“Excuse me, but with great difficulty.”
“Very well, sir; just as I thought. I’ll change the subject. I’ve been more than once to the spas in Germany, mineral water spas, it makes no difference which. I walk on the waters and see Englishmen. As you know, it’s hard to strike up an acquaintance with an Englishman; but then, after two months, having finished the cure, we’re all in a mountainous region, a whole company, with alpenstocks, going up a mountain, this one or that, it makes no difference. At a turn, that is, at a stopping-place, precisely where the monks make Chartreuse liqueur—note that—I met a native, standing solitarily, gazing silently. I wish to conclude about his substantiality: what do you think, could I turn for a conclusion to the crowd of Englishmen, with whom I was proceeding solely because I was unable to strike up a conversation with them at the spa?”
“How should I know? Excuse me, but I find it very hard to follow you.”
“Hard?”
“Yes, you tire me.”
“Hm.” He winked and made some sort of gesture with his hand, probably meant to signify something very triumphant and victorious; then, quite solidly and calmly, he drew from his pocket a newspaper, obviously just bought, opened it, and began reading the last page, apparently leaving me completely alone. For some five minutes he didn’t look at me.
“The Brest-Graevs 49didn’t go bust, eh? They took off, they keep going! I know many that went bust straightaway.”
He looked at me from the bottom of his heart.
“I understand little about the stock exchange as yet,” I replied.
“Denial?”
“Of what?”
“Money, sir.”
“I don’t deny money, but . . . but, it seems to me, first comes the idea, and then money.”
“That is, pardon me, sir . . . here stands a man, so to speak, before his own capital . . .”
“First a lofty idea, and then money, but without a lofty idea along with money, society will collapse.”
I don’t know why I began to get heated. He looked at me somewhat dully, as if confused, but suddenly his whole face extended into the merriest and slyest smile:
“That Versilov, eh? He snapped it up, snapped it right up! It was decided yesterday, eh?”
I suddenly and unexpectedly perceived that he had long known who I was, and maybe knew much more as well. Only I don’t understand why I suddenly blushed and stared most stupidly, without taking my eyes off him. He was visibly triumphant, he looked at me merrily, as if he had found me out and caught me at something in the slyest manner.
“No, sir,” he raised both eyebrows, “you’re now going to ask me about Mr. Versilov! What did I just tell you about substantiality? A year and a half ago, on account of that baby, he could have brought off a perfect little deal—yes, sir, but he went bust, yes, sir.”
“On account of what baby?”
“On account of a nursing baby that he’s now nurturing on the side, only he won’t get anything through that . . . because . . .”
“What nursing baby? What is this?”
“His baby, of course, his very own, sir, by Mademoiselle Lydia Akhmakov . . . ‘A lovely maiden did caress me . . .’ 50Those phosphorus matches—eh?”
“What nonsense, what wildness! He never had a baby by Miss Akhmakov!”
“Go on! And where have I been then? I’m both a doctor and a male midwife. Name’s Stebelkov, haven’t you heard? True, I had long ceased to practice by then, but I could give practical advice in a practical matter.”
“You’re a male midwife . . . you delivered Miss Akhmakov’s baby?”
“No, sir, I didn’t deliver Miss Akhmakov’s anything. In that suburb there was a Doctor Granz, burdened with a family, they paid him half a thaler, that’s the situation there with doctors, and on top of that nobody knew him, so he was there in my place . . . It was I who recommended him, for the darkness of the unknown. Do you follow? And I only gave one piece of practical advice, to a question from Versilov, sir, Andrei Petrovich, to a most highly secret question, sir, eye to eye. But Andrei Petrovich preferred two birds.”
I was listening in profound amazement.
“You can’t kill two birds with one stone, says a folk, or, more correctly, a simple-folk’s proverb. But I say exceptions that constantly repeat themselves turn into a general rule. He tried to hit a second bird, that is, translating it into Russian, to chase after another lady—and got no results. Once you grab something, hold on to it. Where things need speeding up, he hems and haws. Versilov is a ‘women’s prophet,’ sir—that’s how young Prince Sokolsky beautifully designated him to me then. No, you should come to me! If you want to learn a lot about Versilov, come to me.”
He obviously admired my mouth gaping in astonishment. Never had I heard a thing up till then about a nursing baby. And it was at that moment that the neighbors’ door suddenly banged and somebody quickly went into their room.
