“And you probably also suffered over that at night?” Liza smiled gently.
“Wait, Liza, it’s a stupid question, and you’re laughing; laugh, then, but it’s impossible not to be surprised: you and he are such opposites! He—I’ve studied him—he’s gloomy, suspicious, maybe he’s very kind, let it be so, but he’s highly inclined to see evil in everything first of all (in that, however, he’s quite like me!). He passionately respects nobility—I admit that, I see it—but only, it seems, in the ideal. Oh, he’s inclined to repentance, he spends all his life constantly blaming himself and repenting, but on the other hand he never improves; however, maybe that’s also like me. A thousand prejudices and false thoughts and—no thoughts at all! He seeks a great deed and does dirty little tricks. Forgive me, Liza, anyhow I’m a fool: I say this, I hurt you and know it; I understand that . . .”
“The portrait would be true,” Liza smiled, “but you’re too angry with him over me, and therefore none of it is true. He’s been mistrustful of you from the beginning, and you couldn’t see the whole of him, but with me even in Luga . . . He’s seen only me alone, ever since Luga. Yes, he’s suspicious and morbid, and without me he would have lost his mind; and if he leaves me, he will lose his mind or shoot himself; it seems he’s realized that and knows it,” Liza added as if to herself and pensively. “Yes, he’s constantly weak, but these weak ones are occasionally capable of doing something very strong . . . How strangely you said that about the pistol, Arkady; there’s no need for any of that, and I know what will happen myself. It’s not I who am after him, but he who is after me. Mama weeps, she says, ‘If you marry him, you’ll be unhappy, he’ll stop loving you.’ I don’t believe that. Maybe I’ll be unhappy, but he won’t stop loving me. That’s not why I haven’t accepted him all along, but for another reason. For two months now I haven’t given him my acceptance, but today I told him, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ Arkasha, you know, yesterday” (her eyes shone and she suddenly put her arms around my neck), “yesterday he went to Anna Andreevna and told her directly, in all sincerity, that he couldn’t love her . . . Yes, he gave a complete explanation, and that thought is now finished! He never had any part in that thought, it was all dreamed up by Prince Nikolai Ivanovich, and those tormentors, Stebelkov and another one, kept pushing him . . . And so for that I said yes to him today. Dear Arkady, he’s calling for you very much, and don’t be offended with him for yesterday; he’s not feeling well today, and will be at home all day. He’s really unwell, Arkady, don’t think it’s a pretext. He sent me specially and asked me to tell you that he ‘needs’ you, that he has much to tell you, and it wouldn’t be convenient here in this apartment. Well, good-bye! Ah, Arkady, I’m ashamed even to say it, but as I was coming here, I was terribly afraid that you had stopped loving me, I kept crossing myself on the way, but—you’re so kind, so sweet! I’ll never forget it! I’m going to see mama. And you try to love him a little, hm?”
I embraced her warmly and told her:
“I think, Liza, that you’re a strong character. Yes, I believe it’s not you who are after him, but he who is after you, only still . . .”
“Only still, ‘What makes you love him—that’s the question!’” Liza picked up with a suddenly mischievous smile, as she used to, and said “that’s the question!” terribly like me. And what’s more, exactly as I do with this phrase, she raised her index finger in front of her. We kissed each other, but when she left, my heart was wrung again.
II
I’LL NOTE HERE just for myself : there were, for instance, moments after Liza left when a whole crowd of the most unexpected thoughts came to my head, and I was even very pleased with them. “Well, why do I fuss so,” I thought, “what is it to me? It’s the same with everyone, or almost. So what if it happened with Liza? Do I have to save ‘the family honor’ or what?” I mark all these meannesses in order to show how poorly fortified I was in the understanding of evil and good. The only saving thing was feeling: I knew that Liza was unhappy, that mama was unhappy, and I knew it through feeling, when I remembered about them, and therefore I felt that all that had happened must not be good.
Now I’ll state beforehand that from this day right up to the catastrophe of my illness, events raced on so quickly that, recalling them now, I’m even surprised myself at how I could hold out against them, how fate failed to crush me. They weakened my mind and even my feelings, and if, in the end, I hadn’t held out and had committed a crime (and a crime almost was committed), the jury might very well have acquitted me. But I will try to describe it all in strict order, though I tell you beforehand that there was little order in my thoughts then. Events came pressing like the wind, and thoughts whirled in my mind like dry leaves in autumn. Since I consisted entirely of other people’s thoughts, where could I get my own, when I needed them for an independent decision? And I had no guide at all.
I decided to go to see the prince in the evening, so that we could discuss everything in perfect freedom, and until evening I stayed at home. But at twilight I again received a note from Stebelkov by the city mail, three lines, with an insistent and “earnest” request to call on him the next morning at around eleven o’clock on “most important business, and you will see yourself that it is business.” Having thought it over, I decided to act according to the circumstances, since tomorrow was still a long way off.
It was already eight o’clock. I would have left long ago, but I kept waiting for Versilov; there was much I wanted to express to him, and my heart was burning. But Versilov wouldn’t come and didn’t come. For the time being I couldn’t show myself at mama’s and Liza’s, and I had a feeling that Versilov probably hadn’t been there all day. I went on foot, and it occurred to me on the way to peek into yesterday’s tavern on the canal. Versilov happened to be sitting in yesterday’s place.
“I just thought you’d come here,” he said, smiling strangely and looking at me strangely. His smile was unkind, such as I hadn’t seen on his face in a long time.
I sat down at his table and first told him all the facts about the prince and Liza from the beginning, and about my scene yesterday at the prince’s after the roulette; and I didn’t forget my winning at roulette. He listened very attentively and asked again about the prince’s decision to marry Liza.
“Pauvre enfant, maybe she won’t gain anything by that. But most likely it won’t happen . . . though he’s capable . . .”
“Tell me, as a friend: you did know about it, you had a presentiment?”
“My friend, what could I do here? It’s all a matter of feelings and another person’s conscience, if only on the side of this poor little girl. I repeat to you: I did enough poking into other people’s consciences once upon a time —it’s a most inconvenient maneuver! I won’t refuse to help in misfortune, as much as my strength allows and if I can sort it out myself. And you, my dear, you really suspected nothing all the while?”
“But how could you,” I cried, flushing all over, “how could you, with even a drop of suspicion that I knew about Liza’s liaison with the prince, and seeing that at the same time I was taking the prince’s money—how could you talk to me, sit with me, offer me your hand—me, whom you should have considered a scoundrel! Because I bet you certainly suspected that I knew everything and was knowingly taking the prince’s money for my sister!”
“Once again it’s a matter of conscience,” he smiled. “And how do you know,” he added distinctly, with a certain enigmatic feeling, “how do you know that I wasn’t afraid, too, like you yesterday on a different occasion, to lose my ‘ideal’ and, instead of my ardent and honest boy, to confront a blackguard? Fearing it, I postponed the moment. Why not suppose in me, instead of laziness or perfidy, something more innocent, well, stupid perhaps, but of a more noble sort? Que diable! I’m all too often stupid and without nobility. What use would you be to me, if you had the same inclinations? To persuade and reform in such cases is mean; you’d have lost all value in my eyes, even if you were reformed . . .”
“And Liza—are you sorry, are you sorry for her?”
“Very sorry, my dear. What makes you think I’m so unfeeling? . . . On the contrary, I’ll try as hard as I can . . . Well, and how are you? How are
