“How can I prove that I’m not a thief? Is it possible now? Shall I go to America? Well, what would I prove by that? Versilov will be the first to believe that I stole! My ‘idea’? What ‘idea’? What of that now? In fifty years, in a hundred years, I’ll be walking along, and a man will always turn up who will point at me and say: ‘Look at that thief. He began his “idea” by stealing money at roulette’. . .”
Was there anger in me? I don’t know, maybe there was. Strangely, there had always been this feature in me, maybe ever since earliest childhood: once evil had been done to me, fulfilled to the utmost, and I had been offended to the final limits, there always appeared in me at once an unquenchable desire to submit passively to the offense and even to outstrip the offender’s desires: “There, you’ve humiliated me, so I’ll humiliate myself still more, look here, admire!” Touchard used to beat me and wanted to show that I was a lackey and not a senator’s son, and so I myself at once entered into the role of lackey then. I not only helped him to dress, but would seize the brush myself and begin brushing the last specks of dust off him, without any request or order from him, sometimes ran after him, in the heat of my lackey zeal, to brush off some last speck of dust from his tailcoat, so that he himself sometimes stopped me: “Enough, enough, Arkady, enough.” He used to come and take off his street clothes—and I would clean them, fold them carefully, and cover them with a checked silk handkerchief. I knew that my comrades laughed and despised me for that, I knew it perfectly well, but that was what I liked: “You wanted me to be a lackey, well, so I’m a lackey, a boor—yes, a boor.” I could keep up this passive hatred and underground spite for years. And what then? At Zershchikov’s I had shouted to the whole hall, in complete frenzy: “I shall denounce you all, roulette is forbidden by law!” And I swear that here, too, there was something as if similar: I had been humiliated, searched, declared a thief, destroyed—“well, then know, all of you, that you’ve guessed right, I’m not only a thief, I’m an informer as well!” Recalling it now, I sum it up and explain it in precisely that way; but then I couldn’t be bothered with analyzing; then I shouted without any intention; even a moment before, I hadn’t known I’d shout that; it shouted itself—there was that streak in my soul.
While I ran, the delirium was undoubtedly already starting, but I remember very well that I was acting consciously. And yet I will say firmly that there was a whole cycle of ideas and conclusions that was impossible for me then; even in those minutes, I felt about myself that “certain thoughts I can have, but others I can’t possibly have.” So, too, certain of my decisions, though made with clear awareness, might not have the least logic in them. Not only that: I remember very well that at some moments I could be fully aware of the absurdity of some decision, and at the same time, with full awareness, set about realizing it. Yes, a crime was hatching that night, and it is only by chance that it wasn’t committed.
Tatyana Pavlovna’s phrase about Versilov suddenly flashed in me then: “He should go to the Nikolaevsky railroad and lay his head on the rails: he’d get it lopped off for him.” This thought momentarily took hold of all my feelings, but I instantly and painfully drove it away: “I’ll lay my head on the rails and die, and tomorrow they’ll say: he did it because he stole, he did it out of shame—no, not for anything!” And then, at that moment, I remember, I suddenly felt an instant of terrible anger. “What then?” raced through my mind. “There’s no way I can vindicate myself, to start a new life is also impossible, and so—submit, become a lackey, a dog, an insect, an informer, a real informer now, but at the same time quietly make preparations, and one day—blow it all sky high, destroy everything, everybody—the guilty and the not-guilty, and then suddenly they’ll all find out that it’s the same one they called a thief . . . and only then kill myself.”
