I ran over to Lambert’s. Oh, how I wish I could impart some kind of logic to all this and try to detect at least a trace of common sense in my actions that evening and that whole night. Even now, when I can go over it all, I’m powerless to present it in any appropriate, clear order. There was a feeling, or rather a whole range of chaotic feelings, among which I was bound to lose my way. True there was one dominant feeling that overwhelmed me and ruled over everything, but… can I admit to it? Particularly as I’m not convinced…
As I rushed into Lambert’s I was of course beside myself. I even gave him and Alphonsine a fright. I’ve always noticed that even the most dissolute and inept French people are exceedingly attached in their domestic life to a bourgeois routine of a kind, to the most prosaic, everyday ritual of living, established once and for all. However, Lambert very quickly gathered that something had happened and was ecstatic when he finally saw me at his place, at long last possessing me. Oh, that’s all he’d thought of day and night! Oh, how vital I was to him! And here, when he’d already lost all hope, I’d suddenly appeared and in such a crazy state – in exactly the state he needed me to be in.
“Lambert, wine!” I yelled at him. “Let’s drink, let’s kick up a row. Alphonsinka, where’s your guitar?”
I won’t describe the scene; it’s irrelevant. We drank and I told him everything, every single thing. He listened avidly. I was the first to openly suggest a plot, to set the whole lot on fire. Firstly, we should invite Katerina Nikolayevna by letter…
“That can be done,” Lambert assented, seizing on every word I said.
Secondly, in order to persuade her, we’d send the whole copy of her “document” in a letter, so that she would clearly see that she wasn’t being deceived.
“That’s how it has to be, that’s it!” Lambert agreed, continually exchanging glances with Alphonsinka.
Thirdly, Lambert was to be the one to invite her, as someone she didn’t know who’d come from Moscow, and I had to bring over Versilov…
“Yes, Versilov can be there too,” Lambert agreed.
“He has to be, not just can be!” I shouted. “It’s essential! It’s all being done for his sake!” I explained, continually sipping from my glass. We were all three drinking, but I think that I was the only one to drink up a whole bottle of champagne, and they were just pretending to be drinking. “I’ll be sitting in another room with Versilov (Lambert, we need to get hold of another room!) and the moment she agrees to it all – to the ransom in money and to the other ransom, because they’re all base, these women, then Versilov and I will come out and we’ll catch her out and prove how base she is, and when Versilov sees how loathsome she is he will be cured at once and kick her out. But Bjoring should be there too to see her!” I added in a frenzy.
“No, we don’t need Bjoring,” Lambert observed.
“We do, we do!” I yelled again. “You don’t understand a thing, Lambert, because you’re a fool. On the contrary, let the scandal reach high society, so we get our revenge on high society and on her and let her be punished! Lambert, she’ll give you the promissory note… I don’t need money – I spit on it, but you can stoop down and pick up the money to stuff it in your pocket with my spit on it, while I crush her!”
“Yes, yes,” Lambert kept on agreeing. “You’re right there…” He kept on exchanging glances with Alphonsinka.
“Lambert! She worships Versilov like crazy; I’ve just seen it for myself,” I mumbled.
“It’s good you caught sight of all that: I never thought that you were such a good spy and that you’re so clever!” He said this to ingratiate himself with me.
“You lie, Frenchman: I’m not a spy, but I am very clever! But you know, Lambert, she does love him!” I went on trying terribly hard to have my say. “But she won’t marry him because Bjoring is in the guards, and Versilov is just a big-hearted man and a friend of humanity and, in their eyes, nothing more than a comic figure! Oh, she understands that kind of passion and enjoys it, and flirts and charms, but she won’t marry him! Now there’s a woman, there’s a snake! Every woman is a snake and every snake a woman! He must be cured; the scales must be removed from his eyes: let him see her as she is and he’ll be cured. I’ll bring him to you, Lambert!”
“That’s the way.” Lambert kept on agreeing and refilling my glass every minute.
The main thing was that he was anxious not to make me angry in some way, not to contradict me and to make me drink more. It was all so crude and obvious that even I couldn’t help but notice. Yet I was no longer capable of leaving; I kept on talking and drinking, and I had a terrible desire to come out with everything once and for all. When Lambert went out to get another bottle, Alphonsinka played some Spanish tune on the guitar; I almost broke down in tears.
