The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “Generally, I couldn’t gather much from what Mr. Stebelkov said,” I concluded about Stebelkov. “He speaks somehow confusedly . . . and there seemed to be something light-minded in him . . .”

  Vasin immediately assumed a serious look.

  “He indeed has no gift of eloquence, but that’s only at first sight. He has managed to make extremely apt observations; and generally—these are more people of business, of affairs, than of generalizing thought; they should be judged from that angle . . .”

  Exactly as I had guessed earlier.

  “Anyhow he acted up terribly at your neighbors’, and God knows how it might have ended.”

  About the neighbors, Vasin told me that they had lived there for about three weeks and had come from somewhere in the provinces; that their room was extremely small, and everything indicated that they were very poor; that they were sitting and waiting for something. He didn’t know that the young one had advertised in the newspapers as a teacher, but he had heard that Versilov had visited them; this had happened while he was away, and the landlady had told him. The neighbors, on the contrary, avoided everybody, even the landlady herself. In the last few days he had begun to notice that something was indeed not right with them, but there had been no such scenes as today’s. All this talk of ours about the neighbors I recall now with a view to what followed; meanwhile a dead silence reigned behind their door. Vasin listened with particular interest when I said that Stebelkov thought it necessary to talk with the landlady about them, and that he had twice repeated, “You’ll see, you’ll see!”

  “And you will see,” Vasin added, “that it didn’t come into his head for nothing; he has a very keen eye in that regard.”

  “So, then, in your opinion, the landlady should be advised to throw them out?”

  “No, I’m not saying they should be thrown out, but so that some sort of story doesn’t happen . . . However, all such stories end one way or another . . . Let’s drop it.”

  As for Versilov’s visit to the women, he resolutely refused to offer any conclusion.

  “Everything is possible; the man felt money in his pocket . . . However, it’s also probable that he simply offered charity; it suits his tradition, and maybe also his inclination.”

  I told him what Stebelkov had babbled that day about the “nursing baby.”

  “Stebelkov in this case is completely mistaken,” Vasin said with particular seriousness and particular emphasis (and that I remember all too well).

  “Stebelkov,” he went on, “sometimes trusts all too much in his practical sense, and because of that rushes to a conclusion in accordance with his logic, which is often quite perspicacious; yet the event may in fact have a much more fantastic and unexpected coloration, considering the characters involved. And so it happened here: having partial knowledge of the matter, he concluded that the baby belongs to Versilov; however, the baby is not Versilov’s.”

  I latched on to him, and here is what I learned, to my great astonishment: the baby was Prince Sergei Sokolsky’s. Lydia Akhmakov, either owing to her illness, or simply because of her fantastic character, sometimes behaved like a crazy woman. She became infatuated with the prince still before Versilov, and the prince “had no qualms about accepting her love,” as Vasin put it. The liaison lasted only a moment: they quarreled, as is already known, and Lydia chased the prince away, “of which, it seems, the man was glad.”

  “She was a very strange girl,” Vasin added, “it’s even very possible that she was not always in her right mind. But, as he was leaving for Paris, the prince had no idea of the condition in which he had left his victim, and he didn’t know it to the very end, until his return. Versilov, having become the young person’s friend, offered to marry her precisely in view of the emergent circumstance (which it seems the parents did not suspect almost to the end). The enamored girl was delighted, and saw in Versilov’s proposal ‘not only his self-sacrifice,’ which, however, she also appreciated. However, he certainly knew how to do it,” Vasin added. “The baby, a girl, was born a month or six weeks before term, was placed somewhere in Germany, then Versilov took it back, and it is now somewhere in Russia, maybe in Petersburg.”

  “And the phosphorus matches?”

  “I know nothing about that,” concluded Vasin. “Lydia Akhmakov died two weeks after the delivery; what happened there—I don’t know. The prince, only just returned from Paris, found out that there was a baby, and, it seems, did not believe at first that it was his . . . Generally, the story is kept secret on all sides even to this day.”

  “But how about this prince!” I cried in indignation. “How about the way he behaved with the sick girl!”

  “She wasn’t so sick then . . . Besides, she chased him away herself . . . True, maybe he was unnecessarily quick to take advantage of his dismissal.”

  “You vindicate such a scoundrel?”

  “No, I merely don’t call him a scoundrel. There’s much else here besides direct meanness. Generally, it’s a very ordinary affair.”

  “Tell me, Vasin, did you know him closely? I’d especially like to trust your opinion, in view of a circumstance that concerns me greatly.”

  But here Vasin’s answers became somehow all too restrained. He knew the prince, but with obvious deliberateness he said nothing about the circumstances under which he had made his acquaintance. Next he said that his character was such that he merited a certain indulgence. “He’s full of honest inclinations and he’s impressionable, but he possesses neither the sense nor the strength of will to sufficiently control his desires. He’s an uneducated man; there is a host of ideas and phenomena that are beyond him, and yet he throws himself upon them. For instance, he would insistently maintain something like this: ‘I am a prince and a descendant of Rurik,54 but why shouldn’t I be a shoemaker’s apprentice, if I have to earn my bread and am incapable of doing anything else? My shingle will say: “Prince So-and-so, Shoemaker”—it’s even noble.’ He’ll say it, and he’ll do it—that’s the main thing,” Vasin added, “and yet there’s no strength of conviction here, but just the most light-minded impressionability. But afterwards repentance would undoubtedly come, and then he would always be ready for some totally contrary extreme; and so for his whole life. In our age many people come a cropper like that,” Vasin concluded, “precisely because they were born in our time.”

