ersity of )uthern Regio ibrary Facilit WHITE NIGHTS AND OTHER STORIES THE NOVELS OF FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY VOLUME X NOVELS BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY Translated from the Russian by CONSTANCE GARNETT. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV THE IDIOT THE POSSESSED CRIME AND PUNISHMENT THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD THE INSULTED AND INJURED A RAW YOUTH THE ETERNAL HUSBAND, etc. THE GAMBLER, etc. WHITE NIGHTS, etc. AN HONEST THIEF, etc. (shortly) THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY (in progrtst) NOVELS BY IVAN TURGENEV Translated from tlie Russian by CONSTANCE GARXKTT. RUDIN A HOUSE OF GENTLEFOLK ON THE EVE FATHERS AND CHILDREN SMOKE VIRGIN SOIL(2vols.) A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES (2 vols.) DREAM TALES AND PROSE POEMS THE TORRENTS OF SPRING A LEAR OF THE STEPPES, etc. THE DIARY OF A SUPERFLUOUS MAN, eto. A DESPERATE CHARACTER, etc. THE JEW, etc. NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY WHITE NIGHTS AND OTHER STORIES BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY FROM THE RUSSIAN BY CONSTANCE GARNETT NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 Priiited i^' CONTENTS WHITE NIGHTS ..... NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND — PART I. UNDERGROUND PART II. A PROPOS OF THE WET SNOW A FAINT HEART ..... A CHRISTMAS TREE AND A WEDDING . POLZUNKOV ...... A LITTLE HERO MR. PROHARTCHIN WHITE NIGHTS A SENTIMENTAL STORY FROM THE DIARY OF A DREAMEB FIRST NIGHT IT was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, so bright that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself whether ill-humoured and capricious people could live under such a sky. That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently into your heart ! . . . Speaking of capricious and ill-humoured people, I cannot help recalling my moral condition all that day. From early morning I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who " every oiifi^_jras. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance . But what did I want with acquaintances ? I was acquainted with all Peters- burg as it was ; that was why I felt as though they were all deserting me when all Petersburg packed up and went to its summer villa. I felt afraid of being left alone, and for three whole days I wandered about the town in profound dejection, not know- ing what to do with myself. Whether I walked in the Nevsky, went to the Gardens or sauntered on the embankment, there was not one face of those I had been accustomed to meet at the same time and place all the year. They, of course, do not know me, but I know them. I know them intimately, I have almost made a study of their faces, and am delighted when they are gay, and downcast when they are under a cloud. I have almost struck up a friendship with one old man whom I meet every blessed day, at the same hour in Fontanka. Such a grave, pensive coun- tenance ; he is alway whispering to himself and brandishing his B 2 WHITE NIGHTS left arm, while in his right hand he holds a long gnarled stick with a gold knob. He even notices me and takes a warm interest in me. If I happen not to be at a certain time in the same spot in Fontanka, I am certain he feels disappointed. That is how it is that we almost bow to each other, especially when \ve are both in good humour. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two days and met on the third, we were actually touching our hats, but, realizing in time, dropped our hands and passed each other with a look of interest. I know the houses too. As I walk along they seem to run for- ward in the streets to look out at me from every window, and almost to say : " Good-morning ! How do you do ? I am quite well, thank God, and I am to have a new storey in May," or, " How are you? I am being redecorated to-morrow"; or, "I was almost burnt down and had such a fright," and so on. I have my favourites among them, some are dear friends ; one of them intends to be treated by the architect this summer. I shall go every day on purpose to see that the operation is not a failure. God forbid ! But I shall never forget an incident with a very pretty little house of a light pink colour. It was such a charming little brick house, it looked so hospitably at me, and so proudly at its ungainly neighbours, that my heart rejoiced whenever I hap- pened to pass it. Suddenly last week I walked along the st i and when I looked at my friend. I heard a plaintive, " They are painting me yellow ! " The villains ! The barbarians ! They had spared nothing, neither columns, nor cornices, and my poor little friend was as yellow as a canary. It almost made me bilious. And to this day I have not had the courage to visit my poor disfigured friend, painted the colour of the Celestial Empire. So now you understand, reader, in what sense I am acquainted with all Petersburg. I have mentioned already that I had felt worried for three whole days before I guessed the cause of my uneasiness. And I felt ill at ease in the street — this one had gone and that one had gone, and what had become of the other ? — and at home I did not feel like myself either. For two evenings 1 was puy./ling my brains to think what was ;unks in my corner ; why 1 felt so un- comfortable in it. And in jH-rplexif y I scanned my grimy green walls, my ceiling covered witli a spider's web, the growth of wliich WHITE NIGHTS 3 Matrona has so successfully encouraged. I looked over all my furniture, examined every chair, wondering whether the trouble lay there (for if one chair is not standing in the same position as it stood the day before, I am not myself). I looked at the win- dow, but it was all in vain ... I was not a bit the better for it ! I even bethought me to send for Matrona, and was giving her some fatherly admonitions in regard to the spider's web and sluttishness in general; but she simply stared at me in amaze- ment and went away without saying a word, so that the spider's web is comfortably hanging in its place to this day. I only at last this morning realized what was wrong. Aie ! Why, they are giving me the slip and making off to their summer villas ! For- give the triviality of the expression, but I am in no mood for fine language . . . for everything that had been in Petersburg had gone or was going away for the holidays ; for every respectable gentleman of dignified appearance who took a cab was at once transformed, in my eyes, into a respectable head of a house- hold who after his daily duties were over, was making his way to the bosom of his family, to the summer villa ; for all the passers- by had now quite a peculiar air which seemed to say to every one they met : " We are only here for the moment, gentlemen, and in another two hours we shall be going off to the summer villa." If a window opened after delicate fingers, white as snow, had tapped upon the pane, and the head of a pretty girl was thrust out, calling to a street-seller with pots of flowers — at once on the spot I fancied that those flowers were being bought not simply in order to enjoy the flowers and the spring in stuffy town lodgings, but because they would all be very soon moving into the country and could take the flowers with them. What is more, I made such progress in my new peculiar sort of investigation that I could distinguish correctly from the mere air of each in what summer villa he was living. The inhabitants of Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof Road were marked by the studied elegance of their manner, their fashionable summer suits, and the fine carriages in which they drove to town. Visitors to Pargolovo and places further away impressed one at first sight by their reasonable and dignified air ; the tripper to Krestovsky Island could be recognized by his look of irrepressible gaiety. If I chanced to meet a long procession of waggoners walking lazily with the reins in their hands beside waggons loaded with regular 4 WHITE NIGHTS mountains of furniture, tables, chairs, ottomans and sofas and domestic utensils of all sorts, frequently with a decrepit cook sitting on the top of it all, guarding her master's property as though it were the apple of her eye ; or if I saw boats heavily loaded with household goods crawling along the Neva or Fon- tanka to the Black River or the Islands — the waggons and the boats were multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, in my eyes. I fancied that everything was astir and moving, everything was going in regular caravans to the summer villas. It seemed as though Petersburg threatened to become a wilderness, so that at last I felt ashamed, mortified and sad that I had nowhere to go for the holidays and no reason to go away. I was ready to go away with every waggon, to drive off with every gentleman of respectable appearance who took a cab; but no one — abso- lutely no one — invited me ; it seemed they had forgotten me, as though really I were a stranger to them ! I took long walks, succeeding, as I usually did, in quite forgetting where I was, when I suddenly found myself at the city gates. Instantly I felt lighthearted, and I passed the barrier and walked between cultivated fields and meadows, unconscious of fatigue, and feeling only all over as though a burden were falling off my soul. All the passers-by gave me such friendly looks that they seemed almost greeting me, they all seemed so pleased at some- thing. They were all smoking cigars, every one of them. And I felt pleased as I never had before. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in Italy — so strong was the effect of nature upon a half-sick townsman like me, almost stifling between city walls. There is something inexpressibly touching in nature round Petersburg, when at the approach of spring she puts forth all her might, all the powers bestowed on her by Heaven, when she breaks into leaf, decks herself out and spangles herself with flowers. .... Somehow I cannot help being reminded of a frail, con- sumptive girl, at whom one sometimes looks with compassion, sometimes with sympathetic love, whom sometimes one simply does not notice ; though suddenly in one instant she becomes, as though by chance, inexplicably lovely and exquisite, and, impressed and intoxicated, one cannot help asking oneself what power made those sad, pensive eyes flash with such fire ? What summoned the blood to those pale, wan cheeks ? What WHITE NIGHTS 5 bathed with passion those soft features ? What set that bosom heaving ? What so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the poor girl's face, making it gleam with such a smile, kindle with such bright, sparkling laughter ? You look round, you seek for some one, you conjecture. . . . But the moment passes, and next day you meet, maybe, the same pensive and pre- occupied look as before, the same pale face, the same meek and timid movements, and even signs of remorse, traces of a mortal anguish and regret for the fleeting distraction. . . . And you grieve that the momentary beauty has faded so soon never to return, that it flashed upon you so treacherously, so vainly, grieve because you had not even time to love her. . . . And yet my night was better than my day ! This was how it happened. I came back to the town very late, and it had struck ten as I was going towards my lodgings. My way lay along the canal embankment, where at that hour you never meet a soul. It is true that I live in a very remote part of the town. I walked along singing, for when I am happy I am always humming to myself like every happy man who has no friend or acquaintance with whom to share his joy. Suddenly I had a most unexpected adventure. Leaning on the canal railing stood a woman with her elbows on the rail, she was apparently looking with great attention at the muddy water of the canal. She was wearing a very charming yellow hat and a jaunty little black mantle. " She's a girl, and I am sure she is dark," 1 thought. She did not seem to hear my footsteps, and did not even stir when I passed by with bated breath and loudly throbbing heart. " Strange," I thought ; " she must be deeply absorbed in some- thing," and all at once I stopped as though petrified. I heard a muffled sob. Yes ! I was not mistaken, the girl was crying, and a minute later I heard sob after sob. Good Heavens ! My heart sank. And timid as I was with women, yet this was such a moment ! . . . I turned, took a step towards her, and should certainly have pronounced the word " Madam ! " if I had not known that that exclamation has been uttered a thousand times in every Russian society novel. It was only that reflection stopped me. But while I was seeking for a word, the girl came to herself, looked round, started, cast down her eyes and slipped 6 WHITE NIGHTS by me along the embankment. I at once followed her ; but she, divining this, left the embankment, crossed the road and walked along the pavement. I dared not cross the street after her. My heart was fluttering like a captured bird. All at once a chance came to my aid. Along the same side of the pavement there suddenly came into sight, not far from the girl, a gentleman in evening dress, of dignified years, though by no means of dignified carriage ; he was staggering and cautiously leaning against the wall. The girl flew straight as an arrow, with the timid haste one sees in all girls who do not want any one to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and no doubt the staggering gentleman would not have pursued her, if my good luck had not prompted him. Suddenly, without a word to any one, the gentleman set off and flew full speed in pursuit of my unknown lady. She was racing like the wind, but the staggering gentleman was over- taking— overtook her. The girl uttered a shriek, and ... I bless my luck for the excellent knotted stick, which happened on that occasion to be in my right hand. In a flash I was on the other side of the street ; in a flash the obtrusive gentleman had taken in the position, had grasped the irresistible argument, fallen back without a word, and only when we were very far away protested against my action in rather vigorous language. But his words hardly reached us. " .Give me your arm," I said to the girl. " And he won't dare to annoy us further." She took my arm without a word, still trembling with excite- ment and terror. Oh, pbtrusive gentleman ! How I blessed you at that moment ! I stole a glance at her, she was very charming and dark — I had guessed right. On her black eyelashes there still glistened a tear — from her recent terror or her former grief — I don't know. But there was already a gleam of a smile on her lips. She too stole a glance at me, faintly blushed and looked down. " There, you see ; why did you drive me away ? If I had been here, nothing would have happened . . ." " But I did not know you ; I thought that you too . . ' " Why, do you know me now ? " " A little ! Here, for instance, why are you trembling ? " " Oh, you are right at the first guess ! " I answered, delighted WHITE NIGHTS that my girl had intelligence ; that is never out of place in com- pany with beauty. " Yes, from the first glance you have guessed the sort of man you have to do with. Precisely; I am shy with women, I am agitated, I don't deny it, as much so as you were a minute ago when that gentleman alarmed you. I am in some alarm now. It's like a dream, and I never guessed even in my sleep that I should ever talk with any woman." "What? Really? . . ." " Yes ; if my arm trembles, it is because it hag nevgj JbefinJield by a pretty" littIe~^rarnl"liTEe JJ^ours. I am a complete stranger to "women; that Ts^T" Have nftvftr J^ftnjigpd1o~t.TiRTn . _Yau see, I am-ate»e-r-r-r-i~doTi'*t evelTEnovFEow to talk to them. Here, I don't know now whether I have not said something silly to you ! Tell me frankly; I assure you beforehand that I am not quick to take offence ? . . ." " No, nothing, nothing, quite the contrary. And if you insist on my speaking frankly, I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, I like it too, and I won't drive you away till I get home." " You will make me," I said, breathless with delight, " lose my timidity, and then farewell to all my chances. . . ." "Chances! What chances — of what? That's not so nice." " I beg your pardon, I am sorry, it was a slip of the tongue ; but how can you expect one at such -a moment to have no desire. ..." " To be liked, eh ? " " Well, yes ; but do, for goodness' sake, be kind. Think what I am ! Here, I am twenty-six and I have never seen any one. How can I speak well, tactfully, and to the point ? It will seem better to you when I have told you everything openly. ... I don't know how to be silent when my heart is speaking. Well, never mind. . . . Belie_ve__me, not-jone, woman, never, never ! No acquaintance of ariy sort ! And I do nothingbut dreanfevery day that at last I shall meet some one. Oh, if only you knew how often I have been in love in that way . . ." " How ? With whom ?.