She soon penetrated his secret then. Oh, maybe she also flirted with him on purpose. Even the most shining women are mean on such occasions; that is their irrepressible instinct. It ended with an embittered break between them, and it seems he wanted to kill her; he frightened her and maybe would have killed her; “but it all suddenly turned to hatred.” A strange period ensued. He suddenly came up with the strange thought of tormenting himself with discipline, “the same sort that monks exercise. Gradually and by methodical practice, you overcome your will, beginning with the most ridiculous and petty things, and ending by overcoming your will entirely and becoming free.” He added that among monks this is a serious matter, because it has been raised to the level of a science through a thousand years of experience. But the most remarkable thing was that he came up with this idea of “discipline” then, not at all in order to get rid of Katerina Nikolaevna, but in the fullest certainty that he not only did not love her anymore, but even hated her in the highest degree. He believed in his hatred of her to such an extent that he even suddenly thought of falling in love with and marrying her stepdaughter, who had been deceived by the prince, persuaded himself completely of this new love, and got the poor idiot girl to fall in love with him irresistibly, making her completely happy by this love during the last months of her life. Why, instead of her, he didn’t remember then about mama, who was waiting for him all the while in Königsberg, remained unclear to me . . . On the contrary, he suddenly and entirely forgot about mama, didn’t even send her money to live on, so that it was Tatyana Pavlovna who saved her then. Suddenly, however, he went to mama to “ask her permission” to marry that girl, under the pretext that “such a bride isn’t a woman.” Oh, maybe this is all merely the portrait of a “bookish man,” as Katerina Nikolaevna said of him afterwards; however, why is it that these “paper people” (if it’s true that they are paper) are able to suffer in such a real way and reach the point of such tragedies? Though then, that evening, I thought somewhat differently, and was shaken by a certain thought:
“All your development, all your soul came to you through suffering and through your whole life’s struggle—while all her perfection came to her gratis. There’s inequality here . . . Women are outrageous in that,” I said, not at all to ingratiate myself with him, but with fervor and even with indignation.
“Perfection. Her perfection? Why, there’s no perfection in her!” he said suddenly, all but astonished at my words. “She’s a most ordinary woman, she’s even a trashy woman . . . But she’s obliged to have every perfection!”
“Why obliged?”
“Because, having such power, she’s obliged to have every perfection!” he cried spitefully.
“The saddest thing is that you’re so tormented even now!” suddenly escaped me involuntarily.
“Now? Tormented?” he repeated my words again, stopping before me as if in some perplexity. And then suddenly a quiet, long, thoughtful smile lit up his face, and he raised his finger before him as if reflecting. Then, recovering completely, he snatched an unsealed letter from the table and flung it down before me.
“Here, read it! You absolutely must know everything . . . and why did you let me rummage around so much in that old rubbish! . . . I’ve only defiled and embittered my heart! . . .”
I’m unable to express my astonishment. It was a letter from her to him, written that day, received at around five o’clock in the afternoon. I read it almost trembling with excitement. It wasn’t long, but was written so directly and candidly that, as I read it, it was as if I could see her before me and hear her words. Truthfully in the highest degree (and therefore almost touchingly), she confessed to him her fear and then simply entreated him “to leave her in peace.” In conclusion, she informed him that she was now positively going to marry Bjoring. Until that occasion, she had never written to him.
And here is what I understood then from his explanations:
As soon as he read this letter earlier, he suddenly sensed a most unexpected phenomenon in himself: for the first time in those fateful two years, he felt neither the slightest hatred for her nor the slightest shock, similar to the way he had “gone out of his mind” not long ago at the mere rumor about Bjoring. “On the contrary, I sent her a blessing from my whole heart,” he said to me with deep feeling. I listened to these words with delight. It meant that everything there was in him of passion, of torment, had disappeared all at once, of itself, like a dream, like a two-year-long enchantment. Still not believing himself, he rushed to mama—and what then: he came in precisely at the moment when she became free, and the old man who had bequeathed her to him the day before died. These two coincidences shook his soul. A little later he rushed to look for me—and his thinking of me so soon I will never forget.
Nor will I forget the end of that evening. This man became all and suddenly transformed again. We sat late into the night. About how all this “news” affected me, I will tell later, in its place, but now—just a few concluding words about him. Reflecting now, I understand that what charmed me most then was his humility, as it were, before me, his so-truthful sincerity before such a boy as I! “It was all fumes, but blessings on it!” he cried. “Without that blindness I might never have discovered in my heart so wholly and forever my sole queen, my sufferer—your mother!” I make special note of these rapturous words that escaped him uncontrollably, with a view to what followed. But then he conquered and overcame my soul.
I remember, towards the end we became terribly merry. He ordered champagne brought, and we drank to mama and to “the future.” Oh, he was so full of life and so bent on living! But it wasn’t the wine that made us terribly merry; we drank only two glasses each. I don’t know why, but towards the end we laughed almost uncontrollably. We started talking about totally unrelated things; he got to telling jokes, and so did I. Neither our laughter nor our jokes were the least bit spiteful or jeering, we were simply merry. He kept refusing to let me go: “Stay, stay a while longer!” he repeated, and I stayed. He even went out to see me off; it was a lovely evening, there was a slight frost.
