Текст книги "The Adolescent"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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And I must do him justice: for a while he controlled himself, despite his hot temper. He didn’t come to my house during my illness—he came only once and saw Versilov; he didn’t disturb or frighten me, he preserved an air of the most total detachment before me, up to the day and hour of my going out. With regard to the fact that I might give away, or tell about, or destroy the document, he was at ease. From what I had said at his place, he was able to conclude how much I myself valued secrecy and how afraid I was that someone might learn of the document. And that I would go to him first, and to no one else, on the first day of my recovery, he did not doubt in the least: Nastasya Egorovna came to see me partly on his orders, and he knew that my curiosity and fear were already aroused, that I wouldn’t be able to stand it . . . And besides, he took every measure, might even know the day of my going out, so that there was no way I could turn my back on him, even if I wanted to.

But if Lambert was waiting for me, then maybe Anna Andreevna was waiting for me still more. I’ll say directly: Lambert might have been partly right in preparing to betray her, and the fault was hers. In spite of their undoubted agreement (in what form I don’t know, but I have no doubt of it), Anna Andreevna down to the very last minute was not fully candid with him. She didn’t open herself all the way. She hinted to him about all agreements and all promises on her part—but only hinted; she listened, maybe, to his whole plan in detail, but gave only silent approval. I have firm grounds for concluding so, and the reason was that she was waiting for me. She liked better to have dealings with me than with the scoundrel Lambert—that was an unquestionable fact for me! I understand that; but her mistake was that Lambert finally understood it as well. And it would have been too disadvantageous for him if she, bypassing him, wheedled the document out of me, and we entered into an agreement. Besides, at that time he was already certain of the solidity of the “affair.” Another in his place would have been afraid and would still have had doubts; but Lambert was young, bold, with a most impatient desire for gain, had little knowledge of people, and undoubtedly regarded them all as base; such a man could have no doubts, especially as he had already elicited all the main confirmations from Anna Andreevna.

A last and most important little word: did Versilov know anything by that day and had he already participated then in some, however remote, plans with Lambert? No, no, no, not yet then, though perhaps a fateful little word had been dropped . . . But enough, enough, I’m running too far ahead.

Well, and what about me? Did I know anything, and what did I know by the day I went out? At the beginning of this entrefiletI announced that I knew nothing by the day I went out, that I learned about it all much later and even at a time when everything was already accomplished. That’s true, but is it fully? No, it’s not; I undoubtedly already knew something, knew even all too much, but how? Let the reader remember the dream! If there could be such a dream, if it could burst from my heart and formulate itself that way, it meant that I—didn’t know, but anticipated—an awful lot of those things I have just explained and actually learned only “when everything was already over.” There was no knowledge, but my heart throbbed with anticipations, and evil spirits already possessed my dreams. And this was the man I was eager to see, knowing full well what sort of man he was and even anticipating the details! And why was I eager to see him? Imagine: now, in this very moment as I write, it seems to me that I knew in all its details why I was eager to see him, whereas at the time, again, I still knew nothing. Maybe the reader will understand that. But now—to business, fact by fact.

II

IT BEGAN, STILL two days before my going out, with Liza coming home in the evening all in alarm. She was awfully insulted; and indeed something insufferable had happened to her.

I’ve already mentioned her relations with Vasin. She went to him not only to show us that she didn’t need us, but also because she really appreciated Vasin. Their acquaintance had already begun in Luga, and it had always seemed to me that Vasin was not indifferent to her. In the misfortune that struck her, it was natural that she might wish for advice from a firm, calm, always elevated mind, which she supposed Vasin to have. Besides, women are not great masters at evaluating the male mind, if they like the man, and they gladly take paradoxes for strict deductions, if they agree with their own wishes. What Liza liked in Vasin was his sympathy with her position, and, as it had seemed to her from the first, his sympathy for the prince as well. Besides, suspecting his feelings towards her, she could not help appreciating his sympathy for his rival. The prince, whom she herself had told that she sometimes went to Vasin for advice, had taken this news with extreme uneasiness from the very first; he had begun to be jealous. This had offended her, so that she had deliberately continued her relations with Vasin. The prince said nothing, but was gloomy. Liza herself confessed to me (very long afterwards) that she had very soon stopped liking Vasin; he was calm, and precisely this eternal, smooth calm, which she had liked so much in the beginning, later seemed rather unsightly to her. It seemed he was practical, and, indeed, several times he gave her advice that appeared good, but all this advice, as if on purpose, turned out to be unfeasible. He sometimes judged too haughtily and without the least embarrassment before her—becoming less embarrassed as time went on, which she ascribed to his growing and involuntary contempt for her position. Once she thanked him for being constantly good-natured with me and for talking with me as with an equal, though he was so superior to me in intelligence (that is, she conveyed my own words to him). He replied:

“That’s not so, and it’s not for that. It’s because I don’t see any difference in him from the others. I don’t consider him either stupider than the smart ones or wickeder than the good ones. I’m the same with everybody, because in my eyes everybody’s the same.”

“You mean you really can’t see any differences?”

“Oh, of course, they’re all different from each other in some way, but in my eyes the differences don’t exist, because the differences between people are of no concern to me; for me they’re all the same and it’s all the same, and so I’m equally nice to everybody.”

“And you don’t find it boring?”

“No, I’m always content with myself.”

“And you don’t desire anything?”

“Of course I do, but not very much. I need almost nothing, not a rouble more. Myself in golden clothes and myself as I am—it’s all the same; golden clothes will add nothing to Vasin. Morsels don’t tempt me: can positions or honors be worth the place I’m worth?”

Liza assured me on her honor that he once uttered this literally. However, it’s impossible to judge like that here; one must know the circumstances under which it was uttered.

Liza gradually came to the conclusion that his attitude towards the prince was indulgent maybe only because everybody was the same to him and “differences did not exist,” and not at all out of sympathy for her. But in the end he began somehow visibly to lose his indifference, and his attitude towards the prince changed to one not only of condemnation, but also of scornful irony. This made Liza angry, but Vasin wouldn’t let up. Above all, he always expressed himself so softly, he even condemned without indignation, but simply made logical deductions about her hero’s total nonentity; but in this logic lay the irony. Finally he deduced for her almost directly all the “unreasonableness” of her love, all the stubborn forcedness of this love. “You erred in your feelings, and errors, once recognized, ought unfailingly to be corrected.”

This was just on that very day. Liza got up indignantly in order to leave, but what did this reasonable man do and how did he end? With a most noble air and even with feeling, he offered her his hand. Liza at once called him a fool to his face and left.

To suggest betraying an unfortunate man because this unfortunate man was “not worthy” of her and, above all, to suggest it to a woman who was pregnant by this unfortunate man—there’s the mind of these people! I call that being awfully theoretical and completely ignorant of life, which comes from a boundless self-love. And on top of all that, Liza discerned in the clearest way that he was even proud of his act, if only because, for example, he already knew about her pregnancy. With tears of indignation she hurried to the prince, and he—he even outdid Vasin: it would seem he might have been convinced after she told him that there was no point in being jealous now; but it was here that he went out of his mind. However, jealous people are all like that! He made an awful scene and insulted her so much that she decided to break all relations with him at once.

She came home, however, still keeping hold of herself, but she couldn’t help telling mama. Oh, that evening they became close again, absolutely as before: the ice was broken; they both naturally wept their fill, embracing each other as they used to do, and Liza apparently calmed down, though she was very gloomy. She sat that evening with Makar Ivanovich, not saying a word, but not leaving the room either. She listened very hard to what he was saying. Since the occasion with the little bench, she had become extremely and somehow timidly respectful towards him, though she still remained taciturn.

But this time, Makar Ivanovich somehow gave the conversation an unexpected and astonishing turn. I’ll note that in the morning Versilov and the doctor had spoken very frowningly of his health. I’ll also note that for several days preparations had been under way in our house for the celebration of mama’s birthday, which was to take place in five days, and we often spoke of it. Apropos of that day, Makar Ivanovich for some reason suddenly embarked on reminiscences and recalled mama’s childhood and the time when she still “couldn’t stand on her little legs.” “She never left my arms,” the old man recalled. “I used to teach her to walk, I’d put her in the corner three steps away and call her, and she comes swaying to me across the room, and she’s not afraid, she laughs, and when she reaches me, she throws her arms around my neck and embraces me. I also told you fairy tales, Sofya Andreevna; you were a great lover of fairy tales; for two hours you’d sit on my knee listening. They marveled in the cottage: ‘See how attached she is to Makar.’ Or else I’d take you to the forest, find a raspberry bush, sit you down there, and start cutting wooden whistles for you. We’d have a good walk, and I’d carry you back in my arms—the baby’s asleep. And once you got frightened by a wolf, ran to me all trembling, and there wasn’t any wolf.”

“That I remember,” said mama.

“Do you really?”

“I remember a lot. From as early as I can remember myself in life, ever since then I’ve seen your love and mercy over me,” she said in a heartfelt voice and suddenly blushed all over.

Makar Ivanovich paused briefly.

“Forgive me, little children, I’m going. Now the term of my life is upon me. In my old age I have found comfort from all sorrows. Thank you, my dears.”

“Come now, Makar Ivanovich, dear heart,” Versilov exclaimed, somewhat alarmed, “the doctor told me today that you were incomparably better . . .”

Mama was listening fearfully.

“Well, what does he know, your Alexander Semyonych?” Makar Ivanovich smiled. “He’s a dear man, but no more than that. Come, friends, do you think I’m afraid to die? Today, after my morning prayer, I had the feeling in my heart that I wouldn’t leave here anymore; it was told me. Well, and what of it, blessed be the name of the Lord; only I’d like to have a good look at you all again. The much-suffering Job, too, was comforted, looking at his new children, but that he forgot the former ones, and that he could have forgotten them—is impossible! ¹⁵Only over the years sorrow seems to mingle with joy and turn into a bright sighing. That’s how it is in the world: every soul is both tested and comforted. I’ve decided, little children, to tell you a word or two, not much,” he went on with a gentle, beautiful smile, which I will never forget, and suddenly turned to me: “You, my dear, be zealous for the holy Church, and if the time calls for it, also die for her; but wait, don’t be frightened, not now,” he smiled. “Now maybe you’re not thinking of it, but later maybe you will. Only there’s this as well: whatever good you intend to do, do it for God, and not for the sake of envy. Hold firmly to what you do, and don’t give up out of any sort of faintheartedness; and do it gradually, without rushing or throwing yourself about; well, that’s all you need, save maybe also getting used to praying every day and steadfastly. I say it just so, in case you remember it one day. I was going to say something to you, too, Andrei Petrovich, sir, but God will find your heart even without me. And it’s long ago now that you and I stopped talking of such things, ever since that arrow pierced my heart. And now, as I’m going, I’ll just remind you . . . of what you promised then . . .”

He almost whispered the last words, looking down.

“Makar Ivanovich!” Versilov said in embarrassment, and got up from his chair.

“Well, well, don’t be embarrassed, sir, I’m only reminding you . . . It’s I who am guiltiest of all before God in this matter; for, though you were my master, I still shouldn’t have condoned this weakness. So you, too, Sofya, don’t trouble your soul too much, for your whole sin is mine, and in you, as I think, there was hardly any understanding then, and perhaps in you also, sir, along with her,” he smiled, his lips trembling with some sort of pain, “and though I might have taught you then, my spouse, even with a rod, and so I should have, I pitied you as you fell down before me in tears and concealed nothing . . . and kissed my feet. I recall that, my beloved, not as a reproach to you, but only as a reminder to Andrei Petrovich . . . for you yourself, sir, remember your nobleman’s promise, and marriage covers everything . . . I’m saying it in front of the children, sir, my dear heart.”

He was extremely agitated, and looked at Versilov as if expecting words of confirmation from him. I repeat, all this was so unexpected that I sat motionless. Versilov was even no less agitated than he was: he silently went over to mama and embraced her tightly; then mama, also silently, went up to Makar Ivanovich and bowed down at his feet.

In short, the scene turned out to be stupendous; this time there was only our family in the room, not even Tatyana Pavlovna was there. Liza somehow straightened up in her place and listened silently; suddenly she rose and said firmly to Makar Ivanovich:

“Bless me, too, Makar Ivanovich, for a great torment. Tomorrow my whole fate will be decided . . . and so pray for me today.”

And she left the room. I know that Makar Ivanovich already knew everything about her from mama. But that evening for the first time I saw Versilov and mama together; till then I had just seen his slave beside him. There was an awful lot that I didn’t know or hadn’t noticed yet in this man, whom I had already condemned, and therefore I went back to my room in confusion. And it must be said that precisely by that time all my perplexities about him had thickened; never yet had he seemed so mysterious and unfathomable as precisely at that time; but that’s just what the whole story I’m writing is about. All in good time.

