I woke up in the morning at about eight o’clock, instantly locked my door, sat by the window and began to think. I sat this way until ten o’clock. The maid knocked on my door twice, but I sent her away. Finally, coming up to eleven o’clock, there was another knock. I shouted again, but it was Liza. The maid came in with her, bringing coffee, and began to light the stove. It wasn’t possible to dismiss Fekla, the maid, and so while she was laying out the firewood and fanning the fire I strode across my small room without attempting a conversation and even trying not to look at Liza. The maid worked indescribably slowly, deliberately so, as maids do when they notice they’re hindering their masters from speaking openly. Liza sat down on the chair by the window and watched me.
“Your coffee is going cold,” she suddenly said.
I looked at her: not a sign of embarrassment, just complete serenity and even a smile on her lips.
“That’s women for you!” I couldn’t help thinking and shrugged my shoulders. At last the maid had lit the stove and began to tidy up, but I dismissed her fiercely and finally locked the door.
“Tell me, please, why you’re locking the door again,” Liza asked.
I stood in front of her:
“Liza, could I ever have imagined that you’d deceive me so!” I exclaimed abruptly, not even thinking I’d begin this way, and this time there were no tears, but an almost spiteful feeling suddenly and unexpectedly pierced my heart. Liza blushed but didn’t reply and just continued to look at me straight in the eye.
“Wait a minute, Liza, wait; oh how foolish I’ve been! Yet have I been foolish? Everything was pointing that way yesterday, but how could I have known before that? Because you went to see Mrs Stolbeyeva and that… Daria Onisimovna, perhaps? But you were like the sun to me, Liza, so how could such a thing have entered my head? Do you remember my bumping into you two months ago in his apartment and how we walked together in the sunshine afterwards and were joyful… was it like that then already? Was it?”
She gave me an affirmative nod.
“So you were deceiving me even then! It was not my stupidity, Liza, but rather my selfishness, not my stupidity that was the reason, my selfish heart and… and possibly a belief in sanctity. Oh, I’ve always been certain that you were all so superior to me, and now look! Finally, yesterday, all day, I wasn’t even able to think of such a thing, despite all the signs… I was also taken up with something else entirely yesterday!”
And I suddenly remembered Katerina Nikolayevna, and again some sharp pain like a needle pierced my heart and I went quite red. I naturally couldn’t be kind at such a moment.
“But what are you justifying yourself for? Arkady, you seem to be in a hurry to justify yourself for something – what for?” Liza asked quietly and gently, though her voice was firm and confident.
“How do you mean: what for? What am I to do now? There’s that question! And you ask: ‘what for?’ I don’t know how to react! I don’t know how brothers act in such situations… I know people are forced to marry with a pistol to their heads… I’ll act the way an honourable man would! But then I don’t know how an honourable man should act in such a case! Why? Because we’re not gentry and he’s a prince and is making a career for himself and he won’t listen to us honest folk. We’re not even brother and sister, merely illegitimate children without a surname, the children of a household serf – and do princes marry serfs? Oh what vileness! And to top it all you’re just sitting there, looking surprised.”
“I believe you’re distressed.” Liza blushed again. “But you’re rushing on and only torturing yourself.”
“Rushing on? Have I not delayed enough, according to you? You, Liza, yes you, can say these things to me?” I finally allowed myself to be utterly indignant. “What disgrace have I endured, and how the prince must despise me! I can see it all clearly now; I have the whole picture before my eyes: he fully imagined that I’d guessed a long time ago about his relationship with you, but that I kept silent or even gave myself airs and bragged about ‘honour’ – that’s what he must have thought about me! And I’d take money because of my sister, because of my sister’s shame! That was a loathsome sight to him and I don’t blame him at all: to have to see and receive a scoundrel because he’s her brother and to hear him speak of ‘honour’… it would shrivel up any heart, let alone his! And you let it all happen; you didn’t give me any warning! He despised me to the extent of speaking of me to Stebelkov, and he said himself yesterday that he wanted to get rid of both me and Versilov. And then Stebelkov: ‘You see, Anna Andreyevna is just as much a sister to you as is Lizaveta Makarovna’; and he yelled after me: ‘My money’s better.’ And there I was impertinently lounging on his sofas and thrusting myself, like an equal, upon his friends; to hell with them all! And you let it all just happen! And I suppose Darzan knows it too, at least judging by his tone yesterday evening… They all, all know, except for me!”
