A Raw Youth

She was actually promising me a reward — money perhaps.

I interrupted her sharply.

“Whatever you say I ca

“That’s impossible!” she said, flushing all over. The mere idea that Katerina Nikolaevna would SPARE her roused her to indignation.

“I shall not change, A

“Perhaps you will change.”

“You had better apply to Lambert!”

“Arkady Makarovitch, you don’t know what misery may come from your obstinacy,” she said with grim exasperation.

“Misery will follow, that’s true . . . my head is going round. I’ve had enough of you: I’ve made up my mind — and that’s the end of it. Only I beg you for God’s sake don’t bring your brother in to me.”

“But he is very anxious to make up for . . .”

“There is nothing to make up for! I don’t want it, I don’t wish for it, I don’t wish for it!” I exclaimed, clutching my head. (Oh, perhaps I treated her too disdainfully then.) “Tell me, though, where will the prince sleep to-night? Surely not here?”

“He will stay the night here in your flat, and with you.”

“I am moving into another lodging this evening.”

And uttering these ruthless words I seized my cap and began putting on my great-coat. A

4

I will try to be brief. My decision was taken beyond recall, and I went straight to Tatyana Pavlovna. Alas! A great calamity might have been averted if I had only found her at home; but as though of design, I was pursued by ill-luck all that day. I went of course to my mother’s, in the first place to see her, and secondly, because I reckoned certainly on meeting Tatyana Pavlovna there. But she was not there either; she had only just gone away, while mother was lying down ill, and Liza was left alone with her. Liza begged me not to go in, and not to wake mother: “She has not slept all night, she’s so worried; thank God she has fallen asleep at last.” I embraced Liza and said two or three words to her, telling her I had made an immense and momentous resolution, and should carry it out at once. She listened without particular surprise, as though to the usual thing. Oh, they had all grown used by then to my constantly repeated ‘final resolutions,’ and the feeble cancelling of them afterwards. But this time, this time it would be a different matter. I went to the eating-house on the canal side and sat down there to wait awhile in the certainty of finding Tatyana Pavlovna afterwards. I must explain, though, why I found it so necessary to see that lady. The fact is that I wanted to send her at once to Katerina Nikolaevna, to ask her to come back with her, meaning in Tatyana Pavlovna’s presence to return the letter, explaining everything once for all. In short, I wanted nothing but what was fitting; I wanted to put myself right once and for all. At the same time I was quite determined to put in a few words on behalf of A

It was getting quite dark, about four o’clock, when I called at Tatyana Pavlovna’s again. Marya answered gruffly that she had not come in. I remember very well now the strange look Marya gave me from under her brows; but of course it did not strike me at the time. I was suddenly stung by another idea. As I went down the stairs, from Tatyana Pavlovna’s, vexed and somewhat dejected, I thought of the poor old prince, who had held out his hands to me that morning, and I suddenly reproached myself bitterly for having deserted him, perhaps indeed from feeling personally aggrieved.

I began uneasily imagining that something really very bad might have happened in my absence, and hurriedly went home. At home, however, all that had been happening was this.

When A

And so in her anxiety and growing uneasiness A

A