“However,” I thought to myself then, as I was going to bed, “it turns out that he gave his ‘nobleman’s word’ to marry mama in case she was left a widow. He said nothing about it when he told me earlier about Makar Ivanovich.”

The next day Liza was gone the whole day, and coming back quite late, she went straight to Makar Ivanovich. At first I didn’t want to go in, so as not to bother them, but I soon noticed that mama and Versilov were already there, and I went in. Liza was sitting next to the old man and weeping on his shoulder, and he, with a sad face, was silently stroking her head.

Versilov explained to me (later in my room) that the prince insisted on having his way and proposed to marry Liza at the first opportunity, before the decision of the court. It was hard for Liza to decide on it, though she now almost had no right not to. Besides, Makar Ivanovich had “ordered” her to marry. Of course, all this would have come out right later by itself, and she would undoubtedly have married on her own, without any orders and hesitations, but at the present moment she was so insulted by the one she loved, and so humiliated by this love even in her own eyes, that it was hard for her to decide. But, besides the insult, there was a new circumstance mixed into it, which I couldn’t have begun to suspect.

“Have you heard that all those young people from the Petersburg side were arrested last night?” Versilov added suddenly.

“What? Dergachev?” I cried.

“Yes, and Vasin also.”

I was struck, especially on hearing about Vasin.

“But is he mixed up with anything? My God, what will happen to them now? And, as if on purpose, at the very time when Liza was accusing Vasin so! . . . What do you think may happen to them? It’s Stebelkov! I swear to you, it’s Stebelkov!”

“Let’s drop it,” said Versilov, looking at me strangely (precisely as one looks at an uncomprehending and unsuspecting man). “Who knows what they’ve got there, and who knows what will happen to them? There’s something else: I hear you want to go out tomorrow. Won’t you be going to Prince Sergei Petrovich?”

“First thing—though, I confess, it’s very hard for me. Why, do you have some message for him?”

“No, nothing. I’ll see him myself. I’m sorry for Liza. And what advice can Makar Ivanovich give her? He himself understands nothing in people or in life. There’s another thing, my dear” (he hadn’t called me “my dear” for a long time), “there are also . . . certain young men here . . . one of whom is your former schoolmate, Lambert . . . It seems to me they’re all great scoundrels . . . I say it just to warn you . . . Anyhow, of course, all that is your business, I understand that I have no right . . .”

“Andrei Petrovich,” I seized his hand without thinking and almost in inspiration, as often happened with me (we were almost in the dark), “Andrei Petrovich, I’ve been silent—you’ve seen that, I’ve kept silent up to now, and do you know why? To avoid your secrets. I’ve simply resolved never to know them. I’m a coward, I’m afraid that your secrets will tear you out of my heart completely, and I don’t want that. And if so, then why should you know my secrets? Let it be all the same to you, wherever I may go! Isn’t it so?”

“You’re right, but not a word more, I beg you!” he said, and left my room. Thus we accidentally had a bit of a talk. But he only added to my agitation before my new step in life the next day, so that I spent the whole night constantly waking up. But I felt good.

III

THE NEXT DAY, though I left the house at ten o’clock in the morning, I tried as hard as I could to leave on the quiet, without saying good-bye or telling anybody—to slip away, as they say. Why I did that I don’t know, but if even mama had seen me going out and started talking to me, I would have answered with something angry. When I found myself outside and breathed the cold outdoor air, I shuddered from a very strong sensation—almost an animal one, and which I’d call carnivorous. Why was I going, where was I going? It was completely indefinite and at the same time carnivorous. I felt frightened and joyful—both at once.

“And will I dirty myself today, or not?” I thought dashingly to myself, though I knew all too well that today’s step, once taken, would be decisive and irreparable for my whole life. But there’s no use speaking in riddles.

I went straight to the prince’s prison. For three days already I had had a note from Tatyana Pavlovna to the warden, and he gave me an excellent reception. I don’t know whether he’s a good man, and I don’t think it matters; but he allowed me to meet with the prince and arranged it in his own room, kindly yielding it to us. The room was like any room—an ordinary room in the government apartment of an official of a known sort—that also, I think, we can omit describing. So the prince and I were left alone.

He came out to me in some half-military housecoat, but with a very clean shirt, a fancy necktie, washed and combed, and along with that terribly thin and yellow. I noticed this yellowness even in his eyes. In short, his looks were so changed that I even stopped in perplexity.

