The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  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!”

  By the porch, a smart trotter was waiting for him. We got in; but even all the way he still couldn’t recover from some sort of fury against those young men and calm down. I marveled that it was so serious, and that, besides, they were all so irreverent with Lambert, while he all but even cowered before them. To me, by an ingrown old impression from childhood, it always seemed that everyone must fear Lambert, so that, despite all my independence, I myself probably cowered before Lambert at that moment.

  “I tell you, they’re all terrible tghrash,” Lambert couldn’t calm down. “Would you believe it, that tall, vile one tormented me three days ago, in good society. He stands in front of me and shouts: ‘Ohé, Lambert! ’ In good society! Everybody laughs and knows that it’s to get money from me—can you imagine. I gave it. Oh, they’re scoundrels! Would you believe it, he was a junker21 in a regiment and got thrown out, and, can you imagine, he’s educated; he was brought up in a good home, can you imagine! He has thoughts, he could . . . Eh, the devil! And he’s strong as Hercule. He’s useful, but not very. And you can see he doesn’t wash his hands. I recommended him to a certain lady, an old noble lady, saying that he had repented and wanted to kill himself from remorse, and he came to her, sat down, and whistled. And the other, the pretty one, is a general�
��s son; the family’s ashamed of him, I pulled him out of a trial, I saved him, and this is how he repays me. There are no people here! On their ears, on their ears!”

  “They know my name; did you speak to them about me?”

  “I had the stupidity. Please sit through dinner, brace yourself . . . Another awful canaille is coming. This one is really an awful canaille, and he’s terribly cunning; they’re all scum here; not a single honest man! Well, so we’ll finish—and then . . . What do you like to eat? Well, it makes no difference, they have good food there. I’m paying, don’t worry. It’s a good thing you’re well dressed. I can give you money. Come any time. Imagine, I wined and dined them here, there was cabbage pie every day; that watch he sold, it’s the second time. The little one, Trishatov—you saw him, Alphonsine even scorns to look at him and forbids him to come near her—and suddenly, in a restaurant, in front of some officers, he says, ‘I’ll have snipe.’ I gave him snipe! Only I’ll get my revenge.”

  “Remember, Lambert, how we drove to a tavern in Moscow, and in the tavern you stabbed me with a fork, and how you had five hundred roubles then?”

  “Yes, I remember! Eh, the devil, I do! I like you . . . Believe that. Nobody likes you, but I do; I’m the only one, remember . . . The one who’s coming, the pockmarked one, is the most cunning canaille; don’t say anything to him if he starts talking, and if he starts asking questions, answer with nonsense, keep mum . . .”

  At any rate, on account of his excitement, he didn’t ask me anything on the way. I even felt offended that he was so sure of me and didn’t even suspect any mistrust in me; it seemed to me that he had the stupid notion that he could still order me around. “And besides, he’s terribly uneducated,” I thought, going into the restaurant.

  III

  I USED TO go to this restaurant on Morskaya22 before, during the time of my infamous decadence and depravity, and therefore the impression of these rooms, these waiters, looking me over and recognizing me as a familiar visitor, the impression, finally, of this mysterious company of Lambert’s friends, in which I had so suddenly found myself and to which I already seemed to belong indivisibly, and above all—the dark foreboding that I was voluntarily heading for some sort of vileness and would undoubtedly end up in bad business—it was as if all this suddenly pierced me. There was a moment when I almost left; but the moment passed and I stayed.

  That “pockmarked one” Lambert was so afraid of for some reason was already waiting for us. He was a small man with one of those stupidly businesslike appearances, a type I’ve hated almost since childhood; about forty-five years old, of medium height, with some gray in his hair, with a face clean-shaven to the point of vileness, and with small, regular, gray, trimmed side-whiskers in the form of two little sausages on the two cheeks of an extremely flat and wicked face. Naturally, he was dull, serious, taciturn, and even, as is usual with all these wretched little people, for some reason arrogant. He scrutinized me very attentively but didn’t say a word, and Lambert was so stupid that, in seating us at the same table, he felt no need to introduce us, so that the man might have taken me for one of Lambert’s blackmailing associates. To those young people (who arrived almost at the same time as we did) he also said nothing all through dinner, but it could be seen, nevertheless, that he knew them closely. He talked about something only with Lambert, and then almost in a whisper, and then it was almost only Lambert who talked, while the pockmarked one just got off with fragmentary and angry ultimatums. He behaved superciliously, was spiteful and jeering, whereas Lambert, on the contrary, was in great agitation and evidently kept persuading him, probably trying to win him over to some venture. Once I reached for the bottle of red wine; the pockmarked one suddenly took a bottle of sherry and handed it to me, having not said a word to me till then.

  “Try this,” he said, offering me the bottle. Here I suddenly realized that he must already know everything in the world about me—my story, and my name, and maybe why Lambert was counting on me. The thought that he might take me for someone in Lambert’s service infuriated me again, and Lambert’s face expressed a very strong and stupid alarm as soon as the man addressed me. The pockmarked one noticed it and laughed. “Lambert decidedly depends on everybody,” I thought, hating him at that moment with all my soul. Thus, though we sat through the whole dinner at one table, we were divided into two groups: the pockmarked one and Lambert nearer the window, facing each other, and I next to the greasy Andreev, with Trishatov facing me. Lambert hurried with the meal, urging the waiter to serve every minute. When champagne was served, he suddenly reached out his glass to me.

  “To your health, let’s clink!” he said, interrupting his conversation with the pockmarked one.