“No one knows anything; he’s told none of his acquaintances and could not tell anyone,” Liza broke in. “As far as Stebelkov is concerned, I only know that Stebelkov torments him and that he could only have guessed… and I’d told him about you several times, and he completely believed that you were totally unaware, so I don’t know how it all came out between you yesterday.”
“At least I settled my accounts with him yesterday, and that’s a weight off my chest! Liza, does Mama know? How could she not? Yesterday, even yesterday she had a go at me!… Oh, Liza! Do you really consider yourself blameless in all this? Do you not reproach yourself even a tiny bit? I don’t know how it’s looked upon these days and what your thoughts are regarding me, Mama, your brother, father… Does Versilov know?”
“Mama has said nothing to him; he doesn’t ask; he probably doesn’t want to ask.”
“He knows, but doesn’t want to know – that’s just like him! Well, you may mock a brother’s role, a foolish brother when he mentions pistols, but a mother, a mother? Have you not thought how badly it reflects on Mama? I spent all night tortured by the thought; Mama’s first reaction now is: ‘This has happened, because I too did wrong, and like mother like daughter!’”
“How spitefully and cruelly you’ve put it!” Liza cried out, with tears springing from her eyes, and she got up and quickly walked over to the door.
“Stop, stop!” I put my arms round her, sat her down and took a seat beside her without removing my arm.
“I thought it would be so when I came here, and that you would have expected me to blame myself. All right, I’ll blame myself. I’ve only kept silent out of pride, I didn’t say anything, but I’m much more sorry for you and Mama than for myself…” She didn’t finish her sentence and began to cry bitterly.
“Enough, Liza, you mustn’t, there’s nothing to say. I’m not your judge. Liza, what about Mama? Tell me, has she known for long?”
“I think she’s known for a long time, but I only told her recently when this happened,” she said, softly lowering her gaze.
“So how was she?”
“She said: ‘Keep it!’” Liza said even more softly.
“Ah, Liza, yes, ‘keep it!’ Don’t do anything to yourself, God forbid!”
“I won’t do anything,” she replied firmly and lifted her eyes to me again.
“Rest assured,” she added. “It’s not like that at all.”
“Liza, darling, I only see that I know nothing, but have found out how much I love you. There’s just one thing I don’t understand, Liza; it’s all clear to me, except for one thing that I don’t understand at all: why did you fall in love with him? How could you love someone like that? That’s my question.”
“And you’ve probably been torturing yourself all night about that too?” Liza smiled softly.
“Stop, Liza, it’s a stupid question and you’re laughing at me; go on laughing, but it’s impossible not to be surprised: you and him – you’re such opposites! I’ve studied him: he’s gloomy, mistrustful; he may be very kind, I’ll grant him that, but he’s highly inclined to see evil in everything (just like me, incidentally). He passionately respects the nobility – I accept that, I can see it, but only as an ideal, I believe. Oh, he’s prone to repentance; all his life he constantly curses himself then repents, yet he never improves – and, by the way, this could be like me too. Thousands of prejudices and false ideas and – no ideas at all! He seeks out a great heroic deed and gets caught up in trivialities. Forgive me, Liza, I’m a fool: I offend you by saying these things and I know it; I understand it…”
“The portrait could be a true one” – Liza was smiling – “but you’re too angry with him on my account so none of it rings true. He’s been mistrustful with you from the start and you’ve never been able to see the whole of him, yet with me ever since Luga… he’s only ever had eyes for me, ever since Luga. Yes, he’s suspicious and morbid and he’d have gone crazy without me. And if he leaves me he’ll either go mad or shoot himself: I believe he understands and knows this,” Liza added pensively, as though to herself. “Yes, he’s endlessly weak, but weak creatures like him are capable at times of extremely strong action… How odd you mentioned a pistol, Arkady; there’s no need for any of that and I know myself what will happen. I’m not the one chasing after him: he’s the one chasing after me. Mama weeps and says: ‘If you marry him you’ll be miserable; he’ll stop loving you.’ I don’t believe this. I’ll be miserable perhaps, but he won’t stop loving me. This isn’t the reason I’ve not accepted him yet, there’s another reason for it. I’ve refused for the last two months, but today I’ve said: ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ You know, Arkasha, yesterday” – her eyes were shining and she suddenly put both her arms round my neck – “yesterday he went to see Anna Andreyevna and told her directly, with complete frankness, that he could not love her… Yes, he explained himself fully, and that idea is now over and done with! He never played a part in that idea; it was all dreamt up by Prince Nikolai Ivanovich; they all put pressure on him, those tormentors, Stebelkov and another one… That’s why I said yes to him today. Dear Arkady, he really is asking for you; don’t be offended after what happened yesterday; he’s not that well today and is home all day. He’s truly not well; don’t think it’s a ploy. He sent me deliberately and asked me to pass on that he ‘needs’ you, that he has a lot to say to you and that it would be awkward here in your lodgings. Well, goodbye! Oh, Arkady, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I came here today terribly afraid that you’d stop loving me; I kept on crossing myself on the way and here you are – so kind, so sweet! I’ll never forget it! I’m off to see Mama. And try to like him a little at least, won’t you?”
