Witty but insulting!
Oh, cher enfant, one cant take offence at some people. Theres nothing I prize so much in people as wit, which is evidently disappearing among us; though what Alexandra Petrovna said can hardly be considered wit.
What? What did you say? I said, catching at his words one cant take offence at some people. Thats just it! Some people are not worth noticing an excellent principle! Just the one I need. I shall make a note of it. You sometimes say the most delightful things, prince.
He beamed all over.
Nest ce pas? Cher enfant, true wit is vanishing; the longer one lives the more one sees it. Eh, mais . . . cest moi qui connait les femmes! Believe me, the life of every woman, whatever she may profess, is nothing but a perpetual search for some one to submit to . . . so to speak a thirst for submission. And mark my words, theres not a single exception.
Perfectly true! Magnificent! I cried rapturously. Another time we should have launched into philosophical disquisitions on this theme, lasting for an hour, but suddenly I felt as though something had bitten me, and I flushed all over. I suddenly imagined that in admiring his bon mots I was flattering him as a prelude to asking for money, and that he would certainly think so as soon as I began to ask for it. I purposely mention this now.
Prince, I humbly beg you to pay me at once the fifty roubles you owe me for the month, I fired off like a shot, in a tone of irritability that was positively rude.
I remember (for I remember every detail of that morning) that there followed between us then a scene most disgusting in its realistic truth. For the first minute he did not understand me, stared at me for some time without understanding what money I was talking about. It was natural that he should not realize I was receiving a salary and indeed, why should I? It is true that he proceeded to assure me afterwards that he had forgotten, and when he grasped the meaning of my words, he instantly began taking out fifty roubles, but he was flustered and turned crimson. Seeing how things stood, I got up and abruptly announced that I could not take the money now, that in what I had been told about a salary they had made a mistake, or deceived me to induce me to accept the
situation, and that I saw only too well now, that I did nothing to earn one, for I had no duties to perform. The prince was alarmed and began assuring me that I was of the greatest use to him, that I should be still more useful to him in the future, and that fifty roubles was so little that he should certainly add to it, for he was bound to do so, and that he had made the arrangement himself with Tatyana Pavlovna, but had unpardonably forgotten it. I flushed crimson and declared resolutely that it was degrading for me to receive a salary for telling scandalous stories of how I had followed two draggle-tails to the institutions, that I had not been engaged to amuse him but to do work, and that if there was no work I must stop it, and so on, and so on. I could never have imagined that anyone could have been so scared as he was by my words. Of course it ended in my ceasing to protest, and his somehow pressing the fifty roubles into my hand: to this day I recall with a blush that I took it. Everything in the world always ends in meanness, and what was worst of all, he somehow succeeded in almost proving to me that I had unmistakably earned the money, and I was so stupid as to believe it, and so it was absolutely impossible to avoid taking it.
Cher, cher enfant! he cried, kissing and embracing me (I must admit I was on the point of tears myself, goodness knows why, though I instantly restrained myself, and even now I blush as I write it). My dear boy, youre like one of the family to me now; in the course of this month youve won a warm place in my heart! In society you get society and nothing else. Katerina Nikolaevna (that was his daughters name) is a magnificent woman and Im proud of her, but she often, my dear boy, very often, wounds me. And as for these girls (elles sont charmantes) and their mothers who come on my birthday, they merely bring their embroidery and never know how to tell one anything. Ive accumulated over sixty cushions embroidered by them, all dogs and stags. I like them very much, but with you I feel as if you were my own not son, but brother, and I particularly like it when you argue against me; youre literary, you have read, you can be enthusiastic. . . .
I have read nothing, and Im not literary at all. I used to read what I came across, but Ive read nothing for two years and Im not going to read.
Why arent you going to?
I have other objects.
Cher . . . its a pity if at the end of your life you say, like me, Je sais tout, mais je ne sais rien de bon. I dont know in the least what I have lived in this world for! But . . . Im so much indebted to you . . . and I should like, in fact . . .
He suddenly broke off, and with an air of fatigue sank into brooding. After any agitation (and he might be overcome by agitation at any minute, goodness knows why) he generally seemed for some time to lose his faculties and his power of self-control, but he soon recovered, so that it really did not matter. We sat still for a few minutes. His very full lower lip hung down . . . what surprised me most of all was that he had suddenly spoken of his daughter, and with such openness too. I put it down, of course, to his being upset.