“Decidedly every last one of them takes me for a little boy with no will or character, with whom anything can be done!” I thought with indignation.
II
NEVERTHELESS I WENT to Lambert’s anyway. How could I overcome my curiosity at that time? Lambert, it turned out, lived very far away, in Kosoy Lane, by the Summer Garden, incidentally in the same furnished rooms; but the other time, when I had fled from him, I had been so oblivious of the way and the distance that, when I got his address from Liza four days earlier, I was even surprised and almost didn’t believe he lived there. While still going up the stairs, I noticed two young men at the door to his rooms, on the third floor, and thought they had rung before me and were waiting to be let in. As I came up the stairs, they both turned their backs to the door and studied me carefully. “These are furnished rooms, and they, of course, are going to see other lodgers,” I frowned as I approached them. It would have been very unpleasant for me to find somebody at Lambert’s. Trying not to look at them, I reached out my hand for the bell-pull.
“Atanday,” 70one of them shouted at me.
“Please wait to ring,” the other young man said in a ringing and gentle little voice, drawing the words out somewhat. “We’ll finish this, and then we can all ring together if you like.”
I stopped. They were both still very young men, about twenty or twenty-two years old; they were doing something strange there by the door, and in surprise I tried to grasp what it was. The one who had shouted atandaywas a very tall fellow, about six foot six, not less, gaunt and haggard, but very muscular, with a very small head for his height, and a strange, sort of comically gloomy expression on his somewhat pockmarked but not at all stupid and even pleasant face. His eyes looked with a somehow excessive intentness, and even a sort of unnecessary and superfluous resolution. He was quite vilely dressed, in an old quilted cotton overcoat with a small, shabby raccoon collar, too short for his height—obviously from someone else’s back—and vile, almost peasant boots, and with a terribly crumpled, discolored top hat on his head. In all he was clearly a sloven: his gloveless hands were dirty, and his long nails were in mourning. His comrade, on the contrary, was foppishly dressed, judging by his light polecat coat, his elegant hat, and the light, fresh gloves on his slender fingers; he was the same height as I, but with an extremely sweet expression on his fresh and young little face.
The long fellow was pulling off his necktie—a completely tattered and greasy ribbon or almost tape—and the pretty boy, having taken from his pocket another new, black tie, just purchased, was tying it around the neck of the long fellow, who obediently and with a terribly serious face, was stretching out his very long neck, throwing his overcoat back from his shoulders.
“No, it’s impossible if the shirt’s so dirty,” the young man thus occupied said. “There not only won’t be any effect, but it will seem still dirtier. I told you to put on a collar . . . I can’t do it . . . Maybe you can?” he suddenly turned to me.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Here, you know, tie his necktie. You see, it has to be done in some way so that his dirty shirt doesn’t show, otherwise there’ll be no effect, no matter what. I just bought him a necktie from Filipp, the barber, for a rouble.”
“Was it that rouble?” the long one murmured.
“Yes, that one; now I don’t even have a kopeck. So you can’t do it? In that case we’ll have to ask Alphonsinka.”
“To see Lambert?” the long one suddenly asked me abruptly.
“To see Lambert,” I replied with no less resolution, looking him in the eye.
“Dolgorowky?” 19he repeated in the same tone and the same voice.
“No, not Korovkin,” I replied just as abruptly, having misheard.
“ Dolgorowky?!” the long one almost shouted, repeating himself, and coming at me almost menacingly. His comrade burst out laughing.
“He’s saying Dolgorowky, not Korovkin,” he clarified. “You know how the French in the Journal des débats often distort Russian last names . . .”
“In the Indépendance,” 20the long one grunted.
“. . . Well, in the Indépendance, too, it makes no difference. Dolgoruky, for instance, is written Dolgorowky, I’ve read it myself, and V—v is always Comte Wallonie f.”
“ Doboyny!” cried the long one.
“Yes, there’s also some Doboyny. I read it myself and we both laughed: some Russian Mme. Doboyny, abroad . . . only, you see, why mention them all?” he suddenly turned to the long one.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Dolgoruky?”
“Yes, I’m Dolgoruky, but how do you know?”
The long one suddenly whispered something to the pretty boy, who frowned and made a negative gesture; but the long one suddenly turned to me:
“Monsieur le prince, vous n’avez pas de rouble d’argent pour nous, pas deux, mais un seul, voulez-vous?” 71
“Ah, how vile you are!” cried the boy.
“Nous vous rendons,” 72the long one concluded, pronouncing the French words crudely and awkwardly.
“He’s a cynic, you know,” the boy smiled to me. “And do you think he doesn’t know how to speak French? He speaks like a Parisian, and he’s only mocking those Russians who want to speak French aloud among themselves in society, but don’t know how . . .”
“Dans les wagons,” 73the long one clarified.
“Well, yes, in railway carriages, too—ah, what a bore you are, there’s nothing to clarify! A nice fancy to pretend you’re a fool.”
Meanwhile I took out a rouble and offered it to the long one.
“ Nous vous rendons,” the man said, pocketing the rouble, and, suddenly turning to the door, with a perfectly immobile and serious face he began banging on it with the toe of his enormous, crude boot and, above all, without the slightest irritation.
“Ah, you’re going to have a fight with Lambert again!” the boy observed uneasily. “You’d better ring!”
I rang, but the long one still went on banging with his boot.
“Ah, sacré . . .” 74; Lambert’s voice suddenly came from behind the door, and he quickly opened it.
“Dites donc, voulez-vous que je vous casse la tête, mon ami!”
“Mon ami, voilà Dolgorowky, l’autre mon ami,” 75the long one pronounced importantly and seriously, looking point-blank at Lambert, who had turned red with anger. As soon as he saw me, he was as if all transformed at once.
“It’s you, Arkady! At last! So you’re well now, you’re well at last?”
He seized me by the hands, pressing them hard; in short, he was so sincerely delighted that I instantly felt terribly pleased, and even began to like him.
“You’re the first one I’m calling on!”
“Alphonsine!” cried Lambert.
The woman instantly leaped out from behind the screen.
“Le voilà!” 76
“C’est lui!” 77exclaimed Alphonsine, clasping her hands, and, spreading them wide again, she rushed to embrace me, but Lambert came to my defense.
“No, no, no, down!” he shouted at her as if she were a puppy. “You see, Arkady, a few of us fellows have arranged to have dinner at the Tartar’s today. I won’t let you off, come with us. We’ll have dinner; I’ll chase these boys out at once—and then we can talk as much as we like. But do come in! We’re leaving right away, just stay for a little minute . . .”
I went in and stood in the middle of that room, looking around and remembering. Lambert was hastily changing his clothes behind the screen. The long one and his comrade also came in with us, despite Lambert’s words. We all remained standing.