Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (618 page)

This thought made me happy.

“And let her arrange her life as she pleases, let her marry her Büring as much as she likes, so long as he, my father, my friend, loves her no longer,” I exclaimed.

I had, however, certain secret feelings of my own, on which I do not care to enlarge in my notes here.

That’s enough.  And now, without further reflections, I will give an account of the awful event that followed, and how the facts worked together to bring it about.

2

At ten o’clock, just as I was getting ready to go out, to see him of course, Darya Onisimovna appeared.  I asked her joyfully: “whether she came from him?” and heard with vexation that she did not come from him, but from Anna Andreyevna, and that she, Darya Onisimovna, “had left the lodging as soon as it was light.”

“What lodging?”

“Why, the same where you were yesterday.  You know, the lodging where you were yesterday, where the baby is; it is taken in my name now, and Tatyana Pavlovna pays the rent. . . .”

“Oh, well, that’s nothing to me!” I interrupted with annoyance.  “Is he at home, anyway?  Shall I find him?”

And to my surprise I heard from her that he had gone out even before she had; so she had gone out as soon as it was light, and he had gone out even earlier.

“Then has he come back yet?”

“No, he’s certainly not back yet, and perhaps he won’t come back at all,” she declared, turning upon me the same sharp and furtive eye, and keeping it fixed on me, as she had done on the occasion I have described, when she visited me as I lay ill in bed.  What infuriated me most was that their mysteries and imbecilities should be forced on me again, and that these people could not get on without secrets and intrigues.

“Why do you say: ‘he will certainly not come back’?  What do you mean by that?  He has gone to see mother, that’s all!”

“I d — don’t know.”

“And what have you come for?”

She told me that she had just come from Anna Andreyevna, who had sent her for me, and urgently expected me at once, or else it would be “too late.”  These last enigmatic words finally exasperated me:

“Why too late?  I don’t want to come and I’m not coming!  I won’t let them take possession of me again!  I don’t care a damn for Lambert, you can tell her so, and if she sends Lambert to me, I’ll kick him out, you can tell her so!”

Darya Onisimovna was awfully alarmed.

“Oh no,” she said, taking a step towards me, clasping her hands as though she were beseeching me.  “Don’t be so hasty.  There’s something very important the matter, very important to yourself, to them, too, to Andrey Petrovitch, to your mamma, to every one. . . .  Go and see Anna Andreyevna at once, she can’t wait any longer . . . I assure you, on my honour . . . and afterwards you can make your decision.”

I looked at her with surprise and repulsion.

“Nonsense, it will be nothing, I’m not coming!”  I shouted obstinately and vindictively:  “Now everything’s different!  Though how could you understand that?  Good-bye, Darya Onisimovna, I won’t go on purpose, I won’t question you on purpose.  You simply bother me.  I don’t want to know anything about your mysteries.”

As she did not go away, however, but still stood waiting, I snatched up my fur coat and cap, and went out myself, leaving her in the middle of the room.  There were no letters or papers in my room, and I never used to lock my door when I went out.  But before I had reached the front door my landlord ran after me downstairs, without his hat, and not in full uniform.

“Arkady Makarovitch!  Arkady Makarovitch!”

“What now?”

“Have you no instructions to leave?”

“No, nothing.”

He looked at me with eyes like gimlets, in evident uneasiness:

“About your room, for instance?”

“What about my room?  Why, I sent you the rent when it was due?”

“Oh no, sir, I was not thinking of the money,” he said with a broad smile, his eyes still piercing into me like pins.

“Why, what on earth’s the matter with you all?” I shouted at last, growing almost savage.  “What do you want too?”

He waited for a few seconds longer, still seeming to expect something from me.

“Well, then, you will give instructions later . . . if you are not in the humour now,” he muttered, grinning more broadly than ever; “you go on and I’ll see to it.”

He ran back upstairs.  Of course all this might well make one reflect.  I purposely avoid omitting a single detail in all that petty tomfoolery, for every little detail helped to make up the final situation and had its place in it, a fact of which the reader will be convinced.  But that they really did bother me was true.  If I was upset and irritated, it was at hearing again in their words that tone of intrigue and mystery of which I was so sick, and which so brought back the past.  But to continue.

