The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “Can it be possible?” I babbled.

  “Why not? You’ll show her the document—she’ll turn coward and marry you so as not to lose the money.”

  I decided not to stop Lambert in his meanness, because he laid it out for me so simpleheartedly that he didn’t even suspect I might suddenly become indignant; but I murmured, nevertheless, that I wouldn’t want to marry only by force.

  “Not for anything do I want to use force; how can you be so mean as to suppose that in me?”

  “Ehh! She’ll marry you of herself: it won’t be your doing, she’ll get frightened herself and marry you. And she’ll also do it because she loves you,” Lambert caught himself.

  “That’s a lie. You’re laughing at me. How do you know she loves me?”

  “Absolutely. I know. And Anna Andreevna thinks so, too. I’m telling you seriously and truthfully that Anna Andreevna thinks so. And then I’ll also tell you another thing, when you come to my place, and you’ll see that she loves you. Alphonsine was in Tsarskoe; she also found things out there . . .”

  “What could she have found out there?”

  “Let’s go to my place. She’ll tell you herself, and you’ll be pleased. What makes you worse than another man? You’re handsome, you’re well bred . . .”

  “Yes, I’m well bred,” I whispered, barely pausing for breath. My heart was throbbing and, of course, not from wine alone.

  “You’re handsome. You’re well dressed.”

  “Yes, I’m well dressed . . .”

  “And you’re kind . . .”

  “Yes, I’m kind.”

  “Then why shouldn’t she agree? After all, Bjoring won’t take her without money, and you can deprive her of money—so she’ll get frightened; you’ll marry her, and that will be your revenge on Bjoring. You told me yourself that night, after you froze, that she was in love with you.”

  “Did I tell you that? Surely I didn’t put it that way.”

  “No, that way.”

  “I was delirious. Surely I must also have told you then about the document?”

  “Yes, you said you had this letter, and I thought: since he has such a letter, why should he lose what’s his?”

  “This is all fantasy, and I’m by no means so stupid as to believe it,” I muttered. “First, there’s the difference in age, and, second, I have no name.”

  “She’ll marry you; she can’t do otherwise when so much money’s to be lost—I’ll arrange that. And besides, she loves you. You know, that old prince is quite well disposed towards you; through his patronage you know what sort of connections you could make; and as for the fact that you have no name, nowadays that’s all unnecessary: once you’ve grabbed the money, you’ll get on, you’ll get on, and in ten years you’ll be such a millionaire that all Russia will be talking, and what name do you need then? You can buy up a baron in Austria. But once you marry her, you’ll have to keep her in hand. They need it good and proper. A woman, if she’s in love, likes to be kept in a tight fist. A woman likes character in a man. But once you frighten her with the letter, from that time on you’ll also show her your character. ‘Ah,’ she’ll say, ‘so young, but he’s got character.’”

  I was sitting there as if bemused. Never would I have stooped to such a stupid conversation with anyone else. But here some sweet longing drew me into continuing it. Besides, Lambert was so stupid and mean that it was impossible to be ashamed before him.

  “No, Lambert, you know,” I said suddenly, “as you like, but there’s a lot of nonsense here; I’m talking to you because we’re comrades, and there’s nothing for us to be ashamed of; but with anyone else I wouldn’t have demeaned myself for anything. And, above all, why do you insist so much that she loves me? You spoke very well about capital just now, but you see, Lambert, you don’t know high society: with them it all rests on the most patriarchal, familial, so to speak, relations, so that now, when she still doesn’t know my abilities and how far I may get in life—now in any case she’ll be ashamed. But I won’t conceal from you, Lambert, that there is indeed one point here which may give hope. You see: she might marry me out of gratitude, because then I’d rid her of a certain man’s hatred. And she’s afraid of that man.”

  “Ah, you mean your father? And what, does he love her very much?” Lambert suddenly roused himself with extraordinary curiosity.

