I FLY OVER a space of nearly two months; let the reader not worry: everything will be clear from the further account. I sharply mark off the day of the fifteenth of November—a day all too memorable to me for many reasons. And first of all, nobody would have recognized me who had seen me two months earlier, at least externally; that is, they’d have recognized me, but wouldn’t have known what to make of it. I’m dressed like a fop—that’s the first thing. That “conscientious Frenchman and with taste,” whom Versilov once wanted to recommend me to, had not only already made all my clothes, but had already been rejected by me: other tailors stitch for me, higher class, the foremost, and I even have an account with them. I also have an account in a certain famous restaurant, but here I’m still afraid, and the moment I have money I pay it at once, though I know it’s mauvais ton33 and that I compromise myself by it. A French barber on Nevsky Prospect is on familiar terms with me, and when he does my hair, he tells me anecdotes. I confess, I practice my French with him. Though I know the language, and even quite decently, I’m still somehow afraid to start speaking it in grand society; besides, my pronunciation must be far from Parisian. I have Matvei, a coachman with a trotter, and he appears to serve me when I send for him. He has a light bay stallion (I don’t like grays). There are, however, also some irregularities: it’s the fifteenth of November, and the third day since winter settled in, but my fur coat is old, a raccoon from Versilov’s shoulders, worth twenty-five roubles if I were to sell it. I must buy a new one, but my pockets are empty, and besides, I must provide myself with money for this evening, and that at all costs—otherwise I’m “wretched and forlorn,” those were my own utterances at the time. Oh, meanness! What then, where have they suddenly come from, these thousands, these trotters, and les Borel?1 How could I so suddenly forget everything and change so much? Disgrace! Reader, I am now beginning the history of my shame and disgrace, and nothing in life can be more shameful for me than these memories!
I speak thus as a judge, and I know that I’m guilty. In that whirl in which I then spun, though I was alone, without guide or counselor, I swear, I was already aware of my fall, and therefore had no excuse. And yet all those two months I was almost happy—why almost? I was only too happy! And even to the point that the consciousness of disgrace, flashing at moments (frequent moments!), which made my soul shudder—that very awareness—will anyone believe me?—intoxicated me still more: “And so what, if I fall, I fall; but I won’t fall, I’ll get out! I have my star!” I was walking on a slender bridge made of splinters, without railings, over an abyss, and it was fun for me to walk like that; I even peeked into the abyss. It was risky, and it was fun. And the “idea”? “The idea” later, the idea was waiting; all that was going on—“was only a deviation to the side”: “why not amuse myself ?” The bad thing about “my idea,” I’ll repeat it once more, is that it allows for decidedly all deviations; had it not been so firm and radical, I might have been afraid to deviate.
And meanwhile I still continued to occupy my wretched little apartment, to occupy it, but not to live in it: there lay my suitcase, bag, and some things; my main residence was at Prince Sergei Sokolsky’s. I sat there, slept there, and did so for whole weeks even . . . How it happened, I shall tell presently, but meanwhile I’ll tell about this wretched little apartment. It was already dear to me: here Versilov came to see me, of himself, for the first time after that quarrel, and later came many times. I repeat, this was a time of terrible disgrace, but also of enormous happiness . . . And everything turned out so well then, everything smiled at me! “And why all that former gloom?” I thought in some rapturous moments. “Why all those old, morbid strains, my lonely and sullen childhood, my stupid dreams under the blanket, vows, calculations, and even the ‘idea’? I had imagined and invented all that, and it turned out that the world wasn’t like that at all; here I am feeling so joyful and light: I have a father—Versilov; I have a friend—Prince Seryozha; I also have . . .” But let’s drop that “also.” Alas, it was all done in the name of love, magnanimity, honor, and later it turned out ugly, impudent, dishonorable.
Enough.
II