“Versilov lives in the Semyonovsky quarter, on Mozhaiskaya Street, at Mrs. Litvinov’s house, number seventeen, I went to the address bureau myself !” an irritated female voice cried loudly. We could hear every word. Stebelkov shot up his eyebrows and raised a finger over his head.
“We talk about him here, and there he’s already . . . There’s those exceptions that constantly repeat themselves! Quand on parle d’une corde 26. . .”
With a quick jump, he sat up on the sofa and began listening at the door where the sofa stood.
I was also terribly struck. I realized that this woman shouting was probably the same one who had run out earlier in such agitation. But how did Versilov figure in it? Suddenly someone shrieked again as earlier, the furious shriek of a person turned savage with wrath, who is not being given something or is being held back from something. The only difference from the previous time was that the cries and shrieks went on longer. A struggle could be heard, some words, rapid, quick: “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, give it back to me, give it back to me right now!” or something like that—I can’t quite remember. Then, as the other time, someone rushed swiftly to the door and opened it. Both women ran out to the corridor, one of them, as earlier, obviously holding the other back. Stebelkov, who had long ago jumped up from the sofa and was listening delightedly, now darted to the door and quite frankly jumped out to the corridor, right onto the neighbors. Naturally, I also ran to the door. But his appearance in the corridor was like a bucket of cold water: the women quickly disappeared and noisily slammed the door behind them. Stebelkov was about to leap after them, but paused, raising his finger, smiling, and thinking; this time I discerned something extremely bad, dark, and sinister in his smile. Having spotted the landlady, who was again standing by her door, he quickly ran to her on tiptoe down the corridor; after exchanging whispers with her for about two minutes and certainly receiving information, he came back to the room, imposingly and resolutely now, took his top hat from the table, looked fleetingly in the mirror, ruffled up his hair, and, with self-confident dignity, not even glancing at me, went to the neighbors. He listened at the door for a moment, putting his ear to it and winking victoriously to the landlady, who shook her finger at him and wagged her head as if to say, “Ah, naughty boy, naughty boy!” Finally, with a resolute but most delicate look, even as if hunched over with delicacy, he rapped with his knuckles on the neighbors’ door. A voice was heard:
“Who’s there?”
“Will you allow me to come in on most important business?” Stebelkov pronounced loudly and imposingly.
They did open, albeit slowly, just a little at first, a quarter; but Stebelkov firmly seized the handle at once and would not have let the door close again. A conversation began. Stebelkov spoke loudly, trying all the while to push his way into the room; I don’t remember his words, but he spoke about Versilov, saying that he could inform them, could explain everything—“no, ma’am, just ask me,” “no, ma’am, just come to me”—along that line. They very soon let him in. I went back to the sofa and tried to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t make out everything, I only heard that Versilov was mentioned frequently. By the tone of his voice, I guessed that Stebelkov was already in control of the conversation, was already speaking not insinuatingly but peremptorily, and sprawling as earlier with me: “do you follow,” “now kindly get this,” and so on. However, he must have been extraordinarily affable with the women. Twice already I had heard him guffaw loudly and, probably, quite inappropriately, because along with his voice, and sometimes overpowering his voice, I heard the voices of the two women, which expressed no gaiety at all, mainly the young woman’s, the one who had shrieked earlier; she spoke a lot, nervously, quickly, apparently denouncing something and complaining, seeking justice and a judge. But Stebelkov would not leave off, raised his voice more and more, and guffawed more and more often; such people cannot listen to others. I soon left the sofa, because it seemed shameful to me to eavesdrop, and moved to my old place on the wicker chair by the window. I was convinced that Vasin considered this man as nothing, but that if I were to declare the same opinion, he would at once defend him with serious dignity and observe didactically that he was “a practical man, one of those present-day businesslike people, who cannot be judged from our general and abstract points of view.” At that moment, however, I remember that I was all somehow morally shattered, my heart was pounding, and I was undoubtedly expecting something. Some ten minutes went by, and suddenly, right in the middle of a rolling burst of laughter, someone shot up from the chair, exactly as earlier, then I heard the cries of the two women, I heard Stebelkov jump up as well and start saying something in a completely different voice, as if vindicating himself, as if persuading them to listen to him . . . But they didn’t listen; wrathful shouts came: “Out! you blackguard, you shameless man!” In short, it was clear that he was being driven out. I opened the door just at the moment when he leaped into the corridor from the neighbors’ room, literally pushed, it seemed, by their hands. Seeing me, he suddenly shouted, pointing at me: