Burst in would be the only way to describe it. His face was radiant, cheerful and exhilarated. It was evident that he had had a happy and joyous time of it these past four days. It was as good as written on his face that he wished to communicate something to us.
“Here I am!” he announced for all to hear. “The one who ought to have been here before everybody else! But now you’ll find out everything, everything, everything! We hardly had time to exchange two words when we met the other time, Papa, but I had so much to tell you. It’s only when he’s in a good mood that he allows me to be so informal,” he broke off, turning to me, “honest to God, at other times he just won’t have it. His tactic is to be formal with me. But from this day on I want everything to be good between us, and I’ll make sure it is! Incidentally, I’ve become a different man these past four days, completely and utterly different, and you’ll hear all about it. However, of that later. But the main thing now, look – there she is! There! Again! Natasha, my darling, hello, you angel !” he said, taking a seat next to her and rapturously kissing her hand. “I missed you so much these past days! But that’s the way it goes – it couldn’t be helped! I just couldn’t fit it all in. My sweet one! Am I mistaken that you look thinner? There, how pale you are…”
He was ecstatically covering her hands in kisses, looking at her rapturously with his magnificent eyes, as though he could never have his fill. I glanced at Natasha and by her face guessed we were both thinking the same thing – he was quite innocent. Indeed when and how could this innocent one have become blameworthy? A bright colour suddenly suffused Natasha’s pale cheeks as though all the blood in her heart now rushed to her head. Her eyes sparkled, and she glanced defiantly at the Prince.
“But where… have you been… all these days!” she said in a controlled, but faltering voice. Her breathing was heavy and uneven. My God, how she loved him!
“There’s no getting away from it, it does look as though I am guilty before you. I beg your pardon, there can be no as though about it! I am guilty, and I know it. Indeed I have come in the full knowledge of it. Katya’s been telling me since yesterday that no woman could put up with such slackness. (She’s au fait with everything, all that happened here on Tuesday. I told her the day after.) I argued with her, I kept explaining to her, tried to make her see that the woman in question is called Natasha and that there is perhaps only one other in the whole world who’s her equal, namely Katya – and I came here of course in the full knowledge that I had won the argument. Could an angel like you possibly fail to forgive! ‘He wasn’t here, then it stands to reason something must have detained him, rather than that he’s fallen out of love,’ that’s how my Natasha would reason! As if anyone could stop loving you? It’s inconceivable! I missed you more than anything in the world. But all the same I’m guilty! Mind you, after I’ve told you everything you’ll be the first to exonerate me! You’ll all hear the full story directly, I’ve got to pour my heart out to you – that’s why I’m here. I thought of popping in during the day (I happened to have half a moment to spare), to kiss you in mid-flight as it were, but that wasn’t to be – Katya immediately lined up something vitally important for me. That was before you saw me sitting in the carriage, Papa. This, though, was on a different occasion when I was due to call on Katya in answer to another note of hers. It’s got to the stage when messengers never stop delivering notes between our houses. Ivan Petrovich, I only managed to read your note late in the night last night, and of course you’re perfectly right in everything you wrote. But what was to be done – it was a physical impossibility! So I thought, ‘Come tomorrow night I’ll make a clean breast of it,’ because let’s face it, I couldn’t possibly have not come to see you tonight, could I, Natasha?”
“What note was that?” Natasha asked.
“He dropped in on me and found me out, as they say, so of course he left me a letter giving me a piece of his mind for not coming to see you. And he was perfectly right. That was yesterday.”
Natasha looked at me.
“But if you had the time to go calling on Katerina Fyodorovna from morning till night—” the Prince ventured to interject.
“I know, I know what you’re going to say,” Alyosha interrupted him, “‘If you could go to see Katya, you had twice as many reasons for being here.’ I couldn’t agree with you more and shall go even further: not twice, a million more reasons! But first, don’t you know there are some strange, unexpected twists in life that upset the lot and turn everything topsy-turvy? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me. I did say I had changed totally these past few days, and I meant it – totally, to my very finger tips. It stands to reason therefore that something must have led up to it!”
