The Adolescent

He was very tired and talking as if at random.

“Calm yourself,” I stood up, taking my hat, “go to bed, that’s the first thing. And Prince Nikolai Ivanovich won’t refuse you for anything, especially now, in his joy. Do you know the story there? You really don’t? I’ve heard a wild thing, that he’s getting married; it’s a secret, but not from you, naturally.”

And I told him everything, already standing hat in hand. He knew nothing. He quickly inquired about the details, primarily the time, the place, and the degree of reliability. Of course, I didn’t conceal from him that, according to the story, this had happened immediately after his visit yesterday to A

“Could you really think,” he suddenly raised his eyes to me proudly and haughtily, “that I, I am capable of going now, after your communication, and asking Prince Nikolai Ivanovich for money? Asking him who is the fiancé of the girl who has just refused me—how beggarly, how servile! No, now all is lost, and if the help of this old man was my last hope, then let that last hope, too, be lost!”

I agreed with him in my heart; but still, one must take a broader view of reality: was the little old prince a man, a fiancé? Several ideas began seething in my head at once. Even without that, however, I had decided earlier that tomorrow I would visit the old man without fail. But now I tried to soften the impression and put the poor prince to bed: “You’ll have a good sleep, and your ideas will brighten up, you’ll see for yourself !” He shook my hand warmly, but didn’t kiss me. I gave him my word that I’d come the next evening and “we’ll talk, we’ll talk: all too much has accumulated for us to talk about.” At these words of mine he smiled somehow fatally.

Chapter Eight

I

ALL THAT NIGHT I dreamed of roulette, gambling, gold, calculations. I kept calculating something, as if I was at the gaming table, some stake, some chance, and it oppressed me all night like a nightmare. To tell the truth, that whole previous day, despite all my extraordinary impressions, I kept recalling my win at Zershchikov’s. I suppressed the thought, but could not suppress the impression and trembled at the mere recollection. That win had stung my heart. Could it be I was a born gambler? At least it was certain that I had the qualities of a gambler. Even now, as I’m writing all this, I like at moments to think about gambling! It sometimes happens that I spend whole hours sitting silently, making gambling calculations in my mind and dreaming of how it will all go, how I’ll stake and win. Yes, there are many different “qualities” in me, and my soul is restless.

At ten o’clock I intended to set off for Stebelkov’s, and that on foot. I sent Matvei home as soon as he appeared. While having my coffee, I tried to collect my thoughts. For some reason I was pleased; instantly looking into myself, I realized that I was mainly pleased with the fact that “today I would be in the home of Prince Nikolai Ivanovich.” But this day of my life was fateful and unexpected and began at once with a surprise.

At exactly ten o’clock my door was flung open and in flew—Tatyana Pavlovna. I might have expected anything but that woman’s appearance, and I jumped up before her in fright. Her face was ferocious, her gestures disordered, and, if asked, she might not have been able to say herself why she had rushed in on me. I’ll say beforehand: she had just received an extraordinary piece of news which had crushed her, and was under the very first impression of it. And the news touched me as well. However, she spent just half a minute with me, or say a whole minute, but not more. She just fastened on to me.

“So that’s how you are!” she stood in front of me, all thrust forward. “Ah, you puppy! What have you done? Or don’t you know yet? He’s having his coffee! Ah, you babbler, ah, you windmill, ah, you paper lover . . . the likes of you ought to be birched, birched, birched!”

“Tatyana Pavlovna, what’s happened? What’s wrong? Mama? . . .”

“You’ll find out!” she cried menacingly and rushed from the room—that was all I saw of her. Of course, I would have chased after her, but I was stopped by a thought, or not a thought, but some dark anxiety: I had a presentiment that “paper lover” was the chief phrase in her shouting. Of course, I would have guessed nothing on my own, but I quickly left, in order to finish the sooner with Stebelkov and go to Prince Nikolai Ivanovich’s. “The key to everything is there!” I thought instinctively.

It was astonishing how, but Stebelkov already knew everything about A

“There’s a person, sir! No, sir, there’s quite a person!” he exclaimed. “No, sir, that’s not our way; we just sit here and nothing more, but she wanted to drink water from a true source—and she did. It’s . . . it’s an ancient statue! It’s an ancient statue of Minerva, sir, only she walks around and wears modern dress!”

I asked him to get down to business. The whole business, as I fully anticipated, consisted merely in inducing and persuading the prince to go and ask for ultimate aid from Prince Nikolai Ivanovich. “Otherwise it may be very, very bad for him, and not by my will; is that so or not?”

He peeked into my eyes, but didn’t seem to suppose that I knew anything more than I had the day before. And he couldn’t have supposed anything: needless to say, I didn’t betray by a word or a hint that I knew “about the shares.” We didn’t talk long, he at once began promising me money, “and a considerable amount, sir, a considerable amount, only help to make the prince go. It’s an urgent matter, very urgent, there’s the force of it, that it’s all too urgent!”

I didn’t want to argue and wrangle with him like the day before, and I got up to go, letting drop to him in any case that I’d “try.” But he suddenly astonished me inexpressibly: I was already going to the door when, putting his arm affectionately around my waist, he unexpectedly began telling me . . . the most incomprehensible things.

I’ll omit the details and not recount the whole thread of the conversation, so as not to be tiresome. The gist of it was that he made me a proposition “to acquaint him with Mr. Dergachev, since you do go there”!

I instantly became quiet, trying as hard as I could not to betray myself by some gesture. I replied at once, however, that I was a complete stranger there, and if I had been there, it was only once by chance.

“But if you were admitted once, then you can go another time, is that so or not?”

I asked him directly, but very coolly, what he needed it for. And to this day I ca