“And that is all your evidence? It’s not much.”
“But, Prince, who else should I suspect, just think?” Lebedev concluded sweetly, and something sly showed in his smile.
“Why don’t you look around the rooms once more and in all the drawers!” the prince said worriedly, after some thought.
“I did, sir!” Lebedev sighed still more sweetly.
“Hm!… and why, why did you have to change that frock coat!” the prince exclaimed, pounding the table in vexation.
“A question from an old comedy, sir. But, my most good-natured Prince! You take my misfortune too much to heart! I don’t deserve it. That is, by myself I don’t deserve it; but you also suffer for the criminal … for the worthless Mr. Ferdyshchenko?”
“Well, yes, yes, you’ve really got me worried,” the prince interrupted him absentmindedly and with displeasure. “And so, what do you intend to do … if you’re so sure it’s Ferdyshchenko?”
“Prince, much-esteemed Prince, who else is there, sir?” Lebedev squirmed with ever-increasing sweetness. “The unavailability of anyone else to point to and the, so to speak, perfect impossibility of suspecting anyone besides Mr. Ferdyshchenko, is, so to speak, more evidence against Mr. Ferdyshchenko, a third piece! For, again, who else is there? Can I really suspect Mr. Burdovsky, heh, heh, heh?”
“Ah, no, what nonsense!”
“Or the general, finally, heh, heh, heh?”
“What a wild idea!” the prince said almost crossly, turning impatiently on his seat.
“Wild it is! Heh, heh, heh! And the man did make me laugh, the general, I mean, sir! He and I set out this morning hot on the trail to Vilkin, sir … and I must point out to you that the general was even more struck than I was when I woke him up first thing after the disappearance, so that he even changed countenance, turned red, then pale, and in the end suddenly arrived at such bitter and noble indignation that I even never expected such a degree, sir. A most noble man! He lies incessantly, out of weakness, but he’s a man of the loftiest feelings, and with that a man of little understanding, inspiring complete trust by his innocence. I’ve already told you, my much-esteemed Prince, that I not only have a soft spot for him, but even love him, sir. He suddenly stops in the middle of the street, opens his frock coat, offers his chest: ‘Search me,’ he says, ‘you searched Keller, why don’t you search me? Justice demands it!’ he says. The man’s arms and legs are trembling, he’s even turning pale, he has a menacing look. I laughed and said: ‘Listen, General,’ I said, ‘if somebody else said it about you, I’d take my head off with my own hands, put it on a big platter, and offer it myself to all who doubt: “Here,” I’d say, “see this head, so with this same head of mine I vouch for him, and not only with the head, but I’d even go through fire.” That’s how ready I am to vouch for you!’ At this point he threw himself into my arms, right in the middle of the street, sir, became tearful, trembled and pressed me to his heart so tightly I could hardly clear my throat: ‘You,’ he says, ‘are the only friend I have left in my misfortunes!’ A sentimental man, sir! Well, naturally, on our way he told me an appropriate story about how, in his youth, he had once been suspected of having stolen five hundred thousand roubles, but that the very next day he had thrown himself into the flames of a burning house and saved the count who suspected him and Nina Alexandrovna, who was a young girl then. The count embraced him, and thus his marriage to Nina Alexandrovna came about, and the very next day the box with the lost money was found in the ruins of the burned-down house; it was made of iron, after an English design, with a secret lock, and had somehow fallen through the floor, so that no one noticed, and it was found only owing to the fire. A complete lie, sir. But when he spoke of Nina Alexandrovna, he even started sniveling. A most noble person, Nina Alexandrovna, though she’s cross with me.”
“You’re not acquainted?”
