The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky [Dostoyevsky, Fyodor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9780307428110
Google: as9tHaZw7EsC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 9487367
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1875-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IV

AS IF ON PURPOSE, the nag crawled on for an unnaturally long time, though I had promised a whole rouble. The driver kept whipping her up and, of course, whipped her enough for a rouble. My heart was sinking; I tried to start talking with the driver, but I couldn’t even get the words out, and mumbled some sort of nonsense. That was the state I was in when I ran up to the prince’s. He had just returned; he had taken Darzan home and was alone. Pale and angry, he was pacing his study. I repeat once more: he had lost terribly. He looked at me with some sort of distracted perplexity.

“You again!” he said, frowning.

“So as to have done with you, sir!” I said breathlessly. “How dared you act that way with me?”

He looked at me questioningly.

“If you were going with Darzan, you might just have told me you were going with Darzan, instead of which you started the horse, and I . . .”

“Ah, yes, it seems you fell in the snow,” and he laughed in my face.

“The response to that is a challenge, and therefore we shall first finish with our accounts . . .”

And with a trembling hand I began taking my money out and placing it on the sofa, on a little marble table, and even into some open book, in piles, handfuls, wads; several coins rolled onto the carpet.

“Ah, yes, it seems you won? . . . One can tell it by your tone.”

Never before had he spoken so impudently with me. I was very pale.

“Here . . . I don’t know how much . . . has to be counted. I owe you up to three thousand . . . or how much? . . . more or less?”

“I don’t believe I’m forcing you to pay.”

“No, sir, I myself want to pay, and you should know why. I know there’s a thousand roubles in this wad—here!” And I started counting with trembling hands, but stopped. “Never mind, I know it’s a thousand. So I’m taking this thousand for myself, and all the rest, these piles, you can take for my debt, part of my debt. I think there’s as much as two thousand here, or maybe more!”

“But you’re still keeping a thousand for yourself ?” the prince bared his teeth.

“Do you need it? In that case . . . I wanted . . . I thought you wouldn’t want . . . but if you need it—here . . .”

“No, no need,” he turned away from me contemptuously and again began pacing the room.

“And devil knows what makes you pay it back,” he suddenly turned to me with a frightful challenge in his face.

“I’m paying it back in order to demand an accounting from you!” I yelled in my turn.

“Get out of here with your eternal words and gestures!” He suddenly stamped his feet at me as if in frenzy. “I wanted to throw you out long ago, you and your Versilov.”

“You’re out of your mind!” I cried.

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