1
i cannot resist sitting down to write the history of the first steps in my career, though i might very well abstain from doing so. . . . i know one thing for certain: i shall never again sit down to write my autobiography even if i live to be a hundred. one must be too disgustingly in love with self to be able without shame to write about oneself. i can only excuse myself on the ground that i am not writing with the same object with which other people write, that is, to win the praise of my readers. it has suddenly occurred to me to write out word for word all that has happened to me during this last year, simply from an inward impulse, because i am so impressed by all that has happened. i shall simply record the incidents, doing my utmost to exclude everything extraneous, especially all literary graces. the professional writer writes for thirty years, and is quite unable to say at the end why he has been writing for all that time. i am not a professional writer and don’t want to be, and to drag forth into the literary market-place the inmost secrets of my soul and an artistic description of my feelings i should regard as indecent and contemptible. i foresee, however, with vexation, that it will be impossible to avoid describing feelings altogether and making reflections (even, perhaps, cheap ones), so corrupting is every sort of literary pursuit in its effect, even if it be undertaken only for one’s own satisfaction. the reflections may indeed be very cheap, because what is of value for oneself may very well have no value for others. but all this is beside the mark. it will do for a preface, however. there will be nothing more of the sort. let us get to work, though there is nothing more difficult than to begin upon some sorts of work — perhaps any sort of work.
2
i am beginning — or rather, i should like to begin — these notes from the 19th of september of last year, that is, from the very day i first met . . .
but to explain so prematurely who it was i met before anything else is known would be cheap; in fact, i believe my tone is cheap. i vowed i would eschew all literary graces, and here at the first sentence i am being seduced by them. it seems as if writing sensibly can’t be done simply by wanting to. i may remark, also, that i fancy writing is more difficult in russian than in any other european language. i am now reading over what i have just written, and i see that i am much cleverer than what i have written. how is it that what is expressed by a clever man is much more stupid than what is left in him? i have more than once during this momentous year noticed this with myself in my relations with people, and have been very much worried by it.
although i am beginning from the 19th of september, i must put in a word or two about who i am and where i had been till then, and what was consequently my state of mind on the morning of that day, to make things clearer to the reader, and perhaps to myself also.
3
i have passed the leaving examination at the grammar school, and now i am in my twenty-first year. my surname is dolgoruky, and my legal father is makar ivanov dolgoruky, formerly a serf in the household of the versilovs. in this way i am a legitimate son, although i am, as a matter of fact, conspicuously illegitimate, and there is not the faintest doubt about my origin.
the facts are as follows. twenty-two years ago versilov (that is my father), being twenty-five years old, visited his estate in the province of tula. i imagine that at that time his character was still quite unformed. it is curious that this man who, even in my childhood, made such an impression upon me, who had such a crucial influence on the whole bent of my mind, and who perhaps has even cast his shadow over the whole of my future, still remains, even now, a complete enigma to me in many respects. of this, more particulars later. there is no describing him straight off. my whole manuscript will be full of this man, anyway.
he had just been left a widower at that time, that is, when he was twenty-five. he had married one of the fanariotovs — a girl of high rank but without much money — and by her he had a son and a daughter. the facts that i have gathered about this wife whom he lost so early are somewhat scanty, and are lost among my materials, and, indeed, many of the circumstances of versilov’s private life have eluded me, for he has always been so proud, disdainful, reserved and casual with me, in spite of a sort of meekness towards me which was striking at times. i will mention, however, to make things clear beforehand, that he ran through three fortunes in his lifetime, and very big ones too, of over fourteen hundred souls, and maybe more. now, of course, he has not a farthing.
