross-examining me.
“Yes, I saw it; and, believe me,” I hastened to assure her, seeing her joy, “it was with true and generous feeling.”
“God grant it,” she said, crossing herself. “Now he is set free. That admirable old man simply held his life in bondage. His death will mean for him a renewal of duty . . . and dignity, as they were renewed once before. Oh, he is before all things generous, he will give peace of heart to your mother, whom he loves more than anything on earth, and will at last be at peace himself, and thank God — it’s high time.”
“He is dear to you?”
“Yes, very dear, though not in the way he would have liked to be and you mean by your question.”
“And is it for yourself or for him that you are afraid now?” I asked suddenly.
“Oh, these are deep questions, let us leave them.”
“Let us leave them, of course; but I knew nothing of this, nor of too much else perhaps; but may you be right, now everything will begin anew, and if anyone is to be renewed, it’s I first of all. I have been base in my thoughts in regard to you, Katerina Nikolaevna, and not more than an hour ago, perhaps, I was guilty of a low action in regard to you, but do you know I am sitting beside you and feel no pang of conscience. For everything now is over, and everything is beginning anew, and the man who was plotting vileness against you an hour ago I don’t know, and don’t want to know!”
“Come, calm yourself,” she smiled; “one would think you were a little delirious.”
“And how can one condemn oneself beside you, whether one is good or vile — you are as far beyond one as the sun. . . . Tell me, how could you come out to me after all that’s happened? Oh, if only you knew what happened only an hour ago! And what a dream has come true.”
“I expect I know all that,” she smiled softly: “you have just been wanting to punish me in some way, you swore to ruin me, and would certainly have killed, or at least have beaten, anyone who had dared to say one word against me.”
Oh, she smiled and jested: but this was only from her excessive kindness, for her heart at that moment, as I realized later, was full of such an immense anxiety of her own, such a violent over- mastering emotion, that she can only have talked to me and have answered my foolish irritating questions, she can only have done that as one sometimes answers the persistent prattle of a little child, simply to get rid of it. I understood that dully and felt ashamed, but I could not help persisting.
“No,” I cried, unable to control myself. “No, I did not kill the man who spoke ill of you, I encouraged him instead!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, please don’t; there’s no need to tell me anything,” she said, suddenly putting out her hand to stop me, with a look of compassion in her face; but I leapt up from my seat and was standing before her, to tell her everything, and if I had told her, nothing of what happened afterwards would have happened, for it would certainly have ended in my confessing everything and returning the document to her. But she suddenly laughed.
“There’s no need, there’s no need of anything, no facts at all! I know all your misdoings; I’m ready to bet that you meant to marry me or something of that sort, and you have only just been plotting about it with some one, with some accomplice, some old school friend. . . . Why I believe I’ve guessed right!” she cried, looking gravely at my face.
“What . . . how could you guess!” I faltered like a fool, tremendously impressed.
“Well, what next! But that’s enough, that’s enough! I forgive you, but no more about it,” she waved her hand again, with unmistakable impatience. “I am given to dreaming myself, and if you only knew what shifts I have recourse to in my dreams when I let myself go! That’s enough, you make me forget what I was going to say. I am very glad that Tatyana Pavlovna has gone away; I have been very anxious to see you, and we could not have talked as we are doing before her. I believe I was to blame for what happened. I was! Of course I was!”
“You to blame? But I had betrayed you to HIM, and — what can you have thought of me! I have been thinking of that all this time, all these days, I’ve been thinking and feeling about it every minute.” (It was not a lie.)
“There was no need for you to distress yourself so much, I quite understood at the time how it had all happened; you simply spoke too freely in your joy, and told him that you were in love with me and that I . . . well, that I listened to you. Just what you would do at twenty. You love him more than anyone in the world, don’t you, and look to him to be your friend, your ideal? I quite understood that, but it was too late. Oh yes, I was to blame: I ought to have sent for you at the time, and have set your mind at rest, but I felt annoyed; and I told them not to admit you; that’s what led to the scene at the entrance, and then that night. And do you kno
w, like you, I’ve been dreaming all this time of meeting you secretly, only I did not know how to arrange it? And what do you suppose I dreaded more than anything? That you would believe what he said against me.”
“Never!” I cried.
