The Adolescent

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  She opened the door.

  “But, Liza, what about you?” I sprang after her into the hallway. Her terribly crushed, desperate air pierced my heart. She gave me a look, not so much angry as even almost somehow embittered, grinned biliously, and waved her hand.

  “If he died—it would be a godsend!” she flung at me from the stairs, and went out. She said this of Prince Sergei Petrovich, who at the time was lying in delirium and unconscious. “Eternal story! What eternal story?” I thought with defiance, and then suddenly I absolutely wanted to tell them at least part of my impressions yesterday from his night confession, and the confession itself. “They think something bad about him now—let them know all!” flew through my head.

  I remember that I managed somehow very deftly to begin my story. Their faces instantly showed a terrible curiosity. This time Tatyana Pavlovna simply fastened her eyes on me, but mama was more restrained; she was very serious, but a light, beautiful, though somehow quite hopeless smile came to her face and almost never left it all the while I was talking. I spoke well, of course, though I knew that for them it was almost incomprehensible. To my surprise, Tatyana Pavlovna did not pick on me, did not insist on exactitude, did not try to catch me up, as she was accustomed to do whenever I began saying something. She only pressed her lips occasionally and narrowed her eyes, as if making an effort to comprehend. At times it even seemed to me that they understood everything, but that was all but impossible. I talked, for instance, about his convictions, but, above all, about his rapture yesterday, about his rapture over mama, about his love for mama, about how he kissed her portrait . . . Listening to that, they exchanged quick and silent glances, and mama turned all red, though they both went on being silent. Then . . . then, of course, I couldn’t touch on the main point before mama, that is, the meeting with her and all the rest, and, above all, her letter to him yesterday and his moral “resurrection” after the letter; but that was the main thing, so that all his feelings yesterday, with which I had thought to gladden mama, naturally remained incomprehensible, though, of course, through no fault of my own, because all that could be told, I told beautifully. I ended in total perplexity; their silence remained unbroken, and it became very oppressive for me to be with them.

  “Surely he’s come back by now, or maybe he’s sitting at my place and waiting,” I said, and got up to leave.

  “Go, go!” Tatyana Pavlovna firmly agreed.

  “Have you been downstairs?” mama asked me in a half-whisper, as I was taking my leave.

  “Yes, I bowed down to him and prayed for him. Such a calm, seemly face he has, mama! Thank you, mama, for not sparing on his coffin. First I found it strange, but then I thought at once that I would have done the same myself.”

  “Will you come to church tomorrow?” she asked, and her lips trembled.

  “What are you asking, mama?” I was surprised. “I’ll come to the panikhida38 today, too, and I’ll come again; and . . . besides, tomorrow is your birthday, mama, my dearest! He didn’t live the three days till then!”

  I left in painful astonishment. How could she ask such questions—whether I’d come to the funeral at the church or not? “And if it’s so about me, then what do they think about him?”

  I knew that Tatyana Pavlovna would come running after me, and I purposely lingered in the front doorway; but she, having overtaken me, pushed me out onto the stairway with her hand, came out after me, and closed the door behind her.

  “Tatyana Pavlovna, you mean you don’t expect Andrei Petrovich either today or tomorrow? I’m alarmed . . .”

  “Quiet. Much it matters that you’re alarmed. Speak—what was it you didn’t finish saying when you told about yesterday’s balderdash?”

  I found no need to conceal it, and, almost annoyed with Versilov, told her all about Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter to him yesterday, and about the effect of the letter, that is, his resurrection into a new life. To my surprise, the fact of the letter didn’t surprise her in the least, and I guessed that she already knew about it.

  “You’re not lying?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, now,” she smiled venomously, as if pondering, “resurrected! Just what he’d do! Is it true that he kissed the portrait?”

  “It’s true, Tatyana Pavlovna.”

  “Did he kiss it with feeling, without pretending?”

  “Pretending? Does he ever pretend? Shame on you, Tatyana Pavlovna; you have a coarse soul, a woman’s soul.”

  I said it heatedly, but it was as if she didn’t hear me. She again seemed to be figuring something out, despite the intense cold on the stairway. I was wearing a fur coat, but she was wearing only a dress.

