Transcript for:
Lecture on The Adolescent by Dostoevsky

this is audible tantor audio a division of recorded books presents the Adolescent by Fodor dovi translated by Richard pavier and Lissa vakansi narrated by PJ Oakland introduction in the early 1870s the radical saturnist Emy salov shedin declared that in Russia the family novel was dead the family that warm and cozy element which once gave the novel its content has vanished from sight the novel of contemporary man finds its resolution in the street on the public way anywhere but in the home in 1875 however two novels began to appear serially in rival journals tallo's Anna kenana in the conservative Russian messenger and dov's the Adolescent in the populist notes of the Fatherland though they have nothing else in common both are family novels in excelsis their appearance at that time suggests that far from having vanished from sight the family was still the mirror of Russian social life and the fate of the family was a key to Russia's Destiny tuloy defied the radicals by portraying the ordered life of his own class the hereditary aristocracy and the tragedy of its disruption that is by looking back at a world which as dovi saw had become a fantasy but you know DVI wrote to his friend apalon mov this is all landowners literature it is said everything it had to say magnificently in Leo tuloy but this word a landowners in the highest degree was the last a new word replacing the landowners does not exist yet in the Adolescent which he conceived in part as an answer to tuloy DVI found that new word portraying what he calls The Accidental family of his time the reality behind tulo's Grand Mirage in DVI his life and work Constantine machulski draws the ultimate conclusion about the family Chronicle as DVI conceived it the main theme of the Adolescent he writes is the problem of communion man is determined by his character but his fate is defined in Freedom in spite of his character the influence of one personality on another is Limitless the roots of human interaction go down into metaphysical depths the violation of this organic collectivity is reflected in social upheavals and political catastrophes what salov shedin saw taking place on the public way had its cause in what was taking place in the fundamental Unity of the family which could still serve as the image of Russian Society in its inner spiritual Dimension the Adolescent is the fourth of the five major novels that dovi wrote after the turning point of Notes from Underground these novels in their sequence represent an ascending movement from underground towards the cold clear light at the end of the brothers karamazov the Adolescent is the next to last step in this ascent and yet it is the least known of the five novels the least discussed in the vast critical literature on dovi simply omitted for instance from such major readings of his work as veslav ivanov's freedom and the tragic life Romano guini's dlba man and fate and the essays of the philosopher leev schisto in the mantle of the Prophet the final volume of his critical biography of dovi Joseph Frank refers to the Adolescent rather dismissively as a curious hybrid of a novel and something of an anomaly among the great creations of dv's last period he finds that it lacks the Collision of conflicting moral spiritual absolutes that invariably inspired his best work Edward waselik editor and annotator of the notebooks for a raw youth simply calls it a failure it is true that the Adolescent lacks the dark intensity of Crime and Punishment the idiot and demons the mephitic atmosphere the whiff of brimstone that many consider dov's Essence it is very different in tone from the preceding novels but that difference is a sign of its special place in the unity of dov's later work the Adolescent is up to something else the distinctive tone of the novel is set by the Adolescent narrator himself that is by the fact of his being an adolescent speaking in the first person and writing as an amateur dov's notebooks show how carefully he weighed the question of point of view and with what effect in mind in September 1874 during the early stages of planning the novel he notes in the first person it would be much more original and show more love also it would require more artistic skill and would be terribly bold and shorter easier to arrange moreover it would make the character of the Adolescent as as the main figure of the novel much clearer and a little further on a narrative in the first person is more original by virtue of the fact that the Adolescent may very well keep skipping in Ultra naive fashion to all kinds of anecdotes and details proper to his development and immaturity but quite impossible for an author conducting his narrative in regular fashion a few days later he repeats in the first first person it would be more naive incomparably more original and in its deviations from a smooth and systematic narrative even more delightful DVI had considered writing both Crime and Punishment and the idiot in the first person but had abandoned the idea he came back to it in the Adolescent which is his only novel with a first person protagonist after Notes from Underground the two have more than a little in common for instance both narrators though they are constantly aware of the reader deny any literary or artistic purpose and claim to be writing only for themselves I however am writing only for myself asserts the man from underground and I declare once and for all that even if I write as if I were addressing readers that is merely a form because it's easier for me to write that way it's a form just an empty form and I shall never have any readers I have already declared as much the Adolescent aradi Dal gari begins his notes with the Declaration that he is not writing for the same reason everyone else writes that is for the sake of the reader Praises later he says the reader will perhaps be horrified at the frankness of My Confession and will ask himself simple-hearted how is it that the author doesn't blush I reply that I'm not writing for publication I'll probably have a reader only in some 10 years when everything is already so apparent passed and proven that there will no longer be any point in blushing and therefore if I sometimes address the reader in my notes it's merely a device my reader is a fantastic character aradi also turns out to share some of the underground man's opinions for instance about rational egoism and social progress at a meeting of young radicals he delivers a perfect underground tiate things are not at all clear in our society gentlemen I mean you deny God you deny great Deeds what sort of deaf blind dull torper can make me act this way that is nobly if it's more profitable for me otherwise you say a reasonable attitude towards mankind is also to my profit but what if I find all these reasonableness is unreasonable all these barracks and Fallon steres what the devil do I care about them or about the future when I live only once in this world allow me to know my own profit myself it's more amusing what do I care what happens to this mankind of yours in a thousand years if by your code I get no love for it no future life no recognition of my great deed no sir in that case I shall live for myself in the most impolite fashion and they can all go to blazes one would find it hard to tell which of the two is speaking but the differences between them are far more important and the main difference is precisely arad's adolescence the underground man is trapped in the endless alternation of long live the underground and devil take the underground and has sat in his corner like that for 40 years aradi Dal gari is young fresh resilient time and again he falls asleep after some disastrous blunder or crushing humiliation sleeps soundly and dreamlessly and wakes up feeling harder than ever the underground man is inwardly fixed aradi is all inner movement constantly going Beyond himself his experiences do not bind him as the underground mans do they liberate him why did dovi come to give such a privileged place to Adolescence in his work a brief sketch jotted down in his notebook sometime in October or November of 18 67 years before he began writing the Adolescent may suggest an answer among plans that would later be realized we find a heading all in capitals a thought poem theme with the title The Emperor followed by two pages of notes for a story based on The Strange Life of the Russian Emperor Ivon v 6 better known as Ivon antonovic who lived from 1740 to 1764 Ivan antonovich was the son of Peter the Great's niece the empress Anna ivanovna she died the year he was born and he was immediately proclaimed Emperor but he never reigned in 1741 elisaveta Petrova the daughter of Peter the Great seized the throne and had the one-year-old Emperor imprisoned in the schlorg Fortress where he remained until 1764 when a certain Lieutenant mirovich attempted to to restore him to the throne by means of a coup the plot failed and Ivan antonovich was killed as his notes make clear what interested dovi was not so much the historical episode as the thought of this boy growing up in complete isolation from the world underground Darkness a young man not knowing how to speak Ivan antonovich almost 20 years old description of his nature his development he develops by himself fantastic Fresco and images dreams a young girl in a dream he imagines her having seen her from the window Elementary Notions of all things extravagant imagination and then the catastrophic confrontation of this isolated Consciousness with reality DVI made only a few notes for the story and never came back to it but in Imagining the situation of Ivan antonovic he was preparing himself for the portrayal of Prince muskin alosha karamazov and above all Arad Dori in the notes mirovich finally declares to Ivan antonovich that he is the emperor that everything is possible for him visions of power everything is possible that is the link between Ivan antonovich and the state of adolescence visions of Power are certainly part of it in arad's case he has his H Shield idea of achieving Power by accumulating money he also has a document sewn into his coat which he believes gives him power over certain people who are Central to his life he even tells himself that the consciousness of power is enough without the need to exercise it and declaims enough for me is the awareness of it quoting from puskins the Covetous Knight further on he comments they'll say it's stupid to live like that why not have a mansion an open house gather Society exert influence get married but what would H Shield be then he'd become like everybody else all the charm of the idea would vanish all its moral Force as a child I had already learned by heart the monologue of pushkin's covetous night Pushkin never produced a higher idea than that I'm also of the same mind now DVI himself reread pushkin's little tragedy during the summer of 1874 while staying at the German Health Spa of M and trying to start work on his new novel please God only that I can begin the novel and draw up at least some plan he wrote to his wife beginning is already half the affair but he read Pushkin instead and grew intoxicated with ecstasy here clearly is the origin of arad's vision of power and it is linked through Pushkin with the struggle between son and father mik bachin notes in problems of dov's Poetics that starting with the Gambler in 1866 the Covetous KN exercises a very fundamental influence on all of dov's subsequent Works especially on the Adolescent and the brothers karamazov the H Shield idea is arad's underground my idea is my corner he says the whole goal of my idea is Solitude yes I've thirsted for power all my life power and Solitude the formula is perfect and reveals the extent of arad's willed refusal of human communion this refusal will be sorely tested in the course of the novel but if the phrase everything is possible suggests an abstract dream of power it also describes Adolescence in another way as that state of uncertainty ignorance incompleteness but also of richness and exuberance in which everything is literally still possible in fact far more turns out to be possible than aradi ever suspected he keeps being astonished keeps stumbling into situations he was unaware of keeps speaking out of turn this constant maladroitness sets the tone of the novel and also governs its events this was the freshness and naiv dovi was seeking a sense of the world and the person being born at the same time thus adolesence also determines the compositional method of the novel which is characteristic of dvi's later work in general bachin was the first to Define it clearly the fundamental category in dv's mode of artistic visualizing was not Evolution but coexistence and interaction he saw and conceived his world primarily in terms of space not time hence his deep affinity for the dramatic form DVI strives to organize all available meaningful material all material of reality in one time frame in the form of a dramatic juxtaposition and he strives to develop it extensively for him to get one's bearings on the world meant to conceive all its contents as simultaneous and to guess at their inter relationships in the cross-section of a single moment the action of the Adolescent covers a period of some four months but each of its three parts takes place in only 3 days the 19 to 21st of September the 15th to 17th of November and three fateful days in December nothing takes shape over time everything is already there and only waiting to be revealed arati writes his notes a year after the start of events and it is then that his real Awakening occurs as he says to himself on finishing my notes and writing the last line I suddenly felt that I had re-educated myself precisely through the process of recalling and writing down in a notebook entry for 18 September 1874 DVI settled the problem of the lapse between the events and the time of writing he had been considering a space of 5 years but decided better make it a year in the tone of the narrative the whole impact of a recent shock would still be apparent and a good many things would still remain unclear yet at the same time there would be this first line a year what a tremendous interval of time all through the novel DVI plays with fine humor on this adolescent sense of time the double view of what I was and what I am now meaning now that so much time has passed the Russia of the 1870s thus appears as the sum of all the conflicts and contradictions that enter arad's Consciousness in the space of those few days as he comes to understand them and in so far as he comes to understand them a year later this simultaneity and ju Theos of events in an extremely restricted time frame leads to a downplaying of the importance of the linear plot the fabula as he liked to call it in dov's novels in the Adolescent the Intrigue turns on the document sewn into arad's coat it is melodramatic and highly improbable and DVI exploits it to the last drop but it is not what the novel is about near the beginning of the first notebook for the Adolescent DVI wrote and underlined disintegration is the principal visible idea of the novel later after establishing a new plan he returned to the same theme title of the novel disorder the whole idea of the novel is to demonstrate that we have now General disorder disorder everywhere and wherever you go in society in business in guiding ideas of which for that very reason there aren't any in convictions which for the same reason we don't have in the disintegration of the family unit aradi makovich Dal gari is the illegitimate son of a bankrupt landowner by the name of Andre Petrovic versilov he has been raised by foster parents and tutors has seen his mother a peasant woman from veril of's estate two or three times in his life and his father only once his legal father the peasant marar D guki he has never seen on graduating from high school in Moscow he goes to Petersburg armed with his or Shield idea to meet his family and above all to confront versilov whose love he Longs for and of whose disgrace and wrongdoing he has all sorts of Notions and even some evidence as father husband and lover versilov is the center of a complicated accidental family made up of his legitimate children by his deceased wife his illegitimate children aradi and liisa and their mother Sophia andreevna whom he lives with but cannot marry because her husband maard Dal guki is still alive there is also the so-called Aunt Tatiana pavlovna who acts as a sort of fairy godmother to them all Constantine machulski comments on the shift in emphasis from dov's previous novel as in demons the action is concentrated around the hero but the personality of versilov is revealed differently than the personality of stavrogin the hero of demons is connected with the other characters only ideologically the personality of versilov includes in itself the entire history of his family it is organically Collective stavan is the ideological center of the novel versilov is the Vital Center the crisis of communion as machulski says is shown in that organic cell from which society grows in the family within and around vero's accidental family DVI juxtaposes all the material of reality in Russian Society at that time the novel contains all the elements he wrote in his notebook as early as September 1874 and he specifies the civilized and desperate Idol and skeptical higher intelligencia that's versilov ancient holy Russia Ma's family what is Holy good about new Russia the aunt a great family gone to seed the Young Prince a IC Etc Pi Society the funny and the abstractly ideal type the Young Generation the Adolescent all Instinct knows nothing vasin hopelessly ideal lamb flesh matter horror Etc if we add the swindler stulov the Revolutionary populists particularly the gentle suicide craft and the young Widow akov and her father we will have a virtually complete list of the characters in the Adolescent together they make up an image of the general disorder the Russian chaos that was dov's main preoccupation in all his great novels versilov is the Vital Center of the novel and the essence of the disorder is reflected in him but he is always versilov as seen by his son and thus he remains an elusive mysterious contradictory figure arad's perception of him is constantly changing going to extremes of condemnation and adoration owing to his own ignorance and naive but the contradictions are not only in arar's perception but in versilov himself as machulski observes versilov the philosopher deist and bearer of the idea of all unity and versilov Shattered by two loves are one in the same man versilov suffers from all the infirmities of contemporary civilization everything shifts wavers and doubles in his Consciousness ideas are ambiguous truths relative Faith unbelief by letting the Adolescent do the talking does stvi is able to present two dramas at once the drama of vero's life as the gradual revelation of the divided consciousness of his time and the drama of arcadis coming to consciousness of precisely that drama in himself as well as in versilov aradi calls it breath as will Mia karamazov no man is Broad even too broad I would narrow him down Devil Knows even what to make of him that's the thing Olga mayerson in her excellent study of dvi's taboos calls it the many storess of any human soul DVI has left us several portraits of liberal idealists from the generation of the 1840s Ivan ilich pinski in a nasty anecdote Stan traim verovski in demons P alexandrovic mov in the brothers karamazov but the portrait of versilov is by far the fullest the most serious and searching he was not invented out of nothing among his prototypes were two of the most important figures of 19th century Russian intellectual life Alexander Herson 1812 to70 and P yakovich chadv 1794 to 1856 Herson the illegitimate son of a wealthy nobleman attended Moscow University where he joined a socialist Circle and became an opponent of serom he wrote several novels was sent to internal exile for his views and in 1847 having inherited a large Fortune from his father left Russia forever the failure of the French Revolution of 184 48 disillusioned him with the west and he lamented the death of Europe in a collection of letters entitled from the other Shore versilov shares his nobleman's yearning and his sorrow versilov also speaks with arati about a high cultural type that has developed only in Russia calling it the type of universal suffering for all a phrase that had been applied to Herson by the critic Nikolai sto vero's breath is also reminiscent of heren who is both an aristocrat and a socialist a defender of the workers and a connoisseur of beauty an unbeliever but with a great Nostalgia for Christianity a permanent Exile who repeatedly proclaimed his love of Russia the biographical parallels of versilov and chadv are even more striking and in fact during the earliest stages of his work on the Adolescent dovi gave the name of chadv to his protagonist chadv was a friend and slightly older contemporary of puskins a guards officer of the high nobility a handsome intelligent and spirited man who took part in the Napoleonic campaigns of 1812 and the occupation of Paris resigned his Commission in 1821 and wandered in Europe before returning to Russia in 18 36 the publication of the first of his philosophical letters written to a lady there were eight letters in all written in French caused an enormous Scandal by a sharp criticism of Russia's backwardness and isolation among the nations of Europe which he blamed partly on the Orthodox Church the shock was so great that the emperor Nicholas I had chv declared mad forbad the publication of the remaining letters and kept their author under permanent surveillance until his death but the letters circulated in manuscript and in 1862 the first three were published in Paris where DVI bought and read them DVI also knew Heron's admiring portrait of chadv in his book of Reflections and reminiscences my past and thoughts in DVI and the process of literary creation jacqu Kau lists the convergent details of chev's and vero's biographies both are handsome and are pampered by women who admire them protect them and try to curb their prodigality both are inordinately proud unconsciously egotistical and of a wounding casualness both are remarkably intelligent and witty profound and ironic they have the same manners of the spoiled aristocrat and the refined Elegance of the Dandy they served in the same guards regiment hly refused to fight a duel wandered for a long time in Europe and underwent the fascination of Catholicism both fell in love with a Whimsical and sick young girl before becoming infatuated with a woman who reminds them of a world that is nobler and less empty than their own we might add that Cha's philosophical letters are addressed to a lady while versilov is referred to ironically at one point as a women's Prophet versilov is a complex and original figure not simply an amalgam of his prototypes but he is one deeply rooted in the intellectual and spiritual life of the Russian intelligencia the gradual emergence of versilov in arad's Consciousness is the overarching story of the Adolescent it is varied by a number of inset stories a technique that dovi would use even more extensively in the brothers karamazov these are all spoken stories each in a voice quite distinct from arad's written notes the tragic story of the young student Olia told by her mother the comic story of the Big Stone told by arad's landlord peor ovic the three stories told by marar DGI and vero's account of his dream of the golden age and the last days of mankind coming from experiences very different from arcadis they form a Counterpoint and something of a corrective to his firstperson adolescent point of view as does the epilogue written by arad's former tutor Nikolai simonovic Makar d guki The Wanderer is himself an inset figure in the novel he appeared suddenly and as if fully formed in dv's early notes and he also appears suddenly in arad's life to die just as aradi resurrects he is dov's only fulllength portrait of a Russian peasant a slightly idealized figure out of the past of holy Russia an image of peasant piety and strength of Mirth and of spiritual Beauty in his notes DV worked especially on his voice filling several pages with characteristic phrases and expressions full of scriptural sweetness and cast in the half chanting cadences of peasant speech marar Dal guki is the antithesis of Vero aradi Bears his name only by chance but the old man becomes a spiritual father for him after meeting him for the first time and talking with him only briefly the Adolescent bursts out feverishly I'm glad of you maybe I've been waiting for you a long time I don't love any of them they have no seaml I won't go after them I don't know where I'll go I'll go with you but later he makes the same declaration to versilov when the latter finally seems to welcome him as his son now I have no need for dreams and reveries now you are enough for me I will follow you I said giving myself to him with all my soul aradi stands between these two fathers these embodiments of two very different russas he loses one and in the end saves the life of the other in the beginning aradi says of versilov I absolutely had to find out the whole truth in the very shortest time for I had come to judge this man he learns in the course of the novel that it is very difficult to judge something as complex as many storied as another person that what he and we too of course would have considered a moral failing May in fact be a higher kind of virtue at one point for instance verila advises him my friend always let a man lie a little it's innocent even let him lie a lot first it will show your delicacy and second you'll also be allowed to lie in return two enormous profits at once kab one must love one's neighbor the moral condemnation of lying is unexpectedly displaced by Christ's second commandment and and vero's ironic tone is only a cover for his sincerity again aradi thinks as most of us do that Honesty implies speaking everything out but when he asks versilov to explain something during one of their conversations versilov demurs in short it's one of those long stories that are very boring to begin and it would be much better if we talked about other things and still better if we were silent about other things all you want to do is be silent my friend remember that to be silent is good safe and beautiful beautiful of course silence is always beautiful and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks these are dialogues of innocence and experience the examples could be multiplied many times Olga mayerson has shown that the question of speaking or keeping silent is of central importance in the Adolescent aradi learns to respect the silences of others he finally comes to understand as mayerson says that he has no choice but to keep silent about the scandalousness of this Fallen World and of himself in it the taboo on paying attention to this scandalousness is absolute because nobody imposes it on the character narrator he simply begins to perceive it as the only means for survival moral spiritual psychological or narrational he learns the meaning of tactfulness of attention of not judging others he learns the meaning of forgiveness that is the beginning of his struggle for order in the disorder world around him when the Adolescent started to appear in notes of the Fatherland in 1875 it caused considerable amazement the journal under the influence of the critic enk mikowski had become the organ of the populists who abandoned the extreme rationalism and negation of the nihilists of the 1860s and preached a going to the land and the communal values of the Russian peasantry the editor of the journal at that time was the poet and publicist Nikolai ncov an old acquaintance of dov's and his longtime ideological opponent dv's devastating attack on the nihilists in demons 1871 to 72 had turned most of the radical intelligencia against him though they may have had a lingering respect for him as the prisoner of Omsk who had served a 10-year term of hard labor and exile for his own anti-government activities they hardly expected to find him in their company on the other hand the publication of the Adolescent in such an extreme left Journal brought accusations of betrayal and opportunism from dvi's conservative friends many of whom abandoned him what explains this apparent switch of loyalties in April 1874 when Dusty offered mik kco editor of the Russian messenger the plan for a new novel kotkov turned it down only later did DVI learned that katkov already had a big novel coming in tallo's Anna Karenina for which he was paying twice as much as DVI had asked then quite unexpectedly nekrasov came to him and offered to take the novel for notes of the Fatherland dvi's wife wrote in her memoir my husband was very glad to renew friendly relations with nicov whose Talent he rated very highly though she added that Fodor mikovich could in no case give up his fundamental convictions he remained somewhat skeptical of this sudden interest from his former enemies and vowed that he would not concede a line to their tendency but in the end nekrasov's enthusiastic response to the first part won him over all night I sat and read I was so captivated the poet told him and what freshness my dear fellow what freshness you have such freshness no longer exists in our age and not one writer has it 30 years before ncov had greeted dov's first novel poor folk with the same enthusiasm and had been largely responsible for his initial success this closing of the circle must have moved dovi deeply in fact nekrasov even has a certain presence in the Adolescent the figure of Makar dgar Ruki is based in part on the description of the old peasant Wanderer in nekrasov's poem vlas as dovi signals by having versilov quote a line from it when he first describes ma to aradi dski had written an admiring article on Voss in 1873 a year before he began work on the novel but there is another more hidden presence towards the end of the tribute he wrote in 1877 on the occasion of niv's death he speaks of a dark side to the poet's life which he foretold in one of his earliest poems and he quotes three stanzas describing the young provincial's arrival in the capital the lights of evening lighting up there was wind and soaking rain on my shoulders a wretched sheep skin in my pocket 15 Groats and ending no money no rank no family short of stature and funny looking 40 years have passed since then in my pocket I've got a million this was the Adolescent poet's dream of power money dovi writes that was nekrasov's demon his was a thirst for a gloomy Sullen segregated security with a view to dependence on no one this soul that sympathized with all of suffering Russia also had its R Shield idea and its underground the same breath that aradi dalgar Ruki was alarmed to discover not only in versilov but in himself but there was something besides nekrasov's invitation that Drew dovi to notes of the Fatherland he was anxious not to lose touch with the younger generation and saw that the shift in Revolutionary ideology from nihilism to populism might allow for more inner movement in the Youth of the 70s and offer a chance of reconciliation in the last years of is life dovi tried repeatedly to act as a mediator among the conflicting factions generations and classes in Russia hoping that a restoration of communion might still be possible in that disintegrating world that is the significance of arad's role in the Adolescent and of his final attempt to become an all reconciler the tonal range of this high and serious comedy is remarkably Broad bordering at times on tragedy and at other times on farce DVI was able to place himself unerringly in the mind and even the unconscious of a green 19-year-old and maintain his voice consistently arati's light Motif is the word stupid the perfect adolescent word repeated in countless variations his fear of looking stupid of saying something stupid his judgments of the stupidity of other people their stupid ideas their stupid feelings their stupid curtains the play on dalgar Ruki the name of an ancient Russian princely family while aradi is not a prince but simply do guki and illegitimate at that runs through the whole novel coming to a hilarious climax in the police station at the beginning of his notes aradi mentions that in Moscow he loged in the quarters of the unforgettable Nikolai simonovic in the epilogue Nikolai simonovic who has read through the manuscript at arad's request mockingly returns this rather pompous epithet to him and never my Unforgettable aradi makovich could you have employed your leisure time more usefully incidentally he has just seen himself described as something of a cold egoist but unquestionably an intelligent man the epilogue gives the crowning touch to this formal play in it the unforgettable Nikolai simonovich as requested gives his Reflections on arad's notes that is on dov's novel minus the epilogue he comments on its themes the present disorder the longing for seaml the lack of beautiful finished forms and discusses the problems facing ing the Contemporary Russian novelist with allusions to both War and Peace and Anna kenina after a rather perceptive characterization of versilov he observes yes aradi marovich you are a member of an accidental family as opposed to our still recent hereditary types who had a childhood and youth so different from yours I confess I would not wish to be a novelist whose hero comes from an accidental family thankless work and lacking in beautiful forms dovi is of course precisely that novelist of the unfinished the unfinalized of possible exaggerations and oversights who can only guess and be mistaken Richard pavier translators notes list of principal characters Russian names are composed of first name patronymic from The Father's first name and family name formal address requires the use of first name and patronymic diminutives arasha lizka Sonia are commonly used among family and intimate friends the following is a list of the principal characters in the Adolescent with diminutives and epithets in Russian pronunciation the stressed vowel is always long and unstressed vowels are very short Dal guki aradi makovich arasha ar kashena ar kashka the Adolescent author of the novel marar Ivanovic his legal father Sophia Andrea Sonia Sophie his mother lisaveta ARA lisaa his sister veril Andre Petrovic natural father of aradi and Lisa Anna andreevna veril of's Daughter by his first marriage Andre andreevich the K Yona vero's Son by his first marriage akov Karina Nikola Kaa young Widow of General akov lyia no patronymic her stepdaughter sakoli Prince Nikolai Ivanovic the old Prince Madame aov's father prutkov taana pavlovna the aunt friend of the veril of family sakoli Prince Sergey Petrovic Sera the Young Prince no relation to Prince Nikolai Ivanovic lamb Maurice School friend of arcadis a Frenchman veren Alin Alina alonsa Lamb's girlfriend Daria onima no family name her name changes to Nastasia yor in part three mother of the young suicide Ola diminutive of Olga vas Gia diminutive of gregori no patronymic friend of arcadis Steel Co no first name or patronymic vasin stepfather fotor ovic no last name arad's landlord Nikolai simonovic no last name arad's tutor in Moscow Maria Ivanova Nikolai simic's wife trov P that is p no patronymic the Pretty Boy andreev Nikolai simonovic Simon sidic Sid no last name the pock Marked One a note on the Topography of St Petersburg the city was founded in 1703 by a decree of the emperor Peter the Great and built on the Delta of the river NVA which divides into three main branches the big NVA the little NVA and the NVA as it flows into the Gulf of Finland on the Left Bank of the NVA is the City Center where the Winter Palace the Senate the admiralty the summer garden the theaters and the main thoroughfares such as nki Prospect Baya milona and Baya maraya are located on the right Bank of the NVA before it divides is the area known as the vber side the right Bank between the Neva and the little NVA is known as the Petersburg side where the Peter and Paul Fortress the oldest structure of the City stands between the little Neva and the big Neva is vasilevski Island to the South some 15 miles from the city is the suburb of tarao where the empress Katherine the Great built an imposing Palace and many of the Gentry had summer houses part one chapter one one unable to restrain myself I have sat down to record this history of my first steps on life's career though I could have done as well without it one thing I know for certain never again will I sit down to write my autobiography even if I live to be a 100 you have to be all too basely in love with yourself to write about yourself without shame my only excuse is that I'm not writing for the same reason everyone else writes that is for the sake of the reader praises if I have suddenly decided to record word for word all that has happened to me since last year then I have decided it as the result of an inner need so struck I am by everything that has happened I am recording only the events avoiding with all my might everything extraneous and above all literary Beauties a literary man writes for 30 years and in the end doesn't know at all why he has written for so many years I am not a literary man do not want to be a literary man and would consider it base and indecent to drag the insides of my soul and a beautiful description of my feelings to their literary Marketplace I anticipate with vexation however that it seems impossible to do entirely without the description of feelings and without Reflections maybe even benol ones so corrupting is the effect of any literary occupation on a man even if if it is undertaken only for oneself the reflections may even be very benol because something you value yourself will quite possibly have no value in a stranger's eyes but this is all on aside anyhow here is my preface there won't be anything more of its kind to business though there is nothing trickier than getting down to some sort of business maybe even any sort two I begin that is I would like to begin my notes from the 19th of September last year that is exactly from the day when I first met but to explain whom I met just like that beforehand when nobody knows anything would be benal I suppose even the tone is benal having promised myself to to avoid literary Beauties I fall into those Beauties with the first line besides in order to write sensibly it seems the wish alone is not enough I will also observe that it seems no European language is so difficult to write in as Russian I've now reread what I've just written and I see that I'm much more intelligent than what I've written how does it come about that what an intelligent man expresses is much stupider than what remains inside IDE him I've noticed that about myself more than once in my verbal relations with people during this last fateful Year and have suffered much from it though I'm starting with the 19th of September I'll still put in a word or two about who I am where I was before then and therefore also what might have been in my head at least partly on that morning of the 19th of September so that it will be more understandable to the reader and maybe to me as well three I am a high school graduate and I'm now going on 21 my last name is dalgar Ruki and my legal father is marar Ivanovich Dal gari a former household surf of the versilov family thus I'm a legitimate though in the highest degree illegitimate son and my origin is not subject to the slightest doubt it happened like this 22 years ago the land owner versilov it's he who is my father 25 years of age visited his estate in Tula Province I suppose at that time he was still something rather faceless It's Curious that this man who impressed me so much ever since my childhood who had such a capital influence on my entire cast of mind and has maybe even infected my whole future with himself for a long time to come this man even now remains in a great many ways a complete riddle to me but of that essentially later you can't tell it like that my whole notebook will be filled with this man as it is he had become a widower just at that time that is in the 25th year of his life he had married someone from high society but not that rich named karatov and had had a son and a daughter by her my information about this spouse who abandoned him so early is rather incomplete and lost among my materials then too much about the private circumstances of vila's life has escaped me so proud he always was with me so haughty closed and negligent despite his moments of striking humility as it were before me I mention however so as to mark it for the future that he ran through three Fortunes in his life even quite big ones some 400,000 in all and maybe more now naturally he hasn't got a copc he came to the country then God Knows Why at least that was how he put it to me later his little children were as usual not with him but with some relations that was what he did with his children legitimate and illegitimate all his life there was a significant number of household surfs on this estate among them was the gardener marar Ivanovic dalgi I will add here to be rid of it once and for all rarely can anyone have been so thoroughly angered by his last name as I was throughout my whole life that was stupid of course but it was so each time I entered some school or met persons to whom I owed an accounting because of my age in short every little teacher tutor inspector priest anybody you like they would ask my last name and on hearing that I was dgar Ruki would inevitably find it somehow necessary to add Prince taroi and each time I was obliged to explain to all these Idol people no simply dalgar Ruki this simply began finally to drive me out of my mind I will note with that as a phenomenon that I do not recall a single exception everybody asked some of them seemingly had no need at all to ask who the devil could have had any need of it I'd like to know but everybody asked everybody to a man hearing that I was simply do gari the asker or or arily measured me with a dull and stupidly indifferent look indicating thereby that he did not know himself why he had asked and walked away my schoolmates were the most insulting how does a school boy question a newcomer a lost and abashed newcomer on the first day he enters school no matter what kind is a common victim he is ordered around he is teased he is treated like a Lackey some hail and fat boy suddenly stops right in front of his victim and looks at him Point Blank for several moments with a long Stern and arrogant gaze the newcomer stands silently before him looks a scance if he's not a coward and waits for whatever is coming what's your last name dooi Prince dogar Ruki no simply dooi simply fool and he's right there is nothing stupider than to be called Dal guki without being a prince I dragged this stupidity around on my back without any guilt later on when I began to get very angry to the question are you a prince I always answered no I'm the son of a household servant a former surf then when I got angry in the last degree to the question are you a prince I once answered firmly no simply Dal guki the illegitimate son of my former Master Mr versilov I had already thought that up when I was in the sixth class in high school and though I quickly became convinced Beyond doubt that it was stupid all the same I did not stop being stupid at once I remember that one of my teachers though he was the only one found me full of Av vengeful and Civic idea generally they took this Escapade with a sort of offensive thoughtfulness finally one of my classmates a very sarcastic fellow with whom I spoke only once a year said to me with a serious air but looking somewhat a scans such feelings of course do you honor and you undoubtedly have something to be proud of but all the same if I were in your place I wouldn't celebrate my illegitimacy so much you sound like a birthday boy since then I stopped boasting that I was illegitimate I repeat it's very difficult to write in Russian here I've scribbled a whole three pages on how I've spent all my life being angry over my last name and meanwhile the reader has surely concluded that I'm angry precisely because I'm not a prince but simply do gari to explain again and justify myself would be humiliating for me four and so among this household of whom there were a great many besides Makar Ivanovic there was a girl and she was already about 18 years old when the 50-year-old Makar Dal guki suddenly showed the intention of marrying her marriages between domestics as is known were concluded in the time of serfdom with the permission of the Masters and some sometimes even on their orders there was an aunt about the estate then that is she wasn't my aunt she was a landowner herself yet I don't know why but all her life everybody called her aunt not only mine but in general in vero's family as well to which she was in fact almost related this was Tatiana pavlovna prutkov at that time she still had 35 Souls of her own in the same Province and the same district she didn't really manage vero's estate of 500 Souls but supervised it in a neighborly way and that supervision as I heard was worth the supervision of some educated manager however I really don't care about her knowledge I only want to add setting aside all thought of flattery and fawning that this Tatiana pavlovna is a Noble and even original being now she not only did not decline the marital inclinations of the gloomy ma Dal guki they say he was gloomy then but on the contrary for some reason encouraged them in the highest degree Sophia andreevna the 18-year-old surf girl that is my mother had been an orphan for several years already her deceased father also a household surf who had an extraordinary respect for maard D guki and was obliged to him for something as he was dying 6 years earlier on his deathbed they say even a quarter of an hour before his last breath so that if need be it could have been taken for delirium had he not been legally disqualified anyway as a surf summoned maard D gari in front of all the servants and with a priest present and spoke his will to him loudly and insistently pointing to his daughter bring her up and take her to wife everybody heard it as for marari Ivanovic I don't know in what sense he later married her that is with great pleasure or only to fulfill his responsibility most likely he had an air of total indifference this was a man who even then already knew how to show himself he was not exact ly a Bible reader or literate man though he knew the whole church service and especially the lives of certain Saints but more from heay nor exactly a sort of household Reasoner so to speak he simply had a stubborn character sometimes even recklessly so he spoke with pretension judged irrevocably and in conclusion lived deferentially in his own amazing expression that is how he was then of course he achieved Universal respect but they say everyone found him unbearable it was quite a different matter when he left the household then people never referred to him otherwise than as some sort of Saint and great sufferer that I know for certain as for my mother's character Tatiana pavlovna kept her around herself until she was 18 despite the steward's urgings to send her to Moscow for an apprenticeship and she gave her some education that is taught her to cut and sew to walk in a ladylike way and even to read a little my mother never could write passively in her eyes this marriage to Makar Ivanovic had long been a decided thing and she found all that happened to her then excellent and the very best she went to the altar with the calmest air possible on such an occasion so that Tatiana pavlovna herself called her a fish then all this about my mother's character at that time I heard from Tatiana pavlovna herself versilov came to the estate exactly 6 months after the wedding five I only want to say that I never could find out or make a satisfactory surmise as to precisely how it started between him and my mother I'm fully prepared to believe as he assured me himself last year with a blush on his face even though he told about it all with the most unconstrained and witty air that there was not the least romance and that it all happened just so I believe it was just so and that little phrase just so is charming but still I always wanted to find out precisely how it came about with them I myself have hated all this Ness all my life and hate it still of course here it's by no means only Shameless Curiosity on my part I will note that until last year I hardly knew my mother from my infancy I had been handed over to other people for vero's Comfort but of that later and therefore I'm quite unable to imagine what her face could have been like at that time if she was not really so goodlooking then what in her could have attracted such a man as versilov was at that time this question is important for me in that it highlights the man from an extremely curious side that is why I ask it and not out of depravity he himself this Gloomy and closed man with that sweet simple heartedness he took from devil knows where as if out of his pocket when he saw it was necessary he himself told me that he was quite a silly young pup then not that he was sentimental but just so he had recently read Anton the wretch and palinka sax two literary works that had a boundless civilizing influence on our then Rising generation he added that it was perhaps because of Anton the wretch that he had come to the estate then and he added it extremely seriously what form could the beginning between this silly pup and my mother have taken it has just occurred to me that if I had at least one reader he would probably burst out laughing at me as at a most ridiculous adolescent to having preserved his stupid innocence barges with his reasonings and solutions into things he doesn't understand yes indeed I still don't understand though I confess it not at all out of Pride because I know how how stupid this inexperience at the age of 20 can be only I will tell the gentleman that he himself does not understand and I will prove it to him true I know nothing about women and I don't want to know because I'll spit on that all my life and I've given my word but nevertheless I know for certain that one woman attracts you by her beauty or whatever it is from the first moment another you have to chew over for half a year before you understand what's in her and to make her out and fall in love with her it's not enough to look and simply be ready for anything on top of that you have to be somehow gifted I'm convinced of that even though I know nothing and if it were otherwise then all women would have to be reduced at once to the level of simple domestic animals and kept around only in that guise maybe a lot of people would like that I know positively from several hands that my mother was not a beauty though I haven't seen her portrait from that time which exists somewhere that means it was impossible to fall in love with her at first sight for mere Amusement versilov could have chosen another girl and there was one like that and unmarried besides Anisa constantinovna sov a housemaid and a man who arrived with Anton the wretch and on the basis of his rights as a landowner violated the sacredness of marriage even though it was of his household surf would be very ashamed in his own eyes because I repeat no more than a few months ago that is 20 years later he spoke extremely seriously of this Anton the wretch yet Anton only had a horse taken from him and here it's a wife it means something very peculiar happened and that was why Melle sapos kov lost or won in my opinion I bothered him with all these questions a couple of times last year when it was possible to talk with him because it was not always possible to talk with him and I noticed that despite all his worldliness in the space of 20 years he somehow made an extremely Ry face but I insisted at least I remember him once murmuring somehow strangely with that air of worldly squeamishness he repeatedly allowed himself with me that my mother was a person of the defenseless sort whom you don't really fall in love with on the contrary not at all but for some reason suddenly fall to pitying for their meekness is it or for what anyhow No One Ever Knows but you go on pitying for a long time you pity and grow attached in short my dear it sometimes so happens that you cannot even rid yourself of it that's what he told me and if it really was so then I'm forced to regard him as less of a stupid pup at that time than he gives himself out to have been and that was just what I needed anyhow he started assuring me then that my mother fell in love with him out of lonliness he might just as well have said out of serfdom he lied in order to show off lied against conscience against honor and nobility I've said all this of course in some sort of Praise of my mother and yet I've already stated that I knew nothing about how she was then moreover I precisely know all the imperviousness of that milu and of those pathetic Notions in which she had hard since childhood and in which she remained afterwards for the rest of her life nevertheless the harm was done incidentally I must correct myself having soared into the clouds I forgot about the fact which on the contrary ought to have been put forward first of all namely that it started between them directly with the harm I hope the reader will not put on errors to the extent of not understanding at once what I mean to say in short it started between them precisely in a landowner's way even though madmoizelle sajkov was bypassed but here I'll step in and state beforehand that I am by no means contradicting myself for what oh Lord what could a man like versilov possibly have talked about at that time with a person like my mother even in the event of the most irresistible love I've heard heard from depraved people that very often when a man comes together with a woman he starts in complete silence which of course is the height of monstrosity in nausea nevertheless versilov even if he had wanted to would have been unable to start in any other way with my mother could he have started by explaining palinka socks to her and moreover they couldn't be bothered with Russian literature on the contrary according to his own words he got carried away once they hid in the corners waited for each other on stairways bounced away from each other like rubber balls red-faced if somebody passed by and the Tyrant landowner trembled before the least washer woman despite all his surf owning rights but though it started in a land owner's way it turned out to be not quite so and essentially it's it's still impossible to explain anything there's even more Darkness the sheer Dimensions to which their love developed already constituted a riddle because the first condition of men like ver love is to drop the girl immediately once the goal is achieved that however is not how it turned out for a depraved young pup and they were all depraved all of them to a man both progressives and retrogrades to sin with a pretty flirtatious serving girl and my mother was not flirtatious was not only possible but inevitable especially considering his novelistic status as a young widower and his idleness but to fall in love for one's whole life that is too much I can't guarantee that he loved her but that he dragged her with him all his life is quite true I've posed many questions but there is one most important question which I'll note I've never dared to ask my mother directly though I've become quite close to her over the last year and moreover as a crude and ungrateful pup who finds them guilty before him have been quite unceremonious with her the question is the following how could she she herself already married for half a year and crushed too by all the Notions of the legitimacy of marriage crushed like a strengthless fly she who respected her marar Ivanovich as nothing less than some sort of God how could she in a matter of 2 weeks go so far is such a sin for My Mother wasn't a depraved woman was she on the contrary I'll say now beforehand that it is even difficult to imagine anyone being purer in Soul and that for all her life afterwards the only possible explanation is that she did it unawares that is not in the sense that lawyers now affirm about their murderers and thieves but under that strong impression which given a certain simple-hearted in the victim takes over fatally and tragically who knows maybe she fell desperately in love with the fashion of his clothes with the Parisian parting of his hair with his French talk precisely French of which she understood not a sound that romance he sang at the piano fell in love with something she had never seen or heard before and he was very handsome and at the same time fell in love to the point of prostration with all of him with all his Fashions and romances I've heard that that sometimes happened with serving girls in the time of serom and with the most honest of them I understand that and he's a scoundrel who Explains It by serfdom and lonliness alone and so it means that this young man could have enough of that direct and seductive power in him to attract a being hitherto so pure and above all a being so completely different from himself from a totally different world and different land and to such obvious ruin that it was to ruin that I hope my mother has always understood only when she went to it she wasn't thinking of Ruin at all but it's always like that with these defenseless ones they know it's a ruin and yet they get into it having sinned they immediately confessed he wittily recounted to me how he had sobbed on Makar ivanovic's shoulder summoning him to his study on purpose for the occasion and she at the time she was lying unconscious somewhere in her maid's closet six but enough of questions and scandalous details versilov having bought out my mother from marar Ivanovich soon left and since then as I have already written previously began dragging her with him almost everywhere except on those occasions when he was away for a long time then he most often left her in the custody of the aunt that is Tatiana pavlovna prutkov who always turned up from somewhere on such occasions they lived in Moscow lived in various other Villages and cities even abroad and finally in Petersburg of all that later if it's worth it I'll say only that a year after marari Ivanovich I came into the world then a year later my sister and then 10 or 11 years later a sickly boy my younger brother who died after a few months the painful delivery of this child put an end to my mother's beauty or so at least I was told she quickly began to age and weaken but all the same connections with maard Ivanovich were never broken off wherever the versilov were whether they lived in one place for several years or moved about marar Ivanovic never failed to inform the family of himself some sort of strange relations took shape somewhat solemn and almost serious among the Gentry something comic would inevitably have mixed into such relations I know that but here it didn't happen then twice a year neither more nor less and they were extremely like one another I've seen them there was little of anything personal in them on the contrary they contained as far as possible only solemn news about the most General events and the most General feelings if one can say that about feelings news of his own health first of all then questions about health then good wishes solemn regards and blessings that's all this generality and impersonality seem precisely to constitute all the propriety of tone and all the highest knowledge of behavior in that millu to my dearly beloved and esteemed spouse Sophia andreevna I send my humblest salutations to our beloved children I send my eternally steadfast parental blessing the children would all be listed by name as they accumulated and I was there too I will note in this regard that Makar Ivanovich was clever enough never to refer to his honor the most esteemed Master Andre Petrovic as his benefactor though he invariably sent his humblest salutations asking for his good favor and for God's blessing upon him replies were quickly sent to marar Ivanovic by my mother and were always written in exactly the same vein vov naturally did not participate in this correspondence Makar Ivanovic wrote from various ends of Russia from towns and monasteries in which he sometimes stayed for long stretches of time he became what's known as a Wanderer he never asked for anything on the other hand about once every 3 years unfailingly came home for a while and stayed right at my mother's who as always happened had her own apartment separate from vero's apartment I'll have to speak about that later but here I'll only note that Mak Ivanovich did not sprawl on a sofa in the drawing room but modestly settled somewhere behind a partition he never stayed long 5 days a week I forgot to say that he was terribly fond and respectful of his last name dgar Ruki naturally that was ridiculously stupid the stupidest thing was that he liked his last name precisely because there were princes named dalgar Ruki an odd notion completely upside down if I said the whole family was always together that was without me naturally I was like an outcast and had been placed with other people almost from birth but there was no special intention here it simply turned out that way for some reason when my mother gave birth to me she was still young and beautiful and that meant he needed her and a howling baby would naturally have been a hindrance to everything especially when traveling that's why it happened that until I was 20 I saw almost nothing of my mother except for two or three fleeting occasions it came about not from my mother's feelings but from vero's contempt for people seven now about something quite different a month earlier that is a month before the 19th of September in Moscow I decided to renounce them all and go into my own idea for good I set it down like that go into my own idea because this expression May signify almost my whole thought what I live for in the world of what this my own idea is all too much will be said later in the solitary dreaming of my many years of Moscow life it took shape in me from the sixth class of high school on and since then has perhaps not left me for a moment it swallowed up my whole life I lived in dreams even before that lived ever since childhood in a dreamlike realm of a certain Hue but with the appearance of this main idea that swallowed up everything in me my dreams Consolidated and all at once molded themselves into a certain form from stupid they became reasonable school did not interfere with dreams nor did it interfere with the idea I'll add however that I did poorly in the last year whereas up to the seventh grade I had always been one of the first and it happened owing to the same idea owing to a