The Adolescent

“That’s how I want it, sir,” Semyon Sidorovich snapped and, taking his hat and not saying good-bye to anyone, walked out of the room alone. Lambert threw the money at the waiter and hastily ran out after him, even forgetting about me in his confusion. Trishatov and I went out after all the rest. Andreev was standing by the entrance like a milepost, waiting for Trishatov.

“Blackguard!” Lambert couldn’t keep from saying.

“Uh-uh!” Andreev growled at him, and with one swing of his arm he knocked off his round hat, which rolled along the pavement. The humiliated Lambert rushed to pick it up.

“Vingt-cinq roubles!”⁸⁸ Andreev showed Trishatov the banknote he had wrested from Lambert earlier.

“Enough,” Trishatov cried to him. “Why do you keep making a row? . . . And why did you skin him for twenty-five roubles? You only had seven coming.”

“What do you mean, skin him? He promised we’d dine in a private room with Athenian women, and he served up the pockmarked one instead of the women, and, besides that, I didn’t finish eating and froze in the cold a sure eighteen roubles’ worth. He had seven roubles outstanding, which makes exactly twenty-five for you.”

“Get the hell out of here, both of you!” yelled Lambert. “I’m throwing you both out, and I’ll tie you in little knots . . .”

“Lambert, I’m throwing you out, and I’ll tie you in little knots!” cried Andreev. “Adieu, mon prince

,⁸⁹ don’t drink any more wine! Off we go, Petya! Ohé, Lambert! Où est Lambert? As-tu vu Lambert?” he roared one last time, moving off with enormous strides.

“So I’ll come to see you, may I?” Trishatov hastily babbled to me, hurrying after his friend.

Lambert and I remained alone.

“ Well . . . let’s go!” he uttered, as if he had difficulty catching his breath and even as if demented.

“Where should I go? I’m not going anywhere with you!” I hastened to cry in defiance.

“How do you mean, not going?” he roused himself up fearfully, coming to his senses all at once. “But I’ve only been waiting for us to be left alone!”

“But where on earth can we go?” I confess, I also had a slight ringing in my head from the three glasses of champagne and two of sherry.

“This way, over this way, you see?”

“But the sign says fresh oysters, you see? It’s a foul-smelling place . . .”

“That’s because you’ve just eaten, but it’s Miliutin’s shop; we won’t eat oysters, I’ll give you champagne . . .”

“I don’t want it! You want to get me drunk.”

“They told you that; they were laughing at you. You believe the scoundrels!”

“No, Trishatov is not a scoundrel. But I myself know how to be careful—that’s what!”

“So you’ve got your own character?”

“Yes, I’ve got character, a bit more than you have, because you’re enslaved to the first comer. You disgraced us, you apologized to the Poles like a lackey. You must have been beaten often in taverns?”

“But we have to have a talk, cghretin!” he cried with that scornful impatience which all but said, “And you’re at it, too?” “What, are you afraid or something? Are you my friend or not?”

“I’m not your friend, and you’re a crook. Let’s go, if only to prove that I’m not afraid of you. Ah, what a foul smell, it smells of cheese! What nastiness!”

Chapter Six

I

I ASK YOU once more to remember that I had a slight ringing in my head; if it hadn’t been for that, I would have talked and acted differently. In the back room of this shop one could actually eat oysters, and we sat down at a little table covered with a foul, dirty cloth. Lambert ordered champagne; a glass of cold, golden-colored wine appeared before me and looked at me temptingly; but I was vexed.

“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.