I turned pale as I read, but then suddenly flushed, and my lips trembled with indignation.
“He means me! It’s about what I revealed to him two days ago!” I cried in fury.
“That’s just it—revealed!” Tatyana Pavlovna tore the note from my hands.
“But . . . that’s not, that’s not at all what I said! Oh, my God, what can she think of me now! But isn’t this mad? Yes, he’s mad . . . I saw him yesterday. When was the letter sent?”
“It was sent yesterday afternoon, it came in the evening, and today she gave it to me personally.”
“But I saw him yesterday myself. He’s mad! Versilov couldn’t have written like that, it was written by a madman! Who can write like that to a woman?”
“Such madmen write like that in a fury, when they go blind and deaf from jealousy and spite, and their blood turns to poisonous arsenic . . . But you still didn’t know about him, what kind he is! They’ll swat him for that now, there’ll be nothing left but a wet spot. He’s put himself under the axe! Better go to the Nikolaevsky railroad at night, lay his head on the rails, and get it lopped off, since he finds it so heavy to carry around! What drove you to tell him? What drove you to tease him? Did you want to boast?”
“But what hatred! What hatred!” I slapped myself on the head with my hand. “And what for, what for? Towards a woman! What has she done to him? What kind of relations did they have, that he can write such letters?”
“Ha-a-atred!” Tatyana Pavlovna imitated me with furious mockery.
The blood rose to my face again; it was as if I suddenly realized something quite new; I looked at her questioningly as hard as I could.
“Get out of here!” she shrieked, quickly turning away and waving her hand at me. “I’ve bothered enough with all of you! That will do now! You can all fall through the earth! . . . It’s only your mother I’m still sorry for . . .”
Naturally, I went running to Versilov. But such perfidy! Such perfidy!
IV
VERSILOV WAS NOT ALONE. I’ll explain beforehand: having sent such a letter to Katerina Nikolaevna the day before, and having actually (God only knows why) sent a copy of it to Baron Bjoring, he naturally had to expect that day, in the course of the day, certain “consequences” of his act, and therefore had taken measures of a sort. In the morning he had transferred mama and Liza (who, as I learned later, on coming back in the morning, had felt unwell and was lying in bed) upstairs to the “coffin,” and the rooms, especially our “drawing room,” had been thoroughly tidied up and cleaned. And indeed, at two o’clock in the afternoon, he had been visited by a certain Baron R., an army colonel, a gentleman of about forty, of German origin, tall, dry, with the look of a man of great physical strength, also with reddish hair like Bjoring, and slightly bald. He was one of those Barons R., of whom there are so many in the Russian army, all people of strong baronial arrogance, utterly without fortune, who live on their pay alone and are extremely soldierly and disciplinarian. I didn’t catch the beginning of their talk; they were both very animated, and how could they not be. Versilov was sitting on the sofa in front of the table, and the baron in an armchair to the side. Versilov was pale, but spoke with restraint and through his teeth, while the baron kept raising his voice and was obviously inclined to impulsive gestures, restrained himself with effort, but had a stern, haughty, and even scornful look, though not without a certain surprise. Seeing me, he frowned, but Versilov was almost glad of me:
“Greetings, my dear. Baron, this is that same very young man who is mentioned in the note, and believe me, he won’t hinder us, and may even be needed.” (The baron looked me over scornfully.) “My dear,” Versilov added to me, “I’m even glad you’ve come, so sit in the corner, I beg you, while the baron and I finish here. Don’t worry, Baron, he’ll just sit in the corner.”
It was all the same to me, because I had made up my mind, and besides, all this struck me; I sat silently in the corner, as far as possible in the corner, and sat without batting an eye or stirring till the end of their talk . . .
“I repeat to you once more, Baron,” Versilov said, firmly rapping out the words, “that I consider Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakov, to whom I wrote that unworthy and morbid letter, not only the noblest being, but also the height of all perfections!”
“Such a refutation of your own words, as I’ve already observed to you, looks like a new confirmation of them,” grunted the baron. “Your words are decidedly disrespectful.”
“But, all the same, it would be most correct if you took them in their precise sense. You see, I suffer from fits and . . . various disorders, and am even being treated, and so it happened that in one such moment . . .”
“These explanations can in no way enter in. I have told you again and again that you stubbornly go on being mistaken, and maybe you deliberately want to be mistaken. I already warned you at the very beginning that the whole question concerning this lady, that is, about your letter to Mme. Akhmakov proper, must be definitively eliminated from our present conversation; yet you keep returning to it. Baron Bjoring asked me and charged me particularly to clarify, properly speaking, only that which concerns him, that is, your brazen communicating of this ‘copy’ and then your postscript, that ‘you are prepared to answer for it in whatever way he pleases.’”
“But it seems the last part is already clear without explanations.”
“I understand, I’ve heard. You do not even apologize, but just go on insisting that ‘you are prepared to answer in whatever way he pleases.’ But that would be too cheap. And therefore I now find myself right, in view of the turn you so stubbornly want to give our talk, to tell you everything from my side without constraint; that is, I have come to the conclusion that Baron Bjoring cannot possibly have any dealings with you . . . on an equal footing.”
“Such a decision is, of course, one of the more advantageous for your friend, Baron Bjoring, and, I confess, you haven’t surprised me in the least: I was expecting that.”
I’ll note in parenthesis: it was all too evident to me from the first words, the first look, that Versilov was even seeking an outburst, that he was provoking and teasing this irritable baron, and maybe trying his patience too much. The baron winced.
“I have heard that you can be witty, but wit is not yet intelligence.”
“An extremely profound observation, Colonel.”
“I did not ask for your praise,” cried the baron, “and I have not come to pour through a sieve! Be so good as to