conclusion maybe a false one that I drew from it so it was not school that interfered with the idea but the idea that interfered with school it also interfered with the university having finished high school I immediately intended not only to break radically with everyone but if need be even with the whole world though I was then only 19 I wrote to those I had to through those I had to in Petersburg saying they should leave me in peace for good not send me any more money for my keep and if possible forget me entirely that is naturally in case they remembered me at all and finally that I wouldn't go to the university not for anything I was faced with an irrefutable dilemma either the university and further education or postpone putting the idea to work for another 4 years I stood intrepidly for the idea for I was mathematically convinced versilov my father whom I had seen only once in my life for a moment when I was only 10 years old and who in that one moment had managed to impress me versilov in answer to my letter which incidentally was not sent to him summoned me to Petersburg himself in a letter written with his own hand promising me a private post this summons from a dry and proud man contemptuous and negligent in my regard who until now having produced me and thrown me among strangers not only did not know me at all but never even repented of it who knows maybe he had a vague and imprecise notion of my very existence because it turned out later that it was not he who paid for my upkeep in Moscow but others a summons from this man I say who so suddenly remembered me and dained to write to me in his own hand this summons enticed me and decided my fate strangely one of the things I liked in his little letter one small page of small format was that he didn't say a word about the university did not ask me to alter my decision did not reproach me for not wanting to study in short did not produce any parental faler all of that sort as usually happens and yet that was precisely bad on his part in the sense that it testified still more to his negligence about me I also decided to go because it didn't interfere in the least with my main dream I'll see what comes of it I reasoned in any case I'll be connected with him only for a time maybe a very short time but the moment I see that this step even if it's conditional and small still moves me further away from the main thing I'll immediately break with them drop everything and withdraw into my shell precisely into a shell I'll hide in it like a turtle the comparison pleased me very much I won't be alone I went on calculating going around in a fuddle all those last days in Moscow I'll never be alone now as I was for all those terrible years before I'll have my idea with me which I'll never betray even in the event that I like them all there and they give me happiness and I live with them for 10 years it was this impression I'll note beforehand it was precisely this doubleness of my plans and Dames that was already determined in Moscow and that never left me for a moment in Peters B for I don't know if there was a single day in Petersburg that I didn't set up as my final date for Breaking with them and going away this doubleness I say was also it seems one of the main reasons for my many before this thought intoxicated me both while I was packing in Moscow and on the train the fact of a father was nothing and I disliked tender feelings but this man did not want to know me and humiliated me while all those years I had dreamed long and hard of him if one can say that about dreaming each of my dreams since childhood had echoed with him had hovered around him had in the final result come down to him I don't know whether I hated or loved him but he filled all my future all my Reckoning in life with himself and that happened on its own it went together with my growing up yet another powerful circumstance influenced my departure from Moscow yet another Temptation which even then 3 months before leaving that is when there had not yet been any mention of Petersburg made my heart heave and pound I was also drawn into this unknown ocean because I could enter it directly as the Lord and Master even of other people's Destinies and what people but it was magnanimous and not despotic feelings that seeed in me I warn you beforehand so there will be no mistaking my words versilov might think if he dained to think about about me that this was a little boy coming a recent high school student an adolescent For Whom the whole world was a Marvel and yet I already knew all his innermost secrets and had a most important document on me for which now I know it for certain he would have given several years of his life if I had revealed the whole secret to him then however I noticed that I'm setting a lot of riddles feelings can't be described without facts besides more than enough will be said about all that in its place that's why I've taken up the pen and to write this way is like raving or a cloud eight finally in order to go on definitively to the 19th I'll meanwhile say briefly and so to speak in passing that I found found them all that is versilov my mother and my sister whom I was seeing for the first time in my life in difficult circumstances almost destitute or verging on destitution I had already learned of that in Moscow but I had never supposed what I saw ever since childhood I had been used to picturing this man this future father of mine almost in some sort of Halo and couldn't imagine him otherwise than in the Forefront everywhere versilov had never lived in the same apartment with my mother but had always rented a separate one for her he did it of course out of those mean proprieties of theirs but here they were all living together in the same wooden Wing in a lane of the simonovski quarter all their things had been pawned so that I even gave my mother in secret from verila my secret 60 rubles precisely secret because I had saved them from my pocket money the five rubles a month allotted me over the course of 2 years the saving began from the first day of my idea and therefore versilov was not to know even a word of this money I trembled over it this help was a mere drop my mother worked my sister also took in sewing versilov lived idly was capricious and went on living with a great many of his former rather expensive habits he grumbled terribly especially at dinner and all his manners were completely despotic but my mother my sister Tatiana pavlovna and the whole family of the late andronikov a certain department head deceased 3 months earlier who at the time had managed vero's Affairs which consisted of countless women stood in awe of him as of an idol I could never have pictured such a thing I'll note that 9 years earlier he had been incomparably more elegant I've already said that he remained with some sort of Halo in my dreams and therefore I could not imagine how it was possible to become so aged and shabby only some 9 years later I at once felt sadness pity shame the sight of him was one of the most painful of my first impressions on arrival however he was by no means an old man yet he was only 45 and as I studied him further I found something even more striking in his good looks than what had survived in my memory there was less Brilliance than then less of the external even of the elegant but it was as if life had imprinted on his face face something much more interesting than was there before and yet destitution was only the 10th or 20th part of his misfortunes and I knew it only too well besides destitution there was something immeasurably more serious not to mention that there was still hope of winning the litigation over an inheritance that versilov had started a year before against the princes sakoli and versilov might receive in the nearest future an estate worth 70,000 and maybe a bit more I've already said previously that this versilov had run through three inheritances in his life and here he was going to be rescued Again by an inheritance the case was to be decided in court in the shortest time that was why I came true no one gave out money on hope there was nowhere to borrow and meanwhile they bore with it but versilov did not go to anyone though he sometimes left for the whole day over a year ago he had already been driven out of society that story despite all my efforts remained unclear to me in its main points despite my whole month of life in Petersburg was versilov guilty or not that was What mattered to me that was what I had come for everybody body turned away from him including by the way all the influential nobility with whom he had been especially able to maintain relations all his life owing to rumors of a certain extremely low and what's worst of all in the eyes of the world scandalous act he was supposed to have committed over a year before in Germany and even of a slap in the face he had received then much too publicly precisely from one of the sakolsky princes and to it she had not responded with a challenge even his children the legitimate ones his son and daughter turned away from him and lived separately true both the Son and the daughter floated in the highest Circle through the photovs and old Prince sakoli vero's former friend however looking at him more closely during that whole month what I saw was an arrogant man whom Society had not excluded from its Circle but rather who had himself driven Society away from him so independent an air he had but did he have the right to that air that's what troubled me I absolutely had to find out the whole truth in the very shortest time for I had come to judge this man my own power I still concealed from him but I had either to acknowledge Him or to spurn him altogether and the latter would be all too painful for me and I suffered I'll finally make a full confession this man was dear to me and meanwhile I lived in the same apartment with them worked and barely refrained from being rude in fact I did not refrain having lived with them for a month I became more convinced every day that I simply couldn't turn to him for final explanations the proud man stood right in front of me as a Riddle That insulted me deeply he was even nice and jocular with me but I sooner wanted a quarrel than such jokes all my conversations with him always bore some sort of ambiguity in them that is quite simply some strange mockery on his part at the very beginning he did not meet me seriously when I came from Moscow I could in no way understand why he did that true he achieved the result that he remained impenetrable to me but I could not have lowered myself to beg for serious treatment from him and besides he had astonishing and irresistible ways about him which I didn't know how to deal with in short he treated me like the greenest adolescent something I was almost unable to bear though I knew it would be like that consequently I myself stopped speaking seriously and waited I even almost stopped speaking entirely I was waiting for a certain person on Whose arrival in Petersburg I could definitively learn the truth in that lay my last hope in any case I was prepared to break with him definitively and had already taken all the measures I pied my mother but either him or me that was what I wanted to suggest to her and my sister even the day had been fixed but meanwhile I went to work chapter 2 one on that 19th day of the month I was also to receive my first pay for the first month of my Petersburg service at my private post they never even asked me about this post but simply sent me there it seems on the very first day of my arrival that was very crude and I was almost obliged to protest the post turned out to be in the house of old Prince sakoli but to protest right then would have meant breaking with them at once which though it didn't frighten me at all would have harmed my Essential aims and therefore I accepted the post silently for the time being my silence protecting my dignity I'll explain from the outset that this Prince sakoli a rich man and a privy counselor was in no way related to those princes sakoli from Moscow impoverished wretches for several Generations in a row with whom versilov had his lawsuit they were merely namesakes nevertheless the old Prince took great interest in them and especially liked one of these princes the head of the family so to speak a young officer still recently versilov had had enormous influence on this old man's Affairs and had been his friend a strange friend because the poor Prince as I noticed was terribly afraid of him not only at the time when I entered but it seems throughout their friendship however they hadn't seen each other for a long time the dishonorable Act versilov was accused of concerned precisely the prince's family but Tatiana pavlovna turned up and it was through her mediation that I was placed with the old man who wanted to have a young man in his office it so happened that he also wanted terribly much to do versilov a good turn to make so to speak a first step and versilov allowed it the old Prince made the arrangements in the absence of his daughter a general's Widow who probably would not have allowed him this step of that later but I'll note that it was this strangeness of his relations with versilov that struck me in his favor it stood to reason that if the head of the insulted family still went on respecting versilov it meant that the rumors spread about vero's Bas was absurd or at least ambiguous it was partly this circumstance that forced me not to protest at taking the post in taking it I precisely hoped to verify all that this Tatiana pavlovna played a strange role at the time when I found her in Petersburg I had almost forgotten about her entirely and had never expected that she had such significance previously she had come my way three or four times in my Moscow life appearing from God knows where on somebody's instructions each time I had to be settled somewhere on entering T shar's little boarding school or 2 and 1/2 years later when I was transferred to high school and lodged in the quarters of the unforgettable Nikolai simonovic having appeared she'd spend the whole day with me inspecting my linen my clothes drive with me to kety and down town buy me everything I needed in short set up my whole tro to the last little box and pen knife and she would hiss at me all the while scold me reprimand me quiz me hold up to me the example of some other fantastic boys her acquaintances and relations who supposedly were all better than I was and really she even pinched me and positively shoved me even several times and painfully once she had settled me and installed me in place she would vanish Without a Trace for several years so it was she who just as I arrived appeared and got me in installed again she was a small dry little figure with a sharp birdlike little nose and sharp birdlike little eyes she served versilov like a slave and bowed down to him as to a pope but out of conviction but I soon noticed with astonishment that she was decidedly respected by everyone and everywhere and above all decidedly everywhere and everyone knew her old Prince sakolsky treated her with extraordinary difference so did his family so did those proud veril off children so did the photovs and yet she lived by doing sewing washing some sort of lace taking work from a shop she and I quarreled from the first word because she decided to hiss at me at once as she had done six years before after that we kept warling every day but that did not prevent us from Talking occasionally and I confess by the end of the month I began to like her for the independence of her character I suppose however I did not inform her of that I understood at once that I had been assigned a post with this ailing old man solely in order to amuse him and that the whole job lay in that naturally that humiliated me and I was going to take measures at once but soon afterwards the old eccentric produced a sort of unexpected impression in me something like pity and by the end of the month I grew somehow strangely attached to him or at least I dropped my intention to be rude he was incidentally no more than 60 here A whole story came out a year and a half earlier he had suddenly had a fit he had gone somewhere and had lost his mind on the way so that something like a scandal had occurred which was talked about in Petersburg as is proper in such cases he was immediately taken abroad but about 5 months later he suddenly reappeared and in perfect health though he did leave government service versilov maintains seriously and with notable warmth that there was no Insanity involved but merely some sort of nervous fit I immediately noticed this warmth of versilov however I will note that I myself all but shared his opinion the old man just seemed awfully light-minded at times which didn't go with his ears and they said he hadn't been that way at all before they said that before he had been some sort of advisor somewhere and had once somehow distinguished himself greatly in some Mission he had been charged with having known him for a whole month I would never have supposed any special ability in him for being an adviser they noticed though I did not that after his fit a sort of special inclination developed in him to get married quickly and that he supposedly set about this idea more than once in that year and a half this was supposedly known in society and was of interest to the right people but since this impulse was far too discordant with the interests of certain persons around the prince the old man was watched on all sides his own family was small he had been a widower for 20 years and had only one daughter the General's Widow who was now expected any day from Moscow a young person whose character he unquestionably feared but he had no end of various distant relations mostly on his deceased wife's side who were were all but destitute besides there was a multitude of various Wards male and female who received his benefactions and who all expected a share of his inheritance and so they all assisted the General's Widow in supervising the old man on top of all that ever since he was a young man he had had a certain Quirk only I don't know whether it was ridiculous or not of marrying off impoverished girls he had been marrying the off for 25 years on end distant relations or step-daughters of his wife's cousins or his goddaughters he even married off his doorkeeper daughter he started by taking them into his house while they were still little girls brought them up with governesses and French women then educated them in the best schools and in the end gave them away with a dowy all this constantly crowded around him the wards naturally once they married would produce more girls all the girls thus produced also aimed at becoming Wards he had to go everywhere to baptisms all this showed up with congratulations on his birthdays and he found it all extremely agreeable on entering his service I noticed at once that a certain painful conviction had nested in the old man's mind and it was quite impossible not to notice it that everyone in society had supposedly begun to look at him strangely that everyone had supposedly begun to treat him differently than before when he had been in good health this impression did not leave him even in the merriest social Gatherings The Old Man became insecure began noticing something in everyone's eyes the thought that he was still suspected of insanity obviously tormented him even me he sometimes studied with mistrust and if he had learned that someone was spreading or maintaining this rumor about him I believe this gentlest of men would have become his eternal enemy it is this circumstance that I ask you to take note of I will add that this also decided me from the first day not to be rude to him I was even glad if I sometimes had the chance to cheer him up or divert him I don't think this confession can cast a shadow on my dignity the greater part of his money was invested after his illness he had joined a big shareholding company a very solid one by the way and though the business was conducted by the others he was also very interested in it came to the shareholders meetings was elected a founding member sat on the board delivered long speeches refuted made noise all with obvious pleasure he very much liked making speeches at least everyone could see his intelligence and in general he began to be terribly fond of inserting especially profound things and bom Mo into his conversation even in his most intimate private life that I understand only too well in his house downstairs something like a home office was set up and a clerk took care of the business the accounts and the bookkeeping and also managed the household this clerk who served besides in a government post would have been quite enough by himself but at the wish of the prince they added me as well as if to assist the clerk but I was transferred at once to the study and often had no work in front of me no papers no books not even for pretense I'm writing now like a man who is long since sobered up and in many respects almost like an outsider but how shall I depict my sadness of that time which I vividly recall right now as it lodged itself in my heart and above all my agitation of that time which would reach such a troubled and fervid state that I even didn't sleep at night from my impatience from the riddles that I set myself two asking for money is a vile Affair even when it's your salary if you feel somewhere in the folds of your conscience that you haven't quite earned it meanwhile the day before my mother and sister were Whispering together in secret from versilov so as not to upset Andre Petrovic intending to go to a pawn shop with an icon from her icon stand which for some reason was very dear to her I was working for 50 rubles a month but I had no idea how I would receive it when I was appoint Ed here nobody told me anything some 3 days earlier meeting the clerk downstairs I had asked him who was responsible for the salaries here the man looked at me with a smile of one astonished he didn't like me but do you get a salary I thought that right after my reply he would add and for what sir but he only answered dry that he knew nothing and buried himself in his ruled notebook in which he was copying out accounts from some scraps of paper he was not unaware however that I did do something two weeks earlier I had sat for exactly 4 days over a job he himself had given me making a copy from a rough draft and it had almost come down to rewriting it it was a whole crowd of the prin thoughts which he had prepared to submit to the shareholders committee I had to put it together together into a hole and touch up the style afterwards I spent a whole day sitting over this paper with the prince and he argued with me very vehemently though he remained pleased only I don't know whether he submitted the paper or not I won't even mention the two or three letters also on business which I wrote at his request it was also vexing for me to ask for my salary because I had already decided to give up my position anticipating that I'd be forced to leave here as well owing to ineluctable circumstances waking up that morning and getting dressed upstairs in my little closet I felt my heart pound and though I spat as I entered the Prince's house I again felt the same agitation that morning the person was to arrive here the woman from whose arrival I expected an explanation of all that tormented me this was precisely the the prince's daughter general akm movs Widow the young woman of whom I have already spoken and who is at Bitter enmity with vov at last I've written that name of course I had never seen her and could not imagine how I would speak to her or whether I would but I imagined to myself perhaps on sufficient grounds that her arrival would disperse the darkness that surrounded versilov in my eyes I couldn't remain firm it was terribly vexing that from the very first step I was so pusillanimous and awkward it was terribly curious and above all disgusting three full Impressions I remember that whole day by heart my prince knew nothing as yet about the probable arrival of his daughter and assumed she would return from Moscow maybe in a week but I learned of it the evening before quite by accident Tatiana pavlovna who had received a letter from the General's Widow let it slip to my mother in my presence though they whispered and used remote phrases I guessed it of course I wasn't eavesdropping I simply couldn't help listening when I saw my mother suddenly become so agitated at the news of This Woman's arrival versilov was not at home I didn't want to inform the old man of it because I couldn't help noticing in all that time how afraid he was of her coming he'd even let slip 3 days earlier though timidly and remotely that he was afraid of her coming on account of me that is that on account of me he would get a scolding I must add however that in family relations he still maintained his independence and domination especially in managing money my first conclusion about him was that he was a real woman but then I had to read Rec conclude in the sense that even if he was a woman all the same there remained in him at times a sort of stubbornness if not real courage there were moments when it was almost impossible to do anything with his apparently cowardly and susceptible character versilov explained it to me later in more detail I mention now with curiosity that he and I hardly ever spoke of the General's Widow that is a voice speaking as it were I especially avoided it and he in turn avoided speaking of versilov and I surmised at once that he wouldn't answer me if I were to ask any of the ticklish questions that interested me so much if anyone wants to know what we talked about during that whole month I will reply that essentially it was about everything in the world but all of it somehow strange I very much liked the extreme alertness with which he treated me I sometimes studied the man with extreme perplexity asking myself where was he sitting before he's just right for our high school and for the fourth class at that he'd make the nicest schoolmate I also wondered more than once at his face it looked extremely serious almost handsome and dry thick gray curly hair an open gaze and his whole figure was lean of a good height but his face had a sort of unpleasant almost indecent property of changing suddenly from the extraordinarily serious to the much too playful so that someone seeing it for the first time would never expect it I spoke of it with versilov who heard me out with curiosity it seemed he hadn't expected me to be able to make such observations yet he observed in passing that this property had appeared in the prince after his illness and maybe only quite recently we talked for the most part about two abstract subjects about God and His being that is whether he exists or not and about women the prince was very religious and sentimental in his office hung an enormous icon case with an icon lamp but something would come over him and he'd suddenly begin to doubt God's existence and say astonishing things obviously challenging me to reply my attitude to this idea was rather indifferent generally speaking but even so the two of us would get carried away and always sincerely generally even now I recall all those conversations with pleasure but the sweetest thing of all for him was to chat about women and since since I given my dislike of conversations on that topic could not be a good interlocutor he would sometimes even get upset he had just begun talking in this vein as I came in that morning I found him in a playful mood while the previous evening I had left him extremely sad for some reason yet I absolutely had to be done that day with the matter of my salary before the arrival of certain persons I calculated that we would be interrupted that day without fail not for nothing was my heart pounding and then perhaps I wouldn't venture to talk about money but since one couldn't just start talking about money I naturally got angry at my own stupidity and as I remember it now vexed at some much too Merry question he asked me I fired all my views of women at him at once and that with extreme ardor but the result was that he got still more carried away worse luck for me three I don't like women because they're rude because they're awkward because they're not independent and because they wear indecent clothes I concluded my lengthy TI raade incoherently have mercy dear heart he cried terribly amused with which made me still angrier I'm yielding and trifling only in Trifles but I will never yield in the main thing in Trifles in certain social manners one can do God knows what with me and I've always cursed this tradeit in myself out of some stinking good-naturedness I have sometimes been ready to yes even some Society fop seduced solely by his courtesy or to get into an argument with a fool which is most unpardonable all from lack of self-control and from having grown up in a corner you go away angry and swearing that tomorrow it won't be repeated but tomorrow the same thing happens again that's why I've sometimes been taken almost for a 16-year-old but instead of acquiring self-control I prefer even now to shut myself up still more in a corner though it be in the most misanthropic way maybe I'm awkward but farewell I say that seriously and forever however I am by no means writing this aopo of The Prince and not even appropo of our conversation that time I am by no means saying it for your amusement I almost shouted at him I am simply voicing a conviction but how is it that women are rude and indecently dressed that's novel they're rude go to the theater go for a prominade every man knows the right side they come towards each other and pass each other he on the right and I on the right a woman that is a lady I'm speaking of ladies com stomping straight at you without even noticing you as if it were your unfailing duty to jump aside and yield her the way I'm ready to yield as to a weaker being but why is it her right why is she so sure I must do it that's what's offensive I always spit when I run into them and after that they cry that they're humiliated and demand equality what kind of equality is it if she tramples me down or stuffs my mouth full of sand sand yes because they're indecently dressed only a depraved man can fail to notice that they shut the doors in courts when a case gets to indecency why then do they allow it in the streets where there are a lot more people they pad themselves quite openly with some fruu behind to show that they're Bell Thum openly I can't help noticing it and any young man will notice it and a child a beginning little boy will also notice it it's Bas let old philanderers admire it and run after them with with their tongues hanging out but there are pure young people who must be protected the only thing left to do is spit she goes down the Boulevard and leaves a 4-ft train behind her sweeping the dust how about the one behind her you either have to run ahead or jump aside otherwise she'll stuff 5 lbs of sand in your nose and mouth besides it's silk and she fras it on the stones for three miles just for the sake of fashion and her husband earns 500 rubles a year in the Senate there's where the bribes are sitting I always spit on it I spit and barate them out loud though I'm writing down this conversation somewhat humorously here and in a way characteristic of me then the thinking is still mine and get away with it the prince became curious I spit and walk away naturally she feels it but she doesn't let it show she Stomps on majestically without turning her head and there was only one time that I bered a couple of them quite seriously both with trains on the boulevard naturally not in nasty words I merely observed out loud the trains were offensive that's how you put it of course first she's trampling on social conventions and second she's raising dust and the boulevard is for everybody I walk there another person walks there a third Fodor Ivon it makes no difference so I spoke it all out and generally I don't like the female gate if you look from behind I spoke that out too but in a hint my friend you could have gotten into a serious incident they could have dragged you to the justice of the peace they could have done nothing at all there were no grounds for complain a man walks by and talks to himself every man has the right to voice his conviction into the air I was speaking abstractly I wasn't addressing them they themselves did the pestering they started berating me they were much nastier than I was milk soop ought to go without dinner nihilist hand him over to the police and that I started pestering them because they were alone and weak women and that if there had been a man with them I'd have put my tail between my legs at once I told them cooly that they should stop bothering me and that I would cross to the other side and in order to prove to them that I'm not afraid of their men and I'm ready to accept their challenge I will follow 20 steps behind them right to their house then stand in front of their house and wait for their men and so I did really of course it was stupid but I was worked up they dragged me for for over 3 miles in hot weather as far as the institutes went into a one-story wooden house quite a decent one I must admit and you could see lots of flowers inside two canaries three lap dogs and some framed prints I stood in the middle of the street in front of the house for about half an hour they peaked out on the slide three times or so and then Drew all the blinds finally an official came out of the gate an elderly man judge by his looks he had been asleep and had been awakened on purpose he was wearing not quite a house robe but something very informal he stood by the gate put his hands behind his back and started looking at me and I at him he would glance away then look at me again and suddenly he began to smile at me I turned around and left my friend this is something Shiller esque it has always surprised me you've got Ruddy cheeks your face is bursting with health and such a one might say aversion to women how is it possible that at your age a woman does not make a certain impression when I was just 11 mare my tutor observed to me that I gazed too much at the statues in the summer garden you'd like ter terribly for me to go and visit some local Josephine and come to let you know there's no need I myself when I was just 13 saw a woman's nakedness all of it since then I felt this loathing seriously but sh a beautiful fresh woman smells just like an apple what's there to loath in my former little boarding school at shs even before high school I had a comrade lomber he used to beat me because he was more than 3 years older and I served him and took his boots off when he went to confirmation the visited him to congratulate him on his first communion and the two rushed in tears to embrace each other and the started pressing him to his breast terribly hard with various gestures I also wept and was very envious when his father died he left school and I didn't see him for 2 years but after 2 years I met him in the street he said he would come to see me I was already in high school and was living with Nikolai simonovich he came in the morning showed me 500 rubles and told me to come with him though he had beaten Me 2 years earlier he had always needed me not only for his boots he used to tell me everything he told me that he had stolen the money that day from his mother's cash box having duplicated the key because his father's money was all his by law and she dared not keep it from him and that the had come the day before to admonish him came in stood over him and started whimpering portraying horror and raising his arms to the sky and and I pulled my knife and said I'd cut his throat he pronounced it throt we drove to ketki on the way he told me that his mother had relations with the and that he had noticed it and that he spat on it all and that everything they said about communion was rubbish he said a lot more and I was frightened in ketki he bought a double barreled shotgun a game bag cartridges a horse Whip and then also a pound of candy we drove out of town to shoot and on our way met a bird catcher with his cages lamb bought a canary from him in the woods he let the canary out because it couldn't fly far after being in a cage and began shooting at it but missed it was the first time in his life he had shot a gun but he had been wanting to buy a gun for a long time still at two shes and we had long dreamed of a gun he was as if spluttering his hair was terribly black his face white and red cheek like a mask his nose long and aqualine such as Frenchmen have his teeth white his eyes black he tied the canary to a branch with a thread and with both barrels point blank from 4 in away away blasted it twice and it scattered into a hundred Little Feathers then we went back stopped at a hotel took a room began eating and drinking champagne a lady came I was very struck I Remember by how magnificently she was dressed in green silk here I saw all that what I told you about afterwards when we started drinking again he began to taunt her and abuse her she was sitting there without her dress he had taken her dress away and when she began cursing and asking for her dress so that she could put it on he started whipping her as hard as he could on her bare shoulders with the whip I stood up and seized him by the hair so deafly that I threw him to the floor at once he seized a fork and stuck it into my thigh then then people rushed in hearing the shouting and I managed to escape since then the memory of nakedness has been loathsome to me believe me she was a beauty as I talked the prince's face changed from playful to very sad I've always been convinced that there were a great many unhappy days in your childhood Hood please don't worry but you were alone you told me so yourself though there was this Lumber the way you described it the canary the confirmation with tears on each other's breasts and then after a year or so he speaks of his mother and this Abbot oh mare this children question of our time is simply frightful while these little golden heads with their curls and innocence in their earliest childhood flutter before you and look at you with their bright laughter and bright little eyes they're like God's angels or lovely little birds but later but later it so happens that it would be better for them not to grow up at all how unnerved you are Prince as if you had children yourself you don't have children and never will his face changed instantly in fact Alexandra petrovna the day before yesterday Alexandra petrovna sinitski I think you must have met her here about 3 weeks ago imagine suddenly the day before yesterday to my cheerful remark that if I marry now at least I can rest assured that I won't have children suddenly she says to me and even with a sort of spite on the contrary you precisely will such a one as you will unfailingly have children even in the very first year you'll see and everybody imagined for some reason that I'd suddenly get married but though it's spiteful you must agree it's witty witty but offensive well Sher one cannot be offended by just anybody what I appreciate most of all in people is wittiness which is evidently disappearing and what Alexandra petrovna is going to say who can take that into account what what did you say I latched on not by just anybody precisely so not everybody's worth paying attention to an excellent rule that is precisely what I need I'll write it down you occasionally say the nicest things Prince he beamed all over true wit is disappearing more and more but I I'm the one who knows women believe me every woman's life whatever she may preach is an eternal search for someone to submit to a thirst for submission so to speak and note without a single exception perfectly true Splendid I cried in delight at another time we would have launched at once into philosophical Reflections on the subject for a whole hour but it was as if something suddenly bit me and I blushed all over I imagine that by praising is balm Mo I was sucking up to him on account of the money and that he would be sure to think of that when I began to ask I mention it now on purpose Prince I humbly request that you pay me right now the 50 rubles you owe me for this month I blurred it out all at once irritated to the point of rudeness I remember just as I remember that whole morning in minute detail that a scene then took place between us that was most vile in its real truth at first he didn't understand me looked for a long time and did not understand what money I was talking about it was only natural that he never imagined I should receive a salary and what for true he started assuring me later that he had forgotten and when he grasped it he instantly started taking out the 50 rubles but he became hurried and even turned red seeing how things were I stood up and declared sharply that I could not accept the money now that I had obviously been told of the salary either mistakenly or deceitfully so that I would not reject the post and that I now understood only too well that I had no reason to be paid because there wasn't any work the prince became frightened and started assuring me that I had worked terribly much and that I would have still more work and that 50 rubles was so insignificant that he on the contrary would increase it because it was his duty and that he himself had negotiated with taana pavlovna but had unpardonably forgotten all about it I flared up and announced definitively that it would be mean of me to receive a salary for scandalous stories of how I had accompanied two trains to the institutes that I had not been hired to amuse him but to occupy myself with business but since there was no business it must be terminated etc etc I couldn't even have imagined that it was possible to be as frightened as he was after these words of mine naturally the end was that I stopped objecting and he did stick me with the 50 rubles to this day I blush to recall that I accepted it things always end in meanness in this world and worst of all he almost managed to convince me then that I had unquestionably earned it and I had the foolishness to believe it and with that it was somehow decidedly impossible not to take it sh sh he exclaimed kissing and embracing me I confess I myself was about to weep devil knows why though I instantly restrained myself myself and even now as I write color comes to my face dear friend you're now like one of my own in this month you've become like a piece of my own heart in society there is only society and nothing more Katarina nikolayevna his daughter is a brilliant woman and I'm proud of it but she often affend ends me my dear very very often well and these girls Elon shont and their mothers who come on birthdays they only bring their embroidery but they don't know how to say anything I've accumulated 60 pillows with their embroidery all dogs and deer I love them very much but with you I'm almost as if with my own and not with a son but a brother and I especially like it when you object you're literary you've read you know how to admire I've read nothing and am not literary at all I've read whatever happened along but in the past 2 years I haven't read it all and don't intend to why not I have other goals sh it's a Pity to say at the end of your life as I do I know everything but I don't know anything worthwhile I decidedly do not know why I've lived in the world but I owe you so much and I even want it he broke off somehow suddenly went limp and became pensive after a shock and with him the shocks could come every other minute God knows why he usually seemed to lose his good sense for a while and be unable to control himself however he would soon put himself to rights so it was all harmless we sat for a minute his lower lip which was very thick hung down most of all I was surprised that he had suddenly mentioned his daughter and with such cander of course I ascribed it to his being upset sh you're not angry that I address you familiarly are you suddenly escaped him not in the least I confess in the beginning the first few times I was slightly offended and also wanted to address you familiarly but I saw it was stupid because you surely don't do it to humiliate me he was no longer listening and had forgotten his question well how's your father he suddenly raised his pensive eyes to me I simply jumped first he had designated versilov as my father something he had never allowed himself with me and second he had begun speaking of versilov something that had never happened before sits without money and mopes I replied briefly burning with curiosity myself yes about money their case is to be decided today in the district court and I'm waiting for Prince seroa and what he'll come with he promised to come to me straight from Court their whole Destiny is involved it's 60 or 880,000 of course I've always wished the best for Andre Petrovic veril off that is and it seems he'll come out the winner and the princes will be left with nothing law in court today I exclaimed struck the thought that verila had neglected to inform me even of that struck me in the extreme that means he said nothing to mother or maybe to anybody it occurred to me all at once what character and is Prince sakolsky in Petersburg another thought suddenly struck me since yesterday straight from Berlin especially for this day another extremely important piece of news for me and he'll come here today this man who gave him a slap well what of it the prince's whole face suddenly changed he still preaches God as he used to and and maybe still goes after the girls after unfledged little girls right now too there's a most amusing anecdote hatching who preaches who goes after the girls Andre Petrovic would you believe he pestered us all back then like a bur what do we eat what do we think or almost like that frightened us and purified us if you're religious why don't you go and become a monk he demanded almost that make Kelly day but what an idea even if it's right isn't it too severe it was me especially that he liked to Fright with the last judgment me of all people I haven't noticed any of that and I've lived with him for a month now I replied listening impatiently it was terribly vexing that he hadn't quite come to his senses and mumbled so incoherently he just doesn't say it now but believe me it's so the man is clever indisputably and deeply educated but is that the right kind of intelligence it all happened to him after his three years abroad and I confess he shocked me very much he shocked everybody I love God I believe I believe as much as I can but I was certainly beside myself then suppose I used a frivolous method but I did it on purpose in vexation and besides the essence of my objection was as serious as it has been from the beginning of the world if there is a Supreme Being I say to him and it exists personally and not in the form of some sort of spirit poured over Creation in the form of a liquid or whatever because that is still more difficult to understand where then does it live my friend set bet it was stupid undoubtedly but that's what all objections boil down to all doil is an important matter he was terribly angry he converted to Catholicism there I've also heard about that idea nonsense surely I assure you by all that's holy look at him well however you say he's changed well but at that time he tormented us all so would you believe he behaved as if he were a saint and his relics were about to be revealed he demanded an account of our behavior from us I swear to you relics voila un there's another one well let him be a monk or an anchorite but here's a man going around in a tail coat and all the and then suddenly his relics a strange wish for a man of the world and I confess a strange taste I don't say anything about it of course it's all holy and anything can happen besides it's all Delon but for a man of the world it's even indecent if it should somehow happen to me or they should offer it to me I swear I'd refuse why suddenly I'm dining today in a club and then suddenly I reveal myself no I'd be a laughing stalk I told him all that then he wore chains I turned red with anger did you see the chains yourself I didn't myself but then I declare to you that it's all a lie a tissue of vile minations and enemy slander that is of one enemy the chiefest and most inhuman one because he has only one enemy your daughter the prince flushed in his turn M I beg you and I insist that in the future my daughter's name never be mentioned again in my presence together with this vile story I Rose slightly he was beside himself his chin was trembling set in I didn't believe it I never wanted to believe it but they tell me believe it believe it I here the valet suddenly came in again and announced a visitor I sank back down on my chair four two ladies came in both young one the stepdaughter of one of the cousins of the prince's late wife or something of the sort his Ward for whom he had already allotted a Del and who I noted for the future had money of her own the other was Anna andreevna versilov vero's daughter three years older than I who lived with her brother at Madame foto's and whom before then I had seen only once in my life fleetingly in the street though I had already had a skirmish with her brother also fleetingly in Moscow quite possibly I'll mention that Skirmish later on if there is room though essentially it's not worth it this Anna andreevna had been a special favorite of the princes since childhood vero's acquaintance with the prince began terribly long ago I was so embarrassed by what had just transpired that I didn't even stand up when they came in though the prince stood up to meet them and afterwards I thought it embarrassing to stand up and remained in my place above all I was thrown off because the prince had been shouting at me just 3 minutes before and I still didn't know whether I should leave or not but my old man had already forgotten everything completely as was his want and was all pleasantly animated at the sight of the girls he even managed with a quick change of physiognomy and a sort of mysterious wink to whisper to me hastily just before they came in take a look at olympiada look closely closely I'll tell you later I looked at her quite closely and found nothing special not a very tall girl plump and with extremely Ruddy cheeks her face however was rather Pleasant the kind that the materialists like her expression was kind perhaps but with a wrinkle she could not have been especially brilliant intellectually at least not in a higher sense but one could see cunning in her eyes no more than 19 years old in short nothing remarkable we'd have called her a pillow in high school if I describe her in such detail it's solely because I'll need it in the future by the way everything I've been describing so far with such apparently unnecessary detail all leads to the Future and will be needed there it will all echo in its own place I've been able to avoid it and if it's boring I beg you not to read it vero's daughter was quite a different sort of person tall even slightly lean an elongated and remarkably pale face but black fluffy hair big dark eyes a profound gaze small and red lips a fresh mouth the first woman whose gate did not fill me with loathing however she was thin and lean the expression of her face was not entirely kind but imposing 22 years old hardly a single external feature resembling versilov and yet by some miracle an extraordinary resemblance to him in her facial expression I don't know if she was goodlooking that's some matter of taste both women were dressed very modestly so it's not worth describing I expected to be offended At Once by some look or gesture from Miss versilov and I prepared myself for her brother had offended me in Moscow at our very first confrontation in life she couldn't have known me by my face but she had certainly heard that I visited the prince everything the prince proposed or did aroused interest and was an event among that whole heap of his relations and expectant ones the more so his sudden part partiality for me I knew positively that the prince was very interested in the fate of Anna andreevna and was seeking a fiance for her but it was more difficult to find a fiance for Miss versilov than for the ones who embroidered on canvas and so contrary to all expectation miss versilov having shaken the prince's hand and exchanged some cheerful social phrases with him looked at me with extraordinary curiosity and seeing that I was also looking at her suddenly bowed to me with a smile true she had just walked in and her bow was in greeting but her smile was so kind that it was obviously deliberate and I recall that I experienced an extraordinarily Pleasant feeling and this this is my dear and young friend aradi andreevich D the prince murmured noticing that she had bowed to me while I was still sitting and suddenly broke off perhaps he became embarrassed that he was introducing me to her that is essentially a brother to a sister the pillow also gave me a bow but I suddenly flew into a stupid rage and jumped up from my seat a surge of affected Pride completely senseless all from selflove excuse me Prince I am not AR andreich but aradi marovich I cut off cuttingly quite forgetting that I ought to have responded to the lady's bows devil take that indecent moment the prince Cried Out striking himself on the forehead with his finger where did you study I heard beside me the silly and drawn out question of the pillow who had come over to me in a high school in Moscow ah so I heard and do they teach well there very well I went on standing and spoke like a soldier reporting the girls questions were indisputably unresourceful but nevertheless she did manage to cover up my stupid Escapade and to ease the embarrassment of the prince who listened at the same time with a merry smile to something Miss ver seov was merrily whispering to him evidently not about me a question though why should this girl a total stranger to me volunteer to cover up my stupid Escapade and all the rest at the same time it was impossible to imagine that she had addressed me just like that there was an intention here she looked at me all too curiously as if she also wanted me to take as much notice of her as possible I figured it all out afterwards and was not mistaken what today the prince cried suddenly leaping up from his place so you didn't know Miss versilov was surprised olp the prince didn't know that Katarina nikolayevna would be here today we came to see her we thought she took the morning train and had long been at home we only just met her on the porch she came straight from the station and told us to go to you and that she would come presently here she is the side door opened and that woman appeared I already knew her face from an astonishing portrait that hung in the prince's office I had studied that portrait all month in her presence I spent some three minutes in the office and not for one second did I tear my eyes from her face but if if I hadn't known the portrait and had been asked after those 3 minutes what is she like I wouldn't have been able to answer because everything became clouded in me I only remember from those 3 minutes a truly beautiful woman whom the prince was kissing and making crosses over and who suddenly just as soon as she entered quickly began looking at me I clearly heard how the prince obviously pointing to me murmured something with a sort of little laugh about a new secretary and spoke my last name she somehow jerked her face up gave me a nasty look and smiled so insolently that I suddenly made a step went up to the prince and murmured trembling terribly without finishing a single word and I think with chattering teeth from then on I my own Affairs now I'm going and I turned and went out no one said a word to me not even the prince they all merely looked the prince later told me that I turned so pale that he was simply frightened well who could care chapter 3 1 precisely who could care the highest consideration absorbed all Trifles and one powerful feeling satisfied me forever everything I went out in a sort of rapture stepping into the street I was ready to start singing as if on purpose it was a lovely Morning Sun passers by noise movement Joy the crowd but hadn't this woman insulted me from whom would I have borne such a look and such an insolent smile without an immediate protest even the stupidest it makes no difference on my part note that she was coming just so as to insult me the sooner without ever having seen me in her eyes I was vero's agent and she was convinced even then and for a long time afterwards that versilov held her entire Fate In His Hands and had the means to ruin her at once if he wished to by means of a certain document she suspected as much at least this was a duel to the death and here I was not in insulted there was an insult but I didn't feel it far from it I was even glad having come to hate her I even felt I was beginning to love her I don't know can a spider hate the fly it has picked out and wants to catch sweet little fly it seems to me that one loves one's victim at least one may you see I Love My Enemy I find it terribly pleasing for instance that she's so beautiful I find it terribly pleasing Madam that you are so hoty and Majestic if you were a bit meaker the satisfaction wouldn't be so great you spat upon me but I'm triumphant if you were actually to spit in my face with real spit I really might not get angry because you are my Victim mine and not his what a fascinating thought no the secret awareness of power is unbearably more enjoyable than manifest domination if I were worth a 100 million I think I'd precisely enjoy going around in my old clothes so as to be taken for the measi of men who all but begs for alms and be pushed around and despised for me the Consciousness alone would be enough that was how I would have translated my thoughts and my joy at that time and much of what I felt I will add only that here in what I've just written it has come out more light-minded in reality I was more profound and modest maybe even now I'm more modest in myself than in my words and deeds God grant it maybe I've done a very bad thing in sitting down to right there is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words your thought even a bad one while it is with you is always more profound but in words it is more ridiculous and dishonorable versilov told me that the complete opposite happens only with the worst people they just lie it's easy for them while I'm trying to write the whole truth which is terribly hard two on this 19th day of the month I took one more step for the first time since my arrival I had money in my pocket because my 60 rubles which I had saved up over 2 years I had given to my mother as I mentioned previously but several days earlier I had resolved that on the day I got my salary I would make a test I had long been dreaming of just the day before I'd cut out an address from a newspaper an announcement by the baliff of the St Petersburg civil court and so on and so forth that on the 19th of September instant at 12:00 noon in the Kazan quarter such and such Precinct etc etc at house number whatever the sale of the movable property of Mrs lebre will take place and that the description value and property itself can be seen on the day of the sale etc etc it was just pass 1:00 I hurried on foot to the address it was over 2 years since I'd taken a cab I gave my word otherwise I wouldn't have saved 60 rubles I never went to auctions I couldn't afford it yet and though my present step was only tentative even this step I had resolved to resort to only when I had finished school when I had broken with everyone when I had shrunk into my shell and become completely free true I was still far from being in a shell and far from being free but I resolved to take the step only as a test just so in order to see almost to dream a little as it were and then perhaps not to come for a long time until it was a serious beginning for everyone else it was only a small stupid little auction but for me it was the first log for the ship in which Columbus went to discover America those were my feelings at the time reaching the place I went into the courtyard indicated on the announcement and entered Mrs Le's apartment the apartment consisted of a front hall and four not very big not very high ceilinged rooms in the first room beyond the hall there was a crowd of up to 30 people of whom half were buyers and the rest judging by their looks were either curious or amateurs or sent from Mrs lebre there were both both merchants and Jews who had their eye on the gold things and there were several people dressed properly even the physiognomies of some of these gentlemen are imprinted on my memory in the room to the right in the open doorway a table had been placed squarely between the doorposts so that it was impossible to enter that room the objects being perquisition and sold were there to the left was another room but the doors to it were closed though they kept opening every moment by a little crack through which someone could be seen peeking out it must have been one of Mrs lebra's numerous family who naturally felt very ashamed at the moment at the table between the doors facing the public Mr baliff sat on a chair wearing a badge and carried out the sale of the objects I found the business almost half over already as soon as I entered I made my way through the crowd to the table bronze candlesticks were being sold I began to look I looked and at once began to think what can I buy here and what was I going to do right now with bronze candlesticks and what I achieve my goal and was this how things were done and would my calculation succeed and wasn't my calculation childish I thought of all this and waited it was the same sort of sensation as at the gambling table at the moment when you haven't played a card yet but have come over with the intention of playing I'll play if I want and I'll leave if I want it's my choice your heart isn't pounding yet but somehow hesitates and thrills slightly a sensation not without pleasure but indecision quickly begins to weigh you down and you somehow turn blind you reach out you take a hard but mechanically almost against your will as if someone else was guiding your hand finally you make up your mind and play here the sensation is quite different tremendous I'm writing not about the auction but only about myself who else would have a pounding heart at an auction there were some who got excited there were some who kept silent and bided their time time there were some who bought and regretted it I felt no pity at all for a gentleman who by mistake having misheard bought a nickel silver pitcher instead of a silver one for five rubles instead of two I even began to feel rather merry the BFF varied the objects after the candle sticks came earrings after the earrings an embroidered Morocco pillow followed by a box