It was all raving. Who could understand any of it? Once again I showered him with questions: had Blum come alone or not? on whose behalf? by what right? how dared he? did he explain?
"Il était seul, bien seul,[cx] though there was someone else dans l'anti-chambre, oui, je m'en souviens, et puis[cxi]. . . Though there did seem to be someone else, and a guard was standing in the entryway. We must ask Nastasya; she knows it all better. J'étais surexcité, voyez-vous. Il parlait, il parlait. . . un tas de choses;[cxii] though he talked very little, it was I who kept talking ... I told him my life, from that point of view only, of course... J'étais surexcité, mais digne, je vous l'assure.[cxiii] I'm afraid, though, that I seem to have wept. The wheelbarrow they got from a shopkeeper next door."
"Oh, God, how could all this have happened! But, for God's sake, speak more precisely. Stepan Trofimovich, this is a dream, what you're telling me!"
"Cher, I'm as if in a dream myself... Savez-vous, il a prononcé le nom de Teliatnikoff,[cxiv] and I think it was he who was hiding in the entry-way. Yes, I recall he suggested the prosecutor, and it seems Dmitri Mitrych... qui me doit encore quinze roubles de pinochle soit dit en passant. Enfin, je n 'ai pas trop compris.[cxv]But I outwitted them, and what do I care about Dmitri Mitrych. I think I even started begging him very much to conceal, begging him very much, very much, I'm even afraid I humiliated myself, comment croyez-vous? Enfin, il a consenti.[cxvi]Yes, I recall it was he himself who asked that it would be better if it were concealed, because he only came 'to have a glance,' et rien de plus,[cxvii] and nothing more, nothing ... and that if they found nothing, then there'd be nothing. So that we ended it all en amis, je suis tout-à-fait content,"[cxviii]
"But, for pity's sake, he was offering you guarantees and the order proper in such cases, and you yourself refused!" I cried in friendly indignation.
"No, it's better this way, without any guarantees. And who needs a scandal? Let it be en amis for the time being... You know, in this town, if they find out... mes ennemis... et puis à quoi bon ce procureur, ce cochon de notre procureur, qui deux fois m 'a manqué de politesse et qu'on a rossé à plaisir l'autre année chez cette charmante et belle Natalia Pavlovna, quand il se cacha dans son boudoir. Et puis, mon ami,[cxix] don't contradict me, or discourage, I beg you, because nothing is more unbearable when a man is unhappy than for a hundred friends to come right then and point out to him how stupid he's been. Sit down, anyway, and have some tea, I confess I'm very tired... oughtn't I to lie down and put some vinegar to my head, what do you think?"
"Absolutely," I cried out, "and maybe even ice. You're very upset. You're pale, your hands are trembling. Lie down, rest, and wait to tell me. I'll sit here and wait."
He could not get himself to lie down, but I insisted. Nastasya brought vinegar in a bowl, I wetted a towel and put it to his head. Then Nastasya climbed on a chair and set about lighting an icon lamp in front of the icon in the corner. I noticed it with surprise; besides, there had never even been any icon lamp, and now one had suddenly appeared.
"It was I who ordered it today, just after they left," Stepan Trofimovich muttered, glancing slyly at me. "Quand on a de ces choses-là dans sa chambre et qu 'on vient vous arrêter,[cxx]it makes an impression, and they really must report that they've seen..."
Having finished with the icon lamp, Nastasya planted herself in the doorway, put her right hand to her cheek, and began looking at him with a lamentable air.
"Éloignez-la[cxxi]under some pretext," he beckoned to me from the sofa, "I can't stand this Russian pity, et puis ça m'embête,"[cxxii]
But she left on her own. I noticed that he kept glancing back at the door and listening towards the entryway.
"Il faut être prêt, voyez-vous," he gave me a significant look, "chaque moment[cxxiii] ... they'll come, take, and ffft!—a man disappears!"
"Lord! Who will come? Who will take you?"
"Voyez-vous, mon cher, I asked him directly as he was leaving: What will they do to me now?"
"You might as well have asked where they'll exile you to!" I cried out in the same indignation.
"That's what I implied when I asked the question, but he left without answering. Voyez-vous, as regards underwear, clothing, warm clothing especially, that's up to them, if they tell me to take it, well and good, or else they may send me in a soldier's greatcoat. But thirty-five roubles" (here he suddenly lowered his voice, glancing back at the door through which Nastasya had left), "I've quietly slipped through a tear in my waistcoat pocket—here, feel it... I think they won't take my waistcoat off, and I left seven roubles in my purse, to pretend 'this is all I have.' You know, there's some change and a few coppers on the table, so they won't guess where I've hidden the money, and they'll think this is all. For God knows where I shall have to spend this night."
I hung my head at such madness. Obviously, it was not possible to make an arrest or a search in the way he was saying, and he was most certainly confused. True, it all happened in those days, before the present latest laws. True, too, he had been offered (according to his own words) a more regular procedure, but had outwitted them and refused ... Of course, before—that is, still quite recently—a governor could, in extreme cases ... But, again, what sort of extreme case could this be? That was what baffled me.
"Most likely there was a telegram from Petersburg," Stepan Trofimovich suddenly said.
"A telegram? About you? You mean on account of Herzen's writings and your poem? You're out of your mind, what's there to arrest you for?"
I simply got angry. He made a face and was apparently offended— not at my yelling at him, but at the thought that there was nothing to arrest him for.
"Who can tell these days what he might be arrested for?" he muttered mysteriously. A wild and most absurd idea flashed through my mind.
"Stepan Trofimovich, tell me as a friend," I cried out, "as a true friend, I won't betray you: do you belong to some secret society, or do you not?"
And now, to my surprise, even here he was not certain whether he was or was not a participant in some secret society.
"But that depends, voyez-vous ..."
"How does it 'depend'?"
"When one belongs wholeheartedly to progress, and... who can vouch for it: you think you don't belong, and then, lo and behold, it turns out you do belong to something."
"How can that be? It's either yes or no."
"Cela date de Pétersbourg,[cxxiv] when she and I wanted to found a magazine there. That's the root of it. We slipped away then and they forgot us, but now they've remembered. Cher, cher, but don't you know!" he exclaimed painfully. "In our country they can take you, put you in a kibitka, and march you off to Siberia for good, or else forget you in some dungeon ..."
And he suddenly burst into hot, hot tears. Tears simply poured out of him. He covered his eyes with his red foulard and sobbed, sobbed for a good five minutes, convulsively. I cringed all over. This was the man who for twenty years had been prophesying to us, our preacher, mentor, patriarch, Kukolnik, holding himself so loftily and majestically over us all, before whom we bowed so wholeheartedly, considering it an honor—and now suddenly he was sobbing, sobbing like a naughty little boy waiting for a birching from the teacher who has just gone to fetch the rod. I felt terribly sorry for him. He obviously believed as much in the "kibitka" as in the fact that I was sitting beside him, and expected it precisely that morning, that very minute, and all because of Herzen's writings and some sort of poem of his own! Such full, such total ignorance of everyday reality was both moving and somehow disgusting.