To this day I don’t understand what he had in mind then, but obviously at that moment he was in some extreme anxiety (owing to a certain piece of news, as I figured out later). But this phrase, “He lies to you all the time,” was spoken so unexpectedly and so seriously, and with such a strange, not at all jocular, expression, that I somehow shuddered all over nervously, almost frightened, and looked at him wildly; but Versilov hastened to laugh.

“Ah, thank God!” said mama, frightened because he had whispered in my ear. “And I was beginning to think . . . Don’t you be angry with us, Arkasha, there will be intelligent people without us, but who’s going to love you if we don’t have each other?”

“That’s why love among relations is immoral, mama, because it’s unearned. Love has to be earned.”

“Who knows when you’ll earn it, but here we love you for nothing.”

Everyone suddenly laughed.

“Well, mama, maybe you didn’t mean to shoot, but you hit the bird!” I cried out, also laughing.

“And you really imagined there was something to love you for,” Tatyana Pavlovna fell upon me again. “Not only do they love you for nothing, but they love you through revulsion!”

“Ah, not so!” I cried gaily. “Do you know who, maybe, talked today about loving me?”

“Talked while laughing at you!” Tatyana Pavlovna picked up suddenly with some sort of unnatural spite, as if she had been waiting for precisely those words from me. “A delicate person, and especially a woman, would be filled with loathing just from your inner filth alone. You’ve got a part in your hair, fine linen, a suit from a French tailor, but it’s all filth! Who clothes you, who feeds you, who gives you money to play roulette? Remember who you’re not ashamed to take money from!”

Mama got so flushed, I’d never yet seen such shame on her face. I cringed all over.

“If I spend, I spend my own money, and I owe nobody an accounting,” I snapped, turning all red.

“Whose own? What’s your own?”

“If not mine, then Andrei Petrovich’s. He won’t refuse me . . . I’ve taken from the prince against his debt to Andrei Petrovich . . .”

“My friend,” Versilov suddenly said firmly, “not a cent of that money is mine.”

The phrase was terribly significant. I stopped short on the spot. Oh, naturally, recalling my whole paradoxical and devil-may-care mood then, I would, of course, have gotten out of it by some “most noble” impulse, or catchy little word, or whatever, but I suddenly noticed a spiteful, accusing expression on Liza’s frowning face, an unfair expression, almost mockery, and it was as if the devil pulled at my tongue:

“You, madam,” I suddenly addressed her, “seem to visit Darya Onisimovna frequently in the prince’s apartment? Be so good as to personally convey to him this three hundred roubles, for which you roasted me so much today!”

I produced the money and held it out to her. Will anyone believe that I spoke those mean words then without any purpose, that is, without the slightest allusion to anything? And there could have been no such allusion, because at that moment I knew precisely nothing. Maybe I just had a wish to needle her with something comparatively terribly innocent, something like, say, a young lady mixing in what was not her business, so here, since you absolutely want to mix in it, be so good as to go yourself to meet this prince, a young man, a Petersburg officer, and give it to him, “since you wish so much to meddle in young men’s affairs.” But what was my amazement when mama suddenly stood up and, raising her finger in front of me and shaking it at me, cried:

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”

I could never have imagined anything like that from her, and I myself jumped up from my place, not really frightened, but with some sort of suffering, with some sort of painful wound in my heart, suddenly realizing that something grave had taken place. But mama couldn’t bear it for long; she covered her face with her hands and quickly left the room. Liza, not even glancing in my direction, went out after her. Tatyana Pavlovna gazed at me silently for about half a minute:

“Can it be that you really wanted to blurt something out?” she exclaimed enigmatically, gazing at me with the deepest astonishment, but, not waiting for my reply, she also ran to them. Versilov, with an inimical, almost spiteful look, rose from the table and took his hat from the corner.

“I suppose you’re not all that stupid, but merely innocent,” he murmured mockingly. “If they come back, tell them not to wait for me with dessert: I’ll take a little stroll.”

I was left alone. At first I felt strange, then offended, but then I saw clearly that I was to blame. However, I didn’t know what in fact I was to blame for, but only sensed something. I sat by the window and waited. After waiting for some ten minutes, I also took my hat and went upstairs to my former room. I knew they were there—that is, mama and Liza—and that Tatyana Pavlovna had already gone. And so I found the two of them together on my sofa, whispering about something. When I appeared, they immediately stopped whispering. To my surprise, they were not angry with me; mama at least smiled at me.

“I’m to blame, mama . . .” I began.

“Well, well, never mind,” mama interrupted, “only love each other and don’t ever quarrel, and God will send you happiness.”

“He’ll never offend me, mama, I can tell you that!” Liza said with conviction and feeling.

“If only it hadn’t been for this Tatyana Pavlovna, nothing would have happened,” I cried. “She’s nasty!”

“Do you see, mama? Do you hear?” Liza pointed at me to her.

“I’ll tell you both this,” I pronounced, “if it’s vile in the world, the only vile thing is me, and all the rest is lovely!”

“Arkasha, don’t be angry, dear, but what if you really did stop . . .”

“Gambling, is it? Gambling? I will, mama; I’m going today for the last time, especially now that Andrei Petrovich himself has announced, and aloud, that not a cent of that money is his. You won’t believe how I blush . . . I must talk with him, however . . . Mama, dear, the last time I was here I said . . . something awkward . . . mama, darling, I lied: I sincerely want to believe, it was just bravado, I love Christ very much . . .”

The last time we had indeed had a conversation of that sort; mama had been very upset and alarmed. Hearing me now, she smiled at me as at a child:

“Christ will forgive everything, Arkasha: he will forgive your abuse, and he will forgive more than that. Christ is our father, Christ needs nothing and will shine even in the deepest darkness . . .”

I said good-bye to them and left, reflecting on my chances of seeing Versilov that same day; I needed very much to have a talk with him, but just now it had been impossible. I strongly suspected that he was waiting for me at my place. I went on foot; after the warmth it had turned slightly frosty, and it was very pleasant to take a stroll.

II

I LIVED NEAR the Voznesensky Bridge, in an enormous house, on the courtyard. Almost going through the gateway, I bumped into Versilov, who was leaving my place.

“As is my custom, I walked as far as your lodgings, and even waited for you at Pyotr Ippolitovich’s, but I got bored. They’re eternally quarreling, and today his wife has even kept to her bed, weeping. I looked in and left.”

I became vexed for some reason.

“Can it be that I’m the only one you go to see, and besides me and Pyotr Ippolitovich, you have nobody in all Petersburg?”

“My friend . . . but it makes no difference.”

“Where to now?”

“No, I won’t go back to your place. If you like, we can stroll a bit, it’s a nice evening.”

“If, instead of abstract reasonings, you had talked to me like a human being and, for instance, had only so much as hinted to me about this cursed gambling, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten drawn into it like a fool,” I said suddenly.