probably for the sake of diversity or in line with the buyer's demands I didn't even hold out for 10 minutes was tending towards the pillow then towards the box but each time I stopped at the decisive moment the objects seemed quite impossible to me finally an album turned up in the BFF's hands a family album Bound in red Morocco worn with with drawings in watercolor and ink and a carved Ivory case with silver clasps the starting price is two rubles I went up the object looked refined but there was a flaw in one place in the ivory carving I was the only one who went up everybody was silent there were no competitors I could have unfasten the clasps and taken the album out of the case to examine it but I didn't exercise my right and only waved a trembling hand as if to say it makes no difference two rubles five copcs I said again I believe with chattering teeth it fell to me I took out the money at once paid snatched the album and went into a corner of the room there I took it out of the case and feverishly hurriedly began to examine it accepting the case it was the trashiest thing in the world a little album the size of small format letter paper thin with worn guilt edges exactly the kind that girls used to start keeping in the old days as soon as they left the Institute temples on Hills Cupids a pond with swans floating on it were drawn in watercolors and ink there were verses I am setting out for far away I am leaving Moscow for for many A Day to all my dear ones I say goodbye by stage coach to the CL I fly they've been preserved in my memory I decided that I had failed if there was anything nobody needed this was precisely it never mind I decided you always lose on the first card it's even a good omen I was decidedly cheerful ah I'm too late it's yours did you acquire it I suddenly heard beside me the voice of a gentleman in a dark blue coat well-dressed and of an imposing air he was too late I'm too late a what a Pity how much two rubles five copcs oh what a Pity won't you let me have it let's step out I whispered to him my heart skipping a beat we went out to the stairway I'll let you have it for 10 rubles I said feeling a chill in my spine 10 rubles good Heavens how can you as you wish he stared wide-eyed at me I was well-dressed in no way resembled a Jew or a retailer merciful Heavens it's a trashy old album who needs it it the case is in fact quite worthless you won't sell it to anybody you want to buy it but mine is a special case I found out only yesterday I'm the only one like that good Heavens how can you I should have asked 25 rubles but since there was a risk that you'd let it go I asked only 10 so as to be sure I won't even go down a copc I turned and walked away take four rubles he overtook me in the courtyard or make it five I said nothing and walked on all right here he took out 10 rubles and I gave him the album but you must agree it's dishonest two rubles and 10 eh why dishonest it's the market what kind of Market is this he was angry where there's demand there's the market if you hadn't asked I wouldn't have been able to sell it for 40 copcs though I wasn't laughing out loud and looked serious I did laugh my head off inwardly not really with delight but I don't know why myself slightly out of breath listen I murmured quite irrepressibly but amiably and loving him terribly listen when James rootshield the late one in Paris the one who left 1,700 million Franks the man nodded while still a young man when he chanced to learn a few hours ahead of everybody else about the murder of the Duke of Barry he rushed off at once to inform the right people and with that one trick in one instant made several million that's the way to do it so you're hotshield are you he shouted at me IND L as at a fool I quickly left the house one step and I'd made 7 rubles 95 copcs the step was meaningless Child's Play I agree but even so it coincided with my thought and couldn't help stirring me extremely deeply however there's no point in describing feelings the 10 Ruble bill was in my waist coat pocket I stuck to two fingers in to feel it and walked along that way without taking my hand out having gone about 100 steps down the street I took it out to look at it looked and wanted to kiss it a carriage suddenly clattered at the porch of a house the doorkeeper opened the door and a lady came out of the house to get into the carriage magnificent young beautiful rich in silk and velvet with a 5-ft train suddenly a pretty little pocketbook dropped from her hand and fell on the ground she got in the valet bent down to pick up the little thing but I ran over quickly picked it up and handed it to the lady tipping my hat it was a top hat I was dressed like a young gentleman not so badly with restraint but smiling most pleasantly the lady said to me mer miss the carriage clattered off I kissed the 10 Ruble Bill three that same day I had to see yafim Zev one of my former High School comrades who had dropped out of school and enrolled in some specialized higher Institute in Petersburg he himself is not worth describing and in fact I wasn't friends with him but I had looked him up in Petersburg he could owing to various circumstan ances that are also not worth talking about tell me the address of a certain craft a man I needed very much once he came back from vno Zev expected him precisely that day or the next and had informed me of it two days before I had to walk to the Petersburg side but I wasn't tired at all I found Zev who was also about 19 years old in the courtyard of his aunt's house where he was living temporarily he had just had dinner and was walking around the courtyard on stilts he informed me at once that craft had arrived the day before and stopped off at his former apartment also there on the Petersburg side and that he wished to see me himself as soon as possible to informed me immediately of something necessary he's going away again yafim added since in my present circumstances it was of capital importance for me to see craft I asked efim to take me at once to his apartment which turned out to be two steps away in a lane but Zev declared that he had met craft an hour before and that he had gone to see deracho so let's go to der's why do you keep making excuses are you scared indeed craft might spend a long time at deracho and then where was I to wait for him I wasn't scared of going to deracho but I didn't want to though this was already the third time Yim tried to drag me there and this scared he always pronounced with the nastiest smile on my score it wasn't a matter of being scared I declare beforehand and if I was afraid it was of something quite different this time I decided to go it was also just two steps away as we went I asked yafim whether he still intended to run away to America I may wait a little he answered with a slight laugh I didn't much like him I even didn't like him at all his hair was very blonde he had a full much too white face even indecently white to the point of infantility and he was even taller than I but you wouldn't have taken him for more than 17 years old I had nothing to talk about with him and what's there always a crowd I asked for the sake of solidity but why do you keep getting scared he laughed again go to the devil I got angry not a crowd at all only acquaintances come and all our people rest assured but what the devil business is it of mine whether they're all your people or not am I one of your people why should they go and trust me I'm bringing you and that's enough they've even heard about you craft can also speak for you listen will vasin be there I don't know if he is nudge me as soon as we go in and point to vasin as soon as we go in you hear I had heard a lot about vasin and had long been interested deracho lived in a little wing in the courtyard of a wooden house that belonged to a Merchant's Widow but the whole Wing was at his disposal there were three good rooms in all the four Windows all had their blinds lowered he was a technician and had a job in Petersburg I had heard in passing that he had been offered a profitable private Post in the provinces and that he was about to set off as soon as we went into the tiny front hall we heard voices there seemed to be a heated argument and someone shouted in French what is not cured by medicines will be cured by Iron what is not CED by Iron will be CED by fire I was actually somewhat worried of course I wasn't used to company even whatever it might be in high school I had addressed all my comrades informally but I was comrades with almost none of them I had made myself a corner and lived in my corner but that was not what troubled me in any case I had promised myself not to get into any argument ments and to say only what was most necessary so that no one could draw any conclusions about me above all don't argue in the room which was even much too small there were some seven people 10 including the women deracho was 25 years old and he was married his wife had a sister and another female relation they also lived at der's the room was furnished halfhazard though sufficiently and was even clean on the wall hung a lithographic portrait but a very cheap one and in the corner an icon without a casing but with a lighted icon lamp dgov came over to me shook hands and invited me to sit down sit down they're all our people here be so kind a young woman added at once she was rather pretty very modestly dressed and having bowed slightly to me she at once went out this was his wife and it seemed by the look of it that she too had been arguing but had now gone to nurse the baby the other two ladies remained in the room one very short about 20 years old in a black dress and also not a badl looking sort while the other was about 30 dry and sharp eyed they sat listened very much but did not enter into the conversation as far as the men were concerned they were all standing and the only ones seated apart from me were craft and vasin yafim pointed them out to me at once because I was now seeing craft as well for the first time in my life I got up from my seat and went over to make their acquaintance I'll never forget Craft's face no special Beauty but something as if all too Meek and delicate though personal dignity showed everywhere 26 years old rather lean of above average height blonde his face grave but soft overall there was something gentle in him and yet if you had asked me I would never have traded my maybe even very benol face for his face which I found so attractive there was something in his face that I wouldn't want to have in mine something all too calm in a moral sense something like a sort of secret unconscious Pride however I was probably unable to judge so literally then it seems to me now that I judged that way then that is after the event I'm very glad you've come said craft I have a letter that concerns you we'll sit here a while and then go to my place derat was of medium height broad shouldered very darkhaired with a big beard in his glance one could see quick wittedness and restraint in everything a certain constant weariness though he was mainly silent he was obviously in control of the conversation Vin's physiognomy did not impress me very much though I had heard he was extremely intelligent blonde with big light gray eyes a very open face but at the same time there was something as if excessively hard in it one sensed little sociability but his gaze was decidedly intelligent more intelligent than der's more profound the most intelligent in the room however maybe I'm exaggerating it all now of the rest I recall only two faces among all those young men one tall swarthy man with blackside whiskers who talked a lot about 27 years old a teacher or something of that sort and also a young fellow of my age in a long Russian vest with a wrinkle in his face taciturn a listener he turned out later to be of peasant stock no that's not the way to put it began the teacher with black side wh whiskers who was the most excited of them all obviously taking up the previous argument again I'm not saying anything about mathematical proofs but this idea which I'm ready to believe even without mathematical proofs wait toov deracho interrupted loudly the latest arrivals don't understand this you see he suddenly turned to me alone and I confess if his intention was to examine me as a new newcomer or make me speak the method was very clever on his part I immediately sensed it and prepared myself this you see is Mr craft whose character and solid convictions are quite well known to us all starting from a rather ordinary fact he has arrived at a rather extraordinary conclusion which has surprised everybody he has deduced that the Russian people are a second rate people Third Rate someone cried second rate whose fate is to serve merely as material for a more noble race and not to have its own independent role in the Destinies of mankind in view of this possibly correct deduction of his Mr craft has come to the conclusion that any further activity of any Russian man should be paralyzed by this idea so to speak that everyone should drop their hands and permit me dgov that's not the way to put it TI amirov again picked up impatiently deracho yielded at once in view of the fact that craft has done serious research has deduced deductions on the basis of physiology which he considers mathematical and has killed maybe two years on his idea which I would quite calmly accept a priori in view of that that is in view of Craft's anxieties and seriousness this matter presents itself as a phenomenon a question arises from all this which craft cannot comprehend and that is what we should occupy ourselves with that is crafts incomprehension because it is a phenomenon we should decide whether this is a clinical phenomenon as a singular case or as a property that may normally be repeated in others this is of interest in view of the common cause I Shall Believe craft about Russia and even say that I am perhaps also glad M if this idea were adopted by everyone it would unbind hands and free many from patriotic Prejudice it's not out of patriotism said craft as if with strain this whole debate seemed disagreeable to him patriotism or not that can be left aside said vasin who was very silent but tell me how could Craft's deduction weaken the striving for the General human cause shouted the teacher he alone shouted all the rest spoke quietly suppose Russia is destined to be second rate but it is possible not to work for Russia alone and besides how can craft be a patriot if he has ceased to believe in Russia anyhow he's German a voice was heard again I'm Russian said craft that question is not directly related the matter derat pointed out to the one who had interrupted abandon the narrowness of your idea tikam mov wouldn't listen to anything if Russia is only material for nobler races why shouldn't she serve as such material it's a handsome enough role why not settle on this idea with a view to broadening the task mankind is on the eve of its regeneration which has already begun only Blind Men can deny the forthcoming task leave Russia if you've lost faith in her and work for the future for the future of a still unknown people but which will be composed of all mankind with no distinction of races even without that Russia will die one day peoples even the most gifted of them live no more than 1500 2,000 years at most what difference does it make 2,000 or 200 years the Romans didn't survive even 1500 years as a living entity and they also became material they're long gone but they left an idea and it entered into the Destinies of mankind as an element of things to come how can you tell a man there's nothing to do I can't imagine a situation in which there could ever be nothing to do do it for mankind and don't worry about the rest there's so much to do that a lifetime won't be enough if you look around attentively we must live by the law of Nature and Truth Mrs deracho said from behind the door the door was slightly ajar and she could be seen standing there holding the baby to her breast with her breast covered and listening ardently craft listened smiling slightly and finally said as if with a somewhat weary look though with great sincerity I don't understand how it's possible while under the influence of some dominant idea to which your mind and heart are totally subject to live by anything that lies outside that idea but if you're told logically mathematically that your deduction is mistaken that the whole thought is mistaken that you do not have the least right to exclude yourself from General useful activity only because Russia is predestined to be second rate if you are shown that instead of a narrow Horizon an Infinity is open to you that instead of a narrow idea of patriotism hey craft quietly waved his hand but I told you it's not a matter of patriotism there's obviously a misunderstanding here vasin suddenly mixed in the mistake is that for craft it's not just a logical deduction but so to speak a deduction that is turned into a feeling not all Natures are the same for many a logical deduction sometimes turns into the strongest feeling which takes over their whole being and which it is very difficult to drive out or alter to cure such a person it's necessary in that case to change the feeling itself which can be done only by replacing it with another that is equally strong that is always difficult and in many cases impossible possible mistake the arguer yelled a logical deduction in itself already breaks down prejudices an intelligent conviction generates the same feeling thought proceeds from feeling and installing itself in a person in its turn formulates the new people are very varied some change their feelings easily others with difficulty replied vasin as if not wishing to prolong the argument but I was delighted with his idea it's precisely as you say I suddenly turned to him breaking the ice and suddenly beginning to speak it's precisely necessary to put one feeling in the place of another so as to replace it four years ago in Moscow a certain General you see gentlemen I didn't know him but maybe he indeed could not Inspire respect on his own and besides the fact itself might seem unreasonable but however you see his child died that is as a matter of fact two girls one after the other of scarlet fever well he was suddenly so crushed that he was sad all the time so sad that he went around and you couldn't even look at him and he ended by dying in about half a year that he died of it is a fact what then could have resurrected him answer a feeling of equal strength those two girls should have been dug up from the grave and given to him that's all or something of the sort so he died and meanwhile you could have presented him with beautiful deductions that life is fleeting that everyone is Mortal presented him with calendar statistics how many children die of scarlet fever he was retired I stopped breathless and looked around that's not it at all someone said the fact you site though not of the same kind as the given case still resembles it and clarifies the matter vasin turned to me four here I must confess why I was delighted with Vin's argument about the idea feeling and along with that I must confess to an infernal shame yes I was scared sced to go to deracho though not for the reason Yim supposed I was scared because I had already been afraid of them in Moscow I knew that they that is they or others of their sort it makes no difference or dialecticians and would perhaps demolish my idea I was firmly convinced in myself that I would not betray or tell my idea to them but they that is again they or their sort might tell me something on their own that would make me disappointed in my idea even without my mentioning it to them there were questions in my idea that I hadn't resolved yet but I didn't want anyone to resolve them except me in the last 2 years I had even stopped reading books afraid of coming across some passage that would not be in favor of the idea that might shake me and suddenly vasin resolves the problem at a stroke and sets me at peace in the highest sense indeed what was I afraid of and what could they do to me with no matter what dialectics perhaps I was the only one there who understood what vasin said about the idea feeling it's not enough to refute a beautiful idea one must replace it with something equally beautiful otherwise in my heart unwilling to part with my feeling for anything I will refute the reputation even by force whatever they may Say and What could they give me instead and therefore I should have been braver I was obliged to be more courageous delighted with vasin I felt shame felt myself an unworthy child this resulted in yet another shame not the vile little urge to boast of my intelligence that had made me break the ice there and start talking but also a desire to throw myself on their necks this desire to throw myself on people's necks so that they recognize me as good and start embracing me or something like that swinishness in short I consider the most loathesome of all my shames and I had suspected it in myself for a very long time namely ever since the corner I had kept myself in for so many years though I don't regret it I knew that I had to be gloomier among people what comforted me after each such disgrace was simply that the idea was with me all the same in secret as always and that I hadn't betrayed it to them with a sinking feeling I sometimes imagined that once I had spoken my idea to someone I would suddenly have nothing left so that I'd become like everybody else and might even abandon the idea and so I preserved and cherished it and trembled at the thought of babbling and then at deracho almost with the first encounter I had been unable to hold out I hadn't betrayed anything of course but I had babbled inadmissibly the result was disgrace a nasty recollection no it's impossible for me to live with people I think so even even now I say it for 40 years to come my idea is my corner five as soon as vasin praised me I suddenly felt an irrepressible urge to speak in my opinion each of us has the right to have his own feelings if it's from conviction so that no one should reproach him for them I addressed vasin though I spoke glibly it was as if it wasn't me but as if somebody else's tongue was moving in my mouth really sir a voice picked up at once draing ironically the same that had interrupted deracho and had shouted to craft that he was a German considering him a total non-entity I turned to the teacher as if it was he who had shouted my conviction is that I cannot judge anyone I trembled already knowing that I was going to fly off why such secrecy The non-entity Voice rang out again each of us has his idea I looked Point Blank at the teacher who on the contrary was silent and studied me with a smile do you shouted the non-entity it's too long to tell but part of my idea is precisely that I should be left in peace as long as I've got two rubles I want to live alone not depending on anybody don't worry I know the objections and not doing anything even for that great future of mankind for which Mr craft has been invited to work personal freedom I mean my own sir is foremost and I do not want to know anything beyond that my mistake was that I got angry that is you preached the placidity of a saded cow let it be so there's no insult in a cow I don't owe anyone anything I pay Society money in the form of fiscal impositions so that I won't be robbed beaten or killed and no one dares to demand anything more from me I personally may have other ideas and would like to serve Mankind and will and maybe even 10 times more than all the preachers but I only want it to be so that no one dares to demand it of me or forces me like Mr craft my full Freedom even if I don't lift a finger and to run around throwing yourself on other people's necks out of love for mankind and burn with tears of tenderness that is merely a fashion and why should I necessarily love my neighbor or your future mankind which I'll never see which will not know about me and which in turn will r without leaving any trace or remembrance time means nothing here when the earth in its turn will become an icy Stone and fly through airless space together with an infinite multitude of identical icy stones that is more meaningless than anything one can possibly imagine there's your teaching tell me why should I necessarily be Noble especially if it all lasts no more than a minute ba shouted the voice I had fired all this off nervously and spitefully snapping all the ropes I knew I was falling into a pit but I hurried for fear of objections I sensed only too well that I was pouring as if through a SI incoherently and skipping 10 thoughts to get to the 11th but I was in a hurry to convince and reconquer them this was so important for me I've been preparing for 3 years but remarkably they suddenly fell silent said absolutely nothing and listened I went on addressing the teacher precisely sir a certain extremely intelligent man said among other things that there is nothing more difficult than to answer the question why must one necessarily be Noble you see sir there are three sorts of Scoundrels in the world naive Scoundrels that is those who are convinced that their meanness is the highest nobility ashamed Scoundrels that is those who are ashamed of their meanness but fully intend to go through with it anyway and finally sheer Scoundrels purebred Scoundrels with your permission sir I had a friend lomber who at the age of 16 said to me that when he was Rich his greatest pleasure would be to feed dogs bread and meat while the children of the poor were dying of hunger and when they had no wood for their stoves he would buy a whole lumber yard stack it up in a field and burn it there and give not a stick to the poor these were his feelings tell me what answer should I give this purebred scoundrel when he asks why should I necessarily be Noble and especially now in our time which you have so refashioned because it has never been worse than it is now things are not at all clear in our society gentlemen I mean you deny God you deny great Deeds what sort of deaf blind dull torper can make me act this way if it's more profitable for me otherwise you say a reasonable attitude towards mankind is also to my profit but what if I find all these reasonableness is unreasonable all these barracks and Fallon steres what the devil do I care about them or about the future when I live only once in this world allow me to know my own profit myself it's more amusing what do I care what happens to this mankind of yours in a thousand years if by your code I get no love for it no future life no recognition of my great deed no sir in that case I shall live for myself in the most impolite fashion and they can all go to blazes an excellent wish however I'm always is ready to join in even better this was still that same voice the rest went on being silent they went on peering at me and studying me but tittering gradually began to come from different ends of the room still quiet but they all tittered right in my face only vasin and craft did not titter the one with the black side whiskers also grinned he looked at me Point Blank and listened gentlemen I was trembling all over I won't tell you my idea for anything but on the contrary I will ask you from your own point of view don't think it's mine because it may be that I love mankind a thousand times more than all of you taken together tell me and you absolutely must answer me now you are Duty bound because you're laughing tell me how will you entice me to follow you tell me how will you prove to me that with you it will be better where are you going to put the protest of my person in your barracks I have long wished to meet you gentlemen you will have Barracks communal Apartments strect necess atheism and communal wives without children that's your finale I know it serves and for all that for that small share of middling profit that your reasonableness secures for me for a crust and some warmth you take my whole person in exchange with your permission sir say my wife is taken away are you going to subdue my person so that I won't smash my rival's head in you'll say that I myself will become more reasonable then but what will the wife of such a reasonable husband say if she has the slightest respect for herself no it's unnatural sers shame on you and you're what a specialist in the ladies line the gleeful voice of the non- entity rang out for a moment I had the thought of throwing myself at him and pounding him with my fists he was a shortish fellow red-haired and freckled but anyhow devil take his looks don't worry I've never yet known a woman woman I said curtly addressing him for the first time precious information which might have been given more politely in view of the ladies but they all suddenly began stirring densely they all started taking their hats and preparing to leave not on account of me of course but because the time had come but this silent treatment of me crushed me with shame I also jumped to my feet allow me however to know your name you did keep looking at me the teacher suddenly stepped towards me with the meanest smile dalgar Ruki Prince dalgar Ruki no simply dalgar Ruki the son of the former surf Makar Dal gari and the illegitimate son of my former Master Mr versilov don't worry gentlemen I'm not saying it so that you'll throw yourselves on my neck and we'll all start Lo like Calves from tenderness a loud and most unceremonious burst of laughter came at once so that the baby who had fallen asleep behind the door woke up and squealed I was trembling with Fury they all shook hands with deracho and left paying no attention to me let's go craft nudged me I went up to deracho squeezed his hand as hard as I could and shook it several times also as hard as I could I apologize for the constant insults from kudri umov that was the red-haired one deracho said to me I followed craft out I wasn't ashamed of anything six of course between me as I am now and me me as I was then there is an infinite difference continuing to be not ashamed of anything I caught up with vasin while still on the stairs having left craft behind as second rate and with the most natural air as if nothing had happened asked it seems you know my father that is I mean to say versilov we're not in fact acquainted vasin answered at once and without a wit of that offensive refined politeness assumed by delicate people when speaking with someone who has just disgraced himself but I know him slightly I've met him and listened to him if you've listened to him then of course you know him because you were you what do you think of him forgive the Hasty question but I need to know precisely what you would think your own proper opinion is necessary you're asking a lot of me it seems to me that the man is capable of placing enormous demands on himself and perhaps of fulfilling them but he renders no account to anyone that's right that's very right he's a very proud man but is he a pure man listen what do you think of his Catholicism however I forgot that you may not know if I hadn't been so excited I naturally would not have fired off such questions and so pointlessly at a man I had never spoken with but had only heard about it surprised me that vasin seemed not to notice my madness I've also heard something about that but I don't know how correct it might be he answered as calmly and evenly as before not a bit it's not true about him do you really think he can believe in God he's a very proud man as you just said self and many very proud people like to believe in God especially those who are somewhat contemptuous of people in many strong people there seems to be a sort of natural need to find someone or something to bow down to it's sometimes very hard for a strong man to bear his own strength listen that must be terribly right I cried out again only I wish I could understand here the reason is clear they choose God so as not to bow down before people naturally not knowing themselves how it comes about in them to bow down before God is not so offensive they become extremely Ardent Believers or to put it more correctly they ardently desire to believe but they take the desire for belief itself in the end they very often become disappointed as for Mr versilov I think there are also extremely sincere traits of character in him and generally he interests me vin I cried out you make me so glad I'm not surprised at your intelligence I'm surprised that you a man so pure and so immeasurably far above me that you can walk with me and speak so simply and politely as if nothing had happened vasin smiled you praise me too much and all that happened there was that you're too fond of abstract conversation you were probably silent for a very long time before this I was silent for 3 years I've been preparing to speak for 3 years to you naturally I couldn't have seemed a fool because you are extremely intelligent yourself though it would be impossible to behave more stupidly than I did but a scoundrel a scoundrel yes undoubtedly tell me don't you secretly despise me for saying that I was vero's illegitimate son and boasting that I was the son of a surf you torment yourself too much if you find that you spoke badly you need only not speak that way the next time you still have 50 years ahead of you oh I know I should be very silent with people the meanest of all debauches is to throw yourself on people's necks I just said it to them and here I am throwing myself on yours but there's a difference isn't there if you've understood that difference if you were capable of understanding it I'll bless this moment vasin smiled again come and see me if you want to he said I have work now and I'm busy but you'll give me pleasure I concluded earlier from your physiognomy that you were all too firm uncommunicative that may very well be so I knew your sister liava Makarova last year in luga craft has stopped and seems to be waiting for you he has to turn there I firmly shook Vin's hand and ran to join craft who had gone ahead of us while I was talking with vasin we silently went as far as his quarters I did not want to speak to him yet and could not one of the strongest traits of Craft's character was his delicacy chapter 4 1 craft used to be in government service somewhere and along with that had also helped the late andronikov for a remuneration from him to conduct some Private Affairs which the latter had always engaged in on top of his government work for me the important thing was that craft owing to his particular closeness to andronikov might be informed of much that so interested me but I knew from Maria ivanovna the wife of Nikolai simonovich with whom I lived for so many years while I was in school and who was the niece The Ward and the favorite of andronikov that craft had even been charged with delivering something to me I had been waiting for him that whole month month he lived in a small two room apartment completely separate and at the present moment having only just returned was even without a servant the suitcase though unpacked had not been put away things were strewn over chairs and laid out on the table in front of the sofa were a v a traveling strong box a revolver and so on coming in craft was extremely pensive as if he had totally forgotten about me he may not even have noticed that I hadn't spoken to him on the way he at once began looking for something but glancing into the mirror and passing he stopped and studied his face closely for a whole minute though I noticed this peculiarity and later recalled it very well I was sad and very confused I couldn't concentrate there was a moment when I suddenly wanted to up and leave and thus abandon all these matters forever and what were all these matters essentially weren't they simply self-inflicted cares I was beginning to despair that I was maybe spending my energy on unworthy Trifles out of mere sentimentality while I had an energetic task before me and Meanwhile my incapacity for serious business was obviously showing itself in view of what had happened at der off S Craft will you go to them again I suddenly asked him he slowly turned to me as if he hadn't quite understood me I sat down on a chair forgive them craft said suddenly to me of course this seemed like mockery but looking at him attentively I saw such a strange and even astonishing ingenuousness on his face that I was was even astonished at how seriously he had asked me to forgive them he moved a chair and sat down beside me I myself know that I may be a rag bag of all the vanities and nothing more I began but I don't ask forgiveness and there's no one to ask he said softly and seriously he spoke softly and very slowly all the time let me be guilty before myself I like being guilty before myself craft forgive me for babbling here with you tell me can it be that you're also in that Circle that's what I wanted to ask they're no more stupid than others nor more intelligent they're crazy like everybody so everybody's crazy I turned to him with invol AR curiosity among the better sort of people now everybody's crazy only mediocrity and giftless are having a Heyday however that's all not worth as he spoke he somehow stared into space began phrases and broke them off especially striking was a sort of despondency in his voice can it be that Vin's with them vasin has a mind vasin has a moral idea I cried there aren't any moral ideas now suddenly not one can be found and above all it looks as if there never were any before there weren't better drop that he said with obvious fatigue I was touched by his woeful seriousness ashamed of my egoism I started to fall into his tone the present time he began himself after a couple of minutes of silence and still staring somewhere into space the present time is a time of the golden mean and insensibility a passion for ignorance idleness an inability to act and a need to have everything ready made no one Ponders rarely does anyone live his way into an idea he broke off again and was silent for a little while I listened now they're deforesting Russia exhausting her soil turning it into step and preparing it for the calmix if a man of Hope were to appear and plant a tree everyone would laugh do you think you'll live so long on the other hand those who desire the good talk about what will be in a thousand years The Binding idea has disappeared completely everyone lives as if in a flop house and tomorrow it's up and out of Russia everyone lives only so far as there's enough for him excuse me craft you said they're concerned about what will be in a thousand years well but your despair about the fate of Russia isn't it the same sort of concern that that is the most urgent question there is he said irritably and quickly got up from his place ah yes I forgot he said suddenly in a completely different voice looking at me in bewilderment I invited you on business and meanwhile for God's sake forgive me it was as if he suddenly came out of some sort of dream almost embarrassed he took a letter from a briefcase that lay on the table and gave it to me that is what I was to deliver to you it is a document having a certain importance he began with attentiveness and with a most businesslike air long afterwards I was struck when I remembered this ability of his at such a time for him to treat another's business with such heartfelt attentiveness to tell of it so calmly and firmly this is a letter of that same stalf following whose death a case arose between versilov and the princes zakolski over his will that case is now being decided in court and will surely be decided in vero's favor the law is with him meanwhile in this letter a personal one written two years ago the testator himself sets forth his actual will or more correctly his wish and sets it forth rather in the prince's favor than in vero's at least the points that the princes sakolsky base themselves on in disputing the will gain much strength from this letter vero's opponents would give a lot for this document which however has no decisive legal significance Alexi nikovic andronikov who is handling vero's case kept this letter and not long before his death gave it to me charging me to Stow it away perhaps fearing for his papers in anticipation of his death I have no wish now to Judge Al nikovic his intentions in this matter and I confess after his death I was painfully undecided about what to do with this document especially in view of the impending decision of the court case but Maria ivanovna in whom Alexi nikovic seems to have confided very much while he lived brought me out of this difficulty 3 weeks ago she wrote to me very resolutely that I should give the document precisely to you and that this would also seem her expression to coincide with andronikov Will so here is the document and I'm very glad that I can finally deliver it listen I said puzzled by such unexpected news what am I going to do now with this letter how am I to act that's as you will impossible I'm terribly unfree you must admit versilov has been waiting so for this inheritance and you know he'll die without this help and suddenly there exists such a document it exists only here in this room can it be so I looked at him attentively if you yourself can't find how to act in this case what advice can I give you but I can't turn it over to Prince sakoli either I'll kill all vero's Hopes And besides that come out as a traitor before him on the other hand by giving it to versilov I'll reduce innocent people to poverty and still put versilov in an impossible position either to renounce The Inheritance or to become a thief you greatly exaggerate the significance of the matter tell me one thing does this document have a decisive definitive character no it doesn't I'm not much of a jurist the lawyer for the opposing side would of course know how to put this document to use and derive all possible benefit from it but Alexi nikovic found positively that this letter if presented would have no great legal significance so that vero's case could be won anyway this document sooner represents so to speak a matter of conscience but that's the most important thing of all I interrupted that's precisely why versilov will be in an impossible position he can destroy the document however and then on the contrary he'll deliver himself from any danger do you have special grounds for supposing that of him craft that's what I want to know it's for that that I'm here I think anyone in his place would do the same and you yourself would do the same I'm not getting an inheritance and therefore don't know about myself well all right I said putting the letter in my pocket the matter is finished for now listen craft Maria ivanovna who I assure you has revealed a lot to me told me that you and you alone could tell the truth about what happened in m a year and a half ago between versilov and the aovs I've been waiting for you like a son that would light up everything for me you don't know my position craft I beseech you to tell me the whole truth I precisely want to know what kind of man he is and now now I need it more than ever I'm surprised that Maria ivanovna didn't tell you everything herself she could have heard all about it from the late andronikov and naturally has heard and knows maybe more than I do andronikov himself was unclear about the matter that's precisely what Maria ivanovna says it seems nobody can clear it up the devil would break a leg here I know though that you were in M yourself then I didn't witness all of it but what I know I'll willingly tell you if you like only will that satisfy you two I won't quote his story word for word but we'll give only the brief essence of it a year and a half ago versilov having become a friend of the yakov's house through old Prince sakoli they were all abroad then in M made a strong impression first on akov himself a general and not yet an old man but who in the space of 3 years of marriage had lost all the rich dowy of his wife Katarina nicolova at cards and had already had a stroke from his intemperate life he had recovered from it and was convalescing abroad but was living in M for the sake of his daughter from his first marriage she was a sickly girl of about 17 who suffered from a weak chest and was said to be extremely beautiful but at the same time also Fantastical she had no dowy hopes were placed as usual in the old Prince Katarina nikolova was said to be a good stepmother but the girl for some reason became especially attached to versilov he was then preaching something passionate in Craft's expression some new life was in a religious mood in the loftiest sense in the strange and perhaps also mocking expression of andronikov which was reported to me but remarkably everyone soon took a dislike to him the general was even afraid of him craft in no way denies the rumor that versilov somehow managed to instill it into the sick husband's mind that Katarina nikolayevna was not indifferent to the young prince sakolsky who had then absented himself from M to Paris and he did it not directly but as was his want by slander hints and various meanderings at which he was a great Master as craft Put It generally I will say that craft considered him and wished to consider him sooner a crook and a born intriguer than a man indeed imbued with anything lofty or at least original I knew even apart from Craft that versilov who first exercised an extraordinary influence on Ina Nikola gradually went so far as to break with her what the whole game consisted of I could not get from Craft but everyone confirmed the mutual hatred that arose between them after their friendship then a strange circumstance occurred Katarina nikola's sickly stepdaughter apparently fell in love with barilov or was struck by something in him or was inflamed by his talk or I have no idea what else but it is known that for some time versilov spent almost every day near this girl it ended with the girl suddenly announcing to her father that she wished to marry versilov that this actually happened everyone confirms craft and andronikov and Maria ivanovna and once even Tatiana pavlovna let something slip about it in my presence it was also affirmed that versilov himself not only wished but even insisted on marrying the girl and that this Concord of two dissimilar beings an old one and a young one was Mutual but the father was frightened at the thought to the extent that he was turning away from Katarina nikolayevna who he had formerly loved very much he had begun almost to idolize his daughter especially after his stroke but the most violent opponent of the possibility of such a marriage was Karina Nikola herself there took place an extreme number of some sort of secret extremely unpleasant family confrontations arguments grievances in short all kinds of nastiness the father finally began to give in seeing the Persistence of his daughter who was in love with and fanatiz by versilov Craft's expression but Katarina Nikola continued to Rebel with implacable hatred and here Begins the tangle that no one understands here however is Craft's direct conjecture based on the given facts but still only a conjecture versilov supposedly managed to instill into the young person in his own way subtly and irrefutably that the reason why Katarina nikolova would not consent was that she was in love with him herself and had long been tormenting him with her jealousy her suing him intriguing had already made him a declaration and was now ready to burn him up for loving another woman in short something like that the worst of it was that he supposedly also hinted it to the Father the husband of the Unfaithful wife explaining that the prince was only an amusement naturally there began to be real hell in the family According to some versions Katarina nikolava loved her stepdaughter terribly and now being slandered before her was in despair to say nothing of her relations with the sick husband but then next to that there exists another version in which to my sorrow craft fully believed and in which I also believed myself I had already heard about all that it was affirmed andronikov is said to have heard it from Ina Nikola herself that on the contrary versilov still earlier before the beginning of the young girl's feelings had offered Katarina Nikola his love that she being his friend and even in exaltation over him for some time though constantly disbelieving and contradicting him met this declaration of versilov with extreme hatred and mocked him venomously she formally drove him away from her because the man had proposed directly that she be his wife in view of her husband's supposedly impending second stroke thus Katarina nikolayevna must have felt a particular hatred for versilov when she saw afterwards that he was openly seeking her stepdaughter's hand Maria ivanovna conveying all this to me in Moscow believed both the one variant and the other that is all of it together she precisely affirmed that it could all occur at once that it was something like La L Hate In Love An offended loves Pride on both sides etc etc in short something in the way of some most subtle novelistic entanglement Unworthy of any serious and sober-minded person and with meanness to boot but Maria Ivanova herself had been stuffed with novels from childhood and read them day and night despite her excellent character as a result vero's obvious meanness was displayed a lie and an Intrigue something black and vile the more so in that the end was indeed tragic they say the poor inflamed girl poisoned herself with phosphorous matches however I don't know even now whether this last rumor was accurate at least they tried their best to stifle it the girl was sick for no more than 2 weeks and then then died the matches thus remained in doubt but craft firmly believed in them as well soon after that the girl's father also died of grief they say which caused a second stroke though not before 3 months had passed but after the girl's funeral the Young Prince sakolsky having returned to M from Paris gave versilov a slap in the face publicly in the garden and the latter did not respond with a challenge on the contrary the very next day he appeared at a prominade as if nothing had happened it was then that everyone turned away from him and Petersburg as well versilov though he continued to have acquaintances had them in a totally different Circle his Society acquaintances all accused him though incidentally very few of them knew all the details they only knew something about the novelistic death of the young lady and about the slap only two or three persons had possibly full information the late andronikov who had long had business connections with the akov and particularly with Katarina nikolova on a certain matter knew most of all but he kept all these secrets even from his own family and only revealed something to craft and Maria ivanovna and that out of necessity above all there's now a certain document involved craft concluded which Madame akov is extremely afraid of and here is what he told me about that as well kadina nikolova had had the imprudence while the old Prince her father was abroad and had already begun to recover from his fit to write to andronikov in great secret Katrina Nikola trusted him fully and extremely compromising letter at that time they say the recuperating Prince indeed showed an inclination to spend his money and all but throw it to the winds while abroad he started buying totally unnecessary but valuable objects paintings vases gave and donated large sums to God knows what even to various institutions there he almost bought a ruined estate encumbered with litigations from a Russian Society squanderer sight unseen for an enormous sum finally he seemed indeed to begin dreaming of marriage and so in view of all that Katarina nikolayevna who never left her father's side during his illness sent to andronikov as a lawyer and an old friend the inquiry would it be possible legally to declare the prince under guardianship or somehow irresponsible and if so what would be the best way to do it without a scandal so that no one could accuse anyone and her father's feelings would be spared etc etc they say andronikov brought her to reason then and advised against it and afterwards when the prince had fully recovered it was no longer possible to go back to the idea but the letter stayed with andronikov and now he dies Katarina nikolova Remembered at once about the letter if it should be discovered among the deceased's papers and get into the hands of the old Prince he would undoubtedly throw her out for good disinherit her and not give her a copack while he lived the thought that his own daughter had no faith in his reason and even wanted to declare him mad would turn this lamb into a Savage Beast while she having become a widow was left without any means thanks to her Gambler husband and had only her father to count on she fully hoped to get a new Dowry from him as rich as the first one craft knew very little about the fate of this letter but he observed that andronikov never tore up necessary papers and besides was a man not only of broad intelligence but also of broad conscience I even marveled then at such an extraordinarily independent view on the part of craft who had so who loved and respected andronikov but all the same craft was certain that the compromising document had fallen into the hands of versilov through his closeness to andronikov Widow and daughters it was known that they had presented versilov at once and dutifully with all the papers the deceased had left behind he also knew that Katarina nikolova was informed that versilov had the letter and that this was what she feared thinking that versilov would once go to the old Prince with the letter that having returned from abroad she had already searched for the letter in Petersburg had visited the andronikov and was now continuing to search since the Hope still remained in her that the letter was perhaps not with vov and in conclusion that she had also gone to Moscow solely with that aim and had pleaded with Maria ivanovna there to look among the papers she had kept she had found out about Maria ivanovna's existence and her relations with the late andronikov quite recently on returning to Petersburg do you think she didn't find it at Maria ivanovna's I asked having a thought of my own if Maria ivanovna didn't reveal anything even to you then maybe she doesn't have anything so you suppose that versilov has the document most likely he does however I don't know anything is possible he said with visible fatigue I stopped questioning him what was the point all the main things had become clear to me in spite of this unworthy tangle everything I was afraid of had been confirmed that's all like dreams and delirium I said in profound sorrow and took my hat is this man very dear to you craft asked with visible and great sympathy which I read on his face at that moment I anticipated I said that I wouldn't learn the full story from you anyway Madame akov is the one remaining hope I did have hope in her maybe I'll go see her and maybe not craft looked at me in some perplexity goodbye craft why foist yourself on people who don't want you isn't it better to break with it all eh and then where he asked somehow sternly and looking down to yourself to yourself break with it all and go to yourself to America to America to yourself to yourself alone that's the whole of my idea craft I said ecstatically he looked at me somehow curiously and you have this place to yourself I do goodbye craft I thank you and I'm sorry to have troubled you in your place since you've got such a Russia in your head I'd send everybody to the devil away with you scheme squabble among yourselves what is it to me stay a while he said suddenly having already seen me to the front door I was a little surprised went back and sat down again craft sat down facing me we exchanged Smiles of some sort I can see it all as if it were now I remember very well that I somehow wed at him what I like about you craft is that you're such a polite man I said suddenly oh it's because I'm rarely able to be polite myself though I'd like to be able but then maybe it's better that people insult us at least they Deliver Us From The Misfortune of loving them what time of day do you like best he asked obviously not listening what time I I don't know I don't like Sunset oh he said with a sort of special curiosity but at once lapsed into thought again are you going somewhere again yes I am soon soon do you really need a revolver to get to vno I asked without the least second thought it didn't even enter my thoughts I just asked because the revolver flashed there and I was at pains to find something to talk about he turned and looked intently at the revolver no I just do it out of habit if I had a revolver I'd have hidden it somewhere under lock and key you know by God it's tempting maybe I don't believe in epidemics of suicides but if that sticks up in in front of your eyes really there are moments when it might be tempting don't speak of that he said and suddenly got up from his chair I don't mean me I added also getting up I wouldn't use it you could give me three lives it would still be too little live more as if escaped from him he smiled distractedly and strangely walked straight to the front hall as if leading me out personally naturally without knowing what he was doing I wish you all luck craft I said going out to the stairs that may be he replied firmly see you later that also maybe I remember his last look at me three so this was the man after whom my heart had been throbbing for so many years and what had I expected from Craft what knew information when I left craft I had a strong wish to eat evening was already falling and I had not had lunch I went into a small Tavern right there on the Petersburg side on baloy Prospect intending to spend some 20 copcs 25 at the most not for anything would I have allowed myself to spend more then I ordered soup and I remember having finished it I sat looking out the window the room was full of people there was a smell of burnt grease Tavern napkins and tobacco it was vile above my head a voiceless nting Gale glum and brooding tapped the bottom of its cage with its beak the billiard room on the other side of the wall was noisy but I sat and thought intensely the Setting Sun why was craft surprised that I didn't like Sunset inspired me in some new and unexpected Sensations quite out of place I kept imagining my mother's gentle look her dear eyes that had gazed at me so timidly for a whole month now lately I had been very rude at home mostly to her I wished to be rude to veril off but not daring with him out of my mean habit I tormented her I even thoroughly intimidated her she often looked at me with such imploring eyes when Andre petrovich came in fearing some Outburst from me it was very strange that now in the tavern I realized for the first time that versilov addressed me familiarly and she formally I had wondered about it before and not favorably for her but here I realized it somehow particularly and all sorts of strange thoughts came pouring into my head one after another I went on sitting there for a long time till it was completely dark I also thought about my sister a fateful moment for me I had to decide at all costs can it be that I'm incapable of deciding what's so hard about breaking with them if on top of it they don't want me themselves my mother and my sister but I won't leave them in any case whatever turn things take it's true that the appearance of this man in my life that is for a moment in early childhood was the Fateful push with which my Consciousness began if he hadn't come my way then my mind my way of thinking my fate would surely have been different even despite the character fate determined for me which I couldn't have escaped anyway but it now turned out that this man was only my dream my dream since childhood I had thought him up that way but in fact he turned out to be a different man who fell far below my fantasy I had come to a pure man not to this one and why had I fallen in love with him once and for all in that little moment when I saw him while still a child this for all had to go someday if I find room I'll describe our first meeting it's a most empty anecdote from which precisely nothing could come but for me a whole pyramid came from it I began on that pyramid while still under my child's blanket when as I was falling asleep I would weep and dream about what I myself don't know about being abandoned about being tormented but I was tormented only a little for just two years while I was at T Char's boarding school where he tucked me away then and left forever after that nobody tormented me even the contrary I myself looked proudly at my comrades and I can't stand this orphanhood whining about itself there's no more loome than when orphans illegitimate children all these castoffs and generally all this trash for whom I have not the slightest drop of pity suddenly rise up solemnly before the public and start their pitiful but admonitory whining look at how we've been treated I'd thrash all these orphans not one of all that vile officialdom understands that it's 10 times nobler for him to keep silent and not to whine and not Dain to complain and since you've started to Dane it serves you right love child that's what I think but what is ridiculous is not that I used to dream under the blanket but that I came here for him once again for this thought up man all but forgetting my main goals I was coming to help him to smash slander to crush his enemies the document craft spoke of that woman's letter to andron call which she is so afraid of which can smash her life and reduce her to poverty and which she supposes to be in vero's possession this letter was not in vero's possession but in mine sewn into my side pocket I had sewn it myself and no one in the whole world knew of it yet that the novelistic Maria ivanovna who had charge of the document found it necessary to turn it over to me and no one else was merely her view and her will and I'm not obliged to explain it maybe someday I'll tell about it by the way but being so unexpectedly armed I could not but be tempted by the wish to come to Peters Burke of course I proposed to help this man not otherwise than secretly without showing off or getting excited without expecting either his praise or his Embraces and never never would I Dain to reproach him with anything and was it his fault that I had fallen in love with him and made him into a fantastic ideal maybe I didn't even love him at all his original mind his curious character his intrigues and Adventures of some sort and the fact that my mother was with him all this I thought could not stop me now it was enough that my fantastic doll was smashed and that I could perhaps not love him anymore and so what was stopping me what was I stuck on that was the question the upshot of it all was that I was the only stupid one and nobody else but since I demand honesty of others I'll be honest myself I must confess that the documents sewn into