The Adolescent

His eyes were flashing—I remember that clearly. I didn’t notice in his face anything like pure pity, tears—only mama, Liza, and Lukerya were weeping. On the contrary, and this I recall very well, what was striking in his face was some extraordinary excitement, almost ecstasy. I ran for Tatyana Pavlovna.

The way, as is known from the foregoing, wasn’t long. I didn’t take a cab, but ran all the way without stopping. There was confusion in my mind, and also even almost something ecstatic. I realized that a radical event had happened. The drunkenness had disappeared completely in me, to the last drop, and along with it all ignoble thoughts, by the time I rang at Tatyana Pavlovna’s.

The Finnish woman unlocked the door: “Not at home!” and wanted to lock it at once.

“What do you mean, not at home?” I burst into the front hall by force. “It can’t be! Makar Ivanovich is dead!”

“Wha-a-at?” Tatyana Pavlovna’s cry suddenly rang out through the closed door of her drawing room.

“Dead! Makar Ivanovich is dead! Andrei Petrovich asks you to come this minute.”

“No, you’re lying! . . .”

The latch clicked, but the door opened only an inch: “What is it, tell me!”

“I don’t know myself, I just arrived and he was already dead. Andrei Petrovich says it’s heart failure!”

“At once, this minute. Run, tell them I’ll be there. Go on, go on, go on! Well, what are you standing there for?”

But I saw clearly through the half-opened door that someone had come out from behind the curtain that screened Tatyana Pavlovna’s bed and was standing there in the room behind Tatyana Pavlovna. Mechanically, instinctively, I seized the latch and would not let her close the door.

“Arkady Makarovich! Is it really true that he’s dead?” the familiar, soft, smooth, metallic voice rang out, at which everything began to tremble in my soul all at once: in the question something could be heard that had penetrated and stirred her soul.

“In that case,” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly abandoned the door, “in that case—settle it between you as you like. You want it that way!”

She rushed impetuously out of the apartment, putting on her kerchief and coat as she ran, and started down the stairs. We were left alone. I threw off my coat, stepped in, and closed the door behind me. She stood before me as she had when we met the other time, with a bright face, a bright gaze, and, as then, reached both hands out to me. As if cut down, I literally fell at her feet.

III

I WAS BEGINNING to weep, I don’t know why; I don’t remember how she sat me down beside her, I only remember, in a memory that is priceless for me, how we sat next to each other, hand in hand, and talked impetuously: she was asking about the old man and his death, and I was telling her about him—so that one might have thought I was weeping over Makar Ivanovich, whereas that would have been the height of absurdity; and I know that she could never have supposed in me such a thoroughly childish banality. At last I suddenly recollected myself and felt ashamed. Now I suppose that I wept then solely out of ecstasy, and I think she understood it very well herself, so that with regard to this memory I’m at peace.

It suddenly seemed very strange to me that she should keep asking like that about Makar Ivanovich.

“Did you know him?” I asked in surprise.

“For a long time. I’ve never seen him, but he has played a role in my life, too. At one time the man I’m afraid of told me a great deal about him. You know who that man is.”

“I only know now that ‘the man’ was much nearer to your soul than you revealed to me before,” I said, not knowing myself what I meant to express by it, but as if in reproach and frowning deeply.

“You say he was kissing your mother just now? Embracing her? You saw it yourself ?” she went on asking without listening to me.

“Yes, I saw it; and, believe me, it was all sincere and magnanimous in the highest degree!” I hastened to confirm, seeing her joy.

“God grant it!” She crossed herself. “Now he’s unbound. That beautiful old man only bound his life. With his death, duty and . . . dignity will resurrect in him again, as they already resurrected once. Oh, he’s magnanimous before all else, he’ll give peace to the heart of your mother, whom he loves more than anything on earth, and he himself will finally be at peace, and thank God—it’s high time.”

“Is he very dear to you?”

“Yes, very dear, though not in the sense in which he himself would wish and in which you’re asking.”

“So are you afraid now for him or for yourself ?” I asked suddenly.

“Well, these are intricate questions, let’s drop them.”