I gave her a passionate hug and said:
“I think, Liza, that you’re a strong character. I do believe you’re not the one going after him and that he’s the one doing the chasing, only…”
“Only ‘why did you fall in love with him? That’s the question!’” Liza retorted, suddenly playful like before, and when she pronounced “that’s the question!” it was so like me. And with that, just as I’m doing now, she raised her index finger in front of her eyes. We kissed, but when she’d left I felt my heart ache again.
I’ll note purely for myself that there were moments, after Liza had gone, for example, when a whole swarm of unexpected thoughts came to my mind and I was even rather pleased with them. “Well, what am I fussing about?” I thought. “What’s it to me? It’s the same with most people. So what if this has happened to Liza? Am I to save ‘the family honour’ perhaps?” I mention all these vile thoughts to show how inadequate my understanding of good and evil still was. It was only my feelings that saved me: I knew that Liza was unhappy, that Mama was unhappy; I knew this through the feeling I had when I thought about them, and so I felt that all that had happened had to be bad.
I’ll warn you now that the events starting from that day right up to the catastrophe of my illness went by so fast that when I remember them now I’m amazed at how I was able to stand my ground and not be crushed by my lot. The events sapped my mind and even my feelings of their strength, and if in the end I’d given in and committed a crime (and a crime was very nearly committed), the jury might very well have acquitted me. Yet I’ll try to describe things in strict order, although I warn you that there was very little order in my thoughts at the time. Events pressed down on me like the wind, and thoughts swirled round in my mind like dry autumn leaves. As I was entirely made up of other people’s ideas, where could I get hold of my own when I needed them, to make independent decisions? I had no one to guide me at all.
I decided to go to see the prince in the evening to talk things over in perfect freedom, and I stayed at home until then. But at dusk I again received a note by post from Stebelkov: three lines with the urgent and “most earnest” request to visit him the following morning around eleven o’clock about “a most important matter, and you will see for yourself what’s behind it”. After some consideration I made up my mind to act according to circumstances, since the next day was a long way off.
It was already eight o’clock; I would have left a long time before but kept waiting for Versilov: I wanted to express many things to him and my heart was on fire. But Versilov wasn’t on his way and didn’t come. And I couldn’t show myself to Mama or Liza yet, and I sensed that Versilov hadn’t been home all day either. I was on foot, and on the way it occurred to me to glance inside the tavern we’d been in the previous day, by the Ditch. As it was, Versilov was sitting in the same place he’d sat in the previous day.
“I thought you’d come here.” He smiled strangely and gave me a strange look as he said this. His smile was not friendly and I hadn’t seen it like this for a long time.
I took a seat at the table and at first told him everything about the prince and Liza and about the previous day’s scene at the prince’s after the roulette game; I didn’t forget to mention my winnings at roulette. He listened very attentively and asked more questions about the prince’s decision to marry Liza.
“Pauvre enfant,* she may gain nothing by it. But it probably won’t happen… though he’s capable…”
“Tell me as a friend: did you know about this? Had you guessed?”
“My friend, what could I do? It’s all a matter of feelings and someone else’s conscience, even if it is that poor girl’s. I tell you again: there was a time when I leapt more than enough into other people’s consciences – it’s most uncomfortable! I won’t refuse to help others in time of need, as far as I am able and if I can sort things out myself. And you, my dear one, did you really not suspect anything all this time?”
“But how could you?” I cried, turning bright red. “How could you, suspecting even the tiniest bit that I knew about Liza’s relationship with the prince and seeing that I was taking the prince’s money at the same time, how could you speak to me, sit with me, stretch out your hand to me – me whom you must have considered a scoundrel, because I bet that you really suspected me of knowing everything and of knowingly borrowing money from the prince because of my sister?”
