Текст книги "The Adolescent"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 45 страниц)
Versilov supposedly managed to instill into the young person, in his own way, subtly and irrefutably, that the reason why Katerina Nikolaevna would not consent was that she was in love with him herself and had long been tormenting him with her jealousy, pursuing him, intriguing, had already made him a declaration, and was now ready to burn him up for loving another woman—in short, something like that. The worst of it was that he supposedly also “hinted” it to the father, the husband of the “unfaithful” wife, explaining that the prince was only an amusement. Naturally, there began to be real hell in the family. According to some versions, Katerina Nikolaevna loved her stepdaughter terribly, and now, being slandered before her, was in despair, to say nothing of her relations with the sick husband. But then, next to that there exists another version, in which, to my sorrow, Kraft fully believed, and in which I also believed myself (I had already heard about all that). It was affirmed (Andronikov is said to have heard it from Katerina Nikolaevna herself ) that, on the contrary, Versilov, still earlier, before the beginning of the young girl’s feelings, had offered Katerina Nikolaevna his love; that she, being his friend, and even in exaltation over him for some time, though constantly disbelieving and contradicting him, met this declaration of Versilov’s with extreme hatred and mocked him venomously. She formally drove him away from her, because the man had proposed directly that she be his wife, in view of her husband’s supposedly impending second stroke. Thus Katerina Nikolaevna must have felt a particular hatred for Versilov when she saw afterwards that he was openly seeking her stepdaughter’s hand. Marya Ivanovna, conveying all this to me in Moscow, believed both the one variant and the other, that is, all of it together: she precisely affirmed that it could all occur at once, that it was something like la haine dans l’amour, 19an offended love’s pride on both sides, etc., etc., in short, something in the way of some most subtle novelistic entanglement, unworthy of any serious and sober-minded person, and with meanness to boot. But Marya Ivanovna herself had been stuffed with novels from childhood and read them day and night, despite her excellent character. As a result, Versilov’s obvious meanness was displayed, a lie and an intrigue, something black and vile, the more so in that the end was indeed tragic: they say the poor inflamed girl poisoned herself with phosphorus matches; however, I don’t know even now whether this last rumor was accurate; at least they tried their best to stifle it. The girl was sick for no more than two weeks and then died. The matches thus remained in doubt, but Kraft firmly believed in them as well. Soon after that, the girl’s father also died—of grief, they say, which caused a second stroke, though not before three months had passed. But after the girl’s funeral, the young Prince Sokolsky, having returned to Ems from Paris, gave Versilov a slap in the face publicly in the garden, and the latter did not respond with a challenge; on the contrary, the very next day he appeared at a promenade as if nothing had happened. It was then that everyone turned away from him, in Petersburg as well. Versilov, though he continued to have acquaintances, had them in a totally different circle. His society acquaintances all accused him, though, incidentally, very few of them knew all the details; they only knew something about the novelistic death of the young lady and about the slap. Only two or three persons had possibly full information; the late Andronikov, who had long had business connections with the Akhmakovs, and particularly with Katerina Nikolaevna on a certain matter, knew most of all. But he kept all these secrets even from his own family, and only revealed something to Kraft and Marya Ivanovna, and that out of necessity.
“Above all, there’s now a certain document involved,” Kraft concluded, “which Mme. Akhmakov is extremely afraid of.”
And here is what he told me about that as well.
Katerina Nikolaevna had had the imprudence, while the old prince, her father, was abroad and had already begun to recover from his fit, to write to Andronikov in great secret (Katerina Nikolaevna trusted him fully) an extremely compromising letter. At that time, they say, the recuperating prince indeed showed an inclination to spend his money and all but throw it to the winds: while abroad he started buying totally unnecessary but valuable objects, paintings, vases; gave and donated large sums to God knows what, even to various institutions there; he almost bought a ruined estate, encumbered with litigations, from a Russian society squanderer, sight unseen, for an enormous sum; finally, he seemed indeed to begin dreaming of marriage. And so, in view of all that, Katerina Nikolaevna, who never left her father’s side during his illness, sent to Andronikov, as a lawyer and an “old friend,” the inquiry, “Would it be possible legally to declare the prince under guardianship or somehow irresponsible; and if so, what would be the best way to do it without a scandal, so that no one could accuse anyone and her father’s feelings would be spared, etc., etc.” They say Andronikov brought her to reason then and advised against it; and afterwards, when the prince had fully recovered, it was no longer possible to go back to the idea; but the letter stayed with Andronikov. And now he dies. Katerina Nikolaevna remembered at once about the letter. If it should be discovered among the deceased’s papers and get into the hands of the old prince, he would undoubtedly throw her out for good, disinherit her, and not give her a kopeck while he lived. The thought that his own daughter had no faith in his reason, and even wanted to declare him mad, would turn this lamb into a savage beast. While she, having become a widow, was left without any means, thanks to her gambler husband, and had only her father to count on; she fully hoped to get a new dowry from him as rich as the first one!