my pocket did not only arouse in me a passionate desire to fly to vero's Aid that is all too clear to me now though even then I already blushed at the thought I kept imagining a woman a proud High Society being whom I would meet face to face she would despise me laugh at me as at a mouse not even suspecting that I was the master of her fate this thought intoxicated me still in Moscow and especially on the train as I was coming here I've already confessed that previously yes I hated this woman yet I already loved her as my Victim and this is all true this was all actually so but it was all such childishness as I hadn't expected even from someone like myself I'm describing my feelings at that time that is what went through my head as I sat in the tavern under the Nightingale and decided to break with them ineluctably that same evening the thought of today's meeting with this woman suddenly brought a flush of shame to my face a disgraceful meeting a disgraceful and stupid little impression and above all the strongest proof of my inability to act it proved simply as I thought then that I was unable to hold out even before the stupidest enticements whereas I had just told craft that I had my own place my own business and that if I had three lives even that would be too little for me I had said it proudly that I had dropped my idea and gotten drawn into vero's Affairs that could still be excused in some way but that I Rush from side to side like a startled hair and get drawn into every trifle that of course was only my own stupidity what the deuce pushed me to go to dervs and pop up with my stupid talk if I had long known that I'm unable to tell anything intelligent insensibly and that the most advantageous thing for me is to be silent and then some vasin brings me to Reason by saying that I still have 50 years of life ahead of me and so there's nothing to be upset about his objection is Splendid I agree and does credit to his indisputable intelligence it's Splendid already in that it's the simplest and what is simplest is always understood only in the end once everything cleverer or stupider has been tried but I knew this objection myself even before vasin I had deeply sensed this thought more than 3 years ago moreover my idea partly consists in it that's what I was thinking about in The Tavern then I felt vile when I reached the simonovski quarter that evening between 7 and 8 weary from walking and thinking it was already quite dark and the weather changed it was dry but a nasty Petersburg wind sprang up at my back biting and sharp and blew dust and sand around so many Sullen faces of simple folk hurrying back to their corners from work and trade each had his own Sullen Care on his face and there was perhaps not a single common all uniting thought in that crowd craft was right everybody's apart I met a little boy so little that it was strange that he could be alone in the street at such an hour he seemed to have lost his way A woman stopped for a moment to listen to him but understood nothing spread her arms and went on leaving him alone in the darkness I went over to him but for some reason he suddenly became frightened of me and ran off nearing the house house I decided that I would never go to see vasin as I went up the stairs I wanted terribly to find them at home alone without versilov to have time before he came to say something kind to my mother or my dear sister to whom I had hardly addressed a single special word for the whole month it so happened that he was not at home four and by the way bringing this new character on stage in my notes I'm speaking of versilov I'll give a brief account of his service record which incidentally is of no significance I do it to make things clearer for the reader and because I don't see where I might stick this record in further on in the story he studied at the University but went into the guards in a Cavalry Regiment he married Miss fatov and resigned he went abroad and returning lived in Moscow amidst worldly pleasures on his wife's death he came to his country estate here occurred the episode with my mother then for a long time he lived somewhere in the South during the war with Europe he again went into military service but did not get to the Crimea and never saw action all that while when the war ended he resigned went abroad and even took my mother whom however he left in Kik back the poor woman occasionally told with a sort of horror and shaking her head of how she had lived for a whole 6 months then alone as could be with a little daughter not knowing the language as if in a forest and in the end also without any money then Tatiana pavlovna came to fetch her and took her back to Somewhere In N novod Province later versilov joined the arm of the peace at the first call up and they say he performed his duties splendidly but he soon quit and in Petersburg began to occupy himself with conducting various private civil suits andronikov always thought highly of his capacities respected him very much and said only that he didn't understand his character later he also dropped that and went abroad again this time for a long period for several years then began his especially close connections with old Prince sakoli during all this time his financial means underwent two or three radical changes first he fell into poverty then he suddenly got rich and rose again but anyhow now that I've brought my notes precisely to this point I've decided to tell about my idea as well I'll describe it in words for the first time since it's conception I've decided to so to speak disclose it to the reader also for the clarity of the further account and not only the reader but I myself am beginning to get entangled in the difficulty of explaining my steps without explaining what led me and prompted me to them because of this figure of omission I in my lack of skill have fallen back into those novelistic beauties that I myself derided previously on entering the door of my Petersburg novel with all my disgraceful adventures in it I find this preface necessary but it was not beauties that tempted me to Omission up to now but also the essence of the matter that is the difficulty of the matter even now when all the past has already passed I feel an insurmountable difficulty in telling about this thought besides that I UND dedly should explain it in the form it had then that is in the way it took shape and conceived itself in me at that time and not now and that is a new difficulty it's almost impossible to tell about certain things precisely those ideas that are the simplest the clearest precisely those are also hard to understand if Columbus before the discovery of America had started telling his idea to others I'm sure he wouldn't have been understood for a terribly long time and in fact he wasn't in saying this I have no thought of equating myself with Columbus and if anybody concludes that he should be ashamed that's all chapter 5 1 my idea is to become Ro Shield I invite the reader to calmness and seriousness I repeat my idea is to become R Shield to become as rich as R Shield not simply rich but precisely like or Shield why what for precisely what goals I pursue of that I shall speak later first I shall merely prove that the achievement of my goal is mathematically assured the matter is very simple the whole secret lies in two words persistence and continuity we've heard all that I'll be told it's nothing new every F in Germany repeats it to his children and yet your Ro Shield that is the late James R Shield the Parisian he's the one I'm speaking of was only one while there are millions of FS I would answer you assure me that you've heard at all and yet you haven't heard anything true you're also right about one thing if I said that this was a very simple matter I forgot to add that it's also the most difficult all the religions and moralities in the world come down to one thing we must love virtue and flee from Vice what it seems could be simpler so go and do something virtuous and flee from at least one of your vices give it a try eh it's the same here that's why your countless Fs in the course of countless ages can repeat those two astonishing Words which make up the whole secret and yet H Shield remains alone which means it's the same and not the same and the fs are repeating quite a different thought no doubt they too have heard about persistence and continuity but to achieve my goal it's not persistence and F continuity that are needed already this one word that he's a f I'm not speaking only of Germans that he has a family that he lives like everybody else has expenses like everybody else has duties like everybody else here you don't become R Shield but remain only a moderate man I understand all too clearly that having become H Shield or even only wishing to become him not in a fter like way but seriously I thereby at once step outside of society a few years ago I read in the newspapers that on the vulga on one of the steamboats a certain beggar died who had gone about in tatters begging for alms and was known to everybody there after his death they found as much as 3,000 in banknotes sewn into his racks the other I again read about a certain beggar from the nobility who went around the taverns hat in hand they arrested him and found as much as 5,000 rubles on him two conclusions follow directly from this first persistence in accumulating even by copex produces enormous results later on time means nothing here and second that the most unsophisticated but continuous form of gain mathematically assures success and yet there are people perhaps quite a few of them who are respectable intelligent and restrained but who no matter how they try do not have either 3 or 5,000 but who nevertheless want terribly much to have it why is that so the answer is clear because despite all their wanting not one of them them wants to such a degree for instance as to become a beggar if there's no other way of getting money or is persistent to such a degree even having become a beggar as not to spend the very first copex he gets on an extra crust for himself or his family and yet with this method of accumulation that is with begging one has to eat nothing but bread and salt in order to save so much money at least that's my understanding that is surely what the two aforementioned Beggars did that is ate nothing but bread and lived all but under the Open Sky there is no doubt that they had no intention of becoming H Shield these were Aragon or Pushkin in the purest form nothing more but conscious moneymaking in a completely different form and with the goal of becoming H Shield will call for no less wanting and strength of will than with these two Beggars a f won't show such strength there is a great diversity of strengths in the world strengths of Will and wanting especially there is the temperature of boiling water and there is the temperature of redh hot iron here it's the same as a monastery the same aesthetic Endeavor here it's a feeling not an idea what for why is it moral and is it not ugly to go about in sackcloth and eat black bread all your life while carrying such huge money on you these questions are for later but now I'm only talking about the possibility of achieving the goal when I thought up my idea and it consists of Red Hot Iron I began testing myself am I capable of the monastery and aestheticism to that end I spent the whole first month eating nothing but bread and water it came to no more than 2 and2 lbs of black bread a day to carry it out I had to deceive the clever Nikolai simonovich and the well-wishing Maria ivanovna I insisted to her distress and to a certain perplexity in the most delicate Nikolai simonovich that dinner be brought to my room there I simply destroyed it the soup I poured out the window into the Nettles or a certain other place the beef I either threw out the window to the dog or wrapped in paper put in my pocket and took out later well and all the rest since they served much less than 2 and2 lbs of bread for dinner I bought myself more bread on the sly I held out for that month only I may have upset my stomach somewhat but the next month I added soup to the bread and drank a glass of tea in the morning and evening and I assure you I spent a whole year that way in perfect health and contentment and morally in Rapture and continuous secret Delight not only did I not regret the meals I was in ecstasy by the end of the year having made sure that I was able to endure any fast you like I began to eat as they did and went back to having dinner with them not satisfied with this test I made a second one apart from my upkeep which was paid to Nikolai simonovic I was allocated a monthly sum of five rubles for pocket money I decided to spend only half of it this was a very hard test but in a little over 2 years when I came to Petersburg I had in my pocket apart from other money 70 rubles saved up solely by this economy the result of these two experiments was tremendous for me I learned positively that I was able to want enough to achieve my goal and that I repeat is the whole of my idea the rest is all Trifles two however let us examine the Trifles as well I've described my two experiments in Petersburg as is already known I made a third went to the auction and at one stroke made a profit of 7 r95 copcs of course that wasn't a real experiment but just a game for fun I wanted to steal a moment from the future and experience how I would go about and behave but generally still at the very beginning in Moscow I postponed the real setting out in business until I was completely free I understood only too well that I at least had for instance to finish high school first I sacrificed the university as is already known indisputably I went to Petersburg with repressed wrath I had just finished high school and become free for the first time when I suddenly saw that vero's Affairs would again distract me from starting business for an unknown period but though I was wrathful I still went completely at ease about my goal true I knew nothing of practical life but I had been thinking it over for 3 years on end and could not have any doubts I had imagined a thousand times how I would set about it I suddenly turn up as if dropped from the sky in one of our two capitals I chose to begin with our capitals and namely with Petersburg to which by a certain Reckoning I gave preference and so I've dropped from the sky but am completely free not the dependent on anybody healthy and have a 100 rubles hidden in my pocket for an initial working capital it's impossible to begin without 100 rubles otherwise the very first period of success would be delayed for too long besides 100 rubles I have as is already known courage persistence continuity total Solitude and secrecy Solitude is the main thing I terribly disliked till the very last minute any contact or association with people generally speaking I decided absolutely to begin the idea alone that was cqa people are a burden to me and I would be troubled in spirit which would harm my goal and generally all my life till now in all my dreams of how I would deal with people I always have it come out very intelligent as soon as it's in reality it's always very stupid and I confess this with indignation and sincerely I have always betrayed myself with words and hurried and therefore I resolved to cancel people the gain was Independence Peace of Mind Clarity of goal despite the terrible Petersburg prices I determined once and for all that I would not spend more than 15 copcs on food and I knew I would keep my my word I had pondered this question of food thoroughly in for a long time I proposed for instance to eat only bread and salt for 2 days in a row so as to spend the money saved in 2 days on the third day it seemed to me that it would be more profitable for my health than an eternally regular fast on the minimum of 15 copcs then I needed a corner to live in literally a corner only to have a good night's sleep or take ref refuge on a particularly nasty day I proposed to live in the street and if necessary I was prepared to sleep in night shelters where on top of a night's lodging they give you a piece of bread and a glass of tea oh I'd be only too able to hide my money so that it wouldn't be stolen in my corner or in the shelter they wouldn't even catch a glimpse of it I promise you steal from me no the real fear is that I'll steal from them I heard this merry phrase once from some Rascal in the street of course I apply only the prudence and cunning to myself and have no intention of stealing moreover still in Moscow maybe from the very first day of the idea I decided that I would not be a pawn broker or a usurer there are yids for that and those Russians who lack both intelligence and character Pawn broking and Usery are for mediocrities as for clothes I propose to have two outfits an everyday one and a decent one once I had them I was sure I'd wear them for a long time I purposely spent 2 and 1/2 Years Learning how to wear clothes and even discovered a secret for suits to stay always new and not wear out they should be cleaned with a brush as often as possible five or six times a day cloth has no fear of the brush believe me what it fears is dust and dirt dust is the same as Stones looked at under a microscope while even the stiffest brush is after all almost wool itself I also learned how to wear boots evenly the secret is that you must carefully put your foot down with the whole sole at once avoiding as far as possible bringing it down on the side it can be learned in 2 weeks after which it becomes un conscious in this way boots can be worn on the average 1/3 longer 2 years experience then the activity itself begins I started from this consideration I have a 100 rubles in Petersburg there are so many auctions sales small shops at flea markets and people in need of things that it's impossible once you've bought an object for such and such such a price not to sell it for a little more with the album I made a profit of 7 rbl 95 copcs on a capital expenditure of two rubles 5 copex this enormous profit was taken without risk I saw from his eyes that the buyer wouldn't back out naturally I understand very well that it was mere chance but those are the kind of chances I seek that's why I decided to live in the street well granted such chances may even be extremely rare all the same my main rule will be not to risk anything and the second to be sure to earn at least something each day over and above the minimum spent on my subsistence so that the accumulation doesn't stop for a single day they'll tell me these are all dreams you don't know the street and you'll be cheated from the first step but I have will and character and Street science is a science like any other it yields to persistence attention and ability in high school I was among the first right up to the final grade I was very good at mathematics well as if experience and Street science should be extolled to such an idolizing degree as to predict certain failure the only ones who say it are always those who have never experimented with with anything never started any life and went on vegetating with everything provided if one gets his nose smashed another will do the same no I won't get my nose smashed I have character and with my attentiveness I'll learn everything well is it possible to imagine that with constant persistence constant keens sightedness and constant reflection and calculation with boundless activity in running around you will not attain finally to a knowledge of how to earn an extra 20 copcs a day above all I decided never to aim at the maximum profit but always to remain calm later on once I've already made a thousand or two I will of course inevitably get out of trading and Street dealing of course I still know very little about the stock exchange shares Banking and all the rest but instead of that I know like the back of my hand that in my own time I'll learn and master all this exchanging and banking like nobody else and that this study will come quite easily to me merely because matters will reach that point does it take so much intelligence is it some kind of wisdom of Solomon all I need is character skill adroitness knowledge will come by themselves so long as I don't stop wanting above all take no risks and that is precisely Possible only with character just recently when I was already in Petersburg there was a subscription for Railway shares those who managed to subscribe made a lot for some time the shares were going up and then suppose suddenly somebody who didn't manage to subscribe or just turned greedy seeing me with the shares and my hand offered to buy them from me with a premium of so much percent why I'd certainly sell them to him at once they'd start laughing at me of course saying if you'd waited you would have made 10 times more right s but my premium is more certain since it's already in my pocket while yours is still flying around they'll say you can't make much that way excuse me but there is your mistake the mistake of all these kakar poliakov goonin know the truth constancy and persistence in making money and above all in accumulating it are stronger than momentary profits even of 100% not long before the French Revolution a man named law appeared in Paris and undertook a project that was brilliant in principle afterwards in fact it crashed terribly all Paris was a stir LW shares were snapped up there was a stampede money came pouring from all over Paris as if from a sack into the house where the subscription was announced but the house finally was not enough the public crowded in the street all the states conditions ages Bourgeois nobility their children countesses marises public women everything churned up into a raging half crazed mass of people bitten by a rabid dog ranks prejudices of breeding and pride even honor and good name everything was trampled in the same mud everyone sacrificed even women in order to obtain a few shares the subscription finally passed into the street but there was nowhere to write here one Hunchback was asked to lend his hump for for a time as a table for subscribing to shares the Hunchback accepted you can imagine for what price sometime later very little it all went bankrupt it all crashed the idea went to the devil and the shares lost all value who profited only the Hunchback precisely because he did not take shares but cash in Lou door well sir I am that very same Hunchback didn't I have strength enough not to eat and to save up 72 rubles out of copex I'll also have enough to restrain myself right in the Whirl of the fever that overcomes everybody to prefer Shore money to big money I'm trifling only in Trifles but in great things I'm not I often lacked the character for a small forbearance even after the idea was born but for a big one I'll always have enough when my mother served me cold coffee in the morning before I went to work I got angry and was rude to her and yet I was the same man who survived a whole month on nothing but bread and water in short not to make money not to learn how to make money would be unnatural it would also be unnatural with continuous and regular accumulation with continuous attention and sober mindedness restraint economy with ever increasing energy it would be unnatural I repeat not to become a millionaire how did the beggar make his money if not by fanaticism of character and persistence am I worse than that beggar and finally suppose I don't achieve anything suppose my calculation is wrong suppose I crash and fail all the same I'm going I'm going because I want it that way that's what I said still in Moscow they'll tell me there's no idea here and precisely nothing new but I say and for the last time now that there is incalculably much idea and infinitely much that's new oh I did anticipate how trivial all the objections would be and how trivial I myself would be explaining the idea well what have I said I didn't say even a h 100th part I feel that it came out Petty crude superficial and even somehow younger than my years three it remains to answer the what for and why the moral or not and so on and so forth I've promised to answer that I feel sad to disappoint the reader at once sad but glad as well be it known that the goals of my idea have absolutely no feeling of Revenge nothing byonic no curse no orphan complaints no tears of illegitimacy nothing nothing in short a romantic lady if she were to come across my notes would be crestfallen at once the whole goal of my idea is solitude but one can achieve Solitude without any bristling up about becoming hotshield what has H Shield got to do with it just this that besides Solitude I also need power I'll preface that the reader will perhaps be horrified at the frankness of My Confession and will ask himself simple-hearted how is it that the author doesn't blush I reply that I'm not writing for publication I'll probably have a reader only in some 10 years when everything is already so apparent ped and proven that there will no longer be any point in blushing and therefore if I sometimes address the reader in my notes it's merely a device my reader is a fantastic character no it was not the illegitimacy for which they taunted me so much at T Shaws not my sad childhood years not revenge or the right to protest that was the beginning of my idea my character alone is to blame for it all from the age of 12 I think that is almost from the birth of proper consciousness I began not to like people not so much not to like but they somehow became oppressive to me it was sometimes all too sad for me myself in my pure moments that I could in no way speak everything out even to those close to me that is I could but I didn't want to I restrained myself for some reason that I was mistrustful Sullen and unsociable then too I had long noticed a feature in myself almost from childhood that I all too often accuse others that I'm all too inclined to accuse them but this inclination was quite often followed immediately by another thought which was all too oppressive for me is it not I myself who am to blame instead of them and how often I accused myself in vain to avoid resolving such questions I naturally sought Solitude besides I never found anything in the company of people however I tried and I did try at least all my peers all my comrades to a man proved to be inferior to me in thinking I don't remember a single exception yes I'm glum I'm continually closed I often want to leave s Society I may also do good to people but often I don't see the slightest reason for doing good to them and people are not at all so beautiful that they should be cared for so much why don't they come forward directly in openly and why is it so necessary that I should go and fo myself on them that's what I asked myself I'm a grateful being and I've already proved it by a hundred folies I would instantly respond with openness to an open person and begin to love him at once and so I did but they all cheated me at once and closed themselves to me in mockery the most open of them was lomber who used to beat me badly in childhood but he too was merely an open scoundrel and robber and here too his openness came merely from stupidity these were my thoughts when I came to Petersburg having left dgov then God knows what pushed me to go there I approached vasin and on a rapturous impulse praised him to the skies and what then that same evening I already felt that I liked him much less why precisely because by praising him I had lowered myself before him yet it seems it should have been the opposite a man so just and magnanimous as to give another his due even to his own detriment such a man is almost Superior in his personal dignity to everyone else and what then I knew this and still I liked vasin less even much less I purposely Give an example already familiar to the reader even craft I remembered with a bitter and sour feeling because he brought me out to the front hall himself and so it remained right up to another day when everything about craft became perfectly clear and it was impossible to be angry from the very lowest grade in school as soon as any of my comrades got ahead of me in studies or in witty answers or in physical strength I had once stopped keeping company with him or speaking to him not that I hated him or wished him to fail I simply turned away because such was my character yes I've thirsted for power all my life power and Solitude I dreamed of them even at such an age that decidedly anyone would have laughed in my face if he had made out what I had inside my skull that is why I came to love secrecy so much yes I dreamed with all my might and to a point where I had no time time to talk this led to the conclusion that I was unsociable and my absent mindedness led to a still worse conclusion in my regard but my rosy cheeks proved the contrary I was especially happy when going to bed and covering myself with a blanket I began alone now in the most complete Solitude with no people moving around and not a single sound from them to recreate life in a different key the fiercest dreaming was my companion until I discovered the idea when all my dreams went at once from stupid to reasonable and from a dreamy form of Novel passed on to the rationalistic form of reality everything merged into a single goal however they weren't so stupid even before though there were Myriad upon Myriad and thousand upon thousand of them but I had some favorites however there's no point bringing them in here power I'm convinced that a great many people would find it very funny to learn that such trash was aiming at power but I'll Amaze them still more maybe from my very first dreams that is almost from my very childhood I was unable to imagine myself otherwise than in the first place always and in all turns of Life I'll add a strange confession maybe that goes on even to this day and I'll also note that I'm not apologizing in this lies my idea in this lies its strength that money is the only path that will bring even a non- entity to the first place maybe I'm not a non- entity but I know from the mirror for instance that my appearance does me harm because my face is ordinary but if I were as rich as Rod Shield who would question my face and wouldn't thousands of women rush to me with their charms if I merely whistled I'm even certain that in the end they themselves would quite sincerely find me handsome maybe I'm also intelligent but even if I had a for head 7 in wide there would inevitably turn up in society a man with a forehead 8 in wide and that would be the end of me whereas if I were Ro Shield would this smarty with the 8 in forehead mean anything next to me he wouldn't even be allowed to speak Next to Me Maybe I'm witty yet here next to me is ton or Pon and I'm put in the shade but once I'm Ro Shield where is is p and maybe even T money is of course a despotic power but at the same time it's also the highest equalizer and that is its Chief strength money equalizes all inequalities I had already decided all that in Moscow you will of course see nothing in this thought but impudence violence the Triumph of n entity over talent I agree that it's a bold thought and therefore sweet but so what so what do you think I wished for power then in order to crush unfailingly to take revenge that's just the point that the ordinary man would unfailingly behave that way moreover I'm certain that if L Shields Millions were heaped on them the thousands of talents and Smarties who are so above it all would lose control at once and behave like the most benal of ordinary men and crush more than anybody else my idea is not that I'm not afraid of money it won't crush me and won't make me Crush others I don't need money or better it's not money that I need it's not even power I need only what is obtained by power and simply cannot be obtained without power the solitary and calm awareness of strength that is the fullest definition of freedom which the world so struggles over freedom I have finally inscribed that great word yes the solitary awareness of strength is fascinating and beautiful I have strength and I am calm Jupiter holds Thunderbolts in his hand and what then he's calm do we often hear him Thunder a fool might think he was asleep but put some riter or foolish peasant woman in Jupiter's place oh what Thunder what Thunder there will be if only I had power I reasoned I'd have no need at all to use it I assure you that I myself of my own fre will would take the last place everywhere if I were R Shield I would go about in an old coat and carry an umbrella what do I care if I'm jostled in the street if I'm forced to go skipping through the mud so as not to be run over by cabs the awareness that it was I H Shield himself would even amuse me at that moment I know that I can have a dinner like nobody else and from the world's foremost chef and and it's enough for me that I know it I'll eat a piece of bread and ham and be satisfied with my awareness I think so even now it's not I who will get in with the aristocracy but they who will get in with me it's not I who will chase after women but they who will flow to me like water offering me everything a woman can offer the Bal ones will come running for money but the in intelligent ones will be drawn by curiosity to a strange proud closed being indifferent to everything I'll be nice to the ones and to the others and maybe give them money but I won't take anything from them myself curiosity gives rise to Passion maybe I'll also Inspire passion they'll go away with nothing I assure you except perhaps a few presents I'll only become twice as curious for them enough for me is the awareness of it the strange thing is that this picture a correct one by the way tempted me when I was no more than 17 I don't want to crush or torment anyone and I won't but I know that if I did want to ruin such and such a person My Enemy No no one would keep me from doing it but everyone would be obliging and again enough I wouldn't even take revenge on anyone I was always surprised at how James W Shield could agree to become a baron why what for when he's Superior to everyone in the world without that oh let this insolent General offend me at the posting station where we're both waiting for horses if he knew who I was he'd run to Hitch them up himself and jump out and hasten to seat me in my modest tarantas they wrote that a certain foreign count or Baron at a certain vienes railway station before the public helped a certain local Banker into his shoes and the man was so ordinary that he allowed it oh let her let this fearsome Beauty precisely fearsome there are such the daughter of This Magnificent and Highborn aristocratic lady having met me by chance on a steamboat or wherever look a scance and turning up her nose Wonder scornfully how this humble and puny little man with a newspaper or book in his hands could dare to show up beside her in first class but if she only knew who was sitting next to her and she will know she will know and will sit down next to me obedient timid gentle seeking my eyes glad of my smile I have purposely introduced these early pictures in order to express my idea more vividly but the pictures are pale and perhaps trivial reality alone justifies everything they'll say it's stupid to live like that why not have a mansion an open house G Society exert influence get married but what would H Shield be then he'd become like everybody else all the charm of the idea would vanish all its moral Force as a child I had already learned by heart the monologue of pushkin's covetous night Pushkin never produced a higher idea than that I'm also of the same mind now but your ideal is too low they'll say with scorn money riches a far cry from social usefulness and Humane Endeavors but who knows how I'll use my riches what is immoral what is low in having these millions flow out of a multitude of dirty and pernicious Jewish hands into the hands of a sober and firm athetic who keenly studies the world generally all these dreams of the future all these conjectures all this is still like a novel now and maybe I shouldn't be writing it down it should have stayed inside my skull I also know that maybe no one will read these lines but if anyone does would he believe that maybe I too was unable to endure the RO Shian Millions not because they would crush me but in quite a different sense the opposite in my dreams I had more than once seized on that moment in the future when my Consciousness would be too well satisfied and power would seem all too little then not from boredom and not from aimless anguish but because I will desire something boundlessly greater I will give all my Millions away to people let Society distribute all my riches and I I will once more mingle with non-entity maybe I'll even turn into that beggar who died on the steamboat with this difference that they won't find anything sewn into my Rags the awareness alone that I had had millions in my hands and had flung them into the mud would feed me in my Wilderness like a raven I'm prepared to think so even now yes my idea is that Fortress in which I can always and in any case hide from all people be it even like the beggar who died on the steamboat this is my poem and know that I need precisely my whole depraved will solely to prove to myself that I'm strong enough to renounce it they'll undoubtedly object that this is poetry and that I'll never let go of millions if I've got them and will not turn into a Saratov beggar maybe I won't let go I've merely traced out the ideal of my thought but I'll add seriously now if in the accumulation of wealth I should reach the same figure as H Shield then it might indeed end with my flinging it to society however it would be hard to do that before the H sheldan figure and I wouldn't give away half because then it would be nothing but a banality I'd only become twice poorer and nothing more but precisely all all to the last copek because having become a beggar I'd suddenly become twice as rich as Lord Shield if they don't understand that it's not my fault I won't explain fakir ISM The Poetry of non-entity and impotence people will decide the TR Triumph of untalented and mediocrity yes I admit that it's partly the Triumph of both untalented and mediocrity but hardly of impotence I liked terribly to imagine a being precisely an untalented and mediocre one standing before the world and telling it with a smile you are galileos and cernus Charlamagne and napoleons you are pushed into and shakespears you are field Marshals and H Marshals and here I am giftless and illegitimacy and all the same I'm superior to you because you submit to it yourselves I confess I've pushed this fantasy to such a Verge that I've even ruled out education it seemed to me that it would be more beautiful if this person was even filthily uneducated this already exaggerated dream even influenced my results then in the final grade of high school I stopped studying precisely out of fanaticism it was as if lack of Education added Beauty to the ideal now I've changed my convictions on this point education doesn't hurt gentlemen can it be that independence of mind even the least bit of it is so painful for you blessed is he who has his ideal of beauty even if it's a mistaken one but I believe in mine only I've explained it improperly clumsily primitively 10 years from now of course I'll explain it better and this I'll keep as a momento four I've finished the idea if the description is benol superficial I'm to blame and not the idea I've already warned you that the simplest ideas are the hardest to understand I'll now add that they are also the hardest to explain the more so as I've described the idea still in its former shape there is also an inverse law for ideas Bal Hasty ideas are understood extraordinarily quickly and in variably by a crowd invariably by the whole street moreover they are considered the greatest and most brilliant but only on the day of their appearance what's cheap is not durable quick understanding is only a sign of the banality of what is understood Bismark idea was instantly regarded as brilliant and bismar himself as a brilliant man but this quickness is precisely suspicious I wait for bismar 10 years from now and then we'll see what's left of his idea and maybe of Mr Chancellor himself of course I haven't introduced this highly extraneous and inappropriate observation for the sake of comparison but also as a reminder an explanation for the overly crude reader and now I'll tell two anecdotes so as to finish with the idea all together and not have it interfere in any way with the story in the summer in July 2 months before I came to Petersburg and when I was already completely free Maria ivanovna asked me to go to troitsky Pasad to see a certain Old Maid who had settled there on an errand too uninteresting to mention in detail coming back that same day I noticed a certain puny young man on the train not badly but uncleanly dressed with blackheads a darkhaired dirtily swarthy type he was distinguished by the fact that at every station large or small he unfailingly got off and drank vodka by the end of the journey a merry little circle had formed around him an utterly trashy company incidentally there was a shopkeeper also slightly drunk who was especially admiring of the young man ability to drink continuously while remaining sober there was yet another very pleased young fellow terribly stupid and terribly talkative dressed in German fashion who gave off a rather nasty smell a Lackey as I learned later this one even struck up a friendship with a drinking young man and each time the train stopped got him to his feet with the invitation time now for some vodka and the two would go out and in each other's embrace the drinking young man hardly said a word but more and more interlocutors sat down around him he merely listened to them all grinning continuously with a slobbery titter and producing from time to time but always unexpectedly a sort of sound like tearly and placing a finger on his nose in a very caricature is way it was this that delighted the merchant and the Lackey and all of them and they laughed extremely loudly and casually it's impossible to understand why people laugh sometimes I too went over and I don't understand why I also found this young man likable as it were Maybe by his all too spectacular violation of conventional and banalized proprieties in short I failed to discern the fool in him anyhow we were unfamiliar terms there and then and as we got off the train I learned from him that he would be coming to T Boulevard that evening after eight he turned out to be a former student I went to the Boulevard and here's what trick he taught me we went around all the boulevards together and later on the moment we spotted a woman of a decent sort walking along but so that there was no public close by we'd immediately start pestering her without saying a word to her we'd Place ourselves he on one side I on the other and with the most calm air as if not noticing her at all would begin a most indecent conversation between ourselves we called things by their real names with a most unperturbed air as if it was quite proper and went into such details explaining various vile and swinish things as the dirtiest imagination of the dirtiest botcher could not have thought up I of course had already acquired all this knowledge at school even before high school but only in words not in Deeds the woman would be very frightened and hurriedly walk away but we would also Quicken our pace and go on with our thing for the victim of course it was impossible to do anything she couldn't shout there were no Witnesses and it would somehow be strange to complain some 8 days were spent on these amusements I don't understand how I could have liked it and in fact I didn't like it I just did it at first I found it original as if it went outside everyday Tri conventions besides I can't stand women I once told the student that Jean jaac rouso admits in his confessions that as a youth he liked to expose himself on the slide from around the corner uncovering the usually covered parts of the body and waited like that for passing women the student answered me with his tear Le Lee I noticed that he was frightfully ignorant and interested in surprisingly little there was no trace of the Hidden idea I had hoped to find in him instead of originality I found only an overwhelming monotony I disliked him more and more finally it all ended quite unexpectedly once when it was already quite dark we began to pester a girl who was walking quickly and timidly down the boulevard a very young girl maybe only 16 or even less dressed very neatly and modestly who maybe lived by her own labor and was going home from work to her old mother a poor Widow with children however there's no need to fall into sentimentality the the girl listened for some time walking faster and faster her head lowered and her face covered by a veil afraid and trembling but suddenly she stopped threw back the veil from her very pretty as far as I remember but thin face and with flashing eyes cried to US ah what Scoundrels you are maybe she would also have burst into tears here but something else happened she swung her small skinny arm and planted a slap on the student's face then which a more deaft has maybe never been given what a smack he cursed and rushed at her but I held him back and the girl had time to run away left there we began quarreling at once I told him everything that had been smoldering in me all that time I said he was nothing but a pathetic giftless and ordinary iness and that there had never been the least sign of an idea in him he called me a I had explained to him once about my being illegitimate then we spat at each other and I've never seen him since that evening I was very vexed the next day less so the third day I almost forgot all about it and so though I sometimes remembered this girl afterwards it was just by chance and fleetingly it was only on arriving in Petersburg some 2 weeks later that I suddenly remembered that whole scene remembered and then felt so ashamed that tears of Shame literally poured down my cheeks I suffered all evening all night I'm partly suffering now as well I couldn't understand at first how it had been possible to fall so low and disgracefully then and above all to forget the incident not to be ashamed of it not to be repentant only now did I realize what was the matter the idea was to blame in short I draw the direct conclusion that if you have in mind something fixed Perpetual strong something terribly preoccupying it is as if you thereby withdraw from the whole world into a desert and everything that happen takes place in passing apart from the main thing even impressions are received wrongly and besides that the main thing is that you always have an excuse however much I tormented my mother all that time however much I neglected my sister ah I have my idea those are all Trifles that's what I seem to say to myself I'd get insulted myself and painfully I'd go out insulted and then suddenly say to myself ah I'm Bas but all the same I have an idea and they don't know about it the idea comforted me in my disgrace and non entity but all my Abominations were also as if hiding under the idea it eased everything so to speak but it also clouded everything over before me and such a blurred understand understanding of events and things may of course even harm the idea itself to say nothing of the rest now the other anecdote on the 1st of April last year Maria ivanovna had a name day party in the evening some guests came a very few suddenly agrafa comes in breathless and announces that there is a foundling baby squealing in the entry by the kitchen door and that she doesn't know what to do excited by the news we all went and saw a basket and in the basket a three or four week old squealing girl I took the basket brought it to the kitchen and at once found a folded note dear benefactors render your well-wishing Aid to the baptized girl Arina and with her we will ever send up our tears to the throne of God for you and we congratulate you on your Angel's day people unknown to you here Nikolai simonovic whom I so respect upset me very much he made a very serious face and decided to send the girl to the orphanage immediately I felt very sad they lived very economically but had no children and Nikolai simonovich was always glad of it I carefully took aroa out of the basket and held her up by her little shoulders the basket gave off a sort of sour and sharp smell as of a long unwashed nursing baby after some arguing with Nikolai simonovic I suddenly announced to him that I was taking the girl at my own expense he began to object with a certain severity despite all his mildness and though he ended with a joke he left his intention about the orphanage in full force it worked out my way however on the same Courtyard but in another Wing lived a very poor cabinet maker already an old man and a drunkard but his wife a very healthy woman and not old at all had just lost her nursing baby and above all her only one who had been born after 8 years years of childless marriage also a girl and by strange luck also named aroa I say luck because as we were arguing in the kitchen this woman hearing about the incident came running to see and when she learned that it was aroa her heart melted her milk was not gone yet she opened her bodice and put the baby to her breast I fell before her her and began begging her to take Arin Noka with her and said I'd pay her monthly she feared her husband wouldn't allow it but took her for the night in the morning the husband allowed it for 8 rubles a month and I counted them out to him for the first month in advance he drank up the money at once Nikolai simonovich still smiling strangely agreed to vouch for me to the cabinet maker that the money 8 rubles a month would be paid regularly I tried to give Nikolai simonovich my 60 rubles in cash by way of security but he wouldn't take it however he knew I had the money and trusted me this delicacy on his part smoothed over our momentary quarrel Maria ivanovna said nothing but was surprised at my taking on such a care I especially appreciate their delicacy in that neither of them allowed themselves the slightest mockery of me but on the contrary began to treat the matter with the proper seriousness I ran by Daria rajon's every day three times a day or so and a week later I gave her personally in her own hand on the quiet from her husband three more rubles for another three I bought swaddling clothes and a little blanket but 10 days later rochka suddenly got sick I brought a doctor at once he prescribed something and we spent the whole night fussing about and tormenting the tiny thing with his nasty medicine but the next day he declared that it was too late and to my in treaties though they seemed more like reproaches he said with Noble evasiveness I am not God the girl's tongue lips and whole mouth got covered with a sort of fine white rash and towards evening she died gazing at me with her big dark eyes as if she already understood I don't understand how it didn't occur to me to take a photograph of her dead well would you believe that I did not weep but simply howled that evening something I had never allowed myself to do and Maria ivanovna was forced to comfort me and again totally without mockery either on her own or on his part the cabinet maker made a little cofen Maria Ivanova trimmed it with roou and put a pretty little pillow in it and I bought flowers and strewed them over the little baby and so they took away my poor little wisp whom believe me to this day I cannot forget a while later though this whole almost unexpected occurrence even made me reflect a lot of course rochka had not cost me much 30 rubles in all including the coffin the burial the doctor the flowers and the payments to Daria ronova I reimbursed myself for this money as I was leaving for Petersburg from the 40 rubles versilov had sent me for my trip and by selling some things before I left so that my whole Capital remained intact but I thought if I can be sidetracked like that I won't get very far from the story with the student it followed that the idea can Fascinate one to the point of a blurring of Impressions and distract one from the flow of actualities from the story with rochka the opposite followed that no idea can be so intensely fascinating for me at least that I cannot stop suddenly before some overwhelming fact and sacrific to it at once all that I had done for the idea during years of toil both conclusions were nonetheless correct chapter 6 1 my hopes were not fully realized I didn't find them alone though versilov wasn't there my mother was sitting with Tatiana pavlovna an outsider after all half of my magnanimous mood fell off of me at once it's astonishing how quick I am to turn about on such occasions a hair or a grain of sand is enough to disperse the good and replace it with the bad but my bad Impressions to my regret are not so soon driven out though I'm not rancorous as I entered it flashed in me that my mother at once and hastily broke off the thread of her conversation with Tatiana pavlovna which seemed quite animated my sister had returned from work just a minute before me and had not come out of her little closet yet then this apartment consisted of three rooms the one in which everyone usually sat our middle room or drawing room was rather large and almost decent there were Soft Red Sofas in it though very shabby ones veril couldn't stand slip covers rugs of some sort several tables and needless little tables then to the right was vero's room small and narrow with one window in it stood a pathetic writing table on which several unused books and forgotten papers were scattered and in front of the table a no less pathetic soft armchair with a broken spring sticking out at an angle which often made versilov groan and curse his bed was made up in this same study on a soft and also shabby sofa he hated this study of his and it seems did nothing in it but preferred to sit idly in the drawing room for hours at a time to the left of the drawing room was exactly the same sort of room in which my mother and sister slept the entrance to the drawing room was from the corridor which ended with the entrance to the kitchen where lived the cook liria who when she cooked mercilessly filled the whole apartment with the smoke of burnt oil there were moments when vov loudly cursed his life and his fate because of this kitchen smoke and in that alone I fully sympathized with him I also hate such smells though they did not penetrate to me I lived upstairs in a little room under the roof which I climbed to by an extremely Steep and creaky little staircase noteworthy in my place were the fan window the terribly low ceiling the oilcloth sofa on which liria spread a sheet and put a pillow for me at night while the rest of the furniture was just two OB objects the simplest plank table and a wicker chair with a hole in it however our place still preserved the remains of a certain former comfort in the drawing room for instance there was a rather Good China lamp and on the wall hung a fine big engraving of the Dresden Madonna and just opposite on the other wall an expensive photograph of huge Dimensions showing the cast bronze doors of the Florentine cathedral in a corner of the the same room hung a big case with old family icons one of which of All Saints had a big guilt silver casing the same one they had wanted to pawn and another of the mother of God of velvet casing embroidered with pearls before the icons hung an icon lamp that was lit for every Feast versilov was obviously indifferent to the icons in the sense of their meaning and merely winced sometimes visibly restraining himself at the light of the icon lamp reflected in the guilt casing complaining slightly that it hurt his eyes but all the same he did not keep my mother from lighting it I usually entered silently and sullenly looking somewhere into a corner and sometimes without any greeting I always came home earlier than this time and had my dinner served upstairs as I came in now I suddenly said hello Mama something I had never done before though somehow this time too out of shyness I still could not force myself to look at her and sat down at the opposite side of the room I was very tired but wasn't thinking of that this ignoramus still comes into your house like a boore just as he used to Tatiana pavlovna hissed at me she had allowed herself abusive words before as well and it had become a custom between us hello my mother answered as if immediately at a loss because I had greeted her dinner has been ready for a long time she added almost abashed if only the soup isn't cold and I'll tell them right now about the cutlets she hurriedly started getting up to go to the kitchen and maybe for the first time in the whole month I suddenly felt ashamed that she should jump up so promptly to serve me though before that was just what I myself had demanded I humbly thank you Mama I've already had dinner if I'm not bothering you I'll rest here ah well then stay of course don't worry Mama I'm not going to be rude to Andre petrovich anymore I said abruptly oh Lord how magnanimous on his part cried Tatiana pavlovna Sonia darling can it be that you still address him formally who is he that he should receive such honors and that from his own mother look at you getting all abashed in front of him what a shame it would be very nice for me mama if you addressed me informally oh well all right then I will my mother hastened to say I I didn't always well from now on I'll know she blushed all over decidedly her face could be extremely attractive on occasion she had a simple-hearted face but not at all simple-minded slightly pale anemic her cheeks were very gaunt even Hollow and little wrinkles were beginning to accumulate on her forehead but there were none around her eyes yet and her eyes rather big and wide open always shown with a gentle and Quiet Light which had attracted me to her from the very first day I also liked it that there was nothing sad or pinched in her face on the contrary its expression would even have been gay if she hadn't been so frequently alarmed sometimes for no reason getting frightened and jumping up sometimes over nothing at all or listening fearfully to some new conversation until she was reassured that all was still well with her all was well meant precisely that all was as before if only nothing changed if only nothing new happened even something fortunate one might think she had somehow been frightened in childhood besides her eyes I liked the elongated shape of her face and I believe if her cheekbones had only been a little less wide she might have been considered a beauty not only in her youth but even now as well now she was no more than 39 years old but her dark blonde hair was already strongly stre with gray Tatiana pavlovna looked looked at her with decided indignation before such a welp to tremble like that before him you're a funny one Sophia you make me angry that's what ah Tatiana pavlovna why are you like this with him now or maybe you're joking eh my mother added noticing something like a smile on Tatiana Pavlov's face indeed Tatiana Pavlov's abuse was sometimes possible to take seriously but she smiled if she did smile of course only at my mother because she loved her kindness terribly and had undoubtedly noticed how happy she was just then at my submissiveness I of course can't help feeling it if you yourself fall upon people Tatiana pavlovna and precisely now when I came in and said hello Mama which is something I've never done before I finally found it NE necessary to point out to her just imagine she boiled up at once he considers it a great deed should we go down on our knees to you or something because you've been polite for once in your life and as if that's politeness why do you look off into the corner when you come in as if I don't know how you storm and rage at her you might greet me as well I swaddled you I'm your godmother naturally I disdained to reply just then my sister came in and I quickly turned to her Lisa I saw vasin today and he asked me about you you're acquainted yes we met in luga last year she answered quite simply sitting down next to me and looking at me affectionately I don't know why but I thought she'd just turned bright red when I told her about vasin my sister was a blonde a light blonde her hair was quite unlike her mother's and her father's but her eyes and the shape of her face were almost like her mother's her nose was very straight small regular however there was another peculiarity small freckles on her face something my mother didn't have at all of vov there was very little perhaps only her slender weight her tall stature and something lovely in her gate and not the least resemblance to me two opposite poles I knew himself for 3 months Lisa added you're saying himself about vazin Lisa you ought to say him and not himself excuse me sister for correcting you but it distresses me that your education seems to have been quite neglected it's mean on your part to make such observations in front of your mother Tatiana pavlovna flared up and you're wrong it hasn't been neglected I'm not saying anything about my mother I put in sharply you should know Mama that I look upon Lisa as a second you you've made of her the same loveliness of kindness and character as you surely were yourself and are now to this day and will be eternally what I meant was external polish all that Society stupidity which is nevertheless indispensable I'm only indignant that versilov if he heard you say himself instead of him about vasin probably wouldn't correct you at all he's so hoty and indifferent with us that's what infuriates me he's a bear CB himself and here he's teaching us about polish sh don't you dare sir to say versilov in front of your mother or in my presence either I won't stand for it Tatiana pavlovna flashed fire mama I received my salary today 50 rubles here take it please I went over and gave her the money she became alarmed at once ah I don't know how I can take it she said as if afraid to touch the money I didn't understand for pity's sake mama if you both regard me as a son and a brother in the family then ah I'm guilty before you aradi I should confess certain things to you but I'm so afraid of you she said it with a timid and ingracia smile again I didn't understand and interrupted her by the way do you know Mama that the case between Andre petrovich and the sakis was decided today in court ah I know she exclaimed pressing her hands together fearfully in front of her her gesture today Tatiana pavlovna gave a great start but it can't be he would have told us did he tell you she turned to my mother uh no not that was today he didn't tell me about that I've been so afraid all week even if he loses I'd pray only so as to have it off our shoulders and be as we were before so he didn't tell you either mama I exclaimed what a fellow there's an example of his indifference and haughtiness what did I just tell