“I have. What about it?”
“Do you remember . . . Wait, I’ll drink another glass . . . Do you remember that place at the end, when they—that crazy old man and that lovely thirteen-year-old girl, his granddaughter—after their fantastic flight and wanderings, finally find refuge somewhere on the edge of England, near some medieval Gothic cathedral, and the girl obtains some post there, showing the cathedral to visitors . . . And then, once, the sun is setting, and this child is standing on the porch of the cathedral, all bathed in the last rays, standing and watching the sunset with quiet, pensive contemplation in her child’s soul, a soul astonished as before some riddle, because the one and the other are like a riddle—the sun as God’s thought, and the cathedral as man’s thought . . . isn’t it so? Oh, I don’t know how to express it, only God likes such first thoughts from children . . . And there, next to her on the steps, this mad old man, the grandfather, stares at her with a fixed gaze . . . You know, there’s nothing special in this picture from Dickens, absolutely nothing, but you’ll never forget it, and this remains in all of Europe—why? Here is the beautiful! Here is innocence! Eh! I don’t know what it is, only it’s good. I was always reading novels in high school. You know, I have a sister in the country, only a year older than me . . . Oh, it’s all been sold there now, and there’s no longer any estate! We sat on the terrace, under our old lindens, and read that novel, and the sun was also setting, and suddenly we stopped reading and said to each other that we, too, would be good, and we, too, would be beautiful—I was preparing for the university then and . . . Ah, Dolgoruky, you know, each of us has his memories! . . .”
And suddenly he leaned his pretty little head on my shoulder—and wept. I felt very, very sorry for him. True, he had drunk a lot of wine, but he had talked so sincerely with me, like a brother, with such feeling . . . Suddenly, at that moment, a shout came from the street and a strong rapping of knuckles on our window (the windows here are one-piece, big, and it was on the ground floor as well, so that it’s possible to knock from the street). It was the ejected Andreev.
‘Ohé, Lambert! Où est Lambert? As-tu vu Lambert?” his wild shout resounded in the street.
“Ah, but he’s here! So he hasn’t gone?” exclaimed my boy, tearing from his place.
“The check!” Lambert rasped to the waiter. His hands even trembled with anger as he went to pay, but the pockmarked one wouldn’t let Lambert pay for him.
“But why? Didn’t I invite you, didn’t you accept the invitation?”
“No, permit me.” The pockmarked one took out his purse and, having calculated his share, paid separately.
“You offend me, Semyon Sidorych!”
“That’s how I want it, sir,” Semyon Sidorovich snapped and, taking his hat and not saying good-bye to anyone, walked out of the room alone. Lambert threw the money at the waiter and hastily ran out after him, even forgetting about me in his confusion. Trishatov and I went out after all the rest. Andreev was standing by the entrance like a milepost, waiting for Trishatov.
“Blackguard!” Lambert couldn’t keep from saying.
“Uh-uh!” Andreev growled at him, and with one swing of his arm he knocked off his round hat, which rolled along the pavement. The humiliated Lambert rushed to pick it up.
“Vingt-cinq roubles!”88 Andreev showed Trishatov the banknote he had wrested from Lambert earlier.
“Enough,” Trishatov cried to him. “Why do you keep making a row? . . . And why did you skin him for twenty-five roubles? You only had seven coming.”
“What do you mean, skin him? He promised we’d dine in a private room with Athenian women, and he served up the pockmarked one instead of the women, and, besides that, I didn’t finish eating and froze in the cold a sure eighteen roubles’ worth. He had seven roubles outstanding, which makes exactly twenty-five for you.”
“Get the hell out of here, both of you!” yelled Lambert. “I’m throwing you both out, and I’ll tie you in little knots . . .”
“Lambert, I’m throwing you out, and I’ll tie you in little knots!” cried Andreev. “Adieu, mon prince,89 don’t drink any more wine! Off we go, Petya! Ohé, Lambert! Où est Lambert? As-tu vu Lambert?” he roared one last time, moving off with enormous strides.
“So I’ll come to see you, may I?” Trishatov hastily babbled to me, hurrying after his friend.
