“Let us go, I will come with you.”
“Have you said good-bye?”
“Yes, my coat’s in the hall.”
We went out; on the stairs I was struck by an idea.
“Do you know, Liza, he may have come to make her an offer!”
“N-n-no . . . he won’t make her an offer . . .” she said firmly and deliberately, in a low voice.
“You don’t know, Liza, though I quarrelled with him this morning — since you’ve been told of it already — yet on my honour I really love him and wish him success. We made it up this morning. When we are happy we are so good-natured. . . . One sees in him many fine tendencies . . . and he has humane feelings too. . . . The rudiments anyway . . . and in the hands of such a strong and clever girl as Anna Andreyevna, he would rise to her level and be happy. I am sorry I’ve no time to spare . . . but let us go a little way together, I should like to tell you something. . . .”
“No, you go on, I’m not going that way. Are you coming to dinner?”
“I am coming, I am coming as I promised. Listen, Liza, a low brute, a loathsome creature in fact, called Stebelkov, has a strange influence over his doings . . . an IOU. . . . In short he has him in his power, and he has pressed him so hard, and Prince Sergay has humiliated himself so far that neither of them see any way out of it except an offer to Anna Andreyevna. And really she ought to be warned, though that’s nonsense; she will set it all to rights later. But what do you think, will she refuse him?”
“Good-bye, I am late,” Liza muttered, and in the momentary look on her face I saw such hatred that I cried out in horror:
“Liza, darling, what is it?”
“I am not angry with you; only don’t gamble. . . .”
“Oh, you are talking of that; I’m not going to.”
“You said just now: ‘when we are happy.’ Are you very happy then?”
“Awfully, Liza, awfully! Good heavens, why it’s past three o’clock! . . . Good-bye, Liza. Lizotchka darling, tell me: can one keep a woman waiting? Isn’t it inexcusable?”
“Waiting to meet you, do you mean?” said Liza faintly smiling, with a sort of lifeless, trembling smile.
“Give me your hand for luck.”
“For luck? my hand? I won’t, not for anything.”
She walked away quickly. And she had exclaimed it so earnestly! I jumped into my sledge.
Yes, yes, this was “happiness,” and it was the chief reason why I was as blind as a mole, and had no eyes or understanding, except for myself.
Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:22 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.
A Raw Youth, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chapter IV
1
Now I am really afraid to tell my story. It all happened long ago; and it is all like a mirage to me now. How could such a woman possibly have arranged a rendezvous with such a contemptible urchin as I was then? Yet so it seemed at first sight! When, leaving Liza, I raced along with my heart throbbing, I really thought that I had gone out of my mind: the idea that she had granted me this interview suddenly appeared to me such an obvious absurdity, that it was impossible for me to believe in it. And yet I had not the faintest doubt of it; the more obviously absurd it seemed, the more implicitly I believed in it.
The fact that it had already struck three troubled me: “If an interview has been granted me, how can I possibly be late for it,” I thought. Foolish questions crossed my mind, too, such as: “Which was my better course now, boldness or timidity?” But all this only flashed through my mind because I had something of real value in my heart, which I could not have defined. What had been said the evening before was this: “To-morrow at three o’clock I shall be at Tatyana Pavlovna’s,” that was all. But in the first place, she always received me alone in her own room, and she could have said anything she liked to me there, without going to Tatyana Pavlovna’s for the purpose; so why have appointed another place of meeting? And another question was: would Tatyana Pavlovna be at home or not? If it were a tryst then Tatyana Pavlovna would not be at home. And how could this have been arranged without telling Tatyana Pavlovna beforehand? Then was Tatyana Pavlovna in the secret? This idea seemed to me wild, and in a way indelicate, almost coarse.
And, in fact, she might simply have been going to see Tatyana Pavlovna, and have mentioned the fact to me the previous evening with no object in view, but I had misunderstood her. And, indeed, it had been said so casually, so quickly, and after a very tedious visit. I was for some reason overcome with stupidity the whole evening: I sat and mumbled, and did not know what to say, raged inwardly, and was horribly shy, and she was going out somewhere, as I learnt later, and was evidently relieved when I got up to go. All these reflections surged into my mind. I made up my mind at last that when I arrived I would ring the bell. “The cook will open the door,” I thought, “and I shall ask whether Tatyana Pavlovna is at home. If she is not then it’s a tryst.” But I had no doubt of it, no doubt of it!
I ran up the stairs and when I was at the door all my fears vanished. “Come what may,” I thought, “if only it’s quickly!” The cook opened the door and with revolting apathy snuffled out that Tatyana Pavlovna was not at home. “But isn’t there some one else? Isn’t there some one waiting for her?” I wanted to ask, but I did not ask, “I’d better see for myself,” and muttering to the cook that I would wait, I took off my fur coat and opened the door. . . .
Katerina Nikolaevna was sitting at the window “waiting for Tatyana Pavlovna.”
“Isn’t she at home?” she suddenly asked me, in a tone of anxiety and annoyance as soon as she saw me. And her face and her voice were so utterly incongruous with what I had expected that I came to a full stop in the doorway.
“Who’s not at home?” I muttered.
“Tatyana Pavlovna! Why, I asked you yesterday to tell her that I would be with her at three o’clock.”
“I . . . I have not seen her at all.”
“Did you forget?”
I sat completely overwhelmed. So this was all it meant! And the worst of it was it was all as clear as twice two makes four, and I— I had all this while persisted in believing it.
“I don’t remember your asking me to tell her. And in fact you didn’t ask me: you simply said you would be here at three o’clock,” I burst out impatiently, I did not look at her.
“Oh!” she cried suddenly; “but if you forgot to tell her, though you knew I should be here, what has brought you here?”
I raised my head; there was no trace of mockery or anger in her face, there was only her bright, gay smile, and a look more mischievous than usual. Though, indeed, her face always had an expression of almost childish mischief.
“There, you see I’ve caught you; well, what are you going to say now?” her whole face seemed to be saying.
I did not want to answer and looked down again. The silence lasted half a minute.
“Have you just come from papa?” she asked.
“I have come from Anna Andreyevna’s, I haven’t been to see Prince Nikolay Ivanitch at all . . . and you know that,” I added suddenly.
“Did anything happen to you at Anna Andreyevna’s?”
“You mean that I look as though I were crazy? But I looked crazy before I went to Anna Andreyevna.”
“And you didn’t recover your wits there?”
“No, I didn’t. And what’s more I heard that you were going to marry Baron Büring.”
“Did she tell you that?” she asked with sudden interest.
“No, it was I told her; I heard Nastchokin tell Prince Sergay so this morning.”
I still kept my eyes cast down and did not look at her; to look at her meant to be flooded with radiance, joy, and happiness, and I did not want to be happy. Indignation had stung me to the heart, and in one instant I had taken a tremendous resolution. Then I began to speak, I hardly knew what about. I was breathless, and spoke indistinctly, but I looked at her boldly. My heart was throbbing. I began talking of something quite irrelevant, though perhaps not incoherently. At first she listened with a serene, patient smile, which never left her face, but little by little signs of surprise and then of alarm passed over her countenance. The smile still persisted, but from time to time it seemed tremulous. “What’s the matter?” I asked her, noticing that she shuddered all over.