you decided how how was it decided and who told you Tatiana pavlovna flung herself about speak but here's the man himself maybe he'll tell us I announced hearing his footsteps in the corridor and quickly sat down near Lisa brother for God's sake spare Mama be patient with Andre Petrovic my sister whispered to me I will I will I came back with that in mind I pressed her hand Lio looked at me very mistrustfully and she was right two he came in very pleased with himself so pleased that he didn't find it necessary to conceal his state of mind and in general he had become accustomed lately to opening himself up before us without the least ceremony and not only to the bad in him but even to the ridiculous something everyone is afraid of yet he was fully aware that we would understand everything to the last little jot in the past year by Tatiana Pavlov's observation he had gone very much to seed in his dress his clothes were always decent but old and without refinement it's true that he was prepared to wear the same linen for 2 days which even made mother upset they considered it a sacrifice and this whole group of devoted women looked upon it as outright heroism the hats he wore were always soft wide brimmed black when he took his hat off in the doorway the whole shock of his very thick but much graying hair just sprang up on his head I always liked looking at his hair when he took his hat off hello everybody's gathered even including him I could hear his voice in the front hall denouncing me it seems one of the signs that he was in a merry mood was that he began Sharp sharpening his wit on me I didn't reply naturally liria came in with a whole bag of purchases and put it on the table Victory Tatiana pavlovna the suit is won and of course the princes won't decide to appeal the case is mine I had once found where to borrow a th000 rubles Sophia put your work down don't strain your eyes just home from work Lisa Yes Papa Lisa replied with an affectionate look she called him father I wouldn't submit to that for anything tired yes leave work don't go tomorrow and drop it completely it's worse for me that way Papa I ask you to I dislike it terribly when women work Tatiana pavlovna how can they be without work as if a woman shouldn't work I know no I know that's all Splendid and right and I agree beforehand but I mean handwork mainly imagine it seems to be one of my morbid or better one of my incorrect Impressions from childhood in the vague memories from when I was five or six years old I most often remember with disgust of course a conclave of clever women at a round table stiring and severe scissors Fabrics patterns and a fashion plate they all Divine and opine shaking their heads slowly and Gravely measuring and calculating as they prepare for the cutting out all those affectionate faces which love me so much suddenly become unapproachable if I should start acting up I'd be taken away at once even my poor nanny who holds me with one hand and doesn't respond to my crying and pulling is mesmerized gazing and listening as if to a bird of paradise it's that sternness of clever faces and gravity before the start of cutting out that I find it painful to picture for some reason even now you Tatiana pavlovna are terribly fond of cutting out aristocratic as it may be I still much prefer a woman who doesn't work at all don't take it to your own account Sophia not that you could a woman is a great power even without that however you know that too Sonia what's your opinion aradi makovich you probably protest no not really I replied it's particularly well put that a woman is a great power though I don't know why you connect it with work and that one can't help working when one has no money you know yourself but now it's enough he turned to my mother who was beaming all over when he addressed me she gave a start at least for right now I don't want to see any handwork I asked for my own sake you aradi as a youth of our time are surely a bit of a socialist well would you believe it my friend those who have the greatest love of idleness are from the etern Ally laboring people maybe not idleness but rest no precisely idleness total do nothingness that's the ideal I knew one eternally laboring man though not from the people he was a rather developed man and able to generalize all his life maybe every day he dreamed passionately and sweetly of the most total idleness carrying his ideal to the absolute to the boundless Independence to the Eternal freedom of dreaming and Idol contemplation it went on like that till he broke down completely at work he couldn't mend he died in the hospital I'm some sometimes seriously ready to conclude that the notion of the Delights of labor was thought up by idle people of The Virtuous sort naturally it's one of those Geneva ideas from the end of the last century Tatiana pavlovna two days ago I cut out an advertisement from the newspaper here it is he took a scrap of paper from his waist coat pocket it's from one of those endless students who know Classical Languages and Mathematics and are ready to relocate live in a Garrett or anywhere now listen female teacher prepares for all institutions of learning for all listen to that and gives lessons in arithmetic just one line but a classic prepares for institutions of learning of course that also means an arithmetic no she mentions arithmetic separately this this is pure starvation this is the ultimate degree of need the touching thing here is precisely this lack of skill obviously she never prepared herself to be a teacher and is hardly able to teach anything but it's either drown herself or drag her last Ruble to the newspaper and advertise that she prepares for all institutions of learning and on top of that gives lessons in arithmetic throughout the world and other places a Andre Petrovic she must be helped where does she live exclaimed Tatiana pavlovna oh there are lots of them he put the address in his pocket this bag is full of all sorts of treats for you Lisa and for you Tatiana pavlovna Sophia and I don't like sweets you too if you please young man I bought it all myself at yis and ballet for too long we've been sitting hungry as liria says note well none of us ever sat hungry there are grapes Bon balls dues pears and a strawberry tart I even bought some excellent lur also nuts It's Curious Tatiana pavlovna ever since childhood I've Loved nuts you know the simplest kinds Lisa takes after me she also likes to crack nuts like a squirrel but there's nothing Lovelier Tatiana pavlovna than chancing sometimes among your childhood memories to imagine yourself momentarily in the woods in the bushes when you were gathering nuts the days are almost autumnal but clear sometimes so fresh you hide in the thicket you wander off into the forest there's a smell of leaves do I see something sympathetic in your look aradi movich the first years of my childhood were also spent in the country I know I believe you were living in Moscow if I'm not mistaken he was living with the andronikov in Moscow when you came that time but before then he lived with your late aunt varvara stepanova in the country Tatiana pavlovna picked up Sophia here's the money put it away they promised to give me 5,000 one of these days so there's no more hope for the princes asked Tatiana Pavlo none whatsoever Tatiana pavlovna I've always sympathized with you Andre Petrovic and all of yours and have been a friend of your house but though the princes are strangers to me by God I feel sorry for them don't be angry Andre Petrovic I have no intention of sharing Tatiana pavlovna of course you know my thinking Andre p they would have stopped the litigation if you had offered to go Hales with them at the very beginning now of course it's too late however I won't venture to judge I say it because the deceased certainly wouldn't have cut them out of his will not only wouldn't have cut them out he'd certainly have left everything to them and cut out just me alone if he'd been able to do it and had known how to write a will properly but now the law is with me and it's finished I cannot and do not want to share Tatiana pavlovna and the matter ends there he uttered this even with anger which he rarely allowed himself taana pavlovna quieted down mother lowered her eyes somehow sadly versilov knew that she approved of Tatiana Pavlov's opinion it's the slap in m I thought to myself the document procured by Craft which I had in my pocket would Faire badly if it fell into his hands I suddenly felt that it was all still hanging on my neck this thought in connection with all the rest of course had an irritating effect on me araria I wish you'd dress better my friend you're not dressed badly but in view of things to come there's a good Frenchman I might recommend to to you a most conscientious man and with taste I beg you never to make me such offers I suddenly ripped out why is that I of course do not find it humiliating but we are not in such agreement on the contrary we even disagree because one day tomorrow I'll stop going to the princes seeing not the least work to do there but the fact that you go there that you sit with him is already work such Notions are humiliating I don't understand however if you're so ticklish don't take money from him just go there you'll upset him terribly he's already stuck on you you can be sure however as you wish he was obviously displeased you tell me not to ask for money but thanks to you I did a mean thing today you didn't warn me and today I demanded my month salary from him so you've already taken care of it and I'll confess I thought you'd never begin to ask how a Droid you've all now become though there are no young people these days Tatiana pavlovna he was terribly irritated I also became terribly angry I ought to have settled accounts with you it was you who made me do it now I don't know how to be by the way Sophie give arati back his 60 rubles immediately and you my friend don't be angry at the Hasty Reckoning I can guess from your face that you have some Enterprise in mind and that you're in need of working capital or something like that I don't know what my face expresses but I never expected of Mama that she would tell you about the money since I asked her not to I looked at my mother flashing my eyes I can't even express how offended I was arasha darling forgive me for God's sake there was no way I couldn't tell him my friend don't hold it against her that she revealed your secrets he turned to me besides she did it with good intentions a mother simply wanted to boast of her son's feelings but believe me I'd have guessed that that you're a capitalist even without that all your secrets are written on your honest face he has his idea Tatiana pavlovna I told you so let's forget my honest face I went on ripping out I know you often see through things though in other cases no further than a chicken's nose and your perceptive abilities have surprised me well yes I do have my idea the fact that you put it that way is of course accidental but I'm not afraid to admit it I have an idea I'm not afraid and not ashamed above all don't be ashamed but all the same I won't ever reveal it to you that is you won't Dain to reveal it no need my friend I know the essence of your idea even so in any case it's this to the desert I withdraw Tatiana pavlovna I think he wants to become hotshield or something like that and withdraw into his Grandeur naturally he will magnanimously grant you and me a pension or maybe he won't grant me one but in any case that will be the last we see of him he's like a new moon it no sooner appears than it sets I shuddered inside of course it was all chance he knew nothing and wasn't speaking of that at all though he did mention H Shield but how could he have defined my feelings so accurately to break with them and withdraw he had guessed it all and wanted to dirty the tragedy of the fact beforehand with his cynicism there was no doubt that he was terribly irritated mama forgive me my Outburst the more so as it's impossible to hide anything from Andre petrovich anyway I laughed insincerely trying to move it all towards joking at least for a moment the best thing my dear is that you laughed it's hard to imagine how much every person gains by that even an appearance I'm speaking in the most serious way you know Tatiana pavlovna he always looks as if he has something so important on his mind that he's even ashamed of this circumstance himself I beg you seriously to be more restrained Andre Petrovic you're right my friend but it needs to be spoken out once and for all so that we don't keep touching on it later you came to us from Moscow in order to Rebel at once that's what we know so far about the purpose of your coming of the fact that you came in order to astonish us with something of that I naturally make no mention then you've been with us and snorting at us for a whole month yet you're obviously an intelligent man and in that quality might have left such snorting to those who have no other way of taking revenge on people for their non- entity you always close yourself up whereas your honest air and red cheeks testify directly that you could look everyone in the eyes with perfect innocence he's a hypochondriac Tatiana pavlovna I don't understand why are they all hypochondriacs now if you didn't even know where I grew up how could you know what makes a man a hypochondriac there's the solution you're offended that I could forget where you grew up not at all don't ascribe stupidities to me Mama Andre Petrovic just praised me for laughing so let's laugh why sit like this shall I tell you funny stories about myself the more so as Andre petrovich knows nothing of my Adventures it was all smoldering in me I knew we'd never sit together again like now and that having left this house I would never come back and therefore on the eve of All that I couldn't restrain myself he himself had challenged me to such a finish that's very nice of course if it really will be funny he observed peering at me keenly you turned a bit crude my friend wherever it was that you grew up but anyhow you're still decent enough he's quite nice today Tatiana pavlovna and it's an excellent thing that you're finally untying that bag but Tatiana pavlovna was frowning she didn't even turn at his words and went on untying the bag and putting the treats on plates that had been brought mother also sat in complete bewilderment of course understanding and sensing the things were turning out wrong with us my sister again touched my elbow three I simply want to tell you all I began with the most casual a about how a certain father met his own dear son for the first time this took place precisely where he grew up but my friend won't this be boring you know to Le don't frown Andre Petrovic it's not at all what you think I precisely want everyone to laugh then may God hear you my dear I know you love us all and you won't want to upset our evening he murmured somehow affectedly negligently here too of course you've guessed by my face that I love you yes partly by your face well and I've long guessed by Tatiana Pavlov's face that she's in love with me don't look at me so ferociously Tatiana pav it's better to laugh better to laugh she suddenly turned quickly to me and peered at me piercingly for half a minute you watch out she shook her finger at me but so seriously that it could no longer refer to my stupid joke but was a warning about something else does he intend to start something so Andre Petrovic you really don't remember how you and I met for the first time in our lives by God I've forgotten my friend and I apologize from the bottom of my heart I only remember that it was somehow very long ago and took place somewhere Mama do you remember visiting the village where I grew up I think it was before I was six or seven and above all did you really come to that Village once or did I only imagine as in a dream that I saw you there for the first time I've long wanted to ask you but I kept putting it off now the time has come why yes AR kashena yes I visited varvara stepanovna there three times the first time I came when you were only one year old the second when you were already going on four and then when you were just turning six well there I've been wanting to ask you about it all month mother simply glowed from the quick Rush of memories and she asked me with feeling AR kashena do you really remember me from then I don't remember and don't know anything only something of your face has remained in my heart all my life and besides that the knowledge remained that you were my mother I see that village now as in a dream I even forget my nanny I have a drop of recollection of varvara stepanovna only because she eternally had her cheek bound from toothache I also remember huge trees near the house lindens I think then strong sunlight sometimes coming through the open Windows a front garden with flowers a path and you Mom I remember clearly only at one moment when you took me to communion in the church there and lifted me up to receive the gifts and kiss the Chalice that was in summer and a dove flew across under the Cupa from window to window Lord that's just how it all was my mother clasped her hands and I remember that little Dove as if it were now you gave a start just at the chalice and cried a dove a little Dove your face or something of it its expression remains so well in my memory that 5 years later in Moscow I recognized you at once though no one told me then that you were my mother and when I first met Andre Petrovic I was taken from the andronikov before that I had quietly and cheerfully vegetated with them for 5 years on end I remember their government apartment in detail and all those ladies and girls who have all now aged so much here and the house full of everything and andronikov himself how he himself brought all the provisions from town in bags foul perch and suckling pig and a table ladled out the soup for us in place of his wife who was too uppish and the whole table always laughed at that and he first of all the young ladies there taught me French but most of all I loved Krill of's fables learned many of them by heart and recited one to andronikov each day going straight to his tiny study whether he was busy or not well so it was through a fable that you and I became acquainted Andre Petrovic I see you're beginning to remember I remember a thing or two my dear namely that you recited something to me then a fable I believe or a passage from woe from wit what a memory you have though memory what else I've remembered only this all my life well well my dear you even liven me up he even smiled and right after him my mother and sister began to smile trustfulness was returning but Tatiana pavlovna having arranged the treats on the table and sat down in the corner went on piercing me with her nasty gaze it so happened I went on that suddenly one Bright Morning a friend of my childhood appeared Tatiana pavlovna who always appeared unexpectedly in my life as in the theater and took me in a carriage and brought me to a grand house to a magnificent apartment you were then staying with Madame fatov Andre Petrovic in her empty house which she had once bought from you she was abroad at the time I had always worn short jackets here suddenly I was dressed in a pretty blue frck coat and excellent linen Tatiana pavlovna fussed over me all that day and brought me many things and I kept walking through the empty rooms looking at myself in all the mirrors in this way at around 10:00 the next morning wandering about the apartment I suddenly walked quite by chance into your study I'd already seen you the day before when I was brought there but only fleetingly on the stairs you were coming down the stairs to get into a carriage and go somewhere you had arrived in Moscow alone then after an extremely long absence and for a short time so that you were snapped up by everybody and almost didn't live at home meeting me and Tatiana pavlovna you only Drew out a long ah and didn't even stop he describes it with particular love observed versilov turning to Tatiana pavlovna she turned away and didn't answer I can see you then as if it were now flourishing and handsome it's surprising how you've managed to age and lose your good looks in these 9 years forgive my frankness however back then you were already around 37 but I even gazed at you in wonder you had such astonishing hair almost perfectly black with a lustrous shine and not a trace of gray mustache and side whiskers of a Jeweler's finish there's no other way to put it your face was matte pale not the sickly pale that it is now but like the face of your daughter Anna andreevna whom I had the honor of meeting today burning dark eyes and gleaming teeth especially when you laughed you precisely burst out laughing as you looked me over when I came in I had little discernment then only my heart rejoiced at your smile that morning you were in a dark blue velvet jacket on your neck a scarf of bright sulfuro crimson over a magnificent shirt with alanson lace standing in front of a mirror with a notebook in your hand and rehearsing declaiming chat's last monologue and especially his last cry my Carriage my Carriage oh my God cried versilov but he's right despite the shortness of my stay in Moscow I had undertaken then to play chatsky and Alexandra petrovna vav's home theater because jila was sick had you really forgotten laughed Tatiana pavlovna he's reminded me and I confess those few days in Moscow were perhaps the best moment of my whole life we were all still so young then and everyone was so ardently expectant in Moscow then I unexpectedly met so many but go on my dear you did very well this time to recall it in such detail I stood looked at you and suddenly cried ah how good the real chutsky you suddenly turned to me and asked so you already know chatsky and sat down on the sofa and turned to your coffee in the most Charming mood I could have kissed you then I told you that at andronikov everybody read a lot and the young ladies knew many poems by heart and played scenes from woe from wit among themselves and that last week we all read a hunter's sketches aloud together and that I loved kof's fables most of all and knew them by heart you told me to recite something by heart and I recited the fussy bride for you a maiden bride was thinking on a Suitor precisely precisely now I remember everything versilov cried again but my friend I remember you clearly too you were such a nice boy then even a Nimble boy and I swear to you you've also lost a bit in these nine years here everybody even Tatiana pavlovna herself burst out laughing clearly Andre Petrovic was joking and had paid me in my own coin for my Barb about his having aged everybody cheered up and it had indeed been well put as I recited you were smiling but before I reached the middle you stopped me rang the bell and when the servant came in told him to send for Tatiana pavlovna who came running with such a cheerful look that though I had seen her the day before I almost didn't recognize her now in front of Tatiana pavlovna I began the fussy bride again and finished brilliantly even Tatiana pavlovna smiled and you Andre Petrovic you even shouted Bravo and observed warmly that if I had recited the grasshopper and the Ant it wouldn't have been so surprised that any sensible boy my age could read it sensibly but that this Fable a maiden bride was thinking on a Suitor in that there's yet no sin just listen to how he articulates in that there is yet no sin in short you were delighted here you suddenly began speaking to Tatiana pavlovna in French and she instantly frowned and began to object to you even very vehemently but since it was impossible to contradict Andre Petrovic if he suddenly wanted something Tatiana pavlovna hurried me off to her rooms there my face and hands were washed again my shirt was changed my hair was pomad and even curled then towards evening Tatiana pavlovna herself got dressed up quite magnificently even more so than I could have expected and took me with her in a carriage I found myself in a theater for the first time in my life at an amateur performance at Madame vovs candles chandeliers ladies military men generals young ladies a curtain rows of chairs I had never seen anything like it before Tatiana pavlovna took a most modest seat in one of the back rows and sat me down beside her naturally there were other children like me there but I no longer looked at anything and waited with a fainting heart for the performance when you came out Andre Petrovic I was rapturous rapturous to the point of Tears why over what I don't understand myself why tears of rapture that's what I found so wild remembering it all these nine years I followed the comedy with baited breath of course the only thing I understood about it was that she was unfaithful to him that stupid people not worth his little finger laughed at him when he declaimed at the ball I understood that he was humiliated and insulted that he was reproaching all these pathetic people but that he was great great of course my preparation at the andronikov contributed to my understanding but so did your acting Andre Petrovic I was seeing the stage for the first time in the final scene when chatsky cries my Carriage my carriage and you cried it remarkably well I tore from my seat and together with the whole audience which burst into Applause I clapped and shouted Bravo with all my might I vividly remember at that same moment a furious pinch from Tatiana pavlovna piercing me from behind below the lower back but I paid no attention naturally right after woe from wit Tatiana pavlovna brought me home you can't stay for the dancing and it's only because of you that I can't stay you Tatiana pavlovna hissed at me all the way in the carriage all night I was delirious and the next day at 10:00 I was already standing by your study but the study was closed you had people with you you were busy with them then you suddenly drove off for the whole day till late at night and so I didn't see you what it was that I wanted to tell you then I've forgotten of course and didn't know then but I had a burning desire to see you as soon as possible but the next morning by 8:00 you were so good as to leave for serov you had just sold your Tula estate in order to pay off your creditors but you were still left holding a handsome sum that was why you had come to Moscow which you couldn't visit before then for fear of creditors and there was only this one boore from serkov alone of all your creditors who refused to take half the debt instead of the whole Tatiana pavlovna wouldn't even respond to my questions it's nothing to you and the day after tomorrow I'll be taking you to boarding school get ready gather your notebooks put your books in order and get into the habit of packing your own trunk you're not to grow up into a do nothing sir and this and that oh how you drummed away at me for those three days Tatiana pavlovna it ended with my being taken to tushar's boarding school in love with you and innocent Andre Petrovic and it may have been the stupidest incident this whole encounter with you but would you believe it 6 months later I wanted to run away from T Charles to you you've told it beautifully and reminded me so vividly of everything versilov pronounced distinctly but what chiefly strikes me in your account is the wealth of certain strange details about my debts for instance to say nothing of a certain impropriety in these details I don't understand how you could even have gotten hold of them details how I got hold of them but I repeat the only thing I've done is get hold of details about you all these nine years a strange confession and a strange Pastime he turned half reclined in his armchair and even yawned slightly whether on purpose or not I don't know so then shall I go on with how I wanted to run away to you from Tusa forbid him Andre petrovich suppress him and throw him out Tatiana pavlovna snapped impossible Tatiana pavlovna veril of answered her imposingly aradi obviously has something in mind and therefore we absolutely must allow him to finish well and let him he'll tell it and get off his chest and for him the main thing is to get it off his chest begin your new story my dear that is I'm only calling it new don't worry I know the ending four I ran away that is I wanted to run away to you very simply Tatiana pavlovna you remember how tar wrote you a letter 2 weeks after I was installed there don't you Maria ivanovna showed me the letter later it also wound up among the late andronikov papers Tushar suddenly thought he had asked too little money and in his letter announced to you with dignity that in his institution princes and Senators children were educated and that he considered it beneath his institution to keep a pupil with such an origin as mine unless he was paid extra M you might oh never mind never mind I interrupted I'll tell only a little about tusha you replied to him from the provinces Tatiana pavlovna two weeks later and sharply refused I remember him then all purple coming into our classroom he was a very short and very stocky little Frenchman of about 45 and indeed of iian origin from cobblers of course but from time immemorial he had held a government Post in Moscow as a teacher of French and even had some rank which he was extremely proud of a profoundly uneducated man we his pupils were only six in number among us there was indeed some nephew of a Moscow Senator and we all lived there in a completely family situation more under the supervision of his wife a very affected lady the daughter of some Russian official during those two weeks I put on airs terribly in front of my comrades boasting of my dark blue frock coat and my papa Andre Petrovic and their questions why was I dalgar Ruki and not versilov didn't embarrass me in the least precisely because I didn't know why myself Andre Petrovic cried Tatiana pavlovna in an almost threatening voice my mother on the contrary could not tear her eyes from me and obviously wanted me to continue Su indeed I recall him now was small and fidgety versilov said through his teeth but he was recommended to me then from the best side sua came in holding the letter went over to our big oak table at which all six of us were grinding away at something seized me firmly by the shoulder raised me from my chair and told me to pick up my notebooks your place is not here but there he pointed to a tiny room to the left of the front hall in which stood a simple table a wicker chair and an oil cloth sofa exactly as I have now in my little room upstairs I went there with astonishment and greatly intimidated never before had I been treated rudely half an hour later when tusha left the classroom I began exchanging glances and laughter with my comrades they of course were laughing at me but I didn't guess that and thought we were laughing because we were having fun here tusha fell on me all at once seized me by the four lock and started pulling you dare not sit together with Noble children you're of mean origin and the same as a lacky and he hit me painfully on my plump red cheek he liked that at once and hit me a second and a third time I wept and sobbed I was terribly astonished for a whole hour I sat covering my face with my hands and wept and wept something had taken place that I could in no way understand I don't understand how someone like tusar a foreigner who was not a wicked man who even rejoiced at the emancipation of the Russian peasants could beat such a stupid child as I however I was only astonished not insulted I was still unable to be insulted it seemed to me that I had done some Mischief but when I improved I'd be forgiven and we'd all suddenly become merry again go and play in the yard and have the best possible life my friend if I'd only known versilov drawed with the careless smile of a somewhat weary man what a scoundrel this toou Shah was though however I still haven't lost hope that you'll somehow gather your strength and finally forgive us for it all and again we'll have the best possible life he decidedly yawned but I'm not accusing anybody not at all and believe me I'm not complaining about tusha I cried somewhat thrown off and he beat me only for two months or so I remember I kept wanting to disarm him in some way rushed to kiss his hands and kissed them and kept weeping and weeping my comrades laughed at me and despised me because Tushar started using me as a servant ordered me to hold his clothes while he dressed here my lacky character was instinctively of use to me I tried as hard as I could to cater to him and wasn't insulted in the least because I understood none of it yet and I'm even astonished to this day that I was so stupid then as not to understand how unequal I was to them all true my comrades had already explained a lot to me it was a good schooling tusha ended by preferring to kick me from behind with his knee rather than slap my face and 6 months later he even began to be gentle with me at times only now and then but once a month for certain he would give me a beating so that I wouldn't forget myself soon I was also seated together with the other children and allowed to play with them but not once in 2 and a half years did tar forget the difference in our social position and he still went on using me as a servant though not too much I think precisely as a reminder to me as for my running away that is my wanting to run away that was 5 months after those first two months and generally all my life I've been slow to make decisions when I went to bed and covered myself with the blanket I at once began Dreaming of You Andre Petrovic of you alone I don't know at all why it worked out that way I even saw you in my sleep above all I dreamed passionately that you would suddenly walk in and I'd rush to you and you would take me out of that place and bring me to your house to that study and we'd go to the theater again well and so on above all we wouldn't part that was above all and when I had to wake up in the morning then suddenly the boy's mockery and Scorn would begin one of them would begin straight off by beating me and making me bring him his boots he would abuse me in the nastiest terms especially trying to explain my origin to me to the Delight of all the listeners and when tusar himself suddenly appeared something unbearable started in my soul I felt that I'd never be forgiven here oh I was gradually beginning to understand precisely what would not be forgiven and precisely where my fault lay and so I finally resolved to run away I dreamed of it terribly for a whole two months and finally decided it was September then I waited till all my comrades went away for the weekend and meanwhile on the sly I carefully tied myself up a little bundle of the most necessary things I had two rubles I was going to wait till it got dark I'll creep down the stairs I thought and go out and then go on where I knew that andronikov had already been transferred to Petersburg so I decided to find Madame fov's house on the arbot I'll spend the night walking or sitting somewhere and in the morning I'll ask somebody in the court yard where is Andre Petrovic now and if not in Moscow then in what what city or country they'll surely tell me I'll leave and then in another place somewhere I'll ask somebody which gate to take in order to go to such and such City and so I'll go out and go on go on I'll keep on going I'll spend the night somewhere under the bushes and I'll eat nothing but bread and for two rubles I'll have enough bread for a very long time on Saturday however I didn't manage to run away I had to wait for the next day Sunday and as if on purpose tusha and his wife went somewhere on Sunday agafia and I were the only ones left in the whole house I waited for night in terrible anguish I remember sitting in our classroom by the window and looking at the dusty street with its little wooden houses and the rare passers by tusha lived on the skirts and The City Gate could be seen from the windows is that the one I kept Imagining the Setting Sun was so red the sky was so cold and a sharp wind just like today blew the sand about it finally became completely dark I stood in front of an icon and began to pray only quickly quickly I was in a hurry I seized my little bundle and tiptoe down the creaky stairs terribly afraid that agafia would hear me from the kitchen the door was locked I opened it and suddenly dark dark night stood black before me like an endless and dangerous unknown and the wind tore at my visor cap I went out from across the pavement came the horse drunken bellowing of an abusive passer by I stood looked and quietly turned back quietly went upstairs quietly undressed put down my bundle and lay face down without tears and without thoughts and it was from that moment Andre Petrovic that I began to think from that very moment when I realized that besides being a Lackey I was also a power my real and correct development began and at this very moment I see through you once and for all Tatiana pavlovna suddenly jumped up from her place and even so unexpectedly that I was quite unprepared for it not only were you a Lackey then you're a Lackey now you have a Lackey Soul what would it have cost Andre petrovich to send you to be a cobbler he'd even have done a good indeed teaching you a craft who would ask or demand that he do any more for you your father marari vanic did not so much ask as almost demand that you his children not be taken from the lower Estates no you don't appreciate that he got you as far as the university and that through him you acquired rights the boys teased him you see and so he swore to take revenge on mankind SC that you are I confess I was astounded by this Outburst I stood up and stared for some time not knowing what to say why Tatiana pavlovna has indeed told me something new I finally turned firmly to vov I'm indeed so much of a lacky that I can in no way be satisfied merely with the fact that versilov did not send me to be a c even rights didn't appease me but give me say the whole of versilov give me my father that's what I was demanding am I not a Lackey Mama it has been on my conscience for8 years how you came alone to tars to visit me and how I received you then but there's no time for that now Tatiana pavlovna won't let me tell it till tomorrow Mama maybe you and I can still see each other taana pavlovna well what if I'm once again a lacky to such a degree that I cannot even allow a man whose wife is still living to marry yet another wife and that's nearly what happened with Andre Petrovic in M mama if you don't want to stay with a husband who might marry another woman tomorrow remember that you have a son who promises to be a respectful son forever remember and let's go only with the understanding that it's either him or me do you want to I'm not asking for an answer now I know it's impossible to answer such questions straight off but I couldn't finish first of all because I became excited and Confused my mother turned all pale and her voice seemed to fail her she couldn't utter a word Tatiana pavlovna was saying a lot and very loudly so that I couldn't even make it out and twice she shoved me on the shoulder with her fist I only remember her shouting that my words were affected fostered in a petty Soul dug out with a finger versilov sat motionless and very serious not smiling I went to to my room upstairs the last look to accompany me out of the room was my sister's look of reproach she sternly shook her head behind me chapter 7 one I'm describing all these scenes without sparing myself in order to recall it all clearly and restore the impression going upstairs to my room I had Absolut abolutely no idea whether I should be ashamed of myself or triumphant like someone who has done his duty if I had been a bit more experienced I would have guessed that the least doubt in such a matter should be interpreted for the worse but I was thrown off by another circumstance I don't understand what I was glad about but I was terribly glad in spite of my doubts and the clear awareness that I had flunked it downstairs even the fact that Tatiana pavlovna had abused me so spitefully struck me as only ridiculous and amusing but didn't anger me at all probably that was all because I had broken the chain anyway and for the first time felt myself free I also felt that I had harmed my situation still greater Darkness surrounded the question of how I should now act with a letter about the inheritance they would now decidedly take it as a wish to be revenged on versilov but while still downstairs during all those debates I had resolved to submit the matter of the letter about the inheritance to arbitration and to appeal to vasin as Arbiter and failing vasin to yet another person I already knew whom once this time only I'll go to vasin I thought to myself and then disappear from them all for a long time for several months and I'll even especially disappear from vasin only maybe I'll see my mother and sister every once in a while all this was disorderly I felt I had done something though not in the right way and and I was pleased I repeat all the same I was glad of something I had decided to go to bed early foreseeing a lot of running around the next day besid besides renting an apartment and moving I took a few other decisions which I resolved to carry out in one way or another but the evening was not to end without its curiosity and versilov did manage to astonish me greatly he had decidedly never come up to my little room and suddenly I hadn't been there an hour when I heard his footsteps on the little stairs he called me to light his way I brought a candle and and reaching out my hand which he seized helped him to drag himself up mer friend I never once crept up here not even when I was renting the apartment I sensed it was something like this but all the same I never supposed it was quite such a kennel he stood in the middle of my room looking around with curiosity why it's a coffin a perfect coffin indeed it had a certain resemblance to the inside of a coffin and I even marveled at how correctly he had defined it with a single word it was a long and narrow closet at the height of my shoulder not more the angle between the wall and the roof began the top of which I could touch with my palm for the first minute versilov instinctively stooped for fear of bumping his head on the ceiling though he didn't and ended by sitting down quite calmly on my sofa where my bed was already made up as for me I did not sit down and looked at him in deep astonishment your mother tells me she didn't know if she should take the money you offered her today for your monthly upkeep in view of this coffin not only should the money not be taken but on the contrary a deduction should be made from us in your favor I've never been here and can't imagine that it's possible to live here I'm used to it but what I can't get used to is seeing you here after all that went on downstairs oh yes you were considerably rude downstairs but I also have my particular goals which I'll explain to you though anyhow there's nothing extraordinary in my visit even what took place downstairs is also so perfectly in the order of things but explain this to me for Christ's sake what you told us there downstairs in which you prepared for us and set about so solemnly can that be all you intended to reveal or tell was there nothing else that was all that is let's say it was all a bit lacking my friend I confess judging by the way you said about it and how you invited us to laugh in short seeing how anxious you were to tell it I expected more but isn't it all the same to you I'm concerned essentially with a sense of measure it wasn't worth Such Noise and so the measure was upset for a whole month you were silent making ready and suddenly nothing I wanted to go on longer but I'm ashamed that I told even that much much not everything can be told in words certain things it's better never to tell I did tell enough though but you didn't understand me ah so you twoo suffer sometimes because a thought won't go into words it's a noble suffering my friend and Grant it only to the chosen a fool is always pleased with what he says and besides he always says more than he needs to they like extras as I did downstairs for instance I also said more than I needed to I demanded the whole of versilov which is much more than I need I don't need any ver love at all my friend I see you want to make up for what you lost downstairs you're obviously repentant and since with us to repent means immediately to call upon someone again you don't want to miss the mark with me a second time I came early you haven't cooled off yet and besides you have difficulty putting up with criticism but sit down for God's sake I've come to tell you something that's right thank you from what you said to your mother downstairs on your way out it's only too clear that it will be better even even in any case if we live separately I've come in order to persuade you to do it as softly as possible and without a scandal so as not to upset or frighten your mother still more even the fact that I've come here myself has already cheered her up she somehow believes that we'll still manage to be reconciled well and everything will go as before I think if you and I laughed loud now once or twice we'd fill their timid hearts with delight they may be simple Hearts but they are sincerely and artlessly loving why shouldn't we pamper them on occasion well that's one thing second why should we necessarily part still with a thirst for vengeance with a grinding of teeth with curses and so on without any doubt it won't do it all for us to go hanging on each other's necks but we can part so to speak with mutual respect isn't that true he that's all nonsense I promise I'll move out without a scandal and enough are you going to this trouble because of my mother yet to me it seems that my mother's peace makes decidedly no difference to you and you're only saying it you don't believe me you speak to me decidedly as to a child my friend I'm ready to ask your forgiveness for it a thousand times and for all you've laid to my account for all those years of your childhood and so on but Sher what will come of it you're intelligent enough not to want to wind up in such a stupid position I say nothing of the fact that even up to this moment I quite failed to understand the character of your reproaches indeed what is it essentially that you blame me for that you weren't born of vilo or what B you laugh scornfully and wave your arms does that mean no believe me no believe me I find no honor in being named versilov let's leave honor out of it besides your answer was bound to be Democratic but if so what do you blame me for Tatiana pavlovna just said everything I needed to know and never could understand before that you didn't send me to be a cobbler consequently I should be grateful I failed to understand why I'm not grateful even now when I've been brought to reason or is it your proud blood speaking Andre Petrovic probably not and besides you must agree that all your outbursts downstairs instead of falling on me as you meant only tyrannized and tormented her yet it seems it's not for you to judge her and how is she guilty before you explain it to me also by the way my friend why was it and with what purpose that you spread it around in school and in high school and all your life and in front of every first Comer as I've heard that you are illegitimate I've heard that you did it with a sort of special eagerness and yet it's all nonsense and vile slander you are legitimate a Dal guki the son of Makar ivanic Dal guki a respectable man remarkable for his intelligence and character and if you have received higher education that is in fact owing to your former Master versilov but what of it a Above All by proclaiming your illegitimacy which in itself is a slander you thereby revealed your mother's secret and out of some sort of false Pride dragged your mother to judgment before the first scum to come along my friend that is very ignoble the more so is your mother is not personally guilty of anything hers is the purest character and if she is not Mrs versilov it is solely because she is still married wored enough I agree with you completely and I believe so much in your intelligence that I fully hope you will stop this already too lengthy scolding of me you have such a love of measure and yet everything has its measure even your sudden love of my mother this will be better since you ventured to come to me and sit here for a quarter or half an hour I still don't know what for well let's suppose it's for my mother's peace of mind and moreover you talked to me with such eagerness in spite of what happened downstairs it would be better if you told me about my father this marar Ivanovic The Wanderer I'd like to hear about him precisely from you I've long meant to ask you since we're parting and maybe for a long time I'd also like very much to get an answer from you to this question how is it possible that in this whole 20 years you could have no effect on on my mother's prejudices and now also my sisters enough to dispel with your civilizing influence the surrounding darkness of her original milu oh I'm not talking about her Purity even without that she has always been infinitely Superior to you morally forgive me but this is merely an infinitely Superior corpse only veril lives and all the rest around him and everything connected with him vegetates under the unfailing condition that it has the honor of nourishing him with its forces its living juices but wasn't she alive once wasn't there something you loved in her wasn't she a woman once my friend if you like she never was he answered me twisting at once into that former manner he had had with me which I remembered so well and which infuriated me so much that is he was apparently the most sincere simple-hearted but look and everything in him was just the deepest mockery so that sometimes I couldn't figure out his face at all she never was a Russian woman can never be a woman and a Polish woman a French woman can be or an Italian a passionate Italian woman there's what's capable of captivating a civilized Russian man of a higher millu like veril love well who would have expected to run into a Slava file versilov laughed I remember his story word for word he even began talking with great eagerness and obvious pleasure it was all too clear to me that he had by no means come to me for a chat and not at all so as to calm my mother but probably with other goals in mind two all these 20 years your mother and I have lived in complete silence he began his pver affected and unnatural in the highest degree and all that has been between us has taken place in Silence the main quality of our 20- year-long liaison has been speechlessness I don't think we even quarreled once true I often went away and left her alone but in the end I always came back new that's a fundamental quality of men it's owing to their magnanimity if the matter of marriage depended on women alone no marriage would stay together humility meekness loneliness and at the same time firmness strength real strength that is your mother's character note that she's the best of all the women I've met in the world and that there is strength in her that I can testify to I've seen how that strength nourishes her where it's a matter I wouldn't say of convictions there can be no proper convictions here but of what they consider convictions which to their minds also mean sacred there even torture would be to no avail well but you you can judge for yourself do I look like a torturer that's why I preferred to be silent about almost everything not only because it's easier and I confess I don't regret it in this way everything went over by itself broadly and humanely so that I don't even ascribe myself any praise for it I'll say by the way in parenthesis that for some reason I suspect she never believed in my humaness and therefore always trembled but while trembling at the same time she never yielded to any culture they somehow know how to do it and there's something here that we don't understand and generally they know better than we how to manage their own Affairs they can go on living in their own way in situations that are most unnatural for them and remain completely themselves in situations that are most not their own we can't do that they who I don't quite understand you the people my friend I'm speaking of the people they have demonstrated this great vital force and historical breadth both morally and politically but to return to what we were saying I'll observe about your mother that she's not always silent your mother occasionally says things but says them in such a way that you see straight off that you've only wasted your time talking even if you've spent 5 years beforehand gradually preparing her besides her objections are quite unexpected note once again that I don't consider her a fool at all on the contrary there's a certain kind of intelligence here and even a most remarkable intelligence however maybe you won't believe me about her intelligence why not I only don't believe that you really believe in her intelligence yourself and are not pretending oh you consider me such a chameleon my friend I allow you a bit too much as a spoiled son but let it remain so for this time tell me about my father the truth if you can concerning marar Ivanovic maard ianov which is as you already know a household surf who had so to speak a desire for a certain Glory I'll bet that at this moment you envy him for something on the contrary my friend on the contrary and if you wish I'm very glad to see you in such Whimsical Spirits I swear that precisely now I am in a highly repentant humor and precisely now at this this moment and maybe for the thousandth time I infinit regret all that happened 20 years ago besides as God is my witness it all happened quite inadvertently well and afterwards as far as it was in my power also humanely at least so far as I then understood the Endeavor of humaneness oh we were all boiling over then with the Zeal to do good to serve Civic goals high ideas we condemned ranks our inherited rights Estates and even money lenders at least some of us did I swear to you we weren't many but we spoke well and I assure you we sometimes even acted well that was when you wept on his shoulder my friend I agree with you in everything beforehand by the way you heard about the shoulder from me which means that at this moment you are making Wicked use of my own simple-hearted and trustfulness but you must agree that that shoulder really wasn't as bad as it seems at First Sight especially for that time we were only beginning then I was faking of course but I didn't know I was faking don't you ever fake for instance in Practical cases just now down stairs I waxed a little sentimental and felt very ashamed as I was coming up here at the thought that you might think I was faking it's true that on some occasions though your feelings are sincere you sometimes pretend but downstairs just now it was all natural that's precisely it you've defined it very happily in a single phrase though your feelings are sincere all the same you pretend well that's exactly how it was with me though I was pretending I wept quite sincerely I won't dispute that Makar Ivanovich might have taken that shoulder as an added mockery if he had been more clever but his honesty then stood in the way of his perspicacity only I don't know whether he pied me then or not I remember I very much wanted that you know I interrupted him you're mocking now too as you say that and generally all the time whenever you spoke to me during this whole month you did it mockingly why did you always do that when you spoke to me you think so he replied meekly you're very suspicious however if I do laugh it's not at you or at least not at you alone rest assured but I'm not laughing now and back then in short I did all I could then and believe me not for my own benefit we that is the beautiful people as opposed to the common folk did not know at all how to act for our own benefit then on the contrary we always mucked things up for ourselves as much as possible and I confess among us then we can considered that some sort of higher benefit of Our Own in a higher sense naturally the present generation of advanced people is much more grasping than we were at that time even before the sin I explained everything to marar Ivanovic with extraordinary directness I now agree that much of it didn't need to be explained at all still less with such directness to say nothing of humaneness it would simply have been more polite but try restraining yourself when you're dancing away and want to perform a nice little step and maybe such are the demands of the beautiful and the lofty in reality all my life I've been unable to resolve that however it's too profound a theme for our superficial conversation but I swear to you that I sometimes die of Shame when I remember it I offered him 3,000 rubles then and I remember he said nothing I alone did the talking imagine I fancied he was afraid of me that is of my surf owning rights and I remember I tried as hard as I could to encourage him I persuaded him not to be afraid of anything and to voice all his wishes and even with all possible criticism as a guarantee I gave him my word that if he didn't accept my conditions that is the 3,000 freedom for him and his wife naturally and that he should go off on a journey Any Which Way without his wife naturally he should tell me so directly and I would at once Grant him his freedom let him have his wife reward them both with the same 3,000 I believe and it would not be they who would go off Any Which Way But I myself who would go away to Italy for 3 years all alone Monami I wouldn't have taken mm moiselle saparov to Italy I assure you I was extremely pure at that time and what then this marar understood excellently well that I would do just what I said but he went on saying nothing and only when I was about to fall down before him a third time he drew back waved his arm and went out even somewhat unceremoniously I assure you which even surprised me then I saw myself for a moment in the mirror then and cannot forget it in general when they don't say anything it's worst of all and he was a gloomy character and I confess not only did I not trust him when I summoned him to my study but I was even terribly afraid there are characters in that milu and terribly many of them who contain in themselves so to speak the Incarnation of unrespect ability and that is something one fears more than a beating and what a risk what a risk I took what if he had shouted for the whole yard to hear how this provincial UAH well how would it have been then for me an undersized David and what could I have done that was why I resorted to the 3,000 first it was instinctive but fortunately I was mistaken this marari Evanovich was something quite different tell me was there a sin you said you sent for the husband even before the sin that depends you see on how you understand meaning there was you just said you were mistaken about him that he was something different what was different precisely what I don't even know now but it was something else and you know even quite respectable I conclude that because by the end I felt three times more ashamed in his presence the very next day he agreed to go on a journey without a word naturally not forgetting any of the rewards I had offered he took the money what else you know my friend on this point he even quite surprised me naturally I didn't happen to have 3,000 in my pocket at the time but I got hold of 700 rubles and handed them to him to start with and what then he requested the remaining 2,300 from me just to be sure in the form of a promisory note in the name of some Merchant 2 years later he used this letter to request the money from me through the court and with interest so that he surprised me again the more so as he literally went about collecting money for Building a Church of God and since then he's been wandering for 20 years I don't understand why a Wanderer needs so much money for himself money is such a worldly thing at that moment of of course I offered it sincerely and so to speak with an initial fervor but later when so much time had passed I naturally might have thought better of it and I hoped he would at least spare me or so to speak spare us her and me would at least wait however he didn't even wait I'll make a necessary notab Ben here if my mother should happen to outlive Mr veroff she would be left literally without a copc in her old age if it weren't for that 3,000 of Makar ivanovich's which had long been doubled by interest and which he left to her in its entirety to a Ruble last year in his will he had divined versilov even then you once said that marar Ivanovic came to visit you several times and always stayed in my mother's apartment yes my friend and I confess at first I was terribly afraid of those visits in all this period in 20 years he came only six or seven times and on the first occasions if I was at home I hid myself I didn't even understand at first what it meant and why he came but then owing to certain considerations it seemed to me that it was not at all that stupid on his part then by chance I decided out of curiosity to go and look at him and I assure you my impression was most original this was his third or fourth visit precisely at the time when I was about to become an Orbiter of the peace and when naturally I was setting out with all my strength to study Russia I even heard a great many new things from him besides I met in him precisely what I had never expected to meet a sort of Good Humor an evenness of character and most surprisingly all but merth not the slightest allusion to that to compon and in the highest degree an ability to talk sense and to talk excellently well that is without that stupid homegrown profundity which I confess I cannot stand despite all my democratism and without all the those strained rissis in which real Russian people speak in novels or on stage with all that extremely little about religion unless you brought it up yourself and even quite nice stories of their own sort about monasteries and Monastery life if you yourself became curious and above all Defence that modest difference precisely the difference that is necessary for the highest equality moreover without which in my opinion one cannot attain to superiority precisely here through the lack of the least arrogance one attains to the highest respectability and there appears a person who undoubtedly respects himself and precisely whatever the situation he finds himself in and whatever his Destiny happens to be this ability to respect oneself in one's own situation is extremely rare in the world at least as rare as a true sense of One's Own dignity you'll see for yourself once you've lived but what struck me most afterwards precisely afterwards and not at the beginning versilov added was that this marar was of