  I involuntarily fell to thinking.

  “Is it true that he was thrown out of his regiment earlier?” I inquired.

  “I don’t know if he was thrown out, but he did indeed leave the regiment on account of some unpleasantness. Is it known to you that last autumn, precisely being retired, he spent two or three months in Luga?”

  “I . . . I knew that you were living in Luga then.”

  “Yes, I, too, for a while. The prince was also acquainted with Lizaveta Makarovna.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know. I confess, I’ve spoken so little with my sister . . . But can it be that he was received in my mother’s house?” I cried.

  “Oh, no. He was too distantly acquainted, through a third house.”

  “Yes, what was it my sister told me about this baby? Wasn’t the baby in Luga as well?”

  “For a while.”

  “And where is it now?”

  “Undoubtedly in Petersburg.”

  “Never in my life will I believe,” I cried in extreme agitation, “that my mother participated in any way in this story with this Lydia!”

  “Apart from all these intrigues, which I don’t undertake to sort out, the personal role of Versilov in this story had nothing particularly reprehensible about it,” Vasin observed, smiling condescendingly. It was apparently becoming hard for him to speak with me, only he didn’t let it show.

  “Never, never will I believe,” I cried again, “that a woman could give up her husband to another woman, that I will not believe! . . . I swear that my mother did not participate in it!”

  “It seems, however, that she didn’t oppose it.”

&
nbsp; “In her place, out of pride alone, I wouldn’t have opposed it!”

  “For my part, I absolutely refuse to judge in such a matter,” Vasin concluded.

  Indeed, Vasin, for all his intelligence, may have had no notion of women, so that a whole cycle of ideas and phenomena remained unknown to him. I fell silent. Vasin was working temporarily in a joint-stock company, and I knew that he brought work home. To my insistent question, he confessed that he had work then, too, some accounts, and I warmly begged him not to stand on ceremony with me. That seemed to afford him pleasure; but before sitting down with his papers, he began to make a bed for me on the sofa. First of all he tried to yield me his bed, but when I didn’t accept, that also seemed to please him. He obtained a pillow and a blanket from the landlady. Vasin was extremely polite and amiable, but it was somehow hard for me to see him going to such trouble on my account. I had liked it better when once, about three weeks ago, I had chanced to spend the night on the Petersburg side, at Efim’s. I remember him concocting a bed for me, also on a sofa and in secret from his aunt, supposing for some reason that she would get angry on learning that his comrades came to spend the night. We laughed a lot, spread out a shirt instead of a sheet, and folded an overcoat for a pillow. I remember Zverev, when he had finished work, giving the sofa a loving flick and saying to me:

  “Vous dormirez comme un petit roi.”29

  Both his stupid gaiety and the French phrase, which suited him like a saddle on a cow, had the result that I slept with extreme pleasure then at this buffoon’s place. As for Vasin, I was extremely glad when he finally sat down to work, his back turned to me. I sprawled on the sofa and, looking at his back, thought long and about much.

  III

  AND THERE WAS plenty to think about. My soul was very troubled, and there was nothing whole in it; but some sensations stood out very definitely, though no one of them drew me fully to itself, owing to their abundance. Everything flashed somehow without connection or sequence, and I remember that I myself had no wish to stop at anything or introduce any sequence. Even the idea of Kraft moved imperceptibly into the background. What excited me most of all was my own situation, that here I had already “broken away,” and my suitcase was with me, and I wasn’t at home, and was beginning everything entirely anew. Just as if up to now all my intentions and preparations had been a joke, and only “now, suddenly and, above all, unexpectedly, everything had begun in reality.” This idea heartened me and, however troubled my soul was about many things, cheered me up. But . . . but there were other sensations as well; one of them especially wanted to distinguish itself from the others and take possession of my soul, and, strangely, this sensation also heartened me, as if summoning me to something terribly gay. It began, however, with fear: I had been afraid for a long while, since that very moment earlier when, in my fervor and taken unawares, I had told Mme. Akhmakov too much about the document. “Yes, I said too much,” I thought, “and perhaps they’ll guess something . . . that’s bad! Naturally, they won’t leave me in peace if they begin to suspect, but . . . let them! Perhaps they won’t even find me—I’ll hide! But what if they really start running after me . . .” And then I began to recall down to the last detail and with growing pleasure how I had stood before Katerina Nikolaevna and how her bold but terribly astonished eyes had looked straight at me. And I had gone out leaving her in that astonishment, I recalled; “her eyes are not quite black, however . . . only her eyelashes are very black, that’s what makes her eyes, too, look so dark . . .”

