It appears I spoke cuttingly, but that’s what I had come for. In fact, I don’t know why I went on sitting there and was as if out of my mind.
“What’s with you?” Tatyana Pavlovna looked at me suspiciously. “So, how did you find him, Makar Ivanovich?” she pointed her finger at me.
“God bless him, a sharp boy,” the old man said with a serious air; but at the word “sharp” almost everybody burst out laughing. I restrained myself somehow; the doctor laughed most of all. It was bad enough that I didn’t know then about their preliminary agreement. Three days earlier, Versilov, the doctor, and Tatyana Pavlovna had agreed to try as hard as they could to distract mama from bad anticipations and apprehensions for Makar Ivanovich, who was far more ill and hopeless than I then suspected. That’s why everybody joked and tried to laugh. Only the doctor was stupid and, naturally, didn’t know how to joke: that’s why it all came out as it did later on. If I had also known about their agreement, I wouldn’t have done what came out. Liza also knew nothing.
I sat and listened with half an ear; they talked and laughed, but in my head was Nastasya Egorovna with her news, and I couldn’t wave her away. I kept picturing her sitting and looking, getting up cautiously and peeking into the other room. Finally they all suddenly laughed. Tatyana Pavlovna, I have no idea on what occasion, had suddenly called the doctor a godless person: “Well, you little doctors, you’re all godless folk! . . .”
“Makar Ivanovich!” the doctor cried out, pretending most stupidly that he was offended and was seeking justice, “am I godless or not?”
“You, godless? No, you’re not godless,” the old man replied sedately, giving him an intent look. “No, thank God!” he shook his head. “You’re a mirthful man.”
“And whoever is mirthful isn’t godless?” the doctor observed ironically.
“That’s a thought—in its own way!” Versilov observed, but not laughing at all.
“It’s a powerful thought!” I exclaimed inadvertently, struck by the idea. The doctor looked around questioningly.
“These learned people, these same professors,” Makar Ivanovich began, lowering his eyes slightly (they had probably been saying something about professors before then), “oh, how afraid of them I was at first: I didn’t dare before them, for I feared the godless man most of all. There’s one soul in me, I thought; if I lose it, there’s no other to find. Well, but then I took heart. ‘So what,’ I thought, ‘they’re not gods, they’re like us, fellow-sufferering men the same as us.’ And I had great curiosity: ‘I must find out what this godlessness is!’ Only later, my friend, this same curiosity also went away.”
He fell silent, though intending to continue with that quiet and sedate smile. There is a simpleheartedness that trusts each and everyone, unsuspecting of mockery. Such people are always limited, for they’re ready to bring out the most precious thing from their hearts before the first comer. But in Makar Ivanovich, it seemed to me, there was something else, and it was something else that moved him to speak, not merely the innocence of simpleheartedness. It was as if a propagandist peeped out of him. I had the pleasure of catching a certain as if sly smile that he directed at the doctor, and maybe at Versilov as well. The conversation was evidently a continuation of their previous arguments during the week; but into it, to my misfortune, there again slipped that same fatal little phrase that had so electrified me the day before, and it led me to an outburst that I regret to this day.
“I might be afraid of the godless man even now,” the old man went on with concentration, “only the thing is, my friend Alexander Semyonovich, that I’ve never once met a godless man, what I’ve met instead is vain men—that’s how they’d better be called. They’re all sorts of people; there’s no telling what people: big and small, stupid and learned, even some of the simplest rank, and it’s all vanity. For they read and talk all their lives, filled with bookish sweetness, but they themselves dwell in perplexity and cannot resolve anything. One is all scattered, no longer noticing himself. Another has turned harder than stone, but dreams wander through his heart. Yet another is unfeeling and light-minded and only wants to laugh out his mockery. Another has merely plucked little flowers from books, and even that by his own opinion; he’s all vanity himself, and there’s no judgment in him. Again I’ll say this: there is much boredom. A small man may be needy, have no crust, nothing to feed his little ones, sleep on prickly straw, and yet his heart is always merry and light; he sins, he’s coarse, but still his heart is light. But the big man drinks too much, eats too much, sits on a heap of gold, yet there’s nothing but anguish in his heart. Some have gone through all learning—and are still anguished. And my thinking is that the more one learns, the more boredom there is. Take just this: they’ve been teaching people ever since the world was made, but where is the good they’ve taught, so that the world might become the most beautiful, mirthful, and joy-filled dwelling place? And I’ll say another thing: they have no seemliness, they don’t even want it; they’ve all perished, and each one only praises his perdition, but doesn’t even think of turning to the one truth; yet to live without God is nothing but torment. And it turns out that what gives light is the very thing we curse, and we don’t know it ourselves. And what’s the point? It’s impossible for a man to exist without bowing down; such a man couldn’t bear himself, and no man could. If he rejects God, he’ll bow down to an idol—a wooden one, or a golden one, or a mental one. They’re all idolaters, not godless, that’s how they ought to be called. Well, but how could there not be godless people as well? There are such as are truly godless, only they’re much more frightening than these others, because they come with God’s name on their lips. I’ve heard of them more than once, but I’ve never met any. There are such, my friend, and I think there must needs be.”
