The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  II

  I WAS DISTURBED by the unexpected visit of Nastasya Egorovna,5 the mother of the deceased Olya. I had heard from mama that she had come twice during my illness and was very interested in my health. Whether this “good woman,” as my mother always referred to her, came specifically on my account, or was simply visiting mama, following the previously established order—I didn’t ask. Mama always told me about everything at home, usually when she came with soup to feed me (when I still couldn’t eat by myself ), in order to entertain me; while I persistently tried to show each time that this information had little interest for me, and therefore I didn’t ask for any details about Nastasya Egorovna, and even remained quite silent.

  It was around eleven o’clock. I was just about to get out of bed and move to the armchair by the table when she came in. I purposely stayed in bed. Mama was very busy with something upstairs and did not come down when she arrived, so that we suddenly found ourselves alone with each other. She sat down facing me, on a chair by the wall, smiling and not saying a word. I anticipated a game of silence; and generally her coming made a most irritating impression on me. I didn’t even nod to her and looked directly into her eyes; but she also looked directly at me.

  “It must be boring for you alone in that apartment, now that the prince is gone?” I asked suddenly, losing patience.

  “No, sir, I’m no longer in that apartment. Through Anna Andreevna, I’m now looking after his baby.”

  “Whose baby?”

  “Andrei Petrovich’s,” she said in a confidential whisper, looking back at the door.

  “But Tatyana Pavlovna’s there . . .”

  “Tatyana Pavlovna and Anna Andreevna, the both of them, sir, and Lizaveta Makarovna also, and your mother . . . everybody, sir. Everybody’s taking part. Tatyana Pavlovna and Anna Andreevna are now great friends with each other, sir.”

  News to me. She became very animated as she spoke. I looked at her with hatred.

  “You’ve become very animated since the last time you called on me.”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Grown fat, it seems.”

  She looked at me strangely.

  “I’ve come to like her very much, sir, very much.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Why, Anna Andreevna. Very much, sir. Such a noble young lady, and so sensible . . .”

  “Just so. And how is she now?”

  “She’s very calm, sir, very.”

  “She’s always been calm.”

  “Always, sir.”

  “If you’ve come to gossip,” I suddenly cried, unable to stand it, “know that I don’t meddle with anything, I’ve decided to drop . . . everything, everybody, it makes no difference to me—I’m leaving! . . .”

  I fell silent, because I came to my senses. It was humiliating to me that I had begun as if to explain my new goals to her. She listened to me without surprise and without emotion, but silence ensued again. Suddenly she got up, went to the door, and peeked out into the next room. Having made sure there was no one there and we were alone, she quite calmly came back and sat down in her former place.

  “Nicely done!” I suddenly laughed.

  “That apartment of yours, at the clerk’s, are you going to keep it, sir?” she asked suddenly, leaning towards me slightly and lowering her voice, as if this was the main question she had come for.

  “That apartment? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll vacate it . . . How do I know?”

  “And your landlords are waiting very much for you; that clerk is in great impatience, and so is his wife. Andrei Petrovich assured them that you’d certainly come back.”

  “But why did you ask?”

  “Anna Andreevna also wanted to know; she was very pleased to learn that you’re staying.”

  “And how does she know so certainly that I’ll be sure to stay in that apartment?”

  I was about to add, “And what is it to her?”—but I refrained from asking questions out of pride.

  “And Mr. Lambert confirmed the same thing to them.”

  “Wha-a-at?”

  “Mr. Lambert, sir. And to Andrei Petrovich, too, he confirmed as hard as he could that you would stay, and he assured Anna Andreevna of it.”

  I was as if all shaken. What wonders! So Lambert already knows Versilov, Lambert has penetrated as far as Versilov—Lambert and Anna Andreevna—he has penetrated as far as her! Heat came over me, but I said nothing. An awful surge of pride flooded my whole soul, pride or I don’t know what. But it was as if I suddenly said to myself at that moment, “If I ask for just one word of explanation, I’ll get mixed up with this world again and never break with it.” Hatred kindled in my heart. I resolved with all my might to keep silent and lay there motionlessly; she also fell silent for a whole minute.