“It’s again a question of conscience.” He grinned. “And how do you know,” he added distinctly, with mystifying feeling, “that I wasn’t afraid of losing my ‘ideal’, as you did yesterday in other circumstances, and of encountering a scoundrel instead of my impetuous honest boy? Being scared, I put off the moment. Why not suppose that there is in me, instead of laziness and treachery, something more innocent, foolish maybe, but at least more honourable. Que diable!* I’m too often stupid and dishonourable. What use would you be to me if you had similar inclinations? It’s demeaning to persuade and reform someone in such cases; you’d have lost all worth in my eyes even if reformed…”
“But you are sorry for Liza, aren’t you?”
“Very sorry, dear one. What makes you think I’m so unfeeling? On the contrary, I’ll do my very best… But how are you? How are your affairs going?”
“Let’s leave my affairs aside: I have no affairs as such right now. Listen, why do you doubt he’ll marry her? Yesterday he went to see Anna Andreyevna and definitely turned down… well turned down that stupid idea… dreamt up by Prince Nikolai Ivanovich… of marrying them off. He definitely turned it down.”
“Really? When did this happen? And who told you this?” He was intrigued and wanted to know. I told him everything I knew.
“Hmm…” he said pensively as though thinking it over for himself. “It must have happened exactly an hour… before another declaration. Hmm… well of course such an exchange may have taken place… although I do know that nothing had ever been said or done from either side… yes, of course, two words are all that are needed to clarify things. But here’s a fact.” He grinned unexpectedly. “I’ll interest you now with some extraordinary news: had your prince yesterday made an offer to Anna Andreyevna (which I would have done my utmost to prevent, given my suspicions about Liza, entre nous soit dit*) then Anna Andreyevna would have refused him outright anyway. I believe you love Anna Andreyevna very much and respect and value her? It’s very sweet on your part, because in that case you’ll probably be very happy for her: she, dear one, is getting married and, judging by her character, I believe she really will, and I… I’ll of course give her my blessing.”
“She’s getting married? To whom?” I cried out, utterly astonished.
“Guess. I won’t torture you: to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich, to your dear old man.”
I stared at him.
“She must have entertained the idea for a long time and have of course looked at it imaginatively from all angles,” he continued idly and distinctly. “I suppose it took place exactly one hour after ‘Prince Seryozha’s’ visit. (He’d come galloping over at the wrong time, it seems!) She simply went over to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich and proposed to him.”
“What do you mean ‘proposed to him’? You mean he proposed to her?”
“How could he? It was she, she herself. As it is, he’s completely ecstatic. They say he now keeps wondering how he’d not come up with the idea himself. I heard he’s been taken unwell… also from delight I imagine.”
“Listen, you’re speaking in such mocking terms… I can hardly believe it. But how could she propose to him? What did she say?”
“Believe me, my friend, that I’m genuinely delighted,” he replied, looking surprisingly earnest all of a sudden. “He’s old, of course, but he can get married according to all laws and customs, and she… it’s once more a matter of someone else’s conscience, as I’ve mentioned to you before, my friend. Anyway, she’s only too capable of having her own views and making her own decisions. And as for the details and what words she used to express herself, I can’t tell you, my friend. But of course she’s probably been able to do it in a way you and I would never have come up with. The best thing is that there’s no whiff of a scandal; everything is très comme il faut* in the eyes of society. It’s of course more than clear that she wanted a position in society, but she’s worthy of it. It’s all purely a society matter, my friend. And she must have proposed magnanimously and elegantly. She’s the stern type, my friend, the girl nun as you once referred to her; ‘a cool maiden’, as I’ve been calling her for a long time. You see, she’s very nearly his ward and has witnessed his kindness towards herself more than once. She assured me long ago that she ‘so respected him, treasured him, pitied and felt sympathy for him’, and all the rest, so I was already partly prepared for it. I was told all this on her behalf, and at her request this morning by my son, her brother Andrei Andreyevich, whom I believe you don’t know and whom I see regularly every six months. He respectfully approves of her step.”
“So it’s already public? God, I’m flabbergasted!”
“No, it’s not at all public yet, won’t be for a while… I don’t know; on the whole I’m not in the least involved, but it’s all true.”
“But now Katerina Nikolayevna… What do you think? Will this be to Bjoring’s taste?”
“I don’t know… what there is for him not to like; but rest assured that Anna Andreyevna in that respect too is utterly decent. But what a character she is, that Anna Andreyevna! She asked me yesterday evening, just before that, whether I loved the widow Akhmakova? Remember how surprised I was when I told you this yesterday? Well, she couldn’t marry the father if I married the daughter? Do you see now?”