Kraft knew very little about the fate of this letter, but he observed that Andronikov “never tore up necessary papers” and, besides, was a man not only of broad intelligence, but also of “broad conscience.” (I even marveled then at such an extraordinarily independent view on the part of Kraft, who had so loved and respected Andronikov.) But all the same Kraft was certain that the compromising document had fallen into the hands of Versilov, through his closeness to Andronikov’s widow and daughters. It was known that they had presented Versilov at once and dutifully with all the papers the deceased had left behind. He also knew that Katerina Nikolaevna was informed that Versilov had the letter, and that this was what she feared, thinking that Versilov would at once go to the old prince with the letter; that, having returned from abroad, she had already searched for the letter in Petersburg, had visited the Andronikovs, and was now continuing to search, since the hope still remained in her that the letter was perhaps not with Versilov, and, in conclusion, that she had also gone to Moscow solely with that aim and had pleaded with Marya Ivanovna there to look among the papers she had kept. She had found out about Marya Ivanovna’s existence and her relations with the late Andronikov quite recently, on returning to Petersburg.
“Do you think she didn’t find it at Marya Ivanovna’s?” I asked, having a thought of my own.
“If Marya Ivanovna didn’t reveal anything even to you, then maybe she doesn’t have anything.”
“So you suppose that Versilov has the document?”
“Most likely he does. However, I don’t know, anything is possible,” he said with visible fatigue.
I stopped questioning him. What was the point? All the main things had become clear to me, in spite of this unworthy tangle; everything I was afraid of—had been confirmed.
“That’s all like dreams and delirium,” I said in profound sorrow, and took my hat.
“Is this man very dear to you?” Kraft asked with visible and great sympathy, which I read on his face at that moment.
“I anticipated,” I said, “that I wouldn’t learn the full story from you anyway. Mme. Akhmakov is the one remaining hope. I did have hope in her. Maybe I’ll go to see her, and maybe not.”
Kraft looked at me in some perplexity.
“Good-bye, Kraft! Why foist yourself on people who don’t want you? Isn’t it better to break with it all—eh?”
“And then where?” he asked somehow sternly and looking down.
“To yourself, to yourself! Break with it all and go to yourself !”
“To America?”
“To America! To yourself, to yourself alone! That’s the whole of ‘my idea,’ Kraft!” I said ecstatically.
He looked at me somehow curiously.
“And you have this place: ‘to yourself ’?”
“I do. Good-bye, Kraft. I thank you, and I’m sorry to have troubled you! In your place, since you’ve got such a Russia in your head, I’d send everybody to the devil: away with you, scheme, squabble among yourselves—what is it to me!”
“Stay a while,” he said suddenly, having already seen me to the front door.
I was a little surprised, went back, and sat down again. Kraft sat down facing me. We exchanged smiles of some sort, I can see it all as if it were now. I remember very well that I somehow wondered at him.
“What I like about you, Kraft, is that you’re such a polite man,” I said suddenly.
“Oh?”
“It’s because I’m rarely able to be polite myself, though I’d like to be able . . . But then, maybe it’s better that people insult us. At least they deliver us from the misfortune of loving them.”
“What time of day do you like best?” he asked, obviously not listening.
“What time? I don’t know. I don’t like sunset.”
“Oh?” he said with a sort of special curiosity, but at once lapsed into thought again.
“Are you going somewhere again?”
“Yes . . . I am.”
“Soon?”
“Soon.”