“Oh my God, what on earth happened to you! The suspense is killing us, please!” Natasha exclaimed, smiling at Alyosha’s agitation.
There was no denying it, he did look a little ridiculous; he was excited; words were simply gushing out of him in a torrent, often in disarray, pell-mell. He had an urge to keep talking with no let-up. But as he spoke, he wouldn’t let go of Natasha’s hand and kept lifting it to his lips as though unable to have his fill of kissing it.
“You may well ask, what happened to me,” Alyosha continued. “Oh, you dear people! What did I see, what did I do, whom did I meet? First, Katya – she’s perfection itself! I really and truly didn’t know her until now! And even on Tuesday, when I spoke to you about her – Natasha, do you remember? – I was so taken by her. Well, even then I scarcely knew her. She herself has been shying away from me till the present. But now we really have got to know each other. We’re the best of friends. But I’ll begin at the beginning. First, Natasha, if only you could have heard what she had to tell me about you after she heard from me the following day, Wednesday, what happened between us here… Incidentally, it comes back to me, what a silly ass you must have thought me, when I called on you Wednesday morning! You welcome me with such enthusiasm. You are so taken by the new arrangement between us, you want to speak to me about all this. You are moody and at the same time impish and playful with me, whereas I, I am so stuck-up! Oh, what a fool! What a fool! Honest to God, I wanted to show off, cut a dash in front of you as a husband-to-be, a respectable gentleman, and yet, the very thought of bragging in front of you, you – of all people! Oh, how you must have laughed at me at the time and how pathetic I must have appeared in your eyes!”
The Prince did not say a word and regarded Alyosha with a kind of a mock-serious, triumphant smile. It was as though he were pleased that his son appeared to be making a fool of himself. I watched him closely the whole evening and became absolutely convinced that he did not love his son at all, even though people spoke of his all too ardent paternal love.
“After I left you, I went to see Katya,” Alyosha rattled on. “I already said it was only this morning that we got to know each other totally, and it’s simply marvellous how it all came about… I can scarcely account for it now… A couple of warm words, a couple of emotional exchanges, of thoughts expressed unreservedly, and we – were joined for ever. You must, you simply must get to know her, Natasha! The way she described you, the way she reasoned about you to me! The way she explained to me what a treasure you were for me! Little by little she explained to me all her ideas and outlook on life. She’s such a serious, such a spirited girl! She spoke of our duty, of our mission in life, that we must serve mankind and, seeing that we had reached total agreement in a mere five or six hours of talking, we ended by vowing eternal friendship and that all our life long we’d act as one!”
“Act in what?” the Prince enquired in surprise.
“I’ve changed so much, Father, that all this must of course come as a surprise to you. In fact I can anticipate all your objections in advance,” Alyosha replied with solemnity. “You are all intensely practical people, you have so many tried-and-tested rules, strict and inflexible. Everything that’s new, young, fresh you regard with suspicion, resentment, scorn. But now I’m no longer the one you knew a few days ago. I am different! I can face unflinchingly everything and everyone in the world. If I know that my conviction is justified, I shall follow it through to its uttermost limit, and if I manage to keep to the straight and narrow, it means I’m an honest person. That just about covers it. You can say what you like now, I have the strength of my convictions.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” the Prince exclaimed sardonically.
Natasha looked at us in alarm. She was concerned for Alyosha. He often tended to get carried away to his own disadvantage in conversation, and she knew this. She didn’t want him to appear ridiculous before us, especially before his father.
“Come, come Alyosha! This smells of some kind of philosophy,” she said. “You must have picked it up from someone… why don’t you just carry on with your own story?”
