“A spiteful fool, ma bonne amie, a spiteful fool is still more foolish,” Stepan Trofimovitch protested magnanimously.
“You're right, perhaps. Do you remember Liza?”
“Charmante enfant!”
“But she's not an enfant now, but a woman, and a woman of character. She's a generous, passionate creature, and what I like about her, she stands up to that confiding fool, her mother. There was almost a row over that cousin.”
“Bah, and of course he's no relation of Lizaveta Nikolaevna's at all. . . . Has he designs on her?”
“You see, he's a young officer, not by any means talkative, modest in fact. I always want to be just. I fancy he is opposed to the intrigue himself, and isn't aiming at anything, and it was only the Von Lembke's tricks. He had a great respect for Nicolas. You understand, it all depends on Liza. But I left her on the best of terms with Nicolas, and he promised he would come to us in November. So it's only the Von Lembkev who is intriguing, and Praskovya is a blind woman. She suddenly tells me that all my suspicions are fancy. I told her to her face she was a fool. I am ready to repeat it at the day of judgment. And if it hadn't been for Nicolas begging me to leave it for a time, I wouldn't have come away without unmasking that false woman. She's been trying to ingratiate herself with Count K. through Nicolas. She wants to come between mother and son. But Liza's on our side, and I came to an understanding with Praskovya. Do you know that Karmazinov is a relation of hers?”
“What? A relation of Madame von Lembke?”
“Yes, of hers. Distant.”
“Karmazinov, the novelist?”
“Yes, the writer. Why does it surprise you? Of course he considers himself a great man. Stuck-up creature! She's coming here with him. Now she's making a fuss of him out there. She's got a notion of setting up a sort of literary society here. He's coming for a month, he wants to sell his last piece of property here. I very nearly met him in Switzerland, and was very anxious not to. Though I hope he will deign to recognise me. He wrote letters to me in the old days, he has been in my house. I should like you to dress better, Stepan Trofimovitch; you're growing more slovenly every day. . . . Oh, how you torment me! What are you reading now?”
“I . . . I . . . ”
“I understand. The same as ever, friends and drinking, the club and cards, and the reputation of an atheist. I don't like that reputation, Stepan Trofimovitch; I don't care for you to be called an atheist, particularly now. I didn't care for it in old days, for it's all nothing but empty chatter. It must be said at last.”
“Mais, ma chere . . . ”
“Listen, Stepan Trofimovitch, of course I'm ignorant compared with you on all learned subjects, but as I was travelling here I thought a great deal about you. I've come to one conclusion.”
“What conclusion?”
“That you and I are not the wisest people in the world, but that there are people wiser than we are.”
“Witty and apt. If there are people wiser than we are, then there are people more right than we are, and we may be mistaken, you mean? Mais, ma bonne amie, granted that I may make a mistake, yet have I not the common, human, eternal, supreme [right of freedom of conscience? I have the right not to be bigoted or superstitious if I don't wish to, and for that I shall naturally be hated by certain persons to the end of time. El puis, comme on trouve toujours plus de moines que de raison, and as I thoroughly agree with that . . .”
“What, what did you say?”
“I said, on trouve, toujours plus de moines que de raison, and as I thoroughly . . .”
“I'm sure that's not your saying. You must have taken it from somewhere.”
“It was Pascal said that.”
“Just as I thought . . .it's not your own. Why don't you ever say anything like that yourself, so shortly and to the point, instead of dragging things out to such a length? That's much, better than what you said just now about administrative ardour. . .”
“Ma foi, chere . . . why? In the first place probably because I'm not a Pascal after all, et puis . . . secondly, we Russians never can say anything in our own language. . . . We never have said anything hitherto, at any rate . . . .”
“H'm! That's not true, perhaps. Anyway, you'd better make a note of such phrases, and remember them, you know, in case you have to talk. . . . Ach, Stephan Trofimovitch. I have come to talk to you seriously, quite seriously.”
“Chere, chere amie!”
“Now that all these Von Lembkes and Karmazinovs . . . Oh, my goodness, how you have deteriorated! . . . Oh, my goodness, how you do torment me! . . . I should have liked these people to feel a respect for you, for they're not worth your little finger — but the way you behave! . . . What will they see? What shall I have to show them? Instead of nobly standing as an example, keeping up the tradition of the past, you surround yourself with a wretched rabble, you have picked up impossible habits, you've grown feeble, you can't do without wine and cards, you read nothing but Paul de Kock, and write nothing, while all of them write; all your time's wasted in gossip. How can you bring yourself to be friends with a wretched creature like your inseparable Liputin?
“Why is he mine and inseparable 1” Stepan Trofimovitch Protested timidly.
“Where is he now?” Varvara Petrovna went on, sharply and sternly.
“He . . . he has an infinite respect for you, and he's gone to S—— k, to receive an inheritance left him by his mother.”
“He seems to do nothing but get money. And how's Shatov? Is he just the same?”
“Irascible, mais bon,”
“I can't endure your Shatov. He's spiteful and he thinks too much of himself.”
“How is Darya Pavlovna?”
“You mean Dasha? What made you think of her?” Varvara Petrovna looked at him inquisitively. “She's quite well. I left her with the Drozdovs. I heard something about your son in Switzerland. Nothing good.”
“Oh, c'est un histoire bien bete! Je vous attendais, ma bonne amie, pour vous raconter . . .”
“Enough, Stepan Trofimovitch. Leave me in peace. I'm worn out. We shall have time to talk to our heart's content, especially of what's unpleasant. You've begun to splutter when you laugh, it's a sign of senility! And what a strange way of laughing you've taken to! . . . Good Heavens, what a lot of bad habits you've fallen into! Karmazinov won't come and see you! And people are only too glad to make the most of anything as it is. . . . You've betrayed yourself completely now. Well, come, that's enough, that's enough, I'm tired. You really might have mercy upon one!”
Stepan Trofimovitch “had mercy,” but he withdrew in great perturbation.
V
Our friend certainly had fallen into not a few bad habits, especially of late. He had obviously and rapidly deteriorated; and it was true that he had become slovenly. He drank more and had become more tearful and nervous; and had grown too impressionable on the artistic side. His face had acquired a strange facility for changing with extraordinary quickness, from the most solemn expression, for instance, to the most absurd, and even foolish. He could not endure solitude, and was always craving for amusement. One had always to repeat to him some gossip, some local anecdote, and every day a new one. If no; one came to see him for a long time he wandered disconsolately about the rooms, walked to the window, puckering up his lips, heaved deep sighs, and almost fell to whimpering at last. He was always full of forebodings, was afraid of something unexpected and inevitable; he had become timorous; he began to pay great attention to his dreams.
He