  “And will you allow me to clink with you?” The pretty Trishatov reached out his glass to me across the table. Before the champagne he had been somehow very pensive and silent. The dadais said nothing at all, but ate silently and a lot.

  “With pleasure,” I replied to Trishatov. We clinked glasses and drank.

  “And I won’t drink to your health,” the dadais suddenly turned to me, “not because I wish for your death, but so that you won’t drink anymore here today.” He uttered it gloomily and weightily. “Three glasses are enough for you. I see you’re looking at my unwashed fist?” he went on, displaying his fist on the table. “I don’t wash it, and rent it out to Lambert unwashed as it is, for crushing other people’s heads on occasions that Lambert finds ticklish.” And, having said that, he suddenly banged his fist on the table with such force that all the plates and glasses jumped. Besides us, there were people dining at four other tables in this room, all of them officers and various imposing-looking gentlemen. It was a fashionable restaurant; for a moment everybody stopped talking and looked at our corner. And it seems we had long been arousing some curiosity. Lambert turned all red.

  “Hah, he’s at it again! I believe I asked you to behave yourself, Nikolai Semyonovich,” he said to Andreev in a fierce whisper. The man looked him over with a long and slow stare:

  “I don’t want my new friend Dolgorowky to drink much wine here today.”

  Lambert turned still more red. The pockmarked one listened silently, but with visible pleasure. For some reason he liked Andreev’s escapade. I was the only one who didn’t understand why I shouldn’t drink.

  “He only does it to get money! You’ll get another seven roubles, do you hear, after dinner—only let us finish eating, don’t disgrace us,” Lambert rasped to him.

  “Aha!” the dadais grunted victoriously. This quite delighted the pockmarked one, and he sniggered maliciously.

  “Listen, you’re much too . . .” Trishatov said to his friend with uneasiness and almost with suffering, evidently wishing to restrain him. Andreev fell silent, but not for long; that was not how he reckoned. At a table about five steps away from us, two gentlemen were dining and having a lively conversation. They were both middle-aged gentlemen of an extremely ticklish appearance. One was tall and very fat, the other also very fat but small. They were talking in Polish about the current Parisian events. The dadais had long been glancing at them curiously and listening. The little Pole obviously struck him as a comic figure, and he hated him at once, after the manner of all bilious and liverish people, to whom this always happens suddenly even without any cause. Suddenly the little Pole spoke the name of the deputy Madier de Montjau,23 but following the habit of a great many Poles, he pronounced it in a Polish manner, that is, with the stress on the next-to-last syllable, and it came out not as Madiér de Montjáu, but as Mádier de Móntjau. That was all the dadais needed. He turned to the Poles and, drawing himself up importantly, suddenly said distinctly and loudly, as though asking them a question:

  “Mádier de Móntjau?”

  The Poles turned to him fiercely.

  “What do you want?” the big fat Pole cried menacingly in Russian. The dadais bided his time.

  “Mádier de Móntjau?” he suddenly repeated for the whole room to hear, withou
t giving any further explanations, just as he had stupidly repeated “Dolgorowky?” as he came at me earlier by the door. The Poles jumped up from their places, Lambert jumped up from the table, rushed first to Andreev, but then abandoned him, leaped over to the Poles, and humbly began apologizing to them.

  “They’re buffoons, panie,87 buffoons!” the little Pole repeated contemptuously, all red as a carrot with indignation. “Soon it will be impossible to come here!” There was a stirring in the room, some murmuring was heard, but more laughter.

  “Leave . . . please . . . let’s go now!” Lambert murmured, completely at a loss, trying somehow to get Andreev out of the room. Giving Lambert a searching look and figuring that at this point he could get money from him, the man agreed to follow him. It was probably not the first time he had used this shameless method to knock money out of Lambert. Trishatov also made as if to run after them, but looked at me and stayed.

  “Ah, how nasty!” he said, covering his eyes with his slender fingers.

  “Very nasty, sirs,” the pockmarked one whispered this time with a very angered air. Meanwhile Lambert came back almost completely pale and, with lively gesticulations, began whispering something to the pockmarked one. The latter meanwhile ordered the waiter to quickly serve coffee. He listened squeamishly; he evidently wanted to leave quickly. And, nevertheless, the whole incident was merely a schoolboy prank. Trishatov, with his cup of coffee, came over from his place and sat next to me.

  “I like him very much,” he began, addressing me with such a candid air as though he had always been talking to me about it. “You wouldn’t believe how unhappy Andreev is. He ate and drank up his sister’s dowry, and ate and drank up everything they had, the year he served in the army, and I can see how he suffers now. And as for his not washing—it’s from despair. And he has terribly strange thoughts: he suddenly tells you that a scoundrel and an honest man are all the same and there’s no difference; and that there’s no need to do anything, either good or bad, or it’s all the same—you can do either good or bad, but the best thing of all is to lie there without taking your clothes off for a month at a time, drink, eat, sleep—and that’s all. But, believe me, he just says it. And you know, I even think he carried on like that just now because he wanted to finish completely with Lambert. He spoke of it yesterday. Believe me, sometimes at night or when he’s been sitting alone for a long time, he begins to weep, and, you know, when he weeps, it’s in some special way, as no one else weeps: he starts howling, howling terribly, and that, you know, is still more pitiful . . . And besides, he’s so big and strong, and suddenly—he’s just howling. Such a poor fellow, isn’t it so? I want to save him, but I’m such a nasty, lost little brat myself, you wouldn’t believe it! Will you let me in, Dolgoruky, if I ever come to see you?”