“The memory of our meetings in the past is dear to me; the boy in you is very dear to me, and perhaps, too, that very sincerity . . . you know, I’m a very serious person, I am one of the most serious and gloomy characters among modern women, let me tell you . . . ha — ha — ha! We’ll have another talk some time, but now I’m not quite myself, I am upset and . . . I believe I’m a little hysterical. But, at last, at last, HE will let me, too, live in peace.”
This exclamation broke from her unconsciously; I understood it at once, and did not want to catch it up, but I trembled all over.
“He knows I’ve forgiven him!” she exclaimed suddenly again, as though to herself.
“Could you really forgive him that letter? And how could he tell that you forgave him?” I could not help exclaiming.
“How could he tell? Oh, he knows,” she went on answering me, yet she looked as though she had forgotten my existence and were talking to herself. “He has come to his senses now. And how could he not know that I forgave him, when he knows every secret of my soul by heart? Why, he knows that I am a little after his kind myself.”
“You?”
“Why, yes, he knows that. Oh, I’m not passionate, I’m calm: but like him I should like all men to be fine. . . . Of course there was something made him love me.”
“How could he say that you had all the vices.”
“He only said that; he has another secret in his heart. And didn’t he write an awfully funny letter?”
“Funny?” (I was listening to her with strained attention. I imagined that she really was hysterical, and . . . was speaking, perhaps, not for my benefit; but I could not resist the question.)
“Oh yes, funny, and how I should have laughed, if . . . if I hadn’t been frightened. Though I’m not such a coward, don’t think it; but I didn’t sleep all night after that letter, it seemed written in blood and frenzy . . . and after such a letter what was left to come. I love life, I’m horribly afraid for my life, I’m horribly cowardly in that. . . . Ah, listen,” she cried, suddenly darting at me, “go to him, he’s alone now, he can’t be there still, most likely he’s gone off somewhere alone; make haste and find him, you must make haste, run to him, show him that you are his son and love him, prove that you are the dear kind boy, my student whom I . . . Oh, God give you happiness, I love nobody, and it is better so, but I want every one to be happy, every one, and him above all, and let him know that . . . at once . . . I should be very glad.”
She got up and suddenly disappeared behind the curtain. At that instant tears were shining on her face (hysterical after her laughter). I remained alone, agitated and confused. I was completely at a loss to what to ascribe such emotion in her, an emotion which I never should have suspected. Something seemed to be clutching at my heart.
I waited five minutes, ten; the profound silence suddenly struck me, and I ventured to peep out of the door, and to call. In answer to my call Marya appeared and informed me in the most stolid tone, that the lady had put on her things long, long ago and gone out by the back way.
CHAPTER VII
1
This was enough for me. I snatched up my fur coat and, throwing it on as I went, rushed off with the thought: “She bade me go to him, but where shall I find him?”
But together with everything else I was struck by the question, “Why does she suppose that something has happened, and that now HE will leave her in peace? Of course, because he will marry mother, but what is she feeling? Is she glad that he will marry mother, or is she unhappy about it? And was that why she was hysterical? Why is it I can’t get to the bottom of it?
I note this second thought that flashed upon me, literally in order to record it: it is important. That evening was a momentous one. And really one is forced to believe in predestination: I had not gone a hundred steps in the direction of mother’s lodging when I came across the man I was looking for. He clutched me by the shoulder and stopped me.
“It’s you!” he cried joyfully, and at the same time with the greatest astonishment. “Only fancy, I’ve been at your lodgings,” he began quickly, “I have been looking for you, I’ve been asking for you, you are the one person I want in the whole universe! Your landlord told me some extraordinary tale; but you weren’t there, and I came away and even forgot to tell him to ask you to run round to me at once, and, would you believe it, I set off, nevertheless, with the positive conviction that fate could not fail to send you to me now when most I need you, and here you are the first person to meet me! Come home with me: you’ve never been to my rooms.”
In fact we had been looking for each other, and something of the same sort had happened to each of us. We walked very rapidly.
