IX
I had only just lifted my leg over the high barrier across the bottom of the gateway, when suddenly a strong hand clutched at my chest.
“Who's this?” roared a voice, “a friend or an enemy? Own up!”
“He's one of us; one of us!” Liputin's voice squealed near by. “It's Mr. G—— v, a young man of classical education, in touch with the highest society.”
“I love him if he's in society, clas-si . . . that means he's high-ly ed-u-cated. The retired Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the service of the world and his friends ... if they're true ones, if they're true ones, the scoundrels.”
Captain Lebyadkin, a stout, fleshy man over six feet in height, with curly hair and a red face, was so extremely drunk that he could scarcely stand up before me, and articulated with difficulty. I had seen him before, however, in the distance.
“And this one!” he roared again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing with the lantern; he raised his fist, but let it fall again at once.
“I forgive you for your learning! Ignat Lebyadkin — high-ly ed-u-cated. . . .
'A bomb of love with stinging smart
Exploded in Ignaty's heart.
In anguish dire I weep again
The arm that at Sevastopol
I lost in bitter pain!'
Not that I ever was at Sevastopol, or ever lost my arm, but you know what rhyme is.” He pushed up to me with his ugly, tipsy face.
“Pie is in a hurry, he is going home!” Liputin tried to persuade him. “He'll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna to-morrow.”
“Lizaveta!” he yelled again. “Stay, don't go! A variation;
'Among the Amazons a star,
Upon her steed she flashes by,
And smiles upon me from afar,
The child of aris-to-cra-cy!
To a Starry Amazon.'
You know that's a hymn. It's a hymn, if you're not an ass! The duffers, they don't understand! Stay!”
He caught hold of my coat, though I pulled myself away with all my might.
“Tell her I'm a knight and the soul of honour, and as for that Dasha . . . I'd pick her up and chuck her out. . . . She's only a serf, she daren't ...”
At this point he fell down, for I pulled myself violently out of his hands and ran into the street. Liputin clung on to me.
“Alexey Nilitch will pick him up. Do you know what I've just found out from him?” he babbled in desperate haste. “Did you hear his verses? He's sealed those verses to the 'Starry Amazon' in an envelope and is going to send them to-morrow to Lizaveta Nikolaevna, signed with his name in full. What a fellow!”
“I bet you suggested it to him yourself.”
“You'll lose your bet,” laughed Liputin. “He's in love, in love like a cat, and do you know it began with hatred. He hated Lizaveta Nikolaevna at first so much, for riding on horseback that he almost swore aloud at her in the street. Yes, he did abuse her! Only the day before yesterday he swore at her when she rode by — luckily she didn't hear. And, suddenly, to-day — poetry! Do you know he means to risk a proposal? Seriously! Seriously!”
“I wonder at you, Liputin; whenever there's anything nasty going on you're always on the spot taking a leading part in it,” I said angrily.
“You're going rather far, Mr. G—— v. Isn't your poor little
heart quaking, perhaps, in terror of a rival?”
“Wha-at!” I cried, standing still.
“Well, now to punish you I won't say anything more, and wouldn't you like to know though? Take this alone, that that lout is not a simple captain now but a landowner of our province, and rather an important one, too, for Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sold him all his estate the other day, formerly of two hundred serfs; and as God's above, I'm not lying. I've only just heard it, but it was from a most reliable source. And now you can ferret it out for yourself; I'll say nothing more; good-bye.”
Stepan Trofimovitch was awaiting me with hysterical impatience. It was an hour since he had returned. I found him in a state resembling intoxication; for the first five minutes at least I thought he was drunk. Alas, the visit to the Drozdovs had been the finishing-stroke.
“Mon ami! I have completely lost the thread . . . Lise . . . I love and respect that angel as before; just as before; but it seems to me they both asked me simply to find out something from me, that is more simply to get something out of me, and then to get rid of me. . . . That's how it is.”
“You ought to be ashamed!” I couldn't help exclaiming. “My friend, now I am utterly alone. Enfin, c'est ridicule. Would you believe it, the place is positively packed with mysteries there too. They simply flew at me about those ears and noses, and some mysteries in Petersburg too. You know they hadn't heard till they came about the tricks Nicolas played here four years ago. 'You were here, you saw it, is it true that he is mad?' Where they got the idea I can't make out. Why is it that Praskovya is so anxious Nicolas should be mad? The woman will have it so, she will. Ce Maurice, or what's his name, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, brave homme tout de meme . . . but can it be for his sake, and after she wrote herself from Paris to cette pauvre amie? . . . Enfin, this Praskovya, as cette chere amie calls her, is a type. She's Gogol's Madame Box, of immortal memory, only she's a spiteful Madame Box, a malignant Box, and in an immensely exaggerated form.”
