The Adolescent

Third, the one to invite her must be Lambert himself, on his own, in the manner of some unknown person just arrived from Moscow, and I must bring Versilov . . .

“Versilov can be done . . .” Lambert confirmed.

“Must be, not can be!” I cried. “It’s necessary! The whole thing’s being done for him!” I explained, sipping gulp after gulp from my glass. (All three of us were drinking, but it seems I alone drank the whole bottle of champagne, while they only made a show of it.) “Versilov and I will sit in the other room (we have to secure the other room, Lambert!), and when she suddenly agrees to everything—to the ransom in cash and to the other

ransom, because they’re all mean—then Versilov and I will come out and catch her in all her meanness, and Versilov, seeing how loathsome she is, will be cured at once and will kick her out. But we need to have Bjoring there as well, so that he, too, can have a look at her!” I added in a frenzy.

“No, we don’t need Bjoring,” Lambert observed.

“We do, we do!” I yelled again. “You understand nothing, Lambert, because you’re stupid! On the contrary, let the scandal spread through high society—that way we’ll be revenged both on high society and on her, and let her be punished! She’ll give you a promissory note, Lambert . . . I don’t need money, I spit on money; you’ll stoop down to pick it up and put it in your pocket along with my spit, but instead I will crush her!”

“Yes, yes,” Lambert kept confirming, “it’s all as you . . .” He kept exchanging glances with Alphonsinka.

“Lambert! She’s terribly in awe of Versilov; I’ve just been convinced of it,” I babbled to him.

“It’s good that you spied it all out. I never supposed you were such a spy and had so much sense!” He said that in order to flatter me.

“Lies, Frenchman, I’m not a spy, but there is a lot of sense in me! And you know, Lambert, she loves him!” I went on, trying with all my might to speak myself out. “But she won’t marry him, because Bjoring’s an officer of the guards and Versilov is only a magnanimous man and friend of mankind, a comical person, in their opinion, and nothing more! Oh, she understands this passion and enjoys it, she flirts, she entices, but she won’t marry him! She’s a woman, she’s a serpent! Every woman is a serpent, and every serpent is a woman! He’s got to be cured; he’s got to have the scales torn off. Let him see what she’s like, and he’ll be cured. I’ll bring him to you, Lambert!”

“So you must,” Lambert kept confirming, pouring more for me every minute.

Above all, he simply trembled over not angering me with something, over not contradicting me, and getting me to drink more. This was so crude and obvious that even I couldn’t help noticing it then. But I myself couldn’t leave for anything; I kept drinking and talking, and I wanted terribly to speak myself out finally. When Lambert went for another bottle, Alphonsinka played some Spanish motif on the guitar; I almost burst into tears.

“Lambert, you don’t know all!” I exclaimed with deep feeling. “This man absolutely must be saved, because he’s surrounded by . . . sorcery. If she married him, the next morning, after the first night, he’d kick her out . . . because that does happen. Because such violent, wild love works like a fit, like a deadly noose, like an illness, and—as soon as you reach satisfaction—the scales fall at once and the opposite feeling appears: disgust and hatred, the wish to exterminate, to crush. Do you know the story of Abishag,⁴⁰

Lambert, have you read it?”

“No, I don’t recall. A novel?” murmured Lambert.

“Oh, you know nothing, Lambert! You’re terribly, terribly uneducated . . . but I spit on that. It makes no difference. Oh, he loves mama; he kissed her portrait; he’ll drive the other woman out the next morning and go to mama himself; but it will be too late, and that’s why we must save him now . . .”

Towards the end I started weeping bitterly; but I still went on talking, and I drank terribly much. The most characteristic feature consisted in the fact that Lambert, all evening, never once asked about the “document,” that is, where it was. That is, that I should show it to him, lay it on the table. What, it seems, would have been more natural than to ask about it, when we were arranging to act together? Another feature: we only said it must be done, that we must do “it” without fail, but where it would be, how and when—of that we also didn’t say a word! He only yessed me and exchanged glances with Alphonsinka—nothing more! Of course, I couldn’t put anything together then, but all the same I remember it.