Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  In spite of everything I embraced mother tenderly and at once asked about HIM. A gleam of tremulous curiosity came into mother’s eyes at once. I made haste to mention that we had spent the whole evening together, till late at night, but that to-day he had been away from home since early morning, though at parting last night he had asked me to come as early as I could this morning. Mother made no answer, and Tatyana Pavlovna, seizing a favourable moment, shook her finger at me meaningly.

  “Good-bye, brother,” Liza blurted out, going quickly out of the room. I ran after her, of course, but she stopped short at the outer door.

  “I thought you would guess you must come with me,” she said in a rapid whisper.

  “Liza, what’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know what, but a great deal, no doubt the last chapter of ‘the same old story.’ He has not come, but they have heard something about him. They won’t tell you, you needn’t trouble yourself, and you won’t ask, if you are sensible; but mother’s shattered. I’ve not asked about anything either. Good-bye.”

  She opened the door.

  “And, Liza, about you, yourself, have you nothing to tell me?” I dashed after her into the entry. Her terribly exhausted and despairing face pierced my heart. She looked at me, not simply with anger, but with a sort of exasperated fury, laughed bitterly, and waved me off.

  “If only he were dead I should thank God!” she flung up at me from the stairs, and was gone. She said this of Prince Sergay, and he, at that very time, was lying delirious and unconscious.

  I went upstairs, sad but excited. “The same old story! What same old story?” I thought defiantly, and I had suddenly an irresistible impulse to tell them at least a part of the impression left upon me by his last night’s confession, and the confession too. “They’re thinking some evil of him now, so let them know all about it!” floated though my mind.

  I remember that I succeeded very cleverly in beginning to tell them my story. Instantly their faces betrayed an intense curiosity. This time Tatyana Pavlovna positively fixed me with her eyes; but mother showed more reserve; she was very grave, but the glimmer of a faint, beautiful, though utterly hopeless smile came into her face, and scarcely left it all the time I was talking. I told the story well, of course, though I knew that it would be almost beyond their comprehension. To my surprise Tatyana Pavlovna did not attack me, did not insist on minute details, or try to pick holes as she usually did as soon as I began telling anything. She only pinched up her lips and screwed up her eyes, as though making an effort to get to the bottom of it. At times I positively fancied that they understood it all, though that could hardly have been so. . . . I spoke for instance of his convictions, but principally of his enthusiasm last night, his enthusiastic feeling for mother, his love for mother and how he had kissed her portrait. . . . Hearing this they exchanged a rapid silent glance with each other, and mother flushed all over, though both continued silent. Then . . . then I could not of course BEFORE MOTHER touch on the principal point, that is his meeting with HER and all the rest of it, above all HER letter to him the day before, and his moral resurrection after getting that letter; and that indeed was the chief point, so that all his feeling, with which I had hoped to please mother so much, naturally remained inexplicable, though of course that was not my fault; I had told all that could be told extremely well. I ended in complete confusion; their silence was still unbroken and I began to feel very uncomfortable with them.

  “Most likely he’s come back now, and may be at my lodgings waiting for me,” I said, and got up to go.

  “Go and see! go and see!” Tatyana Pavlovna urged me resolutely.

  “Have you been downstairs?” mother asked me, in a sort of half whisper, as she said good-bye.

  “Yes, I have been, and I bowed down and prayed for him. What a peaceful, serene face he has, mother! Thank you, mother, for not sparing expense over his coffin. At first I thought it strange, but I thought, at once, that I should have done the same.”

  “Will you come to the church to-morrow?” she asked, and her lips trembled.

  “What do you mean, mother?” I asked in surprise. “I shall come to the requiem service to-day, and I shall come again; and . . . besides, to-morrow is your birthday, mother darling! To think that he died only thee days before!”

  I went away painfully surprised: how could she ask such questions, whether I were coming to the funeral service in the church? “If that’s what they think of me, what must they think of HIM?”

  I knew that Tatyana Pavlovna would run after me and I purposely waited at the outer door of the flat; but she pushed me out on to the stairs and closed the door behind her.

