“And she can marry Bjoring after that?”
“What can you do with a foolish woman? As they say, once a fool, always a fool. You see, he’s going to give her some sort of calm. ‘I must marry somebody,’ she says, ‘so I suppose he’d be the most suitable one.’ We’ll see just how suitable it will be. She’ll slap her sides afterwards, but it will be too late.”
“Then why do you allow it? Don’t you love her; didn’t you tell her to her face that you’re in love with her?”
“And I am in love with her, I love her more than all of you taken together, but still she’s a senseless fool!”
“Then run and fetch her now, and we’ll resolve everything and take her in person to her father.”
“But it’s impossible, impossible, you little fool! That’s the point! Ah, what to do! Ah, I’m sick!” She rushed about again, though she did snatch up her shawl. “E-eh, if only you had come four hours earlier, it’s past seven now, and she went to dine with the Pelishchevs some time ago, and then to go with them to the opera.”
“Lord, can’t we run over to the opera . . . no, we can’t! What’s going to happpen to the old man? He may die during the night!”
“Listen, don’t go there, go to your mama, sleep there, and tomorrow early . . .”
“No, I won’t leave the old man for anything, whatever may come of it.”
“Don’t leave him; that’s good of you. And, you know . . . I’ll run to her place anyhow and leave her a note . . . you know, I’ll write it in our own words (she’ll understand!), that the document is here, and that tomorrow at exactly ten o’clock in the morning she must be at my place—on the dot! Don’t worry, she’ll come, she’ll listen to me—then we’ll settle everything at once. And you go there and fuss over the old man as much as you can, put him to bed, chances are he’ll survive till morning! Don’t frighten Anna either; I love her, too. You’re unfair to her, because you can’t understand these things: she’s offended, she’s been offended since childhood. Oh, you all pile up on me! And don’t forget, tell her from me that I’ve taken this matter up myself, with all my heart, and that she should be at peace, and there will be no damage to her pride . . . Over the past few days she and I have squabbled, quarreled—fallen out completely! Well, off you run . . . wait, show me the pocket again . . . is it true, is it true? Oh, is it true? Give me the letter for the night, what is it to you? Leave it, I won’t eat it. You may let it slip out of your hands during the night . . . do change your mind?”
“Not for anything!” I cried. “There, feel it, look, but I won’t leave it with you for anything.”
“I see there’s a piece of paper,” she felt it with her fingers. “E-eh, all right, go, and I may even swing by the theater for her, that was a good idea! But run, run!”
“Wait, Tatyana Pavlovna, how’s mama?”
“Alive.”
“And Andrei Petrovich?”
She waved her hand.
“He’ll come round!”
I ran off encouraged, reassured, though it hadn’t turned out the way I had reckoned. But, alas, fate had determined differently, and something else awaited me—truly, there is a fatumin the world!
II
WHILE STILL ON the stairs, I heard noise in our apartment, and the door turned out to be open. In the corridor stood an unknown lackey in livery. Pyotr Ippolitovich and his wife, both frightened by something, were also in the corridor and waiting for something. The door to the prince’s room was open and a voice was thundering there, which I recognized at once—the voice of Bjoring. I hadn’t managed to step two steps when I suddenly saw the prince, tearful and trembling, being taken out to the corridor by Bjoring and his companion, Baron R., the same one who had come to Versilov for a talk. The prince was sobbing loudly, embracing and kissing Bjoring. Bjoring’s shouting was addressed to Anna Andreevna, who also came out to the corridor after the prince; he threatened her and, I believe, stamped his feet—in short, the coarse German soldier told in him, despite all his “high society.” Later it was discovered that for some reason it had come into his head then that Anna Andreevna was even guilty of something criminal and now unquestionably had to answer for her action even before the court. In his ignorance of the matter, he exaggerated it, as happens to many, and therefore began to consider it his right to be unceremonious in the highest degree. Above all, he had had no time to go into it. He had been informed of it all anonymously, as it turned out later (and of which I will make mention later), and had flown at them in that state of the enraged gentleman, in which even the most intelligent people of his nation are sometimes ready to start brawling like cobblers. Anna Andreevna had met this whole swoop with the highest degree of dignity, but I missed that. I only saw that, having taken the old man out to the corridor, Bjoring suddenly left him in the hands of Baron R. and, turning swiftly to Anna Andreevna, shouted at her, probably in response to some remark she had made:
“You are an intriguer! You want his money! From this moment on you are disgraced in society, and you will answer before the court! . . .”
“It’s you who are exploiting an unfortunate invalid and driving him to madness . . . and you shout at me because I’m a woman and have no one to defend me . . .”
“Ah, yes! you are his fiancée, his fiancée!” Bjoring guffawed spitefully and furiously.
“Baron, Baron . . . Chère enfant, je vous aime,” 114the prince wept out, reaching his arms towards Anna Andreevna.
“Go, Prince, go, there has been a conspiracy against you and maybe even a threat to your life!” cried Bjoring.
“Oui, oui, je comprends, j’ai compris au commencement . . .” 115
“Prince,” Anna Andreevna raised her voice, “you insult me and allow me to be insulted!”
“Away with you!” Bjoring suddenly shouted at her.
That I could not endure.
“Blackguard!” I yelled at him. “Anna Andreevna, I’ll be your defender!”
Here I will not and cannot describe anything in detail. A terrible and ignoble scene took place, and it was as if I suddenly lost my reason. It seems I leaped over and struck him, or at least shoved him hard. He also struck me with all his might on the head, so that I fell to the floor. Coming to my senses, I started after them down the stairs; I remember that my nose was bleeding. A carriage was waiting for them at the entrance, and while the prince was being put into it, I ran up to the carriage and, despite the lackey, who was pushing me away, again threw myself on Bjoring. I don’t remember how the police turned up. Bjoring seized me by the scruff of the neck and sternly told the policeman to take me to the precinct. I shouted that he had to go with me, so that he could file a statement with me, and that they couldn’t take me like that, almost from my own apartment. But since it had happened in the street and not in my apartment, and since I shouted, swore, and fought like a drunk man, and since Bjoring was in his uniform, the policeman arrested me. Here I became totally furious and, resisting with all my might, it seems I struck the policeman as well. Then, I remember, two of them suddenly appeared, and I was taken away. I barely remember being brought to some smoke-filled room, with a lot of different people sitting and standing around, waiting and writing. I went on shouting here, I demanded to file a statement. But the case no longer consisted only in a statement, but was complicated by violence and resistance to the authority of the police. And my appearance was all too unseemly. Someone suddenly shouted menacingly at me. The policeman had meanwhile accused me of fighting, had told about the colonel . . .
“Your name?” someone cried to me.
“Dolgoruky,” I roared.
“Prince Dolgoruky?”
Beside myself, I responded with quite a nasty curse word, and then . . . and then I remember they dragged me to some dark little room “for sobering up.” Oh, I’m not protesting. The public all read in the newspapers not long ago the complaint of some gentleman who sat all night under arrest, bound, and also in a sobering-up room, but he, it seems, wasn’t even guilty; while I was guilty. I collapsed on a bunk in the company of some two unconsciously sleeping people. My head ached, there was a throbbing in my temples, a throbbing in my heart. It must be that I became oblivious and, it seems, I raved. I remember only that I woke up in the middle of the deep night and sat up on the bunk. All at once I remembered everything and grasped everything, and, putting my elbows on my knees, propping my head in my hands, I sank into deep thought.