he went to the village on that occasion, “god knows why,” so at least he said to me afterwards. his young children were, as usual, not with him but with relations. this was always his method with his children, legitimate and illegitimate alike. the house-serfs on this estate were rather numerous, and among them was a gardener called makar ivanov dolgoruky. here i will note in parenthesis, to relieve my mind once and for all, i doubt whether anyone can ever have raged against his surname as i have all my life; this is stupid, of course, but so it has been. every time i entered a school or met persons whom i had to treat with respect as my elders, every wretched little teacher, tutor, priest — anyone you like — on asking my name and hearing it was dolgoruky, for some reason invariably thought fitting to add, “prince dolgoruky?” and every single time i was forced to explain to these futile people, “no, simply dolgoruky.”
that simply began to drive me mad at last. here i note as a curious phenomenon that i don’t remember a single exception; every one asked the question. for some it was apparently quite superfluous, and indeed i don’t know how the devil it could have been necessary for anyone. but all, every one of them asked it. on hearing that i was simply dolgoruky, the questioner usually looked me up and down with a blank and stupidly apathetic stare that betrayed that he did not know why he had asked the question. then he would walk away. my comrades and schoolfellows were the most insulting of all. how do schoolboys question a new-comer? the new boy, abashed and confused on the first day of entering a school (whatever school it may be), is the victim of all; they order him about, they tease him, and treat him like a lackey. a stout, chubby urchin suddenly stands still before his victim and watches him persistently for some moments with a stern and haughty stare. the new boy stands facing him in silence, looks at him out of the corner of his eyes, and, if he is not a coward, waits to see what is going to happen.
“what’s your name?”
“dolgoruky.”
“prince dolgoruky?”
“no, simply dolgoruky.”
“ah, simply! fool.”
and he was right; nothing could be more foolish than to be called dolgoruky without being a prince. i have to bear the burden of that foolishness through no fault of my own. later on, when i began to get very cross about it, i always answered the question “are you a prince?” by saying, “no, i’m the son of a servant, formerly a serf.”
at last, when i was roused to the utmost pitch of fury, i resolutely answered:
“no, simply dolgoruky, the illegitimate son of my former owner.”
i thought of this when i was in the sixth form of the grammar school, and though i was very soon after thoroughly convinced that i was stupid, i did not at once give up being so. i remember that one of the teachers opined — he was alone in his opinion, however — that i was “filled with ideas of vengeance and civic rights.” as a rule this reply was received with a sort of meditative pensiveness, anything but flattering to me.
at last one of my schoolfellows, a very sarcastic boy, to whom i hardly talked once in a year, said to me with a serious countenance, looking a little away:
“such sentiments do you credit, of course, and no doubt you have something to be proud of; but if i were in your place i should not be too festive over being illegitimate . . . you seem to expect congratulations!”
from that time forth i dropped boasting of being illegitimate.
i repeat, it is very difficult to write in russian: here i have covered three pages with describing how furious i have been all my life with my surname, and after all the reader will, no doubt, probably have deduced that i was really furious at not being a prince but simply dolgoruky. to explain again and defend myself would be humiliating.
4
and so among the servants, of whom there were a great number besides makar ivanitch, there was a maid, and she was eighteen when makar dolgoruky, who was fifty, suddenly announced his intention of marrying her. in the days of serfdom marriages of house-serfs, as every one knows, only took place with the sanction of their masters, and were sometimes simply arranged by the latter. at that time “auntie” was living on the estate; not that she was my aunt, though: she had, in fact, an estate of her own; but, i don’t know why, every one knew her all her life as “auntie”— not mine in particular but an aunt in general, even in the family of versilov, to whom she can hardly have been related. her name was tatyana pavlovna prutkov, in those days she still had, in the same province and district, a property of thirty-five serfs of her own. she didn’t exactly administer versilov’s estate (of five hundred serfs), but, being so near a neighbour, she kept a vigilant eye on it, and her superintendence, so i have heard, was as efficient as that of any trained steward. however, her efficiency is nothing to do with me. but, to dispose of all suspicion of cringing or flattery on my part, i should like to add that this tatyana pavlovna was a generous and even original person.
