Anna Andreevna hurriedly came into my room, pressed her hands together before me, and said, “no longer for her own sake, but for the prince’s,” that she “begs me not to leave, and to go to him when he wakes up. Without you, he’ll perish, he’ll have a nervous breakdown; I’m afraid he won’t last till nighttime . . .” She added that she herself absolutely had to be absent, “maybe even for two hours,” which meant that she was “leaving the prince to me alone.” I warmly gave her my word that I’d stay till evening, and that when he woke up, I’d do all I could to divert him.
“And I will do my duty!” she concluded energetically.
She left. I’ll add, running ahead, that she herself went looking for Lambert; this was her last hope. On top of that, she visited her brother and her Fanariotov family; it’s clear what state of mind she must have come back in.
The prince woke up about an hour after she left. I heard him groan through the wall and ran to him at once. I found him sitting on his bed in a dressing gown, but so frightened by the solitude, by the light of the single lamp, and by the strange room, that when I came in he gave a start, jumped up, and cried out. I rushed to him, and when he made out that it was I, he began to embrace me with tears of joy.
“And they told me you had moved somewhere, to another apartment, that you got frightened and ran away.”
“Who could have told you that?”
“Who could? You see, I may have thought it up myself, or maybe someone told me. Imagine, I just had a dream: in comes an old man with a beard and with an icon, an icon that’s split in two, and he suddenly says, ‘That’s how your life will be split!’”
“Ah, my God, you must have heard from someone that Versilov broke an icon yesterday?”
“N’est-ce pas? I heard, I heard! I heard it this morning from Nastasya Egorovna. She moved my trunk and my little dog over here.”
“Well, and so you dreamed of it.”
“Well, it makes no difference. And imagine, this old man kept shaking his finger at me. Where is Anna Andreevna?”
“She’ll be back presently.”
“From where? Has she also gone?” he exclaimed with pain.
“No, no, she’ll be back presently, and she asked me to sit with you.”
“Oui, to come here. And so our Andrei Petrovich has gone off his head —‘so inadvertently and so swiftly!’43 I always predicted to him that he’d end up that way. My friend, wait . . .”
He suddenly seized me by the frock coat with his hand and pulled me towards him.
“Today,” he began to whisper, “the landlord suddenly brought me photographs, vile photographs of women, all naked women in various Oriental guises, and began showing them to me through a glass . . . You see, I praised them reluctantly, but that’s just how they brought vile women to that unfortunate man, to make it easier to get him drunk . . .”
“You keep on about von Sohn, but enough, Prince! The landlord is a fool and nothing more!”
“A fool and nothing more! C’est mon opinion! 111 My friend, save me from this place if you can!” he suddenly pressed his hands together before me.
“Prince, I’ll do everything I can! I’m all yours . . . Dear Prince, wait, and maybe I’ll settle everything!”
“N’est-cepas? We’ll up and run away, and we’ll leave the trunk for appearances, so that he’ll think we’re coming back.”
“Run away where? And Anna Andreevna?”
“No, no, together with Anna Andreevna . . . Oh, mon cher, I’ve got some sort of jumble in my head . . . Wait—there, in my bag, to the right, is Katya’s portrait; I put it there on the sly, so that Anna Andreevna and especially this Nastasya Egorovna wouldn’t notice. Take it out, for God’s sake, quickly, carefully, watch out that they don’t find us . . . Can’t we put the hook on the door?”
Indeed, I found in the bag a photographic portrait of Katerina Nikolaevna in an oval frame. He took it in his hands, brought it to the light, and tears suddenly poured down his gaunt yellow cheeks.
“C’est un ange, c’est un ange du ciel!”112 he exclaimed. “All my life I’ve been guilty before her . . . and now, too! Chère enfant, I don’t believe anything, anything! My friend, tell me: well, is it possible to imagine that they want to put me in a madhouse? Je dis des choses charmantes et tout le monde rit 113 . . . and suddenly this man is taken to the madhouse?”
“That was never so!” I cried. “That is a mistake! I know her feelings!”
“And you also know her feelings? Why, that’s wonderful! My friend, you’ve resurrected me. What was all that they were telling me about you? My friend, invite Katya here, and let the two of them kiss each other before me, and I’ll take them home, and we’ll chase the landlord away!”
He stood up, pressed his hands together before me, and suddenly knelt before me.
“Cher,” he whispered, now in some sort of insane fear, all shaking like a leaf, “my friend, tell me the whole truth: where are they going to put me now?”
“God!” I cried, raising him up and sitting him on the bed, “you finally don’t believe me either; you think I’m also in the conspiracy? But I won’t let anyone here even lay a finger on you!”
“C’est ça, don’t let them,” he babbled, seizing me firmly by the elbows with both hands, and continuing to tremble. “Don’t let anybody! And don’t tell me any lies . . . because can it be that they’ll take me away from here? Listen, this landlord, Ippolit, or whoever he is, he’s not . . . a doctor?”
“What sort of doctor?”
“This . . . this isn’t a madhouse, I mean here, in this room?”
But at that moment the door suddenly opened and Anna Andreevna came in. She must have been eavesdropping by the door and, unable to help herself, opened it too abruptly—and the prince, who jumped at every creak, cried out and threw himself facedown on the pillow. He finally had some sort of fit, which resolved itself in sobbing.
“Here are the fruits of your work,” I said to her, pointing to the old man.
“No, these are the fruits of your work!” she raised her voice sharply. “I turn to you for the last time, Arkady Makarovich: do you want to reveal the infernal intrigue against the defenseless old man and sacrifice your ‘insane and childish amorous dreams’ in order to save your own sister?”
“I’ll save you all, but only in the way I told you before! I’m running off again; maybe in an hour Katerina Nikolaevna herself will be here! I’ll reconcile everybody, and everybody will be happy!” I exclaimed almost with inspiration.
“Bring her, bring her here,” the prince roused himself. “Take me to her! I want Katya, I want to see Katya and bless her!” he exclaimed, raising his arms and trying to get out of bed.
“You see,” I pointed at him to Anna Andreevna, “you hear what he says: now in any case no ‘document’ will help you.”
“I see, but it could still help to justify my action in the opinion of the world, while now—I’m disgraced! Enough; my conscience is clear. I’ve been abandoned by everyone, even my own brother, who is afraid of failure
. . . But I will do my duty and stay by this unfortunate man as his nurse, his attendant!”
But there was no time to be lost, and I ran out