“Lambert, do you know all of it?” I exclaimed with deep feeling. “We must absolutely save that man, because he’s surrounded by… sorcery. If she were to marry him he’d be kicking her out the morning after their first night… because that’s the way it goes. Because that kind of violent, savage love is like a seizure, like a deadly noose, like an illness, and as soon as satisfaction has been achieved, the scales fall from your eyes and the opposite feeling comes to the fore: repulsion and hatred, a desire to destroy, to crush. Do you know the story of Abishag,* Lambert, have you read it?”
“No, I don’t remember – is it a novel?” Lambert muttered.
“You know nothing, Lambert! You’re horribly, horribly uneducated… but I don’t give a damn… it doesn’t matter. Oh, he loves Mama, he kissed her portrait; he’ll kick the other one out the next morning and then go to Mama, but it would be too late, which is why we have to save him now.”
By the end I began to cry bitterly, but kept on talking and drinking an awful lot. What was peculiar was that not once all evening did Lambert enquire about the “document”, as to where it was, that is. He didn’t ask me to show it or lay it on the table. What would have been more natural than to ask about it, when we’d agreed to take action. Another thing: we only spoke about doing it, that we would definitely do “it”, but as to where, how and when, we never said a word. He simply kept on agreeing and exchanging glances with Alphonsinka – that’s all! I was of course unable to understand what was going on, but I did remember it all the same.
I ended up by falling asleep on his sofa without getting undressed. I slept for a very long time and woke up very late. I remember that after waking up I lay on the sofa for some time as though in a stupor, trying to imagine and remember and pretending to be still asleep. But Lambert was no longer in the room: he’d gone out. It was already after nine; the stove had been lit and was crackling, just as it had done when I’d first ended up at Lambert’s, after that night. But Alphonsinka was keeping an eye on me from behind the screen; I noticed it at once, because she’d peeped round and stared at me once or twice, but I shut my eyes each time and pretended to be still asleep. I did it because I felt crushed and needed to give my situation some thought. I felt horrified at my absurd and vile night-time confession to Lambert, my agreement with him and my error at having rushed round to him! But thank God the document was still with me, still sewn into my side pocket; I felt it with my fingers – it was there! It meant that all I had to do was leap up and run out. To feel ashamed of what Lambert might think later made no sense; he wasn’t worth it.
But it was myself I was really ashamed of! I was my own judge and, my God, what wasn’t there going on in my soul! But I won’t describe that hellish, unbearable feeling and that consciousness of filth and vileness. But I do have to confess everything, because, I believe, the time has come. It has to be recorded in my notes. So let it be known that I wanted to disgrace her and planned to be a witness when she paid Lambert his ransom (oh, the iniquity of it!), not because I wanted to save Versilov in his madness and restore him to Mama, but because… I was perhaps in love with her myself, in love and jealous! Who was I jealous of: Bjoring, Versilov? Of anyone she might look at or talk to at the ball, while I stood in a corner, ashamed of myself?… Oh, the unseemliness of it!
In short, I don’t know whom I was jealous of, but I felt and convinced myself the previous evening, as twice two makes four, that I’d lost her, that this woman would spurn me and mock me for my dishonesty and ridiculous behaviour! She was truthful and honest and I was a spy and I possessed documents!
I’ve concealed all this in my heart ever since, but now the time has come and I’m tallying up, but again, this is the last time; perhaps I’ve slandered myself for half or even seventy-five per cent of the time! That night I hated her like a maniac, and later like a roaring drunk. I’ve already said that my feelings and sensations were so chaotic that I couldn’t make any sense of any of them. But nevertheless they need to be expressed, because at least some part of those feelings was certainly present.
With uncontrollable disgust and an uncontrollable resolve to smooth things over, I suddenly jumped up from the sofa; but no sooner had I jumped up than Alphonsinka leapt into the room in a flash. I grabbed my coat and hat and ordered her to pass on to Lambert that I’d been raving the night before, that I’d slandered a woman, that I’d been deliberately joking and that Lambert shouldn’t dare come to see me… I said all this just anyhow, hastily, and in French, and it must of course have been terribly unclear, but to my astonishment Alphonsinka understood everything extremely well, but what was even more astonishing was that she seemed to be pleased about something.