I don’t remember how I ran into a lane somewhere near the Konnogvardeisky Boulevard. In this lane there were high stone walls on both sides, for almost a hundred paces—the enclosures of backyards. Behind one wall to the left I saw an enormous woodpile, a long woodpile, as in a lumberyard, and higher than the wall by some seven feet. I suddenly stopped and began to ponder. In my pocket I had wax matches in a small silver matchbox. I repeat, I was fully and distinctly aware then of what I was pondering and what I wanted to do, as I am in recollecting it now, but why I wanted to do it—I have no idea, none at all. I only remember that I suddenly wanted it very much. “It’s very possible to climb onto the wall,” I reasoned. Just two steps away there was a gate in the wall, which must have been tightly shut for months. “If I step on the ledge below,” I reflected further, “I can get hold of the top of the gate and climb onto the wall—and nobody will notice, there’s nobody here, silence! And then I’ll sit on top of the wall and set fire to the wood quite excellently, possibly even without getting down, because the wood is almost touching the wall. It will burn still better from the cold, all I have to do is take one birch log . . . and there’s even no need to take a log: simply sit on the wall, peel some bark off a birch log with my hand, and set fire to it with a match, set fire to it, and shove it between the logs—and there’s your fire. And I’ll jump down and leave; there’s even no need to run, because they won’t notice for a long time . . .” So I reasoned it all out and—suddenly became quite decided. I felt extreme pleasure, delight, and began to climb. I was an excellent climber: gymnastics had been my specialty back in high school, but I was wearing galoshes, and the thing proved difficult. Nevertheless I did manage to get hold of a barely perceptible ledge above and pull myself up, while swinging my other arm to grab at the top of the wall, but here I suddenly lost hold and fell backwards. I suppose I hit the ground with the back of my head and must have lain unconscious for a minute or two. Coming to, I mechanically wrapped myself in my fur coat, suddenly feeling unbearably cold, and, still not fully conscious of what I was doing, crawled into the corner of the gateway and sat down there, huddling and crouching in the nook between the gate and the projecting wall. My thoughts were confused, and I probably dozed off very quickly. I now remember as if through sleep that a deep, heavy bell suddenly rang in my ears, and I began listening to it with delight.
II
THE BELL STRUCK firmly and distinctly once every two or even three seconds, but it was not a tocsin, but some pleasant, smooth ringing, and I suddenly realized that it was familiar, that it was ringing in the red church of St. Nicholas opposite Touchard’s—the ancient Moscow church that I remember so well, built in the time of Alexei Mikhailovich,30 fretty, many-domed, and “all in pillars,” and that Holy Week31 was just over, and the newborn little green leaves were already trembling on the scrawny birches in the front garden of Touchard’s house. The bright late-afternoon sun is pouring its slanting rays into our classroom, and in my little room to the left, where Touchard had put me a year before, away from the “princely and senatorial children,” a visitor is sitting. Yes, I, the kinless one, suddenly have a visitor—for the first time since I’ve been at Touchard’s. I recognized this visitor as soon as she came in: it was mama, though I hadn’t seen her even once since the time she brought me to communion in the village church and the dove flew across the cupola. We were sitting together, and I was watching her strangely. Afterwards, many years later, I learned that, having been left then without Versilov, who had suddenly gone abroad, she had come to Moscow on her own pitiful means, without leave, almost in secret from those who were then charged with taking care of her, and had done it solely in order to see me. Another strange thing was that, having come in and spoken with Touchard, she had not even said a word to me about being my mother. She sat by me and, I remember, I was even surprised that she spoke so little. She had a small bundle with her, and she untied it: there were six oranges in it, several gingerbreads, and two loaves of ordinary French bread. I was offended by the French bread and, with a wounded look, replied that our “food” here was very good and that we were given a whole loaf of French bread with tea every day.
“Never m
ind, darling, I just thought in my simplicity, ‘Maybe they feed them poorly in that school.’ Don’t hold it against me, dearest.”
“And Antonina Vassilievna” (Touchard’s wife) “will be offended. My comrades will also laugh at me . . .”
“Don’t you want to take them, maybe you’ll eat them?”
“Leave them, if you like, ma’am . . .”
I didn’t even touch the treats; the oranges and gingerbreads lay in front of me on the little table, and I sat looking down, but with a great air of personal dignity. Who knows, maybe I also wanted very much not to conceal from her that her visit even shamed me in the eyes of my comrades; to show it to her at least a little, so that she’d understand: “You see, you shame me and don’t even understand it yourself.” Oh, I was already running after Touchard with a brush then, whisking specks of dust off him! I also pictured how much mockery I’d have to endure from the boys as soon as she left, and maybe from Touchard himself—and there was not the slightest kind feeling for her in my heart. I only looked out of the corner of my eye at her dark old dress, her rather coarse, almost working-woman’s hands, her completely coarse shoes, and her very thin face; little wrinkles already ran across her forehead, though Antonina Vassilievna told me later in the evening, when she had left: “Your maman must have been very good-looking once.”
