I turned red with anger.
“Did you see the chains yourself ?”
“I didn’t myself, but . . .”
“Then I declare to you that it’s all a lie, a tissue of vile machinations and enemy slander, that is, of one enemy, the chiefest and most inhuman one, because he has only one enemy—your daughter!”
The prince flushed in his turn.
“Mon cher, I beg you and I insist that in the future my daughter’s name never be mentioned again in my presence together with this vile story.”
I rose slightly. He was beside himself; his chin was trembling.
“Cette histoire infâme!16 . . . I didn’t believe it, I never wanted to believe it, but . . . they tell me: believe it, believe it, I . . .”
Here the valet suddenly came in again and announced a visitor. I sank back down on my chair.
IV
TWO LADIES CAME in, both young, one the stepdaughter of one of the cousins of the prince’s late wife, or something of the sort, his ward, for whom he had already allotted a dowry, and who (I note it for the future) had money of her own; the other was Anna Andreevna Versilov, Versilov’s daughter, three years older than I, who lived with her brother at Mme. Fanariotov’s and whom before then I had seen only once in my life, fleetingly in the street, though I had already had a skirmish with her brother, also fleetingly, in Moscow (quite possibly I’ll mention that skirmish later on, if there’s room, though essentially it’s not worth it). This Anna Andreevna had been a special favorite of the prince’s since childhood (Versilov’s acquaintance with the prince began terribly long ago). I was so embarrassed by what had just transpired that I didn’t even stand up when they came in, though the prince stood up to meet them; and afterwards I thought it embarrassing to stand up, and remained in my place. Above all, I was thrown off, because the prince had been shouting at me just three minutes before, and I still didn’t know whether I should leave or not. But my old man had already forgotten everything completely, as was his wont, and was all pleasantly animated at the sight of the girls. He even managed, with a quick change of physiognomy and a sort of mysterious wink, to whisper to me hastily, just before they came in:
“Take a look at Olympiada, look closely, closely . . . I’ll tell you later . . .”
I looked at her quite closely and found nothing special: not a very tall girl, plump, and with extremely ruddy cheeks. Her face, however, was rather pleasant, the kind that the materialists like. Her expression was kind, perhaps, but with a wrinkle. She could not have been especially brilliant intellectually, at least not in a higher sense, but one could see cunning in her eyes. No more than nineteen years old. In short, nothing remarkable. We’d have called her a “pillow” in high school. (If I describe her in such detail, it’s solely because I’ll need it in the future.)
By the way, everything I’ve been describing so far, with such apparently unnecessary detail, all leads to the future and will be needed there. It will all echo in its own place: I’ve been unable to avoid it; and if it’s boring, I beg you not to read it.
Versilov’s daughter was quite a different sort of person. Tall, even slightly lean; an elongated and remarkably pale face, but black, fluffy hair; big, dark eyes, a profound gaze; small and red lips, a fresh mouth. The first woman whose gait did not fill me with loathing; however, she was thin and lean. The expression of her face was not entirely kind, but imposing; twenty-two years old. Hardly a single external feature resembling Versilov, and yet, by some miracle, an extraordinary resemblance to him in her facial expression. I don’t know if she was good-looking; that’s a matter of taste. Both women were dressed very modestly, so it’s not worth describing. I expected to be offended at once by some look or gesture from Miss Versilov, and I prepared myself; for her brother had offended me in Moscow, at our very first confrontation in life. She couldn’t have known me by my face, but she had certainly heard that I visited the prince. Everything the prince proposed or did aroused interest and was an event among that whole heap of his relations and “expectant ones”—the more so his sudden partiality for me. I knew positively that the prince was very interested in the fate of Anna Andreevna and was seeking a fiancé for her. But it was more difficult to find a fiancé for Miss Versilov than for the ones who embroidered on canvas.
And so, contrary to all expectation, Miss Versilov, having shaken the prince’s hand and exchanged some cheerful social phrases with him, looked at me with extraordinary curiosity and, seeing that I was also looking at her, suddenly bowed to me with a smile. True, she had just walked in and her bow was in greeting, but her smile was so kind that it was obviously deliberate. And I recall that I experienced an extraordinarily pleasant feeling.
“And this . . . this is my dear and young friend Arkady Andreevich Dol . . .”—the prince murmured, noticing that she had bowed to me, while I was still sitting—and suddenly broke off: perhaps he became embarrassed that he was introducing me to her (that is, essentially, a brother to a sister). The pillow also gave me a bow; but I suddenly flew into a stupid rage and jumped up from my seat: a surge of affected pride, completely senseless, all from self-love!
“Excuse me, Prince, I am not Arkady Andreevich, but Arkady Makarovich,” I cut off cuttingly, quite forgetting that I ought to have responded to the ladies’ bows. Devil take that indecent moment!
“Mais . . . tiens! ” the prince cried out, striking himself on the forehead with his finger.
“Where did you study?” I heard beside me the silly and drawn-out question of the pillow, who had come over to me.
“In a high school in Moscow.”
“Ah! So I heard. And do they teach well there?”
“Very well.”
I went on standing, and spoke like a soldier reporting.
The girl’s questions were indisputably unresourceful, but, nevertheless, she did manage to cover up my stupid escapade and to ease the embarrassment of the prince, who listened at the same time with a merry smile to something Miss Versilov was merrily whispering to him— evidently not about me. A question, though: why should this girl, a total stranger to me, volunteer to cover up my stupid escapade and all the rest? At the same time, it was impossible to imagine that she had addressed me just like that; there was an intention here. She looked at me all too curiously, as if she also wanted me to take as much notice of her as possible. I figured it all out afterwards and was not mistaken.
“What, today?” the prince cried suddenly, leaping up from his place.
“So you didn’t know?” Miss Versilov was surprised. “Olympe! The prince didn’t know that Katerina Nikolaevna would be here today. We came to see her, we thought she took the morning train and had long been at home. We only just met her on the porch; she came straight from the station and told us to go to you, and that she would come presently . . . Here she is!”
The side door opened and—that woman appeared!
I already knew her face from an astonishing portrait that hung in the prince’s office; I had studied that portrait all month. In her presence, I spent some three minutes in the office and not for one second did I tear my eyes from her face. But if I hadn’t known the portrait and had been asked, after those three minutes, “What is she like?”—I wouldn’t have been able to answer, because everything became clouded in me.
I only remember from those three minutes a truly beautiful woman, whom the prince was kissing and making crosses over, and who suddenly— just as soon as she entered—quickly began looking at me. I clearly heard how the prince, obviously pointing to me, murmured something, with a sort of little laugh, about a new secretary, and spoke my last name. She somehow jerked her face up, gave me a nasty look, and smiled so insolently that I suddenly made a step, went up to the prince, and murmured, trembling terribly, without finishing a single word and,
