The Adolescent

This apartment consisted of three rooms. The one in which everyone usually sat, our middle room, or drawing room, was rather large and almost decent. There were soft red sofas in it, though very shabby ones (Versilov couldn’t stand slipcovers), rugs of some sort, several tables and needless little tables. Then to the right was Versilov’s room, small and narrow, with one window; in it stood a pathetic writing table, on which several unused books and forgotten papers were scattered, and in front of the table, a no less pathetic soft armchair, with a broken spring sticking out at an angle, which often made Versilov groan and curse. His bed was made up in this same study, on a soft and also shabby sofa; he hated this study of his and, it seems, did nothing in it, but preferred to sit idly in the drawing room for hours at a time. To the left of the drawing room was exactly the same sort of room, in which my mother and sister slept. The entrance to the drawing room was from the corridor, which ended with the entrance to the kitchen, where lived the cook Lukerya, who, when she cooked, mercilessly filled the whole apartment with the smoke of burnt oil. There were moments when Versilov loudly cursed his life and his fate because of this kitchen smoke, and in that alone I fully sympathized with him; I also hate such smells, though they did not penetrate to me: I lived upstairs in a little room under the roof, which I climbed to by an extremely steep and creaky little staircase. Noteworthy in my place were the fan-window, the terribly low ceiling, the oilcloth sofa, on which Lukerya spread a sheet and put a pillow for me at night, while the rest of the furniture was just two objects—the simplest plank table and a wicker chair with a hole in it.

However, our place still preserved the remains of a certain former comfort; in the drawing room, for instance, there was a rather good china lamp, and on the wall hung a fine, big engraving of the Dresden Mado

I usually entered silently and sullenly, looking somewhere into a corner, and sometimes without any greeting. I always came home earlier than this time, and had my di

“This ignoramus still comes into your house like a boor, just as he used to,” Tatyana Pavlovna hissed at me; she had allowed herself abusive words before as well, and it had become a custom between us.

“Hello . . .” my mother answered, as if immediately at a loss because I had greeted her. “Di

“I humbly thank you, mama, I’ve already had di

“Ah . . . well, then . . . stay, of course . . .”

“Don’t worry, mama, I’m not going to be rude to Andrei Petrovich anymore,” I said abruptly . . .

“Ah, Lord, how magnanimous on his part!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna. “Sonya, darling, can it be that you still address him formally? Who is he that he should receive such honors, and that from his own mother! Look at you getting all abashed in front of him, what a shame!”

“It would be very nice for me, mama, if you addressed me informally.”

“Ah . . . well, all right, then, I will,” my mother hastened to say. “I—I didn’t always . . . well, from now on I’ll know.”

She blushed all over. Decidedly her face could be extremely attractive on occasion . . . She had a simplehearted face, but not at all simpleminded, slightly pale, anemic. Her cheeks were very gaunt, even hollow, and little wrinkles were begi

Tatyana Pavlovna looked at her with decided indignation.

“Before such a whelp? To tremble like that before him! You’re a fu

“Ah, Tatyana Pavlovna, why are you like this with him now! Or maybe you’re joking, eh?” my mother added, noticing something like a smile on Tatyana Pavlovna’s face. Indeed, Tatyana Pavlovna’s abuse was sometimes impossible to take seriously, but she smiled (if she did smile), of course, only at my mother, because she loved her kindness terribly and had undoubtedly noticed how happy she was just then at my submissiveness.

“I, of course, can’t help feeling it, if you yourself fall upon people, Tatyana Pavlovna, and precisely now, when I came in and said, ‘Hello, mama,’ which is something I’ve never done before,” I finally found it necessary to point out to her.

“Just imagine,” she boiled up at once, “he considers it a great deed? Should we go down on our knees to you or something, because you’ve been polite for once in your life? And as if that’s politeness! Why do you look off into the corner when you come in? As if I don’t know how you storm and rage at her! You might greet me as well, I swaddled you, I’m your godmother.”

Naturally, I disdained to reply. Just then my sister came in, and I quickly turned to her:

“Liza, I saw Vasin today, and he asked me about you. You’re acquainted?”

“Yes, we met in Luga last year,” she answered quite simply, sitting down next to me and looking at me affectionately. I don’t know why, but I thought she’d just turn bright red when I told her about Vasin. My sister was a blonde, a light blonde; her hair was quite unlike her mother’s and her father’s, but her eyes and the shape of her face were almost like her mother’s. Her nose was very straight, small, regular; however, there was another peculiarity—small freckles on her face, something my mother didn’t have at all. Of Versilov there was very little, perhaps only her slender waist, her tall stature, and something lovely in her gait. And not the least resemblance to me; two opposite poles.