“But of course!” I cried out. “But could Anna Andreyevna really have supposed that you… could wish to marry Katerina Nikolayevna?”
“Apparently so, my friend… but by the way, I believe it’s time for you to go wherever you’re off to. I have a constant headache, you see. I’ll ask them to play Lucia. I love the solemnity of tedium, but I’ve already mentioned this to you… I repeat myself inexcusably… But then perhaps I’ll go too. I love you, dear one, but goodbye. When my head or teeth ache I always yearn to be alone.”
A furrow from the pain had appeared on his face: I believe now that his head was aching then, his head in particular…
“Till tomorrow,” I said.
“What do you mean by ‘till tomorrow’? What’s happening tomorrow?” He smiled wryly.
“Either I’ll come to you or you to me.”
“No, I won’t come to you, but you’ll come running to me…”
There was a most unkind look on his face, but it wasn’t him I was thinking of: what an event!
The young prince was indeed unwell and was sitting home alone with a wet towel wrapped round his head. He was impatient to see me; but he didn’t just have a headache, chances were that his whole being was aching morally. I’ll warn you again: all that time leading right up to the catastrophe I was somehow destined only to meet such highly strung people that they all bordered on the insane, so that I must have been somehow automatically infected. I confess I arrived full of bad feelings and I was most ashamed of having burst into tears in front of him the previous day. And yet both he and Liza had managed to deceive me so craftily that I couldn’t help but see myself as a fool. In a word, as I came into his room my soul was out of tune. But all the pretence and jarring feelings quickly slid away. I must give him his due: he completely surrendered, as soon as his distrust had fallen away and crumbled. He displayed almost childlike tenderness, trust and love. He kissed me tearfully and at once began talking about the matter in hand… Yes, he did need me very much: his words and thought process were rather chaotic.
He informed me very firmly of his intention to marry Liza as soon as possible. “The fact that she’s not a noblewoman has never worried me one bit,” he said to me. “My grandfather married a household serf, a singer from a neighbouring landlord’s serf theatre. My family had of course its own kind of hopes for me, but they’ll have to give way and there won’t be any struggle. I want to break off, break off from the present for good. It’ll all be different, new! I don’t understand what your sister fell in love with me for, but without her of course I might not be alive today. I swear to you from the bottom of my heart that I now consider my meeting with her in Luga as the hand of fate. I think she fell in love with me for the ‘boundlessness of my downfall’… but can you understand that, Arkady Makarovich?”
“Perfectly!” I said most convincingly. I was sitting in an armchair in front of the table while he was pacing up and down.
“I must tell you the whole story of our encounter, not withholding a thing. It began with a secret that only she knew about, because she was the only one I decided to trust. And no one knows it to this day. I’d ended up at the time in Luga with despair in my heart and lived at Mrs Stolbeyeva’s; I’m not sure why, but perhaps I was seeking complete isolation. I’d only just left the army, the —— regiment. I’d joined the regiment, having returned from abroad, after my meeting with Andrei Petrovich over there. I had money then, squandered it and lived freely. Yet my fellow officers didn’t like me, although I tried not to offend anyone. And I’ll confess to you that no one has ever liked me. There was an ensign, a certain Stepanov, who I admit was extremely empty-headed, worthless and even somewhat cowed, in a word, with nothing to distinguish him. Yet there’s no doubt he was honest. He’d drop in on me and I didn’t stand on ceremony with him; he’d sit entire days silently in a corner of my room, but with dignity, and he didn’t bother me at all. I once told him a story that was going round, to which I added a lot of nonsense, about the colonel’s daughter not being indifferent to me, and that the colonel, counting on me of course, did everything I wanted… in short, I’ll leave out the details, but this engendered some very convoluted and malicious gossip. It didn’t come from Stepanov, but from my orderly, who’d overheard it all and remembered it because of an amusing anecdote compromising the young woman. As the gossip went round, this orderly, when questioned by the officers, pointed the finger at Stepanov, meaning that it was me who’d told Stepanov. The latter was put in a position of being unable to deny having heard it, as it was a question of honour. As two thirds of the anecdote, as I had told it, had been a lie, it caused indignation among the officers, and the regimental commander, having summoned us, was forced to clear the matter up with us. Stepanov was asked in front of everyone whether he’d heard the story or not. And Stepanov told the whole truth. Well, sir, what did I do then, I a prince with a thousand-year lineage? I denied it and said, to Stepanov’s face, that he’d lied, putting it courteously, in the sense that he’d ‘misunderstood what I’d said’, etc. I’ll again leave out the details, but in my favour was the fact that Stepanov was often at my place, and so I was able to put the matter forward in such a light, not without some credibility, that he could have been in cahoots with my orderly to gain certain advantages. Stepanov merely looked at me in silence and shrugged his shoulders. I remember his look and will never forget it. He was then quick to hand in his resignation, but what do you think happened? All the officers without exception went to him and talked him out of resigning. Two weeks later I left the regiment: no one pushed me out, no one asked me to go; I used family reasons as a pretext for retiring. The matter ended there. At first I was quite all right and even felt angry with them. I lived in Luga, met Lizaveta Makarovna, but a month later I was looking into the barrel of my revolver, considering death. I look gloomily at everything, Arkady Makarovich. I prepared a letter to the regimental commander and my fellow officers, completely admitting my lies, reinstating Stepanov’s honour. Having written the letter I asked myself the following: ‘Should I send it and live or send it and die?’ I might not have been able to solve that problem. Fate, blind fate, after a rapid and strange conversation with Lizaveta Makarovna, suddenly brought us close. Till then she’d been visiting Mrs Stolbeyeva; we’d meet, greet each other and now and then exchange very few words. I suddenly told her everything. That’s when she offered me her hand.”