  “I’d entrust you with an errand, but the trouble is you’re very stupid,” she said with contempt and as if with vexation. “Listen, go to Anna Andreevna’s and see what’s happening there . . . Ah, no, don’t go; a dolt is a dolt! Leave, be off, don’t stand there like a post!”

  “I’m just not going to go to Anna Andreevna’s! And Anna Andreevna sent for me herself.”

  “Herself? Sent Nastasya Egorovna?” she quickly turned to me. She was on the point of leaving and had even opened the door, but she slammed it shut again.

  “I won’t go to Anna Andreevna’s for anything!” I repeated with spiteful glee. “I won’t go, because you just called me a dolt, while I’ve never been so perspicacious as today. I can see all your doings as if on the palm of my hand; and even so I won’t go to Anna Andreevna’s!”

  “I just knew it!” she exclaimed, but, again, not in response to my words, but continuing to think her own thoughts. “They’ll ensnare her completely now, and tighten the deadly noose!”

  “Anna Andreevna?”

  “Fool!”

  “Whom do you mean, then? Not Katerina Nikolaevna? What deadly noose?” I was terribly frightened. Some vague but terrible idea passed through my soul. Tatyana Pavlovna looked at me piercingly.

  “And what are you doing in it?” she asked suddenly. “What’s your part? I did hear something about you—oh, watch out!”

  “Listen, Tatyana Pavlovna, I’ll tell you a terrible secret, only not now, I have no time now, but tomorrow, when we’re alone, but in return tell me the whole truth now, and what this is about the deadly noose . . . because I’m trembling all over . . .”

  “I spit on your trembling!” she exclaimed. “What secret do you want to tell me tomorrow? Can it really be that you know something?” she fixed me with her questioning gaze. “Didn’t you swear to her yourself that you had burned Kraft’s letter?”

  “Tatyana Pavlovna, I repeat, don’t torment me,” I went on with my own thing, ignoring her question in turn, because I was beside myself, “watch out, Tatyana Pavlovna, what you hide from me may lead to something worse . . . why, yesterday he was in full, in the fullest resurrection!”

  “Eh, away with you, buffoon! You must be in love like a sparrow yourself—father and son with the same object! Pah, outrageous creatures!”

  She disappeared, slamming the door in indignation. Infuriated by the impudent, shameless cynicism of her very last words—a cynicism that only a woman is capable of—I rushed off, deeply offended. But I won’t describe my vague sensations, as I’ve already promised; I will continue with just the facts, which will now resolve everything. Naturally, I ran over to his place for a moment, and again heard from the nanny that he hadn’t been there.

  “And he won’t come at all?”

  “God knows.”

  III

  FACTS, FACTS!...But does the reader understand anything? I myself remember how these same facts weighed on me then and kept me from comprehending anything, so that by the end of that day my head was totally thrown off. And therefore I’ll run ahead for two or three words!

  All my torments consisted in this: if yesterday he had resurrected and stopped loving her, then in that case where should he have been today? Answer: first of all with me, since he had spent last night embracing me, and then right aw
ay with mama, whose portrait he had kissed yesterday. And yet, instead of these two natural steps, suddenly, at “first light,” he’s not at home and has disappeared somewhere, and Nastasya Egorovna raves, for some reason, that “he most likely won’t come back.” What’s more, Liza assures me of some dénouement to an “eternal story” and of mama’s having some information about him, and of the very latest; on top of that, they undoubtedly knew about Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter as well (I noticed it myself ), and still they didn’t believe in his “resurrection into a new life,” though they listened to me attentively. Mama is crushed, and Tatyana Pavlovna jokes caustically about the word “resurrection.” But if that’s all so, then it means he had another turnabout during the night, another crisis, and that—after yesterday’s rapture, tenderness, pathos! It means that all this “resurrection” popped like a blown-up bubble, and at the moment he might be knocking around somewhere in the same rage as the other time, after the news about Bjoring! One might ask, what would become of mama, of me, of us all, and . . . and, finally, what would become of her? What “deadly noose” had Tatyana let on about, sending me to Anna Andreevna? It means the “deadly noose” is there—at Anna Andreevna’s! Why at Anna Andreevna’s? Naturally, I’ll run to Anna Andreevna’s; I said purposely, out of vexation, that I wouldn’t go; I’ll run right now. But what was Tatyana Pavlovna saying about the “document ”? And didn’t he himself say to me yesterday, “Burn the document”?

