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“In court today?” I exclaimed, struck.
The thought that Versilov had neglected to inform me even of that struck me in the extreme. “That means he said nothing to mother, or maybe to anybody,” it occurred to me all at once. “What character!
“And is Prince Sokolsky in Petersburg?” another thought suddenly struck me.
“Since yesterday. Straight from Berlin, especially for this day.”
Another extremely important piece of news for me. “And he’ll come here today, this man who gave him a slap!”
“Well, what of it?” The prince’s whole face suddenly changed. “He still preaches God as he used to, and, and . . . maybe still goes after the girls, after unfledged little girls? Heh, heh! Right now, too, there’s a most amusing anecdote hatching . . . Heh, heh!”
“Who preaches? Who goes after the girls?”
“Andrei Petrovich! Would you believe, he pestered us all back then like a burr—what do we eat, what do we think?—or almost like that. Frightened us and purified us: ‘If you’re religious, why don’t you go and become a monk?’ He demanded almost that. Mais quelle idée!10 Even if it’s right, isn’t it too severe? It was me especially that he liked to frighten with the Last Judgment, me of all people.”
“I haven’t noticed any of that, and I’ve lived with him for a month now,” I replied, listening impatiently. It was terribly vexing that he hadn’t quite come to his senses and mumbled so incoherently.
“He just doesn’t say it now, but, believe me, it’s so. The man is clever, indisputably, and deeply educated; but is that the right kind of intelligence? It all happened to him after his three years abroad. And, I confess, he shocked me very much . . . he shocked everybody . . . Cher enfant, j’aime le bon Dieu11 . . . I believe, I believe as much as I can, but—I was certainly beside myself then. Suppose I used a frivolous method, but I did it on purpose, in vexation—and besides, the essence of my objection was as serious as it has been from the begi
“I’ve also heard about that idea. Nonsense, surely.”
“I assure you by all that’s holy. Look at him well . . . However, you say he’s changed. Well, but at that time he tormented us all so! Would you believe, he behaved as if he were a saint and his relics were about to be revealed.11 He demanded an account of our behavior from us, I swear to you! Relics! En voilà une autre! 14 Well, let him be a monk or an anchorite—but here’s a man going around in a tailcoat and all the rest . . . and then suddenly—his relics! A strange wish for a man of the world and, I confess, a strange taste. I don’t say anything about it: of course, it’s all holy, and anything can happen . . . Besides, it’s all de l’inco
I turned red with anger.
“Did you see the chains yourself ?”
“I didn’t myself, but . . .”
“Then I declare to you that it’s all a lie, a tissue of vile machinations and enemy slander, that is, of one enemy, the chiefest and most inhuman one, because he has only one enemy—your daughter!”
The prince flushed in his turn.
“Mon cher, I beg you and I insist that in the future my daughter’s name never be mentioned again in my presence together with this vile story.”
I rose slightly. He was beside himself; his chin was trembling.
“Cette histoire infâme!16 . . . I didn’t believe it, I never wanted to believe it, but . . . they tell me: believe it, believe it, I . . .”
Here the valet suddenly came in again and a
IV
TWO LADIES CAME in, both young, one the stepdaughter of one of the cousins of the prince’s late wife, or something of the sort, his ward, for whom he had already allotted a dowry, and who (I note it for the future) had money of her own; the other was A
“Take a look at Olympiada, look closely, closely . . . I’ll tell you later . . .”
I looked at her quite closely and found nothing special: not a very tall girl, plump, and with extremely ruddy cheeks. Her face, however, was rather pleasant, the kind that the materialists like. Her expression was kind, perhaps, but with a wrinkle. She could not have been especially brilliant intellectually, at least not in a higher sense, but one could see cu
By the way, everything I’ve been describing so far, with such apparently u
Versilov’s daughter was quite a different sort of person. Tall, even slightly lean; an elongated and remarkably pale face, but black, fluffy hair; big, dark eyes, a profound gaze; small and red lips, a fresh mouth. The first woman whose gait did not fill me with loathing; however, she was thin and lean. The expression of her face was not entirely kind, but imposing; twenty-two years old. Hardly a single external feature resembling Versilov, and yet, by some miracle, an extraordinary resemblance to him in her facial expression. I don’t know if she was good-looking; that’s a matter of taste. Both women were dressed very modestly, so it’s not worth describing. I expected to be offended at once by some look or gesture from Miss Versilov, and I prepared myself; for her brother had offended me in Moscow, at our very first confrontation in life. She couldn’t have known me by my face, but she had certainly heard that I visited the prince. Everything the prince proposed or did aroused interest and was an event among that whole heap of his relations and “expectant ones”—the more so his sudden partiality for me. I knew positively that the prince was very interested in the fate of A