Well, naturally, Lambert had been there, but then he had come twice more and “looked the rooms all over,” saying he might rent them. Nastasya Egorovna had come several times, God alone knew why. “She was also very curious,” the landlord added, but I didn’t gratify him, I didn’t ask what she was curious about. In general, I didn’t ask any questions, it was he who spoke, and I pretended to be rummaging in my suitcase (in which there was almost nothing left). But the most vexing thing was that he also decided to play mysterious and, noticing that I refrained from asking questions, also thought it his duty to become more clipped, almost enigmatic.
“The young lady was also here,” he added, looking at me strangely.
“What young lady?”
“Anna Andreevna. She came twice; got acquainted with my wife. Very nice person, very agreeable. Such an acquaintance one can appreciate only too well, Arkady Makarovich . . .” And, having brought that out, he even took a step towards me: so much did he want me to understand something.
“Twice, really?” I was surprised.
“The second time she came with her brother.”
“Meaning with Lambert,” occurred to me involuntarily.
“No, sir, not with Mr. Lambert,” he guessed at once, as if jumping into my soul with his eyes, “but with her brother, the real one, the young Mr. Versilov. A kammerjunker, 18it seems?”
I was very embarrassed; he looked on, smiling terribly affectionately.
“Ah, there was someone else here asking for you—that mamzelle, the Frenchwoman, Mamzelle Alphonsine de Verdaigne. Ah, how well she sings, and she also declaims beautifully in verse! She was on her way in secret to see Prince Nikolai Ivanovich then, in Tsarskoe, to sell him a little dog, she said, a rarity, black, no bigger than your fist . . .”
I begged him to leave me alone, excusing myself with a headache. He instantly satisfied me, not even finishing the phrase, and not only without the least touchiness, but almost with pleasure, waving his hand mysteriously and as if saying, “I understand, sir, I understand,” and though he didn’t say it, instead he left the room on tiptoe, he gave himself that pleasure. There are very vexatious people in this world.
I sat alone, thinking things over for about an hour and a half—not thinking things over, however, but just brooding. Though I was confused, I was not in the least surprised. I even expected something more, some still greater wonders. “Maybe they’ve already performed them by now,” I thought. I had been firmly and long convinced, still at home, that their machine was wound up and running at full speed. “It’s only me they lack, that’s what,” I thought again, with a sort of irritable and agreeable smugness. That they were waiting for me with all their might—and setting something up to happen in my apartment—was clear as day. “Can it be the old prince’s wedding? The beaters are all after him. Only will I allow it, gentlemen, that’s the thing,” I concluded again with haughty satisfaction.
“Once I start, I’ll immediately get drawn into the whirlpool again, like a chip of wood. Am I free now, this minute, or am I no longer free? Going back to mama tonight, can I still say to myself, as in all these past days, ‘I am on my own’?”
That was the essence of my questions or, better, of the throbbings of my heart, during that hour and a half that I spent then in the corner on the bed, my elbows resting on my knees, my head propped in my hands. But I knew, I already knew even then, that all these questions were complete nonsense, and I was drawn only by her—her and her alone! At last I’ve said it straight out and written it with pen on paper, for even now, as I write, a year later, I still don’t know how to call my feeling of that time by its name!
Oh, I felt sorry for Liza, and there was a most unhypocritical pain in my heart! Just by itself this feeling of pain for her might, it seems, have restrained and effaced, at least for a time, the carnivorousnessin me (again I mention that word). But I was drawn by boundless curiosity and a sort of fear, and some other feeling as well—I don’t know which; but I know, and already knew then, that it was not good. Maybe I yearned to fall at herfeet, or maybe I wanted to give her over to every torment and “quickly, quickly” prove something to her. No pain and no compassion for Liza could stop me now. Well, could I get up and go home . . . to Makar Ivanovich?
“But is it really impossible simply to go to them, find out everything from them, and suddenly go away from them forever, passing unharmed by the wonders and monsters?”
At three o’clock, catching myself and realizing that I was almost late, I quickly went out, caught a cab, and flew to Anna Andreevna.
Chapter Five
I
AS SOON AS I was announced, Anna Andreevna dropped her sewing and hurriedly came out to meet me in her front room—something that had never happened before. She held out both hands to me and quickly blushed. Silently she led me to her room, sat down to her handwork again, sat me down beside her; but she didn’t take her sewing now, but went on examining me with the same warm concern, not saying a word.
“You sent Nastasya Egorovna to me,” I began directly, somewhat burdened by this all-too-spectacular concern, though it pleased me.
She suddenly spoke, not answering my question.
“I’ve heard everything, I know everything. That terrible night . . . Oh, how you must have suffered! Is it true, is it true that you were found unconscious in the freezing cold?”
“You got that . . . from Lambert . . .” I murmured, reddening.
“I learned everything from him right then; but I’ve been waiting for you. Oh, he came to me so frightened! At your apartment . . . where you were lying ill, they didn’t want to let him in to see you . . . and they met him strangely . . . I really don’t know how it was, but he told me all about that night; he said that, having just barely come to your senses, you mentioned me to him and . . . your devotion to me. I was moved to tears, Arkady Makarovich, and I don’t even know how I deserved such warm concern on your part, and that in such a situation as you were in! Tell me, is Mr. Lambert your childhood friend?”
“Yes, but this incident . . . I confess, I was imprudent, and maybe told him far too much then.”
“Oh, I would have learned of this black, terrible intrigue even without him! I always, always had a presentiment that they would drive you to that. Tell me, is it true that Bjoring dared to raise his hand against you?”
She spoke as if it was only because of Bjoring and herthat I had wound up under the wall. And it occurred to me that she was right, but I flared up:
“If he had raised his hand against me, he wouldn’t have gone unpunished, and I wouldn’t be sitting in front of you now unavenged,” I replied heatedly. Above all, it seemed to me that she wanted to provoke me for some reason, to rouse me up against somebody (however, it was clear whom); and all the same I succumbed.
“If you say you had a presentiment that they would drive me to that, then on Katerina Nikolaevna’s part, of course, there was only a misunderstanding . . . though it’s also true that she was all too quick in exchanging her good feelings towards me for this misunderstanding . . .”
“That’s precisely it, that she was all too quick!” Anna Andreevna picked up, even in some sort of rapture of sympathy. “Oh, if you knew what an intrigue they’ve got there now! Of course, Arkady Makarovich, it’s hard for you now to understand all the ticklishness of my position,” she said, blushing and looking down. “Since that same morning when we saw each other last, I have taken a step that not every person can understand and grasp as one with your as-yet-uncontaminated mind, with your loving, unspoiled, fresh heart would understand it. Rest assured, my friend, that I am capable of appreciating your devotion to me, and I will repay you with eternal gratitude. In society, of course, they will take up stones against me, and they already have. But even if they were right, from their vile point of view, which of them could, which of them dared even then to condemn me? I have been abandoned by my father since childhood; we Versilovs—an ancient, highborn Russian family—are all strays, and I eat other people’s bread on charity. Wouldn’t it be natural for me to turn to the one who ever since childhood has replaced my father, whose kindness towards me I have seen for so many years? God alone can see and judge my feelings for him, and I do not allow society to judge me for the step I’ve taken! And when, on top of that, there is the darkest, most perfidious intrigue, and a daughter conspires to ruin her own trusting, magnanimous father, can that be endured? No, let me even ruin my reputation, but I will save him! I am ready to live in his house simply as a nurse, to watch over him, to sit by his sickbed, but I will not give the triumph to cold, loathsome society calculation!”