“And I will do my duty!” she concluded energetically.

She left. I’ll add, running ahead, that she herself went looking for Lambert; this was her last hope. On top of that, she visited her brother and her Fanariotov family; it’s clear what state of mind she must have come back in.

The prince woke up about an hour after she left. I heard him groan through the wall and ran to him at once. I found him sitting on his bed in a dressing gown, but so frightened by the solitude, by the light of the single lamp, and by the strange room, that when I came in he gave a start, jumped up, and cried out. I rushed to him, and when he made out that it was I, he began to embrace me with tears of joy.

“And they told me you had moved somewhere, to another apartment, that you got frightened and ran away.”

“Who could have told you that?”

“Who could? You see, I may have thought it up myself, or maybe someone told me. Imagine, I just had a dream: in comes an old man with a beard and with an icon, an icon that’s split in two, and he suddenly says, ‘That’s how your life will be split!’”

“Ah, my God, you must have heard from someone that Versilov broke an icon yesterday?”

“N’est-ce pas? I heard, I heard! I heard it this morning from Nastasya Egorovna. She moved my trunk and my little dog over here.”

“Well, and so you dreamed of it.”

“Well, it makes no difference. And imagine, this old man kept shaking his finger at me. Where is Anna Andreevna?”

“She’ll be back presently.”

“From where? Has she also gone?” he exclaimed with pain.

“No, no, she’ll be back presently, and she asked me to sit with you.”

“Oui, to come here. And so our Andrei Petrovich has gone off his head—‘so inadvertently and so swiftly!’⁴³ I always predicted to him that he’d end up that way. My friend, wait . . .”

He suddenly seized me by the frock coat with his hand and pulled me towards him.

“Today,” he began to whisper, “the landlord suddenly brought me photographs, vile photographs of women, all naked women in various Oriental guises, and began showing them to me through a glass . . . You see, I praised them reluctantly, but that’s just how they brought vile women to that unfortunate man, to make it easier to get him drunk . . .”

“You keep on about von Sohn, but enough, Prince! The landlord is a fool and nothing more!”

“A fool and nothing more! C’est mon opinion! ¹¹¹ My friend, save me from this place if you can!” he suddenly pressed his hands together before me.

“Prince, I’ll do everything I can! I’m all yours . . . Dear Prince, wait, and maybe I’ll settle everything!”

“N’est-cepas? We’ll up and run away, and we’ll leave the trunk for appearances, so that he’ll think we’re coming back.”

“Run away where? And Anna Andreevna?”

“No, no, together with Anna Andreevna . . . Oh, mon cher, I’ve got some sort of jumble in my head . . . Wait—there, in my bag, to the right, is Katya’s portrait; I put it there on the sly, so that Anna Andreevna and especially this Nastasya Egorovna wouldn’t notice. Take it out, for God’s sake, quickly, carefully, watch out that they don’t find us . . . Can’t we put the hook on the door?”

Indeed, I found in the bag a photographic portrait of Katerina Nikolaevna in an oval frame. He took it in his hands, brought it to the light, and tears suddenly poured down his gaunt yellow cheeks.

“C’est un ange, c’est un ange du ciel!”¹¹² he exclaimed. “All my life I’ve been guilty before her . . . and now, too! Chère enfant, I don’t believe anything, anything! My friend, tell me: well, is it possible to imagine that they want to put me in a madhouse? Je dis des choses charmantes et tout le monde rit ¹¹³ . . . and suddenly this man is taken to the madhouse?”

“That was never so!” I cried. “That is a mistake! I know her feelings!”

“And you also know her feelings? Why, that’s wonderful! My friend, you’ve resurrected me. What was all that they were telling me about you? My friend, invite Katya here, and let the two of them kiss each other before me, and I’ll take them home, and we’ll chase the landlord away!”

He stood up, pressed his hands together before me, and suddenly knelt before me.

“Cher,” he whispered, now in some sort of insane fear, all shaking like a leaf, “my friend, tell me the whole truth: where are they going to put me now?”

“God!” I cried, raising him up and sitting him on the bed, “you finally don’t believe me either; you think I’m also in the conspiracy? But I won’t let anyone here even lay a finger on you!”

“C’est ça, don’t let them,” he babbled, seizing me firmly by the elbows with both hands, and continuing to tremble. “Don’t let anybody! And don’t tell me any lies . . . because can it be that they’ll take me away from here? Listen, this landlord, Ippolit, or whoever he is, he’s not . . . a doctor?”

“What sort of doctor?”

“This . . . this isn’t a madhouse, I mean here, in this room?”

But at that moment the door suddenly opened and Anna Andreevna came in. She must have been eavesdropping by the door and, unable to help herself, opened it too abruptly—and the prince, who jumped at every creak, cried out and threw himself facedown on the pillow. He finally had some sort of fit, which resolved itself in sobbing.

“Here are the fruits of your work,” I said to her, pointing to the old man.

“No, these are the fruits of your work!” she raised her voice sharply. “I turn to you for the last time, Arkady Makarovich: do you want to reveal the infernal intrigue against the defenseless old man and sacrifice your ‘insane and childish amorous dreams’ in order to save your own sister?”

“I’ll save you all, but only in the way I told you before! I’m running off again; maybe in an hour Katerina Nikolaevna herself will be here! I’ll reconcile everybody, and everybody will be happy!” I exclaimed almost with inspiration.

“Bring her, bring her here,” the prince roused himself. “Take me to her! I want Katya, I want to see Katya and bless her!” he exclaimed, raising his arms and trying to get out of bed.

“You see,” I pointed at him to Anna Andreevna, “you hear what he says: now in any case no ‘document’ will help you.”

“I see, but it could still help to justify my action in the opinion of the world, while now—I’m disgraced! Enough; my conscience is clear. I’ve been abandoned by everyone, even my own brother, who is afraid of failure . . . But I will do my duty and stay by this unfortunate man as his nurse, his attendant!”

But there was no time to be lost, and I ran out of the room.

“I’ll come back in an hour, and I won’t come back alone!” I called out from the threshold.

Chapter Twelve

I

I FINALLY CAUGHT Tatyana Pavlovna! I explained everything to her at once—everything about the document, and everything, to the last shred, about what was happening in our apartment. Though she understood these events only too well herself and could have grasped the matter after two words, the explanation nevertheless took us, I think, about ten minutes. I alone spoke, I spoke the whole truth, and I wasn’t ashamed. She sat silent and motionless on her chair, drawn up straight as a poker, her lips pressed together, not taking her eyes off me, and listening with all her might. But when I finished, she suddenly jumped up from her chair, and so precipitously that I jumped up, too.

“Ah, you little cur! So you’ve really got that letter sewn in, and it was that fool Marya Ivanovna who did the sewing! Ah, you outrageous scoundrels! So you came here to conquer hearts, to win over high society, to take revenge on Devil Ivanovich because you’re an illegitimate son, is that what you wanted?”

“Tatyana Pavlovna,” I cried, “don’t you dare abuse me! It may be you, with your abuse, who from the very beginning were the cause of my bitterness here. Yes, I’m an illegitimate son, and maybe I did indeed want to take revenge for being an illegitimate son, and maybe indeed on some Devil Ivanovich, because the devil himself won’t find who’s to blame here; but remember that I rejected an alliance with the scoundrels and overcame my passions! I will silently place the document before her and leave without even waiting for a word from her; you yourself will be the witness!”