“Tell me, have you already sent her a reply?” I suddenly asked quite inadvertently, pressing his hand for the last time at the intersection.
“Not yet, no, and it makes no difference. Come tomorrow, come early . . . And another thing: drop Lambert altogether, and tear up the ‘document,’ and soon. Good-bye!”
Having said that, he suddenly left. I remained standing there, and in such confusion that I didn’t dare call him back. The expression “the document” especially staggered me; from whom could he have learned of it, and in such a precise expression, if not from Lambert? I returned home in great confusion. And how could it happen, the thought flashed in me suddenly, that such a “twoyear-long enchantment ” could vanish like a dream, like fumes, like a phantom?
Chapter Nine
I
BUT I WOKE UP the next morning feeling fresher and heartier. I even reproached myself, involuntarily and sincerely, for the certain levity and haughtiness, as it were, with which I recalled listening yesterday to certain parts of his “confession.” If it was partially disordered, if certain revelations were as if somewhat fumy and even incoherent, he hadn’t really been prepared for an oration when he invited me to his place yesterday. He only did me a great honor, turning to me as to an only friend at such a moment, and I will never forget it. On the contrary, his confession was “touching,” however much I may be laughed at for the expression, and if there was an occasional flash of the cynical or even of something seemingly ridiculous, I was too broad not to understand and not to allow for realism—without, however, besmirching the ideal. Above all, I had finally comprehended this man, and I even felt partly sorry and as if vexed that it had all turned out so simple. In my heart I had always placed this man extremely high, in the clouds, and had unfailingly clothed his destiny in something mysterious, so that I naturally wished that the key wouldn’t fit the lock so easily. However, in his meeting with her and in h
is two-year-long suffering there was also much that was complicated: “He refused the fatum of life; what he needed was freedom, not slavery to the fatum; through slavery to the fatum he had been obliged to offend mama, who was sitting in Königsberg . . .” Besides, I considered this man, in any case, a preacher: he bore the golden age in his heart and knew the future of atheism; and then the meeting with her had shattered everything, perverted everything! Oh, I didn’t betray her, but still I took his side. Mama, I reasoned, for instance, wouldn’t hinder anything in his destiny, not even marriage to mama. That I understood; that was quite other than the meeting with that one. True, all the same, mama would not have given him peace, but that would even have been better: such people ought to be judged differently, and let their life always be like that; and there’s nothing unseemly in it; on the contrary, it would be unseemly if they settled down, or generally became similar to all average people. His praise of the nobility and his words, “Je mourrai gentilhomme,” didn’t confound me in the least; I perceived what sort of gentilhomme he was; he was the type who gives everything away and becomes the herald of world citizenship and the main Russian thought of the “all-unification of ideas.” And though that, too, was even all nonsense, that is, the “all-unification of ideas” (which, of course, is unthinkable), still there was one good thing, that all his life he had worshipped an idea, and not the stupid golden calf. My God! I, I myself, when I conceived my “idea”—was I bowing down to the golden calf? Was it money I wanted then? I swear I wanted only the idea! I swear I wouldn’t have a single chair or sofa upholstered in velvet, and if I had a hundred million, I’d eat the same bowl of beef soup as now!
I was dressing and hurrying to him irrepressibly. I will add: concerning his outburst yesterday about the “document,” I was also five times more at ease than yesterday. First, I hoped to clarify things with him, and, second, so what if Lambert had filtered through to him and they had talked something over? But my chief joy was in one extraordinary sensation; this was the thought that he “didn’t love her” now; I believed in that terribly, and felt as if someone had rolled an awful stone off my heart. I even remember the flash of a certain surmise then: precisely the ugliness and senselessness of his last fierce outburst at the news about Bjoring and the sending of that insulting letter then; precisely that extremity could also have served as a prophecy and precursor of the most radical change in his feelings and of his approaching return to common sense. It must have been almost as with an illness, I thought, and he precisely had to reach the opposite extreme—a medical episode and nothing more! This thought made me happy.
“And let her, let her dispose of her fate as she likes, let her marry her Bjoring as much as she likes, only let him, my father, my friend, not love her anymore,” I exclaimed. However, there was in it a certain secret of my own feelings, but I don’t wish to smear it around here in my notes.
Enough of that. And now I will tell all the horror that followed, and all the machinations of the facts, without any discussions.
II
AT TEN O’CLOCK, just as I was ready to go out—to see him, of course—Nastasya Egorovna appeared. I asked her joyfully if she was coming from him, and heard with vexation that it was not from him at all, but from Anna Andreevna, and that she, Nastasya Egorovna, had “left the apartment at first light.”
“Which apartment?”
“The same one as yesterday. Yesterday’s apartment, the one with the little baby, is rented in my name now, and Tatyana Pavlovna pays . . .”
“Ah, well, it makes no difference to me!” I interrupted with vexation. “Is he at home at least? Will I find him in?”
And to my astonishment I heard from her that he had left the premises even before she had—meaning that she had left “at first light,” and he still earlier.
