“I don’t understand this schoolboyish conversation, Lambert, and I’m ashamed of it. You are saying this to irritate me, and as crudely and as openly as though I were a boy of sixteen. You’ve been plotting with Anna Andreyevna!” I cried, trembling with anger, and still mechanically sipping my wine.
“Anna Andreyevna’s a sly jade! She’s humbugging you and me and all the world! I have been waiting for you, because you can best finish off with that woman.”
“With what woman?”
“With Madame Ahmakov. I know all about it. You told me yourself that she is afraid of that letter you’ve got . . .”
“What letter . . . you’re talking nonsense. . . . Have you seen her?” I muttered in confusion.
“Yes, I saw her. She’s beautiful. Très belle; and you’ve taste.”
“I know you’ve seen her but you did not dare speak to her, and I wish you did not dare to speak of her either.”
“You’re a boy, and she laughs at you — so there! We had a virtuous lady like that in Moscow. Ough, didn’t she turn up her nose! but she began to tremble when we threatened that we would tell all we knew and she knuckled under directly; and we got all we wanted both ways, money, and — you understand? Now she’s virtue unapproachable again in society — foo! my word, isn’t she high and mighty, and hasn’t she got a turn-out. Ah, you should have seen that little back room it happened in! You’ve not lived; if only you knew the little back rooms they don’t shrink from . . .”
“I’ve thought that,” I could not help muttering.
“They’re corrupt to their very finger-tips; you don’t know what they’re capable of! Alphonsine lived in a house like that, and she was disgusted.”
“I have thought of that,” I chimed in again.
“But they beat you, and you complain . . .”
“Lambert, you’re a blackguard, you’re a damned beast!” I cried, suddenly pulling myself together and beginning to tremble. “I have dreamed all this, you were in it and Anna Andreyevna. . . . Oh, you damned brute! Did you really think I was such a scoundrel? I dreamed it because I knew that you would say this. And besides, all this can’t be so simple that you can talk to me about it so simply and directly.”
“He is in a rage, tut, tut, tut!” Lambert drawled, laughing and triumphant. “Well, Arkasha, my boy, now I’ve found out all I wanted to know. That’s why I was so eager to see you. Listen, you love her I see, and want to revenge yourself on Büring. That’s what I wanted to find out. I’ve been suspecting it all this time while I’ve been waiting to see you. Ceci posé, celà change la question. And so much the better, for she loves you too. So you must marry her without a moment’s delay, that’s the best thing; you can’t do anything else, that’s your safest position. And then remember, Arkady, that you have a friend in me of whom you can make any use you like. And that friend will help you, and will marry you: I’ll move heaven and earth, Arkasha! And you can give your old friend thirty thousand for his trouble afterwards, eh? And I’ll help you, don’t doubt that. I know all the ins and outs of the business, and they shall give you the whole dowry, and you’ll be a wealthy man with a career before you!”
Though my head was in a whirl I looked at Lambert with wonder. He was in earnest, and not merely in earnest in what he said, but in believing in the possibility of my marrying; I could see that he thoroughly believed in it himself, and, in fact, caught at the idea with enthusiasm. I saw, of course, too, that he was entrapping me like a schoolboy (I certainly must have seen it even then); but the thought of marrying her so thrilled me that though I wondered how Lambert could believe in such a fantastic notion, yet, at the same time I tried violently to believe in it myself, though I did not for an instant lose consciousness of the fact that it could not possibly come to pass. All this was mingled together at the same time.
“But is it possible?” I faltered.
“Why not? you will show her the letter, she’ll be frightened and marry you to keep her money.”
I made up my mind not to stop Lambert in his vile suggestions, for he disclosed them to me with such simplicity and did not suspect that I might be revolted by them; I did mutter, however, that I should not like to marry her simply by force.
“I don’t want to use force for anything; how can you be so base as to think me capable of it!”
“Hoity-toity! Why, she’ll marry you of her own accord: it won’t be your doing, she’ll be frightened and marry you herself, and she’ll marry you because she loves you, too,” Lambert put in hastily.
“That’s a lie; you’re laughing at me. How do you know she loves me?”
“Of course she does. I know it. And Anna Andreyevna assumes it. It’s the truth in earnest. I’m telling you that Anna Andreyevna assumes it. And I’ll tell you something else when you come to me, and you’ll see that she does love you. Alphonsine has been at Tsarskoe; she found out there . . .”
“What could she find out there?”
“You come back with me; she’ll tell you herself, and it will please you. Why, aren’t you as good as anybody, you are handsome, you are well educated.”
“Yes, I am well educated,” I answered, hardly able to breathe; my heart was thumping and, of course, not only from the wine.
“You are handsome, you are well dressed.”
“Yes, I’m well dressed.”
“And you are good-natured. . . .”
“Yes, I’m good-natured.”
“Why shouldn’t she consent? Büring won’t take her without money anyway, and you can deprive her of her money — so she’ll be in a fright: you’ll marry her and punish Büring. Why, you told me yourself that night after you were frozen that she was in love with you.”
“Can I have told you that? I’m sure I did not tell you that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I was delirious when I said that. I suppose I told you of the letter too?”
“Yes, you told me you had such a letter; I thought at the time: how can he let slip his luck if he has such a letter?”
“It’s all a mad idea, and I’m not so stupid as to believe it,” I muttered; “to begin with there’s a difference in our ages, and besides I’ve no surname.”
“But she’ll marry you though; she can’t help marrying you when it’s a question of so much money — I’ll arrange that. And, what’s more, she loves you. You know that old prince is very well disposed to you; through his protection, you know, you can form connections; and what does it matter if you have no name, nowadays nothing of that’s necessary: once you pocket the money you’ll get on and get on, and in ten years’ time you will be such a millionaire that all Russia will resound with your fame, so you won’t need a name then. Why, you can buy a title in Austria. And when you get married, keep her well in hand. They want a firm hand. If a woman’s in love, she likes to feel a man’s got a tight grip on her. Women like will in a man. When you frighten her with the letter, from that hour you will show her you have strength of will. ‘Ah,’ she’ll say ‘he’s so young, and yet he has will.’”
I sat, as it were, spell-bound. I should never with anyone else have sunk to such an idiotic conversation. But in this case a sort of voluptuous craving drew me on to continue it. Besides, Lambert was so stupid and so low that no one could feel ashamed of anything before him.
“No, do you know, Lambert,” I said suddenly: “you may say what you like, but a great deal of this is absurd; I have been talking to you because we were schoolfellows, and we need not be ashamed of saying anything to one another; but I would not have demeaned myself to it with anyone else for any consideration. And, first of all, tell me why you keep repeating so positively that she’s in love with me? That was quite good what you said just now about having capital; but you see, Lambert, you don’t know anything of good society: all this is still with them on the most patriarchal, family system, so to say, and, therefore, as so far she does not know my abilities and what a position I may achieve in the world, she’ll be ashamed of me. But I won’t conceal from you, Lambert, that there really is one point that might give one hope. You see: she might marry me from gratitude, because I might save her from a man she hates. And she is afraid of that man.”