  “What about Prince Nikolai Ivanovich?” I asked suddenly, as if losing my reason. The thing was that I asked decidedly in order to divert the theme, and once more, unwittingly, posed the most capital question, returning again like a madman to that same world from which I had just so convulsively resolved to flee.

  “He’s in Tsarskoe Selo, sir.6 He’s been a bit unwell, and there’s fever going around the city now, so everybody advised him to move to Tsarskoe, to his own house there, for the good air, sir.”

  I did not reply.

  “Anna Andreevna and Mme. Akhmakov visit him every three days, they go together, sir.”

  Anna Andreevna and Mme. Akhmakov (that is, she) are friends! They go together! I kept silent.

  “They’ve become such friends, sir, and Anna Andreevna speaks so well of Katerina Nikolaevna . . .”

  I still kept silent.

  “And Katerina Nikolaevna has ‘struck’ into society again, fête after fête, she quite shines; they say even all the courtiers are in love with her . . . and she’s quite abandoned everything with Mr. Bjoring, and there’ll be no wedding; everybody maintains the same . . . supposedly ever since that time.”

  That is, since Versilov’s letter. I trembled all over, but didn’t say a word.

  “Anna Andreevna is so sorry about Prince Sergei Petrovich, and Katerina Nikolaevna also, sir, and everybody says he’ll be vindicated, and the other one, Stebelkov, will be condemned . . .”

  I looked at her hatefully. She got up and suddenly bent over me.

  “Anna Andreevna especially told me to find out about your health,” she said in a complete whisper, “and very much told me to ask you to call on her as soon as you start going out. Good-bye, sir. Get well, sir, and I’ll tell her so . . .”

  She left. I sat up in bed, cold sweat broke out on my forehead, but it wasn’t fear I felt: the incomprehensible and outrageous news about Lambert and his schemes did not, for instance, fill me with horror at all, compared to the fright—maybe unaccountable—with which I had recalled, both in my illness and in the first days of recovery, my meeting with him that night. On the contrary, in that first confused moment in bed, right after Nastasya Egorovna’s departure, I didn’t even linger over Lambert, but . . . I was thrilled most of all by the news about her, about her break-up with Bjoring, and about her luck in society, about the fêtes, about her success, about her “shining.” “She shines, sir”—I kept hearing Nastasya Egorovna’s little phrase. And I suddenly felt that I did not have strength enough to struggle out of this whirl, though I had been able to restrain myself, keep silent, and not question Nastasya Egorovna after her wondrous stories! A boundless yearning for this life, their life, took all my breath away and . . . and also some other sweet yearning, which I felt to the point of happiness and tormenting pain. My thoughts were somehow spinning, but I let them spin. “What’s the point of reasoning!”—was how I felt. “Though even mama didn’t let on to me that Lambert came by,” I thought in incoherent fragments, “it was Versilov who told them not to let on . . . I’ll die before I ask Versilov about Lambert!” “ Versilov,” flashed in me again, “Versilov and Lambert—oh, so much is new with them! Bravo, Versilov! Frightened the German Bjor
ing with that letter; he slandered her; la calomnie . . . il en reste toujours quelque chose,66 and the German courtier got scared of a scandal—ha, ha . . . there’s a lesson for her!” “Lambert . . . mightn’t Lambert have gotten in with her as well? What else! Why couldn’t she get ‘connected’ with him as well?”

  Here I suddenly left off thinking all this nonsense and dropped my head back on the pillow in despair. “But that won’t be!” I exclaimed with unexpected resolution, jumped up from the bed, put on the slippers, the robe, and went straight to Makar Ivanovich’s room, as if there lay the warding off of all obsessions, salvation, an anchor I could hold on to.

  In fact it may be that I felt that thought then with all the forces of my soul; otherwise why should I jump up from my place so irrepressibly then, and in such a moral state rush to Makar Ivanovich?

  III

  BUT AT MAKAR Ivanovich’s, quite unexpectedly, I found people—mama and the doctor. Since for some reason I had imagined to myself, going there, that I would certainly find the old man alone, as the day before, I stopped on the threshold in dumb perplexity. Before I had time to frown, Versilov at once came to join them, and after him suddenly Liza as well . . . Everybody, that is, gathered for some reason at Makar Ivanovich’s and “just at the wrong time!”