“Well, so now he’s come back?”
“No, sir, he certainly hasn’t come back, and he may not come back at all,” she said, looking at me with the same keen and furtive eye, and not taking it off me, just as she had done when she visited me while I lay sick. What mainly made me explode was that here again some secrets and stupidities emerged, and that these people apparently couldn’t do without secrets and slyness.
“Why did you say he certainly won’t come back? What are you implying? He went to mama’s, that’s all!”
“I d-don’t know, sir.”
“And why were you so good as to come?”
She told me that she had come now from Anna Andreevna, who was sending for me and expected me at once, otherwise “it would be too late.” This further mysterious phrase drove me completely beside myself.
“Why too late? I don’t want to go and I won’t go! I won’t let myself be taken over again! I spit on Lambert—tell her that, and that if she sends Lambert to me, I’ll chuck him out—just tell her that!”
Nastasya Egorovna was terribly frightened.
“Ah, no, sir!” she stepped towards me, pressing her hands together as if entreating me, “take your time before you go hurrying so. This is an important matter, very important for you yourself, and also for the lady, and for Andrei Petrovich, and for your mama, for everybody . . . Do go to Anna Andreevna at once, because she simply can’t wait any longer . . . I assure you on my honor . . . and then you can make your decision.”
I stared at her in amazement and disgust.
“Nonsense, nothing will happen, I won’t go!” I cried stubbornly and gleefully. “Now everything will be a new way! And how can you understand that? Good-bye, Nastasya Egorovna, I purposely won’t go, I purposely won’t ask you any questions. You only throw me off. I don’t want to enter into your riddles.”
But as she wouldn’t leave and went on standing there, I grabbed my coat and hat and went out myself, leaving her there in the middle of the room. There were no letters or papers in my room, and previously I had almost never locked my door when I left. But before I reached the front door, my landlord, Pyotr Ippolitovich, came running down the stairs after me, hatless and in his uniform.
“Arkady Makarovich! Arkady Makarovich!”
“What is it now?”
“Have you no orders on leaving?”
“None.”
He looked at me with a stabbing glance and with evident uneasiness.
“Concerning the apartment, for instance?”
“What about the apartment? Didn’t I send you the money on time?”
“No, sir, I’m not talking about money,” he suddenly smiled a long smile and went on stabbing me with his glance.
“What’s the matter with you all?” I finally cried, almost totally ferocious. “What are you after?”
He waited for another few seconds, as if he still expected something from me.
“Well, so you can give the orders later . . . if you’re not in the mood now,” he murmured, with an even longer grin. “Go on, sir, and I myself have my duties.”
He ran upstairs to his apartment. Of course, all that could set one to thinking. I’m purposely not leaving out the slightest stroke from all that petty nonsense, because every little stroke of it later went into the final bouquet, where it found its proper place, as the reader will ascertain. But it was true that they really threw me off then. If I was so agitated and annoyed, it was precisely because I again heard in their words that tiresome tone of intrigue and riddling that reminded me of the old days. But to continue.
Versilov turned out not to be at home, and he had indeed gone out at first light. “To mama’s, of course,” I stubbornly stood my ground. I asked no questions of the nanny, a rather stupid woman, and there was no one else in the apartment. I ran to mama’s, and, I confess, I was so worried that halfway there I grabbed a cab. He hadn’t been at mama’s since last evening. Only Tatyana Pavlovna and Liza were with mama. As soon as I came in, Liza started preparing to leave.
They were all sitting upstairs in my “coffin.” In our drawing room downstairs, Makar Ivanovich was laid out on the table,37 and some old man was measuredly reading t
he psalter over him. I won’t describe anything now that is not directly related to the matter, but will just observe that the coffin, which they had already had time to make and was standing right there in the room, was not simple, though black, but was lined with velvet, and the shroud on the deceased was an expensive one—a magnificence not suited to the old man or his convictions, but such was the express wish of both mama and Tatyana Pavlovna.
Naturally, I didn’t expect to find them cheerful; but the peculiarly oppressive anguish, with concern and uneasiness, that I read in their eyes, struck me immediately, and I instantly concluded that “here, surely, the deceased is not the only cause.” All this, I repeat, I remember perfectly well.
Despite all, I embraced mama tenderly and asked at once about him. An alarmed curiosity instantly flashed in mama’s eyes. I hastily mentioned that he and I had spent the whole last evening together, till late into the night, but that today he hadn’t been at home since daybreak, whereas just yesterday he had invited me himself, as we were parting, to come today as early as possible. Mama made no reply, and Tatyana Pavlovna, seizing the moment, shook her finger at me.
“Good-bye, brother,” Liza suddenly cut off, quickly going out of the room. I naturally went after her, but she had stopped right at the front door.
“I thought it might occur to you to come down,” she said in a quick whisper.
“Liza, what’s going on here?”
“I don’t know myself, only there’s a lot of something. Probably the dénouement of the ‘eternal story.’ He hasn’t come, but they have some sort of information about him. They won’t tell you, don’t worry, and you won’t ask, if you’re smart; but mama is crushed. I didn’t ask about anything either. Good-bye.”
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