You would like me to take up with some Josephine here, and come and tell you all about it! Rather not; I saw a woman completely naked when I was thirteen; Ive had a feeling of disgust ever since.
Do you mean it? But, cher enfant, about a fresh, beautiful woman theres a scent of apples; theres nothing disgusting.
In the little boarding school I was at before I went to the grammar school, there was a boy called Lambert. He was always thrashing me, for he was three years older than I was, and I used to wait on him, and take off his boots. When he was going to be confirmed an abbé, called Rigaud, came to congratulate him on his first communion, and they dissolved in tears on each others necks, and the abbé hugged him tightly to his bosom. I shed tears, too, and felt very envious. He left school when his father died, and for two years I saw nothing of him. Then I met him in the street. He said he would come and see me. By that time I was at the grammar school and living at Nikolay Semyonovitchs. He came in the morning, showed me five hundred roubles, and told me to go with him. Though he had thrashed me two years before, he had always wanted my company, not simply to take off his boots, but because he liked to tell me things. He told me that he had taken the money that day out of his mothers desk, to which he had made a false key, for legally all his fathers money was his, and so much the worse for her if she wouldnt give it to him. He said that the Abbé Rigaud had been to lecture him the day before, that hed come in, stood over him, begun whimpering, and described all sorts of horrors, lifting up his hands to heaven. And I pulled out a knife and told him Id cut his throat (he pronounced it thr-r-roat). We went to Kuznetsky Street. On the way he informed me that his mother was the abbés mistress, and that hed found it out, and he didnt care a hang for anything, and that all they said about the sacrament was rubbish. He said a great deal more, and I felt frightened. In Kuznetsky Street he bought a double-barrelled gun, a game bag, cartridges, a riding-whip, and afterwards a pound of sweets. We were going out into the country to shoot, and on the way we met a bird-catcher with cages of birds. Lambert bought a canary from him. In a wood he let the canary go, as it couldnt fly far after being in the cage, and began shooting at it, but did not hit it. It was the first time in his life he had fired off a gun, but he had wanted to buy a gun years before; at Touchards even we were dreaming of one. He was almost choking with excitement. His hair was black, awfully black, his face was white and red, like a mask, he had a long aquiline nose, such as are common with Frenchmen, white teeth and black eyes. He tied the canary by a thread to a branch, and
an inch away fired off both barrels, and the bird was blown into a hundred feathers. Then we returned, drove to an hotel, took a room, and began eating, and drinking champagne; a lady came in. . . . I remember being awfully impressed by her being so splendidly dressed; she wore a green silk dress. It was then I saw . . . all that I told you about. . . . Afterwards, when we had begun drinking, he began taunting and abusing her; she was sitting with nothing on, he took away her clothes and when she began scolding and asking for her clothes to dress again, he began with all his might beating her with the riding-whip on her bare shoulders. I got up, seized him by the hair, and so neatly that I threw him on the ground at once. He snatched up a fork and stuck it in my leg. Hearing the outcry, people ran in, and I had time to run away. Ever since then its disgusted me to think of nakedness; and, believe me, she was a beauty.
As I talked, the princes face changed from a playful expression to one of great sadness.
Mon pauvre enfant! I have felt convinced all along that there have been very many unhappy days in your childhood.
Please dont distress yourself!
But you were alone, you told me so yourself, but for that Lambert; you have described it so well, that canary, the confirmation and shedding tears on the abbés breast, and only a year or so later saying that of his mother and the abbé! . . . Oh, mon cher, the question of childhood in our day is truly awful; for a time those golden heads, curly and innocent, flutter before one and look at one with their clear eyes like angels of God, or little birds, and afterwards . . . and afterwards it turns out that it would have been better if they had not grown up at all!
How soft you are, prince! Its as though you had little children of your own. Why, you havent any and never will have.
Tiens! His whole face was instantly transformed, thats just what Alexandra Petrovna said the day before yesterday, he-he! Alexandra Petrovna Sinitsky you must have met her here three weeks ago only fancy, the day before yesterday, in reply to my jocular remark that if I do get married now I could set my mind at rest, thered be no children, she suddenly said, and with such spite, On the contrary, there certainly would be; people like you always have them, theyll arrive the very first year, youll see. He-he! And theyve all taken it into their heads, for some reason, that Im going to get married; but though it was spiteful I admit it was witty!