  These were my thoughts, this was what also weighed on me like a deadly noose; but above all I wanted him. With him I’d resolve everything at once—I could feel it; we’d understand each other after two words! I’d seize his hands, press them; I’d find ardent words in my heart—that was my irresistible dream. Oh, I would subdue his madness! . . . But where was he? Where? And just then, at such a moment, Lambert had to appear, when I was so worked up! A few steps from home I suddenly met Lambert; he yelled joyfully when he saw me and seized me by the arm:

  “It’s the thighrd time I’ve come to see you . . . Enfin! Let’s go and have lunch.”

  “Wait! Were you at my place? Is Andrei Petrovich there?”

  “Nobody’s there. Drop them all! You got angry yesterday, you cghretin; you were drunk, but I have something important to tell you; today I heard some lovely news about what we were discussing yesterday . . .”

  “Lambert,” I interrupted, breathless and hurrying and involuntarily declaiming a little, “if I’ve stopped with you, it’s only in order to be done with you forever. I told you yesterday, but you still don’t understand. Lambert, you’re a child and as stupid as a Frenchman. You still think you’re as you were at Touchard’s and I’m as stupid as at Touchard’s . . . But I’m not as stupid as at Touchard’s . . . I was drunk yesterday, but not from wine, but because I was excited to begin with; and if I went along with what you were driveling, it was from cunning, in order to worm your thoughts out of you. I deceived you, and you were glad, and believed, and driveled. Know that marrying her is such nonsense that a first-year schoolboy wouldn’t believe it. Could anyone think I believed it? But you did! You believed it, because you’re not received in high society and know nothing of how things are done in high society. Things aren’t done so simply in high society, and it’s impossible that a woman should so simply—up and get married . . . Now I’ll tell you clearly what you want: you want to invite me to your place and get me drunk, so that I’ll hand over the document to you, and together we’ll pull some sort of swindle on Katerina Nikolaevna! What rubbish! I’ll never go to your place, and know also that by tomorrow, or the day after without fail, this paper will be in her own hands, because this document belongs to her, because she wrote it, and I’ll hand it to her personally, and if you want to know where, know that I’ll do it through Tatyana Pavlovna, her acquaintance, in Tatyana Pavlovna’s apartment—I’ll hand it to her in Tatyana Pavlovna’s presence, and take nothing from her for it . . . And now—off with you, forever, or else . . . or else, Lambert, I’ll deal with you less politely . . .”

  When I finished, I was trembling all over. The main thing and the nastiest habit in life, which harms every manner of business, is . . . is when you start showing off. The devil pushed me to get so worked up in front of him that, as I finished speaking, rapping out the words with pleasure, and raising my voice more and more, I suddenly got so heated that I threw in this totally unnecessary detail about handing over the document through Tatyana Pavlovna and in her apartment! But I suddenly wanted so much to disconcert him then! When I burst out so directly about the document and suddenly saw his stupid fright, I wanted to crush him still more with precise details. And this boastful, womanish babble later became the cause of terrible misfortunes, because this detail about Tatyana Pavlovna and her apartment lodged at once in his mind, the mind of a swindler and practical petty dealer; in higher and more important matters he’s worthless and understands nothing, but still he does have a flair for these petty things. If I had kept quiet about Tatyana Pavlovna, great misfortunes would not have occurred. However, on hearing me, for the first moment he was terribly at a loss.

  “Listen,” he muttered, “Alphonsina . . . Alphonsina will sing . . . Alphonsina went to see her; listen, I have a letter, almost a letter, where Mme. Akhmakov talks about you, the pockmarked one got it for me—remember the pockmarked one?—you’ll see now, you’ll see, come on!”

  “Lies! Show me the letter!”

  “It’s at home, Alphonsina has it, come on!”