well, far from checking the gloomy makar dolgoruky’s matrimonial inclinations (i am told he was gloomy in those days), she gave them the warmest encouragement.
sofia andreyevna, the serf-girl of eighteen (that is, my mother), had been for some years fatherless and motherless. her father, also a serf, who had a great respect for makar dolgoruky and was under some obligation to him, had six years before, on his death-bed, beckoned to the old gardener and, pointing significantly to his daughter, had, in the presence of the priest and all the servants, bequeathed her to him, saying, “when she’s grown up, marry her.” this was, so they say, a quarter of an hour before he expired, so that it might, if need be, have been put down to delirium; besides which, he had no right to dispose of property, being a serf. every one heard his words. as for makar ivanovitch, i don’t know in what spirit he afterwards entered upon the marriage, whether with great eagerness or simply as the fulfilment of a duty. probably he preserved an appearance of complete indifference. he was a man who even at that time knew how to “keep up his dignity.” it was not that he was a particularly well-educated or reading man (though he knew the whole of the church service and some lives of the saints, but this was only from hearing them). it was not that he was a sort of backstairs philosopher; it was simply that he was a man of obstinate, and even at times rash character, was conceited in his talk, autocratic in his judgment, and “respectful in his life,” to use his own surprising expression; that is what he was like at that time. of course, he was universally respected, but, i am told, disliked by every one. it was a different matter when he ceased to be a house-serf; then he was spoken about as a saint and a man who had suffered much. that i know for a fact.
as for my mother, tatyana pavlovna had kept her till the age of eighteen in her house, although the steward had urged that the girl should be sent to moscow to be trained. she had given the orphan some education, that is, taught her sewing and cutting out clothes, ladylike deportment, and even a little reading. my mother was never able to write decently. she looked upon this marriage with makar ivanovitch as something settled long ago, and everything that happened to her in those days she considered very good and all for the best. she went to her wedding looking as unmoved as anyone could on such an occasion, so much so that even tatyana pavlovna called her a fish. all this about my mother’s character at that time i heard from tatyana pavlovna herself. versilov arrived just six months after this wedding.
5
i only want to say that i have never been able to find out or to guess to my own satisfaction what led up to everything between him and my mother. i am quite ready to believe, as he himself assured me last year with a flushed face, though he talked of all this with the most unconstrained and flippant air, that there was no romance about it at all, that it had just happened. i believe that it did just happen, and that little phrase just happened is delightful, yet i always wanted to know how it could have come about. i have always hated that sort of nastiness all my life and always shall. it’s not simply a disgraceful curiosity on my part, of course. i may remark that i knew absolutely nothing of my mother till a year ago. for the sake of versilov’s comfort i was sent away to strangers, but of that later, and so i can never picture what she looked like at that time. if she had not been at all pretty, what could a man such as versilov was then have found attractive in her? this question is of importance to me because it throws a light on an extremely interesting side of that man’s character. it is for that reason i ask it and not from depravity. gloomy and reserved as he always was, he told me himself on one occasion, with that charming candour which he used to produce (from the devil knows where — it seemed to come out of his pocket when he saw it was indispensable) that at that time he was a “very silly young puppy”; not that he was exactly sentimental, but just that he had lately read “poor anton” and “polinka sachs,” two literary works which exerted an immense, humanizing influence on the younger generation of that day. he added that it was perhaps through “poor anton” that he went to the country, and he added it with the utmost gravity. how did that “silly puppy” begin at first with my mother? i have suddenly realized that if i had a single reader he would certainly be laughing at me as a most ridiculous raw youth, still stupidly innocent, putting himself forward to discuss and criticize what he knows nothing about. it is true that i know nothing about it, though i recognize that not at all with pride, for i know how stupid such inexperience is in a great dolt of twenty; only i would tell such a gentleman that he knows nothing about it himself, and i will prove it to him. it is true that i know nothing about women, and i don’t want to either, for i shall always despise that sort of thing, and i have sworn i will all my life.