  And suddenly, I remember, it became terribly loathsome for me to recall . . . and I was vexed and sickened, both at them and at myself. I reproached myself for something and tried to think about other things. “Why is it that I don’t feel the least indignation at Versilov for the story with the woman next door?” suddenly came into my head. For my part, I was firmly convinced that his role here had been amorous and that he had come in order to have some fun, but that in itself did not make me indignant. It even seemed to me that he couldn’t be imagined otherwise, and though I really was glad that he had been disgraced, I didn’t blame him. That was not important for me. What was important for me was that he had looked at me so angrily when I came in with the woman, looked at me as he never had before. “He finally looked at me seriously!” I thought, and my heart stood still. Oh, if I hadn’t loved him, I wouldn’t have been so glad of his hatred!

  I finally dozed off and fell sound asleep. I only remember through my sleep that Vasin, having finished his work, put things away neatly, gave my sofa an intent look, undressed, and blew out the candle. It was past midnight.

  IV

  ALMOST EXACTLY TWO hours later I awoke with a start like a halfwit and sat up on my sofa. Dreadful cries, weeping and howling, were coming from behind the neighbors’ door. Our door was wide open, and in the already lighted corridor people were shouting and running. I was about to call Vasin, but guessed that he was no longer in bed. Not knowing where to find matches, I felt for my clothes and hurriedly began to dress in the darkness. The landlady, and maybe also the tenants, had obviously come running to the neighbors’ room. One voice was screaming, however, that of the elderly woman, while yesterday’s youthful voice, which I remembered only too well, was completely silent; I remember that that was the first thought that came to my head then. Before I had time to dress, Vasin came hurrying in; instantly, with an accustomed hand, he found the matches and lighted the room. He was only in his underwear, dressing gown, and slippers, and he immediately began to dress.

  “What’s happened?” I cried to him.

  “A most unpleasant and troublesome business!” he replied almost angrily. “This young neighbor, the one you were telling me about, has hanged herself in her room.”

  I let out a cry. I can’t convey how much my heart was wrung! We ran out to the corridor. I confess, I didn’t dare go into the women’s room, and I saw the unfortunate girl only later, when she had been taken down, and then, to tell the truth, at some distance, covered with a sheet, from under which the two narrow soles of her shoes stuck out. For some reason I never looked at her face. The mother was in a dreadful state; our landlady was with her, not much frightened, however. All the tenants of the apartments came crowding around. There weren’t many: only one elderly sailor, always very gruff and demanding, though now he became very quiet; and some people from Tver province, an old man and woman, husband and wife, quite respectable and civil-service people. I won’t describe the rest of that night, the fuss, and then the official visits; till dawn I literally shivered and considered it my duty not to go to bed, though, anyhow, I didn’t do anything. And everybody had an extremely brisk look, even somehow especially brisk. Vasin even drove off somewhere. The landlady turned out to be a rather respectable woman, much better than I had supposed her to be. I persuaded her (and I put it down to my credit) that the mother couldn’t be left like that, alone with her daughter’s corpse, and that she should take her to her room at least till the next day. She agreed at once and, no matter how the mother thrashed and wept, refusing to leave the corpse, in the end, nevertheless, she still moved in with the landlady, who at once ordered the samovar prepared. After that, the tenants went to their rooms and closed the doors, but I still wouldn’t go to bed and sat for a long time at the landlady’s, who was even glad of an extra person, and one who could, for his part, tell a thing or two about the matter. The samovar proved very useful, and generally the samovar is a most necessary Russian thing, precisely in all catastrophes and misfortunes, especially terrible, unexpected, and eccentric ones; even the mother had two cups, of course after extreme entreaties and almost by force. And yet, sincerely speaking, I had never seen more bitter and outright grief than when I looked at this unfortunate woman. After the first bursts of sobbing and hysterics, she even began speaking eagerly, and I listened greedily to her account. There are unfortunate people, especially among women, for whom it is even necessary that they be allowed to speak as much as possible in such cases. Besi
des, there are characters that are, so to speak, all too worn down by grief, who have suffered all their lives long, who have endured extremely much both from great griefs and from constant little ones, and whom nothing can surprise anymore, no sort of unexpected catastrophes, and who, above all, even before the coffin of the most beloved being, do not forget a single one of the so-dearly-paid-for rules of ingratiating behavior with people. And I don’t condemn them; it’s not the banality of egoism or coarseness of development; in these hearts maybe one can find even more gold than in the most noble-looking heroines; but the habit of longtime abasement, the instinct of self-preservation, a long intimidation and inhibition finally take their toll. The poor suicide did not resemble her mother in this. Their faces, however, seemed to resemble each other, though the dead girl was positively not bad-looking. The mother was not yet a very old woman, only about fifty, also blond, but with hollow eyes and cheeks, and with big, uneven yellow teeth. And everything in her had some tinge of yellowness: the skin of her face and hands was like parchment; her dark dress was so threadbare that it also looked quite yellow; and the nail on the index finger of her right hand was, I don’t know why, plastered over thoroughly and neatly with yellow wax.