extremely stately appearance and I assure you was extremely handsome true he was old but dark-faced tall and straight simple and Grave I even marveled at how my poor Sophia could have preferred me then he was 50 then but was still such a fine fellow and I was such a whirly gig beside him however I remember he was already unpardonably gray then which meant he was just as gray when he met married her that might have had an influence this versilov had the most scoundrelly high-toned manner having said when it was impossible not to several quite clever and Beautiful Things suddenly to end on purpose with some stupidity like this surmise about maard ivanovich's gray hair and its influence on my mother he did it on purpose probably not knowing why himself from a stupid Society Habit to listen to him it seemed he was speaking very seriously and yet within himself he was faking or laughing three I don't understand why I was suddenly overcome then by terrible anger generally I recall some of my outbursts in those minutes with great displeasure I suddenly got up from my chair you know what I said you say you came mainly so that my mother would think we've made peace enough time has passed for her to think that would you kindly leave me alone he blushed slightly and got up from his place my dear you are extremely unceremonious with me however goodbye love can't be forced I'll allow myself only one question do you really want to leave the prince aha I just knew you had special goals that is you suspect I came to persuade you to stay with the prince because I stand to profit from it myself but my friend you don't think I also invited you from Moscow with some sort of profit in mind do you oh how suspicious you are on the contrary I wished for your own good good in everything and even now when my means have improved so much I wish that at least occasionally you would allow your mother and me to help you I don't like you versilov and it's even versilov by the way I regret very much that I couldn't pass this name on to you for in fact my whole fault consists only in that if it is a fault isn't that so but once again I couldn't marry a married woman judge for yourself that's probably why you wanted to marry an unmarried one a slight spasm passed over his face you mean M listen aradi you allowed yourself that Outburst downstairs pointing the finger at me in in front of your mother know then that precisely here you went widest of the mark you know exactly nothing of the story of the late Lydia akov nor do you know how much your mother herself participated yes even though she wasn't there with me and if I ever saw a good woman it was then as I looked at your mother but enough this is all still a mystery and you you say who knows what and in somebody else's voice the prince said precisely today that you were an amateur of unfledged girls the prince said that yes listen do you want me to tell you exactly why you came to me now I've been sitting all this while asking myself what was the secret of this visit and now it seems I've finally guessed it he was already on his way out but he stopped and turned his head to me in expectation earlier I let slip in passing that tushar's letter to Tatiana pavlovna got in with andronikov papers and wound up after his death with Maria ivanovna in mosow I saw something suddenly Twitch in your face and only now did I guess why when something just twitched in your face again in exactly the same way it occurred to you then downstairs that if one of andronikov letters had already wound up with Maria ivanovna why shouldn't another do the same and andronikov might have left some highly important letters eh isn't that so and I came to you wanting to make you blab about something you know it yourself he turned very pale you didn't figure that out on your own there's a woman's in uence here and how much hatred there is in your words in your coarse guess a woman's and I saw that woman just today maybe you want to have me stay with the prince precisely in order to spy on her anyhow I'll see you go extremely far on your new road mightn't this be your idea go on my friend you have unquestionable ability along the sleuth line given Talent one must perfect it he paused to catch his breath beware veril don't make me your enemy my friend in such cases no one speaks his last thoughts but keeps them to himself and now give me some light I beg you you may be my enemy but not so much probably is to wish me to break my neck TI Monami imagine he continued going down all this month I've been taking you for a good Soul you want so much to live and thirst so much to live that it seems as if you were given three lives it wouldn't be enough for you it's written on your face well and such men are most often good souls and see how mistaken I've been four I can't express how my heart was rung when I was left alone as if I had cut off a piece of my own living flesh why I had suddenly gotten so angry and why I had offended him like that so intensely and deliberately I couldn't tell now of course or then either and how pale he had turned and what then maybe that paleness was an expression of the most sincere and pure feelings in the deepest grief and not of anger and offense it always seemed to me that there were moments when he loved me very much why why should I not believe that now the more so as so much as now been completely explained but maybe indeed I grew angry all at once and drove him out because of the sudden guess that he had come to me hoping to find out whether any more of andronikov letters had been left to Maria Ivanov that he must have been looking for those letters and was looking for them that I knew but who knows maybe then precisely at that moment I was terribly mistaken and who knows maybe it was I by that very mistake who prompted him afterwards in the thought of Maria ivanovna and the possibility of her having letters and finally again a strange thing again he had repeated word for word my own thought about three lives which I had told to craft earlier that day and above all in my own words The Coincidence of words was once again chance but all the same how well he knows the essence of my character what Insight what perception but if he understands one thing so well why doesn't he understand another at all and can it be that he wasn't faking but was indeed unable to Guess that what I needed was not verian nobility that it was not my birth that I couldn't forgive him but that all my life I've needed versilov himself the whole man the father and that this thought has already entered my blood can it be that such a subtle man can be so dull and crude and if not then why does he enrage me why does he pretend chapter 8 1 the next morning I tried to get up as early as possible ordinarily we got up at around 8:00 that is my mother my sister and I versilov indulged himself till half 9 precisely at Half 8 my mother would bring me coffee but this time not waiting for coffee I slipped out of the house at exactly 8 :00 the evening before I had made up a general plan of action for this whole day in this plan despite my passionate resolve to set about fulfilling it at once I sensed that there was a great deal that was unstable and uncertain at the most important points that was why almost all night I had been as if in half sleep Delirious had an awful lot of dreams and hardly a moment of proper asleep nevertheless I got up brisker and fresher than ever I especially did not want to meet my mother I couldn't talk to her otherwise than on a certain subject and I was afraid to distract myself from the goals I had set myself by some new and unexpected impression the morning was cold and a damp milky fog lay upon everything I don't know why but I always like the busy early morning in Petersburg despite its extreme ly nasty look and all these egoistic and ever pensive folk hurrying about their business around 800 in the morning have some special attraction for me I especially like as I hurry on my way either to ask somebody something businesslike or to have somebody ask me something both question and answer are always brief clear sensible given without stopping and are almost always friendly and the Readiness to respond is great at that hour the petersburger becomes less communicative in the middle of the day or towards evening and is ready to abuse or deride at the least opportunity it's quite different in the early morning before work at the most sober and serious time I've noticed that I was again heading for the Petersburg side since I absolutely had to be back on the fontanka by 12 to see vasin who could most often be found at home at 12 I hurried and didn't stop in spite of a great urge to have coffee somewhere besides I also had absolutely to catch yafim vev at home I was going to him again and in fact almost came too late he was finishing his coffee and getting ready to go out what brings you so often he met me without getting up from his place I'm about to explain that any early morning a Petersburg one included has a sobering effect on man's nature some flaming night stream even evaporates completely with the coming of morning's light and cold and I myself have happened of a morning to recall some of my nights only just past reveries and sometimes also acts with reproach and shame however I'll observe in passing that I consider the Petersburg morning seemingly the most prosaic on the whole earth to be all but the most fantastic in the world that is my personal view or better to say impression but I'll stand up for it on such a Petersburg morning foul damp and foggy the wild dream of some push kinian Hermon from the Queen of Spades a colossal character an extraordinary perfectly petersan type A type from the Petersburg period it seems to me should grow still stronger a 100 times in the midst of this fog a strange but importunate revery has come to me and if this fog breaks up and lifts won't this whole foul slimy City Go With It Rise up with the fog and vanish like smoke and leave only the former finnished swamp and in the middle perhaps for the beauty of it a bronze Horseman on a hot breathed overridden Steed in short I can't convey my Impressions because it's all finally fantasy poetry and therefore rubbish nevertheless one totally meaningless question has often come to me and comes to me now here they all are rushing and throwing themselves about and who knows maybe it's all somebody's dream and there's not a single true genuine person here not a single Real ACT the somebody whose dream it is Will suddenly wake up and everything will suddenly vanish but I'm getting carried away I'll say beforehand there are projects and dreams in every life so seemingly eccentric that at first sight they might unmistakably be taken from Madness it was with one of these fantasies that I went that morning to Zev to Zev because I had no one else in Petersburg to whom I could turn this time and yet yafim was precisely the last person to whom if I had had a choice I would have turned with such a suggestion when I sat down facing him it even seemed to me myself that I the Incarnation of fever and delirium was sitting down facing the Incarnation of the golden mean and Pros but on my side was an idea and a right feeling while on his there was only the Practical conclusion that it's never done that way in short I explained to him briefly and clearly that apart from him I had absolutely no one in Petersburg whom I could send in view of an urgent matter of honor to act as a second that he was an old comrade and therefore did not even have the right to refuse and that I wanted to challenge the lieutenant of the guards Prince sakoli on the ground that a little more than a year ago in M he had given my father versilov a slap in the face I'll note at the same time that yafim knew even in great detail all my family circumstances my relations with versilov and almost all that I myself knew of vero's History I had told it to him myself at various times except of course for certain Secrets he sat and listened as he usually did ruffled up like a Sparrow in a cage silent and serious puffy faed with his disheveled flaxen hair emotionless mocking smile never left his lips this smile was the nastier in that it was involuntary and not at all deliberate it was evident that he really and truly considered himself at that moment vastly Superior to me in intelligence and character I also suspected that besides that he also despised me for yesterday's scene at der's that was as it should have been yafim was the crowd yafim was the street and that always bows down only to success and filov doesn't know of it he asked of course not then what right do you have to interfere in his Affairs that's the first thing and second what do you want to prove by it I knew the object jections and at once explained to him that it was not at all as stupid as he supposed first it would be proved to the insolent Prince that there were still people of our estate who understood honor and second versilov would be shamed and learn a lesson and third and most important even if versilov owing to certain conviction of his own was right not to have challenged The Prince and to have decided to bear with the slap he would at least see that there was a being who was was able to feel his offense so strongly that he took it as his own and was ready even to lay down his life for his interests in spite of the fact that he had parted with him Forever Wait Don't shout my aunt doesn't like it tell me is it the same Prince sakoli that versilov is in litigation with over an inheritance in that case it will be a totally new and original way of winning in court by killing your opponent's in a duel I explained to him on tol spelling it all out that he was simply stupid and insolent and that if his mocking smile spread wider and wider that only proved his smugness and ordinariness that he couldn't really suppose that the thought of the litigation had not been in my head right from the very start but had dained to visit only his much thinking head then I told him that the litigation had already been won and besides that it had been conducted not against Prince sakoli but against the prince's sakoli so that if one Prince was killed the others would remain but that the challenge would undoubtedly have to be put off till after the period of appeal though the princes would not appeal solely for the sake of decency once the period was over the duel would follow but I had come now because the duel would not be at once but I had to secure a second because I didn't have one I didn't know anybody so is to find one at least by the time I needed him if he Yim refused that's why I came I said well come back and talk then there's no point rolling 10 miles for nothing he got up and took his cap and you'll go then naturally not why I won't go for this reason alone that if I agree now to go then you'll spend the whole period of appeal dragging yourself to me every day and the main thing is that it's all nonsense and that's that why should I ruin my career Because Of You the prince would up and ask me who sent you dalgar Ruki and what has dalgar Ruki got to do with veroff so then I should explain your genealogy to him he'll just laugh then give him one in the mug well that's all fairy tales afraid you're so tall you were the strongest one in high school afraid of course I'm afraid the prince won't fight because they only fight with equals I'm also a gentleman by development I have the right I'm equal on the contrary it's he who's unequal no you're little why little you're just little we're both little but he's big you're a fool by law I could have gotten married a year ago so go and get married and even so you're a pipsqueak you're still growing I realized of course that he had decided to Jer at me undoubtedly this whole stupid anecdote could have gone Untold and it would be even better if it died unknown besides it's disgusting in its pettiness and uselessness though it had quite serious consequences but to punish myself still more I'll tell it in full having perceived that Yim was jeering at me I allowed myself to give him a shove on the shoulder with my right hand or better to say with my right fist he then took me by the shoulders turned me face to the field and really proved to me that he was indeed the strongest W in our high school two the reader of course will think that I was in a terrible mood going out of yimes and yet he will be mistaken I realized only too well that it was childish a school boy incident but the seriousness of the matter remained intact I had my coffee only on vasilov Ski Island purposely skipping my yesterday's Tavern on the Petersburg side both the tavern and the Nightingale had become doubly hateful to me a strange quality I'm capable of hating places and objects as if they were people on the other hand there are also several happy places in Petersburg that is places where for some reason I was happy and I cherish those places and purposely don't visit them for as long as possible so that later when I'm quite alone and unhappy I can go there to grieve and recall over coffee I did full Justice to Yim and his Common Sense yes he was more practical than I but hardly more realistic realism that is limited to the end of one's nose is more dangerous than the most insane fantastic cality because it's blind but in doing Justice to Yim who at that moment probably thought I was going down the street cursing him I still did not yield anything of my convictions as I haven't up till now I've seen people who at the first bucket of cold water renounce not only their actions but even their idea and begin to laugh at something they considered sacred only an hour before oh how easily it's done with them grant that Yim even in the essence of the matter was more right than I and I was stupider than all that's stupid and merely clowning but still in the very depth of the matter there lay a point standing upon which I too was right there was something correct on my side too and above all something that they could never understand I wound up at Vin's on the fontanka by the simonovski bridge almost exactly at 12:00 but I didn't find him at home he had his work on vasilevski and came home strictly at certain hours among others almost always before 4 12 since besides that it was some holiday I had supposed I would be sure to find him not finding him I settled down to wait despite the fact that I had come to see him for the first time I reasoned like this the matter of the letter about the inheritance was a matter of conscience and I in choosing vasin as a judge was thereby showing him the whole depth of my respect which of course should be flattering to him naturally I was truly concerned about this letter and really convinced of the necessity for arbitration but I suspect nevertheless that even then I could have wriggled out of the difficulty without any outside help and above all I knew it myself to wit I had only to hand the letter over to versilov personally and he could do whatever he wanted that was the solution and to me make myself the Supreme judge and arbiter in a matter like this was even quite wrong in removing Myself by handing the letter over and that precisely silently I would profit At Once by that very thing putting myself in a higher position than versilov for by renouncing all profit from The Inheritance so far as it concerned me because being vero's son I would of course have something coming to me if not now then later later I would forever preserve for myself a superior moral view of vero's future action and again no one could reproach me for ruining the princes because the document had no decisive legal significance all this I thought over and figured out completely while sitting in Vin's empty room and it even entered my head that I had come to see vasin so desirous of his advice about what to do with the sole purpose of letting him see what a highly Noble and unmercenary man I was and thus taking revenge on him for my humiliation before him yesterday having realized all that I felt great vexation nevertheless I did not leave but stayed though I knew for certain that my vexation would only grow greater every 5 minutes first of all I began to take a terrible dislike to Vin's room show me your room and I'll know your character you really can say that vasin lived in a furnished room renting from tenants obviously poor ones who earned their living that way and had other Lodgers I was acquainted with these narrow little rooms hardly filled with furniture and yet with pretensions to a comfortable look here was the inevitable soft sofa from the flea market which it was dangerous to move the wash standand and the iron bed behind a screen vasin was obviously the best and most reliable tenant a land lady is sure to have one such best tenant who receives special favors for it his room is cleaned and swept more thoroughly some lithograph gets hung over the sofa a consumptive little rug gets spread under the table people who like this musty cleanness and above all the land lady's obsequious difference are thems suspect I was convinced that the title of best tenant flattered vasin I don't know why but the sight of those two tables piled high with books gradually began to infuriate me books papers an inkstand everything was in the most disgusting order the ideal of which coincides with the worldview of a German land lady and her maid there were quite a few books not magazines or newspapers papers but real books and he obviously read them and probably sat down to read or began to write with an extremely grave and precise look I don't know but I like it better when books are scattered about in disorder when studies are at least not turned into a sacred right probably this vasin is extremely polite with visitors but probably his every gesture tells the visitor I'll now sit with you for an hour and a half or so and then when you leave I'll get down to business probably you can start up an extremely interesting conversation with him and hear something new but I'm now going to have a talk with you and I'll get you very interested but when you leave I'll get down to what's most interesting and nevertheless I still didn't leave but sat there by then I was thoroughly convinced that I had no need at all of his advice I had already been sitting for an hour and more and was sitting by the window on one of the two wicker chairs that stood by the window it also infuriated me that time was passing and I still had to find quarters before evening I wanted to pick up some book out of boredom but I didn't the very thought of amusing myself made it doubly disgusting the extraordinary silence had gone on for more than an hour and then suddenly somewhere very close by behind the door screened by the sofa I began to make out involuntarily and gradually a whispering That Grew louder and louder two voices were speaking obviously women's by the sound of them though it was quite impossible to make out their words and nevertheless out of boredom I somehow began to listen it was clear that they were speaking animatedly and passionately and that the talk was not about patterns they were arranging or arguing about something or one voice persuaded and begged while the other disobeyed and objected must have been some other tenants I soon got bored and my ear grew accustomed to it so that though I went on listening I did so mechanically sometimes even quite forgetting that I was listening when suddenly something extraordinary happened just as if someone had jumped from a chair with both feet or had suddenly jumped up from his place and stamped then came a groan and a sudden cry not even a cry but a shriek animal angry that no longer cared whether other people heard it or not I rushed to the door and opened it at the same time another door opened at the end of the corridor the landladies as I learned afterwards from which two curious heads peaked out the cry however subsided at once then suddenly the door next to mine the women neighbors opened and a young woman as it seemed to me quickly burst out of it and ran down the stairs The Other Woman an elderly one wanted to hold her back but couldn't and only moaned behind her oh yeah Ola where are you going oh but seeing our two open doors she quickly closed hers leaving a crack and listening through it to the stairs till the sound of oia's running footsteps died away completely I went back to my window everything was quiet a trifling incident and maybe also ridiculous I stopped thinking about it around a quarter of an hour later a loud and Brash male voice rang out in the Cor just by Vin's door somebody grasped the door handle and opened it enough so that I could make out some tall man in the corridor who obviously also saw me and was even already studying me though he did not yet come into the room but still holding the door handle went on talking with the land lady all the way down the corridor the land lady called out to him in a thin and gay little voice and one could tell by her voice that she had long known the visitor and respected and valued him as both a solid guest and a merry gentleman the merry gentleman shouted and cracked jokes but the point was only that vasin was not at home that he never could find him at home that it had been so ordained and that he would wait again as the other time and all this undoubtedly seemed the height of wittiness to the land lady finally the visitor came in thrusting the door fully open this was A well-dressed gentleman obviously from one of the best tailor in high class fashion as they say and yet he had very little of the high class about him and that it seemed despite a considerable desire to have it he was not really Brash but somehow naturally insolent which was in any case less offensive than insolence that rehearsed itself in front of a mirror his hair dark blonde gone slightly gray his black eyebrows big beard and big eyes not only did not personalize his character but seemed precisely to endow it with something general like everyone else such a man laughs and is ready to laugh yet for some reason you never feel merry with him he passes quickly from a laughing to a grave look from a grave to a playful or winking one but it is all somehow scattered and pointless however there's no sense to describing it beforehand later I came to know this gentleman much better and more closely and therefore I have involuntarily presented him now more knowingly than then when he opened the door and came into the room though now too I would have difficulty saying anything exact or definite about him because the main thing in these people is precisely their unfinishedness scatteredness and indefiniteness he had not yet had time to to sit down when I suddenly fancied that this must be Vin's stepfather a certain Mr steel K of whom I had already heard something but so fleetingly that I could not have said precisely what I only remembered that it was not something nice I knew that vasin had lived for a long time as an orphan under his authority but that he had long since gotten out from under his influence that their goals and their interests were different and that they lived separately in all respects I also remembered that this stulov had some capital and that he was even some sort of Speculator and trafficker in short it may be that I already knew something more specific about him but I forget he sized me up at a glance though without any greeting placed his top hat on the table in front of the sofa pushed the table aside peremptorily with his foot and did not so much sit as sprawl directly on the sofa on which I had not ventured to sit so that it let out a creek dangled his legs and lifting up the right toe of his patent leather boot began to admire it of course he turned to me at once and again sized me up with his big somewhat immobile eyes I never find him at home he nodded his head to me slightly I said nothing unpunctual his own View of things from the Petersburg side you mean that you have come from the Petersburg side I return the question no I'm asking you I I came from the Petersburg side but how did you find out how H he winked but did not Dain to explain that is I don't live on the Petersburg side but I was on the Petersburg side just now and then came here he went on silently smiling some sort of significant smile which I disliked terribly there was something stupid in this winking that Mr deracho he said finally what at durov's I opened my eyes wide he looked at me victoriously I don't even know him hm as you wish I replied I was beginning to find him repulsive hm yes sir no sir pardon me you buy something in a shop in another shop next to it another buyer buys something else and what do you think it is money sir from a merchant who is known as a money lender sir because money is also a thing and the money lender is also a merchant do you follow perhaps so a third buyer walks past and pointing at one of the shops says that's substantial then pointing at another of the shops says that's insubstantial what conclusion can I draw about this buyer how should I know no sir pardon me I'll give an example man lives by good example I go down yevi Prospect and notice that on the other side of the street walking down the sidewalk is a gentleman who character I should like to determine we reach on different sides the same turn onto maraya Street and precisely there where the English shop is we notice a third pedestrian who has just been run over by a horse now get this a fourth gentleman passes by and wishes to determine the character of the three of us including the run over one in the sense of practicality and substantiality do you follow 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 2 months having finished the Cure we're all in a mountainous region a whole company with alpen stocks going up a mountain this one or that that it makes no difference at a turn that is at a stopping Place precisely where the monks make chartreuse lur 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 H 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 5 minutes he didn't look at me the briest gravs didn't go bust eh they took off they keep going I know many that went bust straight away 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 sest smile that ver seov 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 sliest 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 bought 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 is very own sir by mm moiselle Lydia akov a lovely Maiden did caress me those phosphorous matches eh what nonsense what wildness he never had a baby by Miss akm makov go on and where have I been then I'm both a doctor and a male Midwife nam's steel kov 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 akmak of's baby no sir I didn't deliver missak movs anything in that suburb there was a doct grant burdened with a family they paid him half a tollar 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 Andre Petrovic to a most highly secret question sir eye to eye but Andre Petrovic 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 folks 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 need speeding up he hems and Haws versilov is a women's Prophet sir that's how young prince zakolski 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 neighbor door suddenly banged and somebody quickly went into their room filov lives in the simonovski quarter on MOA Street at Mrs lov's house number 17 I went to the address Bureau myself an irritated female voice cried loudly we could hear every word stulov 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 when you speak of a rope in the hanged man's house 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's shouting was probably the same one who had run out earlier in such agitation but how did versilov figure in it suddenly some some one 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 hurt 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 steel kov 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 on to the neighbors naturally I also ran to the door but his appearance in the corridor was like a bucket of coal cold water the women quickly disappeared and noisily slammed the door behind them steel kov 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 land lady who was again standing by her door he quickly ran to her on tiptoe down the corridor after exchanging Whispers with her for about 2 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 land lady who shook her finger at him and wagged her head as if to say say ah Naughty Boy Naughty Boy finally with a Resolute but most delicate look even as if hunched over with delicacy he wrapped with his knuckles on the neighbor's door a voice was heard who's there will you allow me to come in on most important business steel kov pronounced loudly and imposingly they did open albeit slowly just a little at first a quarter but Ste alov firmly seized the handle at once and would not have let the door close again a conversation began steel kov 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 Eaves drop but I couldn't make out everything I only heard that versilov was mentioned frequently by the tone of his voice I guessed that stulov 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 gal 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 gayety at all mainly the young women's the one who had shrieked earlier she spoke a lot nervously quickly apparently denounced ing something and complaining Seeking Justice and a judge but stulov would not leave off raised his voice more and more and geod more and more often such people cannot listen to others I soon left the sofa because it seemed shameful to me to Eaves drop 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 10 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 stolov 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 blackard 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 neighbor's room literally pushed it seemed by their hands seeing me he suddenly shouted pointing at me here's veril of son if you don't believe me then here's his son his own son if you please and he seized me perorally by the arm this is his son his own son he repeated bringing me to the ladies adding nothing more however by way of explanation the young woman was standing in the corridor the elderly one a step behind her in the doorway I only remember that this poor girl was not badl looking about 20 years old but thin and sickly with reddish hair and a face that somewhat resembled my sisters this feature flashed and remained in my memory only Lisa had never been and certainly never could be in such a wrathful frenzy as this person who now stood before me her lips were white her pale gray eyes flashed she was trembling all over with indignation I also remember that I myself was in an extremely stupid and undignified position because I was decidedly unable to find anything to say thanks to this insolent fellow so what if he's his son if he's with you he's a blackard if you are veril Love's son she suddenly turned to me tell your father from me that he's a blackard that he's an unworthy Shameless man that I don't need his money take it take it take it give him this money at once she quickly pulled several banknotes out of her pocket but the elderly woman that is her mother as it turned out later seized her by the hand oh yeah maybe it's it's not true maybe he's not his son Olia quickly looked at her understood looked at me scornfully and went back into the room but before slamming the door standing on the threshold she once again shouted in frenzy at steel kov out and she even stamped her foot at him then the door slammed and this time was locked Ste yov still holding me by the shoulder raised his finger and extending his mouth into a long and pensive smile rested his questioning Gaze on me I find your action with me ridiculous and unworthy I muttered in indignation but he wasn't listening to me though he didn't take his eyes off me this ought to be investigated he said pensively but anyhow how dared you drag me out what is this who is that woman you seized me by the shoulder and led me what's going on here H the devil some sort of Lost Innocence the of repeated exception do you follow and he rested his finger on my chest hey the devil I pushed his finger away but he suddenly and quite unexpectedly laughed Softly inaudibly lengthily merrily in the end he put on his hat and his face changed and now glum observed furrowing his brows and the land lady ought to be instructed they ought to be driven out of the apartment that's what and as soon as possible otherwise they'll you'll see remember my words you'll see the devil he suddenly cheered up again so you're waiting for Gia no I won't wait any longer I answered resolutely well it's all one and without adding another sound he turned walked out and went down the stairs without even ding to look at the land lady who was obviously waiting for explanations and news I also took my hat and after asking the land lady to report that I Dal garuk had been there ran down the stairs three I had merely wasted time on coming out I set off at once to look for an apartment but I was distracted I wandered the streets for several hours and though I stopped at five or six places with rooms to let I'm sure I went past 20 without noticing them to my still greater vexation I had never imagined that renting lodgings was so difficult the rooms everywhere were like vasin and even much worse and the prices were enormous that is not what I had reckoned on I directly requested a corner merely to be able to turn around and was given to know that in that case I should go to the corners besides there was a multitude of strange tenants everywhere whom by their looks alone I would have been unable to live next to I would even have paid not to live next to to them some gentlemen without frock coats in Waist coats only with disheveled beards casual and curious there were about 10 of them sitting in one tiny room over cards and beer and I was offered the room next door in other places I myself gave such absurd answers to the landlord's questions that they looked at me in astonishment and in one apartment I even had a quarrel however I can't really describe all these worthless things I only want to say that having gotten very tired I ate something in some cook shop when it was already almost dark I made a final resolve that I would go right now by myself and alone give versilov the letter about the inheritance without any explanations pack my things upstairs into a suitcase and a bundle and move at least for that night to a hotel I knew that at the end of Abu hovsky Prospect by the triumphal Arch there were ins where I could even get a separate little room for 30 copcs I decided to sacrifice for one night only so as not to spend it at vers and then going past the technological Institute it suddenly occurred to me for some reason to call on Tatiana pavlovna who lived just there across from the institute in fact the pretext for calling was the same letter of inheritance but the insuperable impulse to call on her had of course other reasons which however I'm unable to explain even now there was some confusion of Mind here about a nursing baby about exceptions that make up the general rule whether I wanted to tell or show off or to fight or even to weep I don't know only I did go up to Tatiana pavlovna till then I had only visited her once when I had had just come from Moscow on some errand from my mother and I remember that having come and given what I was charged with I left after a minute without even sitting down and without her inviting me to I rang the bell and the cook opened for me at once and silently let me in all these details are precisely needed to make it possible to understand how the crazy adventure could take place which had such enormous influence on all that came out afterwards and first about the cook she was a spiteful snub-nosed fin who seemed to hate her mistress Tatiana pavlovna who on the contrary could not part with her owing to some sort of partiality something like what old maids feel for wet-nosed pugs or eternally sleeping cats the fin was either angry and rude or having quarreled would be silent for weeks on end in order to punish her lady I must have hid on one of those silent days because even to my question is the lady at home which I positively remember having asked her she gave no reply and silently went to her kitchen after which naturally convinced that the lady was at home I went in and finding no one began to wait supposing that Tatiana pavlovna would presently come out of the bedroom otherwise why would the cook have let me in I did not sit down and waited for 2 or three minutes it was almost evening and Tatiana Pavlov's dark little apartment looked still more cheerless because of the Endless chins that hung everywhere two words about this vile little apartment in order to understand the terrain where the thing happened Tatiana pavlovna with her stubborn and imperious character and as a result of her old landowning preferences could not have lived in furnished rooms along with other tenants and rented this par of an apartment only so as to live separately and be her own mistress these two rooms were exactly like two Canary cages placed side by side one smaller than the other on the third floor with Windows facing the courtyard entering the apartment you stepped directly into a narrow little Corridor less than 4 ft wide to the left were the ab mentioned Canary cages and straight down the corridor at the bottom of it was the door to the tiny kitchen there might have been in these little rooms the 10 cubic feet of air a man needs for 12 hours but hardly more they were grotesquely low but the stupidest thing was that the windows the doors the furniture all all of it was hung or upholstered with chint fine French chint and adorned with little festoons but this made the room seem twice as dark and like the interior of a traveling coach in the room where I was waiting you could still turn around though it was all cluttered with furniture and by the way not bad furniture There were various little inlaid tables with bronze fittings chests an elegant and even costly toilet table but the next room from which I expected her to come the bedroom separated from this room by a heavy curtain consisted as it turned out later literally of nothing but a bed all these details are necessary in order to understand the stupid thing I did and so I was waiting and suspecting nothing when the bell rang I heard the cook pass through the corridor with unhurried steps and silently exactly as with me earlier let the people in they were two ladies and both were talking loudly but what was my amazement when I recognized by their voices that one of them was Tatiana pavlovna and the other precisely the woman whom I was least of all prepared to meet now and in such circumstances at that I couldn't be mistaken I had heard that sonorous strong metallic voice yesterday for only 3 minutes true but it had remained in my soul yes it was yesterday's woman what was I to do I'm not asking the reader this question I'm only imagining that that moment to myself and I'm utterly unable to explain even now how it happened that I suddenly rushed behind the curtain and found myself in Tatiana Pavlov's bedroom in short I hid and barely had time to jump there as they came in why I didn't go to meet them but hid myself I don't know it all happened accidentally in the highest degree unaccountably how having jumped into the bedroom and stumbled over the bed I noticed at once that there was a door from the bedroom to the kitchen which meant a way out of my trouble and a possibility of Escape but oh horror the door was locked and the key was not in the lock I lowered myself onto the bed in despair I saw clearly that it meant I would now be eavesdropping and from the first phrases from the first sounds of the conversation I realized that it was a secret and ticklish one oh of course an honest and Noble person ought to have gotten up even now come out and said loudly I'm here wait and despite his ridiculous position walked past but I did not get up and come out I didn't dare I turned coward in the meanest way my dear Katarina nikolayevna you upset me deeply Tatiana pavlovna implored calm yourself once and for all it doesn't even suit your character wherever you are there is joy and now suddenly at least me I think you continue to trust knowing how devoted I am to you surely no less than to Andre Petrovic to whom once again I do not conceal my eternal devotion well believe me then I swear to you on my honor he doesn't have this document in his hands and maybe no one does and he's incapable of such skull duggery it's sinful of you even to suspect it the two of you have simply invented this hostility the document exists and he is capable of anything why I came in yesterday and the first thing I met was suion the little spy that he foed on the prince a PE espion first of all he's not an espion at all because it was I I who insisted on placing him with the prince otherwise he'd go crazy in mosco or starve to death that was how they arrested him from there and above all the crude brat is even a perfect Little Fool how could he be a spy yes some Little Fool which however doesn't prevent him from becoming a scoundrel I was vexed yesterday otherwise I'd have died of laughter he turned pale rushed to me bowed and scraped spoke French and in Moscow Maria ivanovna assured me he was a genius that this unfortunate letter has survived and exists somewhere in a most dangerous place that I concluded mainly from Maria ivanovna's face my beauty but you yourself said she had nothing the thing is that she has she's merely lying and what a crafty one she is let me tell you back before Moscow I still had hopes that no papers had been left but here here a my dear on the contrary they say she's a kind and sensible being andron call valued her above any of his nieces true I don't know her that well but you could seduce her my beauty it's nothing for you to win people over I'm an old woman and here I am in love with you and in a minute I'll start kissing you well what would it cost you to seduce her I tried to seduce her Tatiana pavlovna I did I even sent her into raptures but she's also very clever no there's a whole character here and a special one a mosow one and imagine she advised me to address a certain man here craft antonov's former assistant she said he might know something I already have an idea of this craft and I even remember him fleetingly but when she told me about this craft I became convinced at once that it wasn't simply that she didn't know but that she was lying and knew everything but why why anyway perhaps it might be possible to consult him he's German this craft not a babbler and as I recall a most honest man really why not question him only it seems he's not in Petersburg now oh he came back yesterday I was just at his place I've come precisely to you in such anxiety my arms and legs are trembling I wanted to ask you my angel Tatiana pavlovna since you know everybody couldn't we find out from his papers at least because surely he left some papers so where would they go now from him perhaps they'll fall into dangerous hands again I've come running to ask your advice what papers do you mean Tatiana pavlovna did not understand and you say you yourself were just at crafts I was I was just now but he shot himself yesterday evening I jumped up from the bed I could sit it out when they called me a spy and an idiot and the further they went in their conversation the less possible it seemed for me to appear it would have been unimaginable I had decided to myself that I would sit it out with a sinking heart until Tatiana pavlovna sent her visitor away if I was lucky and she didn't come into the bedroom earlier for something and later once Madame akov was gone I might just have a fight then with Tatiana pavlovna but suddenly now when I heard about craft I jumped up from the bed I was all seized as if by a convulsion not thinking of anything not reasoning or imagining I took a step raised the portier and appeared before the two of them there was still enough light for them to make me out pale and trembling they both screamed how could they not craft I murmured addressing Madame AK marov shot himself yesterday at Sunset where were you where did you come from shrieked Tatiana pavlovna and she literally clutched my shoulder have you been spying Epping what was I just telling you Katarina nikolova got up from the sofa pointing at me I lost my temper lice nonsense I interrupted her furiously you just called me a spy oh God is it worth not only spying but even living in the world alongside such people as you a magnanimous man commits suicide craft has shot himself because of an idea because of hecuba however you don't know about hecuba and here go and live amidst your intrigues hang around with your lies deceptions snares enough slap his face slap his face cried Tatiana pavlovna and since Katarina nikolova though she looked at me I remember it all down to the smallest Trace without taking her eyes away didn't move from her place Tatiana pavlovna would probably have carried out her own advice in a moment so that I inadvertently raised my hand to protect my face and from this gesture it seemed to her that I was swinging my own arm yes hit me hit me prove you're a born lout you're stronger than women why stand on ceremony enough of your slander enough I cried I've never raised my hand against a woman you're Shameless taana pavlovna you've always despised me oh one must deal with people without respecting them you Katarina nikva are probably laughing at my figure yes God hasn't given me a figure like your agitant and nevertheless less I don't feel humiliated before you but on the contrary exalted well it makes no difference how it's expressed only I'm not to blame I wound up here accidentally Tatiana pavlovna the one to blame is your finished cook or better to say your partiality for her why did she refuse to answer my question and bring me straight here and then you must agree it seemed so monstr to me to come jumping out of a woman's bedroom that I decided sooner to endure your spitting silently than to show myself you're laughing again Katarina nikolova get out get out go away cried Tatiana pavlovna almost pushing me don't take his pack of Lies for anything Katarina Nikola I told you they attested him as crazy there as crazy there who would that be in from where enough it makes no difference Katarina nikolayevna I I swear to you by all that's holy this conversation and all that I've heard will remain between us is it my fault that I learned your secrets the more so as I'm ending my work with your father tomorrow so that as regards the document you're looking for you may be at peace what's that what document are you talking about Katarina nikol ofno was at a loss so much so that she even turned pale or maybe it just seemed so to me I realized that I had said too much I left quickly they followed me silently with their eyes and there was the highest degree of astonishment in their gaze in short I had set them a riddle chapter 9 1 I was hurrying home and wondrous thing I was very pleased with myself of course one doesn't speak that way with women and with such women at that or more precisely with such a woman because I didn't count Tatiana pavlovna maybe it's quite impossible to tell a woman of that category to her face I Spit on Your intrigues but I had said it and was pleased precisely with that not to mention other things I was sure at least that by that tone I had blotted out all that was ridiculous in my position but I had no time to think very much about it craft was sitting in my head not that he tormented me so much but all the same I was shaken to my foundations and even to the point that the ordinary human feeling of a certain pleasure at another's Misfortune that is when somebody breaks a leg loses his honor or a beloved being and so on even that ordinary feeling of mean satisfaction yielded in me Without a Trace to another extremely wholesome sensation namely grief regret for craft that is I don't know whether it was regret but some very strong and kindly feeling I was also very pleased by that it's astonishing how many extraneous thoughts can Flash through your mind precisely when you're all shaken by some colossal news which in reality it seems ought to overpower all other feelings and Scatter all extraneous thoughts especially Petty ones but it's the petty ones on the contrary that get at you I also remember that I was gradually overcome by a rather palpable nervous trembling which went on for several minutes and even all the while I was at home and having a talk with versilov this talk took place under strange and extraordinary circumstances I have already mentioned that we lived in a separate Wing in the yard this apartment bore the sign of number 13 even before I went through the gate I heard a woman's voice asking someone loudly with impatience and vexation where's apartment number 13 it was a lady asking just by the gate opening the door of a grocery shop but it seems they gave her no reply or even chased her away and she was coming down the steps in distress and and anger but where's the caretaker here she cried stamping her foot I had long since recognized the voice I'm going to apartment number 13 I went up to her whom do you want for a whole hour I've been looking for the caretaker I've asked everybody climbed all the stairs it's in the yard don't you recognize me but she had already recognized me you want versilov you have business with him and so do I I went on I've come to say goodbye to him forever come along are you his son that means nothing however let's suppose I am his son though my name is DAL guki I'm illegitimate this gentleman has endless illegitimate children when conscience and honor demand a son can leave home it's in the Bible besides he got an inheritance but I don't want my share I go by the labor of my hands when need be a magnanimous man even sacrifices his life craft shot himself craft because of an idea imagine a young man who gave one hopes this way this way we're in a separate Wing it's in the Bible that children leave their fathers and start their own nest if an idea beckons if there's an idea a the idea is the main thing the idea is everything I babbled to her like that all the while we were climbing up to our place the reader has probably noticed that I don't spare myself much and where needed give myself an excellent attestation I want to learn to tell the truth verila was at home I came in but didn't take off my coat and neither did she her clothes were terribly flimsy over a dark dress hung a scrap of something intended to be a cape or a mantilla on her head was an old peeling sailor hat very Unbecoming to her when we entered the drawing room my mother was sitting in her usual place over her work and my sister came out of her room and stopped in the doorway versilov was doing nothing as usual and Rose to meet us he fixed me with a Stern questioning look I have nothing to do with it I hastened to wave it away and stood to one side I met this person by the gate she was looking for you and nobody could direct her I've come on business of my own which I shall have the pleasure of explaining after her versilov nevertheless went on looking at me curiously permit me the girl began impatiently versilov turned to her I I've long been thinking about why you decided to leave money with me yesterday I in short here's your money she almost shrieked as earlier and flung a wat of Bank notes on the table I had to look for you through the address Bureau otherwise I'd have brought it sooner listen you she suddenly turned to my mother who became all pale I don't want to insult you you have an honest look and maybe this is even and your daughter I don't know if you're his wife but you should know that this gentleman cuts out newspaper advertisements that govern's and teachers publish with their last money and goes to these unfortunate women looking for a dishonorable profit and getting them into trouble through money I don't understand how I could have taken money from him yesterday he looked so honest away not one word you're a blackard my dear sir even if you have honest intentions I don't want your charity not a word not a word oh how glad I am to have exposed you now in front of your women a curse on you she quickly ran out but turned on the threshold for a moment only to shout they say you've received an inheritance and then she vanished like a shadow I remind you once more she was beside herself versilov was deeply struck he stood as if pondering and trying to understand at last he turned suddenly to me you don't know her at all earlier today I accidentally saw her raging in the corridor at vasin shrieking and cursing you but I didn't get into conversation with her and know nothing and just now we met by the gate she's probably yesterday's teacher who gives lessons in arithmetic the very same once in my life I did a good deed and but anyhow what have you got here's this letter I answered I consider it unnecessary to explain it comes from Craft who got it from the late andronikov you'll find out from the contents I'll add that no one in the whole world knows of this letter now except me because craft having given me the letter yesterday shot himself just after I left while I spoke breathless and hurrying he took the letter and holding it out in his left hand watched me attentively when I announced craft suicide to him I peered into his face with particular attention to see the effect and what the news didn't make the slightest impression on him he didn't even raise his eyebrows on the contrary seeing that I had stopped he pulled out his Lorette which never left him and hung on a black ribbon brought the letter over to a candle and after glancing at the signature began to study it closely I can't express how I was even offended by this arrogant uning this he must have known craft very well besides it was in any case such extraordinary news finally I naturally wanted it to produce an having waited for half a minute and knowing that the letter was long I turned and went out my suitcase had long been ready I only had to pack several things into a bundle I thought of my mother and that I had not gone over to her 10 minutes later when I was quite ready and wanted to go for a cab my sister came into my room here mama sends you your 60 rubles and again asks you to forgive her for having told Andre petrovich about it and there's another 20 rubles you gave her 50 rues yesterday for your keep mother says it's simply impossible to take more than 30 from you because she hadn't spent 50 on you so she's sending you 20 rubles in change well thanks if only she's telling the truth goodbye sister I'm going away where to now to an inn for the time being only so as not to spend the night in this house tell Mama that I love her she knows that she knows that you also love Andre Petrovic you ought to be ashamed to have brought that unfortunate girl I swear to you it wasn't me I met her by the gate no you brought her I assure you think ask yourself and and you'll see that you too were the reason I was only very glad that versilov was disgraced imagine he has a nursing baby by Lydia akov however why am I telling you he has a nursing baby but it's not his baby where did you hear such a lie well as if you'd know who else should know it was I who took care of this baby in luga listen brother I saw long ago that you know nothing about anything and yet you insult Andre petrovich well and Mama too if he's right then I'll be wrong that's all and I don't love you any less why did you blush so sister and still more now well all right but even so I'll challenge that princeling to a duel for versilov slap in M the more so if versilov was in the right with Miss akov brother come to your senses really since the court has now closed the case well and now you've turned pale but the prince won't fight a duel with you Lisa smiled a pale smile through her fright then I'll disgrace him publicly what's wrong Lisa she became so pale that she couldn't stand on her feet and lowered herself onto the sofa Lisa mother called from downstairs she put herself to rights and stood up she was smiling tenderly at me brother leave these Trifles or wait for a while till you learn much more you know so terribly little I'll remember Lisa that you turned pale when you learned I'd be going to a duel yes yes remember that too to she smiled once more in farewell and went downstairs I called a cab and with the driver's help carried my things out of the apartment none of my family opposed me or stopped me I did not go to say goodbye to my mother so as not to meet versilov when I was already sitting in the cab a thought suddenly flashed in me to to the fontanka the simonovski bridge I ordered suddenly and went to vasin again two it suddenly occurred to me that vasin already knew about craft and maybe a 100 times more than I did and that's how it turned out to be vasin at once and dutifully told me all the details without great warmth however I concluded that he was tired and so he was he had been at Craft's himself that Morning Craft had shot himself with a revolver that same one the night before in full Darkness as was made clear by his diary the last entry in the diary was made just before the shot and he notes in it that he was writing almost in the dark barely making out the letters and he didn't want to light a candle for fear of leaving a fire behind him and I don't want to light it only to put it out again before the shot like my life he added strangely in almost the last line he had undertaken this death Diary 2 days earlier as soon as he returned to Petersburg before the visit to dgov after I left he wrote in it every quarter of an hour the very last three or four entries were written every 5 minutes I voiced my surprise that vasin having had this diary under his eyes for so long it was given him to read had not made a copy the more so is it was no more than a printer sheet in all and the entries were short at least the last page vasin observed to me with a smile that he remembered it as it was and moreover the notes were without any system about whatever came to mind I tried to argue that that was the precious thing in this case but dropped it and began pestering him to remember at least something and he remembered several lines about an hour before the shot saying that he had chills that he contemplated drinking a glass in order to warm up but the thought that it would perhaps cause a bigger Hemorrhage stopped him it's almost all that sort of thing concluded vasin and you call that Trifles I exclaimed when did I call it that I simply didn't make a copy but though it's not Trifles the diary is actually quite ordinary or rather natural that is precisely as it ought to be in this case but it's his last thoughts his last thoughts last thoughts can