herself in the world, but then, too, she deserves it. All this, my friend, is a completely worldly thing. And she must have proposed splendidly and gracefully. She’s a stern type, my friend, a girl-nun, as you once defined her; a ‘calm young lady,’ as I’ve long been calling her. She’s almost his ward, you know, and has seen his kindness towards her more than once. She’s been assuring me for a long time now that she ‘so respects and values, so pities and sympathizes with him,’ well, and all the rest, that I was even partly prepared. I was told of it all this morning, on her behalf and at her request, by my son and her brother, Andrei Andreevich, with whom it seems you’re not acquainted, and with whom I meet regularly twice a year. He respectfully approbates her step.”
“Then it’s already public? God, I’m so amazed!”
“No, it’s not public at all yet, not for some time . . . I don’t know about them, generally I’m quite outside of it. But it’s all true.”
“But now Katerina Nikolaevna . . . What do you think, is Bjoring going to like this little snack?”
“That I don’t know . . . what, essentially, there is for him not to like; but, believe me, Anna Andreevna is a highly decent person in that sense as well. And what a one she is, though, this Anna Andreevna! Yesterday morning, just before that, she inquired of me whether I was or was not in love with the widow Akhmakov! Remember, I told you that yesterday with surprise: she wouldn’t be able to marry the father if I married the daughter. Do you understand now?”
“Ah, indeed!” I cried. “But can it be, indeed, that Anna Andreevna supposed you . . . might wish to marry Katerina Nikolaevna?”
“It looks that way, my friend, however . . . however, it seems it’s time you went wherever you’re going. You see, I keep having these headaches. I’ll tell them to play
Some tormented wrinkle appeared on his face; I believe now that his head did ache then, his head especially . . .
“See you tomorrow,” I said.
“What about tomorrow, what’s happening tomorrow?” he smiled crookedly.
“I’ll come to you, or you to me.”
“No, I won’t come to you, but you’ll come running to me . . .” There was something all too unkind in his face, but I had other things to think about: such an event!
III
THE PRINCE WAS actually unwell and was sitting at home alone, his head wrapped in a wet towel. He was waiting very much for me; but it was not his head alone that ached, but rather he ached all over morally. Again I’ll state beforehand: all this time lately, and right up to the catastrophe, I was somehow forced to meet nothing but people who were so agitated that they were almost crazy, so that I myself must have been as if involuntarily infected. I confess, I came with bad feelings, and I was very ashamed that I had burst into tears in front of him the day before. And anyway he and Liza had managed to deceive me so skillfully that I couldn’t help seeing myself as a fool. In short, when I went in, there were false strings sounding in my soul. But all that was affected and false quickly dropped away. I must do him justice: as soon as his suspiciousness fell and broke to pieces, he gave himself definitively, displaying features of an almost infantile affection, trustfulness, and love. He kissed me tearfully and at once began talking business . . . Yes, he really needed me very much; there was an extremely great disorder in his words and flow of ideas.
He announced to me quite firmly his intention to marry Liza and as soon as possible. “That she’s not of the nobility, believe me, has never embarrassed me for a moment,” he said to me. “My grandfather was married to a household serf, a singer from a neighboring landowner’s private serf theater. Of course, my family nursed some hopes in my regard, but they’ll have to give in now, and there won’t be any struggle. I want to break, to break with the whole present definitively! Everything will be different, everything will be in a new way! I don’t understand what makes your sister love me; but, of course, without her maybe I wouldn’t be living in the world now. I swear to you from the bottom of my heart that I now look at my meeting her in Luga as at the finger of Providence. I think she loves me for the ‘boundlessness of my fall’ . . . though, can you understand that, Arkady Makarovich?”
“Perfectly!” I said in a highly convinced voice. I was sitting in an armchair by the table, and he was pacing the room.
“I must tell you this whole fact of our meeting without reserve. It began with my soul’s secret, which she alone has learned, because she’s the only one I’ve ventured to entrust it to. And to this day no one else knows it. I found myself in Luga then with despair in my soul and was living at Mrs. Stolbeev’s, I don’t know why, maybe I was seeking the most complete solitude. At that time I had just retired from service in the ———regiment. I had entered that regiment when I came back from abroad, after that meeting abroad with Andrei Petrovich. I had money then, I squandered it in the regiment, lived openhandedly; but my officer comrades didn’t like me, though I tried not to insult anyone. And I confess to you that no one has ever liked me. There was an ensign there, Stepanov or something, I confess to you, an extremely empty, worthless, and even as if downtrodden man, in short, not distinguished by anything. Indisputably honest, however. He began calling on me, I wasn’t ceremonious with him, he spent whole days sitting in the corner of my room, silently but with dignity, though he didn’t bother me at all. Once I told him a certain current anecdote, which I embellished with a lot of nonsense, such as that the colonel’s daughter was not indifferent to me and that the colonel, who was counting on me, would of course do whatever I liked . . . In short, I’ll omit the details, but from all this later came a very complex and vile piece of gossip. It came not from Stepanov, but from my orderly, who had been eavesdropping and remembered everything, because it involved an anecdote compromising to the young lady. When the gossip went around, this orderly, at the officers’ interrogation, pointed the finger at Stepanov, that is, that I had told it to this Stepanov. Stepanov was put in such a position that he simply couldn’t deny having heard it; it was a matter of honor. And since I had lied for two-thirds of the anecdote, the officers were indignant, and the regimental commander, summoning us to him, was forced to have it out. It was here that the question was put to Stepanov in front of everyone: had he or had he not heard it? And the man told the whole truth. Well, sir, what did I do then, I, a thousand-year prince? I denied it and told Stepanov to his face that he was lying, told him politely, that is, in the sense that he had ‘misunderstood’ it, and so on . . . Again, I’ll omit the details, but the advantage of my position was that, since Stepanov frequented me, I could present the matter, not without some probability, so that it would look as if he had connived with my orderly with a view to some advantage. Stepanov only looked at me silently and shrugged. I remember his look and will never forget it. Then he immediately sent in his resignation, but what do you think happened? The officers, all of them at once, to a man, paid him a visit and persuaded him not to resign. Two weeks later I also left the regiment. Nobody drove me out, nobody asked me to leave, I gave family circumstances as a pretext. That was the end of the matter. At first I was perfectly all right and was even angry with them; I lived in Luga, made the acquaintance of Lizaveta Makarovna, but then, a month later, I began looking at my revolver and thinking about death. I look at everything darkly, Arkady Makarovich. I prepared a letter to the regimental commander and my comrades, with a full confession of my lie, restoring Stepanov’s honor. Having written the letter, I posed myself a problem: ‘Send it and live, or send it and die?’ I wouldn’t have been able to resolve this problem. Chance, blind chance, after one quick