  “Tatyana Pavlovna, don’t you expect Andrey Petrovitch today or to-morrow, then? I am alarmed. . . .”

  “Hold your tongue. Much it matters your being alarmed. Tell me, tell me what you kept back when you were telling us about that rigmarole last night!”

  I didn’t think it necessary to conceal it, and feeling almost irritated with Versilov I told her all about Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter to him the day before and of the effect of the letter, that is of his resurrection into a new life. To my amazement the fact of the letter did not surprise her in the least, and I guessed that she knew of it already.

  “But you are lying.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I dare say,” she smiled malignantly, as though meditating: “risen again, has he, so that’s the latest, is it? But is it true that he kissed her portrait?”

  “Yes, Tatyana Pavlovna.”

  “Did he kiss it with feeling, he wasn’t putting it on?”

  “Putting it on, as though he ever did! For shame, Tatyana Pavlovna; you’ve a coarse soul, a woman’s soul.”

  I said this with heat; but she did not seem to hear me; she seemed to be pondering something again, in spite of the terrible chilliness of the stairs. I had on my fur coat, but she was in her indoor dress.

  “I might have asked you to do something, the only pity is you’re so stupid,” she said with contempt and apparent vexation. “Listen, go to Anna Andreyevna’s, and see what’s going on there. . . . But no, don’t go; a booby’s always a booby! Go along, quick march, why do you stand like a post?”

  “And I’m not going to Anna Andreyevna’s. Anna Andreyevna sent to ask me herself.”

  “She did? Darya Onisimovna?” she turned to me quickly; she had been on the point of going away, and had already opened the door, but she shut it again with a slam.

  “Nothing will induce me to go to Anna Andreyevna’s,” I repeated with spiteful enjoyment; “I won’t go because I’ve just been called a booby, though I’ve never been so sharp-sighted as to-day. I see all you’re doing, it’s as clear as day, but I’m not going to Anna Andreyevna all the same!”

  “I know it,” she exclaimed, but again pursuing her own thoughts, and taking no notice of my words at all. “They will devour her now completely, and draw her into a deadly noose.”

  “Anna Andreyevna?”

  “Fool!”

  “Then whom do you mean? Surely not Katerina Nikolaevna? What sort of deadly noose?”

  I was terribly frightened, a vague but terrible idea set my whole heart quivering. Tatyana Pavlovna looked at me searchingly.

  “What are you up to there?” she asked suddenly. “What are you meddling in there? I’ve heard something about you too, you’d better look out!”

  “Listen, Tatyana Pavlovna, I’ll tell you a terrible secret, only not just now, there’s not time now, but to-morrow, when we’re alone; but in return you tell me the whole truth, how and what you mean by a deadly noose, for I am all in a tremble. . . .”

  “Much I care for your trembling,” she exclaimed. “What’s this other secret you want to tell to-morrow? Why, you know nothing whatever!” she transfixed me with a questioning look. “Why, you swore then that Kraft had burnt the letter, didn’t you?”

  “Tatyana Pavlovna, I tell you again, don’t torment me,” I persisted in my t
urn, not answering her question, for I was beside myself. “Take care, Tatyana Pavlovna, that your hiding this from me may not lead to something worse . . . why, yesterday he was absolutely turning over a new leaf!”

  “Go along, you idiot! you are like a love-sick sparrow yourself, I’ll be bound; father and son in love with the same idol! Foo, horrid creatures!”

  She vanished, slamming the door indignantly. Furious at the impudent, shameless cynicism of these last words, a cynicism of which only a woman would have been capable, I ran away, deeply insulted. But I won’t describe my vague sensations as I have vowed to keep to facts which will explain everything now; on my way of course, I called in at his lodging, and heard from the nurse that he had not been home at all.

  “And isn’t he coming at all?”

  “Goodness knows.”

  3

  Facts, facts! . . . But will the reader understand? I remember how these facts overwhelmed me and prevented me from thinking clearly, so that by the end of the day my head was in a perfect whirl. And so I think I must say two or three words by way of introduction.