“Oui, oui.” She nodded in agreement. “C’est une honte! Une dame… Oh, vous êtes généreux, vous! Soyez tranquille, je ferai voir raison à Lambert!…”*
So much so that I should have been puzzled at such a sudden change of heart on her part, and therefore probably on Lambert’s part as well. However, I left without another word: my soul was confused and I wasn’t thinking straight! Oh, I went over it all later, but it was too late by then! Oh, what an infernal intrigue it turned out to be! I’ll take a break here and explain in advance, or else the reader won’t be able to understand.
The fact was that already at my first encounter with Lambert, the time I was thawing out in his apartment, I’d mumbled like a fool that the document was sewn inside my pocket. Then I fell asleep for a while on the sofa in the corner, and Lambert had immediately felt my pocket and assured himself that a piece of paper was indeed sewn into it. Later he reassured himself several times that the paper was still there; for example, during our meal at the Tartar’s restaurant, I remember him deliberately putting his arm round my waist. Having finally grasped the importance of that paper, he set up his very own plan, one I’d not at all suspected him capable of. I, like a fool, had kept on imagining that he invited me round to his place so persistently, solely to persuade me to join him and act together with him. But alas, he’d invited me for an entirely different reason! He’d invited me to get me dead drunk and, when I’d be stretched out senseless and beginning to snore, he’d cut into my pocket and take possession of the document. And that’s exactly what he and Alphonsinka did that night. Alphonsinka cut into the pocket. Once they had the letter, her letter, my Moscow document, they took a simple sheet of paper of the same size, placed it where the pocket had been cut and sewed it up just as it had been before, so that I wouldn’t be able to notice a thing. It was Alphonsinka who did the sewing. And I, until almost the last moment, for another one and a half days, went on believing that I possessed a secret, and that Katerina Nikolayevna’s fate still lay in my hands!
One last word: the theft of this letter was the whole reason for everything, for all the misfortunes ahead!
I’ve come to the last twenty-four hours of my notes and am at the very end.
It was, I think, about half-past ten when I made it back to my lodgings, agitated and, as far as I recall, oddly distracted, but having come to a final decision in my heart. I wasn’t in a hurry as I knew what I was going to do. Then suddenly, the moment I stepped into our corridor, I realized that a new misfortune had occurred and an extraordinary complication had come up: the old prince, just brought over from Tsarskoe Selo, was in my lodgings, and Anna Andreyevna was with him.
They’d not settled him in my room, but in two of the landlord’s rooms, next to mine. It transpired that the day before some changes and the mildest improvements had been undertaken. The landlord and his wife moved to the box room of the eccentric pockmarked lodger I’ve mentioned earlier, and the latter had been relegated elsewhere for the time being – where to I don’t know.
The landlord met me, darting at once into my room. He didn’t look as confident as he had done the previous day, but was in an unusual state of excitement, living up to the event, as it were. I didn’t say anything to him but, moving into a corner and clutching my head with my hands, I stood like this for a moment or two. At first he thought I was “putting on an act”, but in the end he couldn’t stand it any longer and became alarmed.
“Is something wrong?” he muttered. “I was waiting to ask you,” he added when he saw I wasn’t answering him, “wouldn’t you like us to open this door to have direct access to the prince’s rooms… rather than using the corridor?” He pointed to a side door that always remained shut and led into his own rooms, which were now the prince’s quarters.
“Now, Pyotr Ippolitovich” – I turned to him sternly – “I ask you kindly to invite Anna Andreyevna to come to me here at once to discuss the situation. Have they been here long?”
“It will have been nearly an hour.”
“Go then.”
He went and came back with the odd reply that Anna Andreyevna and Prince Nikolai Ivanovich were impatiently expecting me to go into their rooms. It meant that Anna Andreyevna didn’t want to come out to me. I straightened and tidied up my coat, which had got crumpled in the night, washed, combed my hair – all this without hurrying – and, aware of how carefully I had to tread, I went to see the old man.
The prince was sitting on a sofa at a round table, and Anna Andreyevna was preparing him tea in another corner, at another table covered with a cloth, on which the landlord’s samovar, polished as never before, was boiling. I went in with the same stern look on my face, and the old man, noticing this at once, flinched, and his smile quickly changed to a look of alarm. But I wasn’t able to keep it up and burst into laughter, holding out my arms to him; the poor man immediately flung himself into my embrace.
