I sat and listened, hoping to have a tête-à-tête with Katerina Fyodorovna as soon as possible. The diplomat was replying to some of the Countess’s questions regarding the current state of politics, the incipient reforms* and whether there were any grounds to fear them. He spoke in measured tones and at length, as befits someone belonging to the ruling class. He argued his point subtly and intelligently, but the underlying idea was perfectly abhorrent. In particular, he insisted that this whole spirit of reform and improvement would all too soon bear the usual fruits; that on seeing these, people would come to their senses and that in society (it goes without saying, in certain circles) this new spirit would not only wane, but that in the real world people would realize the error of their ways and rally with redoubled effort in support of the established order; that this social experiment, unfortunate though it might be, would prove to be very salutary in that it would be an object lesson for bolstering the beneficent old order, provide new grounds for doing so – and consequently, it should even be advantageous that the critical state of irresponsibility be brought to a head all the more expeditiously. “We are indispensable.” he concluded. “Without us no society has ever survived. We shall not be vanquished – quite the contrary, we shall be victorious in the end; we shall overcome, we shall ascend, and our slogan at this time should be pire ça va, mieux ça est.”* The Prince grinned at him in feigned sympathy. The orator was well pleased with himself. I was foolish enough to want to protest; I was seething with indignation. But I was stopped in my tracks by a malicious glance from the Prince that momentarily flashed in my direction, and it struck me that what he was expecting was precisely some gauche juvenile reaction on my part – perhaps that was what he wanted most of all, just for the sheer pleasure of seeing me compromise myself. At the same time I was perfectly sure that the diplomat would hardly have acknowledged my intervention, nor perhaps even my very presence. I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable sitting amongst them, but then Alyosha saved the day.
He approached me quietly, touched me on the shoulder and asked if he could have a couple of words with me. I guessed that he had been sent by Katya. I was quite right. A moment later I was already sitting beside her. At first she looked me over intently from head to toe, as though saying to herself, “So that’s what you’re like,” and for a minute or so we were lost for words to start a conversation. However, I was certain that all she needed was to break the ice, after which there’d be no stopping her till the small hours perhaps. The five, six hours of talking, which Alyosha had mentioned, flashed through my mind. Alyosha was sitting close by, waiting impatiently for us to begin.
“Now you’ve met, why don’t you say something?” he enquired, looking at us with a smile. “Don’t just sit there!”
“Oh, Alyosha, really… we shall,” Katya replied. “There’s so much for us to discuss, Ivan Petrovich, I hardly know where to begin. We’re getting to know each other rather late in the day – if only it had been sooner, though I feel I’ve known you for ages. I was so anxious to see you. I even thought of writing to you…”
“What about?” I asked, smiling involuntarily.
“Any number of things,” she replied in all seriousness. “For one, is he telling the truth about Natalya Nikolayevna when he says she doesn’t mind being left on her own at a time like this? I ask you, how can he do it? Look, why are you still here, tell me, please?”
“Oh my God, I’m going straight away. Didn’t I tell you I’d stay here just long enough for you two to start talking to each other, and then I’d be off?”
“Now you’ve seen us sitting together – are you satisfied? It’s always the same with him,” she added, blushing slightly and pointing her finger at him. “‘One minute,’ he always says, ‘just one more minute,’ and before you know where you are, it’s already midnight and it’s too late to go anywhere. ‘She doesn’t mind,’ he says, ‘she’s so kind.’ That’s his excuse! Is that fair? Is that proper, I ask you?”
“I’d better go then,” Alyosha replied forlornly, “only I’d really have liked to stay with you two a little…”
“What on earth for? Can’t you understand, we’ve lots to discuss in private. Listen, don’t be cross. It’s awfully important – be reasonable!”
“Well, if it’s like that, I’ll be off… what’s there to be cross about? I’ll just drop in at Levenka’s for a second, and then go on to her place immediately. I say, Ivan Petrovich,” he continued, picking up his hat, “you do know, don’t you, that Father wants to turn down the money he won in his lawsuit against Ikhmenev?”
“I do. He told me.”
“How generous of him! You see, Katya doesn’t believe that he’s behaving like a gentleman. Talk to her about it! Goodbye Katya, and please trust me that I love Natasha. And why are you all imposing these conditions on me, reproaching me and spying on me, as though I were under surveillance? She knows how much I love her, and she trusts me implicitly, and I’m confident she has confidence in me. I love her for her own sake, irrespective of any commitments. I don’t know how I love her. I simply do. And therefore there’s no need to interrogate me like a suspect. Go on, ask Ivan Petrovich now he’s here, and he’ll confirm that Natasha is jealous, and that even though she loves me very much, she’s very selfish too, for she won’t make the least sacrifice for me.”
“I beg your pardon!” I said in surprise, hardly believing my ears.
“Come, come, Alyosha!” Katya fairly gasped, clasping her hands.
“Of course, what’s so surprising about that? Ivan Petrovich knows. She keeps insisting I stay with her all the time. Well, not in so many words, but it’s clear that’s what she wants.”
“Shame on you!” Katya said, flushed with anger.
