charming, intrigues with all those ladies, you understand; we drank a 'half-dozen' too many, and…' And nothing to it; it was all spoken very lightly, easily, and smugly.
Having come home, I wrote at once to Simonov.
To this day I'm filled with admiration as I recall the truly gentlemanly, good-natured, frank tone of my letter. Adroitly, nobly, and, above all, with not a word too many - I blamed myself for everything. I excused myself, 'if I may still be permitted to excuse myself,' with being quite unaccustomed to wine, and thus becoming drunk at the first glass, which I (supposedly) drank before them, while waiting for them from five to six in the Hotel de Paris. I mainly begged pardon of Simonov; and I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially Zverkov, whom, 'I recall as in a dream,' I seemed to have insulted. I added that I would have gone to them all myself, but I had a headache and, above all, was ashamed. I remained especially pleased with the 'certain lightness,' even all but casual (though perfectly decent), that suddenly reflected itself in my pen and at once gave them to understand, better than any possible reasons, that I looked upon 'all that nastiness yesterday' quite independently; in no way, by no means, was I killed on the spot, as you good sirs probably think, but on the contrary I looked upon it as befits a calmly self-respecting gentleman. 'The errors of youth are soon forgotten,' as they say.
'And that certain marquisian playfulness, even?' I admired, rereading the note. 'And all because I'm a developed and educated man! Others in my place wouldn't know how to extricate themselves, and here I've wriggled out of it and can go on carousing, and all because I'm 'an educated and developed man of our times.' Besides, maybe it really did all come from the wine yesterday. Hm… well, no, not from the wine. And I didn't drink any vodka between five and six, while I was waiting for them. I lied to Simonov; lied shamelessly; and even now I'm not ashamed…
'Ah, spit on it, however! I'm out of it, that's the main thing.'
I put six roubles into the letter, sealed it, and prevailed upon
Apollon to take it to Simonov. On learning that there was money inside, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to go. Towards evening I went out for a stroll. My head was still aching and dizzy from yesterday. But the more evening advanced and the twilight thickened, the more my impressions and, after them, my thoughts as well, kept changing and tangling. Something within me, deep in my heart and conscience, would not die, refused to die, and betrayed itself in a burning anguish. I loitered about mainly on the most crowded business streets - Meshchanskaya, Sadovaya, around the Yusupov Garden. I had always liked especially to stroll along those streets at twilight, precisely when the crowd thickens with all sorts of passers-by, merchants, and tradesmen, their faces preoccupied to the point of anger, going home from their daily work. I precisely liked this twopenny bustle, this insolent prosiness. But now all this street jostling only irritated me the more. I simply could not get hold of myself, could not find the loose ends. Something in my soul was rising, rising, ceaselessly, painfully, and refused to be still. I returned home thoroughly upset. Like as if some crime lay on my soul.
I was constantly tormented by the thought that Liza would come. What I found strange was that, of all those memories from yesterday, the memory of her tormented me somehow specially, somehow quite separately. By evening I had already quite successfully forgotten all the rest, brushed it aside, and I was still perfectly pleased with my letter to Simonov. But with this I was somehow not so pleased. It was like as if I were tormented over Liza alone. 'What if she comes?' I thought ceaselessly. 'Well, no matter, let her come. Hm. The only bad thing is that she'll see, for example, how I live. Yesterday I showed myself to her as such a… hero… and now, hm! It's bad, however, that I've gone so much to seed. Sheer poverty in the apartment. And I dared go to dinner yesterday in such clothes! And this oilcloth sofa of mine, with the stuffing hanging out of it! And this dressing gown that doesn't even cover me! Such tatters… And she'll see all this; and she'll see Apollon. The brute is sure to insult her. He'll pick on her in order to be rude to me. And I, of course, as is my custom, will turn coward, start mincing before her, covering myself with the skirts of my dressing gown, start smiling, start lying. Ohh, vileness! And that's not even the chief vileness! There's something chiefer in it, viler, meaner! Yes, meaner! And again, again to put on that dishonorable, lying mask!…'
Having arrived at this thought, I simply flared up:
'Why dishonorable? What's dishonorable? I spoke sincerely yesterday. I remember there was also true feeling in me. I precisely wanted to evoke noble feelings in her… if she cried a bit, that's good, it'll have a good effect…'
But all the same I just could not calm down.
That whole evening, when I'd already returned home, when it was already past nine and by my reckoning Liza simply could not come, I still kept imagining her, and I recalled her, mostly, in one and the same position. Namely, of all that had happened yesterday, I pictured one moment especially vividly: it was when I lighted up the room with a match and saw her pale, distorted face with its tormented eyes. And how pathetic, how unnatural, how twisted her smile was at that moment! But I did not know then that even after fifteen years I would still be picturing Liza precisely with the pathetic, twisted, needless smile she had at that moment.
The next day I was again prepared to regard it all as nonsense, frazzled nerves, and, above all - exaggeration. I was always aware of this weak link in me, and at times was very afraid of it: 'I'm forever exaggerating; that's where I'm lame,' I repeated to myself at all hours. But nevertheless, 'nevertheless, Liza may still come' - this was the refrain with which all my reasonings at that time concluded. I worried so much that I sometimes became furious. 'She'll come! She's sure to come!' I'd exclaim, running up and down my room. 'If not today, then tomorrow, but she'll find me! That's the cursed romanticism of all these pure hearts! Oh, the vileness, oh, the stupidity, oh, the narrowness of these 'rotten, sentimental souls'! How can one not understand, how indeed can one not understand…' But here I myself would stop, and even in great confusion.
'And it took so little, so little talk,' I thought in passing, 'such a little idyll (an affected idyll besides, a contrived, a bookish one), to succeed in turning a whole human soul the way I wanted. There's virginity for you! There's the freshness of the soil!'
At times the thought occurred to me of going to her myself, 'to tell her everything' and prevail upon her not to come to me. But here, at this thought, such spite rose up in me that I think I would simply have squashed this 'cursed' Liza if she'd suddenly happened to be there, insulted her, spat upon her, driven her out, struck her!
A day passed, however, then another, then a third - she did not come, and I began to calm down. I especially took heart and let myself go after nine o'clock, I sometimes even began to dream, and that quite sweetly: 'I save Liza,' for example, 'precisely through her coming to me, and my telling her… I develop her, educate her. I finally notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend; probably just for the beauty of it). At last, all confused, beautiful, trembling and weeping, she throws herself at my feet and says that I am her savior, and that she loves me more than anything in the world. I am amazed, but… 'Liza,' I say, 'can you really think I haven't noticed your love? I saw everything, I guessed, but I dared not presume first upon your heart, because I had influence over you and feared lest you, out of gratitude, might deliberately make yourself return my love, might call up by force a feeling that perhaps is not there, and I did not want that, because that is… despotism… It is indelicate'' (well, in short, here I let my tongue run away with me in some such European, George-Sandian, ineffably noble refinement…). 17 ''But now, now - you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, beautiful, you are - my beautiful wife.
