GOING OUTSIDE, I turned left and started walking at random. Nothing added up in my head. I walked slowly and, it seems, had gone quite far, some five hundred steps, when I suddenly felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw Liza: she had caught up with me and tapped me lightly with her umbrella. There was something terribly gay and a bit sly in her shining eyes.
“Well, how glad I am that you went this way, otherwise I wouldn’t have met you today!” She was slightly breathless from walking quickly.
“How breathless you are.”
“I ran terribly to catch up with you.”
“Liza, was it you I just met?”
“Where?”
“At the prince’s . . . Prince Sokolsky’s . . .”
“No, not me, you didn’t meet me . . .”
I said nothing, and we walked on some ten paces. Liza burst into loud laughter:
“Me, me, of course it was me! Listen, you saw me yourself, you looked into my eyes, and I looked into your eyes, so how can you ask whether you met me? Well, what a character! And you know, I wanted terribly to laugh when you stared into my eyes there, it was terribly funny the way you stared.”
She laughed terribly. I felt all the anguish leave my heart at once.
“But, tell me, how did you wind up there?”
“I was at Anna Fyodorovna’s.”
“What Anna Fyodorovna?”
“Stolbeev. When we lived in Luga, I sat with her for whole days; she received mama at her place and even called on us. And she called on almost nobody there. She’s a distant relation of Andrei Petrovich’s and a relation of the Princes Sokolsky; she’s some sort of grandmother to the prince.”
“So she lives with the prince?”
“No, the prince lives with her.”
“So whose apartment is it?”
“It’s her apartment, the apartment has been all hers for a whole year now. The prince has just arrived and is staying with her. And she herself has only been four days in Petersburg.”
“ Well . . . you know what, Liza, God be with the apartment, and the woman herself . . .”
“No, she’s wonderful . . .”
“Let her be, and in spades. We’re wonderful ourselves! Look, what a day, look, how good! How beautiful you are today, Liza. However, you’re a terrible child.”
“Arkady, tell me, that girl, the one yesterday.”
“Ah, what a pity, Liza, what a pity!”
“Ah, what a pity! What a fate! You know, it’s even sinful that you and I go along so merrily, and her soul is now flying somewhere in the darkness, in some bottomless darkness, sinner that she is, and offended . . . Arkady, who’s to blame for her sin? Ah, how frightful it is! Do you ever think about that darkness? Ah, how afraid I am of death, and how sinful that is! I don’t like the dark, I much prefer this sun! Mama says it’s sinful to be afraid . . . Arkady, do you know mama well?”
“Little so far, Liza, I know her very little.”
“Ah, what a being she is; you must, must get to know her! She has to be understood in a special way . . .”
“But see, I didn’t know you either, and now I know the whole of you. I came to know the whole of you in one minute. Though you’re afraid of death, Liza, it must be that you’re proud, bold, courageous. Better than I, much better than I! I love you terribly, Liza! Ah, Liza! Let death come when it must, and meanwhile—live, live! We’ll pity that unfortunate girl, but even so we’ll bless life, right? Right? I have an ‘idea,’ Liza. Liza, do you know that Versilov renounced the inheritance?”
“How could I not know! Mama and I already kissed each other.”
“You don’t know my soul, Liza, you don’t know what this man has meant for me . . .”
“Well, how could I not know, I know everything.”
“You know everything? Well, what else! You’re intelligent; you’re more intelligent than Vasin. You and mama— you have penetrating, humane eyes, that is, looks, not eyes, I’m wrong . . . I’m bad in many ways, Liza.”
“You need to be taken in hand, that’s all.”
“Take me, Liza. How nice it is to look at you today. Do you know that you’re very pretty? I’ve never seen your eyes before . . . Only now I’ve seen them for the first time . . . Where did you get them today, Liza? Where did you buy them? How much did you pay? Liza, I’ve never had a friend, and I look upon the idea as nonsense; but with you it’s not nonsense . . . If you want, let’s be friends! You understand what I want to say? . . .”
“I understand very well.”
“And you know, without any conditions, any contract—we’ll simply be friends!”
“Yes, simply, simply, only with one condition: if we ever accuse each other, if we’re displeased with something, if we ourselves become wicked, bad, if we even forget all this—let’s never forget this day and this very hour! Let’s promise ourselves. Let’s promise that we will always remember this day, when we walked hand in hand, and laughed so, and were so merry . . . Yes? Yes?”