I instantly realized, without any doubt, whom I was dealing with. Firstly it was as plain as twice two makes four that in the time we hadn’t seen each other they had transformed the old man from a still quite sprightly and even to some extent reasonable individual with some character into a kind of mummy, a complete child, scared and mistrustful. I’ll add that he knew full well why they’d brought him there; everything had happened exactly as I explained earlier when I ran ahead of events. They simply stunned, destroyed and crushed him all at once with the news of his daughter’s betrayal and the prospect of a lunatic asylum. He allowed himself to be taken away and was in such fear that he was hardly aware of what he was doing. They told him I possessed the secret and that I had the key to a final solution. I tell you now that it was that final solution and the key to it that he dreaded most of all. He was waiting for me to come to him with some verdict on my forehead and a paper in my hands, and he was terribly glad that I was ready to laugh and talk about quite other things instead. When we embraced he began to weep. I confess, I also shed a tear: I suddenly felt so sorry for him. Alphonsine’s tiny dog broke into a shrill bell-like bark and darted towards me from the sofa. He hadn’t parted from that tiny dog since he’d got it and even slept with it.
“Oh, je disais qu’il a du cœur!”* he exclaimed to Anna Andreyevna, pointing at me.
“But how well you’ve recovered, Prince, how wonderful, fresh and healthy you look!” I remarked. Alas! It was quite the opposite: this was a mummy, but I just said it to cheer him up.
“N’est-ce pas, n’est-ce pas?”* he repeated joyfully. “Oh, I’m amazingly recovered.”
“But do drink your tea and, if you give me a cup too, I’ll join you.”
“Wonderful! ‘We’ll drink and be merry…’ – or how does it go? There are such verses. Anna Andreyevna, give him some tea, il prend toujours par les sentiments*… Give us some tea, dear one.”
Anna Andreyevna gave us tea, but she suddenly turned to me and began with great solemnity:
“Arkady Makarovich, my benefactor Prince Nikolai Ivanovich and I have both taken shelter in your rooms. I believe that we both came to you, only you, to seek refuge. Remember that almost the entire fate of this saintly, noble and insulted man is in your hands… We look to your truthful heart for a decision!”
But she wasn’t allowed to finish; the prince was horrified and almost trembling with fear:
“Après, après, n’est-ce-pas? Chère amie!”* he repeated, raising his hands up to her.
I can’t express the unpleasant impression her outburst made on me. I didn’t reply and settled for a cold and dignified bow. Then I sat at the table and quite deliberately spoke of other things, trivialities, and began to laugh and make jokes… The old man was evidently grateful to me and cheered up enthusiastically. But as enthusiastic as his cheerfulness was, it was tenuous and could change into perfect dejection within a moment; that much was clear at first glance.
“Cher enfant, I heard you’ve been ill… Ah, pardon! I’ve heard that you’ve been involved with spiritualism all this time – is that so?”
“I don’t think so,” I smiled.
“No? Then who was it mentioned spi-ri-tua-lism to me?”
“It’s your resident clerk, Pyotr Ippolitovich, he mentioned it recently,” Anna Andreyevna explained. “He’s a very cheerful man and knows many jokes; would you like me to call him?”
“Oui, oui, il est charmant… he tells jokes, but let’s invite him in later. We’ll ask him to come and tell us lots of things; mais après. Imagine, the table was recently being set and he says: ‘Don’t worry, it won’t fly off, we’re not spiritualists.’ Do spiritualists’ tables fly off?”
“I don’t actually know; they say all four legs rise right up.”
“Mais c’est terrible ce que tu dis.”* He looked at me in alarm.
“Oh, please don’t worry, it’s all nonsense.”
“That’s what I say. Nastasya Stepanovna Samoleyeva… you probably know her… oh, no you don’t… well, imagine, she too believes in spiritualism and, imagine, chère enfant” – he turned to Anna Andreyevna – “I said to her: there are tables standing in the ministries and eight pairs of clerks’ hands on the tables, all writing documents – so why don’t those tables start dancing? Imagine them all suddenly beginning to dance! A rebellion of tables in the ministry of finance or of education – that would be the limit!”
“What lovely things you say, Prince, just as you used to,” I cried out, trying to laugh genuinely.