“Do you really need a revolver to get to Vilno?” I asked without the least second thought: it didn’t even enter my thoughts! I just asked, because the revolver flashed there, and I was at pains to find something to talk about.
He turned and looked intently at the revolver.
“No, I just do it out of habit.”
“If I had a revolver, I’d have hidden it somewhere under lock and key. You know, by God, it’s tempting! Maybe I don’t believe in epidemics of suicides, but if that sticks up in front of your eyes—really, there are moments when it might be tempting.”
“Don’t speak of that,” he said, and suddenly got up from his chair.
“I don’t mean me,” I added, also getting up. “I wouldn’t use it. You could give me three lives—it would still be too little.”
“Live more,” as if escaped from him.
He smiled distractedly and, strangely, walked straight to the front hall, as if leading me out personally, naturally without knowing what he was doing.
“I wish you all luck, Kraft,” I said, going out to the stairs.
“That may be,” he replied firmly.
“See you later!”
“That also may be.”
I remember his last look at me.
III
SO THIS WAS the man after whom my heart had been throbbing for so many years! And what had I expected from Kraft, what new information?
When I left Kraft, I had a strong wish to eat; evening was already falling, and I had not had lunch. I went into a small tavern right there on the Petersburg side, on Bolshoi Prospect, intending to spend some twenty kopecks, twenty-five at the most—not for anything would I have allowed myself to spend more then. I ordered soup and, I remember, having finished it, I sat looking out the window. The room was full of people; there was a smell of burnt grease, tavern napkins, and tobacco. It was vile. Above my head, a voiceless nightingale, glum and brooding, tapped the bottom of its cage with its beak. The billiard room on the other side of the wall was noisy, but I sat and thought intensely. The setting sun (why was Kraft surprised that I didn’t like sunset?) inspired in me some new and unexpected sensations, quite out of place. I kept imagining my mother’s gentle look, her dear eyes that had gazed at me so timidly for a whole month now. Lately I had been very rude at home, mostly to her; I wished to be rude to Versilov, but, not daring with him, out of my mean habit, I tormented her. I even thoroughly intimidated her: she often looked at me with such imploring eyes, when Andrei Petrovich came in, fearing some outburst from me . . . It was very strange that now, in the tavern, I realized for the first time that Versilov addressed me familiarly, and she—formally. I had wondered about it before, and not favorably for her, but here I realized it somehow particularly—and all sorts of strange thoughts came pouring into my head one after another. I went on sitting there for a long time, till it was completely dark. I also thought about my sister . . .
A fateful moment for me. I had to decide at all costs! Can it be that I’m incapable of deciding? What’s so hard about breaking with them, if on top of it they don’t want me themselves? My mother and my sister? But I won’t leave them in any case—whatever turn things take.
It’s true that the appearance of this man in my life, that is, for a moment, in early childhood, was the fateful push with which my consciousness began. If he hadn’t come my way then, my mind, my way of thinking, my fate, would surely have been different, even despite the character fate determined for me, which I couldn’t have escaped anyway.
But it now turned out that this man was only my dream, my dream since childhood. I had thought him up that way, but in fact he turned out to be a different man, who fell far below my fantasy. I had come to a pure man, not to this one. And why had I fallen in love with him, once and for all, in that little moment when I saw him while still a child? This “for all” had to go. Someday, if I find room, I’ll describe our first meeting: it’s a most empty anecdote, from which precisely nothing could come. But for me a whole pyramid came from it. I began on that pyramid while still under my child’s blanket, when, as I was falling asleep, I would weep and dream—about what?—I myself don’t know. About being abandoned? About being tormented? But I was tormented only a little, for just two years, while I was at Touchard’s boarding school, where he tucked me away then and left forever. After that nobody tormented me; even the contrary, I myself looked proudly at my comrades. And I can’t stand this orphanhood whining about itself! There’s no more loathsome role than when orphans, illegitimate children, all these cast-offs, and generally all this trash, for whom I have not the slightest drop of pity, suddenly rise up solemnly before the public and start their pitiful but admonitory whining: “Look at how we’ve been treated!” I’d thrash all these orphans. Not one of all that vile officialdom understands that it’s ten times nobler for him to keep silent, and not to whine, and not deignto complain. And since you’ve started to deign, it serves you right, love-child. That’s what I think!