“That's making her out a regular packing-case if it's an exaggerated form.”
“Well, perhaps it's the opposite; it's all the same, only don't interrupt me, for I'm all in a whirl. They are all at loggerheads, except Lise, she keeps on with her 'Auntie, auntie!' but Lise's sly, and there's something behind it too. Secrets. She has quarrelled with the old lady. Cette pauvre auntie tyrannises over every one it's true, and then there's the governor's wife, and the rudeness of local society, and Karmazinov's 'rudeness'; and then this idea of madness, ce Lipoutine, ce que je ne comprends pas . . . and . . . and they say she's been putting vinegar on her head, and here are we with our complaints and letters. . . . Oh, how I have tormented her and at such a time! Je suis un ingrat! Only imagine, I come back and find a letter from her; read it, read it! Oh, how ungrateful it was of me!”
He gave me a letter he had just received from Varvara Petrovna. She seemed to have repented of her “stay at home.” The letter was amiable but decided in tone, and brief. She invited Stepan Trofimovitch to come to her the day after to-morrow, which was Sunday, at twelve o'clock, and advised him to bring one of his friends with him. (My name was mentioned in parenthesis). She promised on her side to invite Shatov, as the brother of Darya Pavlovna. “You can obtain a final answer from her: will that be enough for you? Is this the formality you were so anxious for?”
“Observe that irritable phrase about formality. Poor thing, poor thing, the friend of my whole life! I confess the sudden determination of my whole future almost crushed me. ... I confess I still had hopes, but now tout est dit. I know now that all is over. C'est terrible! Oh, that that Sunday would never come and everything would go on in the old way. You would have gone on coming and I'd have gone on here. . . .”
“You've been upset by all those nasty things Liputin said, those slanders.”
“My dear, you have touched on another sore spot with your friendly finger. Such friendly fingers are generally merciless and sometimes unreasonable; pardon, you may riot believe it, but I'd almost forgotten all that, all that nastiness, not that I forgot it, indeed, but in my foolishness I tried all the while I was with Lise to be happy and persuaded myself I was happy. But now . . . Oh, now I'm thinking of that generous, humane woman, so long-suffering with my contemptible failings — not that she's been altogether long-suffering, but what have I been with my horrid, worthless character! I'm a capricious child, with all the egoism of a child and none of the innocence. For the last twenty years she's been looking after me like a nurse, cette pauvre auntie, as Lise so charmingly calls her. . . . And now, after twenty years, the child clamours to be married, sending letter after letter, while her head's in a vinegar-compress and . . . now he's got it — on Sunday I shall be a married man, that's no joke. . . . And why did I keep insisting myself, what did I write those letters for? Oh, I forgot. Lise idolizes Darya Pavlovna, she says so anyway; she says of her 'c'est un ange, only rather a reserved one.' They both advised me, even Praskovya. . . . Praskovya didn't advise me though. Oh, what venom lies concealed in that 'Box'! And Lise didn't exactly advise me: 'What do you want to get married for,' she said, 'your intellectual pleasures ought to be enough for you.' She laughed. I forgive her for laughing, for there's an ache in her own heart. You can't get on without a woman though, they said to me. The infirmities of age are coming upon you, and she will tuck you up, or whatever it is. ... Ma foi, I've been thinking myself all this time I've been sitting with you that Providence was sending her to me in the decline of my stormy years and that she would tuck me up, or whatever they call it ... enfin, she'll be handy for the housekeeping. See what a litter there is, look how everything's lying about. I said it must be cleared up this morning, and look at the book on the floor! La pauvre amie was always angry at the untidiness here. . . . Ah, now I shall no longer hear her voice! Vingt ans! And it seems they've had anonymous letters. Only fancy, it's said that Nicolas has sold Lebyadkin his property. C'est un monstre; et enfin what is Lebyadkin? Lise listens, and listens, ooh, how she listens! I forgave her laughing. I saw her face as she listened, and ce Maurice ... I shouldn't care to be in his shoes now, brave homme tout de meme, but rather shy; but never mind him. . . .”