The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “Versilov!” I cried. I held my breath at each word she said.

  “Yes. I liked very much to listen to him, and in the end I became fully . . . perhaps overly candid with him, but it was then that he didn’t believe me!”

  “Didn’t believe you!”

  “Yes, but then nobody ever believed me.”

  “But Versilov! Versilov!”

  “It’s not simply that he didn’t believe me,” she said, lowering her eyes and smiling somehow strangely, “but he decided that I had ‘all vices’ in me.”

  “Of which you don’t have a single one!”

  “No, I do have some.”

  “Versilov didn’t love you, that’s why he didn’t understand you,” I cried, flashing my eyes.

  Something twitched in her face.

  “Drop that and never speak to me of . . . that man . . .” she added hotly and with strong emphasis. “But enough; it’s time to go.” (She got up to leave.) “So, do you forgive me or not?” she said, looking at me brightly.

  “Me . . . forgive . . . you! Listen, Katerina Nikolaevna, and don’t be angry! Is it true that you’re getting married?”

  “That’s not at all decided yet,” she said, as if afraid of something, with embarrassment.

  “Is he a good man? Forgive me, forgive me the question!”

  “Yes, very good . . .”

  “Don’t answer any more, don’t deign to answer me! I know that such questions are impossible from me! I only wanted to know whether he’s worthy or not, but I’ll find out about him myself.”

  “Ah, listen!” she said in alarm.

  “No, I won’t, I won’t. I’ll pass by . . . But I’ll only say this: may God grant you every happiness, every one that you choose . . . for having given me so much happiness now, in this one hour! You are now imprinted on my soul forever. I have acquired a treasure: the thought of your perfection. I suspected perfidy, coarse coquetry, and I was unhappy . . . because I couldn’t connect that notion with you . . . during these last days I’ve been thinking day and night; and suddenly it all becomes clear as day! Coming in here, I thought I’d go away with Jesuitism, cunning, a worming-out serpent, but I found honor, glory, a student! . . . You laugh? Go on, go on! But you’re a saint, you can’t laugh at what is sacred . . .”

  “Oh, no, I’m only laughing that you use such terrible words . . . Well, what is a ‘worming-out serpent’?” she laughed.

  “You let drop one precious word today,” I went on in rapture. “How could you possibly say in front of me ‘that you were counting on my ardor’? Well, so you’re a saint and confess even to that, because you imagined some sort of guilt in yourself and wanted to punish yourself . . . Though, incidentally, there wasn’t any guilt, because even if there was, everything that comes from you is holy! But still you might not have said precisely that word, that expression! . . . Such even unnatural candor only shows your lofty chastity, your respect for me, your faith in me,” I exclaimed incoherently. “Oh, don’t blush, don’t blush! . . . And who, who could slander and say that you are a passionate woman? Oh, forgive me, I see a pained expression on your face, forgive the frenzied adolescent his clumsy words! As if it were a matter of words and expressions now? Aren’t you higher than all expressions? . . . Versilov once said that Othello killed Desdemona and then himself not because he was jealous, but because his ideal was taken from him . . . I understood that, because today my ideal has been given back to me!”

  “You praise me too much: I’m not worthy of it,” she said with feeling. “Do you remember what I said to you about your eyes?” she said jokingly.

  “That I don’t have eyes, but two microscopes instead, and that I exaggerate every fly into a camel! No, ma’am, there’s no camel here! . . . What, you’re leaving?”

  She was standing in the middle of the room, with her muff and shawl in her hand.

  “No, I’ll wait till you go, and I’ll go myself afterwards. I still have to write a couple of words to Tatyana Pavlovna.”

  “I’ll leave right now, right now, but once more: be happy, alone or with the one you choose, and may God be with you! And I—I only need an ideal!”

  “Dear, kind Arkady Makarovich, believe me, of you I . . . My father always says of you: ‘A dear, kind boy!’ Believe me, I’ll always remember your stories about the poor boy abandoned among strangers, and about his solitary dreams . . . I understand only too well how your soul was formed . . . But now, though we’re students,” she added with a pleading and bashful smile, pressing my hand, “it’s impossible for us to go on seeing each other as before, and, and . . . surely you understand that?”