  “Oh, no!” I cried. “And how frightening you are, and at the same time how stupid, Lambert! I mean, if he was in love with her, how could I want to marry her? After all, a son and a father—that would be shameful. It’s mama he loves, mama, and I saw him embrace her, and before that I myself thought he loved Katerina Nikolaevna, but now I know clearly that he maybe loved her once, but for a long time now he’s hated her . . . and wanted revenge, and she’s afraid, because, I’ll tell you, Lambert, he’s terribly frightening once he starts on revenge. He almost turns into a madman. When he’s angry with her, he can go to any lengths. It’s an enmity of the old kind over lofty principles. In our time we spit on all general principles; in our time it’s not general principles, it’s only special cases. Ah, Lambert, you understand nothing, you’re as stupid as my big toe: I’m talking to you about these principles, but you surely understand none of it. You’re terribly uneducated. Do you remember beating me? I’m now stronger than you—do you know that?”

  “Arkashka, let’s go to my place! We’ll spend the evening and drink another bottle, and Alphonsine will play the guitar and sing.”

  “No, I won’t go. Listen, Lambert, I have an ‘idea.’ If things don’t work out and I don’t get married, then I’ll go into my idea; but you have no idea.”

  “All right, all right, you’ll tell me, let’s go.”

  “I’m not going!” I got up. “I don’t want to and I won’t. I’ll come to see you, but you’re a scoundrel. I’ll give you the thirty thousand—so be it, but I’m purer and higher than you . . . I can see that you want to deceive me in everything. And about her I even forbid you to think: she’s higher than everyone, and your plans are so base that I’m even surprised at you, Lambert. I want to get married—that’s another matter, but I don’t need capital, I despise capital. If she gives me her capital on her knees, I won’t take it . . . But getting married, getting married, that’s—another matter. And you know, you said it well about keeping her in a tight fist. To love, to love passionately, with all a man’s magnanimity, which can never be found in a woman, but also to be despotic—that’s a good thing. Because, Lambert, you know what—women love despotism. You know women, Lambert. But you’re astonishingly stupid in everything else. And, you know, Lambert, you’re not at all as vile as you seem, you’re—simple. I like you. Ah, Lambert, why are you such a knave? Otherwise we could live so merrily! You know, Trishatov’s a dear man.”

  I babbled these last incoherent phrases when we were already in the street. Oh, I’m recalling it all in detail, to let the reader see that, for all my raptures and for all my vows and promises to be regenerated for the better and to seek seemliness, I could fall so easily then, and into such mire! And I swear, if I weren’t fully and completely certain that I’m not at all like that now and that I have developed my character through practical life, I would not have confessed all this to the reader for anything.

  We came out of the shop, and Lambert supported me, putting his arm lightly around me. Suddenly I looked at him and saw almost the same expression in his eyes—intent, scrutinizing, terribly attentive, and at the same time sober in the highest degree—as on that morning when I was freezing and he led me to a cab, with his arm around me in exactly the same way, and listened, all ears and eyes, to my incoherent babble. People who are getting drunk, but are not quite drunk yet, can suddenly have moments of the fullest sobriety.

  “I won’t go to your place for anything!” I uttered firmly and coherently, looking at him mockingly and pushing him away with my hand.

  “Ah, come on, I’ll tell Alphonsine to make tea, come on!”

  He was terribly cer
tain that I wouldn’t escape; he held and supported me with relish, like a dear little victim, and I, of course, was just what he needed, precisely that evening and in that condition! Why—will be explained later.

  “I’m not going!” I repeated. “Cabbie!”

  Just then a cab came trotting up, and I hopped into the sledge.

  “Where are you going? What’s with you?” yelled Lambert, in terrible alarm, seizing my fur coat.

  “And don’t you dare follow me,” I cried, “don’t try to overtake me!” At that moment the cab started, and my coat was torn from Lambert’s hand.

  “You’ll come anyway!” he shouted after me in an angry voice.

  “I’ll come if I want to—by my own will!” I turned to him from the sledge.

  II

  HE DIDN’T PURSUE ME, of course, because there happened to be no other cab at hand, and I managed to disappear from his sight. I drove only as far as the Haymarket, and there I got out and dismissed the sledge. I wanted terribly to go by foot. I felt no fatigue, no great drunkenness, but was just full of vigor; there was an influx of strength, there was an extraordinary ability for any undertaking, and an endless number of pleasant thoughts in my head.

