He walked away, and I achieved nothing further. In spite of the "agitation," he had spoken evenly, unhurriedly, with weight, and obviously trying to impress. Of course, he was somewhat vexed with me and was indirectly taking revenge on me, let's say, perhaps still for yesterday's "kibitkas" and "opening floorboards." And this morning's public tears, despite a certain sort of victory, had placed him, he knew, in a somewhat comical position, and there was no man more concerned with beauty and strictness of form in his relations with friends than Stepan Trofimovich. Oh, I do not blame him! But it was this scrupulousness and sarcasm, which held out in him despite all shocks, that set me at ease then: this man who had apparently changed so little as compared to usual was certainly not disposed at that moment towards anything tragic or extraordinary. So I reasoned then, and, my God, how mistakenly! I had lost sight of too many things...
Anticipating events, I will quote the first few lines of this letter to Darya Pavlovna, which she in fact received the next day.
"Mon enfant, my hand is trembling, but I have finished everything. You were not present at my final combat with people; you did not come to this 'reading,' and you did well. But you will be told that in our character-impoverished Russia one courageous man stood up and, despite the deadly menace pouring from all sides, told those little fools their truth—that is, that they are little fools. O, ce sont des pauvres petits vauriens et rien de plus, des petits little fools—voilà le mot![cxlix] The die is cast; I am leaving this town forever, whither I do not know. Everyone I loved has turned away from me. But you, you, a pure and naïve being, you, a meek one, whose fate was almost joined with mine by the will of one capricious and tyrannical heart, you, who perhaps in disdain watched me shed fainthearted tears on the eve of our unrealized marriage; you who, whatever you may be, cannot look on me in any other way than as a comical person, oh, to you, to you goes the last cry of my heart, to you is my last duty, to you alone! I cannot possibly leave you forever to think of me as an ungrateful fool, boor, and egoist, as is probably affirmed to you day after day by one ungrateful and cruel heart, which, alas, I cannot forget..."
And so on and so forth, four big pages in all.
Having pounded on the door three times with my fist in response to his "I won't open it," and having shouted after him that he would still send Nastasya for me three times that same day, but that I would not come, I abandoned him and ran to Yulia Mikhailovna.
II
There I found myself witness to an outrageous scene: the poor woman was being deceived right to her face, and I could do nothing. Indeed, what could I tell her? I had had time to come to my senses somewhat and to realize that all I had were just certain feelings, suspicious presentiments, and nothing more. I found her in tears, almost in hysterics, with eau de Cologne compresses and a glass of water. Before her stood Pyotr Stepanovich, who was talking nonstop, and the prince, who was as silent as though he were under lock and key. With tears and little cries she was reproaching Pyotr Stepanovich for his "apostasy." It struck me at once that she ascribed the whole failure, the whole disgrace of this matinée, everything, in short, to Pyotr Stepanovich's absence alone.
As for him, I noticed one important change: he was almost serious, as if preoccupied with something. Ordinarily he never seemed serious, always laughed, even when he was angry, and he was often angry. Oh, he was angry now, too, spoke rudely, carelessly, with vexation and impatience. He assured her that he had been sick with a headache and vomiting at Gaganov's, where he had chanced to stop early that morning. Alas, the poor woman still wanted so much to be deceived! The main question I found on the agenda was whether or not the ball—that is, the whole second half of the fête—was to take place. Yulia Mikhailovna would not agree for anything in the world to appear at the ball after "today's insults"; in other words, she wished with all her might to be compelled to go, and by absolutely no one else but him, Pyotr Stepanovich. She looked upon him as an oracle, and it seemed that if he had left then, she would have taken to her bed. But he had no intention of leaving: he himself needed with all his might that the ball take place that day, and Yulia Mikhailovna absolutely had to be there...
"So, what's there to cry about! You absolutely must have a scene? Vent your anger on someone? Go ahead, vent it on me, only make it quick, because time is passing and we've got to decide. We messed it up with the reading; we'll smooth it over with the ball. The prince here is of the same opinion. Yes, ma'am, if it hadn't been for the prince, where would it all have ended?"
The prince had been against the ball at first (that is, against Yulia Mikhailovna's appearance at the ball; the ball itself had anyhow to take place), but after two or three such references to his opinion, he gradually began to grunt in token of consent.
I was also surprised by the altogether extraordinary impoliteness of Pyotr Stepanovich's tone. Oh, I indignantly reject the base gossip spread later about some supposed liaison between Yulia Mikhailovna and Pyotr Stepanovich. There was not and could not have been anything of the sort. He got the upper hand with her only by yessing her with all his might from the very beginning in her dreams of influencing society and the ministry; by entering into her plans, devising them for her, acting through the crudest flattery, he entangled her from head to foot, and became as necessary to her as air.
Seeing me, she cried out, flashing her eyes:
"Ask him! He, too, never left my side all the while, like the prince. Tell me, isn't it obvious that it's all a conspiracy, a base, cunning conspiracy, to do all possible evil to me and to Andrei Antonovich? Oh, they arranged it! They had a plan. There's a party, a whole party of them!"
"That's overshot, as usual with you. There's some poem eternally running through your head. I'm glad, however, to see Mr...." (he pretended to have forgotten my name), "he'll tell us his opinion."
"My opinion," I hastened, "agrees entirely with Yulia Mikhailovna's opinion. The conspiracy is all too obvious. I've brought you these ribbons, Yulia Mikhailovna. Whether the ball does or does not take place—is, of course, none of my business, since the power is not mine; but my role as an usher is at an end. Forgive my heat, but I cannot act to the detriment of common sense and conviction."
"You hear! You hear!" she clasped her hands.
"I hear, ma'am, and this is what I shall tell you," he turned to me. "I think you all must have eaten something that has made you all delirious. In my opinion, nothing has happened, precisely nothing, that never happened before and could not always have happened in this town here. What conspiracy? It came out ugly, stupid to the point of disgrace, but where is the conspiracy? You mean against Yulia Mikhailovna, against her who indulged them, protected them, forgave them right and left for all their pranks? Yulia Mikhailovna! What have I been hammering into you this whole month nonstop? What have I been warning you about? So, what, what did you need all these people for? You just had to deal with this trash! Why? What for? To unite society? But can they possibly unite, for pity's sake?"