“Ah, you little coquette! Well, Liza, confess outright: have you been laughing at me all this month or not?”
“Oh, you’re very funny, you’re terribly funny, Arkady! And you know, it may be that I loved you most of all this month because you’re such an odd duck. But in many ways you’re also a silly duck—that’s so you don’t get too proud. Do you know who else laughed at you? Mama laughed at you, mama and I together: ‘What an odd duck,’ we’d whisper, ‘really, what an odd duck!’ And you sat there and thought all the while that we’re sitting there and trembling before you.”
“Liza, what do you think of Versilov?”
“I think a great many things about him; but you know, we’re not going to talk about him now. There’s no need to talk about him today, right?”
“Perfectly right! No, you’re terribly intelligent, Liza! You’re certainly more intelligent than I am. You just wait, Liza, I’ll finish with all this, and then maybe I’ll tell you something . . .”
“Why are you frowning?”
“I’m not frowning, Liza, I’m just . . . You see, Liza, it’s better to be direct: I have this feature, I don’t like it when someone puts a finger on certain ticklish things in my soul . . . or, better to say, if you keep letting out certain feelings for everybody to admire, it’s shameful, isn’t it? And so I sometimes prefer to frown and say nothing. You’re intelligent, you must understand.”
“Not only that, I’m the same way myself; I understand you in everything. Do you know that mama is the same way, too?”
“Ah, Liza! If only we could live longer in this world! Eh? What did you say?”
“No, I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re just looking?”
“Yes, and you’re looking, too. I look at you and love you.”
I took her almost all the way home and gave her my address. Saying good-bye, I kissed her for the first time in my life . . .
V
AND ALL THAT would have been fine, but there was one thing that wasn’t fine: one oppressive idea had been throbbing in me since nightfall and would not leave my mind. This was that when I had met that unfortunate girl by the gate last evening, I had told her that I myself was leaving my home, my nest, that one could leave wicked people and start one’s own nest, and that Versilov had many illegitimate children. These words about a father from a son had most certainly confirmed in her all her suspicions about Versilov and about his having insulted her. I had accused Stebelkov, but maybe it was I myself, above all, who had poured oil on the fire. This thought was terrible, it’s terrible even now . . . But then, that morning, though I was already beginning to suffer, it had still seemed nonsense to me: “Eh, even without me, a lot was ‘seething and smoldering’ there,” I repeated at times. “Eh, never mind, it’ll pass! I’ll come right! I’ll make up for it . . . by some good deed . . . I’ve still got fifty years ahead of me!”
But the idea still throbbed.
PART TWO
Chapter One
I