“N’est-ce-pas? Je ne parle pas trop mais je dis bien.”*
“I’ll bring over Pyotr Ippolitovich.” Anna Andreyevna stood up. Satisfaction shone all over her face: she was happy that I was so affectionate with the old man. But no sooner had she gone out than the old man’s face instantly altered. He quickly glanced at the door, checked round and, leaning towards me from the sofa, whispered fearfully:
“Cher ami! Oh, if I could only see them both here together! Oh, cher enfant!”
“Prince, do calm down…”
“Yes, yes… we’ll have them reconciled, n’est-ce-pas? It’s a minor quarrel between two worthy women, n’est-ce-pas? I’m placing all my hopes on you… We’ll bring order to it all; and what a strange apartment this is.” He looked round almost timorously. “And you know, that landlord… he has such a face… Tell me: he’s not dangerous, is he?”
“The landlord? Oh no, how could he be dangerous?”
“C’est ça. So much the better. Il semble qu’il est bête, ce gentilhomme.* Cher enfant, for Christ’s sake, don’t tell Anna Andreyevna that everything here scares me. I’ve praised everything here from the start and I’ve praised the landlord. Listen, you know the story about von Sohn* – remember?”
“What of it?”
“Rien du tout… mais je suis libre ici, n’est-ce-pas?* What do you think? Nothing can happen to me here, can it… in the same way?”
“I assure you, dearest one… for goodness’ sake!”
“Mon ami, mon enfant!” he suddenly cried out, clasping both hands before him and no longer disguising his fear. “If you really do have something… documents… in short, if you have something to tell me, don’t say it; for God’s sake don’t say anything; best you say nothing at all… Don’t speak for as long as possible…”
He wanted to rush forward to embrace me; tears were streaming down his face. I can’t express how my heart ached. The poor old man was like a pitiful, weak, frightened child who’d been removed from his home by some gypsies and taken to strangers. But we weren’t given time to embrace: the door opened and Anna Andreyevna came in, not with the landlord, but with her brother, the Kammerjunker. This new turn of events stunned me. I got up and made my way to the door.
“Arkady Makarovich, allow me to introduce you.” Anna Andreyevna spoke loudly, so that I had to stop.
“I know your brother only too well,” I enunciated clearly, stressing the word too.
“Oh, that was a terrible mistake! I’m so guil-ty, dear And… Andrei Makarovich,” the young man began to mumble, stepping towards me in an extraordinarily, overly familiar way and grabbing my hand, which I wasn’t able to retract. “My Stepan was entirely to blame: he announced you so stupidly then that I took you for someone else – that was in Moscow,” he explained to his sister. “Then I did my utmost to find you and explain, but I fell ill, ask her… Cher prince, nous devons être amis même par droit de naissance…”*
And the insolent young man even dared put one arm round my shoulder, which was the height of familiarity. I stepped aside but, having become confused, chose to get out quickly without saying a word. I went into my room and sat on my bed, distracted and in turmoil. The intrigue was suffocating me, but it wasn’t that simple to catch Anna Andreyevna off balance and knock her off her feet. I suddenly felt that she too was dear to me and that her position was horrendous.
As I’d anticipated, she came into my room herself, leaving the prince with her brother, who began to relate the very latest society gossip to him, which instantly cheered up the impressionable old man. I silently got off the bed and looked at her enquiringly.
“I’ve told you everything, Arkady Makarovich,” she began bluntly. “Our fate is in your hands.”
“But I warned you that I can’t… the most sacred obligations prevent me from doing what you expect me to do…”
“Really? Is this your answer? Well, let me be destroyed, but what about the old man? What do you reckon: he’ll most likely go crazy by this evening!”
“No, he’ll go crazy if I show him his daughter’s letter in which she consults a lawyer about declaring her father insane!” I exclaimed heatedly. “That’s what he won’t be able to bear. You know, he doesn’t believe in that letter – he told me so!”
That he’d told me so was a lie, but it came in handy.
“Did he say that? That’s what I thought! In that case I’m done for: he’s been crying and asking to go home.”
“Tell me, what exactly is your plan?” I insisted.