It turned out that Versilov was not at home, and it appeared that he really had gone out as soon as it was light.  “To mother’s, of course”: I stuck obstinately to my idea.  I did not question the nurse, rather a stupid peasant woman, and there was no one else in the lodging.  I ran to mother’s and I must admit I was so anxious that I took a sledge half-way.  HE HAD NOT BEEN AT MOTHER’S SINCE THE EVENING BEFORE.  There was no one with mother except Tatyana Pavlovna and Liza.  Liza began getting ready to go out as soon as I went in.

They were all sitting upstairs, in my “coffin.”  In the drawing room Makar Ivanovitch was laid out on the table, and an old man was reading the psalter over him in an even, monotonous voice.  For the future I am not going to describe anything more that does not relate to the matter in hand.  I will only say that the coffin, which they had already made, was standing in the middle of the room, and was not a plain one, though it was black; it was upholstered in velvet, and the pall was of an expensive sumptuousness that was not in keeping with the character of a monk, or with the convictions of the dead man; but such was the special desire of my mother and Tatyana Pavlovna, who arranged the matter together.

I had not of course expected to find them cheerful; but the peculiar overwhelming distress mixed with uneasiness and anxiety, which I read in their eyes, struck me at once, and I instantly concluded that “sorrow for the dead was certainly not the only cause.”  All this, I repeat, I remember perfectly.

In spite of everything I embraced mother tenderly and at once asked about HIM.  A gleam of tremulous curiosity came into mother’s eyes at once.  I made haste to mention that we had spent the whole evening together, till late at night, but that to-day he had been away from home since early morning, though at parting last night he had asked me to come as early as I could this morning.  Mother made no answer, and Tatyana Pavlovna, seizing a favourable moment, shook her finger at me meaningly.

“Good-bye, brother,” Liza blurted out, going quickly out of the room.  I ran after her, of course, but she stopped short at the outer door.

“I thought you would guess you must come with me,” she said in a rapid whisper.

“Liza, what’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what, but a great deal, no doubt the last chapter of ‘the same old story.’  He has not come, but they have heard something about him.  They won’t tell you, you needn’t trouble yourself, and you won’t ask, if you are sensible; but mother’s shattered.  I’ve not asked about anything either.  Good-bye.”

She opened the door.

“And, Liza, about you, yourself, have you nothing to tell me?”  I dashed after her into the entry.  Her terribly exhausted and despairing face pierced my heart.  She looked at me, not simply with anger, but with a sort of exasperated fury, laughed bitterly, and waved me off.

“If only he were dead I should thank God!” she flung up at me from the stairs, and was gone.  She said this of Prince Sergay, and he, at that very time, was lying delirious and unconscious.

I went upstairs, sad but excited.  “The same old story!  What same old story?” I thought defiantly, and I had suddenly an irresistible impulse to tell them at least a part of the impression left upon me by his last night’s confession, and the confession too.  “They’re thinking some evil of him now, so let them know all about it!” floated though my mind.

I remember that I succeeded very cleverly in beginning to tell them my story.  Instantly their faces betrayed an intense curiosity.  This time Tatyana Pavlovna positively fixed me with her eyes; but mother showed more reserve; she was very grave, but the glimmer of a faint, beautiful, though utterly hopeless smile came into her face, and scarcely left it all the time I was talking.  I told the story well, of course, though I knew that it would be almost beyond their comprehension.  To my surprise Tatyana Pavlovna did not attack me, did not insist on minute details, or try to pick holes as she usually did as soon as I began telling anything.  She only pinched up her lips and screwed up her eyes, as though making an effort to get to the bottom of it.  At times I positively fancied that they understood it all, though that could hardly have been so. . . .  I spoke for instance of his convictions, but principally of his enthusiasm last night, his enthusiastic feeling for mother, his love for mother and how he had kissed her portrait. . . .  Hearing this they exchanged a rapid silent glance with each other, and mother flushed all over, though both continued silent.  Then . . . then I could not of course BEFORE MOTHER touch on the principal point, that is his meeting with HER and all the rest of it, above all HER letter to him the day before, and his moral resurrection after getting that letter; and that indeed was the chief point, so that all his feeling, with which I had hoped to please mother so much, naturally remained inexplicable, though of course that was not my fault; I had told all that could be told extremely well.  I ended in complete confusion; their silence was still unbroken and I began to feel very uncomfortable with them.