“Nearly not, sir, but I wish with my whole soul that I were, if only so as to vindicate myself before her. Nina Alexandrovna has a grudge against me for supposedly corrupting her husband with drink. But I not only don’t corrupt him, but sooner curb him; it may be that I keep him away from more pernicious company. What’s more, he’s my friend, sir, and, I confess to you, I’m not ever going to leave him, sir, that is, even like this, sir: where he goes, I go, because you can’t get anywhere with him except through sentimentality. He doesn’t even visit his captain’s widow at all now, though secretly he pines for her and even occasionally groans over her, especially each morning, when he gets up and puts his boots on—why precisely then I don’t know. He has no money, sir, that’s the trouble, and it’s quite impossible to go to her without money. Has he asked you for money, my most-esteemed Prince?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“He’s ashamed. He was going to: he even confessed to me that he intended to trouble you, but he’s ashamed, sir, since you gave him a loan just recently, and he supposed, besides, that you wouldn’t give him anything. He poured it all out to me as a friend.”
“And you don’t give him money?”
“Prince! Much-esteemed Prince! Not only money, but for this man even, so to speak, my life … no, however, I don’t want to exaggerate, not my life, but if, so to speak, it’s a fever, or some abscess, or even a cough—then, by God, I’d be ready to endure it, if there’s a very big need; for I consider him a great but lost man! There, sir; and not only money, sir!”
“So you give him money?”
“N-no, I’ve never given him money, sir, and he knows himself that I won’t, but it’s solely with a view to restraining and reforming him. Now he wants to tag after me to Petersburg; you see, I’m going to Petersburg, sir, hot on Ferdyshchenko’s trail, because I know for certain that he’s already there, sir. My general is just seething, sir; but I suspect he’ll slip away from me in Petersburg in order to visit the captain’s widow. I confess, I’ll even let him go on purpose, since we’ve already arranged to go in different directions immediately upon arrival, the better to catch Mr. Ferdy-shchenko. So I’ll let him go and then suddenly, out of the blue, I’ll find him with the captain’s widow—essentially in order to shame him as a family man and a man generally speaking.”
“Only don’t make noise, Lebedev, for God’s sake don’t make noise,” the prince said in a low voice, greatly worried.
“Oh, no, sir, essentially just so as to shame him and see what kind of face he makes—for one can learn a lot by the face, my much-esteemed Prince, and especially with such a man! Ah, Prince! Great as my own trouble is, even now I cannot help thinking about him and about the reforming of his morals. I have a special request to make of you, my much-esteemed Prince, I even confess that this is essentially why I have come, sir: you are already acquainted with the house and have even lived with them, sir; what if you, my most good-hearted Prince, should decide to assist me in this, essentially just for the sake of the general and his happiness …”
Lebedev even pressed his hands together as if in supplication.
“What is it? How can I assist? I assure you that I would like very much to understand you fully, Lebedev.”
“It is solely in that assurance that I have come to you! It may be possible to work through Nina Alexandrovna; by observing and, so to speak, keeping a constant watch on his excellency, in the bosom of his own family. I, unfortunately, am not acquainted, sir … then, too, Nikolai Ardalionovich, who adores you, so to speak, from the bosom of his young soul, could perhaps be of help here …”
“N-no … Nina Alexandrovna in this business … God forbid! Not Kolya either … However, maybe I still haven’t understood you, Lebedev.”
“But there’s nothing at all to understand here!” Lebedev even jumped in his chair. “Sensitivity and tenderness alone, alone—that’s all the medicine our sick man needs. Will you allow me, Prince, to consider him a sick man?”
“It even shows your delicacy and intelligence.”
“I shall explain it to you, for the sake of clarity, with an example
taken from practice. See what kind of man he is, sir: here he now has a certain weakness for this captain’s widow, whom he cannot go to without money and at whose place I intend to catch him today, for the sake of his own happiness, sir; but suppose it wasn’t only the captain’s widow, but he was even to commit a real crime—well, some very dishonest act (though he’s totally incapable of that)—then, too, I say only noble tenderness, so to speak, will get anywhere with him, for he is a most sensitive man, sir! Believe me, he won’t last five days, he’ll let it out himself, start weeping, and confess everything—especially if we act skillfully and nobly, through your and his family’s supervision of all his, so to speak, traits and steps … Oh, my most good-hearted Prince!” Lebedev jumped up even in some sort of inspiration, “I am not affirming that it was certainly he … I am ready, so to speak, to shed all my blood for him right now, though you must agree that intemperance, and drunkenness, and the captain’s widow, and all of it taken together, could drive him to anything.”
