“Yes, there you have conscious baseness!” repeated Lebedev.
“Well, don’t triumph, wait a moment,” the touchy nephew cried, “don’t be so glad. I came to see him, Prince, and admitted everything; I acted nobly, I didn’t spare myself; I denounced myself before him as much as I could, everybody here is a witness. To take this job with the railways, I absolutely must outfit myself at least somehow, because I’m all in rags. Here, look at my boots! Otherwise I can’t show up for work, and if I don’t show up at the appointed time, somebody else will take the job, and I’ll be left hanging again, and who knows when I’ll find another job? Now I’m asking him for only fifteen roubles, and I promise that I’ll never ask again, and on top of that I’ll repay the whole debt to the last kopeck during the first three months. I’ll keep my word. I can live on bread and kvass for months at a time, because I have a strong character. For three months I’ll get seventy-five roubles. With the previous debt, I’ll owe him only thirty-five roubles, so I’ll have enough to pay him. Well, he can ask as much interest as he likes, devil take it! Doesn’t he know me? Ask him, Prince: when he helped me out before, did I pay him back or not? Why doesn’t he want to now? He’s angry that I paid that lieutenant; there’s no other reason! That’s how this man is—doesn’t eat himself and won’t let others!”
“And he won’t go away,” Lebedev cried, “he lies here and won’t go away!”
“That’s what I told you. I won’t go away till you give it to me. You’re smiling at something, Prince? Apparently you think I’m in the wrong?”
“I’m not smiling, but in my opinion you actually are somewhat in the wrong,” the prince answered reluctantly.
“No, just say outright that I’m totally wrong, don’t dodge! What is this ‘somewhat’?”
“If you wish, you’re totally wrong.”
“If I wish! Ridiculous! Can you possibly think I don’t know that it’s ticklish to act this way, that the money’s his, the will is his, and it comes out as violence on my part? But you, Prince … you don’t know life. If you don’t teach them, they’ll be of no use. They have to be taught. My conscience is clear; in all conscience, I won’t cause him any loss, I’ll pay him back with interest. He’s already received moral satisfaction as well: he has seen my humiliation. What more does he want? What good is he, if he can’t be useful? For pity’s sake, what does he do himself? Ask him what he does to others and how he dupes people. How did he pay for this house? I’ll bet my life that he has already duped you and has already made plans for how to dupe you further! You’re smiling. You don’t believe me?”
“It seems to me that all this is quite unconnected with your affair,” observed the prince.
“I’ve been lying here for three days, and the things I’ve seen!” the young man went on shouting without listening. “Imagine, he suspects this angel, this young girl, now an orphan, my cousin, his own daughter; every night he searches for her sweethearts! He comes here on the sly and also searches for something under my sofa. He’s gone crazy from suspiciousness; he sees thieves in every corner. All night he keeps popping out of bed to see whether the windows are well latched, to check the doors, to peek into the stove, as much as seven times a night. He defends swindlers in court, and he gets up three times in the night to pray, here in the living room, on his knees, pounding his head on the floor for half an hour, and who doesn’t he pray for, what doesn’t he pray for, the drunken mumbler! He prayed for the repose of the soul of the countess Du Barry,9 I heard it with my own ears; Kolya also heard it: he’s gone quite crazy!”
“You see, you hear, how he disgraces me, Prince!” Lebedev cried out, turning red and really getting furious. “And he doesn’t know that I, drunkard and profligate, robber and evil-doer, may only be standing on this one thing, that when this scoffer was still an infant, my destitute, widowed sister Anisya’s son, I, as destitute as she was, swaddled him, washed him in a tub, sat up with them for whole nights without sleeping, when both of them were sick, stole firewood from the caretaker downstairs, sang him songs, snapped my fingers, hungry belly that I was, and so I nursed him, and see how he laughs at me now! What business is it of yours if I did cross my forehead once for the repose of the soul of the countess Du Barry? Because three days ago, Prince, I read her biography for the first time in an encyclopedia. And do you know what she was, this Du Barry? Tell me, do you know or not?”
