When he had reached this stage in his story, Golubchik fell silent for a long while. His silence appeared to us even longer than it was, because he drank nothing. We, too, only sipped at our glasses, out of shame and reserve, because Golubchik scarcely seemed to notice his glass. His silence therefore seemed in a way a double silence. A storyteller who breaks his narrative and does not raise to his lips the glass which stands before him, arouses an extraordinary feeling of uneasiness in his hearers. We all of us, Golubchik’s audience, felt uneasy. We were ashamed of looking Golubchik in the face; we stared almost stupidly at our glasses. If only we could have heard the ticking of a clock. But no. Not even a clock ticked, not a fly buzzed, and from the dark streets outside not a sound came through the thick iron shutters. We were at the mercy of the deathly silence. Long, long eternities seemed to have passed since the moment when Golubchik had begun his story. Eternities, I say, not hours. For since the clock on the wall had stopped, and since each of us threw a stealthy glance at it, although we all knew that it had stopped, it seemed as though Time had ceased; and the hands on the white face were no longer simply black, but frankly ominous. Yes, they were as ominous as eternity. They were unchanging in their obstinate, almost treacherous, immobility, and it seemed to us as though they stood still, not because the dock work had stopped, but from a sort of malice and as if to prove that the story which Golubchik was telling us was an eternally recurring, eternally hopeless story, independent of time and space, of day and night. And since time stood still, the room too, in which we were sitting, became exempt from all laws of space; and it was as though we were no longer on solid earth, but floating on the eternal waters of the eternal sea. It seemed as though we were in a ship. And our sea was the night.
Now at last, after that long pause, Golubchik took a gulp from his glass.
“I have considered”—he began again—“whether I should relate to you my subsequent experiences on the train. But I would rather omit that. I will therefore begin immediately with my arrival in Paris.
So I arrived in Paris. I need not tell you what Paris meant to me, to Golubchik, the spy who despised himself, to the false Krapotkin, the lover of Lutetia. It cost me an immense effort not to believe that my passport was false and to forget that my vile task of watching refugees, who were a so-called “menace to the State,” was my own. But it cost me unbelievable agony at last to persuade myself that my existence was a living lie, my name a borrowed one, if not stolen, and my passport the infamous document of an infamous spy. And from the moment when I recognized all that, I began to hate myself. I had always hated myself, my friends! After all that I have told you, you will have realized that. But the hatred which I now felt for myself was hatred of a different kind. For the first time I felt contempt for myself. Previously I had never realized that a false existence, founded on a borrowed and stolen name, could destroy one’s own, one’s real existence. But now I learned in my own person the inexplicable magic of a word; of a written, an inscribed word. Of course a stupid, thoughtless police official had made me out a passport in the name of Krapotkin; and he had not only not thought anything about it, but had taken it as a matter of course that a spy called Golubchik should be lent the name of Krapotkin. Nevertheless, it was magic. There is magic in every spoken, let alone every written, word. Through the simple fact of possessing a passport made out in the name of Krapotkin, I was Krapotkin; but at the same time this passport proved to me, in a different, quite irrational way, that I had obtained it not only unrighteously but also for dishonest purposes. To a certain extent it was a constant witness of my evil conscience. It compelled me to become a Krapotkin, while, all the times I could never cease to be a Golubchik. I was a Golubchik, I am a Golubchik, and a Golubchik I will remain, my friends…! But moreover — and that “moreover” is significant and important — I was in love with Lutetia. And she, who had given herself to me, was perhaps — who can tell? — in love with that Prince Krapotkin whom I was impersonating. To myself, therefore, I was to a certain extent Golubchik, even if with the firm belief that I was a Krapotkin; but to her who at that time had to imagine my past life, I was a Krapotkin, a cousin of the young lieutenant of the Guards, my half-brother, whom I hated and who had embraced her before me.
I say: before me. For at the age at which I then was, it is usual for a young man to hate with a deep hatred all those men who have, as they say, “possessed” his beloved before him. But why should I not hate my false half-brother? My father, my name, and the woman I loved, he had taken from me! If I could call any man my enemy, he was that man. I had not yet forgotten how he had burst into the room of my father — not his father — in order to drive me out. I hated him. Ah, how I hated him! Who, if not he, was responsible for my entering the foulest of all professions? Again and again he crossed my path. I was powerless against him; he was omnipotent against me. Yes, again and again he stood in my way to thwart me. Not Prince Krapotkin had begot him. Another had done that. And already in the moment when that other had begot him, he had begun to defraud me. Oh, I hated him, my friends! How I hated him!