On the way he uttered only a few brief phrases, telling me he had left mother with Tatyana Pavlovna and so on. He walked holding my arm. His lodging was not far off and we soon arrived. I had, in fact, never been in these rooms of his. It was a small flat of three rooms, which he had taken or rather Tatyana Pavlovna had taken simply for that “tiny baby.” The flat had always been under Tatyana Pavlovna’s supervision, and in it had been installed a nurse with the baby (and now Darya Onisimovna, too), but there had always been a room there for Versilov, the outermost of the three, a fairly good and spacious room, snugly furnished, like a study for literary pursuits. On the table, on the shelves, and on a whatnot there were numbers of books (while at mother’s there were none at all); there were manuscripts and bundles of letters — in fact, it all looked snug and as though it had been long inhabited, and I know that in the past Versilov had sometimes, though not very often, moved into this flat altogether, and had stayed there even for weeks at a time. The first thing that caught my attention was a portrait of mother that hung over the writing table; a photograph in a magnificent carved frame of rare wood, obviously taken abroad and judging from its size a very expensive one. I had never heard of this portrait and knew nothing of it before, and what struck me most of all was the likeness which was remarkable in a photograph, the spiritual truth of it, so to say; in fact it looked more like a real portrait by the hand of an artist than a mere mechanical print. When I went in I could not help stopping before it at once.
“Isn’t it, isn’t it?” Versilov repeated behind me, meaning, “Isn’t it like?” I glanced at him and was struck by the expression of his face. He was rather pale, but there was a glowing and intense look in his eyes which seemed shining with happiness and strength. I had never seen such an expression on his face.
“I did not know that you loved mother so much!” I blurted out, suddenly delighted.
He smiled blissfully, though in his smile there was a suggestion of something like a martyr’s anguish, or rather something humane and lofty . . . I don’t know how to express it; but highly developed people, I fancy, can never have triumphantly and complacently happy faces. He did not answer, but taking the portrait from the rings with both hands brought it close to him, kissed it, and gently hung it back on the wall.
“Observe,” he said; “photographs very rarely turn out good likenesses, and that one can easily understand: the originals, that is all of us, are very rarely like ourselves. Only on rare occasions does a man’s face express his leading quality, his most characteristic thought. The artist studies the face and divines its characteristic meaning, though at the actual moment when he’s painting, it may not be in the face at all. Photography takes a man as he is, and it is extremely possible that at moments Napoleon would have turned out stupid, and Bismarck tender. Here, in this portrait, by good luck the sun caught Sonia in her characteristic moment of modest gentle love and rather wild shrinking chastity. And how happy she was when at last she was convinced that I was so eager to have her portrait. Though that photograph was taken not so long ago, still she was younge
r then and handsomer; yet even then she had those hollow cheeks, those lines on her forehead, that shrinking timidity in her eyes, which seems to gain upon her with the years, and increase as time goes on. Would you believe it, dear boy? I can scarcely picture her now with a different face, and yet you know she was once young and charming. Russian women go off quickly, their beauty is only a passing gleam, and this is not only due to racial peculiarity, but is because they are capable of unlimited love. The Russian woman gives everything at once when she loves — the moment and her whole destiny and the present and the future: she does not know how to be thrifty, she keeps nothing hidden in reserve; and their beauty is quickly consumed upon him whom they love. Those hollow cheeks, they too were once a beauty that has been consumed on me, on my brief amusement. You are glad that I love your mother, and perhaps you didn’t believe that I did love her? Yes, my dear, I did love her very much, but I’ve done her nothing but harm. . . . Here is another portrait — look at that, too.”
He took it from the table and handed it me. It, too, was a photograph, a great deal smaller, in a thin oval wooden frame — it was the face of a young girl, thin and consumptive, and at the same time very good-looking; dreamy and yet strangely lacking in thought. The features were regular, of the type suggesting the pampering of generations, but it left a painful impression: it looked as though some fixed idea had taken possession of this creature and was torturing her, just because it was too much for her strength.
“That . . . that is the girl you meant to marry and who died of consumption . . . HER step-daughter?” I said rather timidly.
“Yes, I meant to marry her, she died of consumption, HER step- daughter. I knew that you knew . . . all that gossip. Though you could have known nothing about it but the gossip. Put the portrait down, my boy, that was a poor, mad girl and nothing more.”
“Really mad?”
“Or imbecile; I think she was mad though. She had a child by Prince Sergay. It came about through madness not through love; it was one of Prince Sergay’s most scoundrelly actions. The child is here now in the next room, and I’ve long wanted to show it to you. Prince Sergay has never dared come here to look at the child; that was the compact I made with him abroad. I took the child to bring up with your mother’s permission. With your mother’s permission I meant at the time to marry that unhappy creature . . .”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 489