“Why, then he suggested the usual course of proceedings in such cases and regular guarantees, and you rejected them yourself,” I cried with friendly indignation.
“Yes, it’s better without the guarantees. And why make a scandal? Let’s keep it en amis so long as we can. You know, in our town, if they get to know it … mes ennemis, et puis, à quoi bon, le procureur, ce cochon de notre procureur, qui deux fois m’a manqué de politesse et qu’on a rossé à plaisir l’autre année chez cette charmante et belle Natalya Pavlovna quand il se cacha dans son boudoir. Et puis, mon ami, don’t make objections and don’t depress me, I beg you, for nothing is more unbearable when a man is in trouble than for a hundred friends to point out to him what a fool he has made of himself. Sit down though and have some tea. I must admit I am awfully tired. … Hadn’t I better lie down and put vinegar on my head? What do you think?”
“Certainly,” I cried, “ice even. You are very much upset. You are pale and your hands are trembling. Lie down, rest, and put off telling me. I’ll sit by you and wait.”
He hesitated, but I insisted on his lying down. Nastasya brought a cup of vinegar. I wetted a towel and laid it on his head. Then Nastasya stood on a chair and began lighting a lamp before the icon in the corner. I noticed this with surprise; there had never been a lamp there before and now suddenly it had made its appearance.
“I arranged for that as soon as they had gone away,” muttered Stepan Trofimovitch, looking at me slyly. “Quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa chambre et qu’on vient vous arrêter it makes an impression and they are sure to report that they have seen it. …”
When she had done the lamp, Nastasya stood in the doorway, leaned her cheek in her right hand, and began gazing at him with a lachrymose air.
“Eloignez-la on some excuse,” he nodded to me from the sofa. “I can’t endure this Russian sympathy, et puis ça m’embête.”
But she went away of herself. I noticed that he kept looking towards the door and listening for sounds in the passage.
“Il faut être prêt, voyez-vous,” he said, looking at me significantly, “chaque moment … they may come and take one and, phew!—a man disappears.”
“Heavens! who’ll come? Who will take you?”
“Voyez-vous, mon cher, I asked straight out when he was going away, what would they do to me now.”
“You’d better have asked them where you’d be exiled!” I cried out in the same indignation.
“That’s just what I meant when I asked, but he went away without answering. Voyez-vous: as for linen, clothes, warm things especially, that must be as they decide; if they tell me to take them—all right, or they might send me in a soldier’s overcoat. But I thrust thirty-five roubles” (he suddenly dropped his voice, looking towards the door by which Nastasya had gone out) “in a slit in my waistcoat pocket, here, feel. … I believe they won’t take the waistcoat off, and left seven roubles in my purse to keep up appearances, as though that were all I have. You see, it’s in small change and the coppers are on the table, so they won’t guess that I’ve hidden the money, but will suppose that that’s all. For God knows where I may have to sleep tonight!”
I bowed my head before such madness. It was obvious that a man could not be arrested and searched in the way he was describing, and he must have mixed things up. It’s true it all happened in the days before our present, more recent regulations. It is true, too, that according to his own account they had offered to follow the more regular procedure, but he “got the better of them” and refused. … Of course not long ago a governor might, in extreme cases. … But how could this be an extreme case? That’s what baffled me.
“No doubt they had a telegram from Petersburg,” Stepan Trofimovitch said suddenly.
“A telegram? About you? Because of the works of Herzen and your poem? Have you taken leave of your senses? What is there in that to arrest you for?”
I was positively angry. He made a grimace and was evidently mortified—not at my exclamation, but at the idea that there was no ground for arrest.
“Who can tell in our day what he may not be arrested for?” he muttered enigmatically.
A wild and nonsensical idea crossed my mind.
“Stepan Trofimovitch, tell me as a friend,” I cried, “as a real friend, I will not betray you: do you belong to some secret society or not?”
And on this, to my amazement, he was not quite certain whether he was or was not a member of some secret society.
“That depends, voyez-vous.”
“How do you mean ‘it depends’?”
“When with one’s whole heart one is an adherent of progress and … who can answer it? You may suppose you don’t belong, and suddenly it turns out that you do belong to something.”
“Now is that possible? It’s a case of yes or no.”
“Cela date de Pétersburg when she and I were meaning to found a magazine there. That’s what’s at the root of it. She gave them the slip then, and they forgot us, but now they’ve remembered. Cher, cher, don’t you know me?” he cried