  “Impossible?”

  “Impossible, for a long time . . . it’s my fault . . . I see that it’s now quite impossible . . . We’ll meet sometimes at papà’s . . .”

  “You’re afraid of the ‘ardor’ of my feelings? You don’t trust me?” I was about to cry out, but she suddenly became so abashed before me that the words would not come out of my mouth.

  “Tell me,” she suddenly stopped me right at the door, “did you yourself see that . . . the letter . . . was torn up? Do you remember it well? How did you know then that it was that same letter to Andronikov?”

  “Kraft told me what was in it and even showed it to me . . . Good-bye! Each time I was with you in your boudoir, I felt timid in your presence, and when you left I was ready to throw myself down and kiss the spot on the floor where your foot had stood . . .” I suddenly said unaccountably, not knowing how or why myself, and, without looking at her, quickly left.

  I raced home; there was rapture in my soul. Everything flashed through my mind like a whirlwind, and my heart was full. Driving up to my mother’s house, I suddenly remembered Liza’s ungratefulness towards Anna Andreevna, her cruel, monstrous words earlier, and my heart suddenly ached for them all! “How hard of heart they all are! And Liza, what’s with her?” I thought, stepping onto the porch.

  I dismissed Matvei and told him to come for me, to my apartment, at nine o’clock.

  Chapter Five

  I

  I WAS LATE for dinner, but they hadn’t sat down yet and were waiting for me. Maybe because in general I dined with them rarely, certain special additions had even been made: sardines appeared as an entrée, and so on. But, to my surprise and grief, I found them all as if preoccupied, frowning about something; Liza barely smiled when she saw me, and mama was obviously worried; Versilov was smiling, but with effort. “Can they have been quarreling?” it occurred to me. However, at first everything went well: Versilov only winced a little at the soup with dumplings, and grimaced badly when the stuffed meatcakes were served.

  “I have only to warn you that my stomach can’t stand a certain dish, for it to appear the very next day,” escaped him in vexation.

  “But what are we to think up, Andrei Petrovich? There’s no way to think up any sort of new dish,” mama answered timidly.

  “Your mother is the direct opposite of some of our newspapers, for which whatever is new is also good.” Versilov had meant to joke playfully and amicably, but somehow it didn’t come off, and he only frightened mama still more, who naturally understood nothing in the comparison of her with a newspaper, and she looked around in perplexity. At that moment Tatyana Pavlovna came in and, announcing that she had already had dinner, sat down beside mama on the sofa.

  I still hadn’t managed to gain this person’s favor; even the contrary, she had begun to attack me still more for each and every thing. Her displeasure with me had especially intensified of late: she couldn’t abide my foppish clothes, and Liza told me she almost had a fit when she learned I had a coachman. I ended by avoiding meeting her as far as possible. Two months ago, after the return of the inheritance, I ran over to her to chat about Versilov’s act, but I didn’t meet with the least sympathy; on the contrary, she was awfully angry: it displeased her very much that it had all been returned, and not just half. To me she observed sharply at the time:

  “I’ll bet you�
�re convinced that he returned the money and challenged him to a duel solely so as to better himself in the opinion of Arkady Makarovich.”

  And she had almost guessed right: in essence I actually felt something of that sort at the time.

  I understood at once, as soon as she came in, that she was bound to throw herself upon me; I was even slightly convinced that she had, in fact, come for that, and therefore I suddenly became extraordinarily casual; and it didn’t cost me anything, because, after what had just taken place, I still went on being in joy and radiance. I’ll note once and for all that never in my life has casualness suited me, that is, it has never made me look good, but, on the contrary, has always covered me with shame. So it happened now as well: I instantly made a blunder; without any bad feeling, but purely from thoughtlessness, having noticed that Liza was terribly dull, I suddenly blurted out, not even thinking what I was saying:

  “Once a century I have dinner here, and as if on purpose, Liza, you’re so dull!”

  “I have a headache,” Liza answered.