“There are, Makar Ivanovich,” Versilov suddenly confirmed, “there are such, and ‘there must needs be.’”
“There certainly are and ‘there must needs be’!” escaped from me irrepressibly and vehemently, I don’t know why; but I was carried away by Versilov’s tone and was captivated as if by some sort of idea in the words “there must needs be.” This conversation was totally unexpected for me. But at that moment something suddenly happened that was also totally unexpected.
IV
IT WAS AN extremely bright day; the blinds in Makar Ivanovich’s room were usually not raised all day, on the doctor’s orders; but there was not a blind but a curtain over the window, so that the uppermost part of the window was uncovered; this was because the old man had been upset, with the former blind, at not seeing the sun at all. And we just went on sitting there till the moment when a ray of sunlight suddenly struck Makar Ivanovich right in the face. He paid no attention at first, while he was talking, but several times as he spoke he mechanically inclined his head to the side, because the bright ray strongly troubled and irritated his ailing eyes. Mama, who was standing next to him, had already glanced worriedly at the window several times; she had simply to cover the window completely with something, but, so as not to hinder the conversation, she decided to try and pull the little bench Makar Ivanovich was sitting on a bit to the right. She only had to move it five inches, six at the most. She had bent down several times and taken hold of the bench, but she coudn’t pull it; the bench, with Makar Ivanovich sitting on it, wouldn’t move. Feeling her effort, but being in the heat of conversation, Makar Ivanovich, quite unconsciously, tried several times to raise himself, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. Mama nevertheless went on straining and pulling, and all this finally angered Liza terribly. I remember her several flashing, irritated glances, only in the first moment I didn’t know what to ascribe them to; besides, I was distracted by the conversation. And then suddenly we heard her almost shout sharply at Makar Ivanovich:
“At least raise yourself a little, you can see how hard it is for mama!”
The old man quickly glanced at her, understood at once, and instantly hastened to raise himself, but nothing came of it; he rose
a couple of inches and fell back on the bench.
“I can’t, dear heart,” he answered Liza as if plaintively, looking at her somehow all obediently.
“You can talk whole books full, but you haven’t got the strength to stir yourself ?”
“Liza!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna. Makar Ivanovich again made an extreme effort.
“Take your crutch, it’s lying beside you, you can raise yourself with your crutch!” Liza snapped once more.
“Right you are,” said the old man, and at once hurriedly seized his crutch.
“We simply have to lift him!” Versilov stood up, the doctor also moved, Tatyana Pavlovna also jumped up, but before they had time to approach him, Makar Ivanovich leaned on the crutch with all his strength, suddenly rose, and stood where he was, looking around in joyful triumph.
“And so I got up!” he said with all but pride, smiling joyfully. “Thank you, dear, for teaching me reason, and I thought my little legs wouldn’t serve me at all . . .”