She blushed, her pride hurt, so to speak, but then picked herself up:
“With his daughter’s letter in our hands we’ll be vindicated in the eyes of society. I’ll send it at once to Prince V. and to Boris Mikhailovich Pelishchev, his childhood friends. They’re both respected and influential members of society, and I know that two years ago they reacted indignantly to things that ruthless, greedy daughter of his did. They will of course reconcile him to his daughter, at my request, and I’ll insist on that; yet the situation will have totally changed. Besides, my relatives, the Fanariotovs, I believe, will uphold my rights. But what comes first for me is his happiness. Let him finally realize and value who it is that is really devoted to him. And I undoubtedly count most of all on your influence, Arkady Makarovich: you love him so… Who loves him after all, besides you and me? He was just talking about you these last few days. He was missing you; you’re ‘his young friend’… And it goes without saying that for the rest of my life my gratitude will know no limits—”
So she was promising me a reward, money perhaps.
I interrupted her sharply:
“Whatever you say, I can’t do it,” I uttered, looking unshakeably determined. “I can only repay you with the same frankness and explain my latest intentions to you: I’ll pass on that fateful letter into Katerina Nikolayevna’s hands very shortly, on condition that there will be no scandal resulting from what’s happened and that she will give her word beforehand that she won’t stand in the way of your happiness. That’s all I can do.”
“That’s impossible!” she said, turning bright red. The very thought that Katerina Nikolayevna would have mercy on her affronted her.
“I won’t change my mind, Anna Andreyevna.”
“Maybe you will.”
“Go to Lambert!”
“Arkady Makarovich, you have no idea what misfortunes may result from your obstinacy,” she said grimly and bitterly.
“Misfortunes there will be – that’s certain – my head is spinning. I’ve spent enough time with you: I’ve made up my mind – may that be the end of it. Only, for God’s sake, I beg you, don’t bring your brother to me.”
“But he really wants to make amends—”
“There’s nothing to amend! I don’t need that, I won’t, I won’t!” I cried, clutching my head. (Oh, perhaps I treated her too arrogantly then.) “But tell me, where will the prince spend the night? Surely not here?”
“He’ll spend the night here, in your lodgings and with you.”
“I’ll move to other lodgings by evening!”
And after these ruthless words I picked up my hat and began to slip on my coat. Anna Andreyevna was watching me in steely silence. I was sorry, oh so sorry, for the proud young woman! But I ran out of the room without leaving her a word of hope.
I’ll try to keep this short. My decision was unalterable and I went straight to Tatyana Pavlovna’s. Alas! A great misfortune might have been averted had I found her at home. But, as though by design, I was particularly dogged by failure that day. I dropped in at Mama’s too, of course, in the first instance to see poor Mama, and secondly, counting on most probably meeting Tatyana Pavlovna there. But she wasn’t there either. She’d only just gone out somewhere and Mama was ill in bed, and only Liza was with her. Liza asked me not to go in and wake Mama: “She hasn’t slept all night, torturing herself.” I hugged Liza and only said a word or two about having taken a huge and fateful decision which I was about to act upon. She listened without showing particular surprise, as though these were the most ordinary words. Oh, they’d all got used to my endless “final decisions” and my faint-hearted retractions. But this time it was different! I dropped in at the tavern on the Ditch, however, and sat there to bide my time and to be certain to find Tatyana Pavlovna at home afterwards. By the way, I’ll explain why I suddenly needed to see that woman. The fact was that I wanted to send her at once over to Katerina Nikolayevna to invite her to come round to her apartment and in front of Tatyana Pavlovna to return the document to her with a final explanation. In short, all I wanted was what was right and to justify myself once and for all. Having decided on this point, I categorically and with some urgency planned to put in a few words in favour of Anna Andreyevna and, if possible, take Katerina Nikolayevna and Tatyana Pavlovna (as witness), over to my place – that is, to the prince – and there to reconcile the warring women, revive the prince and… and… in a word, at least make the people in that small circle happy, that very day, leaving out only Versilov and Mama. I had to believe I’d be successful: Katerina Nikolayevna, in gratitude for the letter, for which I wouldn’t ask anything in return, wouldn’t be able to refuse my request. Alas! I still imagined that I possessed the document. Oh, what a stupid and undignified situation I was in, without realizing it!
It was already getting very dark and about four o’clock when I called in at Tatyana Pavlovna’s again. Maria rudely replied that she “hadn’t come in”. I do remember now the strange glowering look Maria gave me, but at that stage nothing could yet have entered my head. On the contrary, I was assailed by another thought: as I walked down the stairs from Tatyana Pavlovna’s, irritated and somewhat dejected, I remembered the poor prince stretching his arms out to me and I bitterly reproached myself for having abandoned him simply perhaps because of my personal frustration. I uneasily began to imagine that in my absence something bad might have happened and so I quickly made my way home. At home however only the following had taken place.
