next to them. Some gentlemen without frock coats, in waist-coats only, with disheveled beards, casual and curious. There were about ten of them sitting in one tiny room over cards and beer, and I was offered the room next door. In other places, I myself gave such absurd answers to the landlords’ questions that they looked at me in astonishment, and in one apartment I even had a quarrel. However, I can’t really describe all these worthless things; I only want to say that, having gotten very tired, I ate something in some cookshop when it was already almost dark. I made a final resolve that I would go right now, by myself and alone, give Versilov the letter about the inheritance (without any explanations), pack my things upstairs into a suitcase and a bundle, and move at least for that night to a hotel. I knew that at the end of Obukhovsky Prospect, by the Triumphal Arch, there were inns where I could even get a separate little room for thirty kopecks; I decided to sacrifice for one night, only so as not to spend it at Versilov’s. And then, going past the Technological Institute, it suddenly occurred to me for some reason to call on Tatyana Pavlovna, who lived just there, across from the Institute. In fact, the pretext for calling was the same letter of inheritance, but the insuperable impulse to call on her had, of course, other reasons, which, however, I’m unable to explain even now: there was some confusion of mind here about a “nursing baby,” about “exceptions that make up the general rule.” Whether I wanted to tell, or to show off, or to fight, or even to weep—I don’t know, only I did go up to Tatyana Pavlovna’s. Till then I had only visited her once, when I had just come from Moscow, on some errand from my mother, and I remember that, having come and given what I was charged with, I left after a minute, without even sitting down, and without her inviting me to.
I rang the bell, and the cook opened for me at once and silently let me in. All these details are precisely needed, to make it possible to understand how the crazy adventure could take place, which had such enormous influence on all that came afterwards. And, first, about the cook. She was a spiteful, snub-nosed Finn, who seemed to hate her mistress, Tatyana Pavlovna, who, on the contrary, could not part with her, owing to some sort of partiality, something like what old maids feel for wet-nosed pugs or eternally sleeping cats. The Finn was either angry and rude, or, having quarreled, would be silent for weeks on end in order to punish her lady. I must have hit on one of those silent days, because even to my question, “Is the lady at home?”—which I positively remember having asked her—she gave no reply and silently went to her kitchen. After which, naturally convinced that the lady was at home, I went in and, finding no one, began to wait, supposing that Tatyana Pavlovna would presently come out of the bedroom; otherwise why would the cook have let me in? I did not sit down and waited for two or three minutes; it was almost evening, and Tatyana Pavlovna’s dark little apartment looked still more cheerless because of the endless chintz that hung everywhere. Two words about this vile little apartment, in order to understand the terrain where the thing happened. Tatyana Pavlovna, with her stubborn and imperious character, and as a result of her old landowning preferences, could not have lived in furnished rooms along with other tenants, and rented this parody of an apartment only so as to live separately and be her own mistress. These two rooms were exactly like two canary cages placed side by side, one smaller than the other, on the third floor, with windows facing the courtyard. Entering the apartment, you stepped directly into a narrow little corridor less than four feet wide, to the left were the above-mentioned canary cages, and straight down the corridor, at the bottom of it, was the door to the tiny kitchen. There might have been in these little rooms the ten cubic feet of air a man needs for twelve hours, but hardly more. They were grotesquely low, but the stupidest thing was that the windows, the doors, the furniture—all, all of it was hung or upholstered with chintz, fine French chintz, and adorned with little festoons; but this made the room seem twice as dark and like the interior of a traveling coach. In the room where I was waiting, you could still turn around, though it was all cluttered with furniture, and, by the way, not bad furniture: there were various little inlaid tables with bronze fittings, chests, an elegant and even costly toilet table. But the next room, from which I expected her to come, the bedroom, separated from this room by a heavy curtain, consisted, as it turned out later, literally of nothing but a bed. All these details are necessary in order to understand the stupid thing I did.
And so I was waiting and suspecting nothing, when the bell rang. I heard the cook pass through the corridor with unhurried steps and silently, exactly as with me earlier, let the people in. They were two ladies, and both were talking loudly, but what was my amazement when I recognized by their voices that one of them was Tatyana Pavlovna and the other precisely the woman whom I was least of all prepared to meet now, and in such circumstances at that! I couldn’t be mistaken: I had heard that sonorous, strong, metallic voice yesterday, for only three minutes, true, but it had remained in my soul. Yes, it was “yesterday’s woman.” What was I to do? I’m not asking the reader this question, I’m only imagining that moment to myself, and I’m utterly unable to explain even now how it happened that I suddenly rushed behind the curtain and found myself in Tatyana Pavlovna’s bedroom. In short, I hid, and barely had time to jump there as they came in. Why I didn’t go to meet them, but hid myself—I don’t know. It all happened accidentally, in the highest degree unaccountably.
Having jumped into the bedroom and stumbled over the bed, I noticed at once that there was a door from the bedroom to the kitchen, which meant a way out of my trouble and a possibility of escape, but—oh, horror!—the door was locked and the key was not in the lock. I lowered myself onto the bed in despair; I saw clearly that it meant I would now be eavesdropping, and from the first phrases, from the first sounds of the conversation, I realized that it was a secret and ticklish one. Oh, of course, an honest and noble person ought to have gotten up, even now, come out and said loudly, “I’m here, wait!”—and, despite his ridiculous position, walked past; but I did not get up and come out; I didn’t dare, I turned coward in the meanest way.
“My dear Katerina Nikolaevna, you upset me deeply,” Tatyana Pavlovna implored. “Calm yourself once and for all, it doesn’t even suit your character. Wherever you are, there is joy, and now suddenly . . . At least me, I think, you continue to trust, knowing how devoted I am to you. Surely no less than to Andrei Petrovich, to whom, once again, I do not conceal my eternal devotion . . . Well, believe me, then, I swear to you on my honor, he doesn’t have this document in his hands, and maybe no one does; and he’s incapable of such skulduggery, it’s sinful of you even to suspect it. The two of you have simply invented this hostility . . .”
“The document exists, and he is capable of anything. Why, I came in yesterday and the first thing I met was
“Eh,
“Yes, some little fool, which, however, doesn’t prevent him from becoming a scoundrel. I was vexed yesterday, otherwise I’d have died of laughter: he turned pale, rushed to me, bowed and scraped, spoke French. And in Moscow, Marya Ivanovna assured me he was a genius. That this unfortunate letter has survived and exists somewhere in a most dangerous place—that I concluded mainly from Marya Ivanovna’s face.”
“My beauty! But you yourself said she had nothing!”
“The thing is that she has, she’s merely lying, and what a crafty one she is, let me tell you! Back before Moscow I still had hopes that no papers had been left, but here, here . . .”
“Ah, my dear, on the contrary, they say she’s a kind and sensible being, Andronikov valued her above any of his nieces. True, I don’t know her that well, but—you could seduce her, my beauty! It’s nothing for you to win people over, I’m an old woman and here I am in love with you, and in a minute I’ll start kissing you . . . Well, what would it cost you to seduce her!”
“I tried to seduce her, Tatyana Pavlovna, I did, I even sent her into raptures, but she’s also very clever . . . No, there’s a whole character here, and a special one, a Moscow one . . . And imagine, she advised me to address a certain man here, Kraft, Andronikov’s former assistant, she said he might know something. I already have an idea of this Kraft, and I even remember him fleetingly; but when she told me about this Kraft, I became convinced at once