but i know for certain, though, that some women fascinate by their beauty, or by anything you like, all in a minute, while you may ruminate over another for six months before you understand what is in her; and that to see through and love such a woman it is not enough to look at her, it is not enough to be simply ready for anything, one must have a special gift besides. of that i am convinced, although i do know nothing about it: and if it were not true it would mean degrading all women to the level of domestic animals, and only keeping them about one as such; possibly this is what very many people would like.
i know from several sources that my mother was by no means a beauty, though i have never seen the portrait of her at that age which is in existence. so it was impossible to have fallen in love with her at first sight. simply to “amuse himself” versilov might have pitched on some one else, and there was some one else in the house, an unmarried girl too, anfisa konstantinovna sapozhkov, a housemaid. to a man who had brought “poor anton” with him to the country it must have seemed shameful to take advantage of his seignorial rights to violate the sanctity of a marriage, even that of his serf, for i repeat, he spoke with extreme seriousness of this “poor anton” only a few months ago, that is, twenty years after the event. why, “poor anton” only had his horse taken from him, but this was a wife! so there must have been something peculiar in this case, and mlle. sapozhkov was the loser by it (or rather, i should say, the gainer). i attacked him with all these questions once or twice last year when it was possible to talk to him (for it wasn’t always possible to talk to him). and, in spite of all his society polish and the lapse of twenty years, i noticed that he winced. but i persisted. on one occasion, anyway, although he maintained the air of worldly superciliousness which he invariably thought fit to assume with me, he muttered strangely that my mother was one of those “defenceless” people whom one does not fall in love with — quite the contrary, in fact — but whom one suddenly pities for their gentleness, perhaps, though one cannot tell what for. that no one ever knows, but one goes on pitying them, one pities them and grows fond of them. “in fact, my dear boy, there are cases when one can’t shake it off.” that was what he told me. and if that was how it really happened i could not look upon him as the “silly puppy” he had proclaimed himself. that is just what i wanted.
he went on to assure me, however, that my mother loved him “through servility.” he positively pretended it was because he was her master! he lied, thinking this was chic! he lied against his conscience, against all honour and generosity.
i have said all this, of course, as it were to the credit of my mother. but i have explained already that i knew nothing whatever of her as she was then. what is more, i know the rigidity of her environment, and the pitiful ideas in which she had become set from her childhood and to which she remained enslaved for the rest of her life. the misfortune happened, nevertheless. i must correct myself, by the way. letting my fancy run away with me, i have forgotten the fact which i ought to have stated first of all, that is, that the misfortune happened at the very outset (i hope that the reader will not be too squeamish to understand at once what i mean). in fact, it began with his exercising his seignorial rights, although mlle. sapozhkov was passed over. but here, in self-defence, i must declare at once that i am not contradicting myself. for — good lord! — what could a man like versilov have talked about at that date with a person like my mother even if he had felt the most overwhelming love for her? i have heard from depraved people that men and women very often come together without a word being uttered, which is, of course, the last extreme of monstrous loathsomeness. nevertheless, i do not see how versilov could have begun differently with my mother if he had wanted to. could he have begun by expounding “polinka sachs” to her? and besides, they had no thoughts to spare for russian literature; on the contrary, from what he said (he let himself go once), they used to hide in corners, wait for each other on the stairs, fly apart like bouncing balls, with flushed cheeks if anyone passed by, and the “tyrant slave-owner” trembled before the lowest scrubbing-maid, in spite of his seignorial rights. and although it was at first an affair of master and servant, it was that and yet not that, and after all, there is no really explaining it. in fact, the more you go into it the more obscure it seems. the very depth and duration of their love makes it more mysterious, for it is a leading characteristic of such men as versilov to abandon as soon as their object is attained. that did not happen, though. to transgress with an attractive, giddy flirt who was his serf (and my mother was not a flirt) was not only possible but inevitable for a depraved young puppy (and they were all depraved, every one of them, the progressives as well as the reactionaries), especially considering his romantic position as a young widower and his having nothing to do. but to love her all his life is too much. i cannot guarantee that he did love her, but he has dragged her about with him all his life — that’s certain.
i put a great many questions to my mother, but there is one, most important, which, i may remark, i did not venture to ask her directly, though i got on such familiar terms with her last year; and, what is more, like a coarse, ungrateful puppy, considering she had wronged me, i did not spare her feelings at all. this was the question: how she after six months of marriage, crushed by her ideas of the sanctity of wedlock, crushed like some helpless fly, respecting her makar ivanovitch as though he had been a god — how she could have brought herself in about a fortnight to such a sin? was my mother a depraved woman, perhaps? on the contrary, i may say now at once that it is difficult to imagine anyone more pure-hearted than she was then and has been all her life. the explanation may be, perhaps, that she scarcely knew what she was doing (i don’t mean in the sense in which lawyers nowadays urge this in defence of their thieves and murderers), but was carried away by a violent emotion, which sometimes gains a fatal and tragic ascendancy when the victim is of a certain degree of simplicity. there is no telling: perhaps she fell madly in love with . . . the cut of his clothes, the parisian style in which he parted his hair, his french accent — yes, french, though she didn’t understand a word of it — the song he sang at the piano; she fell in love with something she had never seen or heard of (and he was very handsome), and fell in love with him straight away, once for all, hopelessly, fell in love with him altogether — manners, song, and all. i have heard that this did sometimes happen to peasant girls in the days of serfdom, and to the most virtuous, too. i understand this, and the man is a scoundrel who puts it down to nothing but servility. and so perhaps this young man may have had enough direct power of fascination to attract a creature who had till then been so pure and who was of a different species, of an utterly different world, and to lead her on to such evident ruin. that it was to her ruin my mother, i hope, realized all her life; only probably when she went to it she did not think of ruin at all; but that is how it always is with these “defenceless” creatures, they know it is ruin and they rush upon it.
having sinned, they promptly repented. he told me flippantly that he sobbed on the shoulder of makar ivanovitch, whom he sent for to his study expressly for the purpose, and she — she meanwhile was lying unconscious in some little back room in the servants’ quarters . . . .
6
but enough of questions and scandalous details. after paying makar ivanovitch a sum of money for my mother, versilov went away shortly afterwards, and ever since, as i have mentioned already, he dragged her about with him, almost everywhere he went, except at certain times when he absented himself for a considerable period. then, as a rule, he left her in the care of “auntie,” that is, of tatyana pavlovna prutkov, who always turned up on such occasions. they lived in moscow, and also in other towns and villages, even abroad, and finally in petersburg. of all that later, though perhaps it is not worth recording. i will only mention that a year after my mother left makar ivanovitch, i made my appearance, and a year later my sister, and ten or eleven years afterwards a sickly child, my younger brother, who died a few months later. my mother’s terrible confinement with this baby was the end of her good looks, so at least i was told: she began rapidly to grow older and feebler.
but a correspondence with makar ivanovitch was always kept up. wherever the versilovs were, whether they lived for some years in the same place, or were moving about, makar ivanovitch never failed to send news of himself to the “family.” strange relations grew up, somewhat ceremonious and almost solemn. among the gentry there is always an element of something comic in such relations, i know. but there was nothing of the sort in this case. letters were exchanged twice a year, never more nor less frequently, and they were extraordinarily alike. i have seen them. there was scarcely anything personal in them. on the contrary, they were practically nothing but ceremonious statements of the most public incidents, and the most public sentiments, if one may use such an expression of sentiments; first came news of his own health, and inquiries about their health, then ceremonious hopes, greetings and blessings — that was all.
