“Come along,” said Kraft, touching me.
I went up to Dergatchev, pressed his hand and shook it vigorously several times.
“You must excuse Kudryumov’s being so rude to you” (Kudryumov was the red-haired man), said Dergatchev.
I followed Kraft out. I was not in the least ashamed.
6
There is of course an immense difference between what I am now and what I was then.
Still “not in the least ashamed” I overtook Vassin on the stairs, leaving Kraft behind as of secondary importance, and with the most natural air as though nothing had happened I asked:
“I believe you know my father, I mean Versilov.”
“He’s not exactly an acquaintance of mine,” Vassin answered at once (and without a trace of that insulting refinement of politeness which delicate people adopt when they speak to people who have just disgraced themselves), “but I do know him a little; I have met him and I’ve heard him talk.”
“If you’ve heard him no doubt you do know him, for you are you! What do you think of him? Forgive the abrupt question but I need to know. It’s what YOU would think, just your opinion that I need.”
“You are asking a great deal of me. I believe that man is capable of setting himself tremendous tasks and possibly carrying them through — but without rendering an account of his doings to anyone.”
“That’s true, that’s very true — he’s a very proud man! Is he a sincere man? Tell me, what do you think about his being a Catholic? But I forgot, perhaps you don’t know?”
If I had not been so excited I should not, of course, have fired off such questions so irrelevantly at a man of whom I had heard but whom I had never seen before. I was surprised that Vassin did not seem to notice how rude I was.
“I heard something about it, but I don’t know how far it may be true,” he answered in the same calm and even tone as before.
“Not a bit! It’s false! Do you suppose he can believe in God?”
“He — is a very proud man, as you said just now, and many very proud people like to believe in God, especially those who despise other people. Many strong natures seem to have a sort of natural craving to find some one or something to which they can do homage. Strong natures often find it very difficult to bear the burden of their strength.”
“Do you know that must be awfully true,” I cried again. “Only I should like to understand . . .”
“The reason is obvious. They turn to God to avoid doing homage to men, of course without recognizing how it comes about in them; to do homage to God is not so humiliating. They become the most fervent of believers — or to be more accurate the most fervently desirous of believing; but they take this desire for belief itself. These are the people who most frequently become disillusioned in the end. As for Monsieur Versilov, I imagine that he has some extremely sincere characteristics. And altogether he interested me.”
“Vassin!” I cried, “you rejoice my heart! It’s not your intelligence I wonder at; I am astonished that you, a man of such a lofty nature and so far above me, can walk with me and talk to me as simply and courteously as though nothing had happened!”
Vassin smiled.
“You are too flattering, and all that has happened is that you have shown a weakness for abstract conversation. You have probably been through a long period of silence.”
“For three years I have been silent; for three years I have been preparing to speak . . . You couldn’t of course have thought me a fool, you’re so extraordinarily clever, though no one could have behaved more stupidly; but you must have thought me a scoundrel.”
“A scoundrel!”
“Yes, certainly! Tell me, don’t you secretly despise me for saying I was Versilov’s illegitimate son. . . . Boasting I was the son of a serf?”
“You worry yourself too much. If you think you did wrong in saying so you’ve only to avoid saying it again. You have fifty years before you.”
“Oh, I know that I ought to be very silent with other people. This throwing oneself on people’s necks is the lowest of all vices; I told them so just now, and here I am doing it to you! But there is a difference, isn’t there? If you realize that difference, if you are capable of realizing it, then I bless this moment!”
Vassin smiled again.
“Come and see me if you care to,” he said. “I have work now and am busy, but I shall be pleased to see you.”
“I thought from your face just now that you were too hard and uncommunicative.”
“That may very well be true. I saw something of your sister Lizaveta Makarovna at Luga, last year. . . . Kraft has stopped and I believe is waiting for you. He has to turn here.”
I pressed Vassin’s hand warmly, and ran up to Kraft, who had walked on ahead all the while I talked to Vassin. We walked in silence to his lodgings. I could not speak to him and did not want to. One of the strongest traits in Kraft’s character was delicacy.
Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:21 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.
A Raw Youth, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chapter IV
1
Kraft had been somewhere in the service, and at the same time had been a paid assistant of Andronikov’s in the management of the private business which the deceased gentleman had always carried on in addition to his official duties. What mattered to me was, that from his close association with Andronikov, Kraft might well know a great deal of what interested me. But Marie Ivanovna, the wife of Nikolay Semyonovitch, with whom I had boarded so many years while I was at the grammar school in Moscow, was a favourite niece of Andronikov and was brought up by him, and from her I learnt that Kraft had actually been “commissioned” to give me something. I had been expecting him for a whole month.
He lived in a little flat of two rooms quite apart from the rest of the house, and at the moment, having only just returned, he had no servant. His trunk stood open, not yet unpacked. His belongings lay about on the chairs, and were spread out on the table in front of the sofa: his travelling bag, his cashbox, his revolver and so on. As we went in, Kraft seemed lost in thought, as though he had altogether forgotten me. He had perhaps not noticed that I had not spoken to him on the way. He began looking for something at once, but happening to catch a glimpse of himself in the looking-glass he stood still for a full minute gazing at his own face. Though I noticed this peculiar action, and recalled it all afterwards, I was depressed and disturbed. I was not feeling equal to concentrating my mind. For a moment I had a sudden impulse to go straight away and to give it all up for ever. And after all what did all these things amount to in reality? Was it not simply an unnecessary worry I had taken upon myself? I sank into despair at the thought that I was wasting so much energy perhaps on worthless trifles from mere sentimentality, while I had facing me a task that called for all my powers. And meanwhile my incapacity for any real work was clearly obvious from what had happened at Dergatchev’s.
“Kraft, shall you go to them again?” I asked him suddenly.
He turned slowly to me as though hardly understanding me. I sat down on a chair.
“Forgive them,” said Kraft suddenly.
I fancied, of course, that this was a sneer, but looking attentively at him, I saw such a strange and even wonderful ingenuousness in his face that I positively wondered at his asking me so earnestly to “forgive” them. He brought up a chair and sat down beside me.
“I know that I am perhaps a medley of all sorts of vanities and nothing more,” I began, “but I’m not apologizing.”
“And you’ve no need to apologize to anyone,” he said, quietly and earnestly. He talked all the time quietly and very slowly.