But what is ridiculous is not that I used to dream “under the blanket,” but that I came here for him, once again for this thought-up man, all but forgetting my main goals. I was coming to help him to smash slander, to crush his enemies. The document Kraft spoke of, that woman’s letter to Andronikov, which she is so afraid of, which can smash her life and reduce her to poverty, and which she supposes to be in Versilov’s possession—this letter was not in Versilov’s possession, but in mine, sewn into my side pocket! I had sewn it myself, and no one in the whole world knew of it yet. That the novelistic Marya Ivanovna, who “had charge” of the document, found it necessary to turn it over to me and no one else, was merely her view and her will, and I’m not obliged to explain it; maybe someday I’ll tell about it by the way; but, being so unexpectedly armed, I could not but be tempted by the wish to come to Petersburg. Of course, I proposed to help this man not otherwise than secretly, without showing off or getting excited, without expecting either his praise or his embraces. And never, never would I deignto reproach him with anything! And was it his fault that I had fallen in love with him and made him into a fantastic ideal? Maybe I didn’t even love him at all! His original mind, his curious character, his intrigues and adventures of some sort, and the fact that my mother was with him—all this, I thought, could not stop me now; it was enough that my fantastic doll was smashed and that I could perhaps not love him anymore. And so, what was stopping me, what was I stuck on? That was the question. The upshot of it all was that I was the only stupid one, and nobody else.
But, since I demand honesty of others, I’ll be honest myself: I must confess that the document sewn into my pocket did not only arouse in me a passionate desire to fly to Versilov’s aid. That is all too clear to me now, though even then I already blushed at the thought. I kept imagining a woman, a proud high-society being, whom I would meet face to face; she would despise me, laugh at me as at a mouse, not even suspecting that I was the master of her fate. This thought intoxicated me still in Moscow, and especially on the train as I was coming here; I’ve already confessed that above. Yes, I hated this woman, yet I already loved her as my victim, and this is all true, this was all actually so. But it was all such childishness as I hadn’t expected even from someone like myself. I’m describing my feelings at that time, that is, what went through my head as I sat in the tavern under the nightingale and decided to break with them ineluctably that same evening. The thought of today’s meeting with this woman suddenly brought a flush of shame to my face. A disgraceful meeting! A disgraceful and stupid little impression and—above all—the strongest proof of my inability to act! It proved simply, as I thought then, that I was unable to hold out even before the stupidest enticements, whereas I had just told Kraft that I had “my own place,” my own business, and that if I had three lives, even that would be too little for me. I had said it proudly. That I had dropped my idea and gotten drawn into Versilov’s affairs—that could still be excused in some way; but that I rush from side to side like a startled hare and get drawn into every trifle, that, of course, was only my own stupidity. What the deuce pushed me to go to Dergachev’s and pop up with my stupid talk, if I had long known that I’m unable to tell anything intelligently and sensibly, and that the most advantageous thing for me is to be silent? And then some Vasin brings me to reason by saying that I still have “fifty years of life ahead of me, and so there’s nothing to be upset about.” His objection is splendid, I agree, and does credit to his indisputable intelligence; it’s splendid already in that it’s the simplest, and what is simplest is always understood only in the end, once everything cleverer or stupider has been tried; but I knew this objection myself even before Vasin; I had deeply sensed this thought more than three years ago; moreover, “my idea” partly consists in it. That’s what I was thinking about in the tavern then.
I felt vile when I reached the Semyonovsky quarter that evening, between seven and eight, weary from walking and thinking. It was already quite dark, and the weather changed; it was dry, but a nasty Petersburg wind sprang up at my back, biting and sharp, and blew dust and sand around. So many sullen faces of simple folk, hurrying back to their corners from work and trade! Each had his own sullen care on his face, and there was perhaps not a single common, all-uniting thought in that crowd! Kraft was right: everybody’s apart. I met a little boy, so little that it was strange that he could be alone in the street at such an hour; he seemed to have lost his way; a woman stopped for a moment to listen to him, but understood nothing, spread her arms, and went on, leaving him alone in the darkness. I went over to him, but for some reason he suddenly became frightened of me and ran off. Nearing the house, I decided that I would never go to see Vasin. As I went up the stairs, I wanted terribly to find them at home alone, without Versilov, to have time before he came to say something kind to my mother or my dear sister, to whom I had hardly addressed a single special word for the whole month. It so happened that he was not at home . . .