  The question that tormented me was this: if he really had gone through a spiritual change and had ceased to love her, in that case where should he have been now? The answer was: first of all with me whom he had embraced the evening before, and next with mother, whose portrait he had kissed. And yet, in spite of these natural alternatives, he had suddenly, “as soon as it was light,” left home and gone off somewhere, and Darya Onisimovna had for some reason babbled of his not being likely to return. What’s more, Liza had hinted at the “last chapter” of some “same old story,” and of mother’s having some news of him, and the latest news, too; moreover, they undoubtedly knew of Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter, too (I noticed that), and yet they did not believe in “his resurrection into a new life” though they had listened to me attentively. Mother was crushed, and Tatyana Pavlovna had been diabolically sarcastic at the word “resurrection.” But if all this was so, it must mean that some revulsion of feeling had come over him again in the night, another crisis, and this — after yesterday’s enthusiasm, emotion, pathos! So all his “resurrection” had burst like a soap-bubble, and he, perhaps, was rushing about somewhere again now, in the same frenzy as he had been after hearing the news of Buring! There was the question, too, what would become of mother, of me, of all of us, and . . . and, finally, what would become of HER? What was the deadly noose Tatyana had babbled of when she was sending me to Anna Andreyevna? So that “deadly noose” was there, at Anna Andreyevna’s! Why at Anna Andreyevna’s? Of course I should run to Anna Andreyevna’s; I had said that I wouldn’t go on purpose, only in annoyance; I would run there at once, but what was it Tatyana had said about the “document”? And hadn’t he himself said to me the evening before: “Burn the document”?

  These were my thoughts, this was what strangled me, too, in a deadly noose; but what I wanted most of all was HIM. With him I could have decided everything — I felt that; we should have understood each other in two words! I should have gripped his hands, pressed them; I should have found burning words in my heart — this was the dream that haunted me. Oh, I would have calmed his frenzy. . . . But where was he? Where was he?

  And, as though this were not enough, Lambert must needs turn up at such a moment, when I was so excited! When I was only a few steps from my door I met him; he uttered a yell of delight on seeing me, and seized me by the arm.

  “I’ve been to see you thr-r-ree times already. . . . Enfin! come and have lunch.”

  “Stay, have you been to my rooms; was Andrey Petrovitch there?”

  “No, there was no one there. Dr-r-rop them all! You’re a fool, you were cross yesterday; you were drunk, and I’ve something important to tell you; I heard a splendid piece of news this morning, about what we were discussing yesterday. . . .”

  “Lambert,” I interrupted hurriedly, breathing hard and unconsciously declaiming a little. “I am only stopping with you now to finish with you for good. I told you yesterday, but you still won’t understand. Lambert, you’re a baby and as stupid as a Frenchman. You persist in thinking that it’s the same as it was at Touchard’s, and that I’m as stupid as at Touchard’s. . . . But I’m not so silly as I was at Touchard’s. . . . I was drunk yesterday, but not from wine, but because I was excited; and if I seemed to agree with the stuff you talked, it was because I pretended, so as to find out what you were driving at. I deceived you, and you were delighted and believed it and went on talking nonsense. Let me tell you that marrying her is such nonsense that it wouldn’t take in a schoolboy in the first form. How could you imagine I should believe it? Did you believe it? You believed it because you have never been in aristocratic society, and don’t know how things are done among decent people. Things aren’t done so simply in aristocratic society, and it’s not possible for her so simply to go and get married. . . . Now I will tell you plainly what it is you want: you mean to entice me, so as to make me drunk, and to get me to give up the document, and to join you in some scoundrelly plot against Katerina Nikolaevna! So I tell you it’s nonsense! I’ll never come to you. And you may as well know that to-morrow or the day after that letter will be in her own hands, for it belongs to her, for it was written by her, and I’ll give it to her myself, and if you care to know where, I can tell you that through Tatyana Pavlovna, her friend, I shall give it at Tatyana Pavlovna’s, and in Tatyana Pavlovna’s presence, and I’ll take nothing from her for giving it her. And now be off and keep away from me for ever, or else . . . or else, I shan’t treat you so civilly next time, Lambert. . . .”

