“You are right,” I answered.
“Well, supposing you are right, anyway filth is better than prussic acid, isn’t it?”
“No. Prussic acid is better.”
“I asked you ‘isn’t it’ on purpose to enjoy your answer knew what you’d say. No, my young friend. If you’re a genuine lover of humanity, wish all sensible men the same taste as mine, even with a little filth, or sensible men will soon have nothing to do in the world and there’ll be none but the fools left. It will be good luck for them. Though, indeed, there’s a proverb even now that fools are lucky. And do you know there’s nothing pleasanter than to live with fools and to back them up; it pays! You needn’t wonder at my valuing convention, keeping up certain traditions, struggling for influence; I see, of course, that I’m living in a worthless world; but meanwhile it’s snug there and I back it up, and show I stand firm for it. Though I’d be the first to leave it if occasion arose. I know all your modern ideas, though I’ve never worried about them, and had no reason to. I’ve never had any conscience-pricks about anything. I’ll agree to anything so long as I’m all right, and there are legions like me, and we really are all right. Everything in the world may perish, but we shall not perish. We shall exist as long as the world exists. All the world may sink, but we shall float, we shall always float to the top. Consider, by the way, one thing: how full of life people like us are. We are preeminently, phenomenally tenacious of life; has that ever struck you? We live to be eighty, ninety. So nature itself protects us, he-he-he! I particularly want to live to be ninety. I’m not fond of death, and I’m afraid of it. The devil only knows what dying will be like. But why talk of it? It’s that philosopher who poisoned himself that has put me on that track. Damn philosophy! Buvons, mon cher. We began talking about pretty girls… Where are you off to?”
“I’m going home, and it’s time for you to go.”
“Nonsense, nonsense! I’ve, so to speak, opened my whole heart to you, and you don’t seem to feel what a great proof of friendship it is. He-he-he! There’s not much love in you, my poet. But wait a minute, I want another bottle …”
“A third?”
“Yes, As for virtue, my young hopeful (you will allow me to call you by that sweet name), who knows, maybe my precepts may come in useful one day. And so, my young hopeful, about virtue I have said already: the more virtuous virtue is, the more egoism there is in it. I should like to tell you a very pretty story apropos of that. I once loved a young girl, and loved her almost genuinely. She even sacrificed a great deal for me.”
“Is that the one you robbed?” I asked rudely, unwilling to restrain myself longer.
Prince Valkovsky started, his face changed, and he fixed his bloodshot eyes on me. There was amazement and fury in them.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said as though to himself, “let me consider, I really am drunk, and it’s difficult for me to reflect.”
He paused, and looked searchingly, with the same spitefulness, at me, holding my hand in his as though afraid I should go away. I am convinced that at that moment he was going over things in his mind, trying to discover where I could have heard of this affair which scarcely anyone knew; and whether there were any danger in my knowing of it. This lasted for a minute; but suddenly his face changed quickly. The same mocking, drunken, goodhumoured expression appeared in his eyes. He laughed.
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re a Talleyrand, there’s no other word for you. Why, I really stood before her dumbfounded when she sprang it upon me that I had robbed her! How she shrieked then, how she scolded! She was a violent woman and with no self-control. But, judge for yourself: in the first place I hadn’t robbed her as you expressed it just now. She gave me her money herself, and it was mine. Suppose you were to give me your best dresscoat” (as he said this he looked at my only and rather unshapely dresscoat which had been made for me three years ago by a tailor called Ivan Skornyagin), “that I thanked you and wore it and suddenly a year later you quarrel with me and ask for it back again when I’ve worn it out…. That would be ungentlemanly; why give it at all? And, secondly, though the money was mine I should certainly have returned it, but think: where could I have got hold of such a sum all at once? And, above all, I can’t endure all this Schillerism and idyllic nonsense: I’ve told you so already — and that was at the back of it all. You can’t imagine how she posed for my benefit, protesting that she would give me the money (which was mine already). I got angry at last and I suddenly succeeded in judging the position quite correctly, for I never lose my presence of mind; I reflected that by giving her back the money I should perhaps make her unhappy. I should have deprived her of the enjoyment of being miserable entirely owing to me, and of cursing me for it all her life. Believe me, my young friend, there is positively a lofty ecstasy in unhappiness of that kind, in feeling oneself magnanimous and absolutely in the right, and in having every right to call one’s opponent a scoundrel. This ecstasy of spite is often to be met with in these Schilleresque people, of course; afterwards perhaps she may have had nothing to cat, but I am convinced that she was happy. I did not want to deprive her of that happiness and I did not send her back the money. And this fully justified my maxim that the louder and more conspicuous a person’s magnanimity, the greater the amount of revolting egoism underlying it… Surely that’s clear to you… But … you wanted to catch me, ha-ha-ha! … Come, confess you were trying to catch me…. Oh, Talleyrand!
“Goodbye,” I slid, getting up.
“One minute! Two words in conclusion!” he shouted, suddenly dropping his disgusting tone and speaking seriously. “Listen to my last words: from all I have said to you it follows clearly and unmistakably (I imagine you have observed it yourself) that I will never give up what’s to my advantage for anyone. I’m fond of money and I need it. Katerina Fyodorovna has plenty. Her father held a contract for the vodka tax for ten years. She has three millions and those three millions would be very useful to me. Alyosha and Katya are a perfect match for one another; they are both utter fools; and that just suits me. And, therefore, I desire and intend their marriage to take place as soon as possible. In a fortnight or three weeks the countess and Katya are going to the country. Alyosha must escort them. Warn Natalya Nikolaevna that there had better be no idyllic nonsense, no Schillerism, that they had better not oppose me. I’m revengeful and malicious; I shall stand up for myself. I’m not afraid of her. Everything will no doubt be as I wish it, and therefore if I warn her now it is really more for her sake. Mind there’s no silliness, and that she behaves herself sensibly. Otherwise it will be a bad lookout for her, very. She ought to be grateful to me that I haven’t treated her as I ought to have done, by law. Let me tell you, my poet, that the law protects the peace of the family, it guaranteed a son’s obedience to his father, and that those who seduce children from their most sacred duties to their parents are not encouraged by the laws. Remember, too, that I have connexions, that she has none, and … surely you must realize what I might do to her…. But I have not done it, for so far she has behaved reasonably. Don’t be uneasy. Every moment for the last six months, every action they have taken has been watched by sharp eyes. And I have known everything to the smallest trifle. And so I have waited quietly for Alyosha to drop her of himself, and that process is beginning and meanwhile it has been a charming distraction for him. I have remained a humane father in his imagination, and I must have him think of me like that. Ha-ha-ha! When I remember that I was almost paying her compliments the other evening for having been so magnanimous and disinterested as not