IV
AND BY THE WAY: bringing this “new character” on stage in my “Notes” (I’m speaking of Versilov), I’ll give a brief account of his service record, which, incidentally, is of no significance. I do it to make things clearer for the reader, and because I don’t see where I might stick this record in further on in the story.
He studied at the university, but went into the guards, into a cavalry regiment. He married Miss Fanariotov and resigned. He went abroad and, returning, lived in Moscow amidst worldly pleasures. On his wife’s death, he came to his country estate; here occurred the episode with my mother. Then for a long time he lived somewhere in the south. During the war with Europe, 20he again went into military service, but did not get to the Crimea and never saw action all that while. When the war ended, he resigned, went abroad, and even took my mother, whom, however, he left in Königsberg. The poor woman occasionally told with a sort of horror and shaking her head of how she had lived for a whole six months then, alone as could be, with a little daughter, not knowing the language, as if in a forest, and in the end also without any money. Then Tatyana Pavlovna came to fetch her and took her back to somewhere in Nizhny-Novgorod province. Later Versilov joined the arbiters of the peace at the first call-up, 21and they say he performed his duties splendidly; but he soon quit and in Petersburg began to occupy himself with conducting various private civil suits. Andronikov always thought highly of his capacities, respected him very much, and said only that he didn’t understand his character. Later he also dropped that and went abroad again, this time for a long period, for several years. Then began his especially close connections with old Prince Sokolsky. During all this time his financial means underwent two or three radical changes: first he fell into poverty, then he suddenly got rich and rose again.
But anyhow, now that I’ve brought my notes precisely to this point, I’ve decided to tell about “my idea” as well. I’ll describe it in words for the first time since its conception. I’ve decided to, so to speak, disclose it to the reader, also for the clarity of the further account. And not only the reader, but I myself am beginning to get entangled in the difficulty of explaining my steps without explaining what led me and prompted me to them. Because of this “figure of omission,” I, in my lack of skill, have fallen back into those novelistic “beauties” that I myself derided above. On entering the door of my Petersburg novel, with all my disgraceful adventures in it, I find this preface necessary. But it was not “beauties” that tempted me to omission up to now, but also the essence of the matter, that is, the difficulty of the matter; even now, when all the past has already passed, I feel an insurmountable difficulty in telling about this “thought.” Besides that, I undoubtedly should explain it in the form it had then, that is, in the way it took shape and conceived itself in me at that time, and not now, and that is a new difficulty. It’s almost impossible to tell about certain things. Precisely those ideas that are the simplest, the clearest—precisely those are also hard to understand. If Columbus, before the discovery of America, had started telling his idea to others, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been understood for a terribly long time. And in fact he wasn’t. In saying this, I have no thought of equating myself with Columbus, and if anybody concludes that, he should be ashamed, that’s all.
Chapter Five
I
MY IDEA IS—to become Rothschild. I invite the reader to calmness and seriousness.
I repeat: my idea is to become Rothschild, to become as rich as Rothschild; not simply rich, but precisely like Rothschild. Why, what for, precisely what goals I pursue—of that I shall speak later. First, I shall merely prove that the achievement of my goal is mathematically assured.
The matter is very simple, the whole secret lies in two words: persistenceand continuity.
“We’ve heard all that,” I’ll be told, “it’s nothing new. Every Vater in Germany repeats it to his children, and yet your Rothschild” (that is, the late James Rothschild, the Parisian, he’s the one I’m speaking of ) “was only one, while there are millions of Vaters.”
I would answer:
“You assure me that you’ve heard it all, and yet you haven’t heard anything. True, you’re also right about one thing: if I said that this was a ‘very simple’ matter, I forgot to add that it’s also the most difficult. All the religions and moralities in the world come down to one thing: ‘We must love virtue and flee from vice.’ What, it seems, could be simpler? So go and do something virtuous and flee from at least one of your vices, give it a try—eh? It’s the same here.”
