She spoke with extraordinary animation, very possibly half-affected, but nevertheless sincere, because it could be seen to what degree she had been wholly drawn into this affair. Oh, I could feel that she was lying (though sincerely, because one can also lie sincerely) and that she was now bad; but it’s astonishing how it happens with women: this air of respectability, these lofty forms, this unapproachability of social heights and proud chastity—all this threw me off, and I began to agree with her in everything, that is, while I sat with her; at least I didn’t dare contradict her. Oh, man is decidedly in moral slavery to woman, especially if he is magnanimous! Such a woman can convince a magnanimous man of anything. “She and Lambert—my God!” I thought, looking at her in bewilderment. However, I’ll say alclass="underline" even to this day I don’t know how to judge her; indeed God alone could see her feelings, and besides, a human being is such a complex machine that in some cases there’s no figuring him out, and all the more so if that being is—a woman.
“Anna Andreevna, precisely what do you expect of me?” I asked, however, rather resolutely.
“How’s that? What does your question mean, Arkady Makarovich?”
“It seems to me by all . . . and by certain other considerations . . .” I explained, getting confused, “that you sent to me expecting something from me. So what was it precisely?”
Not answering my question, she instantly began speaking again, just as quickly and animatedly:
“But I cannot, I’m too proud to enter into discussions and deals with unknown persons like Mr. Lambert! I’ve been waiting for you, not for Mr. Lambert. My position is extreme, terrible, Arkady Makarovich! Surrounded by that woman’s schemes, I’m obliged to be devious—and it’s unbearable for me. I almost stoop to intrigues, and I’ve been waiting for you as for a savior. I cannot be blamed that I look eagerly around me to find at least one friend, and so I couldn’t help rejoicing over a friend: one who, even on that night, nearly frozen, could remember me and repeat only my name alone, is of course devoted to me. So I’ve been thinking all this time, and therefore I put my hopes in you.”
She looked into my eyes with impatient inquiry. And here again I lacked the courage to dissuade her and to explain to her directly that Lambert had deceived her and that I had never told him then that I was so especially devoted to her, and hadn’t remembered “only her name alone.” Thus, by my silence, it was as if I confirmed Lambert’s lie. Oh, I’m sure she herself understood very well that Lambert had exaggerated and even simply lied to her, solely in order to have a decent pretext for coming to see her and establishing contacts with her; and if she looked into my eyes as though convinced of the truth of my words and of my devotion, then, of course, she knew that I wouldn’t have dared deny it, so to speak, out of delicacy and on account of my youth. But, anyhow, whether this guess of mine is right or wrong—I don’t know. Maybe I’m terribly depraved.
“My brother will stand up for me,” she pronounced suddenly with ardor, seeing that I didn’t want to reply.
“I was told that you came to my apartment with him,” I murmured in embarrassment.
“But poor Prince Nikolai Ivanovich has almost nowhere to escape to now from the whole intrigue, or, better, from his own daughter, except to your apartment, that is, to a friend’s apartment; for he does have the right to consider you at least a friend! . . . And then, if only you want to do something for his benefit, you can do it—if only you can, if only there is magnanimity and courage in you . . . and, finally, if it’s true that you can do something. Oh, it’s not for me, not for me, but for a poor old man, who alone loved you sincerely, who managed to become attached to you in his heart as to his own son, and who longs for you even to this day! For myself I expect nothing, even from you—if even my own father has played such a perfidious, such a malicious escapade with me!”
“It seems to me that Andrei Petrovich . . .” I tried to begin.
“Andrei Petrovich,” she interrupted with a bitter smile, “Andrei Petrovich, to my direct question, answered me then on his word of honor that he never had the least intentions towards Katerina Nikolaevna, which I fully believed when taking my step; and yet it turned out that he was calm only until the first news about some Mr. Bjoring.”
“It’s not that!” I cried. “There was a moment when I, too, believed in his love for this woman, but it’s not that . . . and even if it was that, it would seem he could be perfectly calm now . . . since this gentleman has been dismissed.”
“What gentleman?”
“Bjoring.”
“Who told you about his dismissal? This gentleman has perhaps never been in so strong a position,” she smiled caustically; it even seemed to me that she gave me a mocking look.
“Nastasya Egorovna told me,” I murmured in embarrassment, which I was unable to conceal and which she noticed only too well.
“Nastasya Egorovna is a very sweet person, and I certainly cannot forbid her to love me, but she has no means of knowing what doesn’t concern her.”
My heart was wrung; and since she was counting precisely on firing my indignation, indignation did boil up in me, not against thatwoman, but so far only against Anna Andreevna herself. I got up from my place.
“As an honest man, I must warn you, Anna Andreevna, that your expectations . . . concerning me . . . may prove vain in the highest degree . . .”
“I expect you to stand up for me,” she looked at me firmly, “for me, who am abandoned by everyone . . . your sister, if you want that, Arkady Makarovich!”
Another moment and she would have started crying.
“Well, it would be better not to, because ‘maybe’ nothing will happen,” I babbled with an inexpressibly heavy feeling.
“How am I to take your words?” she asked somehow too warily.
“Like this, that I will leave you all and— basta!” I suddenly exclaimed almost in fury. “And as for the document—I’ll tear it up! Farewell!”
I bowed to her and left silently, at the same time almost not daring to glance at her; but I had not yet reached the bottom of the stairs when Nastasya Egorovna overtook me with a folded half-page of note paper. Where Nastasya Egorovna had come from, and where she had been sitting while I was talking with Anna Andreevna—I can’t even comprehend. She didn’t say a single word, but only handed me the paper and ran back. I unfolded it: Lambert’s address was written on it legibly and clearly, and it had been prepared, obviously, several days earlier. I suddenly remembered that on the day when Nastasya Egorovna had come to see me, I had let slip to her that I didn’t know where Lambert lived, but in the sense that “I didn’t know and didn’t want to know.” But by that time I had already learned Lambert’s address through Liza, whom I had asked especially to make inquiries at the information bureau. Anna Andreevna’s escapade seemed to me too resolute, even cynicaclass="underline" despite my refusal to assist her, she, as if not believing me a whit, was sending me straight to Lambert. It became only too clear to me that she had already learned all about the document—and from whom else if not from Lambert, to whom she was therefore sending me to arrange things?