*. . ." " Why, with no one, with an ideal, with the one I dream of in my sleep. I make up regular romances in my dreams. Ah, you don't know me ! It's true, of course, I have met two or three 8 women, but what sort of women were they ? They were all land- ladies, that . . . But I shall make you laugh if I tell you that I have several times thought of speaking, just simply speaking, to some aristocratic lady in the street, when she is alone,! need hardly say ; speaking to her, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately ; telling her that I am perishing in solitude, begging her not to send me away ; saying that I have no chance of making the acquaint- ance of any woman ; impressing upon her that it is a positive duty for a woman not to repulse so timid a prayer from such a luckless man as me. That, in fact, all I ask is, that she should say two or three sisterly words with sympathy, should not repulse me at first sight ; should take me on trust and listen to what I say ; should laugh at me if she likes, encourage me, say two words to me, only two words, even though we never meet again afterwards ! . . . But you are laughing ; however, that is why I am telling you. . . ." " Don't be vexed ; I am only laughing at your being your own enemy, and if you had tried you would have succeeded, perhaps, even though it had been in the street ; the simpler the better. . . . No kind-hearted woman, unless she were stupid or, still more, vexed about something at the moment, could bring herself to send you away without those two words which you ask for so timidly. . . . But what am I saying ? Of course she would take you for a madman. I was judging by myself ; I know a good deal about other people's lives." " Oh, thank you," I cried; " you don't know what you have done for me now ! " " I am glad ! I am glad ! But tell me how did you find out that I was the sort of woman with whom . . . well, whom you think worthy ... of attention and friendship ... in fact, not a landlady as you say ? What made you decide to come up to me ? " " What made me ? . . . But you were alone ; that gentle — man was too insolent ; it's night. You must admit that it was a duty. . . ." " No, no ; I mean before, on the other side — you know you meant to come up to me." %i On the other side ? Really I don't know how to answer; I am afraid to. . . . Do you know I have been happy to-day? I walked along singing ; I went out into the country ; I have never WHITE NIGHTS 9 had such happy moments. You . . . perhaps it was my fancy. . . . Forgive me for referring to it ; I fancied you were crying, and I ... could not bear to hear it ... it made my heart ache. . . . Oh, my goodness ! Surely I might be troubled about you ? Surely there was no harm in feeling brotherly compassion for you .~TTT^t)e|r youF pardon rX-eftid-troinpassioTrr . T ". Well, in short, surely you would not be offended at my involuntary impulse to go up to you ? . . ." " Stop, that's enough, don't talk of it," said the girl, look- ing down, and pressing my hand. " It's my fault for having spoken of it; but I am glad I was not mistaken in you. . . . But here I am home ; I must go down this turning, it's two steps from here. . . . Good-bye, thank you ! . . . ' " Surely . . . surely you don't mean . . . that we shall never see each other again ? . . . Surely this is not to be the end ? " " You see," said the girl, laughing, " at first you only wanted two words, and now . . . However, I won't say anything . . . perhaps we shall meet. ..." "I shall come here to-morrow," I said. " Oh, forgive me, I am already making demands. . . ." " Yes, you are not very patient . . . you are almost insisting." " Listen, listen ! " I interrupted her. " Forgive me if I tell you something else. ... I tell you what, I can't help coming here to-morrow, I am a dreamer ; I have so little real life that I look upon such moments as this now, _as_sp_raTe^that_I_cannot help going oveFsuch m6Tn^rrt5"againLmLniy__dreams. I shaJTl^e dream- ing of you all night7 a~whole week, a~whole year. I shall cer- tainly come here to-morrow, just here to this place, just at the same hour, and I shall be happy remembering to-day. This place is dear to me already. I -hJaL£e_aIi£ady--two &r three- such places in Petersburg. I once shed tears over memories . . . like you. . . . Who knows, perhaps you were weeping ten minutes ago over some memory. . . . But, forgive me, I have forgotten myself again ; perhaps you have once been particular!}7 happy here. . . ." " Very good," said the girl, " perhaps I will come here to- morrow, too, at ten o'clock. I see that I can't forbid you. . . . The fact is, I have to be here ; don't imagine that I am making an appointment with you ; I tell you beforehand that I have to be here on my own account. But . . well, I tell you straight 10 WHITE NIGHTS out, I don't mind if you do come. To begin with, something unpleasant might happen as it did to-day, but never mind that. . In short, I should simply like to see you ... to say two words to you. Only, mind, you must not think the worse of me now ! Don't think I make appointments so lightly. ... I shouldn't make it except that . . . But let that be my secret ! Only a compact beforehand ..." " A compact ! Speak, tell me, tell me all beforehand ; I agree to anything, I am ready for anything," I cried delighted. " I answer for myself, I will be obedient, respectful . . . you know me. . . ." " It's just because I do know you that I ask you to come to- morrow," said the girl, laughing. " I know you perfectly. But mind you will come on the condition, in the first place (only be good, do what I ask — you see, I speak frankly), you won't fall in love with me. . . . That's impossible, I assure you. I am ready for friendship; here's my hand. . . . J|ut you mustn't fall in love with me, I beg you ! " TTr?w^aT7A^~CTfed", gripping her hand. . . . " Hush, don't swear, I know you are ready to flare up like gunpowder. Don't think ill of me for saying so. If only you knew. ... I, too, have no one to whom I can say a word, whose advice I can ask. Of course, one does not look for an adviser in the street ; but you are an exception. I know you as though we had been friends for twenty years. . . . You won't deceive me, will you I .-..-." " You will see . . . the only thing is, I don't know how I am going to survive the next twenty-four hours." " Sleep soundly. Good-night, and remember that I have trusted you already. But you exclaimed so nicely just now, ' Surely one can't be held responsible for every feeling, even for brotherly sympathy ! ' Do you know, that was so nicely said, that the idea struck me at once, that I might confide in you ? " " For God's sake do ; but about what ? What is it ? " " Wait till to-morrow. Meanwhile, let that be a secret. So much the better for you ; it will give it a faint flavour of romance. Perhaps I will tell you to-morrow, and perhaps not. ... I will talk to you a little more beforehand; we will get to know each other better. ..." " Oh yes, I will tell you all about myself to-morrow ! But what WHITE NIGHTS 11 has happened ? It is as though a miracle had befallen me. . . . My God, where am I ? Come, tell me aren't you glad that you were not angry and did not drive me away at the first moment, as any other woman would have done ? In two minutes you have made me happy for ever. Yes, happy; who knows, perhaps, you have reconciled me with myself, solved my doubts ! . . . Perhaps such moments come upon me. . . . But there I will tell you all about it to-morrow, you shall know everything, everything. . . ." " Very well, I consent ; you shall begin . . ." " Agreed." " Good-bye till to-morrow ! " " Till to-morrow ! " And we parted. I walked about all night ; I could not make up my mind to go home. I was so happy. . . . To-morrow ! SECOND NIGHT " WELL, so you have survived ! " she said, pressing both my hands. " I've been here for the last two hours ; you don't know what a state I have been in all day." " I know, I know. But to business. Do you know why I have come ? Not to talk nonsense, as I did yesterday. I tell you what, we must behave more sensibly in future. I thought a great deal about it last night." " In what way — in what must we be more sensible ? I am ready for my part ; but, really, nothing more sensible has happened to me in my life than this, now." " Really ? In the first place, I beg you not to squeeze my hands so ; secondly, I must tell you that I spent a long time think- ing about you and feeling doubtful to-day." " And how did it end ? " " How did it end ? The upshot of it is that we must begin all over again, because the conclusion I reached to-day was that I don't know you at" all; that I behaved like a baby last night, like a little girl ; and, of course, the fact of it is, that it's my soft heart that is to blame — that is, I sang my own praises, as one always does in the end when one analyses one's conduct. And 12 WHITE NIGHTS therefore to correct my mistake, I've made up my mind to find out all about you minutely. But as I have no one from whom I can find out anything, you must tell me everything fully your- self. Well, what sort of man are you ? Come, make haste — begin — tell me your whole history." " My history ! " I cried in alarm. " My history ! But who has told you I have a history ? I have no history. . . ." " Then how have you lived, if you have no history ? " she interrupted, laughing. " Absolutely without any history ! I have lived, as they say, keeping myself to myself, that is, utterly alone — alone, entirely alone. Do you know what it means to be alone ? " " But how alone ? Do you mean you never saw any one ? " " Oh no, I see people, of course ; but still I am alone." " Why, do you never talk to any one ? " " Strictly speaking, with»no one." " Who are you then ? Explain yourself ! Stay, I guess : most likely, like me you have a grandmother. She is blind and will never let me go anywhere, so that I have almost forgotten how to talk ; and when I played some pranks two years ago, and she saw there was no holding me in, she called me up and pinned my dress to hers, and ever since we sit like that for days together ; she knits a stocking, though she's blind, and I sit beside her, sew or read aloud to her — it's such a queer habit, here for two years I've been pinned to her. ..." " Good Heavens ! what misery ! But no, I haven't a grand- mother like that." " Well, if you haven't why do you sit at home ? . . ." " Listen, do you want to know the sort of man I am ? " ;' Yes, yes ! " " In the strict sense of the word ? " " In the very strictest sense of the word." " Very well, I am a type ! " " Type, type ! What sort of type ? " cried the girl, laughing, as though she had not had a chance of laughing for a whole year. " Yes, it's very amusing talking to you. Look, here's a seat, let us sit down. No one is passing here, no one will hear us, and — begin your history. For it's no good your telling me, I know you have a history; only you are concealing it. To begin with, what is a type ? " WHITE NIGHTS 13 A typ&-#^A type is an original, it's an absurd person ! " I said, infecte<^ by her childish laughter. "It's a character. Listen ; ao~~y6u know what is meant by a dreamer ? " " A dreamer ! Indeed I should think I do know. I am a dreamer myself. Sometimes, as I sit by grandmother, all sorts of things come into my head. Why, when one begins dreaming one lets one's fancy run away with one — why, I marry a Chinese Prince ! . . . Though sometimes it is a good thing to dream ! But, goodness knows ! Especially when one has something to think of apart from dreams," added the girl, this time rather seriously. " Excellent ! If you have been married to a Chinese Emperor, you will quite understand me. Come, listen. . . . But one minute, I don't know your name yet." " At last ! You have been in no hurry to think of it ! " " Qh, my goodness J_ It never entered my head, I felt quite i happy as it was. . . ." " My name is Nastenka." " Nastenka ! And nothing else ? " " Nothing else ! Why, is not that enough for you, you in- satiable person ? " " Not enough ? On the contrary, it's a great deal, a very great deal, Nastenka ; you kind girl, if you are Nastenka for me from the first." " Quite so ! WeU ? " " Well, listen, Nastenka, now for this absurd history." I sat down beside her, assumed a pedantically serious atti- tude, and began as though reading from a manuscript : — " There are, Nastenka, though you may not know it, strange nooks in Petersburg. It seems as though the same sun as shines for all Petersburg people does not peep into those spots, but some other different new one, bespoken expressly for those nooks, and it throws a different light on everything. In these corners, dear Nastenka, quite a different life is lived, quite unlike the life that is surging round us, but such as perhaps exists in some unknown realm, not among us in our serious, over-serious, time. Well, that life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, fervently ideal, with something (alas ! Nastenka) dingily prosaic and ordinary, not to say incredibly vulgar." " Foo ! Good Heavens ! What a preface ! What do I hear ? " U WHITE NIGHTS " Listen, Nastenka. (It seems to me I shall never be tired of calling you Nastenka.) Let me tell you that in these corners live strange people — dreamers. Thedream£tr-if you want an exact definition — is not a human T>emg7but a creature of an intermediate sort. For the mna^jiart h« «fiUlfiH in «"mft in- accessible corner, as thoTlgtrtltftTng^frmh the light of day ; once he slips into his corner, he grows to it like a snail, or, anyway, he is in that respect very much like that remarkable creature,' which is an animal and a house both at once, and is called a tortoise. Why do you suppose he is so fond of his four walls, which are invariably painted green, grimy, dismal and reeking unpardonably of tobacco smoke ? Why is it that when this absurd gentleman is visited by one of his few acquaintances (and he ends by getting rid of all his friends), why does this absurd person meet him with such embarrassment, changing countenance and overcome with confusion, as though he had only just com- mitted some crime within his four walls ; as though he had been forging counterfeit notes, or as though he were writing verses to be sent to a journal with an anonymous letter, in which he states that the real poet is dead, and that his friend thinks it his sacred duty to publish his things ? Why, tell me, Nastenka, why is it conversation is not easy between the two friends ? Why is there no laughter ? Why does no lively word fly from the tongue of the perplexed newcomer, who at other times may be very fond of laughter, lively words, conversation about the fair sex, and other cheerful subjects ? And why does this friend, probably a new friend and on his first visit — for there will hardly be a second, and the friend will never come again — why is the fnend himself so confused, so tongue-tied, in spite of his wit (if he has any), as he looks at the downcast face of his host, who in his turn becomes utterly helpless and at his wits' end after gigantic but fruitless efforts to smooth things over and enliven the conversa- tion, to show his knowledge of polite society, to talk, too, of fair sex. and by such humble endeavour, to please the poor man, wh<. hk. ;i \\^h out of water has mistakenly come to visit him < Why does the gentleman, all at onee remembering some . m-eessnry business which never existed, suddenly seize his hat and hurriedly make off, snatching away his hand from the warm ^rifi of hi.