Anna Andreyevna, after leaving me in a fury just before, had not quite lost heart. It needs to be said that she’d sent someone round to Lambert’s more than once since morning, and then did so one more time, and as Lambert was still not to be found at home, she’d finally sent her brother to look for him. The poor woman, seeing my resistance, had pinned her last hope on Lambert and his influence on me. She was waiting impatiently for Lambert and was simply taken aback that, having kept close to her and played up to her right up to that day, he’d suddenly dropped her completely and vanished. Alas! It wouldn’t have occurred to her that Lambert, now in possession of the document, had taken some entirely different decisions and was consequently keeping away and deliberately hiding from her.
Therefore, anxious and with increasing alarm in her soul, Anna Andreyevna was almost incapable of distracting the prince; meanwhile his uneasiness grew to alarming proportions. He began to ask strange and frightened questions, and even took to looking at her suspiciously and dissolved into tears several times. The young Versilov didn’t stay long. After he left, Anna Andreyevna ended up bringing in Pyotr Ippolitovich, upon whom she’d set so much store, but he didn’t please the prince at all, and even repelled him. On the whole, the prince regarded Pyotr Ippolitovich for some reason with growing mistrust and suspicion. And the landlord, as though on purpose, again introduced the subject of spiritualism and told of some tricks he was supposed to have seen himself on stage, and in particular how a visiting charlatan had cut off some human heads in front of the entire audience, so that blood had flowed for all to see, and he had then replaced the heads on the necks and they’d grown back together again, also in front of the audience, and all that was supposed to have taken place in 1859. The prince became so scared and, for some reason, grew so indignant that Anna Andreyevna was forced to dismiss the storyteller at once. Fortunately dinner arrived; it had been ordered intentionally the day before from somewhere nearby – by Lambert and Alphonsinka – from some remarkable French cook who was jobless and looking for a place in an aristocratic house or club. Dinner and champagne cheered the old man up no end; he ate plenty and joked a lot. After dinner he, of course, slumped and felt sleepy, and as he always had a nap after dinner Anna Andreyevna had prepared his bed. As he fell asleep he kept on kissing her hands and telling her she was his paradise, his hope, his houri, his “golden flower” – in a word, he launched into a whole string of oriental expressions. He fell asleep at last, and that’s when I returned.
Anna Andreyevna hastily came in, clasped her hands and said that, not for her sake but for the prince, she begged me not to leave, but to go to him when he woke up. “He’ll die without you; he’ll have a stroke; I’m afraid he may not make it till night time…” She added that she had to absent herself, perhaps for two hours, and that she left the prince entirely in my hands. I warmly gave her my word that I would stay until evening, and that when he woke up I’d use all my powers to distract him.
“And I’m going to fulfil my duty!” she energetically concluded.
She left. I’ll add, rushing ahead, that she went to look for Lambert herself. It was her last hope, and she also went to see her brother and the Fanariotovs. It’s clear what state she would be in on her return.
The prince woke up about an hour after she left. I heard him groan through the wall and rushed over to him at once. I found him sitting on his bed, in his dressing gown, but so scared in his isolation, with only one lamp lit and in a strange room, that when I came in he gave a start, leapt up and screamed. I rushed to him, and when he’d seen it was me, he began to hug me with tears of joy.
“They told me you’d moved to another apartment somewhere else; you got scared and ran off.”
“Who could have told you that?”
“Who? I may have thought it up myself or perhaps someone did say it. Imagine, I just had a dream: an old man with a beard and an icon comes in with an icon split in two, and he suddenly says: ‘That’s how your life will be, split in two!’”
“Oh, my God, you’ve probably heard from someone that Versilov smashed an icon yesterday?”
“N’est-ce-pas? I heard, I heard! I heard it this morning from Daria Onisimovna. She was bringing over my trunk and my little dog.”
“So now you dreamt it.”
“Well, all the same – imagine, that old man kept on wagging his finger at me. Where’s Anna Andreyevna?”
“She’ll be back very soon.”
“From where? Has she also left?” he exclaimed plaintively.
“No, no, she’ll be here right away and asked me to stay with you.”