i believe that this publicity and impersonality is looked upon as the essence of propriety and good breeding among the peasants. “to our much esteemed and respected spouse, sofia andreyevna, we send our humblest greetings . . . .” “we send to our beloved children, our fatherly blessing, ever unalterable.” the children were mentioned by name, including me. i may remark here that makar ivanovitch had so much wit as never to describe “his high-born most respected master, andrey petrovitch” as his “benefactor”; though he did invariably, in each letter, send him his most humble greetings, beg for the continuance of his favour, and call down upon him the blessing of god. the answers to makar ivanovitch were sent shortly after by my mother, and were always written in exactly the same style. versilov, of course, took no part in the correspondence. makar ivanovitch wrote from all parts of russia, from the towns and monasteries in which he sometimes stayed for a considerable time. he had become a pilgrim, as it is called. he never asked for anything; but he invariably turned up at home once in three years on a holiday, and stayed with my mother, who always, as it happened, had her own lodgings apart from versilov’s. of this i shall have to say more later, here i will only mention that makar ivanovitch did not loll on the sofa in the drawing-room, but always sat discreetly somewhere in the background. he never stayed for long: five days or a week.
i have omitted to say that he had the greatest affection and respect for his surname, “dolgoruky.” of course this was ludicrous stupidity. and what was most stupid was that he prized his name just because there were princes of the name. a strange, topsy-turvy idea.
i have said that the family were always together, but i mean except for me, of course. i was like an outcast, and, almost from my birth, had been with strangers. but this was done with no special design, but simply because it had happened so. when i was born my mother was still young and good-looking, and therefore necessary to versilov; and a screaming child, of course, was always a nuisance, especially when they were travelling. that was how it happened that until i was nineteen i had scarcely seen my mother except on two or three brief occasions. it was not due to my mother’s wishes, but to versilov’s lofty disregard for people.
7
now for something quite different. a month earlier, that is a month before the 19th of september, i had made up my mind in moscow to renounce them all, and to retire into my own idea, finally. i record that expression “retire into my own idea” because that expression may explain my leading motive, my object in life. what that “idea” of mine is, of that there will be only too much said later. in the solitary years of my dreamy life in moscow it sprang up in my mind before i had left the sixth form of the grammar school, and from that time perhaps never left me for an instant. it absorbed my whole existence. till then i had lived in dreams; from my childhood upwards i have lived in the world of dreams, always of a certain colour. but after this great and all-absorbing idea turned up, my dreams gained in force, took a definite shape; and became rational instead of foolish. school did not hinder my dreams, and it did not hinder the idea either. i must add, however, that i came out badly in the leaving exam, though i had always been one of the first in all the forms up to the seventh, and this was a result of that same idea, a result of a false deduction from it perhaps. so it was not school work that hindered the idea, but the idea that hindered school work, and it hindered university work too. when i left school i intended at once not only to cut myself off from my family completely, but from all the world if necessary, though i was only nineteen at the time. i wrote through a suitable person to tell them to leave me entirely alone, not to send me any more money for my maintenance, and, if possible, to forget me altogether (that is if they ever did remember me), and finally “nothing would induce” me to enter the university. an alternative presented itself from which there was no escaping: to refuse to enter the university and go on with my education, or to defer putting my idea into practice for another four years. i went for the idea without faltering, for i was absolutely resolved about it. in answer to my letter, which had not been addressed to him, versilov, my father, whom i had only seen once for a moment when i was a boy of ten (though even in that moment he made a great impression upon me), summoned me to petersburg in a letter written in his own hand, promising me a private situation. this cold, proud man, careless and disdainful of me, after bringing me into the world and packing me off to strangers, knew nothing of me at all and had never even regretted his conduct; who knows, perhaps he had only a vague and confused idea of my existence, for it appeared afterwards that the money for my maintenance in moscow had not been