-, ho.st. who was trying his utmost to show hia regret and retrieve the lost position? Why does the WHITE NIGHTS 15 friend chuckle as he goes out of the door, and swear never to come and see this queer creature again, though the queer creature is really a very good fellow, and at the same time he cannot refuse his imagination the little diversion of comparing the queer fellow's countenance during their conversation with the expression of an unhappy kitten treacherously captured, roughly handled, fright- ened and subjected to all sorts of indignities by children, till, utterly crestfallen, it hides away from them under a chair in the dark, and there must needs at its leisure bristle up, spit, and wash its insulted face with both paws, and long afterwards look angrily at life and nature, and even at the bits saved from the master's dinner for it by the sympathetic housekeeper ? " " Listen," interrupted Nastenka, who had listened to me all the time in amazement, opening her eyes and her little mouth. " Listen ; I don't know in the least why it happened and why you ask me such absurd questions ; all I know is, that this adventure must have happened word for word to you." " Doubtless," I answered, with the gravest face. " Well, since there is no doubt about it, go on," said Nastenka, " because I want very much to know how it will end." " You want to know, Nastenka, what our hero, that is I — for the hero of the whole business was my humble self — did in his corner ? You want to know why I lost my head and was upset for the whole day by the unexpected visit of a friend? You want to know why I was so startled, why I blushed when the door of my room was opened, why I was not able to entertain my visitor, and why I was crushed under the Aveight of my own hospitality ? " " Why, yes, yes," answered Nastenka, " that's the point. Listen. You describe it all splendidly, but couldn't you perhaps describe it a little less splendidly ? You talk as though you were reading it out of a book." " Nastenka," I answered in a stern and dignified voice, hardly able to keep from laughing, " dear Nastenka, Ikiiow I describe , splendidly, but, excuse me, I don't know-how eLsu to du it. At this -ifTOrnent, dear Nastenka, at this moment I am like the spirit of King Solomon when, after lying a thousand years under seven seals in his urn, those seven seals were at last taken off. At this moment, Nastenka, when we have met at last after such a long separation — for I have known you for ages, Nastenka, because 16 WHITE NIGHTS I have been looking for some one for ages, and that is a sign that it was you I was looking for, and it was ordained that we should meet now — at this moment a thousand valves have opened in my head, and I must let myself flow in a river of words, or I shall choke. And so I beg you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen humbly and obediently, or I will be silent." " No, no, no ! Not at all. Go on ! I won't say a word ! " " I will continue. There is, my friend Nastenka, one hour in my day which I like extremely. That is the hour when almost all business, work and duties are over, and every one is hurrying home to dinner, to lie down, to rest, and on the way all are cogitat- ing on other more cheerful subjects relating to their evenings, their nights, and all the rest of their free time. At that hour our hero — for allow me, Nastenka, to^te-U- my story in the third person, for one feels awfully ashamed to tell it in the first person — and so at that hour our hero, who had his work too, was pacing along after the others. But a strange feeling of pleasure set his pale, rather crumpled-looking face working. He looked not with indifference on the evening glow which was slowly fading on the cold Petersburg sky. When I say he looked, I am lying : he did not look at it, but saw it as it were without realizing, as though tired or preoccupied with some other more interesting subject, so that he could scarcely spare a glance for anything about him. He was pleased because till next day he was released from business irksome to him, and happy as a schoolboy let out from the class-room to his games and mischief. Take a look at him, Nastenka ; you will see at once that joyful emotion has already had an effect on his weak nerves and morbidly excited fancy. You see he is thinking of something. ... Of dinner, do you imagine ? Of the evening ? What is he looking at like that ? Is it at that gentleman of dignified appearance who is bowing so picturesquely to the lady who rolls by in a carriage drawn by prancing horses ? No, Nastenka ; what are all those trivialities to him now ! He is rich now with his own individual life ; he has suddenly become rich, and it is not for nothing that the fading sunset sheds its farewell gleams so gaily before him, and calls forth a swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he hardly notices the road, on which the tiniest details at other times would strike him. Now ' the Goddess of Fancy ' (if you have read Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already with WHITE NIGHTS 17 fantastic hand spun her golden warp and begun weaving upon it patterns of marvellous magic life — and who knows, maybe, her fantastic hand has borne him to the seventh crystal heaven far from the excellent granite pavement on which he was walk- ing his way ? Try stopping him now, ask him suddenly where he is standing now, through what streets he is going — he will, probably remember nothing, neither where he is going nor where he is standing now, and flushing with vexation he will certainly tell some lie to save appearances. That is why he starts, almost cries out, and looks round with horror when a respectable old lady stops him politely in the middle of the pavement and asks her way. Frowning with vexation he strides on, scarcely noticing that more than one passer-by smiles and turns round to look after him, and that a little girl, moving out of his way in alarm, laughs aloud, gazing open-eyed at his broad meditative smile and gesticulations. But fancy catches up in its playful flight the old woman, the curious passers-by, and the laughing child, and the peasants spending their nights in their barges on Fontanka (our hero, let us suppose, is walking along the canal-side at that moment), and capriciously weaves every one and everything into the canvas like a fly in a spider's web. And it is only after the queer fellow has returned to his comfortable den with fresh stores for his mind to work on, has sat down and finished his dinner, that he comes to himself, when Matrona who waits upon him — always thoughtful and depressed — clears the table and gives him his pipe ; he comes to himself then and recalls with surprise that he has dined, though he has absolutely no notion how it has happened. It has grown dark in the room ; his soul is sad and empty; the whole kingdom of fancies drops to pieces about him, drops to pieces without a trace, without a sound, floats away like a dream, and he cannot himself remember what he was dreaming. But a vague sensation faintly stirs his heart and sets it aching, some new desire temptingly tickles and excites his fancy, and imperceptibly evokes a swarm of fresh phantoms. Stillness reigns in the little room; imagination is fostered by solitude and idleness ; it is faintly smouldering, faintly simmer- ing, like the water -with which old Matrona is making her coffee as she moves quietly about in the kitchen close by. Now it breaks out spa&rnodically ; and the book, picked up aimlessly and at random, drops from my dreamer's hand before he has reached 18 WHITE NIGHTS the third page. His imagination is again stirred and at work, and again a new world, a new fascinating life opens vistas before him. A fresh dream — fresh happiness ! A fresh rush of delie voluptuous poison ! What is real life to him ! To his corrupted s we li ve, you and I, Nastenka, so torpidly, slowly, insipidly ; in his eyes we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, so exhausted life"! And, Wuly, see how^at first sight everything is cold, morose, as though ill-humoured among us. . . . Poor things ! thinks our dreamer. And it is no wonder that he thinks it ! Look at these magic phantasms, which so enchantingly, so whimsically, so carelessly and freely group before him in such a magic, animated picture, in which the most prominent figure in the foreground is of course himself, our dreamer, in his precious person. See what varied adventures, what an endless swarm of ecstatic dreams. You ask, perhaps, what he is dreaming of. Why ask that ? — why, of everything ... of the lot of the poet, first un- recognized, then crowned with laurels; of friendship with Hoffmann, St. Bartholomew's Night, of Diana Vernon, of play- ing the hero at the taking of Kazan by Ivan Vassil yeviteh, of Clara Mowbray, of Effie Deans, of the council of the prelates and Huss before them, of the rising of the dead in ' Robert the Devil ' (do you remember the music, it smells of the church- yard !), of Minna and Brenda, of the battle of Berezina, of the reading of a poem at Countess V. D.'s, of Danton, of Cleopatra ei suoi amanti, of a little house in Kolomna, of a little home of one's own and beside one a dear creature who listens to one on a winter's evening, opening her little mouth and eyes as you are listening to me now, my angel. . . . No, Nastenka, what is there, what is there for him, voluptuous sluggard, in this life, for whieh you and I have such a longing? He thinks that this is a jxx.r pitiful lite, not foreseeing that for him tou, maybe, sometime tin- mournful hour may strike, when for one day of that pitiful life lie \\ould ^ive all his years of phantasy, and \\oujclgi\r them iiut only for joy ami for happiness, hut uith- ' make distinctions in that hour of .sadness, remorse rief. Hut so far that threatening time has not :il'ri • can.