“You see, Lambert, what mainly offends me is that you think you can order me around now, as you used to at Touchard’s, while you yourself are enslaved by everybody here.”
“Cghretin! Eh, let’s clink!”
“You don’t even deign to pretend before me; you might at least conceal that you want to get me drunk.”
“You’re driveling, and you’re drunk. You have to drink more, and you’ll be more cheerful. Take your glass, go on, take it!”
“What’s all this ‘go on, take it’? I’m leaving, and that’s the end of it.”
And I actually made as if to get up. He became terribly angry.
“It’s Trishatov whispering to you against me: I saw the two of you whispering there. You’re a cghretin in that case. Alphonsine is even repulsed when he comes near her . . . He’s vile. I’ll tell you what he’s like.”
“You’ve already said it. All you’ve got is Alphonsine, you’re terribly narrow.”
“Narrow?” He didn’t understand. “They’ve gone over to the pockmarked one now. That’s what! That’s why I threw them out. They’re dishonest. That pockmarked villain will corrupt them, too. But I always demanded that they behave nobly.”
I sat down, took the glass somehow mechanically, and drank a gulp.
“I’m incomparably superior to you in education,” I said. But he was only too glad that I had sat down, and at once poured me more wine.
“So you’re afraid of them?” I went on teasing him (and at that point I was certainly more vile than he was himself ). “Andreev knocked your hat off, and you gave him twenty-five roubles for it.”
“I did, but he’ll pay me back. They’re rebellious, but I’ll tie them into . . .”
“You’re very worried about the pockmarked one. And you know, it seems to me that I’m the only one you’ve got left now. All your hopes are resting on me alone now—eh?”
“Yes, Arkashka, that’s so: you’re my only remaining friend; you put it so well!” he slapped me on the shoulder.
What could be done with such a crude man? He was totally undeveloped and took mockery for praise.
“You could save me from some bad things, if you were a good comrade, Arkady,” he went on, looking at me affectionately.
“In what way could I save you?”
“You know what way. Without me you’re like a cghretin, and you’re sure to be stupid, but I’d give you thirty thousand, and we’d go halves, and you yourself know how. Well, who are you, just look: you’ve got nothing—no name, no family—and here’s a pile all at once; and on such money you know what a career you can start!”
I was simply amazed at such a method. I had decidedly assumed he would dodge, but he began with such directness, such boyish directness, with me. I decided to listen to him out of breadth and . . . out of terrible curiosity.
“You see, Lambert, you won’t understand this, but I agree to listen to you because I’m broad,” I declared firmly and took another sip from the glass. Lambert at once refilled it.
“Here’s the thing, Arkady: if a man like Bjoring dared to heap abuse on me and strike me in front of a lady I adored, I don’t know what I’d do! But you took it, and I find you repulsive, you’re a dishrag!”
“How dare you say Bjoring struck me!” I cried, turning red. “It’s rather I who struck him, and not he me.”
“No, he struck you, not you him.”
“Lies, I also stepped on his foot!”
“But he shoved you with his arm and told the lackeys to drag you away . . . and she sat and watched from the carriage and laughed at you—she knows you have no father and can be insulted.”
“I don’t know, Lambert, we’re having a schoolboy conversation, which I’m ashamed of. You’re doing it to get me all worked up, and so crudely and openly, as if I were some sort of sixteen-year-old. You arranged it with Anna Andreevna!” I cried, trembling with anger and mechanically sipping wine all the while.
“Anna Andreevna is a rascal! She’ll hoodwink you, and me, and the whole world! I’ve been waiting for you, because you’re better able to finish with the other one.”
“What other one?”
“With Madame Akhmakov. I know everything. You told me yourself that she’s afraid of the letter you’ve got . . .”
“What letter . . . you’re lying . . . Have you seen her?” I muttered in confusion.
“I’ve seen her. She’s good-looking. Très belle,90 and you’ve got taste.”
“I know you’ve seen her; only you didn’t dare to speak with her, and I want you also not to dare to speak of her.”
“You’re still little, and she laughs at you—that’s what! We had a pillar of virtue like her in Moscow! Oh, how she turned up her nose! But she trembled when we threatened to tell all, and she obeyed at once; and we took the one and the other: both the money and the other thing—you understand what? Now she’s back in society, unapproachable—pah, the devil, how high she flies, and what a carriage, and if only you’d seen in what sort of back room it all went on! You haven’t lived enough; if you knew what little back rooms they’ll venture into . . .”
“So I’ve thought,” I murmured irrepressibly.
“They’re depraved to the tips of their fingers; you don’t know what they’re capable of! Alphonsine lived in one such house; she found it quite repulsive.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I confirmed again.
“They beat you, and you feel sorry . . .”
“Lambert, you’re a villain, curse you!” I cried out, suddenly somehow understanding and trembling. “I saw it all in a dream, you stood there, and Anna Andreevna . . . Oh, curse you! Did you really think I was such a scoundrel? I saw it in a dream, because I just knew you were going to say it. And, finally, all this can’t be so simple that you’d tell me about it all so simply and directly!”
“Look how angry he is! Tut-tut-tut!” Lambert drawled, laughing and triumphant. “Well, brother Arkashka, now I’ve learned all I needed to know. That’s why I was waiting for you. Listen, it means you love her and want to take revenge on Bjoring—that’s what I needed to know. I suspected it all along, while I was waiting for you. Ceci posé, celà change la question.91 And so much the better, because she loves you herself. So get married, don’t delay, that’s the best. And you can’t possibly do otherwise, you’ve hit on the right thing. And then know, Arkady, that you have a friend—me, that is—whom you can saddle and ride on. This friend will help you and get you married; I’ll leave no stone unturned, Arkasha! And afterwards you can give your old friend thirty thousand for his labors, eh? But I will help you, don’t doubt that. I know all the fine points in these matters, and they’ll give you a whole dowry, and you’ll be a rich man with a career!”
Though my head was spinning, I looked at Lambert in amazement. He was serious, that is, not really serious, but I could see clearly that he fully believed in the possibility of getting me married, and even accepted the idea with rapture. Naturally, I also saw that he was trying to ensnare me like a little boy (I saw it right then for certain), but the thought of marrying her so pierced me through that, though I was astonished at Lambert’s ability to believe in such a fantasy, at the same time I rushed to believe it myself, though without losing even for a moment the awareness that, of course, it couldn’t be realized for anything. It somehow all sank in together.
“Can it be possible?” I babbled.
“Why not? You’ll show her the document—she’ll turn coward and marry you so as not to lose the money.”
I decided not to stop Lambert in his meanness, because he laid it out for me so simpleheartedly that he didn’t even suspect I might suddenly become indignant; but I murmured, nevertheless, that I wouldn’t want to marry only by force.