That’s why your countless Vaters in the course of countless ages can repeat these two astonishing words, which make up the whole secret, and yet Rothschild remains alone. Which means it’s the same and not the same, and the Vatersare repeating quite a different thought.
No doubt they, too, have heard about persistence and continuity; but to achieve my goal, it’s not Vater persistence and Vater continuity that are needed.
Already this one word, that he’s a Vater—I’m not speaking only of Germans—that he has a family, that he lives like everybody else, has expenses like everybody else, has duties like everybody else—here you don’t become Rothschild, but remain only a moderate man. I understand all too clearly that, having become Rothschild, or even only wishing to become him, not in a Vater-like way, but seriously—I thereby at once step outside of society.
A few years ago I read in the newspapers that on the Volga, on one of the steamboats, a certain beggar died, who had gone about in tatters, begging for alms, and was known to everybody there. After his death, they found as much as three thousand in banknotes sewn into his rags. The other day I again read about a certain beggar, from the nobility, who went around the taverns hat in hand. They arrested him and found as much as five thousand roubles on him. Two conclusions follow directly from this: first, persistencein accumulating, even by kopecks, produces enormous results later on (time means nothing here); and, second, that the most unsophisticated but continuousform of gain mathematically assures success.
And yet there are people, perhaps quite a few of them, who are respectable, intelligent, and restrained, but who (no matter how they try) do not have either three or five thousand, but who nevertheless want terribly much to have it. Why is that so? The answer is clear: because, despite all their wanting, not one of them wantsto such a degree, for instance, as to become a beggar, if there’s no other way of getting money; or is persistent to such a degree, even having become a beggar, as not to spend the very first kopecks he gets on an extra crust for himself or his family. And yet, with this method of accumulation, that is, with begging, one has to eat nothing but bread and salt in order to save so much money; at least that’s my understanding. That is surely what the two above-mentioned beggars did, that is, ate nothing but bread and lived all but under the open sky. There is no doubt that they had no intention of becoming Rothschild: these were Harpagons or Plyushkins 22in the purest form, nothing more; but conscious money-making in a completely different form, and with the goal of becoming Rothschild, will call for no less wanting and strength of will than with these two beggars. A Vaterwon’t show such strength. There is a great diversity of strengths in the world, strengths of will and wanting especially. There is the temperature of boiling water, and there is the temperature of red-hot iron.
Here it’s the same as a monastery, the same ascetic endeavor. Here’s it’s a feeling, not an idea. What for? Why? Is it moral, and is it not ugly, to go about in sackcloth and eat black bread all your life, while carrying such huge money on you? These questions are for later, but now I’m only talking about the possibility of achieving the goal.
When I thought up “my idea” (and it consists of red-hot iron), I began testing myself: am I capable of the monastery and asceticism? To that end I spent the whole first month eating nothing but bread and water. It came to no more than two and a half pounds of black bread a day. To carry it out, I had to deceive the clever Nikolai Semyonovich and the well-wishing Marya Ivanovna. I insisted, to her distress and to a certain perplexity in the most delicate Nikolai Semyonovich, that dinner be brought to my room. There I simply destroyed it: the soup I poured out the window into the nettles or a certain other place, the beef I either threw out the window to the dog, or wrapped in paper, put in my pocket, and took out later, well, and all the rest. Since they served much less than two and a half pounds of bread for dinner, I bought myself more bread on the sly. I held out for that month, only I may have upset my stomach somewhat; but the next month I added soup to the bread, and drank a glass of tea in the morning and evening—and, I assure you, I spent a whole year that way in perfect health and contentment, and morally—in rapture and continuous secret delight. Not only did I not regret the meals, I was in ecstasy. By the end of the year, having made sure that I was able to endure any fast you like, I began to eat as they did and went back to having dinner with them. Not satisfied with this test, I made a second one: apart from my upkeep, which was paid to Nikolai Semyonovich, I was allocated a monthly sum of five roubles for pocket money. I decided to spend only half of it. This was a very hard test, but in a little over two years, when I came to Petersburg, I had in my pocket, apart from other money, seventy roubles saved up solely by this economy. The result of these two experiments was tremendous for me: I learned positively that I was able to want enough to achieve my goal, and that, I repeat, is the whole of “my idea.” The rest is all trifles.