But he didn’t go on standing for long. He hadn’t even managed to finish speaking when his crutch, on which he had rested the whole weight of his body, suddenly slipped on the rug, and as his “little legs” hardly supported him at all, he toppled from his full height onto the floor. This was almost terrible to see, I remember. Everybody gasped and rushed to lift him up, but, thank God, he hadn’t hurt himself; he had only struck the floor heavily, noisily, with both knees, but he had managed to put his right hand in front of him and brace himself with it. He was picked up and seated on the bed. He was very pale, not from fright, but from shock. (The doctor had also found a heart ailment in him, along with everything else.) But mama was beside herself with fright. And suddenly Makar Ivanovich, still pale, his body shaking, and as if not yet quite recovered, turned to Liza and in an almost tender, quiet voice, said to her:
“No, dear, my little legs just won’t stand up! ”
I cannot express my impression at the time. The thing was that there wasn’t the slightest sound of complaint or reproach in the poor old man’s words; on the contrary, you could see straight off that, from the very beginning, he had decidedly noticed nothing spiteful in Liza’s words, but had taken her shouting at him as something due, that is, that he ought to have been “reprimanded” for his fault. All this affected Liza terribly as well. At the moment of his fall, she had jumped up, like everybody else, and stood all mortified and, of course, suffering, because she had been the cause of it all, but, hearing such words from him, she suddenly, almost instantly, became flushed all over with the color of shame and repentance.
“Enough!” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly commanded. “It all comes from talk! Time we were in our places; what’s the good of it if the doctor himself starts babbling!”
“Precisely,” Alexander Semyonovich picked up, bustling around the patient. “I’m to blame, Tatyana Pavlovna, he needs rest!”
But Tatyana Pavlovna wasn’t listening: for half a minute she had been silently and intently watching Liza.
“Come here, Liza, and kiss me, old fool that I am—if you want to,” she said unexpectedly.
And she kissed her, I don’t know what for, but that was precisely what needed to be done; so that I almost rushed myself to kiss Tatyana Pavlovna. It was precisely necessary not to crush Liza with reproach, but to greet with joy and felicitation the new beautiful feeling that undoubtedly must have been born in her. But, instead of all these feelings, I suddenly stood up and began, firmly rapping out the words:
“Makar Ivanovich, you have again used the word ‘seemliness,’ and just yesterday and for all these days I’ve been suffering over that word . . . and all my life I’ve been suffering, only before I didn’t know over what. I consider this coincidence of words fateful, almost miraculous . . . I announce it in your presence . . .”
But I was instantly stopped. I repeat: I didn’t know about their agreement concerning mama and Makar Ivanovich; and judging by my former doings, they certainly considered me capable of any scandal of that sort.
“Stifle him, stifle him!” Tatyana Pavlovna turned utterly ferocious. Mama began to tremble. Makar Ivanovich, seeing everyone’s fright, also became frightened.
“Arkady, enough!” Versilov cried sternly.
“For me, ladies and gentlemen,” I raised my voice still more, “for me to see you all next to this babe” (I pointed to Makar) “is unseemly. There’s only one saint here, and that’s mama, but she, too . . .”
“You’ll frighten him!” the doctor said insistently.
“I know I’m the whole world’s enemy,” I began to babble (or something of the sort), but, turning around once more, I looked defiantly at Versilov.
“Arkady,” he cried again, “there has already been exactly the same scene here between us! I beg you, restrain yourself now!”
I cannot express with what strong feeling he uttered this. Extreme sadness, the most sincere, the fullest, was expressed in his features. Most surprising of all was that he looked as if he were guilty: I was the judge, and he was the criminal. All this finished me off.
“Yes!” I cried to him in reply, “there has already been exactly the same scene, when I buried Versilov and tore him out of my heart . . . But then there followed the resurrection from the dead, while now . . . now there will be no dawn! but . . . but all of you here will see what I’m capable of! You don’t even expect what I can prove!”
Having said this, I rushed to my room. Versilov ran after me . . .
V
I SUFFERED A relapse of my illness; I had a very strong attack of fever, with delirium towards nightfall. But it was not all delirium: there were countless dreams, a whole series and without measure, among which there was one dream or fragment of a dream that I’ve remembered all my life. I’ll recount it without any explanations. It was prophetic and I cannot omit it.