  My heart was pounding intensely and distinctly—I could hear each beat. And everything seemed so nice to me, everything was so easy. Walking past the guardhouse on the Haymarket, I wanted terribly to go up to the sentry and kiss him. There was a thaw, the square turned black and smelly, but the square, too, I liked very much.

  “I’ll go to Obukhovsky Prospect now,” I thought, “then turn left and come out in the Semyonovsky quarter, I’ll make a detour, it’s excellent, it’s all excellent. My fur coat’s unbuttoned—why doesn’t anybody take it off me, where are the thieves? They say there are thieves in the Haymarket, let them come, maybe I’ll give them my fur coat. What do I need a fur coat for? A fur coat is property. La propriété, c’est le vol.9229 But anyhow, what nonsense, and how good everything is. It’s good that there’s a thaw. Why frost? There’s no need at all for frost. It’s also good to talk nonsense. What was it I said to Lambert about principles? I said there are no general principles, but only special cases. That’s nonsense, that’s arch-nonsense! I said it on purpose, to show off. It’s a bit shameful, but anyhow—never mind, I’ll smooth it over. Don’t be ashamed, don’t torment yourself, Arkady Makarovich. Arkady Makarovich, I like you. I even like you very much, my young friend. It’s too bad you’re a little knave . . . and . . . and . . . ah, yes . . . ah!”

  I suddenly stopped, and again my whole heart was wrung in ecstasy:

  “Lord! What was it he said? He said she loves me. Oh, he’s a crook, he told a lot of lies here; it was so that I’d go and spend the night with him. But maybe not. He said Anna Andreevna thought so, too . . . Bah! Nastasya Egorovna could also find out a thing or two here: she pokes around everywhere. And why didn’t I go to his place? I’d learn everything. Hm! he’s got a plan, and I anticipated it all to the last stroke. A dream. It’s broadly conceived, Mr. Lambert, only you’re wrong, it won’t be that way. But maybe it will! Maybe it will! And can he really get me married? But maybe he can. He’s naïve and credulous. He’s stupid and impudent, like all practical people. Stupidity and impudence, joined together, are a great force. And confess that you were in fact afraid of Lambert, Arkady Makarovich! What does he need honest people for? He says it so seriously: there’s not one honest man here! And you yourself—who are you? Eh, never mind me! Don’t scoundrels need honest people? In knavery, honest people are more needed than anywhere else. Ha, ha! You’re the only one who didn’t know that before, Arkady Makarovich, with your total innocence. Lord! What if he really gets me married!”

  I paused again. Here I must confess one stupidity (since it happened so long ago), I must confess that I had already wanted to marry long before—that is, I didn’t want to and it would never have happened (and it won’t in the future, I give my word), but already more than once and long before then I had dreamed of how nice it would be to get married—that is, terribly many times, especially on going to sleep each night. This began with me when I was almost sixteen. I had a schoolmate, Lavrovsky, the same age as me—such a nice, quiet, pretty boy, though not distinguished in any way. I hardly ever spoke to him. Suddenly one day we were sitting next to each other alone, and he was very pensive, and suddenly he says to me, “Ah, Dolgoruky, what do you think about getting married now? Really, when should one get married if not now? Now would be the very best time, and yet it’s quite impossible!” And he said it so candidly. And I suddenly agreed with him wholeheartedly, because I myself had dreamed of something like it. Then we came together for several days in a row and kept talking about it, as if in secret, though only about that. And then, I don’t know how it happened, but we drifted apart and stopped talking. But ever since then I began to dream. This, of course, would not be worth recalling, but I only wanted to show how far back these things can sometimes go . . .

  “There’s only one serious objection here,” I went on dreaming as I walked. “Oh, of course, the insignificant difference in age would be no obstacle, but there’s this: she’s such an aristocrat, and I’m—simply Dolgoruky! Awfully nasty! Hm! Surely Versilov, once he’s married my mother, could ask the authorities for permission to adopt me . . . for the father’s services, so to speak . . . He was in the service, so of course there were services; he was an arbiter of the peace . . . Oh, devil take it, what vileness!”

