“Who hasn’t heard it, and he knows perfectly well, as he tells it, that you’ve certainly heard it already, but still he tells it, deliberately imagining that you haven’t. It seems the vision of the Swedish king9 has become outdated with them; but in my youth they repeated it with gusto, and in a mysterious whisper, as well as the one about somebody at the beginning of the century supposedly kneeling before the senators in the Senate.10 There were also many anecdotes about Commandant Bashutsky11 and how the monument was taken away. They’re terribly fond of anecdotes about the court; for instance, the stories about Chernyshov,12 a minister in the previous reign, how as a seventy-year-old man he made himself up so that he looked like a thirty-year-old, so much so that the late sovereign was astonished at his receptions . . .”
“I’ve heard that, too.”
“Who hasn’t? All these anecdotes are the height of indecency, but you should know that this type of the indecent is much deeper and more widespread than we think. Even in our most decent society, you meet with the wish to lie with the purpose of making your neighbor happy, for we all suffer from this unrestraint of the heart. Only with us the stories are of a different kind; what they tell about America alone is something awful, and that’s even statesmen! I confess, I myself belong to this indecent type and have suffered from it all my life . . .”
“I’ve told the story about Chernyshov several times myself.”
“Have you really?”
“There’s another tenant here besides me, a clerk, also pockmarked, and already old, but he’s a terribly prosaic man, and as soon as Pyotr Ippolitovich starts talking, he immediately sets about confusing and contradicting him. And he’s driven him to such a state that Pyotr Ippolitovich serves him like a slave and humors him, only so as he listens.”
“That’s already another type of the indecent, and maybe even more loathsome than the first. The first is all rapture! ‘Just let me tell you a lie— you’ll see how well it comes out.’ The second is all spleen and prose: ‘I won’t let you lie—when, where, in what year?’ In short, he has no heart. My friend, always let a man lie a little—it’s innocent. Even let him lie a lot. First, it will show your delicacy, and second, you’ll also be allowed to lie in return—two enormous profits at once. Que diable! 34 one must love one’s neighbor! But it’s time I left. You’ve settled in quite nicely,” he added, getting up from his chair. “I’ll tell Sofya Andreevna and your sister that I called and found you in good health. Good-bye, my dear.”
What, could that be all? No, this was by no means what I needed; I was waiting for something else, the main thing, though I understood perfectly well that it couldn’t be otherwise. I began showing him to the stairs with a candle; the landlord also jumped over, but, in secret from Versilov, I seized his arm with all my strength and shoved him away fiercely. He looked at me in amazement, but effaced himself at once.
“These stairs . . .” Versilov mumbled, drawing out the words, evidently so as to say something, and evidently for fear I might say something, “these stairs—I’m not used to them, and you’re on the third floor, but, anyhow, I’ll find my way now . . . Don’t trouble yourself, my dear, you’ll catch cold.”
But I didn’t leave. We were going down the second flight of stairs.
“I’ve been waiting for you all these three days,” escaped me suddenly, as if of itself; I was breathless.
“Thank you, my dear.”
“I knew you wouldn’t fail to come.”
“And I knew you knew I wouldn’t fail to come. Thank you, my dear.”
He fell silent. We had already reached the front door, and I was still walking behind him. He opened the door; the wind burst in at once and blew out my candle. Here I suddenly seized him by the hand; it was completely dark. He gave a start, but said nothing. I bent to his hand and suddenly began kissing it greedily, several times, many times.
“My dear boy, what makes you love me so much?” he said, but now in a quite different voice. His voice trembled, and something quite new rang in it, as if it was not he who was speaking.
I wanted to answer something but couldn’t, and ran upstairs. He waited without moving from the spot, and only when I reached my apartment did I hear the street door downstairs open and slam shut noisily. I slipped into my room past the landlord, who for some reason turned up there again, fastened the latch, and, without lighting a candle, threw myself onto the bed, face to the pillow, and—wept, wept. It was the first time I had wept since Touchard’s! Sobs burst from me with such force, and I was so happy . . . but why describe it!
I’ve written this down now without being ashamed, because maybe it was all good, despite all its absurdity.
III
BUT, OH, DID he get it from me for that! I became a terrible despot. Needless to say, we never mentioned this scene afterwards. On the contrary, we met three days later as if nothing had happened—what’s more, I was almost rude that second evening, and he was also as if dry. It happened at my place again; for some reason I still wouldn’t go to him myself, despite my desire to see my mother.
We talked all this time, that is, for these two whole months, only about the most abstract subjects. And that surprises me: all we did was talk about abstract subjects—the generally human and most necessary ones, of course, but not concerned in the least with the essential. Yet much, very much, of the essential needed to be defined and clarified, even urgently so, but of those things we didn’t speak. I even said nothing about mother and Liza and . . . well, and finally about myself, about my whole story. Whether that was all from shame, or from some sort of youthful stupidity—I don’t know. I suppose it was from stupidity, because shame could still have been surmounted.
And I despotized him terribly and more than once even drove it as far as insolence, and even against my own heart: it was all done somehow of itself, uncontrollably, I couldn’t control myself. His tone was of a subtle mockery, as before, though always extremely affectionate despite all. It also struck me that he much preferred coming to me himself, so that in the end I began to see mama terribly seldom, once a week, not more, especially in the most recent time, when I got into quite a whirl. He would come in the evening, sit in my room and chat; he was also very fond of chatting with the landlord; this last infuriated me in such a man as he. The thought also came to me: can it be that he has no one to go to except me? But I knew for certain that he had acquaintances; lately he had even renewed many former connections in high society circles, which he had abandoned during that last year; but it seems he wasn’t especially tempted by them, and many were renewed only officially, while he preferred coming to me. It sometimes touched me very much that, on coming in of an evening, he seemed to grow timid almost every time as he opened the door, and in the first moment always peeked into my eyes with a strange anxiousness, as if to say, “Won’t I be bothering you? Tell me and I’ll go away.” He even said it sometimes. Once, for instance, precisely in the most recent time, he came in when I was already fully dressed in a suit I had just received from the tailor and was about to go to “Prince Seryozha,” so as to set off with him where I had to go (I’ll explain where later). But he came in and sat down, probably not noticing that I was about to leave; there were moments when he was overcome by an extremely strange absentmindedness. As if on purpose, he began talking about the landlord. I blew up:
“Eh, devil take the landlord!”
“Ah, my dear,” he suddenly got up from his place, “it seems you’re about to go out, and I’m bothering you . . . Forgive me, please.”
And he humbly hastened to leave. This humility towards me from such a man, from such a worldly and independent man, who had so much of his own, at once resurrected in my heart all my tenderness for him and all my trust in him. But if he loved me so, why didn’t he stop me then in the time of my disgrace? A word from him then—and maybe I would have held back. However, maybe not. But he did see this foppishness, this fanfaronade, this Matvei (once I even wanted to give him a ride in my sledge, but he wouldn’t get in, and it even happened several times that he didn’t want to get in), he did see that I was throwing money around—and not a word, not a word, not even out of curiosity! That astonishes me to this day, even now. And I, naturally, was not the least bit ceremonious with him then and let everything show, though, of course, also without a word of explanation. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t speak.
However, two or three times it
