The Adolescent

All my torments consisted in this: if yesterday he had resurrected and stopped loving her, then in that case where should he have been today? Answer: first of all with me, since he had spent last night embracing me, and then right away with mama, whose portrait he had kissed yesterday. And yet, instead of these two natural steps, suddenly, at “first light,” he’s not at home and has disappeared somewhere, and Nastasya Egorovna raves, for some reason, that “he most likely won’t come back.” What’s more, Liza assures me of some dénouement to an “eternal story” and of mama’s having some information about him, and of the very latest; on top of that, they undoubtedly knew about Katerina Nikolaevna’s letter as well (I noticed it myself ), and still they didn’t believe in his “resurrection into a new life,” though they listened to me attentively. Mama is crushed, and Tatyana Pavlovna jokes caustically about the word “resurrection.” But if that’s all so, then it means he had another turnabout during the night, another crisis, and that—after yesterday’s rapture, tenderness, pathos! It means that all this “resurrection” popped like a blown-up bubble, and at the moment he might be knocking around somewhere in the same rage as the other time, after the news about Bjoring! One might ask, what would become of mama, of me, of us all, and . . . and, finally, what would become of

her? What “deadly noose” had Tatyana let on about, sending me to Anna Andreevna? It means the “deadly noose” is there—at Anna Andreevna’s! Why at Anna Andreevna’s? Naturally, I’ll run to Anna Andreevna’s; I said purposely, out of vexation, that I wouldn’t go; I’ll run right now. But what was Tatyana Pavlovna saying about the “document ”? And didn’t he himself say to me yesterday, “Burn the document”?

These were my thoughts, this was what also weighed on me like a deadly noose; but above all I wanted him

. With him I’d resolve everything at once—I could feel it; we’d understand each other after two words! I’d seize his hands, press them; I’d find ardent words in my heart—that was my irresistible dream. Oh, I would subdue his madness! . . . But where was he? Where? And just then, at such a moment, Lambert had to appear, when I was so worked up! A few steps from home I suddenly met Lambert; he yelled joyfully when he saw me and seized me by the arm:

“It’s the thighrd time I’ve come to see you . . . Enfin! Let’s go and have lunch.”

“Wait! Were you at my place? Is Andrei Petrovich there?”

“Nobody’s there. Drop them all! You got angry yesterday, you cghretin; you were drunk, but I have something important to tell you; today I heard some lovely news about what we were discussing yesterday . . .”

“Lambert,” I interrupted, breathless and hurrying and involuntarily declaiming a little, “if I’ve stopped with you, it’s only in order to be done with you forever. I told you yesterday, but you still don’t understand. Lambert, you’re a child and as stupid as a Frenchman. You still think you’re as you were at Touchard’s and I’m as stupid as at Touchard’s . . . But I’m not as stupid as at Touchard’s . . . I was drunk yesterday, but not from wine, but because I was excited to begin with; and if I went along with what you were driveling, it was from cunning, in order to worm your thoughts out of you. I deceived you, and you were glad, and believed, and driveled. Know that marrying her is such nonsense that a first-year schoolboy wouldn’t believe it. Could anyone think I believed it? But you did! You believed it, because you’re not received in high society and know nothing of how things are done in high society. Things aren’t done so simply in high society, and it’s impossible that a woman should so simply—up and get married . . . Now I’ll tell you clearly what you want: you want to invite me to your place and get me drunk, so that I’ll hand over the document to you, and together we’ll pull some sort of swindle on Katerina Nikolaevna! What rubbish! I’ll never go to your place, and know also that by tomorrow, or the day after without fail, this paper will be in her own hands, because this document belongs to her, because she wrote it, and I’ll hand it to her personally, and if you want to know where, know that I’ll do it through Tatyana Pavlovna, her acquaintance, in Tatyana Pavlovna’s apartment—I’ll hand it to her in Tatyana Pavlovna’s presence, and take nothing from her for it . . . And now—off with you, forever, or else . . . or else, Lambert, I’ll deal with you less politely . . .”