sometimes be extremely insignificant one such suicide precisely complains in the same sort of diary that at such an important hour at least one lofty thought should have visited him but on the contrary they were all petty and empty and that he had chills is also an empty thought that is you mean the chills proper or the Hemorrhage yet it's a known fact that a great many of those who are capable of contemplating their imminent death self-willed or not are quite often inclined to be concerned with a handsome appearance in which their corpse will left in this sense craft 2o feared an excessive Hemorrhage I don't know whether that's a known fact or whether it's so I murmured but I'm surprised that you consider it all so natural and yet was it long ago that craft spoke worried sat Among Us can it be that you're not at least sorry for him oh of course I'm sorry for him and that's quite another matter but in any case craft him self pictured his death as a logical conclusion it turns out that everything said about him at dgov was correct he left behind a notebook this big full of learned conclusions based on phenology craniology and even mathematics proving that the Russians are a second rate breed of people and that consequently it's not at all worth living as a Russian if you wish what's most characteristic here is that it's Poss possible to draw any logical conclusion you like but to up and shoot oneself as the result of a conclusion that of course doesn't happen all the time at least we must give credit to his character and maybe not only that vasin observed evasively but clearly he had in mind stupidity or weakness of reason all this irritated me you yourself spoke about feelings yesterday vasin nor do I deny them now but in view of the accomplished fact something in him presents itself as so badly mistaken that a severe view of the matter somehow unwillingly drives out pity itself you know I could tell earlier by your eyes that you would revile craft and so as not to hear it I decided not to seek your opinion but you voiced it yourself and I'm un willingly forced to agree with you but still I'm displeased with you I feel sorry for craft you know we've gone too far yes yes I interrupted but it's comforting at least that in such cases those who are Left Alive the judges of the deceased can always say of themselves though the man who shot himself was worthy of all regret and Indulgence we are still left and therefore there there's no point in grieving too much yes naturally if you see it from that angle ah yes it seems you were joking and most Whitty this is my tea time and I'll have it brought at once you'll probably keep me company and he went out measuring my suitcase and bundle with his eyes I actually had wanted to say something malicious in Revenge for craft and I had said it as I could but curiously he had first taken my thought that the likes of us are left as serious but be that as it may he was still more right than I in everything even feelings I admitted all that without any displeasure but I decidedly felt that I did not like him when tea was brought I explained to him that I was asking for his Hospitality for only one night night and that if it was impossible he should say so and I would move to the Inn then I briefly told him my reasons stating simply and directly that I had quarreled definitively with versilov without going into details vasin listened attentively but without any emotion generally he only answered questions though he answered affably and with sufficient fullness I passed over in total silence the letter with which I had come to him previously to ask for advice and I explained my previous call as a simple visit having given veril love my word that no one would know of the letter besides me I considered myself as no longer having the right to tell anyone about it for some reason it became particularly repugnant to me to inform vasin of certain things of certain things but not of others I still managed to get him interested in my stories about those scenes in the corridor and with the women in the neighboring room culminating in vero's apartment he listened with great attention especially about steel kov he asked me to repeat twice how stulov inquired about deracho and he even fell to pondering however he still smiled in the end it suddenly seemed to me at that moment that nothing could ever disconcert vasin however the first thought of it I remember presented itself to me in a form quite flattering to him generally I couldn't gather much from what Mr stulov said I concluded about stulov he speaks somehow confusedly and there seemed to be something light-minded in him vasin immediately assumed a serious look he indeed has no gift of eloquence but that's only at first sight he has managed to make extremely apt observations and generally these are more people of business of Affairs than of generalizing thought they should be judged from that angle exactly as I had guessed earlier anyhow he acted up terribly at your neighbors and God knows how it might have ended about the neighbors vasin told me that they had lived there for about 3 weeks and had come from somewhere in the province is that their room was extremely small and everything indicated that they were very poor that they were sitting and waiting for something he didn't know that the young one had advertised in the newspapers as a teacher but he had heard that versilov had visited them this had happened while he was away and the land lady had told him the Neighbors on the contrary avoided everybody even the land lady herself in the last few days he had begun to notice that something was indeed not right with them but there had been no such scenes as today's all this talk of ours about the neighbors I recall now with a view to What followed meanwhile a dead silence rained behind their door vasin listened with particular interest when I said that Ste alov thought it necessary to talk with the land lady about them and that he had twice repeated you'll see you'll see and you will see vasin added that it didn't come into his head for nothing he has a very keen eye in that regard so then in your opinion the landlady should be advised to throw them out no I'm not saying they should be thrown out but so that some sort of story doesn't happen however all such stories end one way or another let's drop it as for vero's visit to the women he resolutely refused to offer any conclusion everything is possible the man felt money in his pocket however it's also probable that he simply offered charity it suits his tradition and maybe also his inclination I told him what stolov had babbled that day about the nursing baby Steel kov in this case is completely mistaken vasin said with particular seriousness and particular emphasis and that I remember all too well steel kov he went on sometimes trusts all too much in his practical sense and because of that rushes to a conclusion in accordance with his logic which is often quite perspicacious yet the event May in fact have a much more fantastic and unexpected coloration considering the characters involved and so it happened here having partial knowledge of the matter he concluded that the baby belongs to versilov however the baby is not vovs I latched on to him and here is what I learned to my great astonishment the baby was Prince Serge sakolsky Lydia akov either owing to her illness or simply because of her fantastic character sometimes behaved like a crazy woman she became infatuated with the prince still before versilov and the prince had no qualms about accepting her love as vasin put it the liaison lasted only a moment they quarreled as is already known and Lydia chased the prince away of which it seems the man was glad she was a very strange girl vasin added it's even very possible that she was not always in her right mind but as he was leaving for Paris the prince had no idea of the condition in which he had left his victim and he didn't know it to the very end until his return versilov having become The Young Person's friend offered to marry her precisely in view of the emergent circumstance which it seems the parents did not suspect almost to the end the enamored girl was delighted and saw in vero's proposal not only his self-sacrifice which however she also appreciated however he certainly knew how to do it vasin added it the baby a girl was born a month or 6 weeks before term was placed somewhere in Germany then versilov took it back and it is now somewhere in Russia maybe in Petersburg and the phosphorous matches I know nothing about that concluded vasin lyia akov died two weeks after the delivery what happened there I don't know the prince only just returned from Paris found found out that there was a baby and it seems did not believe at first that it was his generally the story is kept secret on all sides even to this day but how about this Prince I cried in indignation how about the way he behaved with the sick girl she wasn't so sick then besides She chased him away herself true maybe he was unnecessarily quick to take advantage of his dismissal you vindicate such a scoundrel no I merely Don't Call Him a scoundrel there's much else here besides direct meanness generally it's a very ordinary Affair tell me vasin did you know him closely I'd especially like to trust your opinion in view of a circumstance that concerns me greatly but here Vin's answers became somehow all too restrained he knew the prince but but with obvious deliberateness he said nothing about the circumstances under which he had made his acquaintance next he said that his character was such that he merited a certain Indulgence he's full of honest inclinations and he's impressionable but he possesses neither the sense nor the strength of will to sufficiently control his desires he's an uneducated man there is a host of ideas and phenomena that are Beyond him and yet he throws himself upon them for instance he would insistently maintain something like this I am a prince and a descendant of roric but why shouldn't I be a shoemaker's Apprentice if I have to earn my bread and am incapable of doing anything else my shingle will say prince so and so Shoemaker it's even Noble he'll say it and he'll do it that's the main thing vasin added and yet there's no strength of conv ition here but just the most light-minded impressionability but afterwards repentance would undoubtedly come and then he would always be ready for some totally contrary extreme and so for his whole life in our age many people come a Cropper like that vasin concluded precisely because they were born in our time I involuntarily fell to thinking is it true that he was thrown out of of his regiment earlier I inquired I don't know if he was thrown out but he did indeed leave the regiment on account of some unpleasantness is it known to you that last Autumn precisely being retired he spent 2 or 3 months in luga I I knew that you were living in luga then yes I too for a while the prince was also acquainted with lizaveta Makarova oh I didn't no I confess I've spoken so little with my sister but can it be that he was received in my mother's house I cried oh no he was too distantly acquainted through a third house yes what was it my sister told me about this baby wasn't the baby in luga as well for a while and where is it now undoubtedly in Petersburg never in my life will I believe I cried in extreme agitation that my mother participated in any way in this story with this lyia apart from all these intrigues which I don't undertake to sort out the personal role of veril love in this story had nothing particularly reprehensible about it vasin observed smiling condescendingly it was apparently becoming hard for him to speak with me only he didn't let it show never never will I believe I cried again that a woman could give up her husband to another woman that I will not believe I swear that my mother did not participate in it it seems however that she didn't oppose it in her place out of Pride alone I wouldn't have opposed it for my part I absolutely refuse to judge in such a matter vasin concluded indeed vasin for all his intelligence may have had no notion of women so that a whole cycle of ideas and phenomena remained unknown to him I fell silent vasin was working temporarily in a joint stock company and I knew that he brought work home to my insistent question he confessed that he had work then too some accounts and I warmly begged him not to stand on ceremony with me that seemed to afford him pleasure but before sitting down with his papers he began to make a bed for me on the sofa first of all he tried to yield me his bed but when I didn't accept that also seemed to please him he obtained a pillow and a blanket from the land lady vasin was extremely polite and amiable but it was somehow hard for me to see him going to such trouble on my account I had liked it better when once about 3 weeks ago I had chanced to spend the night on the peters ber side at yim's I remember him concocting a bed for me also on a sofa and in secret from his aunt supposing for some reason that she would get angry on learning that his comrades came to spend the night we laughed a lot spread out a shirt instead of a sheet and folded an Overcoat for a pillow I remember Z vev when he had finished work giving the sofa a loving flick and saying to me in French you'll sleep like a little King both his stupid gayy and the French phrase which suited him like a saddle on a cow had the result that I slept with extreme pleasure then at this buffoon place as for vasin I was extremely glad when he finally sat down to work his back turned to me I sprawled on the sofa and looking at his back thought long and about much three and there was plenty to think about my soul was very troubled and there was nothing whole in it but some Sensations stood out very definitely though no one of them drew me fully to itself owing to their abundance everything flashed somehow without connection or sequence and I remember that I myself had no wish to stop at anything or introduce any sequence even the idea of craft moved imperceptibly into the background what excited me most of all was my own situation that here I had already broken away and my suitcase was with me and I wasn't at home and was beginning everything entirely a new just as if up to now all my intentions and preparations had been a joke and only now suddenly and above all unexpected ly everything had begun in reality this idea heartened me and however troubled my soul was about many things cheered me up but but there were other Sensations as well one of them especially wanted to distinguish itself from the others and take possession of my soul and strangely this sensation also heartened me as if summoning me to something terribly gay it began however with fear I had been afraid for a long while since that very moment earlier when in my fervor and taken unawares I had told Madame akov too much about the document yes I said too much I thought and perhaps they'll guess something that's bad naturally they won't leave me in peace if they begin to suspect but let them perhaps they won't even find me I'll hide but what if they really start running after me and then I began to recall down to the Last Detail and with growing pleasure how I had stood before Katarina nikolayevna and how her bold but terribly astonished eyes had looked straight at me and I had gone out leaving her in that astonishment I recalled her eyes are not quite black however only her eyelash are very black that's what makes her eyes too look so dark and suddenly I remember it became terribly loathsome for me to recall and I was vexed and sickened both at them and at myself I reproached myself for something and tried to think about other things why is it that I don't feel the least indignation at versilov for the story with the woman next door suddenly came into to my head for my part I was firmly convinced that his role here had been Amorous and that he had come in order to have some fun but that in itself did not make me indignant it even seemed to me that he couldn't Be Imagined otherwise and though I really was glad that he had been disgraced I didn't blame him that was not important for me what was important for me was that he had looked at me so angrily when I came in with the woman looked at me as he never had before he finally looked at me seriously I thought and my heart stood still oh if I hadn't loved him I wouldn't have been so glad of his hatred I finally dozed off and fell sound asleep I only remember through my sleep that vasin having finished his work put things away neatly gave my sofa an intent look undressed and blew out the candle it was past midnight four almost exactly 2 hours later I awoke with a start like a half-wit and sat up on my sofa Dreadful cries weeping and Howling were coming from behind the neighbor's door our door was wide open and in the all already lighted Corridor people were shouting and running I was about to call vasin but guessed that he was no longer in bed not knowing where to find matches I felt for my clothes and hurriedly began to dress in the darkness the land lady and maybe also the tenants had obviously come running to the neighbor's room one voice was screaming however that of the elderly woman while yesterday's youthful voice which I remembered only two well was completely silent I remember that that was the first thought that came to my head then before I had time to dress vasin came hurrying in instantly with an accustomed hand he found the matches and lighted the room he was only in his underwear dressing gown and slippers and he immediately began to dress what's happened I cried to him a most unpleasant and Troublesome business he replied almost angrily this young neighbor the one you were telling me about has hanged herself in her room I let out a cry I can't convey how much my heart was rung we ran out to the corridor I confess I didn't dare go into the women's room and I saw the unfortunate girl only later when she had been taken down and then to tell the truth at some distance covered with a sheet from under which the two narrow SS of her shoes stuck out for some reason I never looked at her face the mother was in a dreadful State our land lady was with her not much frightened however all the tenants of the apartments came crowding around there weren't many only one elderly sailor always very Gruff and demanding though now he became very quiet and some people from T province an old man and woman husband and wife quite respectable and civil service people I won't describe the rest of that night the fuss and then the official visits Till Dawn I literally shivered and considered it my duty not to go to bed though anyhow I didn't do anything and everybody had an extremely brisk look even somehow especially brisk vasin even drove off somewhere the land lady turned out to be a rather respectable woman much better than I had supposed her to be I persuaded her and I put it down to my credit that the mother couldn't be left like that alone with her daughter's corpse and that she should take her to her room at least till the next day she agreed at once and no matter how the mother thrashed and wept refusing to leave the corpse in the end never theless she still moved in with the land lady who at once ordered the samovar prepared after that the tenants went to their rooms and closed the doors but I still wouldn't go to bed and sat for a long time at the landladies who was even glad of an extra person and one who could for his part tell a thing or two about the matter the samovar proved very useful and generally the samovar is a most necessary Russian thing precisely in all catastrophes and misfortunes especially terrible unexpected and eccentric ones even the mother had two cups of course after Extreme in treaties and almost by force and yet sincerely speaking I had never seen more bitter and outright grief than when I looked at this unfortunate woman after the first bursts of sobbing and hysterics she even began speaking eagerly and I listened greedily to her account there are unfortunate people especially among women for whom it is even necessary that they be allowed to speak as much as possible in such cases besides there are characters that are so to speak all too worn down by grief who have suffered all their lives long who have endured extremely much both from great griefs and from constant little ones and whom nothing nothing can surprise anymore no sort of unexpected catastrophes and who above all even before the coffin of the most beloved being do not forget a single one of the so dearly paid for rules of ingratiating Behavior with people and I don't condemn them it's not the banality of egoism or coarseness of development in these Hearts maybe one can find even more gold than in the most noble looking heroins but the habit of longtime abasement the Instinct of self-preservation a long intimidation and inhibition finally take their toll the poor suicide did not resemble her mother in this their faces however seemed to resemble each other though the dead girl was positively not badl looking the mother was not yet a very old woman only about 50 also blonde but with Hollow eyes and cheeks and with big uneven yellow teeth and everything in her had some tinge of yellowness the skin of her face and hands was like parchment her dark dress was so threadbear that it also looked quite yellow and the nail on the index finger of her right hand was I don't know why plastered over thoroughly and neatly with yellow wax the poor woman's story was incoherent in some places I'll tell it as I understood it and as I have remembered it five they came from Moscow she had long been a widow though the Widow of a court counselor her husband had been in the service left almost nothing except 200 rubles though in a pension well what is 200 rubles she raised Olia though and had her educated in high school and how she studied how she studied she was awarded a silver medal at graduation long tears here naturally the deceased husband had lost nearly 4,000 in capital with one Merchant here in Petersburg suddenly this Merchant became Rich again I had papers got some advice they said make a claim you're sure to get everything so I began and the merchants started to agree go in person they said Olia and I made ready and came a month ago now our means were only so much we took this room because it was the smallest and we saw it was an honorable house and that was the most important thing for us we're inexperienced women anybody can offend us well we paid you for a month with one thing and another petersburg's expensive our Merchant flatly refused us I don't know who you are and the paper I had was not in order I understood that myself so they advised me go to this famous lawyer he was a professor not simply a lawyer but a jurist he'll tell you for certain what to do I took my last 15 rubles to him the lawyer came out and didn't listen to me for even 3 minutes I see he says I know he says if he wants to he says the merchant will pay you back if he doesn't he won't but if you start a case you may have to pay more best of all is to make peace and he made a joke from the gospel agree with thine adversary he says whilst Thou Art in the way till thou Hast paid the uttermost Farthing he sends me away laughing that was the end of my 15 rubles I came to ol you we sit facing each other I began to weep she doesn't weep she sits there proud indignant and she's always been like that all her life even when she was little she never sighed never wept so she sits glaring terribly it's even eer to look at her and would you believe it I was afraid of her completely afraid long afraid and I feel like whining now and then but I don't dare in front of her I went to the merchant for a last time wept my fill there all right he says and doesn't even listen meanwhile I must confess since we hadn't counted on staying so long we'd already been without money for some time I gradually began to pawn my clothes and we lived on that we pawned everything we had she began giving up her last bit of linen and here I started weeping bitter tears she stamped her foot jumped up and ran to the merchant herself he's a widower he talked to her come the day after tomorrow at 5:00 he said maybe I'll tell you something she came back cheered up see she says maybe he'll tell me something well I was glad too only my heart somehow went cold in me what's going to happen I think but I don't dare ask her 2 days later she came back from the merchant pale all trembling through herself on the bed I understood everything but I don't dare ask what do you think he gave her 15 rubles the robber and if I meet with full honor in you he says I'll add another 40 rubles that's what he said right to her face shamelessly she rushed at him then she told me but he pushed her back and even locked himself away from her in another room and meanwhile I confess to you in all conscience we have almost nothing to eat we took and sold a jacket lined with rabbit fur and she went to the newspaper and advertised preparation in all subjects and also arithmetic they'll pay at least 30 copcs she says and towards the very end dear lady I even began to be horrified at her she says nothing to me sits for hours on end at the window looking at the roof of the house opposite and suddenly shouts at least to do laundry at least to dig the Earth she'd shout just some word like that and stamp her foot and we have no acquaintances here there's nobody to go to what will become of us I think and I keep being afraid to talk to her once she slept in the afternoon woke up opened her eyes looked at me I sit on the chest also looking at her she got up silently came over to me embraced me very very tightly and then the two of us couldn't help ourselves and wed we sit and weep without letting go of each other's arms it was the first time like that in her whole life so we're sitting like that with each other and your Nastasia comes in and says there's some lady asking to see you this was just 4 days ago the lady comes in we see she's very well-dressed speaks Russian but with what seems like a German accent you advertised in the newspaper she says that you give lessons we were so glad then asked her to sit down she laughs so sweetly it's not me she says but my niece has small children if you like kindly come to see us we'll discuss things there she gave the address by the vasia sinski bridge number such and such apartment number such and such she left all yka set off she went running that same day and what then she came back 2 hours later in hysterics thrashing later she told me I asked the caretaker she says where apartment number such and such was was the caretaker looked at me she says and what he says do you want with that apartment he said it so strangely that I might have thought better of it but she was imperious impatient she couldn't stand these questions and rudeness go he says jabbing his finger towards the stairs turned and went back to his lodge and what do you think she goes in asks and women come running at once from all sides come in come in all the women laughing painted foul piano playing rush to her and pull her I tried to get out of there she says but they wouldn't let me go she got frightened her legs gave way under her they don't let her go and then it's all sweet talk coaxing her they opened a bottle of Port give it to her insist she jumped up shouting with all her might trembling let me go let me go she rushed to the door they hold the door she screams then the one that had come to us ran up to her slapped myia twice in the face and shoved her out the door you're not worthy you she says to be in a noble house and another shouts after her on the stairs you came here yourself since you've got nothing to eat but we wouldn't even look at such a mug all that night she lay in a fever raving and the next morning her eyes flashed she'd get up and Pace to court she says I'll take her to court I said nothing well I thought what can you do about it in court what can you prove she Paces she Rings her hands her tears pour down her lips are pressed together unmoving and since that same time her whole face turned dark till the very end on the third day she felt better she was silent she seemed to have calmed down it was then at 4:00 in the afternoon afternoon that Mr versilov paid us a visit and I'll say it outright I still can't understand how Olia mistrustful as she was could have begun to listen to him then almost from the first word What attracted us both most of all then was that he had such a serious look Stern even he speaks softly thoroughly and so politely ever so politely even respectfully and yet there's no self-seeking to be seen in him you see straight off that the man has come with a pure heart I read your advertisement in the newspaper he says you didn't write it correctly Miss he says and you may even do yourself harm by it and he began to explain I confess I didn't understand there was something about arithmetic only I can see Olia blushed and became as if Animated she listens gets into conversation so willingly he really must be an intelligent man I hear how she even thanks him he asked her about everything so thoroughly and you could see he lived a long time in Moscow and it turned out new the directress of her High School personally I'm sure I'll find lessons for you he says because I have many acquaintances here and can even appeal to many influential persons so that if you want a permanent position then that too can be kept in View and meanwhile he says forgive me one direct question to you may I not be of use to you right now in some way it will not be I who give you pleasure he says but on the contrary you who give it to me if you allow me to be of use to you in any way at all let it be your debt he says and once you get a position you can pay it back to me in the shortest time and Believe Me On My Honor if I ever fell into such poverty afterwards while you were provided with everything I'd come straight to you for a little help I'd send my wife and daughter that is I don't remember all his words only at this point I shed a few tears because I saw ola's lips quiver with gratitude if I accept she answers him it's because I trust an honorable and Humane man who could be my father she said it to him so beautifully briefly and nobly a Humane man she says he stood up at once I'll find lessons and a post for you without fail without fail he says I'll busy myself with it starting today because you have quite enough qualifications for that and I forgot to say that at the very beginning when he came in he looked over all her documents from high school she showed them to him and he examined her in various subjects he examined me in some subjects Mama Ola says to me later and how intelligent he is she says it's not every day you get to talk with such a Dev Ved and educated man and she's just beaming all over the money 60 rubles is lying on the table put it away mama she says we'll get a post and pay it back to him first thing we'll prove that we're honest and that we're delicate he's already seen she fell silent then I see she she's breathing so deeply you know mama she suddenly says to me if we were coarse people maybe we wouldn't have accepted it out of Pride but now that we've accepted it we've proved our delicacy to him showing that we trust him in everything as a respectable gray-haired man isn't it true at first I didn't understand right and said why not accept the benevolence of a noble and wealthy man Olia if on top of that he's kind-hearted she frowned at me no mama she says it's not that we don't need his benevolence what's precious is his humaneness and as for the money it would even be better not to take it Mama since he's promised to find me a position that would be enough though we are in need well Olia I say our need is such that we simply can't refuse I even smiled well in myself I'm glad only an hour later she slipped this in for me you wait mama she says and don't spend the money she said it so resolutely what I say just don't she said broke off and fell silent she was silent the whole evening only past 1:00 at night I wake up and hear Olia tossing on her bed you're not asleep mama no I say I'm not do you know she says that he wanted to insult me how can you how can you I say it has to be so he's a mean man don't you dare spend one copc of his money I tried to talk to her I even cried a little right there in bed she turned to the wall be quiet she says let me sleep the next morning I watch her she goes about not looking herself and believe me or not I'll say it before God's judgment seat she wasn't in her right mind then ever since they insulted her in that mean house she got troubled in her heart and in her mind I look at her that morning and I have doubts about her I feel frightened I won't contradict her I thought not in a single word mama she says he didn't even leave his address shame on you Olia I say you heard him yourself yesterday you praised him yourself afterwards you were about to weep grateful tears your self as soon as I said it she shrieked stamped her foot you're a woman of mean feelings she says you're of the old upbringing on surom and despite all I said she snatched her hat ran out and I shouted after her what's the matter with her I think where has she run to and she ran to the address Bureau found out where Mr versilov lived came back today she says right now I'll bring him the money and fling it in his face he wanted to insult me she says like safronov that's our Merchant only safronov insulted me like a crude peasant and this one like a cunning Jesuit and here suddenly as bad luck would have it that gentleman from yesterday knocked I heard you speaking about versilov I can give you information when she heard about versilov she fell on the man totally beside herself she talks and talks I look at her wondering she's so taciturn she never speaks like that with anyone and here it's a complete stranger her cheeks are burning her eyes flashing and he up and says you're perfectly right Miss he says versilov he says is exactly like these generals here that they describe in the newspapers the general would deck himself out with all his medals and go calling on governesses who advertise in the newspapers he'd go about and find what he wanted and if he didn't find what he wanted he'd sit and talk and promise heaps of things and go away even so he provides himself with entertainment Olia even burst out laughing only so spitefully and this gentleman I see takes her hand puts it to his heart I too Miss he says have capital of my own and I could always offer it to a beautiful girl but it's better he says if I first kiss her sweet little hand and I see him pulling her hand to kiss it she just jumped up but here I jumped up with her and the two of us chased him out then before evening Olia snatched the money from me ran out comes back mama she says I took revenge on the dishonorable man ah Ola Olia I say maybe we've missed our chance you've insulted a noble benevolent man I wept from vexation at her I couldn't help myself she shouts at me I don't want it she shouts I don't want it even if he's the most honorable man even then I don't want his charity if anybody pities me even that I don't want I lay down and there was nothing in my thoughts how many times I had looked at that nail in your wall left over from the mirror it never occurred to me never once occurred to me not yesterday not before and I never thought of it never dreamed of it at all and never ever expected it of Olia I usually sleep soundly I snore it's the blood flowing to my head but sometimes it goes to my heart I cry out in my sleep so that Olia wakes me up in the night you sleep so soundly mama she says it's even impossible to wake you up if I need to oh Olia I say soundly so soundly so I must have started snoring last night she waited a while and then she was no longer afraid and she got up this long strap from the suitcase was there all the time this whole month I was still thinking about it yesterday morning put it away finally so that it doesn't lie about and the chair she must have pushed away with her foot and she spread her skirt beside it so that it wouldn't make any noise and I must have woken up long long long after a whole hour or more oh yeah I call Ola I suspected something at once I call her it was either that I couldn't hear her breathing in bed or perhaps I made out in the darkness that her bed was empty only I suddenly got up and felt with my hand there was no one in the bed and the pillow was cold my heart just sank I stand where I am as if senseless my mind goes dim she went out I thought took a step and I see her there by the bed in the corner near the door as if she's standing there herself I stand silent look at her and she also seems to be looking at me out of the darkness without stirring only why I think did she get up on a chair Ola I whisper getting scared Olia do you hear [Music] here only suddenly it was as if it all dawned on me I took a step thrust both arms out straight at her put them around her and she sways in my arms I clutch her and she sways I understand everything and I don't want to understand I want to cry out but no cry [Music] comes I think I dropped to the floor and then I cried out vasin I said in the morning already past 5:00 if it hadn't been for your steil COV maybe this wouldn't have happened who knows it probably would it's impossible to judge like that here it was all prepared for even without that true this steil COV sometimes he didn't finish and winced very unpleasantly before 7 he went out again he kept bustling about I was finally left completely alone Dawn had broken my head was spinning slightly I kept imagining veril off this lady's story presented him in a totally different light to think it over more comfortably I lay down on Vin's bed as I was dressed and with my boots on for a moment with no intention of sleeping and suddenly fell asleep I don't even remember how it happened I slept for nearly 4 hours nobody woke me up chapter 10 1 I woke up at around halfast 10 and for a long time could not believe my eyes on the sofa where I had slept the night before sat my mother and beside her the unfortunate neighbor the mother of the suicide they were holding each other's hands speaking in Whispers probably so as not to wake me up and both were weeping I got out of bed and rushed straight to kiss mama she beamed all over kissed me and crossed me three times with her right hand we had no time to say a word the door opened and versilov and vasin came in Mama stood up at once and took the neighbor with her vasin gave me his hand but versilov didn't say a word to me and lowered himself into an armchair he and Mama had evidently been there for some time his face was somber and preoccupied I regret most of all he began saying measuredly to vasin obviously continuing a conversation already begun that I didn't manage to settle it last evening and surely this Dreadful thing wouldn't have come about and there was time enough it wasn't 8:00 yet as soon as she ran away from us last night I at once resolved mentally to follow her here and reassure her but this unforeseen and Urgent matter which however I could very well have put off until today or even for a week this vexatious matter hindered and ruined everything that things should come together like that but maybe you wouldn't have managed to reassure her even without you it seems a lot was seething and smoldering there vasin marked in passing no I'd have managed I'd surely have managed and the thought occurred to me of sending Sophia andreevna in my place it flashed but only flashed Sophia andreevna alone would have won her over and the unfortunate girl would have remained alive no never again will I meddle with good deeds just once in my life I tried meddling and here I'm thinking that I haven't lagged behind your generation and understand contemporary youth yes our old folk grow old almost before they mature incidentally there are actually an awful lot of people nowadays who out of habit still consider themselves the younger generation because yesterday they still were and they don't notice that they're already febon a misunderstanding occurred here all too clear a misunderstanding vasin observed sense of her mother says that after the cruel insult in the public house it was as if she lost her mind add to that the surroundings the original insult from the merchant all this could have happened in the same way in former times and I don't think it's in any way especially characteristic of present day youth they're a bit impatient these present day Youth and besides naturally there's little understanding of actualities which though it's characteristic of any youth at any time it's somehow especially so of our youth tell me and what Mischief did Mr steel COV do here Mr stulov I suddenly cut in is the cause of it all if it hadn't been for him nothing would have happened he poured oil on the fire versilov listened but he didn't look at me vasin frowned I also reproach myself for one ridiculous circumstance versilov went on unhurriedly and drawing the words out as before it seems that I as is my nasty habit allowed myself a certain sort of mert then this light-minded little laugh in short I was insufficiently sharp dry and gloomy three qualities that seemed to be of great value among the Contemporary younger generation in short I gave her reasons to take me for a Wandering sadon quite the contrary I again cut in abruptly her mother affirms in particular that you made an excellent impression precisely by your seriousness sternness even sincerity her own words the deceased girl praised you for it after you left did she versilov mumbled giving me a fleeting glance at last take this scrap of paper it's necessary to the case he handed a tiny bit of paper to vasin the latter took it and seeing that I was looking with curiosity gave it to me to read it was a note two uneven lines scrolled with a pencil and maybe in the dark Mama dear forgive me for having stopped my life's debut your distressing Olia it was found only in the morning vasin explained what a strange note I exclaimed in astonishment Strange In what way asked vasin how can one write in humorous Expressions at such a moment vasin looked at me questioningly and the humor is strange I went on the conventional High School language among schoolmates well at such a moment and in such a note to an unfortunate mother and it turns out she did love her mother who could write stopped my life's debut why can't one write it vasin still didn't understand there's no humor here at all versilov finally observed the expression is of course inappropriate totally in the wrong tone and indeed might have come from high school talk or some sort of conventional language among schoolmates as you said or from some sort of fuon but the deceased girl used it in this terrible note quite simple-hearted and seriously that can't be she completed her studies and graduated with a silver medal a silver medal means nothing here nowadays there are many who complete their studies down on the youth again vasin smiled not in the least versilov replied getting up from his place and taking his hat if the present generation is not not so literary then it undoubtedly possesses other virtues he added with extraordinary seriousness besides many is not all and I don't accuse you for instance of poor literary development and you're also still a young man yes and vasin didn't find anything wrong in debut I couldn't help observing versilov silently gave BS in his hand the latter also seized his cap to go out with him and shouted goodbye to me versilov left without noticing me I also had no time to lose I had at all costs to run and look for an apartment now I needed it more than ever mama was no longer with the land lady she had left and taken the neighbor with her I went outside feeling somehow especially cheerful some new and big feeling was being born in my soul besides as if on purpose everything seemed to contribute I ran into an opportunity remarkably quickly and found a quite suitable apartment of this apartment later but now I'll finish about the main thing it was just getting past 1:00 when I went back to vasin again for my suitcase and happened to find him at home again seeing me he exclaimed with a merry and sincere air how glad I am that you found me I was just about to leave I can tell you a fact that I believe will interest you very much I'm convinced beforehand I cried H how cheerful you look tell me did you know anything about a certain letter that had been kept by Craft and that versilov got hold of yesterday precisely something to do with the inheritance he won in this letter the testator clarifies his will in a sense opposite to yesterday's Court decision the letter was written long ago in short I don't know precisely what exactly but don't you know something how could I not two days ago craft took me to his place just for that from those gentlemen in order to give me that letter and yesterday I gave it to versilov did you that's what I thought then imagine the business versilov mentioned here today which kept him from coming last evening and persuading that girl this business came about precisely because of that letter last evening versilov went straight to Prince Sak's lawyer gave him the letter and renounced the entire inheritance he had won at the present moment this renunciation has already been put in legal form versilov isn't giving it to them but in this act he recognizes the full right of the princes I was dumb struck but delighted in reality I had been completely convinced that versilov would destroy the letter moreover though I did talk with craft about how it would not be Noble and though I had repeated it to myself in the tavern and that I had come to a pure man not to this one still deeper Within Myself that is in my innermost soul I considered that it was even impossible to act otherwise than to cross out the document completely that is I considered it a most ordinary matter if I were to blame versilov later I'd do it only on purpose for appearances that is to retain my Superior position over him but hearing about vero's great deed now I was sincerely delighted fully so condemning with repentance and shame my cynicism and my indifference to Virtue and that instant having exalted versilov infinitely above me I nearly embraced vasin what a man what a man who else would have done that I exclaimed in ecstasy I agree with you that a great many would not have done it and that indisputably the ACT is highly disinterested but finish what you're saying vasin you have a butt yes of course there's a butt veril of's act in my opinion is a little bit Hasty and a little bit not so straightforward vasin smiled not straightforward yes there's something like a pedestal here because in any case he could have done the same thing without hurting himself if not half then still undoubtedly a certain portion of the inheritance could go to versilov now too even taking the most ticklish view of the matter the more so is the document did not have decisive significance and he had already won the case that is the opinion held by the lawyer of the opposite side I've just spoken with him the ACT would remain no less handsome but owing solely to a whim of Pride it has happened otherwise above all Mr versilov became over excited and needlessly over hasty he said himself today that he could have put it off for a whole week you know what vasin I can't help agreeing with you but I like it better this way it pleases me better this way anyhow it's a matter of taste you challenged me yourself I would have kept silent even if there's a pedestal here that's all the better I went on a pedestal is a pedestal but in itself it's a very valuable thing this pedestal is the same old ideal and it's hardly better that it's missing from some present day Souls let it be even with a slight deformity and surely you think so yourself vasin my dear heart vasin my darling vasin in short I've talked my head off of course but you do understand me that's what makes you vasin and in any case I embrace you and kiss you vasin with joy with great joy for this man was dead and is alive again was lost and is found vasin 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 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 land lady 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 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 noticed 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 plug you all at once turned my young heart in your favor again well goodbye goodbye 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 soqu questionably 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 two I just knew he'd be terribly glad to see me and I swear I'd have called on him today even without without versilov I was only frightened yesterday and today at the thought that I might somehow meet Katarina nikolova but now I no longer feared anything he embraced me joyfully and versilov have you heard I began straight off with the main thing Sher my dear friend it's so Sublime it's so Noble in short even kilan 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 May say shamal but it suits him well that is it doesn't suit him at all P 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 Balo a splendid Balo 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 Andre Petrovic and to the point that she even seems to be nurturing some nurturing how would she like this I cried out making a fig in my indignation moner 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 Katarina nikolova 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 hey 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 pre sentiment but here's Prince seroa a young enhan some 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 blonde 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 simple-hearted and this simple-hearted was attractive I'll note another feature despite the gentleness and simple-hearted 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 straight away rushed to introduce us as was his stupid habit this is my young friend aradi andreevich darari 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 Andre Petro 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 lisaveta Makarova last year in luga she also spoke to me about you I was even surprised a decidedly sincere pleasure sh tone in his face excuse me Prince I babbled putting both hands behind my back I must tell you sincerely and I'm glad to be speaking before our dear Prince that I even wish to meet you and wished it still recently only yesterday but with an entirely different intent I say it directly however surprised you may be in short I wanted to challenge you for insulting versilov a year and a half ago in and though you of course might not accept my challenge because I'm only a high school boy and an underage adolescent nevertheless I would make the challenge anyway however you might take it and whatever you might do and I confess I'm still of the same intent the old Prince told me afterwards that I had managed to say it extremely nobly sincere grief showed in the prince's face only you didn't let me finish he replied imposingly if I Turn to You with words that came from the bottom of my heart the reason was precisely my present genuine feelings for Andre Petrovic I'm sorry that I cannot tell you all the circumstances right now but I assure you on my honor that for a long long time I have looked upon my unfortunate act in M with the deepest regret as I Was preparing to come to pet Petersburg I decided to give Andre petrovich all possible satisfaction that is directly literally to ask his forgiveness in whatever form he indicated the loftiest and most powerful influences were the cause of the change in my view the fact that we had a lawsuit would not have influenced my decision in the least his action towards me yesterday shook my soul so to speak and even at this moment believe me it's as if I still haven't come back to myself and now I must tell you I precisely came to the prince in order to tell him about an extraordinary circumstance 3 hours ago that is exactly at the time when he and his lawyer were putting together this act a representative of Andre petrovic's came to bring me a challenge from him a formal Challenge on account of the incident in M he challenged you I cried and felt my eyes begin to glow and the blood rushed to my face yes he did I accepted the challenge at once but I decided that before our encounter I would send him a letter in which I would explain my view of my act and all my regret for this terrible mistake because it was only a mistake an unfortunate fatal mistake I'll note that my position in the regiment made this risky for for such a letter before an encounter I'd be subjecting myself to public opinion you understand but in spite even of that I resolved on it only I had no time to send the letter because an hour after the challenge I again received a note from him in which he asked me to forgive him for having troubled me and to forget the challenge adding that he regretted this momentary impulse of pusillanimity and egoism his own words so he has now made the step with the letter quite easy for me I haven't sent it yet but I precisely came to tell the prince a word or two about it and believe me I myself have suffered from the reproaches of my conscience far more maybe than anybody else is this explanation sufficient for you aradi makovich at least now for the time being will you do me the honor of believing fully in my sincerity I was completely one over I saw an unquestionable straightforwardness which for me was highly unexpected nor had I expected anything like it I murmured something in reply and held out both hands to him he joyfully shook them in his then he took the prince away and talked with him for about 5 minutes in his bedroom if you want to give me particular pleasure he addressed me loudly and openly as he was leaving the prince come with me now and I'll show you the letter I'm about to send to Andre Petrovic along with his letter to me I agreed with extreme willingness my prince began bustling about as he saw me off and also called me to his bedroom for a moment Monami how glad I am how glad we'll talk about it all later by the way I have two two letters here in my portfolio one needs to be delivered and explained personally the other is to the bank and there too and here he charged me with two supposedly urgent errands which supposedly called for Extraordinary effort and attention I had to go and actually deliver them sign and so on ah you Sly Fox I cried taking the letters I swear it's all nonsense and there's nothing to it but you invented these two errands to convince me that I'm working and not taking money for nothing mon I swear to you you're mistaken about that these are two most urgent matters Sheron he cried suddenly waxing terribly emotional my dear youth he placed both hands on my head I bless you and your destiny let us always be pure in heart like today kind and beautiful as far as possible let us love all that's beautiful in all its various forms well finally let's give thanks and I bless you he didn't finish and began whimpering over my head I confess I almost wept too at least I embraced my old eccentric sincerely and with pleasure we kissed warmly three Prince seroa that is Prince Sergey Petrovic and so I shall call him brought me to his apartment in a jonty droski and first thing I was surprised at the magnificence of his apartment that is not really magnificence but this was an apartment such as the most respectable people have with high big bright rooms I saw two the others were shut up and the furniture once again was not God knows what Versa or Renaissance but soft comfortable abundant in Grand style rugs carved wood figurines yet everyone said they were destitute that they had precisely nothing I had heard in passing though that this Prince raised dust wherever he could here and in Moscow and in his former regiment and in Paris that he even gambled and had deaths the frock coat I had on was wrinkled and moreover covered with down because I had slept without undressing and my shirt was going on its fourth day however my frock coat was still not totally bad but finding myself at the prince's I remembered bov's offer to have clothes made for me imagine on the occasion of a certain suicide I slept in my clothes all night I remarked with an absent-minded air and since he paid attention at once I briefly told him about it but he was obviously occupied most of all with his letter above all I found it strange that he not only had not smiled but had not shown the smallest reaction in that sense when I had told him Direct earlier that I wanted to challenge him to a duel though I should have been able to prevent him from laughing still it was strange from a man of his sort we sat down facing each other in the middle of the room at his enormous writing table and he gave me an already finished Fair copy of his letter to versilov to read through this document was very much like all he had told me earlier at my princes it was even ardently written true I didn't know yet how I should finally take this apparent straightforwardness and Readiness for everything good but I was already beginning to yield to it because in fact why shouldn't I have believed it whatever sort of man he was and whatever people told about him he still could have good inclinations I also looked through the last little seven-line note from versilov renouncing his challenge though he actually wrote about his pusillanimity and egoism in it the note as a whole was as if distinguished by a certain arrogance or better this whole action showed a sort of disdain however I didn't say so out loud you though how do you look at this renunciation I asked you don't think he turned Coward of course not the prince smiled but with a somehow very serious smile and generally he was becoming more and more preoccupied I know all too well that he's a courageous man here of course there's a special view his own disposition of ideas undoubtedly I interrupted warmly a certain vasin says that his action with this letter and the renouncing of The Inheritance are a pedestal in my opinion such things aren't done for show but correspond to something basic inner I know Mr Vos in very very well remarked the prince ah yes you must have seen him in luga we suddenly looked at each other and I remember it seems I blushed a little in any case he broke off the conversation I however wanted very much to talk the thought of one meeting yesterday tempted me to ask him some questions only I didn't know how to approach it and in general I was somehow quite out of sorts I was also struck by his astonishing courtesy politeness ease of manner in short all that polish of their tone which they assume almost from the cradle in his letter I found two gross errors in grammar and generally in such encounters I never belittle myself but become more CT which sometimes may be bad but in the present case it was especially aggravated by the thought that I was covered with down so that several times I even blundered into familiarity I noticed on the slide that the prince occasionally studied me very intently tell me Prince I suddenly popped out with a question don't you find it ridiculous within yourself that I who am still such a milk soop wanted to challenge you to a duel and for somebody else's offense at that one can be very offended by an offense to one's father no I don't find it ridiculous and to me it seems terribly ridiculous in someone else's eyes that is of course not in my own the more so is I'm dalgar Ruki and not versilov and if you're not telling me the truth or are softening it somehow from the decency of social polish then does it mean you're also deceiving me and everything else no I don't find it ridiculous he replied terribly seriously how can you not feel your father's blood in you true you're still young because I don't know it seems someone who is not of age cannot fight a duel and his challenge cannot be accepted according to the rules but if you like there can be only one serious objection here if you make a challenge without the knowledge of the offended person for whose offense you are making the challenge you are thereby expressing as it were a certain lack of respect for him on your own part isn't that true our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a footman who came to announce something seeing him the prince who seemed to have been expecting him stood up without finishing what he was saying and quickly went over to him so that the footman made his announcement in a low voice and I of course didn't hear what it was excuse me the prince turned to me I'll be back in a minute and he went out I was left alone I paced the room and thought Strangely I both liked him and terribly disliked him there was something in him that I could not name myself but something repellent if he's not laughing at me a bit then without doubt he's terribly straightforward but if he was laughing at me then maybe he'd seem more intelligent I thought somehow Strangely I went over to the table and read vero's letter once more I was so absorbed that I even forgot about the time and when I came to my senses I suddenly noticed that the prince's little minute had indisputably lasted a whole quarter of an hour already that began to trouble me a little I paced up and down once more finally took my hat and I remember decided to step out so as to meet someone to send for The Prince and when he came to take leave of him at once assuring him that I had things to do and could not wait any longer it seemed to me that this would be most proper because I was slightly pained by the thought that in leaving me for so long he was treating me negligently the two closed doors to this room were at two ends of the same wall having forgotten which door we came in by or rather out of absent mindedness I opened one of them and suddenly saw sitting on a sofa in a long and narrow room my sister Lisa there was no one there except her and she was of course waiting for someone but before I had time even to be surprised I suddenly heard the voice of the prince talking loudly to someone and going back to his study I quickly closed the door and the prince coming in through the other door noticed nothing I remember he started apologizing and said something about some Anna foda but I was so confused and astounded that I made out almost none of it and only muttered that I had to go home and then insistently and quickly left the well-bred prince of course must have looked at my manners with curiosity he saw me off to the front hall and kept talking but I did not reply and did not look at him four going outside I turned left and started walking at random nothing added up in my head I walked slowly and it seems had gone quite far some 500 steps when I suddenly felt a light tap on my shoulder I turned and