“How changed you are!” I cried.

“Never mind! Sit down, my dear,” he half-foppishly showed me to an armchair and sat down facing me. “Let’s go on to the main thing: you see, my dear Alexei Makarovich . . .”

“Arkady,” I corrected.

“What? Ah, yes—well, well, it makes no difference. Ah, yes!” he suddenly realized, “excuse me, dear heart, let’s go on to the main thing . . .”

In short, he was in a terrible hurry to go on to something. He was all pervaded with something, from head to foot, with some sort of main idea, which he wished to formulate and present to me. He talked terribly much and quickly, with strain and suffering, explaining and gesticulating, but in the first moments I understood decidedly nothing.

“To put it briefly” (he had already used the phrase “to put it briefly” ten times before then), “to put it briefly,” he concluded, “if I have troubled you, Arkady Makarovich, and summoned you so insistently yesterday through Liza, then, though things are ablaze, still, since the essence of the decision should be extraordinary and definitive, we . . .”

“Excuse me, Prince,” I interrupted, “did you summon me yesterday? Liza told me precisely nothing.”

“What!” he cried, suddenly stopping in great bewilderment, even almost in fright.

“She told me precisely nothing. Last night she came home so upset that she didn’t even manage to say a word to me.”

The prince jumped up from his chair.

“Can this be true, Arkady Makarovich? In that case, it’s . . . it’s...”

“But, anyhow, what of it? Why are you so disturbed? She simply forgot or something . . .”

He sat down, but it was as if stupefaction came over him. The news that Liza hadn’t told me anything simply crushed him. He suddenly began speaking quickly and waving his arms, but again it was terribly difficult to understand.

“Wait!” he said suddenly, falling silent and holding up his finger. “Wait, it’s . . . it’s . . . unless I’m mistaken . . . these are—tricks, sir! . . .” he murmured with a maniac’s smile. “And it means that . . .”

“It means precisely nothing!” I interrupted. “And I only don’t understand why such an empty circumstance torments you so . . . Ah, Prince, since that time, ever since that night—remember . . .”

“Since what night, and what of it?” he cried fussily, obviously vexed that I had interrupted him.

“At Zershchikov’s, where we saw each other for the last time—well, before your letter? You were also terribly disturbed then, but between then and now there’s such a difference that I’m even horrified at you . . . Or don’t you remember?”

“Ah, yes,” he said, in the voice of a worldly man, and as if suddenly recalling, “ah, yes! That evening . . . I heard . . . Well, how is your health, and how are you now after all this, Arkady Makarovich? . . . But, anyway, let’s go on to the main thing. You see, I am essentially pursuing three goals; there are three tasks before me, and I . . .”

He quickly began speaking again about his “main thing.” I realized, finally, that I saw before me a man who ought at least to have a napkin with vinegar put to his head at once, if not to have his blood let. His whole incoherent conversation, naturally, turned around his trial, around the possible outcome; also around the fact that the regimental commander himself had visited him and spent a long time talking him out of something, but that he had not obeyed; around a note he had just written and submitted somewhere; around the prosecutor; about the fact that he would probably be stripped of his rights and exiled somewhere to the northern reaches of Russia; about the possibility of becoming a colonist and earning back his rights in Tashkent; ¹⁶that he would teach his son (the future one, from Liza) this, and pass on that, “in the back-woods, in Arkhangelsk, in Kholmogory.” ¹⁷“If I wished for your opinion, Arkady Makarovich, then believe me, I value so much the feeling . . . If you only knew, if you only knew, Arkady Makarovich, my dear, my brother, what Liza means to me, what she has meant to me here, now, all this time!” he cried suddenly, clutching his head with both hands.

“Sergei Petrovich, can it be that you’ll ruin her and take her away? To Kholmogory!” suddenly burst from me irrepressibly. Liza’s lot with this maniac all her life suddenly presented itself to my consciousness clearly and as if for the first time. He looked at me, stood up again, took a step, turned around, and sat down again, still holding his head with his hands.

“I keep dreaming of spiders!” he said suddenly.

“You’re terribly agitated, Prince, I’d advise you to lie down and send for the doctor at once.”

“No, excuse me, that can wait. I mainly asked you to come so that I could explain to you about the marriage. The marriage, you know, will take place right here in the church, I’ve already said so. Approval has been granted, and they even encourage . . . As for Liza . . .”