“How did she resolve the question?”
“I didn’t send the letter. She decided I shouldn’t send it. This is how she justified it: if I sent the letter I’d of course be acting honourably, enough to wash away all the dirt and even more, but would I be able to bear it myself? Her opinion was that no one could have borne it, because it would mean the death of any future and the impossibility of starting a new life. Moreover, Stepanov had indeed suffered, but he’d been acquitted by the officers anyway. In a word it was a paradox. But she held me back and I totally gave in to her.”
“She decided as a Jesuit and as a woman!” I cried out. “She already loved you then!”
“It restored me to a new life. I promised myself to change, to transform my life, to be worthy of myself and her and – see how it’s all ended! It ended with you and me going to play roulette and faro. I couldn’t turn my back on the inheritance; I relished a career, all those people and the horses… and tormented Liza – it’s shameful!”
He rubbed his brow and strode across the room.
“You and I have been struck by a common Russian fate, Arkady Makarovich: you don’t know what to do and I don’t know what to do. Let a Russian slip even slightly out of his conventional established groove and he instantly doesn’t know what to do. Within the groove everything is clear: income, rank, position in society, carriage, visiting cards, service, wife – and where do I come in? I’m a leaf driven by the wind. I don’t know what to do! These last two months I strove to stay within the groove; I loved it and got used to it. You don’t yet know the extent of my present downfall: I loved Liza, loved her sincerely, and at the same time have been thinking of Mrs Akhmakova!”
“Really!” I cried out in pain. “By the way, Prince, yesterday you said that Versilov incited you towards some foul deed against Katerina Nikolayevna?”
“I may have exaggerated and am as much to blame in my distrust towards him as I am towards you. Let’s leave that. Do you perhaps think that all this time, ever since Luga, I haven’t nurtured a lofty ideal? I swear that it never left me and was forever within my sight and never lost its beauty within my soul. I remembered the oath I’d given Lizaveta Makarovna to renew myself. Andrei Petrovich, when he spoke of the nobility yesterday, didn’t tell me anything new, rest assured. My ideal is firmly established: a few dozen acres or so of land (only a few because there’s hardly anything left of my inheritance); then a total break with society and my career; a country house, a family and myself a ploughman or something in that vein. Oh, this isn’t a novelty among the likes of us: my father’s brother did his own ploughing, and so did my grandfather. We are from a thousand-year lineage and as noble as the Rohans,* but we are poor. And this is what I’d teach my children: ‘Remember all your lives that you are of the nobility, that the sacred blood of Russian princes flows in your veins, but do not be ashamed that your father ploughed the fields; he did it like a prince.’ I wouldn’t leave them a fortune except for that plot of land, and on the other hand I’d give them higher education: I’d consider it my duty. Oh, Liza would help with that; Liza, children, work, oh how she and I have dreamt of this together, right here, in these rooms, and what then? I was thinking of Mrs Akhmakova at the same time, without loving her at all but thinking of the possibility of making a rich society marriage! And only after yesterday’s news brought by Nashchokin about this Bjoring did I decide to turn to Anna Andreyevna.”
“But you went to renounce her? That, I think, is an honourable gesture, isn’t it?”
