“I am in the Obuhovsky Prospect,” I thought, “and afterwards I shall turn to the left and come out in the Semyonovsky Polk. I shall take a short cut, that’s delightful, it’s all delightful. My coat is unbuttoned, how is it no one snatches it off, where are the thieves? They say there are thieves in the Haymarket; let them come, I might give them my fur coat. What do I want with a fur coat? A fur coat is property. La propriété c’est le vol. But what nonsense, and how nice everything is! It’s nice that the snow is melting. Why frost? There’s no need of a frost at all. It’s nice to talk nonsense too. What was it I said to Lambert about principles? I said there were no general principles, but only special cases; that was stuff, utter stuff! And I said it on purpose, out of swagger. I am a little ashamed, but after all it doesn’t matter, I’ll make up for it. Don’t be ashamed, don’t distress yourself, Arkady Makarovitch. Arkady Makarovitch. I like you. I like you very much, in fact, my young friend. It’s a pity you’re a little rascal . . . and . . . and . . . ah, yes . . . ah!”
I suddenly stood still, and my heart began to ache with ecstasy again.
“Good God! what was it he said? He said that she loves me. Oh, he is a scoundrel, he told a lot of lies, that was to make me stay the night with him. But perhaps not. He said Anna Andreyevna thinks so too. . . . Ba! But Darya Onisimovna might have found out something about it for him; she pokes her nose into everything. And why didn’t I go to him? I should have found out everything! H’m! He has a plan, and I had a presentiment of it all, every bit of it. The dream. A bold scheme, M. Lambert, only let me tell you it won’t be so. Perhaps it will though, perhaps it will! And can he bring off my marriage? Perhaps he can. He is naïve and he believes it. He is stupid and impudent like all practical people. Stupidity and impudence combined are a great force. But confess, you were really afraid of Lambert, Arkady Makarovitch! And what does he want with honest people? He says so seriously: ‘There isn’t an honest man here!’ Why, what are you yourself? And what am I! Don’t scoundrels need honest men? In swindling honest men are more needed than anywhere. Ha! ha! You did not know that till now, Arkady Makarovitch, you were so innocent. Good God! What if he really were to bring about my marriage!”
I stood still again. Here I must confess something stupid (as it is all so long ago): I must confess that I had long before been wishing to be married — at least not wishing, and it would never have happened (and I can guarantee it never will in the future), but more than once — a great many times in fact — I had dreamed how splendid it would be to be married, especially as I was falling asleep at night. I began to dream of it when I was about sixteen. I had a schoolfellow of my own age at the high school, called Lavrovsky, such a quiet, sweet, pretty boy, not particularly distinguished in any other way, however. I hardly ever talked to him. One day we happened to be sitting side by side, and he was very dreamy, and suddenly he said to me: ‘Ah, Dolgoruky, what do you think, we ought to be married now; yes, really when should we be married if not now; now would be the very best time, and yet it’s impossible.’ And he said that so frankly. And I agreed with it at once entirely, for I already had visions of something of the sort. For several days afterwards we met and talked, as it were, in secret, only of that however. But afterwards, I don’t know how it happened, but we left off talking to each other and drifted apart. And from that time I began to dream of marriage. This, of course, would not have been worth mentioning, only I wanted to show how far back this feeling sometimes goes. . . .
“There is only one serious objection,” I mused, as I went on again. “Oh, of course, the trivial difference in our ages is no real obstacle, but she is such an aristocrat and I am simply Dolgoruky! It’s awfully horrid! H’m! Couldn’t Versilov marry mother and petition the government for me to be legitimatized as a reward for his services, so to say. . . . He’s been in the service, so must have rendered services; he was a mediator at the emancipation. . . . Oh, damn it all, how loathsome.”
I suddenly uttered this exclamation and stood still for the third time, but this time I felt as though I had been crushed to the earth. The agonizing feeling of humiliation from the consciousness that I could desire anything so shameful as the change of my surname by being legitimized, this treachery to my whole childhood, all this in one flash shattered my previous mood, and all my joyfulness was dissipated like smoke. “No, I’ll never tell that to anyone,” I thought, turning crimson: “I’ve sunk so low because I’m in love and stupid. . . . No, if Lambert is right in anything, it is that nowadays, in our age, the man is what matters, and afterwards his money. Or rather not his money, but rather his property. With a capital like that I would throw myself into the ‘idea,’ and all Russia would ring with my fame in ten years, and I would revenge myself on them all. And there’s no need to stand on ceremony with her. Lambert’s right there. She’ll be frightened and simply marry me. She’ll consent in the simplest and most abject way, and marry me.” “You don’t know, you don’t know in what little back room that happened!” I remembered Lambert’s words. “That’s true,” I went on musing: “Lambert’s right in everything, a thousand times more right than Versilov and I and all the idealists! He is a realist. She shall see that I have strength of will, and she will say: ‘He has will!’ Lambert’s a scoundrel, and all he wants is to get thirty thousand out of me, and yet he is the only friend I have. There is no other sort of friendship and there can be no other, that’s all been invented by unpractical people. And I shan’t be even degrading her; shall I be degrading her? Not in the least: all women are like that! Are there any women who are not abject? That’s why she must have a man over her; that’s why she’s created a subordinate creature. Woman is vice and temptation, and man is honour and generosity. So it will be to the end of time. And what if I do mean to use that ‘document’! That does not matter. That does not prevent honour or generosity. Pure, unadulterated Schillers don’t exist, they are invented. It does not matter if one has to pass through filth to get there, as long as the goal is magnificent. It will all be washed off, it will all be smoothed away afterwards. And now it’s only ‘breadth,’ it’s only life, it’s only vital truth — that’s what it is called nowadays.”
Oh, I repeat again: I must be forgiven for recording all my drunken ravings at the time. Of course this is only the essence of what I thought then, but I fancy I used those very words. I was bound to record them because I have sat down to write in order to condemn myself. And what is to be condemned, if not that? Can there be anything graver in my life? Wine is no justification. In vino veritas.
Entirely absorbed in such dreams I did not notice that I had reached home, that is, mother’s lodgings. I did not even notice going in, but as soon as I slipped into our tiny entrance, I realized at once that something unusual was happening.
There were loud voices and outcries in the room, and I could hear that mother was crying. In the doorway I almost fell over Lukerya, who was running from Makar Ivanovitch’s room to the kitchen. I flung down my fur coat and went in to Makar Ivanovitch, for they were all gathered together in his room.
There I found mother and Versilov. Mother was supported in his arms, and he was pressing her to his heart. Makar Ivanovitch was sitting as usual on his little bench, but he seemed overcome with weakness, and Liza had her arms round his shoulders and with an effort was holding him up; and it was evident that he was on the point of falling. I took a rapid step towards him and realized with a shudder that the old man was dead.
He had only just died, one minute before I arrived. Only ten minutes before he had felt just as usual. No one was with him then but Liza; she had been sitting with him, telling her grief, and he had been stroking her head just as he had done the day before. Suddenly he began to tremble (Liza told us), tried to stand up, tried to cry out, and began falling on his left side, and was silent. “Rupture of the heart!” said Versilov. Liza uttered a scream that could be heard all over the house, and they had all run in at once, and all that only the minute before I came in.