But spare me the closer details of how I became Lutetia’s lover. It was not difficult. It was not easy. I was in love, my friends, and even today I find it hard to say whether it was difficult or easy for me to become Lutetia’s lover. It was difficult and easy, it was easy and difficult — whichever you prefer…!
In those days I had no very exact ideas of the world and of the curious laws which govern love. I was, indeed, a spy, and therefore, one would think, a jack-of-all-trades. But in spite of my profession and in spite of all the experiences which it had brought me, I was a harmless fool with regard to Lutetia; with regard to Lutetia — that is, to all women; with regard to the whole of womankind. For Lutetia was woman, plain and simple — she was womankind personified. She was the woman of my life. She was the woman, the feminine in my life.
Today, my friends, it is easy to deride the situation in which I then found myself. Today I am old and experienced. Today we are all old and experienced. But each of you will be able to remember an hour when you were young and foolish. With you, perhaps, it was only an hour, measured by the clock. But with me it was a long hour, far too long an hour… as you will soon see.
As I had been ordered, and as was my duty, I reported at the Russian Embassy.
There was a man there, a man, I tell you, who attracted me at the first glance. He even attracted me strongly. He was a huge, powerful man. He was a handsome, powerful man. He should rather have been in the Imperial Guard than in our Secret Police. Till then I had never seen a man of his type in our company. Yes, I must admit that after I had spoken to him for scarcely a quarter of an hour it almost pained me to know that he was in a position in which he could never escape from vileness and treachery. Yes, it actually pained me. So strongly did he radiate a genuine, inward peace. How shall I describe it: it was a harmonious power, the characteristic of real kindliness. “I have heard about you,” he greeted me. “I know what foolishness you have been up to. Well now, under which name do you propose to live here?”
Under which name? Well, I had one, the only one which fitted me. My name was Krapotkin. I had visiting-cards. Such were my wretched reflections at the time. For the past few years I had practiced every sort of deceit — and nothing, one might think, could make a man more astute, more experienced, more discerning, than spying. But no; one would be wrong. My victims were not only finer men than I, but also considerably cleverer; and the simplest among them would have found it impossible to be as vain and ridiculous and childish as I was. I was already in the depths of Hell. Yes, I was already a hardened servitor of Hell, and still — I felt it at that moment — the one, stupid, blind, driving-force of my life was my chagrin at the name of Golubchik and at the degradation to which I considered I had been subjected, and my mania to become a Krapotkin at any price. I still believed that through cunning and treachery I could wipe out what I deemed to be the stigma in my life. But I only heaped disgrace after disgrace upon my own miserable head. At that moment, too, I felt vaguely that I had never really followed Lutetia out of love for her, and that I had merely imagined a great passion, such as only noble souls can experience, for my own justification. In reality, I had simply made up my mind to possess her, just as I had made up my mind no longer to be a Golubchik. Within myself, and therefore against myself I had evolved one mad folly after another. I had deceived and betrayed myself, exactly as I was supposed to be deceiving and betraying others. I had woven myself into my own net. It was too late. Although I realized all this, half clearly, half unclearly, I still compelled myself to cling to the lie that everything was because of Lutetia, and that for her sake alone I could not surrender my false name of Krapotkin. “I have already a name,” I said, and showed him my passport. He ignored it and said: “My young friend, to work here with that name you must indeed be clever. You know that you have been allotted the definite duties of an intermediary agent. But you may have private reasons for your choice. There is probably a woman somewhere about. Let us hope that she is young and pretty. I will only remind you that young and pretty women need money. And I am very economical. I only pay unusual premiums for unusual services. I shall make no exception in your case. False papers, in other names, you can have as many as you want. You may go now. Report to me as often as you wish. Where are you staying? In the Hotel Louvois, I know it. One thing more. Learn languages, take lessons, go to the High School if you like. You will report to me at least twice a week, here, during the evening. Here is a check. That you will be watched by your colleagues, you know already. So no foolishness!”