“You think so?” He stopped in front of me. “No, you don’t yet know my real nature! Or… or there’s something here I don’t know myself, because it can’t just be nature. I sincerely love you, Arkady Makarovich, and added to that I’m deeply to blame before you for the last two months, and that’s why I want you, as Liza’s brother, to know everything: I went over to Anna Andreyevna’s to propose to her, not renounce her.”
“Is that possible? But Liza said…”
“I deceived Liza.”
“So you made a formal proposal and Anna Andreyevna refused you? Was that it? Was that it? Prince, the details are of the utmost importance to me.”
“No, I didn’t make any proposal, but only because I didn’t get round to it; she warned me herself: not in so many words, of course, but she made me understand in quite clear and transparent terms, ‘delicately’, that the idea was impossible from now on.”
“This means that you didn’t actually propose and your pride didn’t suffer!”
“How can you look at it that way! And what about my own conscience, and Liza, whom I deceived and wanted to get rid of? And the pledge given to myself and my ancestry to renew and redeem myself! I beg you not to mention this to her. She may not be able to forgive me this one thing! I’ve been ill since yesterday’s events. And the main thing is that it’s all over and the last Prince Sokolsky is off to labour camp. Poor Liza! I’ve been anxiously waiting for you all day, Arkady Makarovich, to disclose to you, as Liza’s brother, that which she doesn’t yet know. I’m a criminal and implicated in the forgery of the ——sky railway shares.”
“What’s this? What do you mean by labour camp?” I leapt up and looked at him in horror. His face reflected the most profound, dismal, hopeless distress.
“Sit down,” he said, and he sat down himself in the armchair opposite. “Firstly, hear the facts: it was just over a year ago, the summer of Ems, Lidia and Katerina Nikolayevna and then Paris, more precisely the time I went to Paris for two months, when I ran out of money in Paris, of course. Stebelkov, whom, by the way, I already knew, happened to turn up there. He gave me money and promised me more, but asked for help in return: he needed an artist, a draughtsman, an engraver, a lithographer, etc., as well as a chemist and a technician – with a certain purpose in mind. He spoke of the purpose pretty clearly from the start. And then? He knew my character – all that sort of thing just made me laugh. The fact is that I knew someone, from my schooldays, who is an émigré right now, not Russian actually but of foreign origin and residing somewhere in Hamburg. He’d already once been mixed up in a forgery affair in Russia. This was the man Stebelkov was counting on, but he needed an introduction to him and so he turned to me. I wrote a couple of lines and immediately forgot all about it. After that he met up with me again and again, and I received up to three thousand from him. I’d literally forgotten about the whole business. Back here I’ve kept on borrowing his money in the form of promissory notes and bonds and he’s been squirming before me like a slave, and suddenly yesterday I find out from him for the first time that I’m a criminal.”
“When, yesterday?”
“Yesterday morning when he and I were shouting at each other in my study before the arrival of Nashchokin. For the first time he dared speak to me in no uncertain terms of Anna Andreyevna. I raised my arm to hit him, but he suddenly got to his feet and explained to me that we’re joined together and that I should remember that I was his accomplice and just as much a scoundrel as he – in short, if not these exact words, that was the thought behind them.”
“What nonsense it all is – it’s surely a dream?”
“No, it isn’t a dream. He came over to see me today and explained it in more detail. The shares have been in circulation a long time, and more are being released, but they’ve begun to get noticed here and there. I’m of course not directly involved, but: ‘See, you were kind enough to give me this little note, sir’ – that’s what Stebelkov said to me.”
“But you didn’t know what he wanted it for – or did you?”
“I knew,” the prince replied softly, looking down. “That is, you see, I did and I didn’t. I was laughing, I was enjoying myself. I thought of nothing then, and besides had no need at all of forged shares and I wasn’t planning to make them myself. But those three thousand he gave me then, he didn’t charge those to my account, and I let that happen. And anyway, I may indeed be a forger myself, after all? I can’t have not known – I’m not a child; I knew but I was enjoying myself and helped convicts and swindlers… and I did it for money! Therefore I too am a forger.”
“Oh, you’re exaggerating: you’ve done wrong, but you’re exaggerating!”
“The main thing now is that there’s a certain Zhibelsky, a young man still, in the legal field, some kind of legal assistant. He’s also a sort of accomplice and was sent to me by the fellow in Hamburg, about some trifling matters of course and I didn’t know what for, there was no mention of the shares… and he’s kept, however, two documents, just two-line notes written by me that are of course also evidence of my part in it, as has become very clear to me today. Stebelkov has explained that Zhibelsky is messing everything up: he’s stolen something, someone’s money – public money, I believe – but he’s bent on stealing more and then wants to emigrate: for that he needs eight thousand roubles, not a copeck less, towards his emigration. My part of the inheritance satisfies Stebelkov, but Stebelkov says that Zhibelsky needs to be satisfied too… in a word, I must give up my inheritance as well as another ten thousand – that’s their last word. Then they’ll give me back my notes. They’re in it together – that much is clear.”