I suddenly found myself, with some grand and proud design in my heart, in a big and lofty room; but not at Tatyana Pavlovna’s: I remember the room very well; I make note of that, running ahead. But though I’m alone, I constantly feel, with uneasiness and torment, that I’m not alone at all, that I’m expected and that something is expected of me. Somewhere behind the doors, people sit and expect me to do something. The sensation is unbearable: “Oh, if only I were alone!” And suddenly she comes in. She looks timid, she’s terribly afraid, she peeks into my eyes. The document is in my hand. She smiles in order to charm me, she fawns on me; I’m sorry, but I begin to feel disgust. Suddenly she covers her face with her hands. I fling the “document ” on the table with inexpressible contempt: “Don’t beg, take it, I need nothing from you! I revenge myself for all my insults with contempt! ” I walk out of the room, breathless with immeasurable pride. But in the doorway, in the darkness, Lambert seizes me: “Cghretin, cghretin!” he whispers, holding me back by the arm with all his might. “She’ll have to open a boarding school for high-born girls on Vassilievsky Island” (N.B. that is, to support herself, if her father, learning about the document from me, deprives her of her inheritance and drives her out of the house. I set down Lambert’s words literally as I dreamed them).
“Arkady Makarovich is searching for ‘seemliness,’” comes Anna Andreevna’s little voice, somewhere nearby, right there on the stairs; but it is not praise but unbearable mockery that sounds in her words. I return to the room with Lambert. But, seeing Lambert, she suddenly begins to guffaw. My first impression is horrible fright, such fright that I stop and do not want to go closer. I look at her and can’t believe it; it’s as if she has suddenly taken a mask from her face: the same features, but as if each line of her face has been distorted by boundless impudence. “The ransom, lady, the ransom!” shouts Lambert, and the two of them guffaw still more, and my heart sinks: “Oh, can this shameless woman possibly be the same one at whose mere glance my heart boiled over with virtue?”
“That’s what they’re capable of, these proud ones, in their high society, for money!” exclaims Lambert. But the shameless woman is n
ot embarrassed even by that; she guffaws precisely because I’m so frightened. Oh, she’s ready for the ransom, I can see that and . . . and what’s with me? I no longer feel either pity or loathing; I tremble as never before . . . I’m overcome by a new, inexpressible feeling, such as I’ve never known, and strong as the whole world . . . Oh, I’m no longer able to go away now for anything! Oh, how I like that it’s so shameless! I seize her by the hands, the touch of her hands makes me shiver painfully, I bring my lips to her impudent crimson lips, trembling with laughter and inviting me.
Oh, away with this base memory! A cursed dream! I swear that before this loathsome dream there had been nothing in my mind even resembling this disgraceful thought! There hadn’t even been any involuntary thought of that sort (though I kept the “document” sewn up in my pocket, and I would sometimes snatch at my pocket with a strange smile). Where did this all come from, quite ready-made? It’s because I had the soul of a spider! It means that everything was already born and lying in my depraved heart, lying in my desire, but in a waking state my heart was ashamed and my mind still didn’t dare to imagine anything like that consciously. But in a dream my soul herself presented and laid out all that was in my heart, with perfect precision and in the fullest picture and—in prophetic form. And can it have been this that I wanted to prove to them when I ran out of Makar Ivanovich’s room that morning? But enough, nothing of that for the time being! This dream I dreamed is one of the strangest adventures of my life.
Chapter Three
I
THREE DAYS LATER I got up in the morning and suddenly felt, standing on my legs, that I wouldn’t stay in bed anymore. I fully felt the nearness of recovery. All these little details are maybe not worth including, but then came several days which, though nothing special happened, have all remained in my memory as something delightful and calm, and that is a rare thing in my memories. My inner state I will not meanwhile formulate; if the reader learned what it consisted in, he certainly wouldn’t believe it. Better if everything becomes clear later from the facts. And meanwhile I’ll just say one thing: let the reader remember about the soul of a spider. And that in a man who wanted to go away from them all and from the whole world in the name of “seemliness”! The yearning for seemliness was there in the highest degree, that was certainly so, but how it could be combined with God knows what other yearnings—is a mystery to me. And it has always been a mystery, and I’ve marveled a thousand times at this ability of man (and, it seems, of the Russian man above all) to cherish the highest ideal in his soul alongside the greatest baseness, and all that in perfect sincerity. Whether it’s a special breadth in the Russian man, which will take him far, or simply baseness—that’s the question!
The Adolescent Page 48