We were sitting like that, and suddenly Agafya came in with a cup of coffee on a tray. It was after dinner, and the Touchards always had coffee in their living room at that time. But mama thanked her and did not take the cup: as I learned later, she didn’t drink coffee at all then, because it gave her heart palpitations. The thing was that to themselves the Touchards probably considered her visit and the permission for her to see me an extraordinary indulgence on their part, so that the cup of coffee they sent to mama was, so to say, a deed of humaneness, comparatively speaking, which did extraordinary credit to their civilized feelings and European notions. And, as if on purpose, mama refused it.
I was summoned to Touchard, and he told me to take all my books and notebooks to show mama: “So that she can see how much you’ve managed to acquire in my institution.” Here Antonina Vassilievna, pursing her lips, said to me for her part, touchily and mockingly, through her teeth:
“It seems your maman didn’t like our coffee.”
I gathered a pile of notebooks and carried them to my waiting mama, past the “princely and senatorial children,” who were crowding in the classroom and spying on mama and me. And I even liked fulfilling Touchard’s order with literal precision. I methodically began to open my notebooks and explain, “This is a lesson in French grammar, this is an exercise from dictation, here is the conjugation of the auxiliary verbs avoir and être , here’s something from geography, a description of the major cities of Europe and all parts of the world,” and so on, and so forth. For half an hour or more I went on explaining in an even little voice, looking down like a well-behaved boy. I knew that mama understood nothing in my studies, maybe couldn’t even write, but it was here that my role pleased me. But I couldn’t weary her—she went on listening without interrupting me, with extraordinary attention and even awe, so that I myself finally became bored and stopped; her look was sad, however, and there was something pitiful in her face.
She finally got up to leave. Suddenly Touchard himself came in and, with a foolishly important air, asked her: “Was she pleased with her son’s progress?” Mama began murmuring and thanking him incoherently; Antonina Vassilievna came in, too. Mama started asking them both “not to abandon the little orphan, he’s the same as an orphan now, be his benefactors . . .” and with tears in her eyes she bowed to them both, each separately, with a deep bow, precisely as “simple folk” bow when they come to ask important people about something. The Touchards weren’t even expecting that, and Antonina Vassilievna was visibly softened and, of course, at once changed her conclusion about the cup of coffee. Touchard, with increased importance, replied humanely that he “made no distinction among the children, that here they were all his children, and he their father, and that he held me on almost the same footing with princely and senatorial children, and that that should be appreciated,” and so on, and so forth. Mama only kept bowing, but with embarrassment, finally turned to me, and with tears glistening in her eyes, said, “Good-bye, darling!”
And she kissed me—that is, I allowed myself to be kissed. She obviously would have liked to kiss me again and again, to embrace me, to hug me, but whether she was ashamed to do it in front of people, or was bitter about something else, or realized that I was ashamed of her, in any case, having bowed once more to the Touchards, she hastily started for the door. I just stood there.
“Mais suivez donc votre mère,” said Antonina Vassilievna. “Il n’a pas de coeur cet enfant!”50
Touchard shrugged his shoulders in reply, which, of course, signified: “It’s not for nothing I treat him as a lackey.”
I obediently followed mama downstairs; we went out to the porch. I knew they were now all watching from the window. Mama turned to the church and crossed herself deeply three times before it, her lips twitched, the bell tolled densely and measuredly from the belfry. She turned to me and—couldn’t help herself, she laid both hands on my head and wept over it.
“Mama, come on . . . it’s shameful . . . they can see me from the window . . .”