“So, what, are you the only one who knows?” the young man muttered mockingly but reluctantly.
“She was a countess who, having risen from a life of shame, ran things in the queen’s place, and a great empress wrote her a letter with her own hand, addressing her as ma cousine. A cardinal, a papal nuncio, at the levay dew rwah (do you know what the levay dew rwah was?),10 volunteered personally to put silk stockings on her bare legs, and considered it an honor—such an exalted and holy person! Do you know that? I can see by your face that you don’t! Well, how did she die? Answer, if you know!”
“Get out! What a pest.”
“The way she died was that, after such honors, this former ruling lady was dragged guiltless to the guillotine by the executioner Samson, for the amusement of the Parisian fishwives, and she was so frightened that she didn’t understand what was happening to her. She saw that he was bending her neck down under the knife and kicking her from behind—with the rest all laughing—and she began to cry out: ‘Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, encore un moment!’ Which means: ‘Wait one more little minute, mister boorow, just one!’ And maybe the Lord will forgive her for that little minute, because it’s impossible to imagine a human soul in worse mizair than that. Do you know what the word mizair means? Well, this is that same mizair. When I read about this countess’s cry of one little moment, it was as if my heart was in pincers. And what do you care, worm, if I decided on going to bed at night to remember her, a great sinner, in my prayers? Maybe I remembered her precisely because, as long as this world has stood, probably nobody has ever crossed his forehead for her, or even thought of it. And so, she’ll feel good in the other world that another sinner like her has been found, who has prayed for her at least once on earth. What are you laughing at? You don’t believe, you atheist. But how do you know? And you also lied, if you did eavesdrop on me; I didn’t pray only for the countess Du Barry; what I prayed was: ‘Give rest, O Lord, to the soul of the great sinner, the countess Du Barry, and all those like her’—and that’s a very different thing; for there are many such great women sinners and examples of the change of fortune, who suffered, and who now find no peace there, and groan, and wait; and I also prayed then for you and those like you, of your kind, impudent offenders, since you decided to eavesdrop on my prayers …”
“Well, all right, enough, pray for whoever you like, devil take you, quit shouting!” the nephew interrupted vexedly. “He’s very well read, Prince, didn’t you know?” he added with a sort of awkward grin. “He’s reading all sorts of books and memoirs these days.”
“All the same your uncle … is not a heartless man,” the prince observed reluctantly. He was beginning to find this young man quite repulsive.
“You’ll spoil him on us, praising him like that! See, he puts his hand to his heart and purses his lips, relishing it no end. Maybe he’s not heartless, but he’s a rogue, that’s the trouble; what’s more, he’s drunk, he’s all unhinged, like anybody who’s been drinking for several years, and everything in him creaks. Granted he loves the children, he respected my deceased aunt … He even loves me, by God, and has left me something in his will …”
“N-nothing is what you’ll get!” Lebedev cried out bitterly.
“Listen, Lebedev,” the prince said firmly, turning away from the young man, “I know from experience that you can be businesslike when you want to be … I have very little time now, and if you … Excuse me, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Ti-Ti-Timofei.”
“And?”
“Lukyanovich.”
Everybody in the room bur
st out laughing.
“A lie!” cried the nephew. “That, too, is a lie! His name isn’t Timofei Lukyanovich at all, Prince, it’s Lukyan Timofeevich! Tell us, now, why did you lie? Isn’t it all the same, Lukyan or Timofei, and what does the prince care? He only lies out of habit, I assure you!”
“Can it be true?” the prince asked impatiently.
“Actually, I’m Lukyan Timofeevich,” Lebedev confirmed abashedly, humbly looking down and again putting his hand to his heart.
“Ah, my God, but why did you do it?”
“For self-belittlement,” whispered Lebedev, hanging his head more and more humbly.
“Eh, who needs your self-belittlement! If only I knew where to find Kolya now!” said the prince, and he turned to leave.
“I can tell you where Kolya is,” the young man volunteered again.
“No, no, no!” Lebedev roused himself, all in a flutter.