  As I finished I was in a slight shudder all over. A very serious thing and the nastiest habit in life, which vitiates everything in all one does, is . . . is showing off. Some evil spirit prompted me to work myself up with Lambert, till rapping out the words with relish, and raising my voice higher and higher, in my heat I ended up by dragging in the quite unnecessary detail, that I should return the document through Tatyana Pavlovna, and in her lodging! But I had such a longing to crush him! When I burst out so directly about the letter, and suddenly saw his stupid alarm, I immediately felt a desire to overwhelm him by giving him precise details. And this womanish, boastful babbling was afterwards the cause of terrible misfortunes, for that detail about Tatyana Pavlovna and her lodging was naturally caught up and retained by a scoundrel who had a practical mind for little things; in more exalted and important matters he was useless and unintelligent, but for such trifles he had a keen sense, nevertheless. If I had held my tongue about Tatyana Pavlovna, great disasters would not have occurred. Yet when he heard what I said, for the first minute he was terribly upset.

  “Listen,” he muttered. “Alphonsine . . . Alphonsine will sing. . . . Alphonsine has been to see HER; listen. I have a letter, almost a letter, in which Mme. Ahmakov writes of you; the pock-marked fellow got it for me, do you remember him — and you will see, you will see, come along!”

  “You are lying; show me the letter!”

  “It’s at home, Alphonsine has got it; come along!”

  He was lying and talking wildly, of course, trembling for fear I should run away from him; but I suddenly abandoned him in the middle of the street, and when he seemed disposed to follow me I stood still and shook my fist at him. But he already stood hesitating, and let me get away; perhaps a new plan had dawned upon him. But the meetings and surprises in store for me were not yet over. . . . And when I remember the whole of that disastrous day, it always seems as though all those surprises and unforeseen accidents were somehow conspiring together and were showered on my head from some accursed horn of plenty. I had scarcely opened the door of my lodging when in the entry I jostled against a tall young man, of dignified and elegant exterior with a long pale face, wearing a magnificent fur coat. He had a pince-nez on his nose; but as soon as he saw me he took it off (evidently as a mark of politeness), and courteously lifting his top-hat, but without stopping, however, said to me with an elegant smile: “Hullo, bonso
ir,” and passing me went downstairs. We recognized each other at once, though I had only once seen him for a moment in Moscow. It was Anna Andreyevna’s brother, the young kammer-junker, Versilov’s son, and consequently almost my brother. He was accompanied by my landlady. (The landlord was not yet back from his office.) As soon as he had gone, I simply pounced on her:

  “What has he been doing here? Has he been in my room?”

  “He’s not been in your room at all. He came to see me . . ,” she snapped out briefly and dryly, and returned to her room.

  “No, you can’t put me off like that,” I cried. “Kindly answer me; why did he come?”

  “My goodness! Am I always to tell you why people come to see me? We may have our own interests to consider, mayn’t we? The young man may have wanted to borrow money; he found out an address from me. Perhaps I promised it him last time. . . .”

  “Last time? When?”

  “Oh my goodness, why it’s not the first time he’s been!”

  She went away. The chief thing I gathered was the change of tone. They had begun to be rude to me. It was clear that this was another secret; secrets were accumulating with every step, with every hour. For the first time young Versilov had come with his sister, with Anna Andreyevna, when I was ill; I remember that perfectly, as well as Anna Andreyevna’s amazing words the day before, that, perhaps, the old prince would stay at my rooms. . . . But all this was so mixed up and so monstrous that I could scarcely gather anything from it. Clapping my hands to my forehead, and not even sitting down to rest, I ran to Anna Andreyevna’s; it appeared that she was not at home, and I received from the porter the information that “she had gone to Tsarskoe; and might, perhaps, not be back till about this time to-morrow.”

  She was at Tsarskoe, and no doubt with the old prince, and her brother was examining my lodgings! “No, that shall not be,” I cried, gnashing my teeth; “and if there really is some ‘deadly noose’ I will defend ‘the poor woman’!”