“Witty, but offensive.”
“Well, cher enfant, one cannot be offended by just anybody. What I appreciate most of all in people is wittiness, which is evidently disappearing, and what Alexandra Petrovna is going to say—who can take that into account!”
“What, what did you say?” I latched on. “Not by just anybody . . . precisely so! Not everybody’s worth paying attention to—an excellent rule! That is precisely what I need. I’ll write it down. You occasionally say the nicest things, Prince.”
He beamed all over.
“N’est-ce pas?6 Cher enfant, true wit is disappearing more and more. Eh, mais . . . C’est moi qui connais les femmes.7 Believe me, every woman’s life, whatever she may preach, is an eternal search for someone to submit to . . . a thirst for submission, so to speak. And note—without a single exception.”
“Perfectly true, splendid!” I cried in delight. At another time we would have launched at once into philosophical reflections on the subject, for a whole hour, but it was as if something suddenly bit me, and I blushed all over. I imagined that, by praising his bons mots, I was sucking up to him on account of the money, and that he would be sure to think of that when I began to ask. I mention it now on purpose.
“Prince, I humbly request that you pay me right now the fifty roubles you owe me for this month,” I blurted out all at once, irritated to the point of rudeness.
I remember (just as I remember that whole morning in minute detail) that a scene then took place between us that was most vile in its real truth. At first he didn’t understand me, looked for a long time and did not understand what money I was talking about. It was only natural that he never imagined I should receive a salary—and what for? True, he started assuring me later that he had forgotten, and, when he grasped it, he instantly started taking out the fifty roubles, but he became hurried and even turned red. Seeing how things were, I stood up and declared sharply that I could not accept the money now, that I had obviously been told of the salary either mistakenly or deceitfully, so that I would not reject the post, and that I now understood only too well that I had no reason to be paid, because there wasn’t any work. The prince became frightened and started assuring me that I had worked terribly much, and that I would have still more work, and that fifty roubles was so insignificant that he, on the contrary, would increase it, because it was his duty, and that he himself had negotiated with Tatyana Pavlovna, but had “unpardonably forgotten all about it.” I flared up and announced definitively that it would be mean of me to receive a salary for scandalous stories of how I had accompanied two trains to the institutes, that I had not been hired to amuse him, but to occupy myself with business, but since there was no business, it must be terminated, etc., etc. I couldn’t even have imagined that it was possible to be as frightened as he was after these words of mine. Naturally, the end was that I stopped objecting, and he did stick me with the fifty roubles: to this day I blush to recall that I accepted it! Things always end in meanness in this world, and, worst of all, he almost managed to convince me then that I had unquestionably earned it, and I had the foolishness to believe it, and with that it was somehow decidedly impossible not to take it.
“Cher, cher enfant! ” he exclaimed, kissing and embracing me (I confess, I myself was about to weep, devil knows why, though I instantly restrained myself, and even now, as I write, color comes to my face). “Dear friend, you’re now like one of my own; in this month you’ve become like a piece of my own heart! In ‘society’ there is only ‘society’ and nothing more; Katerina Nikolaevna” (his daughter) “is a brilliant woman, and I’m proud of it, but she often offends me, my dear, very, very often . . . Well, and these girls (elles sont charmantes8) and their mothers, who come on birthdays—they only bring their embroidery, but they don’t know how to say anything. I’ve accumulated sixty pillows with their embroidery, all dogs and deer. I love them very much, but with you I’m almost as if with my own—and not with a son, but a brother, and I especially like it when you object; you’re literary, you’ve read, you know how to admire . . .”
“I’ve read nothing and am not literary at all. I’ve read whatever happened along, but in the past two years I haven’t read at all and don’t intend to.”
“Why not?”
“I have other goals.”
“Cher . . . it’s a pity to say at the end of your life, as I do, je sais tout, mais je ne sais rien de bon.9 I decidedly do not know why I’ve lived in the world! But . . . I owe you so much . . . and I even wanted . . .”
He broke off somehow suddenly, went limp, and became pensive. After a shock (and with him the shocks could come every other minute, God knows why), he usually seemed to lose his good sense for a while and be unable to control himself; however, he would soon put himself to rights, so it was all harmless. We sat for a minute. His lower lip, which was very thick, hung down . . . Most of all, I was surprised that he had suddenly mentioned his daughter, and with such candor. Of course, I ascribed it to his being upset.
“Cher enfant, you’re not angry that I address you familiarly, are you?” suddenly escaped him.
“Not in the least. I confess, in the beginning, the first few times, I was slightly offended and also wanted to address you familiarly, but I saw it was stupid, because you surely don’t do it to humiliate me.”
He was no longer listening and had forgotten his question.
“Well, how’s your father?” he suddenly raised his pensive eyes to me.
I simply jumped. First, he had designated Versilov as my father—something he had never allowed himself with me; and, second, he had begun speaking of Versilov, something that had never happened before.
“Sits without money and mopes,” I replied briefly, burning with curiosity myself.
“Yes, about money. Their case is to be decided today in the district court, and I’m waiting for Prince Seryozha and what he’ll come with. He promised to come to me straight from court. Their whole destiny is involved; it’s sixty or eighty thousand. Of course, I’ve also always wished the best for Andrei Petrovich” (Versilov, that is), “and it seems he’ll come out the winner and the princes will be left with nothing. Law!”
“In court today?” I exclaimed, struck.
The thought that Versilov had neglected to inform me even of that struck me in the extreme. “That means he said nothing to mother, or maybe to anybody,” it occurred to me all at once. “What character!
“And is Prince Sokolsky in Petersburg?” another thought suddenly struck me.
“Since yesterday. Straight from Berlin, especially for this day.”
Another extremely important piece of news for me. “And he’ll come here today, this man who gave him a slap!”
“Well, what of it?” The prince’s whole face suddenly changed. “He still preaches God as he used to, and, and . . . maybe still goes after the girls, after unfledged little girls? Heh, heh! Right now, too, there’s a most amusing anecdote hatching . . . Heh, heh!”
“Who preaches? Who goes after the girls?”
“Andrei Petrovich! Would you believe, he pestered us all back then like a burr—what do we eat, what do we think?—or almost like that. Frightened us and purified us: ‘If you’re religious, why don’t you go and become a monk?’ He demanded almost that. Mais quelle idée!10 Even if it’s right, isn’t it too severe? It was me especially that he liked to frighten with the Last Judgment, me of all people.”