furnished by him but by other people. yet the summons of this man who so suddenly remembered me and deigned to write to me with his own hand, by flattering me, decided my fate. strange to say, what pleased me in his note (one tiny sheet of paper) was that he said not a word about the university, did not ask me to change my mind, did not blame me for not wanting to continue my studies, did not, in fact, trot out any parental flourishes of the kind usual in such cases, and yet this was wrong of him since it betrayed more than anything his lack of interest in me. i resolved to go, the more readily because it would not hinder my great idea. “i’ll see what will come of it,” i argued, “in any case i shall associate with them only for a time; possibly a very short time. but as soon as i see that this step, tentative and trifling as it is, is keeping me from the great object, i shall break off with them, throw up everything and retreat into my shell.” yes, into my shell! “i shall hide in it like a tortoise.” this comparison pleased me very much. “i shall not be alone,” i went on musing, as i walked about moscow those last days like one possessed. “i shall never be alone as i have been for so many awful years till now; i shall have my idea to which i will never be false, even if i like them all there, and they make me happy, and i live with them for ten years!” it was, i may remark beforehand, just that impression, that is, just the twofold nature of the plans and objects definitely formed before leaving moscow, and never out of my mind for one instant in petersburg (for i hardly think there was a day in petersburg which i had not fixed on beforehand as the final date for breaking off with them and going away), it was this, i say, that was, i believe, one of the chief causes of many of the indiscretions i have been guilty of during this year, many nasty things, many even low things, and stupid ones of course. to be sure, a father, something i had never had before, had appeared upon the scene. this thought intoxicated me as i made my preparations in moscow and sat in the railway carriage. that he was my father would be nothing. i was not fond of sentimentality, but this man had humiliated me and had not cared to know me, while all those years i had been chewing away at my dreams of him, if one may use such an expression. from my childhood upward, my dreams were all coloured by him; all hovered about him as the final goal. i don’t know whether i hated him or loved him; but his figure dominated the future and all my schemes of life. and this happened of itself. it grew up with me.
another thing which influenced me in leaving moscow was a tremendous circumstance, a temptation which even then, three months before my departure (before petersburg had been mentioned), set my heart leaping and throbbing. i was drawn to this unknown ocean by the thought that i could enter it as the lord and master of other people’s destinies, and what people, too! but the feelings that were surging in my heart were generous and not despotic — i hasten to declare it that my words may not be mistaken. moreover, versilov might think (if he ever deigned to think of me) that a small boy who had just left school, a raw youth, was coming who would be agape with wonder at everything. and meanwhile i knew all his private life, and had about me a document of the utmost importance, for which (i know that now for a fact) he would have given some years of his life, if i had told him the secret at the time. but i notice that i am talking in riddles. one cannot describe feelings without facts. besides which, there will be enough about all this in its proper place; it is with that object i have taken up my pen. writing like this is like a cloud of words or the ravings of delirium.
8
finally, to pass once for all to the 19th of september, i will observe briefly and, so to say, cursorily, that i found them all, that is versilov, my mother and my sister (the latter i saw for the first time in my life) in difficult circumstances, almost destitute, or at least, on the verge of destitution. i knew of this before leaving moscow, but yet i was not prepared for what i saw. i had been accustomed from childhood to imagine this man, this “future father of mine” in brilliant surroundings, and could not picture him except as the leading figure everywhere. versilov had never shared the same lodgings with my mother, but had always taken rooms for her apart. he did this, of course, out of regard for their very contemptible “proprieties.” but here they were all living together in a little wooden lodge in a back street in the semyonovsky polk. all their things were in pawn, so that, without versilov’s knowledge, i gave my mother my secret sixty roubles. secret, because i had saved them up in the course of two years out of my pocket money, which was five roubles a month. i had begun saving from the very day i had conceived my “idea,” and so versilov must know nothing about the money. i trembled at the thought of that.
