The Adolescent

In short, he was in a terrible hurry to go on to something. He was all pervaded with something, from head to foot, with some sort of main idea, which he wished to formulate and present to me. He talked terribly much and quickly, with strain and suffering, explaining and gesticulating, but in the first moments I understood decidedly nothing.

“To put it briefly” (he had already used the phrase “to put it briefly” ten times before then), “to put it briefly,” he concluded, “if I have troubled you, Arkady Makarovich, and summoned you so insistently yesterday through Liza, then, though things are ablaze, still, since the essence of the decision should be extraordinary and definitive, we . . .”

“Excuse me, Prince,” I interrupted, “did you summon me yesterday? Liza told me precisely nothing.”

“What!” he cried, suddenly stopping in great bewilderment, even almost in fright.

“She told me precisely nothing. Last night she came home so upset that she didn’t even manage to say a word to me.”

The prince jumped up from his chair.

“Can this be true, Arkady Makarovich? In that case, it’s . . . it’s...”

“But, anyhow, what of it? Why are you so disturbed? She simply forgot or something . . .”

He sat down, but it was as if stupefaction came over him. The news that Liza hadn’t told me anything simply crushed him. He suddenly began speaking quickly and waving his arms, but again it was terribly difficult to understand.

“Wait!” he said suddenly, falling silent and holding up his finger. “Wait, it’s . . . it’s . . . unless I’m mistaken . . . these are—tricks, sir! . . .” he murmured with a maniac’s smile. “And it means that . . .”

“It means precisely nothing!” I interrupted. “And I only don’t understand why such an empty circumstance torments you so . . . Ah, Prince, since that time, ever since that night—remember . . .”

“Since what night, and what of it?” he cried fussily, obviously vexed that I had interrupted him.

“At Zershchikov’s, where we saw each other for the last time—well, before your letter? You were also terribly disturbed then, but between then and now there’s such a difference that I’m even horrified at you . . . Or don’t you remember?”

“Ah, yes,” he said, in the voice of a worldly man, and as if suddenly recalling, “ah, yes! That evening . . . I heard . . . Well, how is your health, and how are you now after all this, Arkady Makarovich? . . . But, anyway, let’s go on to the main thing. You see, I am essentially pursuing three goals; there are three tasks before me, and I . . .”

He quickly began speaking again about his “main thing.” I realized, finally, that I saw before me a man who ought at least to have a napkin with vinegar put to his head at once, if not to have his blood let. His whole incoherent conversation, naturally, turned around his trial, around the possible outcome; also around the fact that the regimental commander himself had visited him and spent a long time talking him out of something, but that he had not obeyed; around a note he had just written and submitted somewhere; around the prosecutor; about the fact that he would probably be stripped of his rights and exiled somewhere to the northern reaches of Russia; about the possibility of becoming a colonist and earning back his rights in Tashkent;¹⁶ that he would teach his son (the future one, from Liza) this, and pass on that, “in the back-woods, in Arkhangelsk, in Kholmogory.”¹⁷ “If I wished for your opinion, Arkady Makarovich, then believe me, I value so much the feeling . . . If you only knew, if you only knew, Arkady Makarovich, my dear, my brother, what Liza means to me, what she has meant to me here, now, all this time!” he cried suddenly, clutching his head with both hands.

“Sergei Petrovich, can it be that you’ll ruin her and take her away? To Kholmogory!” suddenly burst from me irrepressibly. Liza’s lot with this maniac all her life suddenly presented itself to my consciousness clearly and as if for the first time. He looked at me, stood up again, took a step, turned around, and sat down again, still holding his head with his hands.

“I keep dreaming of spiders!” he said suddenly.

“You’re terribly agitated, Prince, I’d advise you to lie down and send for the doctor at once.”

“No, excuse me, that can wait. I mainly asked you to come so that I could explain to you about the marriage. The marriage, you know, will take place right here in the church, I’ve already said so. Approval has been granted, and they even encourage . . . As for Liza . . .”

“Prince, have mercy on Liza, my dear,” I cried, “don’t torment her now at least, don’t be jealous!”

“What!” he cried, looking at me point-blank, his eyes almost popping out, and his face twisted into some sort of long, senselessly questioning smile. It was clear that the words “don’t be jealous” for some reason struck him terribly.