Lambert and I remained alone.
“ Well . . . let’s go!” he uttered, as if he had difficulty catching his breath and even as if demented.
“Where should I go? I’m not going anywhere with you!” I hastened to cry in defiance.
“How do you mean, not going?” he roused himself up fearfully, coming to his senses all at once. “But I’ve only been waiting for us to be left alone!”
“But where on earth can we go?” I confess, I also had a slight ringing in my head from the three glasses of champagne and two of sherry.
“This way, over this way, you see?”
“But the sign says fresh oysters, you see? It’s a foul-smelling place . . .”
“That’s because you’ve just eaten, but it’s Miliutin’s shop; we won’t eat oysters, I’ll give you champagne . . .”
“I don’t want it! You want to get me drunk.”
“They told you that; they were laughing at you. You believe the scoundrels!”
“No, Trishatov is not a scoundrel. But I myself know how to be careful— that’s what!”
“So you’ve got your own character?”
“Yes, I’ve got character, a bit more than you have, because you’re enslaved to the first comer. You disgraced us, you apologized to the Poles like a lackey. You must have been beaten often in taverns?”
“But we have to have a talk, cghretin!” he cried with that scornful impatience which all but said, “And you’re at it, too?” “What, are you afraid or something? Are you my friend or not?”
“I’m not your friend, and you’re a crook. Let’s go, if only to prove that I’m not afraid of you. Ah, what a foul smell, it smells of cheese! What nastiness!”
Chapter Six
I
I ASK YOU once more to remember that I had a slight ringing in my head; if it hadn’t been for that, I would have talked and acted differently. In the back room of this shop one could actually eat oysters, and we sat down at a little table covered with a foul, dirty cloth. Lambert ordered champagne; a glass of cold, golden-colored wine appeared before me and looked at me temptingly; but I was vexed.
“You see, Lambert, what mainly offends me is that you think you can order me around now, as you used to at Touchard’s, while you yourself are enslaved by everybody here.”
“Cghretin! Eh, let’s clink!”
“You don’t even deign to pretend before me; you might at least conceal that you want to get me drunk.”
“You’re driveling, and you’re drunk. You have to drink more, and you’ll be more cheerful. Take your glass, go on, take it!”
“What’s all this ‘go on, take it’? I’m leaving, and that’s the end of it.”
And I actually made as if to get up. He became terribly angry.
“It’s Trishatov whispering to you against me: I saw the two of you whispering there. You’re a cghretin in that case. Alphonsine is even repulsed when he comes near her . . . He’s vile. I’ll tell you what he’s like.”
“You’ve already said it. All you’ve got is Alphonsine, you’re terribly narrow.”
“Narrow?” He didn’t understand. “They’ve gone over to the pockmarked one now. That’s what! That’s why I threw them out. They’re dishonest. That pockmarked villain will corrupt them, too. But I always demanded that they behave nobly.”
I sat down, took the glass somehow mechanically, and drank a gulp.
“I’m incomparably superior to you in education,” I said. But he was only too glad that I had sat down, and at once poured me more wine.
“So you’re afraid of them?” I went on teasing him (and at that point I was certainly more vile than he was himself ). “Andreev knocked your hat off, and you gave him twenty-five roubles for it.”
“I did, but he’ll pay me back. They’re rebellious, but I’ll tie them into . . .”
“You’re very worried about the pockmarked one. And you know, it seems to me that I’m the only one you’ve got left now. All your hopes are resting on me alone now—eh?”
“Yes, Arkashka, that’s so: you’re my only remaining friend; you put it so well!” he slapped me on the shoulder.
What could be done with such a crude man? He was totally undeveloped and took mockery for praise.
“You could save me from some bad things, if you were a good comrade, Arkady,” he went on, looking at me affectionately.
“In what way could I save you?”
“You know what way. Without me you’re like a cghretin, and you’re sure to be stupid, but I’d give you thirty thousand, and we’d go halves, and you yourself know how. Well, who are you, just look: you’ve got nothing—no name, no family—and here’s a pile all at
