“With joy?”
“With great joy! For this man ‘was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found!’ 58Vasin, I’m a trashy little brat and not worthy of you. I confess it precisely because there are some moments when I’m quite different, higher and deeper. Two days ago I praised you to your face (and praised you only because you had humiliated and crushed me), and for that I’ve hated you for two whole days! I promised myself that very night that I would never go to you, and I came to you yesterday morning only from spite, do you understand: from spite. I sat here on a chair alone and criticized your room, and you, and each of your books, and your landlady, trying to humiliate you and laugh at you . . .”
“You shouldn’t be saying this . . .”
“Yesterday evening, concluding from one of your phrases that you didn’t understand women, I was glad to have been able to catch you in that. Earlier today, catching you on the ‘debut,’ I was again terribly glad, and all because I myself had praised you the other time . . .”
“Why, how could it be otherwise!” Vasin finally cried (he still went on smiling, not surprised at me in the least). “No, that’s how it always happens, with almost everybody, and even first thing; only nobody admits it, and there’s no need to, because in any case it will pass and nothing will come of it.”
“Can it be the same with everybody? Everybody’s like that? And you say it calmly? No, it’s impossible to live with such views!”
“And in your opinion:
Dearer to me than a thousand truths
Is the falsehood that exalts?” 59
“But that’s right!” I cried. “Those two lines are a sacred axiom!”
“I don’t know; I wouldn’t venture to decide whether those two lines are right or not. It must be that the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between; that is, in one case it’s a sacred truth, in another it’s a lie. I only know one thing for certain: that this thought will remain for a long time one of the chief points of dispute among people. In any case, I notice that you now want to dance. So, dance then: exercise is good for you, and I’ve had an awful lot of work piled on me all at once this morning . . . and I’m late because of you!”
“I’m going, I’m going, I’m off! Only one word,” I cried, seizing my suitcase. “If I just ‘threw myself on your neck’ again, it’s solely because when I came in, you told me about this fact with such genuine pleasure and ‘were glad’ that I came in time to find you here, and that after yesterday’s ‘debut’; by that genuine pleasure you all at once turned my ‘young heart’ in your favor again. Well, good-bye, good-bye, I’ll try to stay away for as long as possible, and I know that will be extremely agreeable to you, as I see even by your eyes, and it will even be profitable for both of us . . .”
Babbling like this and nearly spluttering from my joyful babble, I dragged my suitcase out and went with it to my apartment. I was, above all, terribly pleased that Versilov had been so unquestionably angry with me earlier, had not wanted to speak or look. Having transported my suitcase, I immediately flew to my old prince. I confess, it had even been somewhat hard for me those two days without him. And he had surely already heard about Versilov.
II
I JUST KNEW he’d be terribly glad to see me, and I swear I’d have called on him today even without Versilov. I was only frightened, yesterday and today, at the thought that I might somehow meet Katerina Nikolaevna; but now I no longer feared anything.
He embraced me joyfully.
“And Versilov? Have you heard?” I began straight off with the main thing.
“Cher enfant, my dear friend, it’s so sublime, it’s so noble—in short, even Kilyan” (that clerk downstairs) “was tremendously impressed! It’s not sensible on his part, but it’s brilliant, it’s a great deed! We must value the ideal!”
“Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true? You and I always agreed about that.”
“My dear, you and I have always agreed. Where have you been? I absolutely wanted to go to you myself, but I didn’t know where to find you . . . Because all the same I couldn’t go to Versilov . . . Though now, after all this . . . You know, my friend, it was with this, it seems, that he used to win women over, with these features, there’s no doubt of it . . .”
“By the way, before I forget, I’ve saved this precisely for you. Yesterday one most unworthy buffoon, denouncing Versilov to my face, said of him that he’s a ‘women’s prophet’; what an expression, eh? the expression itself? I saved it for you . . .”
“A ‘women’s prophet’! Mais . . . c’est charmant! 31Ha, ha! But it suits him so well, that is, it doesn’t suit him at all—pah! . . . But it’s so apt . . . that is, it’s not apt at all, but . . .”
“Never mind, never mind, don’t be embarrassed, look at it just as a bon mot!”
“A splendid bon mot, and, you know, it has a most profound meaning . . . a perfectly right idea! That is, would you believe . . . In short, I’ll tell you a tiny secret. Did you notice that Olympiada? Would you believe it, her heart aches a little for Andrei Petrovich, and to the point that she even seems to be nurturing some . . .”
“Nurturing! How would she like this?” I cried out, making a fig 60in my indignation.
“Mon cher, don’t shout, it’s just so, and perhaps you’re right from your point of view. By the way, my friend, what was it that happened to you last time in front of Katerina Nikolaevna? You were reeling . . . I thought you were going to fall down and was about to rush to support you.”
“Of that some other time. Well, in short, I simply got embarrassed for a certain reason . . .”
“You’re blushing even now.”
“Well, and you have to go smearing it around at once. You know there’s hostility between her and Versilov . . . well, and all that, well, and so I got excited: eh, let’s drop it, another time!”
“Let’s drop it, let’s drop it, I’m glad to drop it myself . . . In short, I’m extremely guilty before her, and, remember, I even murmured in front of you then . . . Forget it, my friend; she’ll also change her opinion of you, I have a real presentiment . . . But here’s Prince Seryozha!”
A young and handsome officer came in. I looked at him greedily, I had never seen him before. That is, I say handsome, just as everybody said it of him, yet there was something in that young and handsome face that was not entirely attractive. I precisely note this as the impression of the very first moment, of my first glance at him, which remained in me ever after. He was lean, of a fine height, dark blond, with a fresh face, though slightly yellowish, and with a resolute gaze. His fine dark eyes had a somewhat stern look, even when he was quite calm. But his resolute gaze precisely repelled one, because one felt for some reason that this resoluteness cost him all too little. However, I don’t know how to put it . . . Of course, his face was able to turn suddenly from a stern to a surprisingly gentle, meek, and tender expression, the transformation being, above all, unquestionably simplehearted. And this simpleheartedness was attractive. I’ll note another feature: despite the gentleness and simpleheartedness, this face never showed mirth; even when the prince laughed with all his heart, you still felt as if there was never any genuine, bright, easy mirth in his heart . . . However, it’s extremely hard to describe a face like his. I’m quite incapable of it. The old prince straightaway rushed to introduce us, as was his stupid habit.
“This is my young friend, Arkady Andreevich Dolgoruky” (again that “Andreevich”!).
The young prince turned to me at once with a doubly polite expression on his face, but it was clear that my name was totally unknown to him.
“He’s . . . a relation of Andrei Petrovich,” my vexatious prince murmured. (How vexatious these little old men sometimes are with their habits!) The young prince caught on at once.
“Ah! I heard so long ago . . .” he said quickly. “I had the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of your sister, Lizaveta Makarovna, last year in Luga . . . She also spoke to me about you . . .”