  I suddenly exclaimed that and suddenly stopped for the third time, but now as if squashed on the spot. All the painful feeling of humiliation from the consciousness that I could wish for such a disgrace as a change of name through adoption, this betrayal of my whole childhood—all this in almost one instant destroyed my whole previous mood, and all my joy vanished like smoke. “No, I won’t tell this to anyone,” I thought, blushing terribly. “I stooped so low because I’m . . . in love and stupid. No, if Lambert is right about anything, it’s that nowadays all this foolishness is simply not required, and that the main thing in our age is the man himself, and then his money. That is, not his money, but his power. With my capital I’ll throw myself into the ‘idea,’ and in ten years all Russia will be talking, and I’ll have my revenge on everyone. And there’s no need to be ceremonious with her, here again Lambert is right. She’ll turn coward and simply marry me. In the simplest and most banal way, she’ll accept and marry me. ‘You don’t know, you don’t know in what sort of back room it went on!’” Lambert’s words came to my mind. “And that’s so,” I confirmed, “Lambert is right in everything, a thousand times righter than I, and Versilov, and all these idealists! He’s a realist. She’ll see that I have character and say, ‘Ah, he has character!’ Lambert is a scoundrel, and all he wants is to fleece me of thirty thousand, and yet he’s the only friend I’ve got. There is no other friendship and cannot be, that was all invented by impractical people. And I don’t even humiliate her; do I humiliate her? Not a bit: women are all like that! Can there be a woman without meanness? That’s why she needs to have man over her, that’s why she was created a subordinate being. Woman is vice and temptation, and man is nobility and magnanimity. And so it will be unto ages of ages. And never mind that I’m preparing to use the ‘document.’ That won’t prevent either nobility or magnanimity. Schillers in a pure form don’t exist—they’ve been invented. Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid! Afterwards it will all be washed away, smoothed over. And now it’s only—breadth, it’s only—life, it’s only—life’s truth—that’s what they call it now!”

  Oh, again I repeat: may I be forgiven for citing to the last line all this drunken raving from that time. Of course, this is only the essence of my thoughts from that time, but I believe I did speak in those very words. I had to cite them, because I sat down to write in order to judge myself. And what am I to judge, if not that? Can there be anything more serious in life? Wine is no justification. In vino veritas.93

  Dreaming thus and all burie
d in fantasy, I didn’t notice that I had finally reached home, that is, mama’s apartment. I didn’t even notice how I entered the apartment; but as soon as I stepped into our tiny front hall, I understood at once that something extraordinary had happened. In the rooms they were talking loudly, exclaiming, and mama could be heard weeping. In the doorway I was almost knocked off my feet by Lukerya, who ran swiftly from Makar Ivanovich’s room to the kitchen. I threw off my coat and went into Makar Ivanovich’s room, because everyone was crowded there.

  There stood Versilov and mama. Mama lay in his arms, and he pressed her tightly to his heart. Makar Ivanovich was sitting, as usual, on his little bench, but as if in some sort of strengthlessness, so that Liza had to support him by the shoulders with her arms to keep him from falling; and it was even obvious that he was all leaning over so as to fall. I swiftly stepped closer, gave a start, and realized that the old man was dead.

  He had only just died, about a minute before my arrival. Ten minutes earlier he had felt as much himself as ever. Only Liza was with him; she was sitting with him and telling him about her grief, and he was stroking her hair as the day before. Suddenly he trembled all over (Liza told us), made as if to stand up, made as if to cry out, and silently began to fall towards the left. “Heart failure!” said Versilov. Liza cried out for the whole house to hear, and it was then that they came running—all that about a minute before my arrival.

  “Arkady!” Versilov shouted to me. “Run instantly to Tatyana Pavlovna’s. She should certainly be at home. Ask her to come at once. Take a cab. Quickly, I beg you!”

  His eyes were flashing—I remember that clearly. I didn’t notice in his face anything like pure pity, tears—only mama, Liza, and Lukerya were weeping. On the contrary, and this I recall very well, what was striking in his face was some extraordinary excitement, almost ecstasy. I ran for Tatyana Pavlovna.

  The way, as is known from the foregoing, wasn’t long. I didn’t take a cab, but ran all the way without stopping. There was confusion in my mind, and also even almost something ecstatic. I realized that a radical event had happened. The drunkenness had disappeared completely in me, to the last drop, and along with it all ignoble thoughts, by the time I rang at Tatyana Pavlovna’s.