Chapter Two
I
ON THAT MORNING, the fifteenth of November, I precisely found him with “Prince Seryozha.” It was I who brought him together with the prince, but they had enough points of contact even without me (I’m speaking of those former stories abroad and so on). Besides that, the prince had given his word to allot him at least one-third of the inheritance, which would certainly come to about twenty thousand. To me, I remember, it was terribly strange then that he allotted him only a third and not a whole half; but I said nothing. The prince gave this promise then on his own; Versilov had no part in it, never mentioned it by half a little word; the prince himself popped up with it, and Versilov only allowed it silently and never once recalled it afterwards, never even showed by a look that he remembered anything at all about the promise. I’ll note incidentally that the prince was decidedly charmed by him at first, especially by his talk, he even went into raptures and several times spoke of it to me. Sometimes, alone with me, he exclaimed about himself, almost in despair, that he was “so uneducated, that he was on such a false path! . . .” Oh, we were still such friends then! . . . I kept trying then to instill only good things about the prince into Versilov, I defended his failings, though I saw them myself; but Versilov kept silent or smiled.
“If he does have failings, he has at least as many virtues as failings!” I once exclaimed, alone with Versilov.
“God, how you flatter him,” he laughed.
“How do you mean, flatter?” I didn’t understand at first.
“As many virtues! Why, then his relics will be revealed, 17if he has as many virtues as he has failings!”
But, of course, this was not an opinion. Generally he somehow avoided speaking about the prince then, as he generally did about all essentials; but about the prince especially. I already suspected even then that he went to see the prince without me as well, and that they had special relations, but I allowed for that. I also wasn’t jealous that he talked with him as if more seriously than with me, more positively, so to speak, and was less given to mockery; but I was so happy then that it even pleased me. I also excused it by the fact that the prince was slightly limited, and therefore liked precision in words, and even didn’t understand certain witticisms at all. And then, recently, he somehow began to emancipate himself. His feelings towards Versilov began to change, as it were. The sensitive Versilov noticed it. I’ll also say beforehand that at that time the prince changed towards me as well, even all too visibly; there remained only some dead forms of our original, almost ardent friendship. Yet I still kept going to see him; I could hardly not go, however, having been drawn into all that. Oh, how unskillful I was then, and can it be that stupidity of heart alone can drive a person to such incompetence and humiliation? I took money from him and thought that it was nothing, that it was even right. Not so, however; I knew even then that it was wrong, but—I simply gave it little thought. It wasn’t for money that I went to see him, though I needed money terribly. I knew that I didn’t go there because of money, but I realized that I came every day to take money. But I was in a whirl and, besides all that, something else was in my soul then—was singing in my soul!
When I came in, at around eleven o’clock in the morning, I found Versilov just finishing some long tirade; the prince was listening, pacing the room, and Versilov was sitting down. The prince seemed to be somewhat agitated. Versilov could almost always make him agitated. The prince was an extremely susceptible being, naïvely so, which on many occasions made me look on him condescendingly. But, I repeat, in the last few days something spitefully tooth-baring had appeared in him. He stopped when he saw me, and something as if twitched in his face. I knew in myself what explained that shadow of displeasure that morning, but I hadn’t expected his face to twitch so much. It was known to me that he had accumulated all sorts of troubles, but the disgusting thing was that I knew only the tenth part of them—the rest was a hard and fast secret for me. Therefore it was disgusting and stupid that I got at him so often with my consolations, with advice, and even grinned condescendingly at his weakness of getting beside himself “over such trifles.” He said nothing, but it was impossible for him not to hate me terribly at such moments; I was in all too false a position and didn’t even suspect it. Oh, God is my witness, I didn’t suspect the main thing!
Nevertheless, he politely offered me his hand, and Versilov nodded his head without interrupting his speech. I sprawled on the sofa. What tone I had then, what manners! I pranced still more, treating his acquaintances as my own . . . Oh, if it were possible to do it all over again now, I’d know how to behave myself very differently!
Two words, so as not to forget: the prince was living in the same apartment then, but occupied almost all of it; the owner of the apartment, Mrs. Stolbeev, had stayed for only a month and gone off somewhere again.
II
THEY WERE TALKING about the nobility. I’ll note that this idea sometimes troubled the prince very much, despite all his air of progressism, and I even suspect that much that was bad in his life came and originated from this idea; valuing his princehood and being destitute, he squandered money all his life out of false pride and got entangled in debts. Versilov hinted to him several times that this was not what made for princehood, and wanted to implant a higher notion in his heart; but in the end it was as if the prince began to be offended at being taught. Evidently there had been something of the sort that morning, but I didn’t catch the beginning. Versilov’s words seemed retrograde to me at first, but then he got better.
“The word ‘honor’ means duty,” he said (I’m conveying only the sense, as far as I remember it). “When the state is ruled by a dominant estate, the land stands firm. The dominant estate always has its honor and its profession of honor, which may also be wrong, but which almost always serves to bind and strengthen the land; it is useful morally, but more so politically. But the slaves suffer, that is, all who do not belong to that estate. So that they won’t suffer, they are granted equal rights. That has been done with us as well, and it’s splendid. But by all experience, everywhere so far (in Europe, that is), with the equalizing of rights has come a lowering of the sense of honor and therefore of duty. Egoism has replaced the former binding idea, and everything has broken down into the freedom of persons. Set free, left without a binding thought, they have finally lost all higher connection to such a degree that they have even stopped defending the freedom they obtained. But the Russian type of nobility has never resembled the European. Even now our nobility, having lost its rights, could remain a higher estate as the guardian of honor, light, science, and the higher idea, and, above all, without shutting itself up in a separate caste, which would be the death of the idea. On the contrary, the gateway to this estate was thrown open with us all too long ago; and now the time has come to open it definitively. Let every deed of honor, science, and valor give anyone the right to join the higher category of people. In this way the estate turns by itself into what is merely a gathering of the best people, in the literal and true sense, and not in the former sense of a privileged caste. In this new or, better, renewed form, the estate might hold out.”
The prince bared his teeth:
“What kind of nobility would it be then? That’s some sort of Masonic lodge you’re planning, not a nobility.”
I repeat, the prince was terribly uneducated. I even swung around on the sofa in vexation, though I did not quite agree with Versilov. Versilov understood only too well that the prince was showing his teeth.
“I don’t know in what sense you spoke of Masonry,” he replied, “however, if even a Russian prince rejects such an idea, then, naturally, its time hasn’t come yet. The idea of honor and enlightenment as the covenant of each one who wants to join the estate, which is open and continually renewed, is of course a utopia, but why is it impossible? If this thought still lives, though only in a few heads, it’s not lost yet, but shines like a fiery spot in the deep darkness.”