I now entered upon, as I had decided — or, if you like, as I had imagined — a new existence. With new clothes — for I had summoned one of those ridiculous tailors who at that time used to dress the so-called gentlemen of fashion — I began to lead the sort of life which seemed to me suited to a prince. A truly new sort of life. Several times I was invited by my beloved Lutetia’s dressmaker. Several times I invited him to my hotel. Since my old shame is so far fallen from me that I can tell you my story as openly as I am now doing, you will believe me, my friends, when I assure you that it is not out of pride or conceit when I say that at that time I was gifted with a great talent for languages. Within a week I could speak almost perfect French. At all events, I could converse fluently with the fashionable dressmaker and his girls, who all knew me from the journey. I also conversed with Lutetia. Of course she remembered me, especially from the incident at the frontier, and also because of my name, and finally on account of the hour she had spent in my compartment. At that time I was nothing more than the bearer of my false name. I had long since ceased to be myself. I was not only not a Krapotkin, I was also not a Golubchik. I was as though between Heaven and earth. More stilclass="underline" between Heaven and earth and Hell. In none of those three worlds did I feel at home. Where was I really? And what was I really? Was I Golubchik? Was I Krapotkin? Was I in love with Lutetia? Was I in love with her or with my new existence? Was it even a new existence? Was I lying or was I telling the truth? At that time I sometimes thought of my poor mother, the wife of the forester Golubchik. She knew of me no more; I had vanished from the narrow circle of faces before her poor old eyes. No longer had I even a mother left. A mother! What other person in the whole, wide world was without a mother? I was lost and desolate. But such a wretch was I then, that I even extracted a certain pride from my misery; and, since I myself had brought it about, I regarded it as a sort of distinction which fate had conferred upon me.
But I will try to be brief. After a few entirely unnecessary visits to the great dressmaker, and after having seen and praised his new “creations,” I succeeded in gaining with Lutetia that particular kind of intimacy which implies an engagement between two people. A short while afterwards I had the doubtful pleasure of being a guest in her house.
In her house! What I call “house” was a miserable hotel in the rue de Montmartre. It was a tiny room. The browny-yellow wallpaper depicted an endless repetition of two parrots, a chrome yellow one and a snow white one, perpetually kissing one another. They were caressing. Those parrots had all the qualities of doves. Yes, even the wallpaper affected me deeply. It seemed to me unworthy of Lutetia that, just in her room, parrots had to behave like doves. And it had to be parrots. At that time I hated parrots. Today, I no longer know why. (Incidentally, I also hated doves.)
I brought flowers and caviar with me, the two gifts which I thought should characterize a Russian prince. We had long conversations together, deep and intimate. “You know my cousin?” I asked, innocently and mendaciously. “Yes, little Sergei,” she answered, equally innocently and equally mendaciously. “He made love to me,” she continued. “For hours on end! He sent me orchids. Think of it! Me, of all the girls! But I didn’t take any notice of him. I didn’t care for him.”
“I don’t care for him, either,” I said. “I’ve known him ever since he was a boy, and even then I didn’t care for him.”
“You are right,” said Lutetia. “He is a beast.”
“But still,” I began, “you had a rendezvous with him in Petersburg, and he himself told me that it was in a chambre séparée at old Lukatchevski’s.”
“He was lying, he was lying,” screamed Lutetia, as only women can scream when they obviously wish to deny the truth. “I have never been with any man in a chambre separée. Neither in Russia nor in France!”
“Don’t shout so,” I said, “and don’t lie. I saw you myself. I saw you. You must have forgotten it. My cousin never lies.”
As could not otherwise be expected, Lutetia began to sob brokenly. I, who cannot bear to see a woman crying, ran downstairs and ordered a bottle of cognac. When I returned, Lutetia was no longer crying. She only behaved as though the lie in which I had caught her had utterly exhausted her and drained her of all strength. “Don’t worry!” I said. “I’ve brought you a restorative.”
She got up after a while. “Don’t let’s talk any more about your cousin,” she said.
“All right, we won’t talk about him any more,” I agreed. “Let us talk about you.”
And she told me everything — all of which I strangely enough accepted as absolute truth, although I had heard her lie only a few minutes before. She was the daughter of a rag-and-bone merchant. Seduced at an early age, that is, at sixteen, which today I can no longer call “early,” she ran away with a jockey who loved her and left her in a hotel in Rouen. Oh, she was never lacking in men! She did not remain long in Rouen. And because she was so strikingly beautiful, the fashionable dressmaker, who was then searching among the crowds of Paris for models, had noticed her.… And so she had come to work for the fashionable dressmaker….
She had drunk too much. She was still lying, I realized that after the first half-hour. But where, my friends, can one find the truth which one would like to hear from the lips of the girl one loves? And had not I lied myself? Was not I living completely enmeshed in lies? And was I not so comfortably nested in falsehood that I not only enjoyed my own lies, but also recognized and treasured those of others? Of course, Lutetia was as little the daughter of a rag-and-bone merchant or a concierge or a shoemaker or anything else, as I was a prince. Had she then suspected who I really was, she would probably have persuaded me that she was the illegitimate daughter of a baron. But since she had to assume that I was at home among barons, and since she knew that high-born people regard the poor and lowly with an almost poetic melancholy and love the fairy story about the blessings of poverty, she too told me the fable about the wonders of being poor. Actually, while she spoke, she sounded quite credible. For years she had been living among lies, among those special lies, and at times she even believed in her own story. She was lost, just as I was lost. And a lost person lies as innocently as a child. A lost existence demands a foundation of lies. In reality, Lutetia was the daughter of a once fashionable dressmaker, and the man in whose employ she now was had not sought for his girls among the crowds of Paris, but, naturally enough, among the daughters of his colleagues.
But besides all that, my friends, Lutetia was beautiful. Beauty always appears credible. The Devil, who determines men’s judgments on women, fights on the side of the beautiful and attractive. We seldom believe the truth from an ugly woman; but from a beautiful one we believe every word she utters.
It is difficult to say what it was about Lutetia that attracted me so greatly. At the very first glance she appeared different from all the other girls. Also she was made up and looked like a creature of wax and porcelain, a mixture of which mannequins were made at that time. Today, of course, the world has made great progress, and the women are made of different and ever-changing materials for each season of the year. Lutetia, too, had an unnaturally small mouth, and as long as she kept silent it looked like a narrow piece of coral. Her eyebrows, also, formed two unnaturally perfect arches, constructed almost according to geometrical rules; and when she lowered her eyes, one could see improbably long, artificially blackened eyelashes, curtains of eyelashes. The way she sat down, leaned back, the way she got up and the way she walked, the way she picked up a thing and put it down again, all these were, of course, practiced and the outcome of numerous rehearsals. Even her slender fingers seemed to have been in some way stretched and carved by a surgeon. They were slightly reminiscent of pencils. She played with her fingers while she spoke, watching them attentively, and it almost seemed as though she were searching for her reflection in her brightly polished nails. Only seldom was any expression to be found in her blue eyes. But when she spoke, and in the few moments when she forgot herself, her mouth became broad and almost lascivious, and between her gleaming teeth there appeared for a fraction of a second her moist tongue, alive, a red and venomous little animal. It was with her mouth that I had fallen in love, with her mouth. All the wickedness of women is to be found in their mouths. That is, by the way, the home of treachery and, as you all know from your Catechism, the birthplace of original sin.…