  “Ah, my God,” Tatyana Pavlovna latched on, “so what if you’re sick? Arkady Makarovich has deigned to come for dinner, so you must dance and be merry.”

  “You are decidedly the bane of my existence, Tatyana Pavlovna; never will I come here when you’re here!”—and I slapped the table with my hand in sincere vexation. Mama gave a start, and Versilov looked at me strangely. I suddenly laughed and begged their pardon.

  “I take back the word ‘bane,’ Tatyana Pavlovna,” I turned to her, going on with my casualness.

  “No, no,” she snapped, “it’s far more flattering for me to be your bane than the opposite, you may be sure.”

  “My dear, one should know how to endure the small banes of life,” Versilov murmured, smiling. “Without them, life’s not worth living.”

  “You know, sometimes you’re an awful retrograde!” I exclaimed with a nervous laugh.

  “Spit on it, my friend.”

  “No, I won’t spit on it! Why don’t you tell an ass outright that he’s an ass?”

  “You don’t mean yourself, do you? First of all, I will not and cannot judge anyone.”

  “Why won’t you, why can’t you?”

  “Laziness and distaste. An intelligent woman told me once that I had no right to judge others, because I ‘don’t know how to suffer,’ and in order to be a judge of others, you must gain the right to judge through suffering. It’s a bit high-flown, but applied to me it may also be true, so that I even submitted willingly to the judgment.”

  “Can it be Tatyana Pavlovna who said that to you?” I exclaimed.

  “How could you tell?” Versilov glanced at me with some surprise.

  “I guessed from Tatyana Pavlovna’s face; she suddenly twitched so.”

  I had guessed by chance. The phrase, as it turned out later, had indeed been spoken to Versilov by Tatyana Pavlovna the day before in a heated conversation. And in general, I repeat, it was the wrong time for me to fly at them with my joy and expansiveness: each of them had his own cares, and very heavy ones.

  “I don’t understand anything, because it’s all so abstract with you; and here’s a trait: you have this terrible love of speaking abstractly, Andrei Petrovich. It’s an egoistic trait; only egoists love to speak abstractly.”

  “Not stupidly put, but don’t nag.”

  “No, excuse me,” I got at him with my expansiveness, “what does it mean ‘to gain the right to judge through suffering’? Whoever’s honest can be a judge—that’s what I think.”

  “You’ll come up with very few judges, in that case.”

  “I already know one.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He’s now sitting and talking to me.”

  Versilov chuckled strangely, leaned over right to my ear, and, taking me by the shoulder, whispered to me, “He lies to you all the time.”

  To this day I don’t understand what he had in mind then, but obviously at that moment he was in some extreme anxiety (owing to a certain piece of news, as I figured out later). But this phrase, “He lies to you all the time,” was spoken so unexpectedly and so seriously, and with such a strange, not at all jocular, expression, that I somehow shuddered all over nervously, almost frightened, and looked at him wildly; but Versilov hastened to laugh.

  “Ah, thank God!” said mama, frightened because he had whispered in my ear. “And I was beginning to think . . . Don’t you be angry with us, Arkasha, there will be intelligent people without us, but who’s going to love you if we don’t have each other?”

  “That’s why love among relations is immoral, mama, because it’s unearned. Love has to be earned.”

  “Who knows when you’ll earn it, but here we love you for nothing.”

  Everyone suddenly laughed.

  “Well, mama, maybe you didn’t mean to shoot, but you hit the bird!” I cried out, also laughing.

  “And you really imagined there was something to love you for,” Tatyana Pavlovna fell upon me again. “Not only do they love you for nothing, but they love you through revulsion!”

  “Ah, not so!” I cried gaily. “Do you know who, maybe, talked today about loving me?”

  “Talked while laughing at you!” Tatyana Pavlovna picked up suddenly with some sort of unnatural spite, as if she had been waiting for precisely those words from me. “A delicate person, and especially a woman, would be filled with loathing just from your inner filth alone. You’ve got a part in your hair, fine linen, a suit from a French tailor, but it’s all filth! Who clothes you, who feeds you, who gives you money to play roulette? Remember who you’re not ashamed to take money from!”