“Most likely he’s come back now, and may be at my lodgings waiting for me,” I said, and got up to go.

“Go and see! go and see!” Tatyana Pavlovna urged me resolutely.

“Have you been downstairs?” mother asked me, in a sort of half whisper, as she said good-bye.

“Yes, I have been, and I bowed down and prayed for him.  What a peaceful, serene face he has, mother!  Thank you, mother, for not sparing expense over his coffin.  At first I thought it strange, but I thought, at once, that I should have done the same.”

“Will you come to the church to-morrow?” she asked, and her lips trembled.

“What do you mean, mother?” I asked in surprise.  “I shall come to the requiem service to-day, and I shall come again; and . . . besides, to-morrow is your birthday, mother darling!  To think that he died only thee days before!”

I went away painfully surprised: how could she ask such questions, whether I were coming to the funeral service in the church?  “If that’s what they think of me, what must they think of HIM?”

I knew that Tatyana Pavlovna would run after me and I purposely waited at the outer door of the flat; but she pushed me out on to the stairs and closed the door behind her.

“Tatyana Pavlovna, don’t you expect Andrey Petrovitch today or to-morrow, then?  I am alarmed. . . .”

“Hold your tongue.  Much it matters your being alarmed.  Tell me, tell me what you kept back when you were telling us about that rigmarole last night!”

I didn’t think it necessary to conceal it, and feeling almost irritated with Versilov I told her all about Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter to him the day before and of the effect of the letter, that is of his resurrection into a new life.  To my amazement the fact of the letter did not surprise her in the least, and I guessed that she knew of it already.

“But you are lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I dare say,” she smiled malignantly, as though meditating: “risen again, has he, so that’s the latest, is it?  But is it true that he kissed her portrait?”

“Yes, Tatyana Pavlovna.”

“Did he kiss it with feeling, he wasn’t putting it on?”

“Putting it on, as though he ever did!  For shame, Tatyana Pavlovna; you’ve a coarse soul, a woman’s soul.”

I said this with heat; but she did not seem to hear me; she seemed to be pondering something again, in spite of the terrible chilliness of the stairs.  I had on my fur coat, but she was in her indoor dress.

“I might have asked you to do something, the only pity is you’re so stupid,” she said with contempt and apparent vexation.  “Listen, go to Anna Andreyevna’s, and see what’s going on there. . . .  But no, don’t go; a booby’s always a booby!  Go along, quick march, why do you stand like a post?”

“And I’m not going to Anna Andreyevna’s.  Anna Andreyevna sent to ask me herself.”

“She did?  Darya Onisimovna?” she turned to me quickly; she had been on the point of going away, and had already opened the door, but she shut it again with a slam.

“Nothing will induce me to go to Anna Andreyevna’s,” I repeated with spiteful enjoyment; “I won’t go because I’ve just been called a booby, though I’ve never been so sharp-sighted as to-day.  I see all you’re doing, it’s as clear as day, but I’m not going to Anna Andreyevna all the same!”

“I know it,” she exclaimed, but again pursuing her own thoughts, and taking no notice of my words at all.  “They will devour her now completely, and draw her into a deadly noose.”

“Anna Andreyevna?”

“Fool!”

“Then whom do you mean?  Surely not Katerina Nikolaevna?  What sort of deadly noose?”

I was terribly frightened, a vague but terrible idea set my whole heart quivering.  Tatyana Pavlovna looked at me searchingly.

“What are you up to there?” she asked suddenly.  “What are you meddling in there?  I’ve heard something about you too, you’d better look out!”

“Listen, Tatyana Pavlovna, I’ll tell you a terrible secret, only not just now, there’s not time now, but to-morrow, when we’re alone; but in return you tell me the whole truth, how and what you mean by a deadly noose, for I am all in a tremble. . . .”

“Much I care for your trembling,” she exclaimed.  “What’s this other secret you want to tell to-morrow?  Why, you know nothing whatever!” she transfixed me with a questioning look.  “Why, you swore then that Kraft had burnt the letter, didn’t you?”