The Adolescent

“And at this very moment I see through you once and for all!” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly jumped up from her place, and even so unexpectedly that I was quite unprepared for it. “Not only were you a lackey then, you’re a lackey now, you have a lackey soul! What would it have cost Andrei Petrovich to send you to be a cobbler? He’d even have done a good deed, teaching you a craft! Who would ask or demand that he do any more for you? Your father, Makar Ivanych, did not so much ask as almost demand that you, his children, not be taken from the lower estates. No, you don’t appreciate that he got you as far as the university, and that through him you acquired rights.41 The boys teased him, you see, and so he swore to take revenge on mankind . . . Scum that you are!”

I confess, I was astounded by this outburst. I stood up and stared for some time, not knowing what to say.

“Why, Tatyana Pavlovna has indeed told me something new,” I finally turned firmly to Versilov. “I’m indeed so much of a lackey that I can in no way be satisfied merely with the fact that Versilov did not send me to be a cobbler; even ‘rights’ didn’t appease me, but give me, say, the whole of Versilov, give me my father . . . that’s what I was demanding—am I not a lackey? Mama, it has been on my conscience for eight years, how you came alone to Touchard’s to visit me, and how I received you then, but there’s no time for that now, Tatyana Pavlovna won’t let me tell it. Till tomorrow, mama, maybe you and I can still see each other. Tatyana Pavlovna! Well, what if I’m once again a lackey to such a degree that I ca

But I couldn’t finish, first of all, because I became excited and confused. My mother turned all pale and her voice seemed to fail her: she couldn’t utter a word. Tatyana Pavlovna was saying a lot and very loudly, so that I couldn’t even make it out, and twice she shoved me on the shoulder with her fist. I only remember her shouting that my words were “affected, fostered in a petty soul, dug out with a finger.” Versilov sat motionless and very serious, not smiling. I went to my room upstairs. The last look to accompany me out of the room was my sister’s look of reproach; she sternly shook her head behind me.

Chapter Seven

I

I’M DESCRIBING ALL these scenes without sparing myself, in order to recall it all clearly and restore the impression. Going upstairs to my room, I had absolutely no idea whether I should be ashamed of myself or triumphant, like someone who has done his duty. If I had been a bit more experienced, I would have guessed that the least doubt in such a matter should be interpreted for the worse. But I was thrown off by another circumstance: I don’t understand what I was glad about, but I was terribly glad, in spite of my doubts and the clear awareness that I had flunked it downstairs. Even the fact that Tatyana Pavlovna had abused me so spitefully struck me as only ridiculous and amusing, but didn’t anger me at all. Probably that was all because I had broken the chain anyway and for the first time felt myself free.

I also felt that I had harmed my situation: still greater darkness surrounded the question of how I should now act with the letter about the inheritance. They would now decidedly take it as a wish to be revenged on Versilov. But while still downstairs, during all those debates, I had resolved to submit the matter of the letter about the inheritance to arbitration, and to appeal to Vasin as arbiter, and, failing Vasin, to yet another person, I already knew whom. Once, this time only, I’ll go to Vasin, I thought to myself, and then—disappear from them all for a long time, for several months, and I’ll even especially disappear from Vasin; only maybe I’ll see my mother and sister every once in a while. All this was disorderly; I felt I had done something, though not in the right way, and—and I was pleased; I repeat, all the same I was glad of something.

I had decided to go to bed early, foreseeing a lot of ru

“Merci, friend, I never once crept up here, not even when I was renting the apartment. I sensed it was something like this, but all the same I never supposed it was quite such a ke

Indeed, it had a certain resemblance to the inside of a coffin, and I even marveled at how correctly he had defined it with a single word. It was a long and narrow closet; at the height of my shoulder, not more, the angle between the wall and the roof began, the top of which I could touch with my palm. For the first minute, Versilov instinctively stooped, for fear of bumping his head on the ceiling, though he didn’t and ended by sitting down quite calmly on my sofa, where my bed was already made up. As for me, I did not sit down and looked at him in deep astonishment.

“Your mother tells me she didn’t know if she should take the money you offered her today for your monthly upkeep. In view of this coffin, not only should the money not be taken, but, on the contrary, a deduction should be made from us in your favor! I’ve never been here and . . . can’t imagine that it’s possible to live here.”

“I’m used to it. But what I can’t get used to is seeing you here after all that went on downstairs.”

“Oh, yes, you were considerably rude downstairs, but . . . I also have my particular goals, which I’ll explain to you, though, anyhow, there’s nothing extraordinary in my visit. Even what took place downstairs is also perfectly in the order of things. But explain this to me, for Christ’s sake: what you told us there, downstairs, and which you prepared for us and set about so solemnly—can that be all you intended to reveal or tell? Was there nothing else?”

“That was all. That is, let’s say it was all.”

“A bit lacking, my friend; I confess, judging by the way you set about it, and how you invited us to laugh—in short, seeing how anxious you were to tell it, I expected more.”

“But isn’t it all the same to you?”

“I’m concerned, essentially, with the sense of measure: it wasn’t worth such noise, and so the measure was upset. For a whole month you were silent, making ready, and suddenly—nothing!”

“I wanted to go on longer, but I’m ashamed that I told even that much. Not everything can be told in words, certain things it’s better never to tell. I did tell enough, though, but you didn’t understand me.”

“Ah! so you, too, suffer sometimes because a thought won’t go into words! It’s a noble suffering, my friend, and granted only to the chosen; a fool is always pleased with what he says, and, besides, he always says more than he needs to; they like extras.”

“As I did downstairs, for instance. I also said more than I needed to; I demanded ‘the whole of Versilov,’ which is much more than I need. I don’t need any Versilov at all.”