“Kolya spent the night here, but in the morning he went to look for his general, whom you, Prince, redeemed from prison, God knows why. The general had promised yesterday to come here and spend the night, but he didn’t. Most likely he spent the night in the Scales Hotel, very near here. Which means that Kolya is either there or in Pavlovsk with the Epanchins. He had some money, he wanted to go yesterday. So he’s either in the Scales or in Pavlovsk.”
“In Pavlovsk, in Pavlovsk!… And we’ll go this way, this way, to the garden, and … have a little coffee …”
And Lebedev pulled the prince by the arm. They left the room, walked across the courtyard, and went through the gate. Here there actually was a very small and very sweet little garden, in which, thanks to the fine weather, the trees were already covered with leaves. Lebedev sat the prince down on a green wooden bench, at a green table fixed in the ground, and placed himself opposite him. A minute later coffee actually arrived. The prince did not refuse. Lebedev went on glancing obsequiously and greedily into his eyes.
“I didn’t know you had such a homestead,” said the prince, with the look of a man who is thinking of something else.
“Or-orphans,” Lebedev began, cringing, but stopped: the prince looked ahead of him distractedly and had quite certainly forgotten his question. Another minute passed; Lebedev kept glancing and waiting.
“Well, so?” said the prince, as if coming to his senses. “Ah, yes! You yourself know what our business is, Lebedev: I’ve come in response to your letter. Speak.”
Lebedev became embarrassed, tried to say something, but only stammered: nothing came out. The prince waited and smiled sadly.
“I think I understand you very well, Lukyan Timofeevich: you probably weren’t expecting me. You thought I wouldn’t emerge from my backwoods at your first indication, and you wrote to clear your own conscience. But I up and came. Well, leave off, don’t deceive me. Leave off serving two masters. Rogozhin has been here for three weeks now, I know everything. Did you manage to sell her to him like the other time, or not? Tell me the truth.”
“The monster found out himself, himself.”
“Don’t abuse him. Of course, he treated you badly …”
“He beat me, he beat me!” Lebedev chimed in with terrible fervor. “And he chased me with a dog through Moscow, chased me down the street with a borzoi bitch. A horrible bitch.”
“You take me for a little boy, Lebedev. Tell me, did she seriously abandon him this time, in Moscow?”
“Seriously, seriously, again right at the foot of the altar. The man was already counting the minutes, and she dashed off here to Petersburg and straight to me: ‘Save me, protect me, Lukyan, and don’t tell the prince …’ She’s afraid of you, Prince, even more than of him, and that’s—most wise!”
And Lebedev slyly put his finger to his forehead.
“But now you’ve brought them together again?”
“Illustrious Prince, how … how could I prevent it?”
“Well, enough, I’ll find everything out myself. Only tell me, where is she now? At his place?”
“Oh, no! Never! She’s still on her own. I’m free, she says, and, you know, Prince, she stands firm on it, she says, I’m still completely free! She’s still on the Petersburg side, at my sister-in-law’s, as I wrote to you.”
“And she’s there now?”
“Yes, unless she’s in Pavlovsk, what with the fine weather, at Darya Alexeevna’s dacha. I’m completely free, she says; just yesterday she kept boasting to Nikolai Ardalionovich about her freedom. A bad sign, sir!”
And Lebedev grinned.
“Does Kolya see much of her?”
“Light-minded, and incomprehensible, and not secretive.”
“Were you there long ago?”
“Every day, every day.”
“Meaning yesterday?”
“N-no, three days ago, sir.”
“Too bad you’re slightly drunk, Lebedev! Otherwise I’d ask you something.”
“No, no, no, stone sober!”
Lebedev was all agog.
“Tell me, how was she when you left?”
“S-searching …”
“Searching?”
“As if she was searching all over for something, as if she’d lost something. Even the thought of the forthcoming marriage is loathsome to her, and she takes offense at it. Of him she thinks as much as of an orange peel, not more, or else more, but with fear and horror, she even forbids all mention of him, and they see each other only by necessity … and he feels it all too well! But there’s no avoiding it, sir!… She’s restless, sarcastic, double-tongued, explosive …”
“Double-tongued and explosive?”