“Sheer nonsense! If they inform on you, they’ll give themselves away! They won’t inform on you for anything.”
“I realize that. They are not threatening to inform on me, it’s simply: ‘We’ll of course not inform on you but in case the affair were uncovered, then…’ That’s all they’re saying, but I think it’s enough! That’s not the problem: whatever happens, and even if those notes were in my pocket right now, it’s the thought of being linked with those scoundrels, being seen as their friend for ever and ever! To lie to Russia, lie to my children, lie to Liza, lie to my conscience!…”
“Does Liza know?”
“No, she doesn’t know anything. She couldn’t bear it in her condition. I now wear my regiment’s uniform, and when I meet a soldier of my regiment, I recognize in every second that I don’t have the right to wear this uniform.”
“Listen,” I suddenly shouted, “there’s nothing more to talk about here; you have only one way to save yourself: go to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich, borrow ten thousand roubles from him, ask him without giving anything away, then summon those two scoundrels, settle with them once and for all and buy back your notes and let that be the end of it! Let it all be over, and you go off to plough! Away with fantasizing and trust in life!”
“I thought about that too,” he said firmly. “I spent all day making up my mind and have now done so. I was only waiting for you: I’ll go. You know, I’ve never taken a copeck from Prince Nikolai Ivanovich in all my life. He’s been good to my family and even… played his part, but I personally have never taken his money. But I’ve decided now… Be aware that we Sokolskys go further back than Prince Nikolai Ivanovich’s lineage: they’re a younger line, a secondary one even, almost a debatable one… Our ancestors were enemies. At the beginning of Peter the Great’s reforms my great-great-grandfather, also Peter, was and remained a schismatic* and roamed the forests of Kostroma. That Prince Peter’s second marriage was also to a woman of humble background… That’s when the other Sokolskys made their way up, but I… But why am I saying all this?”
He was exhausted, almost rambling.
“Calm down.” I stood up and grabbed my hat. “Lie down to sleep, that’s the first thing. And Prince Nikolai Ivanovich won’t refuse at any cost, particularly now in his joyful mood. Do you know the latest tale? Perhaps you don’t? I heard this crazy thing, that he’s getting married; it’s a secret, but of course not from you.”
And I told him everything as I stood with hat in hand. He knew nothing. He swiftly enquired about the details, mainly the time, place and level of reliability. I of course didn’t keep from him that it happened, according to what I’d heard, straight after his visit to Anna Andreyevna the day before. I can’t express the painful impression my news made on him: his face became twisted as though wrenched out of shape; his lips convulsively contracted into a wry smile. In the end he grew terribly pale and sank into deep thought with his eyes lowered. I saw only too plainly how terribly affected his vanity had been by Anna Andreyevna’s refusal. He could perhaps, in the morbid mood he was in, see all too glaringly the ridiculous and humiliating role he’d played the day before in front of that young woman, whose acceptance, it turned out, he’d been all the time so calmly convinced of. And perhaps, in the end, there was the thought of having acted so despicably towards Liza, and all for nothing! It’s curious how these society dandies consider each other and on what grounds they can have respect for each other. After all the prince could have supposed that Anna Andreyevna already knew of his liaison with Liza, who was her sister after all, and if she didn’t she’d find out some day, yet he “hadn’t doubted what her decision would be”!
“And do you really think” – he suddenly looked at me proudly and haughtily – “that after this news I’d be capable of going to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich and asking him for money? From him, the fiancé of the young girl who’s only just refused me – how low can you sink! No, all is lost, and even if that old man’s help was my last hope, let that hope be lost too!”
Deep down I agreed with him, but you had to look at reality in broader terms: was the little old prince really a man about to be married? A few ideas were bubbling in my head. I had in any case made up my mind to visit the old man the following day. I now tried to soften the impact of what had just occurred and get the poor prince to sleep: “Sleep on it and your thoughts will be brighter, you’ll see!” He warmly pressed my hand, but didn’t kiss me. I promised to visit him the next evening and that “we’d talk, talk: there’s too much to talk about now”. At my words he gave a somewhat resigned smile.