“I am, of course, always ready to assist in such a purpose,” the prince said, standing up, “only, I confess to you, Lebedev, I’m terribly worried; tell me, do you still … in short, you yourself say that you suspect Mr. Ferdyshchenko.”
“And who else? Who else, my most sincere Prince?” Lebedev again pressed his hands together sweetly, and with a sweet smile.
The prince frowned and got up from his place.
“You see, Lukyan Timofeich, it would be a terrible thing to be mistaken. This Ferdyshchenko … I have no wish to speak ill of him … but this Ferdyshchenko … that is, who knows, maybe he’s the one!… I mean to say that he may be more capable of it than … than the other man.”
Lebedev was all eyes and ears.
“You see,” the prince was becoming confused and frowned more and more as he paced up and down the room, trying not to raise his eyes to Lebedev, “I’ve been given to understand … I’ve been told about Mr. Ferdyshchenko, that he is supposedly, besides everything else, a man in whose presence one must restrain oneself and not say anything … superfluous—understand? By which I mean that perhaps he actually is more capable than the other man … so as to make no mistake—that’s the main thing, understand?”
“And who told you that about Mr. Ferdyshchenko?” Lebedev simply heaved himself up.
“It’s just a whisper; anyhow, I don’t believe it myself … it’s terribly vexing that I’ve been forced to tell you about it, I assure you, I don’t believe it myself … it’s some sort of nonsense … Pah, what a stupid thing for me to do!”
“You see, Prince,” Lebedev was even shaking all over, “it’s important, it’s all too important now, that is, not concerning Mr. Ferdy-shchenko, but concerning how this information came to you.” As he said this, Lebedev was running up and down after the prince, trying to get in step with him. “Look here, Prince, I’ll now inform you: when the general and I were going to this Vilkin’s, after he told me about the fire, and seething, naturally, with wrath, he suddenly began hinting the same thing to me about Mr. Ferdy-shchenko, but it was so without rhyme or reason that I involuntarily asked him certain questions, as a result of which I became fully convinced that this information was nothing but his excellency’s inspiration … Essentially, so to speak, from good-heartedness alone. For he lies solely because he cannot control his feelings. Now kindly see, sir: if he was lying, and I’m sure of that, how could you have heard of it, too? Understand, Prince, that it was a momentary inspiration of his—who, then, informed you of it? It’s important, sir, it’s … it’s very important, sir, and … so to speak …”
“Kolya just told it to me, and he was told earlier by his father, whom he met sometime at six o’clock or after, in the front hall, when he stepped out for something.”
And the prince recounted everything in detail.
“Well, sir, that’s what we call a trail, sir,” Lebedev laughed inaudibly, rubbing his hands. “It’s just as I thought, sir! It means that his excellency purposely interrupted his sleep of the innocent before six o’clock in order to go and wake up his beloved son and inform him of the extreme danger of being neighborly with Mr. Ferdyshchenko! What a dangerous man Mr. Ferdyshchenko must be in that case, and how great is his excellency’s parental concern, heh, heh, heh!…”
“Listen, Lebedev,” the prince was definitively confused, “listen, act quietly! Don’t make noise! I beg you, Lebedev, I beseech you … In that case I swear I’ll assist you, but so that nobody knows, so that nobody knows!”
“I assure you, my most good-hearted, most sincere, and most noble Prince,” Lebedev cried in decided inspiration, “I assure you that all this will die in my most noble heart. With quiet steps, together, sir! With quiet steps, together! I’d even shed all my blood … Most illustrious Prince, I am mean in soul and spirit, but ask any scoundrel even, not only a mean man: who is it better to deal with, a scoundrel like himself, or a most noble man like you, my most sincere Prince? He will reply that it is with a most noble man, and in that is the triumph of virtue! Good-bye, my much-esteemed Prince! With quiet steps … quiet steps … and together, sir.”