my help was like a drop in the ocean. my mother worked hard and my sister too took in sewing. versilov lived in idleness, indulged his whims and kept up a number of his former rather expensive habits. he grumbled terribly, especially at dinner, and he was absolutely despotic in all his ways. but my mother, my sister, tatyana pavlovna and the whole family of the late andronikov (the head of some department who used also to manage versilov’s affairs and had died three months before), consisting of innumerable women, grovelled before him as though he were a fetish. i had not imagined this. i may remark that nine years before he had been infinitely more elegant. i have said already that i had kept the image of him in my dreams surrounded by a sort of brilliance, and so i could not conceive how it was possible after only nine years for him to look so much older and to be so worn out; i felt at once sad, sorry, ashamed. the sight of him was one of the most painful of my first impressions on my arrival. yet he was by no means an old man, he was only forty-five. looking at him more closely i found in his handsome face something even more striking than what i had kept in my memory. there was less of the brilliance of those days, less external beauty, less elegance even; but life had, as it were, stamped on that face something far more interesting than before.
meanwhile poverty was not the tenth or twentieth fraction of his misfortunes, and i knew that. there was something infinitely more serious than poverty, apart from the fact that there was still a hope that versilov might win the lawsuit he had been contesting for the last year with the princes sokolsky and might in the immediate future come into an estate to the value of seventy thousand or more. i have said above that versilov had run through three fortunes in his life, and here another fortune was coming to his rescue again! the case was to be settled very shortly. it was just then that i arrived. it is true that no one would lend him money on his expectations, there was nowhere he could borrow, and meanwhile they had to suffer.
versilov visited no one, though he sometimes was out for the whole day. it was more than a year since he had been banished from society. in spite of all my efforts, this scandal remained for the most part a mystery though i had been a whole month in petersburg. was versilov guilty or not guilty — that was what mattered to me, that is what i had come to petersburg for! every one had turned against him — among others all the influential and distinguished people with whom he had been particularly clever in maintaining relations all his life — in consequence of rumours of an extremely low and — what was much worse in the eyes of the “world”— scandalous action which he was said to have committed more than a year ago in germany. it was even reported that he had received a slap in the face from prince sokolsky (one of those with whom he was now in litigation) and had not followed it by a challenge. even his children (the legitimate ones), his son and daughter, had turned against him and were holding aloof. it is true that through the influence of the fanariotovs and old prince sokolsky (who had been a friend of versilov) the son and daughter moved in the very highest circles. yet, watching him all that month, i saw a haughty man who had rather cast off “society” than been cast off by it, so independent was his air. but had he the right to look like that — that was the question that agitated me. i absolutely had to find out the whole truth at the earliest possible date, for i had come — to judge this man. i still kept my power hidden from him, but i had either to accept him or to reject him altogether. but that would have been too painful to me and i was in torment. i will confess it frankly at last: the man was dear to me!
and meanwhile i was living in the same flat with him, working, and scarcely refraining from being rude. in fact i did not refrain. after spending a month with him i became more convinced every day that i could not possibly appeal to him for a full explanation. this man in his pride remained an enigma to me, while he wounded me deeply. he was positively charming to me, and jested with me, but i should have liked quarrels better than such jests. there was a certain note of ambiguity about all my conversations with him, or more simply, a strange irony on his part. from our first meeting, on my arrival from moscow, he did not treat me seriously. i never could make out why he took up this line. it is true that by this means he succeeded in remaining impenetrable, but i would not have humbled myself so far as to ask him to treat me seriously. besides, he had certain wonderful and irresistible ways which i did not know how to deal with. in short he behaved to me as though i were the greenest of raw youths, which i was hardly able to endure, though i knew it would be so. i, too, gave up talking seriously in consequence, and waited; in fact, i almost gave up talking altogether. i waited for a person on whose arrival in petersburg i might finally learn the truth; that was my last hope. in any case i prepared myself for a final rupture, and had already taken all necessary measures. i was sorry for my mother but —“either him or me,” that was the choice i meant to offer her and my sister. i had even fixed on the day; and meanwhile i went to my work.