  Of course, he was lying and raving, trembling for fear I might run away from him; but I suddenly abandoned him in the middle of the street, and when he made as if to follow me, I stopped and shook my fist at him. But he already stood thinking—and let me go: maybe a new plan was already flashing in his head. But for me the surprises and encounters weren’t over . . . And when I remember that whole unfortunate day, it seems to me that all these surprises and accidents had as if conspired together then to come pouring down on my head at once from some cursed cornucopia. I had hardly opened the door to my apartment when, in the front hall, I ran into a tall young man with an elongated and pale face, of imposing and “graceful” appearance, and wearing a magnificent fur coat. He had a pince-nez on his nose; but as soon as he saw me, he pulled it off his nose (apparently out of courtesy) and, politely raising his top hat with his hand, though without stopping, said to me with a graceful smile, “Ha, bonsoir,”96 and walked past me to the stairs. We recognized each other immediately, though I had seen him fleetingly only once in my life, in Moscow. It was Anna Andreevna’s brother, the kammerjunker, the young Versilov, Versilov’s son and therefore almost my brother. He was being shown out by the landlady (the landlord hadn’t come home from work yet). When he left, I simply fell upon her:

  “What was he doing here? Was he in my room?”

  “Not at all. He came to see me . . .” she broke off quickly and drily and turned to go to her room.

  “No, not like that!” I shouted. “Kindly answer: what did he come for?”

  “Ah, my God! so I’m to tell you all about what people come for! I believe we, too, can have our concerns. The young man may have wanted to borrow money, to find out an address from me. I may have promised him last time . . .”

  “Last time when?”

  “Ah, my God, but it’s not the first time he’s come!”

  She left. Above all, I understood that the tone was changing here: they were beginning to speak rudely to me. It was clear that this was again a secret; secrets accumulated with every step, every hour. The young Versilov came the first time with his sister, Anna Andreevna, while I was sick; I remembered it only too well, as I did the fact that Anna Andreevna had let drop to me yesterday an extraordinary little phrase, that the old prince might stay in my apartment . . . but it was all so jumbled and so grotesque that I could come up with almost no thoughts in that regard. Slapping myself on the forehead and not even sitting down to rest, I ran to Anna Andreevna’s. She was not at home, and the answer I
got from the porter was that “she had gone to Tsarskoe, would be back around the same time tomorrow.”

  “She goes to Tsarskoe, to the old prince, of course, while her brother inspects my apartment! No, this will not be!” I rasped. “And if there is indeed some deadly noose here, I’ll protect the ‘poor woman’!”

  I didn’t return home from Anna Andreevna’s, because there suddenly flashed in my inflamed head the memory of the tavern on the canal where Andrei Petrovich was accustomed to go in his dark moments. Delighted with my surmise, I instantly ran there; it was past three o’clock and dusk was gathering. In the tavern I was told that he had come: “He stayed a little while and left, but maybe he’ll come again.” I suddenly resolved with all my might to wait for him, and ordered dinner; at least there was a hope.

  I ate dinner, even ate too much, so as to have the right to stay as long as possible, and sat there, I think, for some four hours. I won’t describe my sadness and feverish impatience; it was as if everything in me was shaking and trembling. The barrel organ, the customers—oh, all that anguish left an imprint on my soul, maybe for my whole life! I won’t describe the thoughts that arose in my head like a cloud of dry leaves in autumn after a gust of wind; it really was something like that, and, I confess, I felt at times as if reason was beginning to betray me.

  But what tormented me to the point of pain (in passing, naturally, on the side, past the main torment), was one nagging, venomous impression—as nagging as a venomous autumn fly, which you give no thought to, but which circles around you, pestering you, and suddenly gives you a very painful bite. It was just a memory, a certain event, of which I had not yet told anyone in the world. Here’s what it was, for this, too, has to be told somewhere or other.

  IV

  WHEN IT WAS decided in Moscow that I would go to Petersburg, I was given to know through Nikolai Semyonovich that I should expect money to be sent for the trip. Who the money would come from, I didn’t ask; I knew it was from Versilov, and since I dreamed day and night then, with a leaping heart and high-flown plans, about my meeting with Versilov, I completely stopped speaking of him aloud, even with Marya Ivanovna. Remember, however, that I had my own money for the trip; but I decided to wait anyway; incidentally, I assumed the money would come by post.