“But I am going to!” Alyosha exclaimed. “You see, Katya’s got these two distant relatives, cousins of some sort, Levenka and Borenka; one’s a student, and the other’s just a young man. She keeps in with them, and what a pair they are! They hardly ever visit the Countess, on principle. When Katya and I were talking about man’s destiny, his vocation and all that, she mentioned them to me and immediately wrote me a note for them. I dashed off at once to introduce myself to them. That same night we got on like a house on fire. There were about a dozen people of all types present: students, officers, artists – there was a writer… they all know you, Ivan Petrovich, that is to say they’ve read your books and expect a great deal from you in the future. That’s what they themselves said to me. I told them I knew you, and promised to introduce you to them. They all greeted me with open arms and gave me a warm reception. I made a point of telling them straight away that I’m soon to be a married man, and that’s just how they came to regard me – as a married man. In the main they live on the top floors of houses, right under the eaves. They all meet as often as they can, but usually on Wednesdays at Levenka’s and Borenka’s. They’re a young idealistic bunch, all ardent philanthropists. We talked about our present, our future, about science, literature – it was all so to the point, so down-to-earth, so matter of fact… There’s a high-school student who comes too. How well they get on with one another, how cultured they are! I’ve never seen anything the like before! Where have I been up till now? What have I seen? What have I been brought up on? You’re the only one, Natasha, who has ever spoken of anything of the sort to me. Oh, Natasha, you definitely must get to know them. Katya already has. They almost worship her, and Katya has already told Levenka and Borenka that when she comes of age and takes charge of her inheritance, she’ll immediately donate a million roubles to charity.”
“And the trustees of this million will no doubt be Levenka and Borenka and their merry men?” the Prince asked.
“That’s not true, not true! Shame on you, Father, for saying such a thing!” Alyosha exclaimed with fervour. “I suspect I know what you’re thinking! As for this million, we really did discuss at length how best to spend it. In the end we decided it should first and foremost go on public education…”
“Yes, I must confess, I didn’t really know my Katerina Fyodorovna that well up till now,” the Prince observed, as though to himself, still smiling ironically. “As a matter of fact I expected a great deal from her, but this—”
“But this what!” Alyosha interrupted. “Why are you so surprised? That this is a little unconventional for you? That no one’s so far given a million, whereas she will? Is that it? But what if she doesn’t want to live at other people’s expense? Because to live off these millions would mean to live at other people’s expense (this only came home to me recently). She wants to be of service to her country and her people and contribute her mite to the general good of the community. We read of this mite in our copybooks, did we not? But now that this mite smacks of a million – oh no, that won’t do! And what does all this much vaunted ethic that I believed in so amount to? Why are you looking at me like that, Father? As though you see before you a clown, a fool! All right, a fool, what of it? Natasha, if only you’d heard what Katya had to say about this. ‘It’s not intelligence that counts, but the things that guide it: character, heart, noble aspirations, progress.’ But the main thing is, we’ve Bezmygin’s immortal words on this. Bezmygin’s a friend of Levenka’s and Borenka’s and, you might as well know, he’s got his head screwed on, a man of genius, really! Only yesterday he came out with, ‘A fool who’s admitted he’s a fool is a fool no more!’ What do you say to that! He’s full of pronouncements like that. They come thick and fast from him.”
“Every inch a genius!” the Prince observed.
“All you can do is mock! But I’ve never heard anything of the sort from you, nor from anyone of your circle. On the contrary, you all seem to keep things under your hat, try to sweep them under the carpet; everyone’s to be cut down to size, brought down to one level, all noses to be regulation shape and length – as though that were possible! As though that weren’t a thousand times less natural than what we talk about and ponder over. And they still call us Utopians! You should have heard what they had to say to me yesterday…”
“So what do you talk about and ponder over?” Natasha asked. “Tell us, Alyosha. I for one still can’t quite make it out.”
