the fashion with you now, lost coats,* inspectors, quarrelsome officers, clerks, old times, dissenters, I know, I know. . . .”
The reference is to Gogol’s story “The Lost Coat.”— Translator’s note
“But you are mistaken, prince. If I don’t want to get into your so-called ‘higher circle,’ it’s because in the first place it’s boring, and in the second I’ve nothing to do there; though, after all, I do sometimes. . . .”
“I know; at Prince R.‘s, once a year. I’ve met you there. But for the rest of the year you stagnate in your democratic pride, and languish in your garrets, though not all of you behave like that. Some of them are such adventurers that they sicken me. . . .”
“I beg you, prince, to change the subject and not to return to our garrets.”
“Dear me, now you’re offended. But you know you gave me permission to speak to you as a friend. But it’s my fault; I have done nothing to merit your friendship. The wine’s very decent. Try it.”
He poured me out half a glass from his bottle.
“You see, my dear Ivan Petrovitch, I quite understand that to force one’s friendship upon anyone is bad manners. We’re not all rude and insolent with you as you imagine. I quite understand that you are not sitting here from affection for me, but simply because I promised to talk to you. That’s so, isn’t it?”
He laughed.
“And as you’re watching over the interests of a certain person you want to hear what I am going to say. That’s it, isn’t it?” he added with a malicious smile.
“You are not mistaken,” I broke in impatiently. (I saw that he was one of those men who if anyone is ever so little in their power cannot resist making him feel it. I was in his power. I could not get away without hearing what he intended to say, and he knew that very well. His tone suddenly changed and became more and more insolently familiar and sneering.) “You’re not mistaken, prince, that’s just what I’ve come for, otherwise I should not be sitting here . . . so late.”
I had wanted to say “I would not on any account have been supping with you,” but I didn’t say this, and finished my phrase differently, not from timidity, but from my cursed weakness and delicacy. And really, how can one be rude to a man to his face, even if he deserves it, and even though one may wish to be rude to him? I fancied the prince detected this from my eyes, and looked at me ironically as I finished my sentence, as though enjoying my faintheartedness, and as it were challenging me with his eyes: “So you don’t dare to be rude; that’s it, my boy!” This must have been so, for as I finished he chuckled, and with patronizing friendliness slapped me on the knee.
“You’re amusing, my boy!” was what I read in his eyes.
“Wait a bit!” I thought to myself.
“I feel very lively to-night!” said he,” and I really don’t know why. Yes, yes, my boy! It was just that young person I wanted to talk to you about. We must speak quite frankly; talk till we reach some conclusion, and I hope that this time you will thoroughly understand me. I talked to you just now about that money and that old fogey of a father, that babe of sixteen summers. . . . Well! It’s not worth mentioning it now. That was only talk, you know! Ha-ha-ha! You’re a literary man, you ought to have guessed that.”
I looked at him with amazement, I don’t think he was drunk.
“As for that girl, I respect her, I assure you; I like her in fact. She’s a little capricious but ‘there’s no rose without thorn,’ as they used to say fifty years ago, and it was well said too: thorns prick. But that’s alluring and though my Alexey’s a fool, I’ve forgiven him to some extent already for his good taste. In short, I like such young ladies, and I have” (and he compressed his lips with immense significance) “views of my own, in fact. . . . But of that later. . . .”
“Prince! Listen, prince! “ I cried. “I don’t understand your quick change of front but . . . change the subject, if you please.”
“You’re getting hot again! Very good. . . . I’ll change it, I’ll change it! But I’ll tell you what I want to ask you, my good friend: have you a very great respect for her?”
“Of course,” I answered, with gruff impatience.
“Ah, indeed. And do you love her?” he continued, grinning revoltingly and screwing up his eyes.
“You are forgetting yourself!” I cried.
“There, there, I won’t! Don’t put yourself out! I’m in wonderful spirits today. I haven’t felt so gay for a long time. Shall we have some champagne? What do you say, my poet?
“I won’t have any. I don’t want it.”