“What’s there to be ashamed of? You’re strange, Katya, you really are! Look here, I love her more than she imagines, and if only she loved me the way I love her, she’d surely have sacrificed her own gratification for my sake. True enough, she doesn’t exactly tie me down, but I can see by her face that it’s not easy for her; consequently, as far as I’m concerned it’s tantamount to being tied down.”
“My word, there’s more to this than meets the eye!” Katya exclaimed, turning to me again with an angry glint in her eyes. “Let’s have the truth, Alyosha, the whole truth immediately, it’s your father who’s behind all this, isn’t it? He’s been talking to you today? And please, don’t try to be smart with me! I’ll get to the bottom of this directly! Yes or no?”
“Yes, he has,” Alyosha replied, embarrassed, “and what of it? When he spoke to me today he was so kind, so supportive, and he never stopped praising her, which came as a bit of a surprise to me – after all, she’d offended him badly, and there he was lauding her to the skies.”
“And you, you believed him,” I said, “you, you for whose sake she had given up everything she could, and even now, this very day, she was concerned only about you, to make sure you were happy and that you shouldn’t miss a chance of seeing Katerina Fyodorovna! She told me this herself today. And here you are being taken in by all this hypocritical cant! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Ungrateful boy! What’s the use, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word shame!” Katya said with a resigned shake of her hand, as though he were a totally hopeless case.
“Honestly, what’s the matter with you!” Alyosha went on in a plaintive tone. “You’re always like that, Katya! You always see the worst in me… never mind Ivan Petrovich! You think I don’t love Natasha. That’s not what I had in mind when I said she was selfish. What I meant was that she loves me altogether too much, out of all proportion, which makes it difficult both for me and her. As for Father, he’d never be able to pull the wool over my eyes, even if he wanted to. I just won’t let him. Nor did he mean she was selfish in any bad sense – that much I could tell. He said precisely what I’m saying now – that she’s so deeply, so hopelessly in lov
e with me that it simply amounts to selfishness, which makes it difficult both for her and me, and eventually it’ll be worse still for me. Let’s face it, he was only speaking the truth out of love for me, and it doesn’t at all follow that he meant to offend Natasha – quite the opposite, he saw that she was full of the deepest love, love without measure, an impossible kind of love—”
But Katya interrupted him, not allowing him to finish. She began to rebuke him passionately, insisting that his father had started to praise Natasha precisely in order to mislead him by his sham sympathy, and all in order to drive a wedge between them, in order subtly to turn Alyosha himself against her without his even realizing it. She pleaded Natasha’s case skilfully and passionately, pointing out that no love could endure the way he was treating her – and that it was he, Alyosha, who was the real egoist. Little by little Katya brought him to the brink of despondency and total repentance; he sat before us, staring at the ground, no longer replying to anything, completely broken and with a pained expression on his face. But Katya was implacable. I observed her with the utmost curiosity. I wanted to get to know this strange girl as soon as possible. She was a complete child, but a strange, a committed child, with firmly rooted convictions and an ardent, innate love for probity and justice. Even if she really could be called a child, she belonged to the thinking kind, not uncommon in our society. It was evident that she had already pondered greatly on things, and it would have been most interesting to take a look into that reflective mind of hers, so as to observe how totally childish ideas and fancies intermingled there with serious real-life impressions and observations (because Katya had already experienced life at first hand), as well as with notions as yet quite unfamiliar to her, not yet experienced by her directly but which had captured her imagination, in great number no doubt, perhaps vicariously from books, and which she probably mistook for the result of her own life’s experience. Throughout that evening and subsequently I think I got to know her pretty well. Her heart was eager and susceptible. On occasion, she appeared to be disdainfully reluctant to control her emotions and, putting truth before everything else, regarded – it would seem with pride – all social conventions as arbitrary impositions, as is often the case with exuberant people, even those of more mature years. It was in fact this that lent her an especial charm. She loved to think and to seek after truth, but was so broad-minded with it, so uninhibited and childlike, that one could not help immediately accepting and even admiring all her idiosyncrasies. I called to mind Levenka and Borenka, and it seemed to me to be all of a piece. And, strange to say – her face, in which at first sight I did not detect anything especially wonderful, appeared to me ever more exciting and attractive as the evening wore on. This naive combination of a child and a mature woman, this unsophisticated and altogether authentic quest for truth and fairness and unshakeable faith in her aspirations – all this illuminated her face with some kind of wonderful glow of sincerity, lent it some elevated, spiritual beauty, and it began to dawn on me that of necessity it would always take some little time to appreciate such beauty fully, as it would never reveal itself in its entirety to the first casual, insensitive gaze. And I understood why Alyosha had become very attached to her. If he could not think and argue for himself, he loved those who thought and even willed on his behalf, and Katya had already taken him under her wing. He was pure of heart and upstanding, ready to surrender wholeheartedly to all that was fair and splendid, and Katya had already drawn him deep into her confidence with all the sincerity and warmth of youth. He did not have a whit of personal willpower, whereas she was endowed with a stubborn, strong and finely attuned resoluteness, and Alyosha could become attached only to one who could rule, not to say dominate him. This is partly how Natasha had drawn him to her at the beginning of their relationship, but Katya had a greater advantage over Natasha in that she herself was yet but a child and, it would seem, was destined to remain so for a long time to come. This childishness of hers, her lucid mind and at the same time a distinct absence of sophistication – all this was somehow more akin to Alyosha. He felt this, and therefore Katya attracted him ever more. I am certain that when they talked one to one, one minute Katya could be making one of her serious, “propagandist” speeches, and the next they could easily be playing with toys. And though in all probability Katya very often reprimanded Alyosha and already had a firm grip on him, he was evidently more at ease with her than with Natasha. They were more of a match, and that’s what mattered most.