  Mama got so flushed, I’d never yet seen such shame on her face. I cringed all over.

  “If I spend, I spend my own money, and I owe nobody an accounting,” I snapped, turning all red.

  “Whose own? What’s your own?”

  “If not mine, then Andrei Petrovich’s. He won’t refuse me . . . I’ve taken from the prince against his debt to Andrei Petrovich . . .”

  “My friend,” Versilov suddenly said firmly, “not a cent of that money is mine.”

  The phrase was terribly significant. I stopped short on the spot. Oh, naturally, recalling my whole paradoxical and devil-may-care mood then, I would, of course, have gotten out of it by some “most noble” impulse, or catchy little word, or whatever, but I suddenly noticed a spiteful, accusing expression on Liza’s frowning face, an unfair expression, almost mockery, and it was as if the devil pulled at my tongue:

  “You, madam,” I suddenly addressed her, “seem to visit Darya Onisimovna frequently in the prince’s apartment? Be so good as to personally convey to him this three hundred roubles, for which you roasted me so much today!”

  I produced the money and held it out to her. Will anyone believe that I spoke those mean words then without any purpose, that is, without the slightest allusion to anything? And there could have been no such allusion, because at that moment I knew precisely nothing. Maybe I just had a wish to needle her with something comparatively terribly innocent, something like, say, a young lady mixing in what was not her business, so here, since you absolutely want to mix in it, be so good as to go yourself to meet this prince, a young man, a Petersburg officer, and give it to him, “since you wish so much to meddle in young men’s affairs.” But what was my amazement when mama suddenly stood up and, raising her finger in front of me and shaking it at me, cried:

  “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”

  I could never have imagined anything like that from her, and I myself jumped up from my place, not really frightened, but with some sort of suffering, with some sort of painful wound in my heart, suddenly realizing that something grave had taken place. But mama couldn’t bear it for long; she covered her face with her hands and quickly left the room. Liza, not even glancing in my direction, went out after her. Tatyana Pavlovna gazed at me silently for about half a minute:

  “Can it be that you really wanted to blur
t something out?” she exclaimed enigmatically, gazing at me with the deepest astonishment, but, not waiting for my reply, she also ran to them. Versilov, with an inimical, almost spiteful look, rose from the table and took his hat from the corner.

  “I suppose you’re not all that stupid, but merely innocent,” he murmured mockingly. “If they come back, tell them not to wait for me with dessert: I’ll take a little stroll.”

  I was left alone. At first I felt strange, then offended, but then I saw clearly that I was to blame. However, I didn’t know what in fact I was to blame for, but only sensed something. I sat by the window and waited. After waiting for some ten minutes, I also took my hat and went upstairs to my former room. I knew they were there—that is, mama and Liza—and that Tatyana Pavlovna had already gone. And so I found the two of them together on my sofa, whispering about something. When I appeared, they immediately stopped whispering. To my surprise, they were not angry with me; mama at least smiled at me.

  “I’m to blame, mama . . .” I began.

  “Well, well, never mind,” mama interrupted, “only love each other and don’t ever quarrel, and God will send you happiness.”

  “He’ll never offend me, mama, I can tell you that!” Liza said with conviction and feeling.

  “If only it hadn’t been for this Tatyana Pavlovna, nothing would have happened,” I cried. “She’s nasty!”

  “Do you see, mama? Do you hear?” Liza pointed at me to her.

  “I’ll tell you both this,” I pronounced, “if it’s vile in the world, the only vile thing is me, and all the rest is lovely!”

  “Arkasha, don’t be angry, dear, but what if you really did stop . . .”

  “Gambling, is it? Gambling? I will, mama; I’m going today for the last time, especially now that Andrei Petrovich himself has announced, and aloud, that not a cent of that money is his. You won’t believe how I blush . . . I must talk with him, however . . . Mama, dear, the last time I was here I said . . . something awkward . . . mama, darling, I lied: I sincerely want to believe, it was just bravado, I love Christ very much . . .”