-,.- he is superior to all desire, use lie has every tiling, because he is satiated, U-cause he is t of hia own life, and creates it for himself every hour to suit hia latest whim. And you know this fantastic world of WHITE NIGHTS 19 fairyland is so easily, so naturally created ! As though it were not a delusion ! Indeed, he is ready to believe at some moments that all this life is not suggested by feeling, is not mirage, not a delusion of the imagination, but that it is concrete, real, sub- stantial ! Why is it, Nastenka, why is it at such moments one holds one's breath ? Why, by what sorcery, through what incomprehensible caprice, is the pulse quickened, does a tear start from the dreamer's eye, while his pale moist cheeks glow, while his whole being is suffused with an inexpressible sense of consolation ? Why is it that whole sleepless nights pass like a flash in inexhaustible gladness and happiness, and when the dawn gleams rosy at the window and daybreak floods the gloomy room with uncertain, fantastic light, as in Petersburg, our dreamer, worn out and exhausted, flings himself on his bed and drops asleep with thrills of delight in his morbidly overwrought spirit, and with a weary sweet ache in his heart ? Yes, Nastenka, one deceives oneself and unconsciously believes that real true passion is stirring one's soul ; one unconsciously believes that there is something living, tangible in one's immaterial dreams ! And is it delusion ? Here love, for instance, is bound up with all its fathomless joy, all its torturing agonies in his bosom. . . . Only look at him, and you will be convinced ! Would you believe, look- ing at him, dear Nastenka, that he has never known her whom he loves in his ecstatic dreams ? Can it be that he has only seen her in seductive visions, and that this passion has been nothing but a dream ? Surely they must have spent years hand in hand together — alone the two of them, casting off all the world and each uniting his or her life with the other's ? Surely when the hour of parting came she must have lain sobbing and grieving on his bosom, heedless of the tempest raging under the sullen sky, heedless of the wind which snatches and bears away the tears from her black eyelashes ? Can all of that have been a dream — and that garden, dejected, forsaken, run wild, with its little moss-grown paths, solitary, gloomy, where they used to walk so happily together, where they hoped, grieved, loved, loved each other so long, " so long and so fondly ? " And that queer ances- tral house where she spent so many years lonely and sad with her morose old husband, always silent and splenetic, who frightened them, while timid as children they hid their love from each other ? What torments they suffered, what agonies of terror, how 20 WHITE NIGHTS innocent, how pure was their love, and how (I need hardly say, Nastenka) maUcious~peopTe~were ! 5n37gbod Heavens ! surely he met her afterwards, far from their native shores, under alien skies, in the hot south in the divinely eternal city, in the dazzling splendour of the ball to the crash of music, in a palazzo (it must be in a palazzo}, drowned in a sea of lights, on the balcony, wreathed in myrtle and roses, where, recognizing him, she hurriedly removes her mask and whispering, ' I am free,' flings herself trembling into his arms, and with a cry of rapture, clinging to one another, in one instant they forget their sorrow and their parting and all their agonies, and the gloomy house and the old man and the dismal garden in that distant land, and the seat on which with a last passionate kiss she tore herself away from his arms numb with anguish and despair. . . . Oh, Nastenka, you must admit that one would start, betray confusion, and blush like a schoolboy who has just stuffed in his pocket an apple stolen from a neighbour's garden, when your uninvited visitor, some stalwart, lanky fellow, a festive soul fond of a joke, opens your door and shouts out as though nothing were hap- pening ; ' My dear boy, I have this minute come from Pavlovsk.' My goodness ! the old count is dead, unutterable happiness is close at hand — and people arrive from Pavlovsk ! " Finishing my pathetic appeal, I paused pathetically. I remem- bered that I had an intense desire to force myself to laugh, for I was already feeling that a malignant demon was stirring within me, that there was a lump in my throat, that my chin was beginning to twitch, and that my eyes were growing more and more moist. I expected Nastenka, who listened to me opening her clever eyes, would break into her childish, irrepressible laugh ; and I was already regretting that I had gone so far, that I had un- necessarily described what had long been simmering in my heart, about which I could speak as though from a written account of it, because I had long ago passed judgment on myself and now could not resist reading it, making my confession, with- out expecting to be understood; but to my surprise she was silent, waiting a little, then she faintly pressed my hand and with timid sympathy asked — " Surely you haven't lived like that all your life ? " "All my life, Nastenka," I answered; "all my life, and it seems to me I shall go on so to the end." WHITE NIGHTS 21 " No, that won't do," she said uneasily, " that must not be; and so, maybe, I shall spend all my life beside grandmother Do you know, it is not at all good to live like that ? " " I know, Nastenka, I know ! " I cried, unable to restrain my feelings longer. " And I realize now, more than ever, that I have lost all my best years ! And now I know it and feel it more painfully from recognizing that God has sent me you, my good angel, to tell me that and show it. Now that I sit beside you and talk to you it is strange for me to think of the future, for in the future — there is loneliness again, again this musty, useless life ; and what shall I have to dream of when I have been so happy in reality beside you ! Oh, may you be blessed, dear girl, for not having repulsed me at first, for enabling me to say that for two evenings, at least, I have lived." " Oh, no, no ! " cried Nastenka and tears glistened in her eyes. " No, it mustn't be so any more ; we must not part like that ! what are two evenings ? " "Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka ! Do you know how far you have reconciled me to myself ? Do you know now that I shall not think so ill of myself, as I have at some moments ? Do you know that, maybe, I shall leave off grieving over the crime and sin of my life ? for such a life is a crime and a sin. And do not imagine that I have been -exaggerating anything — for goodness' sake don't think that, Nastenka : for at times such misery comes over me, such misery. . . . Because it begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I Jia_yjsJfistj^tojichi all instinct for the_actual, the real ; because at last I have cursed myselff be- cause after ^y~fantastie- nights- 1 have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful ! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision ; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another ; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun, and overcasts with depression the true Petersburg heart so devoted to the sun — and what is fancy in depression ! One feels that this inexJiaustible fancy is weary 22 WHITE NIGHTS at last and worn out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood, outgrowing one's old ideals : they are being shattered into fragments, into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else ! And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him ! Do you know, Nastenka, the point I have reached ? Do you know that I am forced now to celebrate the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was once so sweet, which never existed in reality — for this anniversary is kept in memory of those same foolish, shadowy dreams — and to do this because those foolish dreams are no more, because I have nothing to earn them with ; you know even dreams do not come for nothing ! Do you know that I love now to recall and visit at certain dates the places where I was once happy in my own way? I love to build up my present in harmony with the irrevocable past, and I often wander like a shadow, aim- less, sad and dejected, about the streets and crooked lanes of Petersburg. What memories they are ! To remember, for instance, that here just a year ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just as lonely, just as dejected as to-day. And one remembers that then one's dreams were sad, and though the past was no better one feels as though it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now ; that one was free from the gnawing of conscience — the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now gives me no rest by day or by night. And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by ! And again one oneself what has one done with one's years. Where have you buried your best days ? Have you lived or not ? Look, one to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, ami after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your fantastie \vorM will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . . Oh, Nastenka ! you know it will be sad to be left WHITE NIGHTS 23 alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret — nothing, absolutely nothing . . . for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams ! " " Come, don't work on my feelings any more," said Nastenka, , wiping away a tear which was trickling down her cheek. " Now it's over ! N^ojwjvejshalLbe two together. Now^whatever happens to mo, wo will never part. Listen; I am a simple gifl^ I have not had much education, though grandmother did get a teacher v for me, but truly I understand you, for all that you have described I have been through myself, when grandmother pinned me to her dress. Of course, I should not have described it so well as you have ; I am not educated," she added timidly, for she was still feeling a sort of respect for my pathetic eloquence and lofty \ \-\ style";"'"' but 1 aM very gted that you have T>een quite open with me. Now I know you thoroughly, all of you. And do you know what ? I want to tell you my history too, all without conceal- ment, and after that you must give me advice. You are a very clever man ; will you promise to give me advice ? " " Ah, Nastenka," I cried, " though I have never given advice, still less sensible advice, yet I see now that if we always go on like this that it will be very sensible, and that each of us will give the other a great deal of sensible advice ! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what sort of advice do you want ? Tell me frankly ; at this moment I am so gay and happy, so bold and sensible, that it won't be difficult for me to find words." "No, no ! " Nastenka interrupted, laughing. "I don't only want sensible advice, I want_warm brotherly advice, as though ,.^', you had been fond of me all your life ! " ~" Xctkj "^Agreed, Nastenl:a,~agreedT'""T~cried delighted; "and if I had been fond of you for twenty years, I couldn't have been fonder of you than I am now." " Your hand," said Nastenka. " Here it is," said I, giving her my hand. " And so let us begin my history ! " NASTENKA'S HISTORY " Half my story you know already — that is, you know that I have an old grandmother. ..." 24 WHITE NIGHTS " If the other half is as brief as that ..." I interrupted, laughing. " Be quiet and listen. First of all you must agree not to interrupt me, or else, perhaps I shall get in a muddle ! Come, listen quietly. " I have an old grandmother. I came into her hands when I was quite a little girl, for mv^father and jnother are dead. It must be supposed that grandmother was once richer, for now she recalls better days. She taught me French j^and. then got a teacher._iof-me. When I was fifteen (and now I am seventeen) we gave up having lessons. It was at that time that I got into mischief ; what I did I won't tell you ; it's enough to say that it wasn't very important. But grandmother called me to her one morning and said that as she was blind she could not look after me ; she took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and said that we should sit like that for the rest of our lives if, of course, I did not become a better girl. In fact, at first it was impossible to get away from her : I had to work, to read and to study all beside grandmother. I tried to deceive her once, and persuaded Fekla to sit in my place. Fekla is our charwoman, she is deaf. Fekla sat there instead of me ; grandmother was asleep in her arm- chair at the time, and I went off to see a friend close by. Well, it ended in trouble. Grandmother woke up while I was out, and asked some questions ; she thought I was still sitting quietly in my place. Fekla saw that grandmother was asking her some- thing, but could not tell what it was ; she wondered what to do, undid the pin and ran away. ..." At this point Nastenka stopped and began laughing. I laughed with her. She left off at once. " I tell you what, don't you laugh at grandmother. I laugh because it's funny. . . . What can I do, since grandmother is like that ; but yet I am fond of her in a way. Oh, well, I did catch it that time. I had to sit down in my place at once, and after that I was not allowed to stir. " Oh, I forgot to tell you that our house belongs to us, that is to grandmother ; it is a little wooden house with three windows as old as grandmother herself, with a little upper storey ; well, there mov^iftt^-muuippeijiprcxJ1 Ilrw lodger." " Then you had an old lodger," I observed casually. " Yes, of course," answered Nastenka, " and one who knew WHITE NIGHTS 25 how to hold his tongue better than you do. In fact, he hardly ever used his tongue at all. He was a dumb, blind, lame, dried- up little old man, so that at last he could not go on living, he died ; so then we had to find a new lodger, for we could not live without a lodger — the rent, together with grandmother's pension, is almost all we have. But the new lodger, as luck would have it, was a young man, a stranger not of these parts. As he did not haggle over the rent, grandmother accepted him, and only afterwards she asked me : ' Tell me, Nastenka, what is our lodger like — is he young or old ? ' I did not want to lie, so I told grandmother that he wasn't exactly young and that he wyasn't old. " ' And is he pleasant looking? ' asked grandmother. " Again I did not want to tell a lie : ' Yes, he is pleasant looking, grandmother,' I said. And grandmother said : ' Oh, what a nuisance, what a nuisance ! I tell you this, grand- chlid, that you may not be looking after him. What times these are ! Why a paltry lodger like this, and he must be pleasant looking too ; it was very different in the old days ! ' " Grandmother was always regretting the old days — she was younger in old days, and the sun was warmer in old days, and cream did not turn so sour in old days — it was always the old days ! I would sit still and hold my tongue and think to myself : why did grandmother suggest it to me ? Why did she ask whether the lodger was young and good- looking ? But that was all, I just thought it, began counting my stitches again, went on knitting my stocking, and forgot all about it. " Well, one morning the lodger came in to see us; he asked about a promise to paper his rooms. One thing led to another. Grandmother was talkative, and she said : ' Go, Nastenka, into my bedroom and bring me my reckoner.' I jumped up at once ; I blushed all over, I don't know why, and forgot I was sitting pinned to grandmother; instead of quietly undoing the pin, so that the lodger should not see — I jumped so that grandmother's chair moved. When I saw that the lodger knew all about me now, I blushed, stood still as though I had been shot, and suddenly began to cry — I felt so ashamed and miserable at that minute, that I didn't know where to look ! Grandmother called out, * What are you waiting for ? ' and I went on worse than ever. 26 WHITE NIGHTS When the lodger saw, saw that I was ashamed on his account, he bowed and went away at once ! " After that I felt ready to die at the least sound in the passage. ' It's the lodger,' I kept thinking; I stealthily undid the pin in case. But it always turned out not to be, he never came. A fortnight passed; the lodger sent word through F^ojdajyhat he had a greatnumber of IVejicJb^.boiLka»_ai)^iJjiatJbh^: \\viv all g(5bd~txK)KS tha't'Tmight_readJ_JQ_won1d not, grandmnt.hpr