“God!” I cried, raising him up and sitting him on the bed, “you finally don’t believe me either; you think I’m also in the conspiracy? But I won’t let anyone here even lay a finger on you!”
“C’est ça, don’t let them,” he babbled, seizing me firmly by the elbows with both hands, and continuing to tremble. “Don’t let anybody! And don’t tell me any lies . . . because can it be that they’ll take me away from here? Listen, this landlord, Ippolit, or whoever he is, he’s not . . . a doctor?”
“What sort of doctor?”
“This . . . this isn’t a madhouse, I mean here, in this room?”
But at that moment the door suddenly opened and Anna Andreevna came in. She must have been eavesdropping by the door and, unable to help herself, opened it too abruptly—and the prince, who jumped at every creak, cried out and threw himself facedown on the pillow. He finally had some sort of fit, which resolved itself in sobbing.
“Here are the fruits of yourwork,” I said to her, pointing to the old man.
“No, these are the fruits of yourwork!” she raised her voice sharply. “I turn to you for the last time, Arkady Makarovich: do you want to reveal the infernal intrigue against the defenseless old man and sacrifice your ‘insane and childish amorous dreams’ in order to save your ownsister?”
“I’ll save you all, but only in the way I told you before! I’m running off again; maybe in an hour Katerina Nikolaevna herself will be here! I’ll reconcile everybody, and everybody will be happy!” I exclaimed almost with inspiration.
“Bring her, bring her here,” the prince roused himself. “Take me to her! I want Katya, I want to see Katya and bless her!” he exclaimed, raising his arms and trying to get out of bed.
“You see,” I pointed at him to Anna Andreevna, “you hear what he says: now in any case no ‘document’ will help you.”
“I see, but it could still help to justify my action in the opinion of the world, while now—I’m disgraced! Enough; my conscience is clear. I’ve been abandoned by everyone, even my own brother, who is afraid of failure . . . But I will do my duty and stay by this unfortunate man as his nurse, his attendant!”
But there was no time to be lost, and I ran out of the room.
“I’ll come back in an hour, and I won’t come back alone!” I called out from the threshold.
Chapter Twelve
I
I FINALLY CAUGHT Tatyana Pavlovna! I explained everything to her at once—everything about the document, and everything, to the last shred, about what was happening in our apartment. Though she understood these events only too well herself and could have grasped the matter after two words, the explanation nevertheless took us, I think, about ten minutes. I alone spoke, I spoke the whole truth, and I wasn’t ashamed. She sat silent and motionless on her chair, drawn up straight as a poker, her lips pressed together, not taking her eyes off me, and listening with all her might. But when I finished, she suddenly jumped up from her chair, and so precipitously that I jumped up, too.
“Ah, you little cur! So you’ve really got that letter sewn in, and it was that fool Marya Ivanovna who did the sewing! Ah, you outrageous scoundrels! So you came here to conquer hearts, to win over high society, to take revenge on Devil Ivanovich because you’re an illegitimate son, is that what you wanted?”
“Tatyana Pavlovna,” I cried, “don’t you dare abuse me! It may be you, with your abuse, who from the very beginning were the cause of my bitterness here. Yes, I’m an illegitimate son, and maybe I did indeed want to take revenge for being an illegitimate son, and maybe indeed on some Devil Ivanovich, because the devil himself won’t find who’s to blame here; but remember that I rejected an alliance with the scoundrels and overcame my passions! I will silently place the document before her and leave without even waiting for a word from her; you yourself will be the witness!”
“Give me the letter, give it to me right now, put it here on the table! Or maybe you’re lying?”
“It’s sewn into my pocket; Marya Ivanovna herself did the sewing. And here, when I had a new frock coat made, I took it from the old one and sewed it into this new frock coat myself; it’s here, feel it, I’m not lying, ma’am!”
“Give it to me, take it out!” Tatyana Pavlovna stormed.
“Not for anything, ma’am, I repeat it to you. I’ll place it before her in your presence and leave, without waiting for a single word; but it’s necessary that she know and see with her own eyes that it is I, I myself, who am giving it to her, voluntarily, without compulsion and without reward.”
“Showing off again? Are you in love, you little cur?”
“Say as many nasty things as you like. Go on, I deserve it, but I’m not offended. Oh, let me look like a paltry little brat to her, who spied on her and plotted a conspiracy, but let her recognize that I conquered myself and placed herhappiness higher than anything in the world! Never mind, Tatyana Pavlovna, never mind! I cry out to myself: courage and hope! Let this be my first step on life’s path, but then it has ended well, ended nobly! And what if I do love her,” I went on inspiredly and flashing my eyes, “I’m not ashamed of it: mama is a heavenly angel, but sheis an earthly queen! Versilov will go back to mama, and I’m not going to be ashamed before her; I did hear what she and Versilov said then, I was standing behind the curtain . . . Oh, all three of us are ‘people of the same madness’! Do you know whose phrase that is—‘people of the same madness’? It’s his phrase, Andrei Petrovich’s! Do you know, maybe there are more than three of us here who are of the same madness? I’ll bet you’re a fourth one of the same madness! Want me to say it? I’ll bet you yourself have been in love with Andrei Petrovich all your life and maybe still are . . .”
I repeat, I was inspired and in some sort of happiness, but I had no time to finish. She suddenly seized me by the hair with some unnatural swiftness and tugged me downwards twice with all her might . . . then suddenly left me, went into the corner, stood facing the corner, and covered her face with a handkerchief.
“Little cur! Don’t you ever dare say that to me again!” she said, weeping.
This was all so unexpected that I was naturally dumbfounded. I stood and gazed at her, not yet knowing what I should do.
“Pah, you fool! Come here, kiss me, foolish woman that I am!” she said suddenly, weeping and laughing. “And don’t you dare, don’t you ever dare repeat that to me . . . But I love you and have loved you all your life . . . fool that you are.”
I kissed her. I will add in parenthesis: from then on Tatyana Pavlovna and I became friends.
“Ah, yes! But what’s the matter with me!” she suddenly exclaimed, slapping herself on the forehead. “What were you saying? The old prince is there in your apartment? Is it true?”
“I assure you.”
“Ah, my God! Oh, I’m sick!” she whirled and rushed about the room. “And they order him around! Eh, there’s no lightning to strike the fools! Ever since morning? That’s Anna Andreevna! That’s the nun! And the other one, Militrisa, 44doesn’t know anything!”
“What Militrisa?”
“The earthly queen, the ideal! Eh, but what are we to do now?”
“Tatyana Pavlovna!” I cried, coming to my senses. “We’ve been saying foolish things, and we’ve forgotten the main thing: I ran here precisely to fetch Katerina Nikolaevna, and they’re all waiting for me to come back.”
And I explained that I would hand the document over only if she gave her word to make peace with Anna Andreevna immediately and even agree to her marriage . . .
“And that’s splendid,” Tatyana Pavlovna interrupted, “and I, too, have repeated it to her a hundred times. He’ll die before the wedding—anyway he won’t marry her, and if it’s about him leaving her money in his will—Anna, I mean—it’s been written in and left to her even without that . . .”
“Can it be that Katerina Nikolaevna is only sorry about the money?”
“No, she was afraid all along that she had the document—Anna, I mean—and I was, too. So we kept watch on her. The daughter didn’t want to shock the old man, but, true, the little German, Bjoring, was also sorry about the money.”