“You don’t say so! You really must keep me company today. I feel so jolly, and as I’m soft-hearted to sentimentality I can’t bear to be happy alone. Who knows, we may come to drinking to our eternal friendship. Ha- ha-ha! No, my young friend, you don’t know me yet! I’m certain you’ll grow to love me. I want you this evening to share my grief and my joy, my tears and my laughter, though I hope that I at least may not shed any. Come, what do you say, Ivan Petrovitch? You see, you must consider that if I don’t get what I want, all my inspiration may pass, be wasted and take wing and you’ll hear nothing. And you know you’re only sitting here in the hope of hearing something. Aren’t you?” he added, winking at me insolently again. “So make your choice.”
The threat was a serious one. I consented. “Surely he doesn’t want to make me drunk?” I thought. This is the place, by the way, to mention a rumour about the prince which had reached me long before. It was said that though he was so elegant and decorous in society he sometimes was fond of getting drunk at night, of drinking like a fish, of secret debauchery, of loathsome and mysterious vices. . . . I had heard awful rumours about him. It was said that Alyosha knew his father sometimes drank, and tried to conceal the fact from everyone, especially from Natasha. Once he let something slip before me, but immediately changed the subject and would not answer my questions. I had not heard it from him, however, and I must admit I had not believed it. Now I waited to see what was coming.
The champagne was brought; the prince poured out a glass for himself and another for me.
“A sweet, sweet girl, though she did scold me,” he went on, sipping his wine with relish, “but these sweet creatures are particularly sweet just at those moments. . . . And, you know, she thought no doubt she had covered me with shame; do you remember that evening when she crushed me to atoms? Ha-ha-ha! And how a blush suits her! Are you a connoisseur in women? Sometimes a sudden flush is wonderfully becoming to a pale cheek. Have you noticed that? Oh dear, I believe you’re angry again!”
“Yes, I am angry!” I cried, unable to restrain myself. “And I won’t have you speak of Natalya Nikolaevna . . . that is, speak in that tone . . . I . . . I won’t allow you to do it!”
“Oho! Well, as you like, I’ll humour you and change the conversation. I am as yielding and soft as dough. Let’s talk of you. I like you, Ivan Petrovitch. If only you knew what a friendly, what a sincere interest I take in you.”
“Prince, wouldn’t it be better to keep to the point?” I interrupted.
“You mean talk of our affair. I understand you with half a word, mon ami, but you don’t know how closely we are touching on the point if we speak of you and you don’t interrupt me of course. And so I’ll go on. I wanted to tell you, my priceless Ivan Petrovitch, that to live as you’re living is simply self-destruction, Allow me to touch on this delicate subject; I speak as a friend. You are poor, you ask your publisher for money in advance, you pay your trivial debts, with what’s left you live for six months on tea, and shiver in your garret while you wait for your novel to be written for your publisher’s magazine. That’s so, isn’t it?
“If it is so, anyway it’s . . .”
“More creditable than stealing, cringing, taking bribes, intriguing and so on, and so on. I know, I know what you want to say, all that’s been printed long ago.”
“And so there’s no need for you to talk about my affairs. Surely, prince, I needn’t give you a lesson in delicacy!”
“Well, certainly you needn’t. But what’s to be done if it’s just that delicate chord we must touch upon? There’s no avoiding it. But there, let’s leave garrets alone. I’m by no means fond of them, except in certain cases,” he added with a loathsome laugh. “But what surprises me is that you should be so set on playing a secondary part. Certainly one of you authors, I remember, said somewhere that the greatest achievement is for a man to know how to restrict himself to a secondary role in life. . . . I believe it’s something of that sort. I’ve heard talk of that somewhere too, but you know Alyosha has carried off your fiancee. I know that, and you, like some Schiller, are ready to go to the stake for them, you’re waiting upon them, and almost at their beck and call. . . . You must excuse me, my dear fellow, but it’s rather a sickening show of noble feeling. I should have thought you must be sick of it!