“Oui, to come in here. So, our Andrei Petrovich has gone crazy. ‘Unexpectedly and swiftly!’* I always told him that he’d end up this way. My friend, wait…”
He suddenly grabbed my coat and drew me to him.
“Just now the landlord,” he whispered, “brought me photos, vile photos of women, all naked in various oriental poses, and he suddenly began to show them to me through a glass… You see, I admired them grudgingly, but they led vile women to that unfortunate man, in order to get him more easily drunk…”
“You’re still going on about that von Sohn – that’s enough, Prince! The landlord is nothing but a fool!”
“Nothing but a fool! C’est mon opinion!* My friend, if you can, get me out of here!” He suddenly clasped his hands before me again.
“Prince, I’ll do all I can! I’m all yours… Dear prince, just wait, and I may put everything right!”
“N’est-ce-pas? We’ll run off and leave the trunk here so that he’ll think we’ll be back.”
“Where shall we run away to? And Anna Andreyevna?”
“No, no, with Anna Andreyevna… Oh, mon cher, my head is in such a muddle… Wait: there in the bag, on the right, there’s a portrait of Katia; I stealthily slipped it in recently, so that Anna Andreyevna and especially that Daria Onisimovna wouldn’t notice; take it out for God’s sake, quickly, carefully, so we don’t get caught… Can’t you put the latch on the door?”
I did indeed find the photograph of Katerina Nikolayevna in its oval frame in the bag; he took it, raised it to the light and tears began to stream down his thin yellow cheeks.
“C’est un ange, c’est un ange du ciel!”* he exclaimed. “I’ve been to blame in regard to her all my life… and now! Chère enfant, I don’t believe any of it, I don’t! My friend, tell me: can you imagine them wanting to put me in a lunatic asylum? Je dis des choses charmantes et tout le monde rit*… and then suddenly they take that man to the lunatic asylum?”
“It never happened!” I shouted. “It’s a mistake. I know all about her feelings!”
“You too know her feelings? That’s wonderful! My friend, you’ve brought me back to life. What did they tell me about you? My friend, send for Katia, and may they both embrace and kiss in my presence and I’ll take them home and we’ll get rid of the landlord!”
He got up, clasped his hands and was suddenly on his knees before me.
“Cher,” he began to whisper in some kind of insane terror, shaking all over like a leaf. “My friend, tell me the whole truth: where are they going to put me now?”
“My God!” I cried, lifting him up and sitting him down on the bed. “It seems you don’t even believe me; you think I’m part of the plot? I won’t allow anyone to lay a finger on you!”
“C’est ça, don’t let them,” he mumbled, taking firm hold of my elbows with both hands and still shaking. “Don’t let anyone near me! And don’t you lie to me… because, are they really going to take me away from here? Listen, that landlord, Ippolit, or what’s his name… isn’t he a doctor?”
“What doctor?”
“Is this… is this not an asylum, here in your room?”
But that very moment the door opened and Anna Andreyevna came in. She must have been eavesdropping behind the door and, unable to resist, had opened the door too suddenly – and the prince, jumping at the slightest creak, gave a shriek and dived down with his face into the pillow. He finally suffered some kind of fit and ended up sobbing.
“See what you’ve done?” I said to her, pointing at the old man.
“No, it’s all your doing!” She raised her voice sharply. “I’m turning to you for the last time, Arkady Makarovich – will you disclose the infernal intrigue against a defenceless old man and give up your ‘mad, childish, amorous dreams’ in order to save your own sister?”
“I’ll save you all, but only in the way I just told you! I’m off again; Katerina Nikolayevna may be here in person in an hour! I’ll reconcile everyone and everyone will be happy!” I shouted, almost euphoric.
“Bring her, bring her here.” The prince roused himself. “Take me to her! I want Katia, I want to see Katia and give her my blessing!” he cried out, raising his arms and trying to get out of bed.
“You see.” I pointed at him. “Listen to what he’s saying: at this point no ‘document’ will help you.”
“I see, but it could help me justify my behaviour in the eyes of society, and now I’m disgraced! Enough, my conscience is clear. I’ve been abandoned by everyone, even by my own brother, fearful of failure… But I’ll fulfil my duty and will remain with this unhappy man as his nanny, his nurse!”
But there was no time to lose and I ran out of the room.
“I’ll be back in an hour and not alone!” I yelled from the doorway.