“Listen,” he muttered, “Alphonsina . . . Alphonsina will sing . . . Alphonsina went to see her; listen, I have a letter, almost a letter, where Mme. Akhmakov talks about you, the pockmarked one got it for me—remember the pockmarked one?—you’ll see now, you’ll see, come on!”
“Lies! Show me the letter!”
“It’s at home, Alphonsina has it, come on!”
Of course, he was lying and raving, trembling for fear I might run away from him; but I suddenly abandoned him in the middle of the street, and when he made as if to follow me, I stopped and shook my fist at him. But he already stood thinking—and let me go: maybe a new plan was already flashing in his head. But for me the surprises and encounters weren’t over . . . And when I remember that whole unfortunate day, it seems to me that all these surprises and accidents had as if conspired together then to come pouring down on my head at once from some cursed cornucopia. I had hardly opened the door to my apartment when, in the front hall, I ran into a tall young man with an elongated and pale face, of imposing and “graceful” appearance, and wearing a magnificent fur coat. He had a pince-nez on his nose; but as soon as he saw me, he pulled it off his nose (apparently out of courtesy) and, politely raising his top hat with his hand, though without stopping, said to me with a graceful smile, “Ha, bonsoir,” 96and walked past me to the stairs. We recognized each other immediately, though I had seen him fleetingly only once in my life, in Moscow. It was Anna Andreevna’s brother, the kammerjunker, the young Versilov, Versilov’s son and therefore almost my brother. He was being shown out by the landlady (the landlord hadn’t come home from work yet). When he left, I simply fell upon her:
“What was he doing here? Was he in my room?”
“Not at all. He came to see me . . .” she broke off quickly and drily and turned to go to her room.
“No, not like that!” I shouted. “Kindly answer: what did he come for?”
“Ah, my God! so I’m to tell you all about what people come for! I believe we, too, can have our concerns. The young man may have wanted to borrow money, to find out an address from me. I may have promised him last time . . .”
“Last time when?”
“Ah, my God, but it’s not the first time he’s come!”
She left. Above all, I understood that the tone was changing here: they were beginning to speak rudely to me. It was clear that this was again a secret; secrets accumulated with every step, every hour. The young Versilov came the first time with his sister, Anna Andreevna, while I was sick; I remembered it only too well, as I did the fact that Anna Andreevna had let drop to me yesterday an extraordinary little phrase, that the old prince might stay in my apartment . . . but it was all so jumbled and so grotesque that I could come up with almost no thoughts in that regard. Slapping myself on the forehead and not even sitting down to rest, I ran to Anna Andreevna’s. She was not at home, and the answer I got from the porter was that “she had gone to Tsarskoe, would be back around the same time tomorrow.”
“She goes to Tsarskoe, to the old prince, of course, while her brother inspects my apartment! No, this will not be!” I rasped. “And if there is indeed some deadly noose here, I’ll protect the ‘poor woman’!”
I didn’t return home from Anna Andreevna’s, because there suddenly flashed in my inflamed head the memory of the tavern on the canal where Andrei Petrovich was accustomed to go in his dark moments. Delighted with my surmise, I instantly ran there; it was past three o’clock and dusk was gathering. In the tavern I was told that he had come: “He stayed a little while and left, but maybe he’ll come again.” I suddenly resolved with all my might to wait for him, and ordered dinner; at least there was a hope.
I ate dinner, even ate too much, so as to have the right to stay as long as possible, and sat there, I think, for some four hours. I won’t describe my sadness and feverish impatience; it was as if everything in me was shaking and trembling. The barrel organ, the customers—oh, all that anguish left an imprint on my soul, maybe for my whole life! I won’t describe the thoughts that arose in my head like a cloud of dry leaves in autumn after a gust of wind; it really was something like that, and, I confess, I felt at times as if reason was beginning to betray me.
But what tormented me to the point of pain (in passing, naturally, on the side, past the main torment), was one nagging, venomous impression—as nagging as a venomous autumn fly, which you give no thought to, but which circles around you, pestering you, and suddenly gives you a very painful bite. It was just a memory, a certain event, of which I had not yet told anyone in the world. Here’s what it was, for this, too, has to be told somewhere or other.
IV
WHEN IT WAS decided in Moscow that I would go to Petersburg, I was given to know through Nikolai Semyonovich that I should expect money to be sent for the trip. Who the money would come from, I didn’t ask; I knew it was from Versilov, and since I dreamed day and night then, with a leaping heart and high-flown plans, about my meeting with Versilov, I completely stopped speaking of him aloud, even with Marya Ivanovna. Remember, however, that I had my own money for the trip; but I decided to wait anyway; incidentally, I assumed the money would come by post.
Suddenly one day Nikolai Semyonovich came home and informed me (briefly, as usual, and without smearing it around) that I should go to Miasnitskaya Street the next day, at eleven o’clock in the morning, to the home and apartment of Prince V——sky, and that there the kammerjunker Versilov, Andrei Petrovich’s son, who had come from Petersburg and was staying with his lycée comrade, Prince V——sky, would hand me the sum sent for my moving expenses. It seemed quite a simple matter: Andrei Petrovich might very well charge his son with this errand instead of sending it by post; but this news crushed me and alarmed me somehow unnaturally. There was no doubt that Versilov wanted to bring me together with his son, my brother; thus the intentions and feelings of the man I dreamed of were clearly outlined; but an enormous question presented itself to me: how would and how should I behave myself in this quite unexpected meeting, and would my own dignity not suffer in some way?
The next day, at exactly eleven o’clock, I came to Prince V——sky’s apartment—bachelor’s quarters, but, as I could guess, magnificently furnished, with liveried lackeys. I stopped in the front hall. From the inner rooms came the sounds of loud talk and laughter: besides the visiting kammerjunker, the prince had other guests. I told the lackey to announce me, evidently in rather proud terms: at least, on going to announce me, he looked at me strangely, as it seemed to me, and even not as respectfully as he should have. To my surprise, he took a very long time announcing me, some five minutes, and meanwhile the same laughter and the same sounds of talk came from inside.
I, naturally, stood while I waited, knowing very well that for me, as “just as much a gentleman,” it was unfitting and impossible to sit in the front hall where there were lackeys. I myself, of my own will, without a special invitation, would not have set foot in the reception room for anything, out of pride—out of refined pride, maybe, but so it had to be. To my surprise, the remaining lackeys (two) dared to sit down in my presence. I turned away so as not to notice it, but nevertheless I began trembling all over, and suddenly, turning and stepping towards one of the lackeys, I orderedhim to go “at once” and announce me again. In spite of my stern gaze and my extreme agitation, the lackey looked at me lazily, without getting up, and the other one answered for him:
“You’ve been announced, don’t worry!”
I decided to wait only one minute more, or possibly even less than a minute, and then— leave without fail. The main thing was that I was dressed quite decently; my suit and overcoat were new, after all, and my linen was perfectly fresh, Marya Ivanovna had purposely seen to that for the occasion. But about these lackeys I learned for certainmuch later, and already in Petersburg, that they had learned the day before, through the servant who came with Versilov, that “so-and-so would be coming, the natural brother and a student.” That I now know for certain.