“The thing is that that piece of writing is very important for her, and if it had been in your hands today, then even today you might . . .” But “might ” what, he didn’t finish saying. “And so, it’s not in your hands now?”
I shuddered inwardly, but not outwardly. Outwardly I didn’t betray myself in any way, didn’t bat an eye; but still I couldn’t believe the question.
“How not in my hands? In my hands
“Yes?” he aimed a fiery, fixed gaze at me, a gaze I remembered. However, he was smiling, but all his goodnaturedness, all the femininity of expression he had had till then, suddenly disappeared. What came was something indefinite and disconnected; he was becoming more and more distracted. If he had been more in control of himself then, as he had been up to that moment, he wouldn’t have asked me that question about the document; if he did, it was probably because he was in a frenzy himself. However, I say it only now; but at that time it took me a while to perceive the change that had taken place in him. I still went on flying, and there was the same music in my soul. But the story was over; I looked at him.
“An amazing thing,” he said suddenly, when I had spoken everything out to the last comma, “a very strange thing, my friend: you say you were there from three to four, and that Tatyana Pavlovna wasn’t at home?”
“Exactly from three till half-past four.”
“Well, imagine, I stopped to see Tatyana Pavlovna at exactly half-past three to the minute, and she met me in the kitchen—I almost always come to see her by the back entrance.”
“What, she met you in the kitchen?” I cried, drawing back in amazement.
“Yes, and she told me she couldn’t receive me; I stayed with her a couple of minutes, and I had only come to invite her to dinner.”
“Maybe she just came back from somewhere?”
“I don’t know; though—of course not. She was in her housecoat. This was exactly at half-past three.”
“But . . . Tatyana Pavlovna didn’t tell you I was there?”
“No, she didn’t tell me you were there . . . Otherwise I’d have known and wouldn’t be asking you about it.”
“Listen, this is very important . . .”
“Yes . . . depending on one’s point of view; and you’ve even turned pale, my dear; but, anyhow, what’s so important?”
“I’ve been laughed at like a child!”
“She was simply ‘afraid of your ardor,’ as she put it to you herself—well, and so she enlisted Tatyana Pavlovna.”
“But, my God, what a trick it was! Listen, she let me say all that with a third person there, with Tatyana Pavlovna there—who, consequently, heard everything I said! It’s . . . it’s even terrible to imagine!”
“C’est selon, mon cher! 42 And besides, you yourself mentioned earlier the ‘breadth’ of view of women in general, and exclaimed, ‘Long live breadth!’”
“If I were Othello and you Iago, you couldn’t have done it better . . . however, I’m laughing! There can’t be any Othello, because there are no such relations. And how not laugh! So be it! I still believe in what is infinitely higher than I am, and I haven’t lost my ideal! . . . If it’s a joke on her part, I forgive her. A joke on the pathetic adolescent—so be it! I didn’t get myself up as anything, and the student—the student was and remains anyway, no matter what, he was in her soul, he exists and will go on existing! Enough! Listen, what do you think: shall I go to her now, to learn the whole truth, or not?”
I said, “I’m laughing,” but there were tears in my eyes.
“Why not? Go, my friend, if you want to.”
“It’s as if I’ve dirtied my soul by telling you all this. Don’t be angry, dear heart, but it’s impossible to tell a third person about a woman, I repeat, about a woman. No confidant will understand; not even an angel will understand. If you respect a woman, don’t take a confidant; if you respect yourself, don’t take a confidant! I don’t respect myself now. Good-bye; I can’t forgive myself . . .”
“Come, my dear, you’re exaggerating. You say yourself ‘there was nothing.’”
We went out to the canal and began saying good-bye.
“Will you never kiss me from the heart, as a child, as a son kisses his father?” he said to me with a strange tremor in his voice. I kissed him warmly.
“My dear . . . always be as pure of heart as you are now.”
I had never kissed him before in my life, I could never have imagined he would want me to.
Chapter Six
I
“GO, OF COURSE!” I decided, hurrying home. “Go at once. Quite possibly I’ll find her at home alone—alone or with someone, it makes no difference—I can call her away. She’ll receive me; she’ll be surprised, but she’ll receive me. And if she doesn’t, I’ll insist that she receive me, I’ll send to tell her it’s extremely necessary. She’ll think it’s something about the document and receive me. And I’ll find out all about Tatyana. And then . . . and then what? If I’m wrong, I’ll make it up to her, and if I’m right, and she’s to blame, then it’s all over! In any case—it’s all over! What can I lose? I can’t lose anything. Go! Go!”
And then—I’ll never forget it and I remember it with pride—I didn’t go! No one will ever know it, it will just die, but it’s enough that I know it and that at such a moment I was capable of the noblest impulse! “This is a temptation, and I’ll pass it by,” I decided finally, thinking better of it. “They frightened me with a fact, but I didn’t believe it and didn’t lose faith in her purity! And why go, why ask? Why should she believe so unfailingly in me as I did in her, believe in my ‘purity,’ not be afraid of my ‘ardor,’ not enlist Tatyana? I haven’t deserved it yet in her eyes. Let her not, let her not know that I do deserve it, that I don’t yield to ‘temptations,’ that I don’t believe wicked calumnies about her; but I myself know it and will respect myself for it. Respect my feeling. Oh, yes, she allowed