  “I’ve come to inquire about your health,” I said, going straight to Makar Ivanovich.

  “Thank you, dear, I was expecting you, I knew you’d come! I thought about you during the night.”

  He looked tenderly into my eyes, and it was evident to me that he loved me almost best of all, but I instantly and involuntarily noticed that, though his face was cheerful, the illness had made progress overnight. The doctor had only just examined him quite seriously. I learned afterwards that this doctor (the same young man with whom I had quarreled and who had been treating Makar Ivanovich ever since his arrival) was quite attentive to his patient and—only I can’t speak their medical language—supposed that he had a whole complication of various illnesses. Makar Ivanovich, as I noticed at first glance, had already established the closest friendly relations with him. I instantly disliked that; but anyhow, I, too, of course, was in a bad way at that moment.

  “Indeed, Alexander Semyonovich, how is our dear patient today?” Versilov inquired. If I hadn’t been so shaken, I would have been terribly curious, first thing, to follow Versilov’s relations with this old man, which I had already thought about the day before. I was struck most of all now by the extremely soft and pleasant expression on Versilov’s face; there was something perfectly sincere in it. I have already observed, I believe, that Versilov’s face became astonishingly beautiful as soon as he turned the least bit simplehearted.

  “We keep on quarreling,” replied the doctor.

  “With Makar Ivanovich? I don’t believe it; it’s impossible to quarrel with him.”

  “He won’t obey me; he doesn’t sleep at night . . .”

  “Stop it now, Alexander Semyonovich, enough grumbling,” laughed Makar Ivanovich. “Well, Andrei Petrovich, dear heart, what have they done with our young lady? Here she’s been clucking and worrying all morning,” he added, pointing to mama.

  “Oh, Andrei Petrovich,” mama exclaimed, greatly worried indeed, “tell us quickly, don’t torment us: what did they decide about the poor thing?”

  “Our young lady has been sentenced!”

  “Oh!” mama cried out.

  “Not to Siberia, don’t worry—only to a fifteen-rouble fine. It turned into a comedy!”

  He sat down, the doctor sat down, too. They were talking about Tatyana Pavlovna, and I still knew nothing at all about this story. I was sitting to the left of Makar Ivanovich, and Liza sat down opposite me to the right; she evidently had her own special grief today, with which she had come to mama; the expression on her face was anxious and annoyed. At that moment we somehow exchanged glances, and I suddenly thought to myself, “We’re both disgraced, and I must make the first step towards her.” My heart suddenly softened towards her. Versilov meanwhile began telling about the morning’s adventure.

  The thing was that Tatyana Pavlovna had gone before the justice of the peace that morning with her cook. The case was trifling in the highest degree; I’ve already mentioned that the spiteful Finn would sometimes keep angrily silent even for whole weeks, not answering a word to her lady’s questions; I’ve also mentioned that Tatyana Pavlovna had a weakness for her, endured everything from her, and absolutely refused to dismiss her once and for all. In my eyes, all these psychological caprices of old maids and old ladies are in the highest degree worthy of contempt, and by no means of attention, and if I venture to mention this incident here, it is solely because later on, in the further course of my story, this cook is destined to play a certain not inconsiderable and fateful role. And so, having lost patience with this stubborn Finn, who hadn’t responded to her for several days already, in the end Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly struck her, which had never happened before. The Finn did not emit the slightest sound even then, but that same day she got in touch with the retired midshipman Ossetrov, who lived on the same back stairway somewhere in a corner below, and who occupied himself with soliciting various sorts of cases, and, naturally, with bringing such cases to court, in his struggle for existence. It ended with Tatyana Pavlovna being summoned to the justice of the peace, and Versilov for some reason had to give testimony at the hearing as a witness.