“Prince, have mercy on Liza, my dear,” I cried, “don’t torment her now at least, don’t be jealous!”

“What!” he cried, looking at me point-blank, his eyes almost popping out, and his face twisted into some sort of long, senselessly questioning smile. It was clear that the words “don’t be jealous” for some reason struck him terribly.

“Forgive me, Prince, it was inadvertent. Oh, Prince, I’ve come to know an old man recently, my nominal father . . . Oh, if you could see him you’d be calmer . . . Liza also appreciates him so.”

“Ah, yes, Liza . . . ah, yes, it’s your father? Or . . . pardon, mon cher, ⁶⁸something like that . . . I remember . . . she told me . . . a little old man . . . To be sure, to be sure. I also knew a little old man . . . Mais passons, ⁶⁹the main thing, in order to clarify the whole essence of the moment, we must . . .”

I got up to leave. It was painful for me to look at him.

“I do not understand!” he uttered sternly and imposingly, seeing that I had gotten up to leave.

“It’s painful for me to look at you,” I said.

“Arkady Makarovich, one word, one word more!” He suddenly seized me by the shoulders with a completely different look and gesture, and sat me down in the armchair. “Have you heard about those . . . you understand?” he leaned towards me.

“Ah, yes, Dergachev. It must be Stebelkov!” I cried, unable to restrain myself.

“Yes, Stebelkov and . . . you don’t know?”

He stopped short and again stared at me with the same popping eyes and the same long, convulsive, senselessly questioning smile, which spread wider and wider. His face gradually grew pale. It was as if something suddenly shook me: I remembered Versilov’s look the day before, when he was telling me about Vasin’s arrest.

“Oh, can it be?” I cried fearfully.

“You see, Arkady Makarovich, this is why I summoned you, in order to explain . . . I wanted . . .” he was whispering quickly.

“It was you who denounced Vasin!” I cried.

“No, you see, there was this manuscript. Before the very last day, Vasin gave it to Liza . . . for safekeeping. And she left it here for me to look at, and then it so happened that they quarreled the next day . . .”

“You turned the manuscript over to the authorities!”

“Arkady Makarovich! Arkady Makarovich!”

“And so you,” I cried, jumping up and rapping out the words, “you, with no other motive, with no other purpose, but solely because the unfortunate Vasin is your rival, solely out of jealousy, you gave the manuscript entrusted to Liza. . . gave it to whom? To whom? To the prosecutor?”

But he didn’t have time to answer, and he hardly would have answered anything, because he stood before me like an idol, still with the same morbid smile and fixed gaze; but suddenly the door opened and Liza came in. She almost fainted, seeing us together.

“You here? So you are here?” she cried with a suddenly distorted face and seizing me by the hands. “So you . . . know?”

But she had already read in my face that I “knew.” I quickly and irrepressibly embraced her, tightly, tightly! And only at that moment did I grasp for the first time, in its full force, what hopeless, endless grief, with no dawn, lay forever over the whole destiny of this . . . voluntary seeker of suffering!

“But is it possible to speak with him now?” she suddenly tore herself away from me. “Is it possible to be with him? Why are you here? Look at him! Look! And is it possible, is it possible to judge him?”

Endless misery and commiseration were in her face as she exclaimed this, pointing to the unfortunate man. He was sitting in the armchair, covering his face with his hands. And she was right: this was a man in high delirium and irresponsible; and maybe for three days now he had already been irresponsible. That same morning he had been put in the hospital, and by evening he had come down with brain fever.

IV

FROM THE PRINCE, whom I left then with Liza, I went at around one o’clock to my former apartment. I forgot to mention that it was a damp, dull day, with the beginnings of a thaw and with a warm wind, capable of upsetting even an elephant’s nerves. The landlord met me rejoicing, hustling and bustling, something I terribly dislike precisely at such moments. I treated him drily and went straight to my room, but he followed me, and though he didn’t dare ask any questions, curiosity simply shone in his eyes, and at the same time he looked as if he even had some right to be curious. I had to treat him politely for my own good; but though it was all too necessary for me to find out a thing or two (and I knew I would), still I was loath to start asking questions. I inquired after his wife’s health, and we went to see her. She met me courteously, though with an extremely businesslike and taciturn air; this reconciled me a little. Briefly, this time I learned some quite wondrous things.