X
THE PRINCE FINALLY understood why he went cold every time he touched those three letters and why he had put off the moment of reading them all the way till evening. When, that morning, he had fallen into a heavy sleep on his couch, still without resolving to open any one of those three envelopes, he again had a heavy dream, and again that same “criminal woman” came to him. She again looked at him with tears glistening on her long lashes, again called him to follow her, and again he woke up, as earlier, painfully trying to remember her face. He wanted to go to her at once, but could not; at last, almost in despair, he opened the letters and began to read.
These letters also resembled a dream. Sometimes you dream strange dreams, impossible and unnatural; you wake up and remember them clearly, and are surprised at a strange fact: you remember first of all that reason did not abandon you during the whole course of your dream; you even remember that you acted extremely cleverly and logically for that whole long, long time when you were surrounded by murderers, when they were being clever with you, concealed their intentions, treated you in a friendly way, though they already had their weapons ready and were only waiting for some sort of sign; you remember how cleverly you finally deceived them, hid from them; then you realize that they know your whole deception by heart and merely do not show you that they know where you are hiding; but you are clever and deceive them again—all that you remember clearly. But why at the same time could your reason be reconciled with such obvious absurdities and impossibilities, with which, among other things, your dream was filled? Before your eyes, one of your murderers turned into a woman, and from a woman into a clever, nasty little dwarf—and all that you allowed at once, as an accomplished fact, almost without the least perplexity, and precisely at the moment when, on the other hand, your reason was strained to the utmost, displaying extraordinary force, cleverness, keenness, logic? Why, also, on awakening from your dream and entering fully into reality, do you feel almost every time, and occasionally with an extraordinary force of impression, that along with the dream you are leaving behind something you have failed to fathom? You smile at the absurdity of your dream and feel at the same time that the tissue of those absurdities contains some thought, but a thought that is real, something that belongs to your true life, something that exists and has always existed in your heart; it is as if your dream has told you something new, prophetic, awaited; your impression is strong, it is joyful or tormenting, but what it is and what has been told you—all that you can neither comprehend nor recall.
It was almost the same after these letters. But even without opening them, the prince felt that the very fact of their existence and possibility was already like a nightmare. How did she dare write to her, he asked, wandering alone in the evening (sometimes not even remembering himself where he was walking). How could she write about that, and how could such an insane dream have
been born in her head? But that dream had already been realized, and what was most astonishing for him was that, while he was reading these letters, he almost believed himself in the possibility and even the justification of that dream. Yes, of course, it was a dream, a nightmare, and an insanity; but there was also something in it that was tormentingly actual and painfully just, which justified the dream, the nightmare, and the insanity. For several hours in a row he was as if delirious with what he had read, continually recalled fragments, lingered over them, reflected on them. Sometimes he even wanted to tell himself that he had sensed and foreseen it all before; it even seemed to him as if he had read it all long, long ago and that everything he had yearned for since then, everything he had suffered over and been afraid of—all of it was contained in these letters read long ago.
“When you open this letter” (so the first one began), “you will first of all look at the signature. The signature will tell you everything and explain everything, so that I need not justify myself before you or explain anything to you. If I were even slightly your equal, you might be offended at such boldness; but who am I and who are you? We are two such opposites, and I am so far out of rank with you, that I could not offend you in any way, even if I wanted to.”
Further on in another place she wrote:
“Do not consider my words the morbid rapture of a morbid mind, but for me you are—perfection! I have seen you, I see you every day. I do not judge you; it is not by reason that I have come to consider you perfection; I simply believe it. But there is also a sin in me before you: I love you. Perfection cannot be loved, perfection can only be looked at as perfection, isn’t that so? And yet I am in love with you. Love equates people, but don’t worry, I have never equated myself with you even in my innermost thoughts. I have written: ‘don’t worry’; but how could you worry?… If it were possible, I would kiss the prints of your feet. Oh, I am not trying to make us equals … Look at the signature, quickly look at the signature!”
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