For the first two years the young man came home from the lycée for vacations. While Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovich were in Petersburg, he was sometimes present at his mother's literary evenings, listening and observing. He spoke little, and was quiet and shy as before. He treated Stepan Trofimovich with the former tender attentiveness, but now somehow more reservedly: he obviously refrained from talking with him about lofty subjects or memories of the past. In accordance with his mama's wish, after completing his studies he entered military service and was soon enrolled in one of the most distinguished regiments of the Horse Guard. He did not come to show himself to his mama in his uniform and now rarely wrote from Petersburg. Varvara Petrovna sent him money without stint, in spite of the fact that the income from her estates fell so much after the reform that at first she did not get even half of her former income. However, through long economy she had saved up a certain not exactly small sum. She was very interested in her son's successes in Petersburg high society. The young officer, rich and with expectations, succeeded where she had not. He renewed acquaintances of which she could no longer even dream, and was received everywhere with great pleasure. But very soon rather strange rumors began to reach Varvara Petrovna: the young man, somehow madly and suddenly, started leading a wild life. Not that he gambled or drank too much; there was only talk of some savage unbridledness, of some people being run over by horses, of some beastly behavior towards a lady of good society with whom he had had a liaison and whom he afterwards publicly insulted. There was something even too frankly dirty about this affair. It was added, furthermore, that he was some sort of swashbuckler, that he picked on people and insulted them for the pleasure of it. Varvara Petrovna was worried and anguished. Stepan Trofimovich assured her that these were merely the first stormy impulses of an overabundant constitution, that the sea would grow calm, and that it all resembled Shakespeare's description of the youth of Prince Harry, carousing with Falstaff, Poins, and Mistress Quickly. [38]This time Varvara Petrovna did not shout "Nonsense, nonsense!" as it had lately become her habit to shout quite often at Stepan Trofimovich, but, on the contrary, paid great heed to him, asked him to explain in more detail, herself took Shakespeare and read the immortal chronicle with extreme attention. But the chronicle did not calm her down, nor did she find all that much resemblance. She waited feverishly for answers to certain of her letters. The answers were not slow in coming; soon the fatal news was received that Prince Harry had almost simultaneously fought two duels, was entirely to blame for both of them, had killed one of his opponents on the spot and crippled the other, and as a consequence of such deeds had been brought to trial. The affair ended with his being broken to the ranks, stripped of his rights, and exiled to service in one of the infantry regiments, and even that only by special favor.
In the year 'sixty-three he somehow managed to distinguish himself; he was awarded a little cross, promoted to noncommissioned officer, and then, somehow quite soon, to officer. Throughout this time Varvara Petrovna had sent perhaps as many as a hundred letters to the capital with requests and pleas. She allowed herself to be somewhat humiliated in so extraordinary a case. After his promotion, the young man suddenly retired, once again did not come to Skvoreshniki, and stopped writing to his mother altogether. It was learned in some roundabout way that he was back in Petersburg, but was not seen at all in the former society; he seemed to have hidden somewhere. It was discovered that he was living in some strange company, had become associated with some castoffs of the Petersburg populace, with some down-at-the-heel officials, retired military men who nobly begged for alms, drunkards, that he visited their dirty families, spent days and nights in dark slums and God knows what corners, that he had gone to seed, gone ragged, and that he apparently liked it. He did not ask money of his mother; he had his little estate—a former village of General Stavrogin's, which did bring at least some income and which, according to rumors, he had rented out to a German from Saxony. At last his mother begged a visit out of him, and Prince Harry appeared in our town. It was then that I first had a close look at him, for before then I had never seen him.
He was a very handsome young man, about twenty-five years old, and I confess I found him striking. I expected to see some dirty ragamuffin, wasted away from depravity and stinking of vodka. On the contrary, this was the most elegant gentleman of any I had ever happened to meet, extremely well dressed, of a behavior such as is to be found only in a gentleman accustomed to the most refined decorum. I was not alone in my surprise: the whole town was surprised, having already been informed, of course, of the whole of Mr. Stavrogin's biography, and even in such detail that it was impossible to imagine where it could have come from, and, what is most surprising, half of which turned out to be true. All our ladies lost their minds over the new visitor. They were sharply divided into two parties—one party adored him, the other hated him to the point of blood vengeance; but both lost their minds. Some were especially fascinated by the possibility of some fatal mystery in his soul; others positively liked his being a killer. It also turned out that he was quite well educated, and even rather knowledgeable. Of course, it did not take much knowledge to surprise us; but he could reason about vital and rather interesting issues as well, and, what was most precious, with remarkable reasonableness. I will mention as an oddity that everyone here, almost from the very first day, found him to be an extremely reasonable man. He was not very talkative, was elegant without exquisiteness, surprisingly modest, and at the same time bold and confident like no one else among us. Our dandies looked at him with envy and were totally eclipsed in his presence. I was also struck by his face: his hair was somehow too black, his light eyes were somehow too calm and clear, his complexion was somehow too delicate and white, his color somehow too bright and clean, his teeth like pearls, his lips like coral—the very image of beauty, it would seem, and at the same time repulsive, as it were. People said his face resembled a mask; however, they said much else as well, about his great physical strength, among other things. He was almost a tall man. Varvara Petrovna looked at him with pride, but also with constant uneasiness. He spent about half a year with us—listless, quiet, rather morose; he appeared in society and observed all our provincial etiquette with unswerving attention. He was related to our governor through his father, and was received in his house as a close relative. But several months passed, and the beast suddenly showed its claws.