“That’ll do, Katya, enough of that, stop it. You always turn out to be in the right, and not me. It’s because your soul is purer than mine,” Alyosha said, getting up and shaking her hand in parting. “I’m off to her immediately, and I shan’t call on Levenka…”
“Levenka has nothing at all to offer you. But it’s awfully sweet of you to do as you’re told and visit Natasha now.”
“And you’re a thousand times sweeter than anyone,” Alyosha replied disconsolately. “Ivan Petrovich, a couple of words with you.”
We stepped aside.
“I behaved despicably today,” he whispered to me. “I was a cad, I’m guilty before all the world, but especially those two. This afternoon my father introduced me to Alexandrina – she’s French, you understand – a delightful girl. I… got carried away and… well, what’s the use talking, I’m not worthy of being with them… Goodbye, Ivan Petrovich!”
“He’s so nice, so kind,” Katya began hastily after I had again sat down next to her, “but we shall talk a lot about him later. As for now we must come to an understanding between ourselves – what do you think of the Prince?”
“Not a pleasant character by any means.”
“That’s what I think too. Consequently we are in agreement about that and it should be easier for us to pass judgement. Now for Natalya Nikolayevna… do you know, Ivan Petrovich, I’m still in the dark, waiting for you to be my guiding light, as it were. You have to explain things to me, because when it comes to the crux of the matter, I’ve only my own guesswork to go on, based on what Alyosha’s told me. Apart from that, there’s no one else to help me. Tell me first – this is crucial – in your opinion will Alyosha and Natasha be happy or not? I must know this before I can come to my final decision, and to be sure what to do next.”
“How can one possibly tell that with any certainty?—”
“No, of course, not exactly with certainty,” she interrupted me, “but what would be your best guess? Because you are very clever.”
“To my mind they cannot be happy.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not suited to each other.”
“That’s what I thought!” And she folded her hands as though in deep sorrow.
“Tell me more. Listen, I really want to see Natasha badly, because I need to talk to her a lot and I think we’d be able to settle everything. In the meantime I can’t help picturing her – she must be awfully clever, serious-minded, honest and wonderful to look at. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“I was sure of that. Well then, if she’s like that, how could she fall in love with Alyosha, who’s so immature? Explain this to me – I think about it a lot.”
“That cannot be explained, Katerina Fyodorovna. It’s difficult to imagine what it is that makes people fall in love and why. Yes, he is a child. But do you know how strong one’s love can be for a child?” My heart went out to her as I looked at her and into her eyes, which were fastened on me in serious and eager anticipation. “And the less of a child Natasha is herself,” I continued, “the more mature she is, the more likely she is to fall in love with him. He is honest, sincere, terribly naive, sometimes astonishingly so. Perhaps she has fallen in love with him – how shall I put it? – as though out of pity. A virtuous heart is capable of love out of pity… Look here, I feel, I can’t explain anything to you, but let me ask you a question instead – you love him, don’t you?”
I
came out with it boldly, and felt that the directness of my question would not confuse the boundless, artless purity of this blithe soul.
“Honestly, I still don’t know,” she replied softly, gazing full into my eyes, “but I think I do very much…”
“Well, there you are. And could you explain why you love him?”
“He is without guile,” she replied after a brief reflection. “And when he looks straight into my eyes and says something to me at the same time, I like it very much… Listen, Ivan Petrovich, here I am talking to you about this – I a girl, and you a man – am I doing right or not?”
“Surely there’s nothing wrong in that!”
“True enough. Nothing wrong, of course. And yet they,” and she pointed at the group sitting round the samovar, “they’d probably have said it was wrong. Would they be right or not?”
“They’d be wrong! Let’s face it, in your heart you wouldn’t say you were doing anything wrong; consequently—”
“That’s exactly my attitude,” she interrupted, apparently anxious to cover as much ground with me as possible. “As soon as I feel uneasy about something, I immediately consult my heart, and if it is at peace, so am I. There is no other way. And I’m being completely frank with you, as if I were talking to myself, because, first, you’re a wonderful person, and I know the story of you and Natasha before Alyosha came on the scene, and I cried as I listened to it.”
“Really, who told you?”
“Alyosha of course, and he was in tears himself when he spoke. This was very good of him, and I admired him for it. I think he likes you more than you like him, Ivan Petrovich. That’s what I love about him. Well, and secondly, I’m being so frank with you as though I were talking to myself, because you’re very clever and can give me lots of advice and teach me things.”
“What makes you think I’m so clever that I can teach you things?”
Humiliated and Insulted Page 30