She roused herself and began to hurry:
“Well, the Lord . . . well, the Lord be with you . . . the angels in heaven, the most-pure Mother, Saint Nicholas protect you . . . Lord, Lord!” she repeated in a quick patter, crossing me all the while, trying quickly to make as many crosses as possible, “my darling, my dear. But wait, darling . . .”
She hurriedly put her hand in her pocket and took out a handkerchief, a blue checked handkerchief tightly knotted at the corner, and began to untie the knot . . . but it wouldn’t come untied . . .
“Well, it makes no difference, take it with the handkerchief, it’s clean, maybe you can use it, there are maybe four twenty-kopeck pieces in it, maybe you’ll need it, forgive me, darling, it’s all I have . . . forgive me, darling.”
I accepted the handkerchief, was about to observe that we “were very well kept here by Mr. Touchard and Antonina Vassilievna, and that we didn’t need anything,” but I restrained myself and took the handkerchief.
Once more she crossed me, once more she whispered some prayer, and suddenly—and suddenly she bowed to me, too, just as she had to the Touchards upstairs—a deep, long, slow bow—I’ll never forget it! I just shuddered, and didn’t know why myself. What did she mean to say by this bow: that she “acknowledged her guilt before me,” as I once thought up long afterwards? I don’t know. But then I at once felt still more ashamed, because “they were watching from up there, and Lambert might even start beating me.”
She finally left. The princely and senatorial children had eaten the oranges and gingerbreads before I came back, and Lambert took the four twenty-kopeck pieces from me at once; they bought pastry and chocolate with them in a pastry shop and didn’t even offer me any.
A whole half-year went by, and a windy and foul October came. I completely forgot about mama. Oh, by then hatred, a dull hatred for everything, had already penetrated my heart, saturating it completely; though I brushed Touchard off as before, I already hated him with all my might, and more and more every day. And it was then, once in the sad evening twilight, that I began rummaging in my little drawer for some reason, and suddenly saw her blue cambric handkerchief in the corner. It had lain like that ever since I stuffed it there then. I took it out and looked it over even with a certain curiosity; the end of the handkerchief still kept traces of the former knot and even the clearly outlined round imprint of a coin; however, I put the handkerchief back in its place and closed the drawer. It was the eve of a holiday, and the bell began ringing for the vigil. The pupils had gone home after dinner, but this time Lambert had stayed for Sunday, I don’t know why no one had sent for him. Though he still beat me
then, as before, he used to tell me a great deal, and he needed me. We talked all evening about Lepage pistols, which neither one of us had seen, about Circassian sabers and how they cut, and about how good it would be to start a band of robbers, and in the end Lambert got on to his favorite conversation about a certain smutty subject, and though I wondered to myself, I liked listening very much. But this time I suddenly couldn’t stand it, and I told him I had a headache. At ten o’clock we went to bed; I pulled the covers over my head and took the blue handkerchief from under the pillow: for some reason I had gone an hour earlier to take it from the drawer, and as soon as our beds were made, had put it under the pillow. I pressed it to my face at once and suddenly began kissing it. “Mama, mama,” I whispered, remembering, and my whole breast was clenched as in a vise. I closed my eyes and saw her face with trembling lips, when she crossed herself before the church, then crossed me, and I said to her, “It’s shameful, they’re watching.” “Mama, dearest mama, just once in my life you came to me . . . Dearest mama, where are you now, my faraway visitor? Do you remember your poor boy now, the one you came to see? . . . Show yourself to me now just one little time, come to me just only in a dream, only so I can tell you how I love you, only so I can embrace you and kiss your blue eyes, and tell you that I’m not ashamed of you at all now, and that I loved you then, too, and that my heart ached then, but I only sat there like a lackey. You’ll never know how I loved you then, mama! Dearest mama, where are you now, can you hear me? Mama, mama, do you remember the little dove, in the village? . . .”
“Ah, the devil . . . What ails him!” Lambert grumbles from his bed. “Wait, I’ll show you! Won’t let me sleep . . .” He finally jumps out of bed, runs over to me, and starts tearing the blanket off me, but I hold very, very tightly to the blanket, covering my head with it.
The Adolescent Page 43
