I was simply amazed at such a method. I had decidedly assumed he would dodge, but he began with such directness, such boyish directness, with me. I decided to listen to him out of breadth and . . . out of terrible curiosity.
“You see, Lambert, you won’t understand this, but I agree to listen to you because I’m broad,” I declared firmly and took another sip from the glass. Lambert at once refilled it.
“Here’s the thing, Arkady: if a man like Bjoring dared to heap abuse on me and strike me in front of a lady I adored, I don’t know what I’d do! But you took it, and I find you repulsive, you’re a dishrag!”
“How dare you say Bjoring struck me!” I cried, turning red. “It’s rather I who struck him, and not he me.”
“No, he struck you, not you him.”
“Lies, I also stepped on his foot!”
“But he shoved you with his arm and told the lackeys to drag you away . . . and she sat and watched from the carriage and laughed at you—she knows you have no father and can be insulted.”
“I don’t know, Lambert, we’re having a schoolboy conversation, which I’m ashamed of. You’re doing it to get me all worked up, and so crudely and openly, as if I were some sort of sixteen-year-old. You arranged it with Anna Andreevna!” I cried, trembling with anger and mechanically sipping wine all the while.
“Anna Andreevna is a rascal! She’ll hoodwink you, and me, and the whole world! I’ve been waiting for you, because you’re better able to finish with the other one.”
“What other one?”
“With Madame Akhmakov. I know everything. You told me yourself that she’s afraid of the letter you’ve got . . .”
“What letter . . . you’re lying . . . Have you seen her?” I muttered in confusion.
“I’ve seen her. She’s good-looking. Très belle,90 and you’ve got taste.”
“I know you’ve seen her; only you didn’t dare to speak with her, and I want you also not to dare to speak of her.”
“You’re still little, and she laughs at you—that’s what! We had a pillar of virtue like her in Moscow! Oh, how she turned up her nose! But she trembled when we threatened to tell all, and she obeyed at once; and we took the one and the other: both the money and the other thing—you understand what? Now she’s back in society, unapproachable—pah, the devil, how high she flies, and what a carriage, and if only you’d seen in what sort of back room it all went on! You haven’t lived enough; if you knew what little back rooms they’ll venture into . . .”
“So I’ve thought,” I murmured irrepressibly.
“They’re depraved to the tips of their fingers; you don’t know what they’re capable of! Alphonsine lived in one such house; she found it quite repulsive.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I confirmed again.
“They beat you, and you feel sorry . . .”
“Lambert, you’re a villain, curse you!” I cried out, suddenly somehow understanding and trembling. “I saw it all in a dream, you stood there, and Anna Andreevna . . . Oh, curse you! Did you really think I was such a scoundrel? I saw it in a dream, because I just knew you were going to say it. And, finally, all this can’t be so simple that you’d tell me about it all so simply and directly!”
“Look how angry he is! Tut-tut-tut!” Lambert drawled, laughing and triumphant. “Well, brother Arkashka, now I’ve learned all I needed to know. That’s why I was waiting for you. Listen, it means you love her and want to take revenge on Bjoring—that’s what I needed to know. I suspected it all along, while I was waiting for you. Ceci posé, celà change la question.91 And so much the better, because she loves you herself. So get married, don’t delay, that’s the best. And you can’t possibly do otherwise, you’ve hit on the right thing. And then know, Arkady, that you have a friend —me, that is—whom you can saddle and ride on. This friend will help you and get you married; I’ll leave no stone unturned, Arkasha! And afterwards you can give your old friend thirty thousand for his labors, eh? But I will help you, don’t doubt that. I know all the fine points in these matters, and they’ll give you a whole dowry, and you’ll be a rich man with a career!”
Though my head was spinning, I looked at Lambert in amazement. He was serious, that is, not really serious, but I could see clearly that he fully believed in the possibility of getting me married, and even accepted the idea with rapture. Naturally, I also saw that he was trying to ensnare me like a little boy (I saw it right then for certain), but the thought of marrying her so pierced me through that, though I was astonished at Lambert’s ability to believe in such a fantasy, at the same time I rushed to believe it myself, though without losing even for a moment the awareness that, of course, it couldn’t be realized for anything. It somehow all sank in together.
“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