“In essence about everything that leads to progress, to humanity, to love – all this is discussed with reference to contemporary issues. We talk about freedom of speech, about the forthcoming reforms, about love for humanity, about present-day public figures – we analyse them, we read them. But the main thing is, we’ve promised to be perfectly frank between ourselves and to say everything about ourselves to one another without any embarrassment. Only frankness, only forthrightness can lead us to our goal. Bezmygin of all people has been particularly insistent on this. I told Katya about it, and she’s completely at one with Bezmygin. And that’s why we all, led by Bezmygin, have promised to act justly and forthrightly all our life long and – whatever others may say of us, however they may judge us – not to be flustered by anything, not to be ashamed of our enthusiasm, our fancies, our errors, but to press ahead regardless. If you want people to respect you, first and foremost respect your own self! Only in that way, only through self-respect will you oblige others to respect you. This is what Bezmygin says, and Katya agrees with him fully. As a matter of fact we’re trying to reach some common ground in our convictions and have embarked upon individual self-appraisal, while at the same time meeting in group sessions to discuss and analyse one another with one another… to one… another…”
“Fiddlesticks!” the Prince exclaimed, disturbed. “And who’s this Bezmygin anyway? No, I can’t let this rest…”
“What can’t you let rest?” Alyosha intervened. “Listen, Father, why am I saying all this in front of you? Because I’m hoping against hope to introduce you too to our circle. I’ve already given my word for you. You’re laughing, well, I knew you would! But hear me out! You’re kind and you’re a gentleman, and you will understand. After all, you’ve never seen these people, you’ve never heard them in person. All right, let’s assume you’ve heard all this, you’ve investigated everything, you’re awfully clever – but you haven’t seen them in person, you’ve never mixed with them, and therefore how can you possibly judge fairly! You only imagine you can. No, you rub shoulders with them for a while, listen to what they have to say, and then, then – I vouch for it – you’ll be one of us! But the main thing is, I’d like to devote all my energy to saving you from rack and ruin within your own circle to which you’ve become so attached, and from your own convictions.”
The Prince listened to this outburst with the most sarcastic smile on his face; anger was written all over it. Natasha regarded him with the most unfeigned revulsion. He saw it, but pretended not to be aware of it. But no sooner had Alyosha finished, than the Prince suddenly burst out laughing. He even fell back in his chair as though unable to contain himself. But the laughter was completely forced. It was all too evident that he laughed merely in order to insult and demean his son as much as possible. Alyosha really did take offence; he looked unutterably dejected. But he waited patiently till his father’s mirth had subsided.
“Father,” he began despondently, “why are you mocking me? I came to you with an open mind and in all sincerity. If in your opinion I’m not talking sense why, instead of laughing at me, don’t you teach me to know better? And what is there to laugh at? The things I now hold holy and inviolate? Very well, so I am in error and everything I look up to is mistaken and false, and I’m just a silly fool, as you’ve pointed out to me many a time. But even if I am in error, it’s not for lack of sincerity and openness. I’ve not lost my dignity. I’m sustained by exalted ideas. Let them be erroneous, but they are rooted in hallowed ground. I’ve already told you that you and your ilk have not revealed to me anything yet that would have guided me and induced me to follow you. Refute them, tell me something that would put them into the shade, and I’ll follow you, but do not laugh at me, because that makes me very bitter.”
Alyosha pronounced this with extreme dignity and steadfast composure. Natasha observed him compassionately. The Prince heard his son out with some surprise and changed his tone immediately.
“I had no intention whatever of offending you, my boy,” he replied, “on the contrary, I sympathize with you. You are about to take a step in your life that will oblige you to stop being such a frivolous child. That’s all that was on my mind. I laughed quite involuntarily and had no intention of offending you.”
“Why then did I get that impression?” Alyosha continued with a note of bitterness. “Why is it I’ve felt for a long time that you regard me with a jaundiced eye and cold disdain, quite unlike the way a father should view his son? Why is it I feel that, had I been you, I wouldn’t have dared to ridicule my son quite so offensively as you’re ridiculing me now? Listen, why don’t we explain ourselves openly, now, once and for all, to prevent all further misunderstandings? And… to be perfectly honest, when I came in, it struck me that here too there’d been some kind of a misunderstanding – it wasn’t quite how I expected to find you all here together. Yes or no? If yes, wouldn’t it be better if each one of us came out into the open? Honesty’s the best policy!”
“Go on, keep talking, Alyosha!” the Prince said. “What you’re suggesting, is very wise. Perhaps that’s what we ought to have done in the first place,” he added, glancing at Natasha.