saw Lisa she had caught up with me and tapped me lightly with her umbrella there was something terribly gay and a bit Sly in her shining eyes well how glad I am that you went this way otherwise I wouldn't have met you today she was slightly breathless from walking quickly how breathless you are I ran terribly to catch up with you Lisa was it you I just met where at the princes Prince sakolsky no not me you didn't meet me I said nothing and we walked on some 10 Paces Lisa burst into loud laughter me me of course it was me listen you saw me yourself you looked into my eyes and I looked into your eyes so how can you ask whether you met me well what a character and you know I wanted terribly to laugh when you stared into my eyes there it was terribly funny the way you stared she laughed terribly I felt all the anguish leave my heart at once but tell me how did you wind up there I was at Ana Fodor what Anna fyodorovna stal BV when we lived in luga I sat with her for whole days she received mama at her place and even called on us and she called called on almost nobody there she's a distant relation of Andre petrovich's and a relation of the princes zakolski she's some sort of Grandmother to the prince so she lives with the prince no the prince lives with her so whose apartment is it it's her apartment the apartment has been all hers for a whole year now the prince has just arrived and is staying with her and she herself has only been 4 days in Petersburg well you know what Lisa God be with the apartment and the woman herself no she's wonderful let her be and in Spades we're wonderful ourselves look what a day look how good how beautiful you are today Lisa however you're a terrible child aradi tell me that girl the one yesterday a what a Pity Lisa what a Pity Oh What A pity what a fate you know it's even sinful that you and I go along so merrily and her soul is now flying somewhere in the darkness in some bottomless Darkness sinner that she is and offended aradi who's to blame for her sin oh how frightful it is do you ever think about that Darkness oh how afraid I am of death and how sinful that is I don't like the dark I much prefer this son mama says it's sinful to be afraid aradi do you know Mama well little so far Lisa I know her very little a what a being she is you must must get to know her she has to be understood in a special way but see I didn't know you either and now I know the whole of you I came to know the whole of you in one minute though you're afraid of death Lisa it must be that you're proud bold courageous better than I much better than I I love you terribly Lisa ah Lisa let death come when it must and meanwhile live live we'll pity that unfortunate girl but even so we'll bless life right right I have an idea Lisa Lisa do you know that versilov renounced the inheritance how could I not know mama and I already kissed each other you don't know my soul Lisa you don't know what this man has meant for me well how could I not know I know everything you know everything well what else you're intelligent you're more intelligent than vasin you and Mama you have penetrating Humane eyes that is looks not eyes I'm wrong I'm bad in many ways Lisa you need to be taken in hand that's all take me Lisa how nice it is to look at you today do you know that you're very pretty I've never seen your eyes before only now I've seen them for the first time where did you get them today Lisa where did you buy them how much did you pay Lisa I've never had a friend and I look upon the idea as nonsense but with you it's not nonsense if you want let's be friends you understand what I want to say I understand very well and you know without any conditions any contract we'll Simply Be Friends yes simply simply only with one condition if we ever accuse each other if we're displeased with something if we ourselves become wicked bad if we even forget all this let's never forget this day and this very hour let's promise ourselves let's promise that we will always remember this day when we walked hand in hand and laughed so and were so merry yes yes yes Lisa yes and I swear it but Lisa it's as if I'm hearing you for the first time Lisa have you read a lot he never asked till now only yesterday when I made a slip in speaking he dained to pay attention for for the first time my dear sir Mr wise man but why didn't you start talking to me yourself since I was such a fool I kept waiting for you to become smarter I saw through you from the very beginning aradi makovich and once I saw through you I began to think like this he'll come he'll surely end up by coming well and I suppose it was better to leave that honor to you so that it was you who made the first step no I thought now you run after me a little ah you little coet well Lisa confess outright have you been laughing at me all this month or not oh you're very funny you're terribly funny aradi and you know it may be that I loved you most of all this month because you're such an odd duck but in many ways you're also a silly duck that's so you don't get too proud do you know who else laughed at you Mama laughed at you mama and I together what an odd duck we'd whisper really what an odd duck and you sat there and thought all the while that we're sitting there and trembling before you Lisa what do you think of versilov I think a great many things about him but you know we're not going to talk about him now there's no need to talk about him today right perfectly right no you're terribly intelligent Lisa you're certainly more intelligent than I am you just wait Lisa I'll finish with all this and then maybe I'll tell you something why are you frowning I'm not frowning Lisa I'm just you see Lisa it's better to be direct I have this feature I don't like it when someone puts a finger on certain ticklish things in my soul or better to say if you keep letting out certain feelings for everybody to admire it's shameful isn't it and so I sometimes prefer to frown and say nothing you're intelligent you must understand not only that I'm the same way myself I understand you in everything do you know that Mama is the same way too a Lisa if only we could live longer in this world hey what did you say no I didn't say anything you're just looking yes and you're looking too I look at you and love you I took her almost all the way home and gave her my address saying goodbye I kissed her for the first time in my life five and all all that would have been fine but there was one thing that wasn't fine one oppressive idea had been throbbing in me since Nightfall and would not leave my mind this was that when I had met that unfortunate Girl by the gate last evening I had told her that I myself was leaving my home my Nest that one could leave Wicked people and start one's own nest and that versilov had many illegitimate children these words about a father from a son had most certainly confirmed in her all her suspicions about versilov and about his having insulted her I had accused stulov but maybe it was I myself above all who had poured oil on the fire this thought was terrible it's terrible even now but then that morning though I was already beginning to suffer it had still seemed nonsense to me eh even without me a lot was SE and smoldering there I repeat it at times and never mind it'll pass I'll come right I'll make up for it by some good deed I've still got 50 years ahead of me but the idea still thoed part two chapter 1 one I fly over a space of nearly 2 months let the reader not worry everything will be clear from the further account I sharply mark off the day of the 15th of November a day all too memorable to me for many reasons and first of all nobody would have recognized me who had seen Me 2 months earlier at least externally that is they'd have recognized me but wouldn't have known what to make of it I'm dressed like a fop that's the first thing that conscientious Frenchman and with taste whom versilov once wanted to recommend me to had not only already made all my clothes but had already been rejected by me other tailor stitch for me higher class the foremost and I even have an account with them I also have an account in a certain famous restaurant but here I'm still afraid and the moment I have money I pay it at once though I know it's Moon bad tone and that I compromise Myself by it a French Barber on yki Prospect is on familiar terms with me and when he does my hair he tells me anecdotes I confess I practice my French with him though I know the language and even quite decently I'm still somehow afraid to start speaking it in Grand Society besides my pronunciation must be far from Parisian I have matvey a Coachman with a Trotter and he appears to serve me when I send for him he has a light Bay stallion I don't like Grays there are however ever also some irregularities it's the 15th of November and the third day since winter settled in but my fur coat is old a raccoon from versilov shoulders worth 25 rubles if I were to sell it I must buy a new one but my pockets are empty and besides I must provide myself with money for this evening and that at all costs otherwise I'm wretched and forlorn those were my own utterances at the time oh meanness what then where have they suddenly come from these thousands these trots and Le Borel how could I so suddenly forget everything and change so much disgrace reader I am now beginning the history of my shame and disgrace and nothing in life can be more shameful for me than these memories I speak thus as a judge and I know that I'm guilty in that whirl in which I then spun though I was alone without guide or counselor I swear I was already aware of my fall and therefore had no excuse and yet all those two months I was almost Happy why almost I was only too happy and even to the point that the consciousness of disgrace flashing at moments frequent moments which made my soul shudder that very awareness will anyone leave me intoxicated me still more and so what if I fall I fall but I won't fall I'll get out I have my star I was walking on a slender Bridge made of splinters without railings over an abyss and it was fun for me to walk like that I even peaked into the abyss it was risky and it was fun and the idea the idea later the idea was waiting all that was going on on was only a deviation to the side why not amuse myself the bad thing about my idea I'll repeat it once more is that it allows for decidedly all deviations had it not been so firm and radical I might have been afraid to deviate and meanwhile I still continued to occupy my wretched little apartment to occupy it but not to live in it there lay my suitcase bag and some things my main residence was at Prince Serge sakolsky I sat there slept there and did so for whole weeks even how it happened I shall tell presently but meanwhile I'll tell about this wretched little apartment it was already dear to me here versilov came to see me of himself for the first time after that quarrel and later came many times I repeat this was a time of of terrible disgrace but also of enormous happiness and everything turned out so well then everything smiled at me and why all that former Gloom I thought in some rapturous moments why all those old morbid strains my lonely and Sullen childhood my stupid dreams under the blanket vows calculations and even the idea I had imagined and invented all that and it turned out that the world world wasn't like that at all here I am feeling so joyful and light I have a father versilov I have a friend Prince seroa I also have but let's drop that also alas it was all done in the Name of Love magnanimity honor and later it turned out ugly impudent dishonorable enough two he came to see me for the first time on the third day after our breakup then I wasn't at home and he stayed to wait when I came into my tiny closet even though I had been waiting for him all those 3 days my eyes clouded over as it were and my heart gave such a throb that I even stopped in the doorway fortunately he was sitting with my landlord who found it necessary so that the visitor would not be bored waiting to become acquainted at once and begin telling him heatedly about something he was a titular counselor about 40 years old very pockmarked very poor burdened with a consumptive wife and a sick child of an extremely gregarious and Placid character though also rather tactful I was glad of his presence and he even helped me out because what would I have said to versilov I Knew seriously knew all those three days that versilov would come on his own first exactly as I wanted because I would not have gone to him first for anything in the world and not out of contrary but precisely out of love for him out of some sort of jealous love I don't know how to express it and generally the reader won't find any eloquence in me but though I had been waiting for for him all those 3 days and had imagined to myself almost continuously how he would come in still I had been quite unable to picture beforehand though I tried as hard as I could to picture it what he and I would suddenly start talking about after all that had happened ah here you are he held out his hand to me amicably without getting up from his seat sit down with us poor ovich tells the most interesting story about this Stone near near the pavlovski barracks or somewhere there yes I know that stone I answered quickly lowering myself into a chair beside them they were sitting at the table the whole room was precisely 200 square ft I took a deep breath a spark of pleasure flashed in vero's eyes it seemed he had doubts and thought I might want to make gestures he calmed down start again from the beginning porri bovic they were already addressing each other by first name and patronymic so this happened under the late Sovereign sir P ovich addressed me nervously and somewhat painfully as if suffering ahead of time over the success of the effect you know that stone a stupid Stone in the street why what for it's in everybody's way right sir The Sovereign drove by many times and each time there was this Stone in the end The Sovereign didn't like it and indeed a whole Mountain a Mountain is standing in the street ruining the street the stone must not be well he said it must not be you understand what it must not be means remember the late SAR what to do with the stone everybody's at their wit's end including the Duma and mainly I don't remember who precisely but it was one of the foremost courtiers of the time who was charged with it so this courtier listens they say it would cost 15,000 not less in silver sir because paper Bank notes had just been converted to Silver under the late Sovereign how come 15,000 that's wild first the Englishman wanted to bring rails up to it put it on Rails and take it away by steam but what would that have cost there were no railroads yet then except for the one tsaro well look they could have SED in pieces I was beginning to frown I was terribly vexed and ashamed in front of versilov but he listened with visible pleasure I understood that he too was glad of the landlord because he also felt abashed with me I could see it for me I remember that even seemed touching in him precisely saw it in pieces sir they precisely Hit Upon that idea and it was precisely moneron he was then building St Isaac's Cathedral saw it up he says and then take it away yes sir but what will that cost it won't cost anything simply saw it up and take it away no pardon me but here you'd have to set up a machine a steam engine and then again take it away where and then again such a Mountain 10,000 they say you won't get away with less 10 or 12,000 listen P ovich that's nonsense it wasn't like that but just then versilov winked at me inconspicuously and in that wink I saw such delicate compassion for the landlord even commiseration with him that I liked it terribly much and I burst out laughing well so so rejoiced the landlord who hadn't noticed anything and was terribly afraid as such storytellers always are that he would be thrown off by questions only just then some Tradesman comes up to them still a young man well you know a Russian wedge-shaped beard in a long skirted CF tan and on the verge of being a little drunk though no not drunk sir so this Tradesman stands there while they're talking about it the Engish English man in malero and this person who's in charge also drives up in a carriage listens and gets angry how is it they keep deciding and can't decide and suddenly he notices this little Tradesman standing some distance away and smiling sort of falsely that is not falsely I got it wrong but how should I say mockingly versilov put in cautiously mockingly sir that is slightly mockingly with this kindly Russian smile you know well the person of course takes it with vexation you know you in the beard what are you waiting here for who are you oh he says I'm just looking at this little Stone your highness precisely I believe your highness it was all but Prince suvorov of Italy a descendant of the general isimo though no not suvorov and it's a Pity I've forgotten precisely who only you know though he's a highness he's such a pure Russian man this Russian type a patriot a developed Russian heart so he guessed it what are you going to do he says take the stone away what are you grinning at more at the Englishmen your highness the price they're asking is way out of proportion sir because because the Russian purse is fat and they've got nothing to eat at home allot me a 100 little rubles your highness and by tomorrow night we'll remove this little Stone well can you imagine such an offer the Englishmen of course want to eat him up moneron laughs only this Highness Prince he's a Russian heart give him a 100 rubles he says so he says you'll really take it away by tomorrow night it'll be to your satisfaction your highness and how will you do it that no offense to your highness is our secret sir he says and you know in such Russian language this was liked eh give him everything he asks for well so they left him there and what do you think he did the landlord paused and began looking at us with a sweet gaze I don't know versilov smiled I was frowning deeply here's what he did Sir the landlord said with such Triumph as if he had done it himself he hired some peasants with Spades simple Russian ones and started digging a hole right by the stone at the very edge they dug all night made an enormous hole exactly the size of the stone only a couple of inches deeper and when they were done he told them to gradually and carefully dig the ground from under the stone well naturally when they dug away under it the stone had no support and the balance got Tipsy and once the balance got Tipsy they pushed the Stone from the other side with their hands with a Harrah Russian Style the stone plopped right into the hole they straight away shoveled the dirt back over it tamped it down with a tamper paved it over smooth the stone vanished fancy that said versilov I mean people people come running Untold numbers of them those Englishmen who had guessed long ago stand there angry M feron arrives this is a peasant job he says it's too simple he says but that's the whole trick that it's simple and it didn't occur to you fools and I'll tell you that Superior that state personage he just gasped hugged him kissed him and where might the likes of you be from y a slav province your highness myself I'm a tailor by trade but in summer I come to the capital to sell fruits sir well it reached the authorities the authorities ordered a medal hung on him he went around like that with the metal on his neck and later they say he drank himself up you know a Russian man can't help himself that's why the foreigners prey on us to this day yes sir so there sir yes of course the Russian mind versilov began but here for fortunately for him the Storyteller was summoned by his ailing wife and he ran off otherwise I couldn't have stood it versilov was laughing my dear he entertained me for a whole hour before you came that stone that's everything there is of the most patriotically indecent among such stories but how interrupt him you saw him he was melting with pleasure and besides the stone it seems is still standing there unless I'm mistaken and isn't buried in a hole at all oh my God I cried but that's true how did he dare what's with you no come now it seems you're quite indignant and he actually got it confused I heard some such story about a stone back in the time of my childhood only naturally it wasn't the same and it wasn't about that stone good Heavens it reached the authorities his whole soul sang at that moment when it reached the authorities in this sorry milu it's impossible to do without such anecdotes they have a host of them above all from their lack of restraint they haven't studied anything they don't know anything precisely well and besides cards and promotions they want to talk about something generally human poetic what is he who is he this poor bovic the poorest of beings and also unfortunate well so you see maybe he doesn't even play cards I repeat while telling this rubbish he satisfies his love for his neighbor you see he wanted to make us happy as well the feeling of patriotism is also satisfied for instance they also have an an that the English offered zavyalov a million only so that he wouldn't stamp his brand on his products oh my god I've heard that anecdote who hasn't heard it and he knows perfectly well as he tells it that you've certainly heard it already but still he tells it deliberately imagining that you haven't it seems the vision of the Swedish King has become outdated with them but in my youth they repeated it with gusto and in a mysterious whisper as well as the one about somebody at the beginning of the century supposedly kneeling before the senators in the Senate there were also many anecdotes about commandant bashutski and how the monument was taken away they're terribly fond of anecdotes about the court for instance the stories about CH shov a minister in the previous Reign How as a 70-year-old man he made himself up so that he looked like a 30-year-old so much so that the late Sovereign was astonished at his receptions I've heard that too who hasn't all these anecdotes are the height of indecency but you should know that this type of the indecent is much deeper and more wide spread than we think even in our most decent Society you meet with the wish to lie with the purpose of making your neighbor happy for we all suffer from this unrestraint of the heart only with us the stories are of a different kind what they tell about America alone is something awful and that's even Statesmen I confess I myself belong to this indecent type and have suffered from it all my life I've told the story about ChatOn shave several times myself have you really there's another tenant here besides me a clerk also pockmarked and already old but he's a terribly prosaic man and as soon as pelitovic starts talking he immediately sets about confusing and contradicting him and he's driven him to such a state that poor ovic serves him like a slave and humors him only so as he listens that's already another type of the indecent and maybe even more loome than the first the first is all Rapture just let me tell you a lie you'll see how well it comes out the second is all spleen and Pros I Won't Let You Lie when where in what year in short he has no heart my friend always let a man lie a little it's innocent even let him lie a lot first it will show your delicacy and second you'll also be allowed to in return two enormous profits at once good one must love one's neighbor but it's time I left you've settled in quite nicely he added getting up from his chair I'll tell Sophia andreevna and your sister that I called and found you in good health goodbye my dear what could that be all no this was by no means what I needed I was waiting for something else the main thing though I understood perfectly well that it couldn't be otherwise I began showing him to the stairs with a candle the landlord also jumped over but in secret from veril love I seized his arm with all my strength and shoved him away fiercely he looked at me in amazement but effaced himself at once these stairs versilov mumbled drawing out the words evidently so as to say something and evidently for fear I might say something these stairs I'm not used to them and you're on the third floor but anyhow I'll find my way now don't trouble yourself my dear you'll catch cold but I didn't leave we were going down the second flight of stairs I've been waiting for you all these 3 days escaped me suddenly as if of itself I was breathless thank you my dear I knew you wouldn't fail to come and I knew you knew I wouldn't fail to come thank you my dear he fell silent we had already reached the front door and I was still walking behind him he opened the door the wind burst in at once and blew out my candle here I suddenly seized him by the hand it was completely dark he gave a start but said nothing I bent to his hand and suddenly began kissing it greedily several times many times my dear boy what makes you love me so much he said but now in a quite different voice his voice trembled and something quite new rang in it as if it was not he who was speaking I wanted to answer something but couldn't and ran upstairs he waited without moving from the spot and only when I reached my apartment did I hear the street door downstairs open and slam shut noisily I slipped into my room past the landlord who for some reason turned up there again fastened the latch and without lighting a candle threw myself onto the bed face to the pillow and wept wept it was the first time I had wept since T sha sobs burst from me with such force and I was so happy but why describe it I've written this down now without being ashamed because maybe it was all good despite all its absurdity three but oh did he get it from me for that I became a terrible desperate needless to say we never mentioned this scene afterwards on the contrary we met 3 days later as if nothing had happened what's more I was almost rude that second evening and he was also as if dry it happened at my place again for some reason I still wouldn't go to him myself despite my desire to see my mother we talked all this time that is for these two whole months only about the most abstract subjects and that surprises me all we did was talk about abstract subjects the generally human and most necessary ones of course but not concerned in the least with the essential yet much very much of the essential needed to be defined and clarified even urgently so but of those things we didn't speak I even said nothing about mother and Lisa and well and finally about myself about my whole story whether that was all from shame or from some sort of youthful stupidity I don't know I suppose it was from stupidity because shame could still have been surmounted and I desized him terribly and more than once even drove it as far as insolence and even against my own heart it was all done somehow of itself uncontrollably I couldn't control myself his tone was of a subtle mockery as before though always extremely affectionate despite all it also struck me that he much preferred coming to me himself so that in the end I began to see Mama terribly seldom once a week not more especially in the most recent time when I got into quite a whirl he would come in the evening sit in my room and chat he was also very fond of chatting with the landlord this last infuriated me in such a man as he the thought also came to me can it be that he has no one to go to except me but I knew for certain that he had acquaintances lately he had even renewed many former Connections in High Society circles which he had abandoned during that last year but it seems he wasn't especially tempted by them and many were renewed only officially while he preferred coming to me it sometimes touched me very much that on coming in of an evening he seemed to grow timid almost every time as he opened the door and in the first moment always peaked into my eyes with a strange anxiousness as if to say won't I be bothering you tell me and I'll go away he even said it sometimes once for instance precisely in the most recent time he came in when I was already fully dressed in a suit I had just received from the tailor and was about to go to Prince seroa so as to set off with him where I had to go I'll explain where later but he came in and sat down probably not noticing that I was about to leave there were moments when he was overcome by an extremely strange absent-mindedness as if on purpose he began talking about the landlord I blew up that devil take the landlord ah my dear he suddenly got up from his place it seems you're about to go out and I'm bothering you forgive me please and he humbly hastened to leave this humility towards me from such a man from such a worldly and independent man who had so much of his own at once resurrected in my heart all my tenderness for him and all my trust in him but if he loved me so why didn't he stop me then in the time of my disgrace a word from him then and maybe I would have held back however maybe not but he did see this fishness this fan fonade this mve once I even wanted to give him a ride in my Sledge but he wouldn't get in and it even happened several times that he didn't want to get in he did see that I was throwing money around and not a word not a word not even out of curiosity that astonishes me to this day even now and I naturally was not the least bit ceremonious with him then and let everything show though of course also without a word of explanation he didn't ask and I didn't speak however two or three times it was as if we did also start speaking about the essential I asked him once at the beginning soon after he renounced The Inheritance how he was going to live now somehow my friend he said with extraordinary calm now I know that even Tatiana Pavlov's tiny capital of about 5 ,000 was half spent on vov in these last 2 years another time we somehow began talking about mama my friend he suddenly said sadly I often said to Sophia Andrea at the beginning of our Union at the beginning and the middle and the end as well however my dear I'm tormenting you and I'll torment you thoroughly and I'm not sorry as long as you're before me but if you should die I know I'd do myself in with punishment however I remember he was especially open that evening if only I were a weak tempered non- entity and suffered from the awareness of it but no I know that I'm infinitely strong and what do you think my strength is precisely ly this spontaneous power of getting along with anything which is so characteristic of all intelligent people of Our Generation nothing can destroy me nothing can exterminate me nothing can astonish me I'm as tenacious as a yard dog I can feel in the most comfortable way two contrary feelings at the same time and that of course not by my own will but nonetheless I know it's dishonest mainly because it's all too reasonable I've lived to be nearly 50 and so far I don't know whether it's good that I've done so or bad of course I love life and that follows directly from things but for a man like me to love life is base lately something new has begun and the crafts don't survive they shoot themselves but it's clear that the crafts are stupid well and we're intelligent so it's impossible to draw any analogy here and the question Still Remains open and can it be only for such as we that the Earth stands yes in all likelihood but that is too cheerless an idea however however the question Still Remains open he spoke with sadness and even so I didn't know whether he was sincere or not there was always some Wrinkle in him that he wouldn't drop for anything four I showered him with questions then I threw myself on him like a Hungry Man on bread he always answered me readily and straightforwardly but in the Final End he always brought it down to the most General aphorisms so that in essence nothing could be drawn from it and yet all these questions had troubled me all my life and I confess frankly while still in Moscow I postponed their resolution precisely until our meeting in Petersburg I even told it to him directly and he didn't laugh at me on the contrary I remember he shook my hand on General politics and social questions I could extract almost nothing from him and it was these questions that troubled me most in view of my idea of the likes of deracho I once tore the observation from him that they were beneath any criticism but at the same time he added strangely that he reserved for himself the right not to attach any importance to his opinion of how the Contemporary States and world would end and what would bring about a renewal of the social world he kept silent for terribly long but one day I finally tortured a few words out of him I think it will all come about somehow in an extremely ordinary way he said once quite simply all the states despite all balancing of budgets and absence of deficits on Batson one fine morning will become utterly confused and each and every one of them will refuse to pay up so that each and every one of them will be renewed in a general bankruptcy meanwhile all the conservative elements of the whole world will be opposed to that for it will be they who are the shareholders and creditors and they will not want to allow the bankruptcy then of course there will begin a general oxidation so to speak the yid will arrive in quantity and a kingdom of yids will begin but all those who never had any shares and generally never had anything that is all the Beggars naturally will not want to participate in the oxidation a struggle will begin and after 77 defeats the Beggars will annihilate the shareholders take their shares from them and sit in their place as shareholders of course and maybe they'll say something new or maybe not most likely they'll also go bankrupt beyond that my friend I can't predict anything in the Destinies that will change the face of this world however look in the apocalypse but can it all be so material can the present day world end only because of finances oh naturally I've taken only one little corner of the picture but that corner is connected with everything by so to speak indisoluble bonds what then is to be done oh my God don't be in a hurry it won't all come so soon generally it's best to do nothing at least your conscience is at peace since you haven't taken part in anything ah come on talk business I want to know precisely what I'm to do and how I'm to live what are you to do my dear be honest never lie don't covet your neighbors's house in short read The Ten Commandments everything's written there for All Time come on come on that's all so old and besides it's just words and I need action well if you're quite overcome with boredom try loving someone or something or even simply becoming attached to something you just laugh and besides what am I alone to do with your Ten Commandments but if you fulfill them despite all your questions and doubts you'll be a great man unknown to anyone nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest no you're decidedly laughing well if you take it so much to heart then it would be best to try and specialize quickly take up construction or law then you'll be occupied with real and serious business and you can settle down and forget about Trifles I said nothing well what could I get from that and yet after each such conversation I was more troubled than before besides I saw clearly that there was always as if some mystery left in him it was this that Drew me to him more and more listen I interrupted him one day I always suspected that you were saying all this just so from Spite and out of suffering but secretly within yourself it's you who are a fanatic of some higher idea and are only hiding it or ashamed to admit it thank you my dear listen there's nothing higher than being useful tell me how can I be of greatest use at this given moment I know you can't decide that but I'm only seeking your opinion you tell me and I'll go and do as you tell me I swear to you well what is the great thought well to turn stones into bread there's a great thought the greatest no truly you've pointed out a whole path tell me then is it the greatest a very great one my friend a very great one but not the greatest great but secondary and only great in the given moment man eats and doesn't remember it on the contrary he'll say at once well so I've eaten and now what do I do the question remains eternally open you once talked about Geneva ideas I didn't understand what are Geneva ideas Geneva ideas it's virtue without Christ my friend today's ideas or better to say the idea of the whole of today's civilization in short it's one of those long story that are very boring to begin and it would be much better if we talked about other things and still better if we were silent about other things all you want to do is be silent my friend remember that to be silent is good safe and beautiful beautiful of course silence is always beautiful and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks but to talk as you and I do is of course the same as being silent devil take that sort of beauty and furthermore devil take that sort of profit my dear he said to me suddenly in a somewhat changed tone even with feeling and with a sort of special insistence my dear I by no means want to seduce you with any sort of bouro virtue instead of your ideals nor do I insist that happiness is better than heroism on the contrary heroism is higher than any happiness and the capacity for it alone already constitutes happiness so that's settled between us I respect you precisely for being able in our soured time to cultivate some sort of idea of your own in your soul don't worry I remember it very well but all the same it's impossible not to think about measure too because now you precisely want a resounding life to set something on fire to smash something to rise higher than all Russia to sweep over like a storm cloud and leave everyone in fear and admiration and disappear into the North American states surely there's something of that kind in your soul and that's why I consider it necessary to warn you because I've sincerely come to love you my dear what could I get from that as well here there was only a worry about me about my material fate it spoke for the father with his prosaic though kindly feelings but was that what I needed in view of the ideas for which every honest father should send his son even to his death as the ancient horatius sent his sons for the idea of Rome I often pestered him with religion but here the fog was thickest of all to the question what am I to do in this sense he replied in the stupidest way as to a little boy you must believe in God my dear well and what if I don't believe in all that I once cried in irritation Splendid my dear how Splendid a most excellent sign my friend even the most trustworthy because our Russian atheist if only he's a true atheist and has a bit of intelligence is the best man in the whole world and always inclined to treat God nicely because he's unfailingly kind and he's kind because he's immeasurably pleased that he's an atheist our atheists are respectable people and trustworthy in the highest degree the support so to speak of the Fatherland that of course was something but not what I wanted only once did he speak his mind only so strangely that he surprised me most of all then especially in view of all these Catholicism and chains I had heard about in connection with him my dear he said to me once not at home but one time in the street after a long conversation I was seeing him off my friend to love people as they are is impossible and yet one must and therefore do good to them clenching your feelings holding your nose and shutting your eyes this last is necessary endure evil from them not getting angry with them if possible remembering that you too Are a Human Being naturally you're in a position to be severe with them if it's been granted you to be a little bit smarter than the average people are mean by nature and love to love out of fear don't give in to such love and don't cease to despise it somewhere in the Quran Allah bids the prophet to look upon the the recalcitrant as mice to do good to them and pass by somewhat arrogant but right know how to despise them even when they're good for most often it's just here that they're nasty oh my dear I'm judging by myself in saying that he who is only a little bit better than stupid cannot live and not despise himself whether he's on or dishonest makes no difference to love one's neighbor and not despise him is impossible in my opinion man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor there's some mistake in words here from the very beginning and love for mankind should be understood as just for that mankind which you yourself have created in your soul in other words you've created your own self and the love for yourself and which therefore will never exist in reality never exist my friend I agree that this would be rather stupid but here the blame isn't mine and since I wasn't consulted at the time of the creation of the world I reserve for myself the right to have my own opinion about it how can they call you a Christian after that I cried a monk with chains a preacher I don't understand but who calls me that I told him he listened very attentively but stopped the conversation I simply can't remember what occasioned this conversation which was so memorable for me but he even became irritated which almost never happened with him he had spoken passionately and without mockery as if he weren't saying it to me but once again I didn't believe him could he really speak seriously about such things with the likes of me chapter 2 1 on that morning the 15th of November I precisely found him with Prince seroa 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 onethird of The Inheritance which would certainly come to about 20,000 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 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 at least has 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 if 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 toward 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 n 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 11:00 in the morning I found versilov just finishing some long tie raate 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 naively so which on many occasions made me look on him condescendingly but I repeat in the last few days something spitefully tooth bearing 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 10th 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 stal had stayed for only a month and gone off somewhere again two they were talking about the nobility I'll note that this idea sometimes troubled the prince very much despite all his erir of progressisme Di 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 vero'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 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 is broken down into the freedom of pers 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 cast 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 cast 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 you love to use the words higher thought great thought binding idea and so on I'd like to know what essentially do you mean by the words a great thought I really don't know how to answer you on that my dear Prince versilov smiled subtly if I confess to you that I'm unable to answer it myself that would be more accurate a great thought is most often a feeling that sometimes goes without definition for too long I know only that it was always that from which living life flowed that is not mental and contrived but on the contrary amusing and gay so that the higher idea from which it flows is decidedly necessary to the general vexation of course why vexation because it's boring to live with ideas and without ideas it's always fun the prince ate the pill and what in your opinion is this living life he was obviously angry I don't know that either Prince I only know that it must be something terribly simple most ordinary staring Us in the face every day and every minute and so simple that we just can't believe it could be so simple and naturally we've been passing it by for many thousands of years now without noticing or recognizing it I only wanted to say that your idea of the nobility is at the same time a denial of the nobility said the prince well since you're so insistent maybe the nobility never existed among us this is all terribly obscure and vague if you speak then in my opinion you have to develop the prince furrowed his brow and glanced fleetingly at the wall clock versilov got up and took his hat develop he said no better not develop and what's more it's my passion to speak without developing that's really so and here's another strange thing if it happens that I begin to develop a thought I believe in the result is almost always that by the end of the explanation I myself have ceased to believe in what I've explained I'm afraid I'll fall into that now too goodbye dear Prince I'm always unpardonably gelous with you he left the prince politely saw him off but I felt offended what are you so ruffled up for he suddenly shot out not looking and walking past me to the desk I'm ruffled up I began with a Tremor in my voice because finding such a strange change in your tone towards me and even towards versilov I of course versilov maybe did begin in a somewhat retrograde way but he got better and his words maybe contained a profound thought but you simply didn't understand and I simply don't want anybody popping up to teach me and considering me a little boy he snapped almost with wrath Prince such words please no theatrical gestures do me a favor I know that what I'm doing is mean that I'm a squanderer a gambler maybe a thief yes a thief because I lost my family's money at gambling but I don't want any judges over me don't want it and won't allow it I'm My Own judge and why these ambiguities if he wanted to say something to me then speak directly and don't prophesy in a foggy muddle but to say that to me you've got to have the right you've got to be honorable yourself first of all I didn't catch the beginning and don't know what you were talking about and second how is versilov dishonorable may I ask enough I beg you enough yesterday you asked for 300 rubles here it is he put the money on the table in front of me and himself sat in an armchair leaned back nervously and crossed one leg over the other I stopped in embarrassment I don't know I murmured I did ask you and I need the money very badly now but in view of such a tone forget the tone if I said anything sharp forgive me I assure you I have other things on my mind listen to this I've received a letter from Moscow my brother Sasha he's still a child you know died 4 days ago my father as you're also aware has been paralyzed for 2 years and now they write that he's worse can't say a word and doesn't recognize anybody they're glad of The Inheritance there and want to take him abroad but the doctor writes to me that it's unlikely he'll live even in 2 weeks which means that mother my sister and I are left and that means I'm almost alone now well in short I'm alone this inheritance this inheritance so maybe it would be better if it didn't come at all but here's precisely what I wanted to tell you I promised Andre petrovich a minimum of 20,000 from this inheritance and meanwhile imagine owing to formalities so far it's been impossible to do anything I even we that is that is my father hasn't come into possession of this estate yet meanwhile I've lost so much money these last 3 weeks and that scoundrel stulov charges such interest I've now given you almost the last oh Prince if so I don't mean that I don't mean that steil kov is sure to bring some today and I'll have enough to tide me over but devil knows about this stulov I begged him to get me 10,000 so that I could at least give 10,000 to Andre Petrovic my promise to allot him a third torments me tortures me I gave my word and I must keep it and I swear to you I'm dying to free myself of obligations at least on that side they're a burden to me a burden unbearable this burdensome connection I can't see Andre petrovich because I can't look him straight in the eye why then does he abuse it what does he abuse Prince I stopped before him in amazement has he ever as much has hinted to you oh no and I appreciate that but I've hinted to myself and finally I'm getting sucked in deeper and deeper this steil kov listen Prince please calm down I see that the longer you go on the more troubled you become and yet maybe it's all just a mirage oh I've gotten in deep myself unpardonably meanly but I know it's only temporary I just need to win back a certain figure and then tell me with this 300 I owe you about 2,500 is that right I don't believe I asked you for it the prince suddenly snarled you say 10,000 to veril off if I do borrow from you now then of course this money will be credited against vero's 20,000 I won't allow it otherwise but but I'll probably pay it back myself no can you possibly think versilov comes to you for money it would be easier for me if he did come to me for money the prince uttered mysteriously you speak of some burdensome connection if you mean with versilov and me then by God that is offensive and finally you say why isn't he like what he teaches that's your logic and first of all it's not logic allow me to inform you of that because even if he weren't he could still preach the truth and finally what is this word preaches you say Prophet tell me was it you who called him a women's prophet in Germany no it wasn't Ste alov told me it was you he lied I'm no expert at giving mocking nicknames but if a man preaches honor let him be honorable himself that's my logic and if it's wrong it makes no difference I want it to be so and it will be so and no one no one dares to come and judge me in my own house and consider me a baby enough he cried waving his hand to keep me from going on ah that BL the door opened and steel kov came in three he was still the same dressed in the same fish clothes thrust his chest out in the same way looked with the same stupid gaze had the same fancy about his own slyness and was greatly pleased with himself this time as he came in he looked around somehow strangely there was something peculiarly cautious and Keen in his gaze as if he wanted to guess something from our physiognomies however he instantly calmed down and a self-confident smile Shone on his lips that ingratiatingly insolent smile which I still found unutterably vile I had long known that he tormented the prince greatly he had already come once or twice while I was there I I also had had one contact with with him that past month but this time for a certain reason I was slightly surprised at his coming one moment the prince said to him without greeting him and turning his back to us began taking the necessary papers and accounts out of his desk as for me I was decidedly offended by the prince's Last Words the illusion to versilov being dishonorable was so clear and so astonishing that it was impossible to Let It Go without a radal explanation but this was impossible in front of Steel COV I sprawled on the sofa again and opened a book that was lying in front of me binsky part two that's something new you wish to Enlighten yourself I called out to the prince very affectedly it seems he was very busy and hurried but he suddenly turned at my words leave that book alone I beg you he said sharply this was going beyond the limits and above all in front of Steel kov as if on purpose Ste alov grinned slightly and disgustingly and nodded furtively to me towards the prince I turned away from the stupid fellow don't be angry Prince I yield you up to the most important person and a face myself for the time being I decided to be casual is that me the most important person stolov picked up merrily pointing his finger at himself yes you the most important person is you and you know it yourself no sir excuse me there's a second person everywhere in the world I am a second person there's a first person and there's a second person the first person acts and the second person takes when which means the second person comes out as the first person and the first person as the second person is that so or not it may be so only as usual I don't understand you excuse me there was a revolution in France and everybody was executed Napoleon came and took everything the revolution is the first person and Napoleon the second person but it turned out that Napoleon became the first person and the revolution became the second person is that so or not I'll note incidentally that in his speaking to me about the French Revolution I saw something of his earlier sness which amused me greatly he still continued to regard me as some sort of revolutionary and each time he met me he found it necessary to speak about something of that sort let's go said The Prince and they both went out to the other room left alone I decided definitively to give him back his 300 rubles as soon as steel COV left I had extreme need of this money but I decided they stayed there for about 10 minutes quite unheard and suddenly began talking loudly they both began talking but the prince suddenly started to shout as if in strong irritation reaching the point of Fury he could sometimes be very hot tempered so that even I let it pass but at that moment a footman came in to announce someone I pointed him to their room and everything instantly quieted down there the prince quickly came out with a preoccupied face but smiling the footman rushed off and half a minute later the prince's visitor came in this was an important visitor with uet and a Coronet a gentleman of no more than 30 of a high society and rather Stern appearance I warn the reader that Prince Sergey Petrovic did not yet belong in any real sense to Petersburg High Society despite all his passionate desire I knew about the desire and so he must have terribly appreciated such a call this acquaintance as I was informed had only just begun after great efforts on the prince's part the guest was now returning a visit but unfortunately he had caught the host unawares I saw with what suffering and what a lost look the prince turned for an instant to Steel kov but steel kov endured his gaze as if nothing was wrong and without the slightest thought of a faing himself casually sat down on the sofa and began ruffling his hair with his hand probably as a token of Independence he even made some sort of important face in short he was decidedly impossible as for me I was certainly able to behave myself by then and of course would not have disgraced anyone but what was my amazement when I caught that same lost pitiful and spiteful gaze of the prince on myself as well it meant he was ashamed of us both and put me on a par with steel kov this idea drove me to Fury I sprawled still more and began flipping through the book book with such an air as if nothing concerned me Ste alov on the contrary goggled his eyes leaned forward and began listening to their conversation probably supposing that this was both polite and amiable the guest glanced once or twice at steel kov and also at me incidentally they began talking of family news this gentleman had once known the prince's mother who belonged to a well-known family as far as I could conclude the guest despite his amiability and seeming ingenuousness of tone was very stiff and of course valued himself enough to consider his visit a great honor even for whoever it might be if the prince had been alone that is without us I'm sure he would have been more dignified and resourceful now though something peculiarly tremulous in his smile maybe much too amiable and some strange distractedness betrayed him they had not yet been sitting for 5 minutes when suddenly another guest was announced and as if on purpose also of a compromising sort I knew this one well and had heard a lot about him though he didn't know me at all he was still a very young man though already about 23 years old charmingly dressed of a good family and a handsome fellow himself but un questionably of bad Society a year ago he had still been serving in one of the most distinguished horse guard regiments but he had been forced to retire and everyone knew the reasons why his relations even published in the newspapers that they were not answerable for his debts but he continued his carousing even now obtaining money at 10% a month gambling terribly in the gambling houses and squandering all he had on a notorious French woman the thing was that about a week earlier he had managed to win some 12,000 in one evening and he was triumphant he was on a friendly footing with the prince they often gambled together as partners but the prince even gave a start on seeing him I noticed it from where I sat this boy was as if in his own home everywhere spoke loudly and gay was unembarrassed by anything and said whatever came to his mind and naturally it would never have come into his head that our host was trembling so before his guest on account of his company he came in interrupting their conversation and at once began telling about yesterday's gambling even before he sat down I believe you were also there he turned at the third phrase to the important guest taking him for one of his Circle but seeing better immediately he cried ah forgive me but I took you also for someone from yesterday Alex vladimirovich Daran IIT alexandrovic n jokin the prince hastily introduced them the boy could after all be presented the family name was good and welln but he hadn't introduced us earlier and we went on sitting in our Corners I decidedly did not want to turn my head to them but stebi alov at the sight of the young man began to grin joyfully and obviously threatened to start talking I was even beginning to find it all amusing I met you often last year at Countess veran said darzan I remember you but then I believe you were in uniform nsh chokin replied benignly yes in uniform but thanks to ah steel kov so you're here what brings him here it's precisely thanks to these fine s that I'm no longer in uniform he pointed straight at Ste alov and burst out laughing Ste alov too laughed joyfully probably taking it as a compliment the prince blushed and hastily turned to NAS chokin with some question while darzan went over to stulov and began talking to him very vehemently about something but now in a low voice it seems you became very well acquainted with Katarina Nikola akov abroad the guest asked the prince oh yes I knew it seems there will be some news here soon they say she's going to marry Baron buing that's right cried Daron you you know it for certain the prince asked Nash jokin visibly agitated and uttering his question with particular emphasis I was told so it seems people are already talking about it how ever I don't know for certain oh it's certain darzan went over to them dubov told me yesterday he's always the first to know such news and the prince ought to know Nash chokin paused for Daron and again addressed the prince she rarely appears in society now her father has been sick this last month the prince observed somehow dryly she seems to be in adventurous lady darzan blurted out suddenly I raised my head and straightened up I have the pleasure of knowing Katarina nikva personally and take upon myself the duty of assuring you that all the scandalous rumors are nothing but lies and infamy and have been invented by those who circled around but didn't succeed having broken off so stupidly I fell silent still looking at them all with a flushed face and sitting bolt upright they all turned to me but suddenly steel kov tittered darzan was struck at first but then grinned aradi marovich dalgi the prince indicated me to darzan ah believe me Prince darzan addressed me frankly and good-naturedly I'm not speaking for myself if there was any gossip it wasn't I who spread it oh I didn't mean you I answered quickly but steel kov had already burst into inadmissible laughter and that precisely as became clear later because darzan had called me Prince my infernal last name mucked things up here as well even now I blush at the thought that I from shame of course did not dare at that moment to pick up this stupidity and declare aloud that I was simply dalgar Ruki it was the first time in my life that this had happened darzan gazed in perplexity at me and at the Laughing steel COV ah yes who is that pretty thing I just met on your stairs sharp eyed and fair haired he suddenly asked the prince I really don't know the latter answered quickly blushing then who would know daan laughed though it it might have been the prince somehow faltered it but it was precisely his sister lisaveta Makarova stolov suddenly pointed at me because I also met her earlier ah indeed the prince picked up but this time with an extremely solid and serious expression on his face it must have been lisaveta Makarova a close friend of Anna foda stbv whose apartment I'm now living in she must have come calling today on Daria onima who is also a good friend of Anna fod Na's and in charge of the house in her absence that was all exactly how it was this Daria anisimova was the mother of poor Olia whose story I have already told and whom Tatiana pavlovna finally sheltered with Mrs stbev I knew perfectly well that Lisa used to visit Mrs stbv and later occasionally visited poor Daria onisim mova whom they all came to love very much but suddenly after this incidentally extremely sensible statement from The Prince and especially after stv's stupid Outburst or maybe because I had just been called Prince suddenly owing to all that I blushed all over fortunately just then Nash chokin got up to leave he offered his hand to daasan as well the moment steel COV and I were left alone he suddenly started nodding to me towards darzan who was standing in the doorway with his back to us I shook my fist at steel kov a minute later darzan also left having arranged with the prince to meet the next day without fail at some place they had already settled on a gambling house naturally on his way out he shouted something to stolov and bowed slightly to me as soon as he went out Ste alov jumped up from his place and stood in the middle of the room with a raised finger last week that little Squire pulled off the following stunt he gave a promisory note and falsified aov's name on it and the nice little note still exists in that guys only one doesn't do such things it's criminal 8,000 and surely it's you who have this note I glanced at him ferociously I have a bad thanks sir I have am P pawn shop not promisory notes have you heard of such a in Paris bread and charity for the poor I have a m de P the prince stopped him rudely and spitefully what are you doing here why did you stay ah seov quickly began nodding with his eyes and that what about that no no no not that the prince shouted and stamped his foot I told you oh well if so then so only it's not so