“Explosive—because she all but seized me by the hair last time for one of my conversations. I was reprimanding her with the Apocalypse.”11
“How’s that?” asked the prince, thinking he had not heard right.
“I was reading the Apocalypse. A lady with a restless imagination, heh, heh! And, besides, I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s much inclined towards serious topics, even unrelated ones. She likes them, likes them, and even takes it as a sign of special respect for her. Yes, sir. And I’m strong on interpreting the Apocalypse and have been doing it for fifteen years. She agreed with me that we live in the time of the third horse, the black one, and the rider with a balance in his hand, because in our time everything is in balances and contracts, and people are all only seeking their rights: ‘A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny …’ And with all that they want to preserve a free spirit, and a pure heart, and a healthy body, and all of God’s gifts. But they can’t do it with rights alone, and there will follow a pale horse and him whose name is Death, and after him Hell12 … We get together and interpret it and—she’s strongly affected.”
“You believe that yourself?” asked the prince, giving Lebedev a strange look.
“Believe it and interpret it. For I’m poor and naked, and an atom in the whirl of people. Who will honor Lebedev? They all sharpen their wit on him, and accompany him by all but kicks. But here, in this interpreting, I’m the equal of a courtier. The mind! And a courtier trembled once … in his chair, feeling it with his mind. His excellency, Nil Alexeevich, two years ago, before Easter, heard about me—when I still worked in their department—and had Pyotr Zakharych summon me specially from my duty to his office, and asked me, when we were alone: ‘Is it true that you’re a professor of the Antichrist?’ And I didn’t hide it: ‘I am,’ I said, and I explained it, and presented it, and didn’t soften the fear, but mentally increased it as I unrolled the allegorical scroll and quoted the numbers. And he was smiling, but at the numbers and likenesses he began to tremble, and asked me to close the book, and to leave, and awarded me a bonus for Easter, and on St. Thomas’s13 he gave up his soul to God.”
“Come now, Lebedev!”
“It’s a fact. He fell out of his carriage after dinner … struck his temple on the hitching post and passed away right there, like a baby, like a little baby. He was seventy-three years old acco
rding to his papers; a red-faced, gray-haired little fellow, all sprayed with perfume, and he used to smile, to smile all the time, just like a baby. Pyotr Zakharych remembered then: ‘You foretold it,’ he said.”
The prince began to get up. Lebedev was surprised and even puzzled that the prince was already getting up.
“You’ve grown awfully indifferent, sir, heh, heh!” he ventured to observe obsequiously.
“I really feel unwell—my head is heavy after the journey,” the prince replied, frowning.
“You could do with a bit of dacha life, sir,” Lebedev hinted timidly.
The prince stood thinking.
“And I myself, after a three-day wait, will be going to my dacha with the whole household, so as to look after the newborn nestling and meanwhile fix up the little house here. And that’s also in Pavlovsk.”
“You’re also going to Pavlovsk?” the prince asked suddenly. “How is it everyone here goes to Pavlovsk? And you say you have a dacha there?”
“Not everyone goes to Pavlovsk. Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn is letting me have one of the dachas he came by cheaply. It’s nice, and sublime, and green, and cheap, and bon ton, and musical, and that’s why we all go to Pavlovsk. I, incidentally, will be in a little wing, while the house itself …”
“You’ve rented it out?”
“N-n-no. Not … not quite, sir.”
“Rent it to me,” the prince suddenly suggested.
It seems that this was just what Lebedev had been driving at. The idea had flashed through his mind three minutes earlier. And yet he no longer needed a tenant; he already had a candidate who had informed him that he might take the dacha. Lebedev knew positively, however, that there was no “might” and that he would certainly take it. Yet the thought had suddenly flashed through his mind, a very fruitful one by his reckoning, of renting the dacha to the prince, under the pretext that the other tenant had not expressed himself definitively. “A whole collision and a whole new turn of affairs” suddenly presented itself to his imagination. He received the prince’s suggestion almost with rapture, so that he even waved his hands at the direct question of the price.
The Idiot (Vintage Classics) Page 26