“Please don’t take my candour in bad part,” Alyosha began, “you wanted it, you sought it. Listen to me. You agreed to my marriage with Natasha. You gave us this happiness and in doing so you went against your own nature. You were magnanimous, and we all appreciate your noble gesture. So why do you now appear to take some kind of delight in constantly suggesting to me that I’m still only a ridiculous child and quite unfit to be a husband. And as if that wasn’t enough, you appear to want to ridicule, demean, even to denigrate me in Natasha’s eyes. You’re always only too happy to present me in a ridiculous light. I’ve noticed this not just now but a long time ago. It’s as though you were for some reason deliberately trying to prove to us that our marriage is laughable and grotesque, and that we’re not suited to each other. Indeed, it seems as though you yourself have no faith in what you’re advocating for us, as though you regarded everything as a joke, an amusing episode, some kind of a light-hearted pantomime… You must remember it’s not just from what you said today that I deduce this. It was that same Tuesday night after I went straight back to you from here that I heard you make a few strange remarks which not only astonished but even upset me. And on Wednesday too when you were leaving, you made a couple of observations on our present situation which weren’t exactly offensive, on the contrary, but somehow not quite what I’d have expected from you – you were somehow too off hand, lacking in affection, in respect for her… It’s difficult to put into words, but the tone was clear, my heart sank. Tell me that I’m wrong. Disabuse me, cheer me up and… and her too, because you upset her too. I knew it from the first glance, the moment I came into the room…”
Alyosha spoke firmly and with ardour. Natasha listened to him in a kind of exultation and, deeply agitated and her cheeks blazing, spoke a couple of times to herself in the course of his speech, “Yes, yes, that’s right!” The Prince was nonplussed.
“My dear boy,” he replied, “I can’t of course recall everything I said to you, but it is very strange you should have interpreted my words in this manner. I’m ready to disabuse you in any way I can. If I laughed just now, that too can be explained. Let me tell you this, my laughter was in fact meant to mask my bitter emotions. When I reflect that you soon intend to become a husband, it strikes me now as being totally unrealizable, inept and, pardon me, even ridiculous. You object to my laughing, but I say it’s all because of you. Mea culpa too, perhaps I haven’t been keeping a close enough eye on you lately, with the result that it wasn’t until tonight that I discovered what you’re capable of. Now I shudder to think what your future with Natalya Nikolayevna will be like. I was overhasty. I can see you two are quite incompatible. All love passes, but incompatibility stays for good. Never mind what happens to you, but if your intentions are honourable, have you not considered that you’ll be the ruin of Natalya Nikolayevna too – completely and utterly? There you were holding forth for a whole hour on love for humanity, on lofty sentiments, on the nobility of people whom you had met, but ask Ivan Petrovich what I said to him a little while ago as we were making our way up this abominable staircase to the third floor and stopped at the door, thanking God for the safety of our life and limb. Have you any idea what flashed through my mind then? I was astonished that you could, with all your love for Natalya Nikolayevna, put up with her living in such a place? How is it it hadn’t occurred to you that if you haven’t the means, that if you’re not equipped to carry out your obligations, you’ve no right to be a husband, no right to take upon yourself any commitments? Love alone is not enough, love is attested by deeds. Whereas your argument runs, ‘I may be hard to live with, but you’ll have to grin and bear it!’ Surely that’s cruel and unfair! To talk of all-pervading love, to be enthused by lofty humanitarian principles and at the same time to commit crimes against love and not be aware it – is beyond me! Don’t interrupt me, Natalya Nikolayevna, let me finish. I feel altogether too bitter and I must have my say. You said, Alyosha, that these past days you marvelled at everything that’s noble, exalted, equitable, and reproached me that in my circle there are no such sentiments, only arid rationality. Just consider – to dedicate yourself to the lofty and the sublime, and then, after what happened here on Tuesday, to go and neglect for four days the one who ought to have been dearer to you than anyone else in the world! You even confessed to telling Katerina Fyodorovna that Natalya Nikolayevna loves you so much, that she is so magnanimous she’ll pardon your misdemeanour. But what right have you to expect such a pardon and wager on it? And has it really never occurred to you how many bitter thoughts, how much doubt and suspicion you sowed in Natalya Nikolayevna’s mind during these days? Did you really suppose that just because you became infatuated there with some novel ideas you had the right to neglect your foremost obligation? Forgive me, Natalya Nikolayevna, that I’ve gone back on my word. But the present matter is far more important than any word of mine – I’m sure you’ll appreciate that… Do you realize, Alyosha, that I found Natalya Nikolayevna in the throes of such suffering that one can hardly guess what hell you made her life these past four days, which by rights should have been the happiest in her life. Such are your deeds on the one hand, and words, words, words on the other… don’t you think I’m right? And after all this, how can you blame me when it’s your own fault through and through?”
