The Adolescent

BUT AGAIN, ANTICIPATING the course of events, I find it necessary to explain at least something to the reader beforehand, for here so many chance things mingled with the logical sequence of this story that it is impossible to make it out without explaining them beforehand. Here the matter consisted in that same “deadly noose” that Tatyana Pavlovna had let on about. The noose consisted in Anna Andreevna risking, finally, the boldest step that could be imagined in her situation. True character! Though the old prince, under the pretext of health, had been opportunely confiscated to Tsarskoe Selo then, so that the news of his marriage to Anna Andreevna might not spread in society and for a time would be snuffed out, so to speak, in the bud, nevertheless, the feeble old man, with whom anything could be done, would not for any reason in the world abandon his idea and betray Anna Andreevna, who had proposed to him. On this account he was chivalrous; so that sooner or later he might suddenly rise up and set about fulfilling his intention with irrepressible force, which is quite, quite likely to happen precisely with weak characters, for they have this limit, to which they ought not to be driven. Besides, he was perfectly aware of all the ticklishness of the position of Anna Andreevna, for whom he had boundless respect, aware of the possibility of society rumors, mockery, and bad fame on her account. The only thing that had restrained and stopped him so far was that in his presence Katerina Nikolaevna had never once, either by a word or a hint, allowed herself to mention Anna Andreevna in a bad sense, or betray anything at all against his intention to marry her. On the contrary, she displayed extreme cordiality and attentiveness towards her father’s fiancée. Thus Anna Andreevna was put in an extremely awkward position, sensing with her subtle feminine flair that the slightest calumny against Katerina Nikolaevna, before whom the prince also stood in awe, and now more than ever, precisely because she so goodnaturedly and respectfully allowed him to marry—the slightest calumny against her would offend all his tender feelings and arouse mistrust of her in him and even, perhaps, indignation. Thus it was in this field that the battle had gone on so far: the two rivals were as if rivaling each other in delicacy and patience, and in the end the prince no longer knew which of them to be more surprised at, and, as is usual with all weak but tenderhearted people, ended by beginning to suffer and blame himself alone for everything. His anguish, they said, reached the point of illness; his nerves were indeed upset, and instead of recovering in Tsarskoe, he was, as they assured me, ready to take to his bed.

Here I’ll note in parenthesis something I learned much later: that Bjoring had supposedly proposed directly to Katerina Nikolaevna that they take the old man abroad, persuading him to go by some sort of deceit, meanwhile make it known privately in society that he had completely lost his reason, and obtain a doctor’s certificate for it abroad. But Katerina Nikolaevna wouldn’t do that for anything—so at least they maintained afterwards. She supposedly rejected the plan with indignation. All this is only the most distant rumor, but I believe it.

And so, when the matter had reached, so to speak, the point of ultimate hopelessness, Anna Andreevna suddenly learns through Lambert that there exists this letter in which the daughter had consulted a lawyer about the means of declaring her father insane. Her vengeful and proud mind was aroused in the highest degree. Remembering her former conversations with me, and grasping a multitude of the tiniest circumstances, she could not doubt the correctness of the information. Then, in that firm, inexorable feminine heart, the plan for a bold stroke ripened irrepressibly. The plan consisted in suddenly telling the prince everything outright, without preliminaries and calumnies, frightening him, shocking him, pointing out that the madhouse inevitably awaited him, and when he resisted, became indignant, refused to believe it—showing him his daughter’s letter, as if to say, “since there once was an intention of declaring him insane, so now it was all the more likely, in order to prevent the marriage.” After which they would take the frightened and crushed old man and move him to Petersburg— straight to my apartment.