  Versilov recounted it all jokingly and with extraordinary merriment, so that even mama burst out laughing; he impersonated Tatyana Pavlovna, and the midshipman, and the cook. The cook announced to the court right from the start that she wanted a fine in money, “otherwise, if you put the lady in prison, who am I going to cook for?” Tatyana Pavlovna answered the judge’s questions with great haughtiness, not even deigning to justify herself; on the contrary, she concluded with the words, “I beat her and I’ll beat her more,” for which she was immediately fined three roubles for insolent answers in court. The midshipman, a lean and lanky young man, began a long speech in defense of his client, but got shamefully confused and made the whole courtroom laugh. The hearing soon ended, and Tatyana Pavlovna was sentenced to pay the injured Marya fifteen roubles. Without delay, she took out her purse on the spot and started handing her the money. The midshipman turned up at once and reached out his hand, but Tatyana Pavlovna almost struck his hand aside and turned to Marya. “Never mind, ma’am, you needn’t trouble yourself, add it to the accounts, and I’ll pay this one myself.” “See, Marya, what a lanky fellow you picked for yourself !” Tatyana Pavlovna pointed to the midshipman, terribly glad that Marya had finally started to speak. “Lanky he is, ma’am,” Marya replied coyly. “Did you order cutlets with peas for today? I didn’t quite hear earlier, I was hurrying here.” “Oh, no, Marya, with cabbage, and please don’t burn it as you did yesterday.” “I’ll do my best today especially, ma’am. Your hand, please”—and she kissed her mistress’s hand as a sign of reconciliation. In short, she made the whole courtroom merry.

  “What a one, really!” Mama shook her head, very pleased both by the news and by Andrei Petrovich’s account, but casting anxious glances at Liza on the sly.

  “She’s been a willful young lady from early on,” Makar Ivanovich smiled.

  “Bile and idleness,” the doctor retorted.

  “Me willful, me bile and idleness?” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly came in, apparently very pleased with herself. “Alexander Semyonovich, you of all people shouldn’t go talking nonsense; you knew when you were ten years old what sort of idle woman I was, and as for my bile, you’ve been treating it for a whole year and can’t cure it, so shame on you. Well, enough of your jeering at me. Thank you, Andrei Petrovich, for taking the trouble to come to court. Well, how are you, Makarushka, it’s you I’ve come to see, not this one” (she pointed at me, but at the same time gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder; I’d never seen her in such a merry state of mind before).

  “Well, so?” she concluded, suddenly turning to
the doctor and frowning worriedly.

  “This one doesn’t want to stay in bed, but sitting up like this only wears him out.”

  “I’ll just sit a wee bit with people,” Makar Ivanovich murmured, his face as pleading as a child’s.

  “Yes, we love that, we do; we love chatting in a little circle, when people gather round us; I know Makarushka,” said Tatyana Pavlovna.

  “And, oh, what a speedy one he is,” the old man smiled again, turning to the doctor. “And you don’t give ear to speech; wait, let me say it. I’ll lie down, dear heart, I’ve heard, but to our minds what it means is, ‘Once you lie down, you may not get up again’—that, my friend, is what’s standing back of me.”

  “Well, yes, I just knew it, a popular prejudice: ‘I’ll lie down, yes,’ they say, ‘and for all I know, I won’t get up again’—that’s what people are very often afraid of, and they’d rather spend the time of their illness on their feet than go to the hospital. And you, Makar Ivanovich, are simply yearning, yearning for your dear freedom, for the open road; that’s all your illness; you’re not used to living in the same place for long. Aren’t you what’s known as a wanderer? Well, and with our people vagrancy almost turns into a passion. I’ve noticed it more than once in our people. Our people are mostly vagrants.”

  “So Makar is a vagrant, in your opinion?” Tatyana Pavlovna picked up.

  “Oh, not in that sense; I was using the word in its general sense. Well, so he’s a religious vagrant, a pious one, but a vagrant all the same. In a good, respectable sense, but a vagrant . . . From a medical point of view, I . . .”

  “I assure you,” I suddenly addressed the doctor, “that the vagrants are sooner you and I, and everybody else here, and not this old man, from whom you and I have something to learn, because there are firm things in his life, and we, all of us here, have nothing firm in our lives . . . However, you could hardly understand that.”