The Prince stopped. He had got carried away by his eloquence and could not conceal his triumph from us. When Alyosha heard about Natasha’s suffering, he glanced at her in anguish. But Natasha was already fully resolved.
“That’ll do, don’t worry, Alyosha,” she said, “others are more to blame than you are. Sit down and listen to what I now have to say to your father. It’s time to put an end to this!”
“Explain yourself, Natalya Nikolayevna,” the Prince responded, “I beg you in all earnestness! I’ve been listening to allegations to this effect for two hours now. This is becoming unbearable, and I must admit it’s not the kind of reception I was expecting.”
“Perhaps, because you were hoping to charm us with words so that we wouldn’t even notice your ulterior motives. What is there to explain to you? You yourself know everything and understand everything. Alyosha’s right. Your first and foremost wish is – to separate us. You knew in advance almost exactly what would happen here after that Tuesday night and had it all worked out. I already said you do not regard me or our betrothal, which you initiated, at all seriously. This is all a joke for you. You’re playing a game and working to a plan. Your gamble will pay off. Alyosha was right to reproach you for regarding all this as a pantomime. Rather than reprimand him, you ought to be delighted, because without realizing it, he has done everything you wanted him to do, perhaps even more.”
I was flabbergasted. I had rather expected some kind of a catastrophe to happen that evening. But Natasha’s all too blunt honesty, and the undisguised contemptuous ring of her words, left me speechless. It would appear she really was privy to something, I thought, and had irrevocably decided on a clean break. Perhaps she’d even been looking forward to seeing the Prince just in order to tell him everything to his face. The Prince went a little pale. Alyosha’s face depicted naive fear and pained expectation.
“Do you realize what you’ve just accused me of just now?” the Prince exclaimed. “And have the goodness to consider a little what you’re saying… I don’t understand a thing.”
“Ah! So you want me to spell it out to you?” Natasha said. “Even he, even Alyosha interpreted what you said, exactly like I did, and we didn’t confer, we hadn’t even seen each other! And it seemed to him too that you’re playing a game of cat and mouse with us, but he loves you and believes in you as though you were a god. You didn’t think it necessary to be more cautious or cunning with him. You banked on his not understanding. But he has a sensitive, tender, impressionable heart, and your words, your tone, as he put it, have left a lasting impression in his heart…”
“I understand nothing, nothing at all!” the Prince repeated, turning to me with a look of profound astonishment, as though appealing to me as a witness. He was irritated and flustered. “You’re paranoid, you’re in a panic,” he continued, addressing her, “to put it bluntly, you’re simply jealous of Katerina Fyodorovna and are therefore ready to accuse the whole world and above all me, and… allow me in that case to be perfectly blunt with you – one gets a strange impression of your character… I’m not used to such scenes. I wouldn’t consider staying here a minute longer had it not been for my son’s interests… I’m still waiting in case you deign to explain yourself.”
“So in your stubbornness you will insist that I dot the i’s despite the fact that everything’s as plain as a pikestaff to you? You definitely want me to spell things out to you, do you?”
“That’s precisely what I want.”
“All right then, listen!” exclaimed Natasha, her eyes flashing with rage. “I’ll tell you everything, absolutely everything!”