bust straightaway.”
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 slyest smile:
“That Versilov, 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 slyest 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 brought 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, his very own, sir, by Mademoiselle Lydia Akhmakov . . . ‘A lovely maiden did caress me . . .’50 Those phosphorus matches—eh?”
“What nonsense, what wildness! He never had a baby by Miss Akhmakov!”
“Go on! And where have I been then? I’m both a doctor and a male midwife. Name’s Stebelkov, 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 Akhmakov’s baby?”
“No, sir, I didn’t deliver Miss Akhmakov’s anything. In that suburb there was a Doctor Granz, burdened with a family, they paid him half a thaler, 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, Andrei Petrovich, to a most highly secret question, sir, eye to eye. But Andrei Petrovich 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-folk’s 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 speeding up, he hems and haws. Versilov is a ‘women’s prophet,’ sir—that’s how young Prince Sokolsky 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 neighbors’ door suddenly banged and somebody quickly went into their room.
“Versilov lives in the Semyonovsky quarter, on Mozhaiskaya Street, at Mrs. Litvinov’s house, number seventeen, I went to the address bureau myself !” an irritated female voice cried loudly. We could hear every word. Stebelkov 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!
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 shouting was probably the same one who had run out earlier in such agitation. But how did Versilov figure in it? Suddenly someone 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 heard, 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. Stebelkov, 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 onto the neighbors. Naturally, I also ran to the door. But his appearance in the corridor was like a bucket of cold water: the women quickly disappeared and noisily slammed the door behind them. Stebelkov 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 landlady, who was again standing by her door, he quickly ran to her on tiptoe down the corridor; after exchanging whispers with her for about two 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 landlady, who shook her finger at him and wagged her head as if to say, “Ah, naughty boy, naughty boy!” Finally, with a resolute but most delicate look, even as if hunched over with delicacy, he rapped with his knuckles on the neighbors’ door. A voice was heard:
“Who’s there?”