like me tojgftdjfoCTrthajTJji^^ ? Grandmother agreed with gratitude~~but kept asking if they were moral books, for if the books were immoral it would be out of the question, one would learn evil from them." : ' And what should I learn, grandmother ? What is there written in them ? ' " ' Ah,' she said, ' what's described in them, is how young men seduce virtuous girls ; how, on the excuse that they want to marry them, they carry them off from their parents' houses ; how after- wards they leave these unhappy girls to their fate, and they perish in the most pitiful way. I read a great many books,' said grandmother, ' and it is all so well described that one sits up all night and reads them on the sly. So mind you don't read them, Nastenka,' said she. ' What books has he sent ? ' " ' They are all Walter Scott's novels, grandmother.' " ' Walter Scott's novels ! But stay, isn't there some trick about it ? Look, hasn't he stuck a love-letter among them ? ' ' No, grandmother,' I said, ' there isn't a love-letter.' ' But look under the binding ; they sometimes stuff it under the bindings, the rascals ! ' " ' No, grandmother, there is nothing under the binding.' " ' Well, that's all right,' " So we began reading Walter Scott, and in a month or so we had read almost half. Then he sent us more and more. He • us Pushkin, too^so that at last I couIcHlo! gllt uirwitlffiut a book, and left off dreaming of how fine it would be to marry a Chinese Prince. " That's how things were when I chanced one day to meet our lodger on the stairs. Grandmother had sent me to fetch something. He stopped, I blushed and he blushed; he laughed, though, said good-morning to me, asked after grandmother, and said, ' Well, have you read the books ? ' I answered that WHITE NIGHTS 27 I had. 'Which did you like best?' he asked. I said, ' Ivanhoe, and Pushkin best of all,' and so our talk ended for that time. " A week later I met him again on the stairs. That time grandmother had not sent me, I wanted to get 'something for myself. It was past two, and the lodger used to come home at that time. ' Good-afternoon,' said he. I said good -afternoon, too. " ' Aren't you dull,' he said, ' sitting all day with your grand- mother ? ' " When he asked that, I blushed, I don't know why; I felt ashamed, and again I felt offended — I suppose because other people had begun to ask me about that. I wanted to go away without answering, but I hadn't the strength. ' ' Listen,' he said, ' you are a good girl. Excuse my speaking to you like that, but I assure you that I wish for your welfare quite as much as your grandmother. Have you no friends that you could go and visit ? ' " I told him I hadn't any, that I had had no friend but Mashenka, and she had gone away to Pskov. ' Listen,' he said, ' would you like to go to the theatre with me?' ' To the theatre. What about grandmother ? ' ' But you must go without your grandmother's knowing it,' he said. " ' No,' I said, ' I don't want to deceive grandmother. Good- bye.' " ' Well, good-bye,' he answered, and said nothing more. " Only after dinner he came to see us ; sat a long time talking to grandmother ; asked her whether she ever went out anywhere, whether she had acquaintances, and suddenly said : ' I have taken a box at the opera for this evening ; they are giving The Barber of Seville. My friends meant to go, but afterwards refused, so the ticket is left on my hands.' ' The Barber of Seville,' cried grandmother; 'why, the same they used to act in old days ? ' ' Yes, it's the same barber,' he said, and glanced at me. I saw what it meant and turned crimson, and my heart began throbbing with suspense. 'To be sure, I know it,' said grandmother; 'why, I took the part of Rosina myself in old days, at a private performance ! ' 28 WHITE NIGHTS " ' So wouldn't you like to go to-day ? ' said the lodger. ' Or my ticket will be wasted.' " ' By all means let us go,' said grandmother ; why shouldn't we ? And my Nastenka here has never been to the theatre.' " My goodness, what joy ! We got ready at once, put on our best clothes, and set off. Though grandmother was blind, still she wanted to hear the music ; besides, she is a kind old soul, what she cared most for was to amuse me, we should never have gone of ourselves. " What my impressions of The Barber of Seville were I won't tell you ; but all that evening our lodger looked at me so nicely, talked so nicely, that I saw at once that he had meant to test me in the morning when he proposed that I should go with him alone. Well, it was joy ! I went to bed so proud, so gay, my heart beat so that I was a little feverish, and all night I was raving about The Barber of Seville. " I expected that he would come and see us more and more often after that, but it wasn't so at all., He almost entirely gave up coming. He would just come in about once a month, and then only to invite us to the theatre. We went twice again. Only I wasn't at all pleased with that ; I saw that he was simply sorry for me because I was so hardly treated by grandmother, and that was all. As time went on, I grew more and more restless, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't read, I couldn't work; sometimes I laughed and did something to annoy grandmother, at another time I would cry. At last I grew thin and was very nearly ill. The opera season was over, and our lodger had quite given up coming to see us ; whenever we met — always on the same stair- case, of course — he would bow so silently, so gravely, as though he did not want to speak, and go down to the front door, while I went on standing in the middle of the stairs, as red as a cherry, for all the blood rushed to my head at the sight of him. " Now the end is near. Just a year ago, in May, the lodger came to us and said to grandmother that he had finished his business here, and that he must go back to Moscow for a year. When I heard that, I sank into a chair half dead ; grandmother did not notice anything ; and having informed us that he should be leaving us, he bowed and went away. " What was I to do ? Tjthjnnghtr nnd_thoughl and fretted and fretted, and at last I made up my mind. Next day he was to go WHITE NIGHTS 29 away, and I made up my mind to end it all that evening when grandmother went to bed. And so it happened. I made up all my clothes in a parcel — all the linen I needed — and with the parcel in my hand, more dead than alive, went upstairs to our lodger. I believe I must have stayed an hour on the staircase. When I opened his door he cried out as he looked at me. He thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me some water, for I could hardly stand up. My heart beat so violently that my head ached, and I did not know what I was doing. When I recovered I began by laying my parcel on his bed, sat down beside it, hid my face in my hands and went into floods of tears. I think he understood it all at once, and looked at me so sadly that my heart was torn. " ' Listen,' he began, ' listen, Nastenka, I can't do anything; I am a poor man, for I have nothing, not even a decent berth. How could we live^ if I were to marry you ? ' "* We talked a long time ; but at last I got quite frantic, I said I could not go on living with grandmother, that I should run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned to her, and that I would go to Moscow if he liked, because I coukLooiJive. without— him. Shame_and_jgride and love were all clamouring in me at dnce7 and'TleU onJbbTe Bed, almost in convulsions, I was so afraid of a refusal^ " He sat for some minutes in silence, then got up, came up to me and took me by the hand. " ' Listen, my dear good Nastenka, listen ; I swear to you that if I am ever in a position to marry, you shall make my happi- ness. I assure you that now you are the only one who could make me happy. Listen, I am going to Moscow and shall be there juslr a year; I hope to establish my position. When I come back, if you still love me, I swear that we will be happy. Now it is impossible, I am not able, I have not the right to promise anything. Well, I repeat, if it is not within a year it will certainly be some time ; that is, of course, if you do not prefer any one else, for I cannot and dare not bind you by any sort of promise.' " That was what he said to me, and next day he went away. We agreed together not to say a word to grandmother : that was his wish. Well, my history is nearly finished now. Just a year has past. He has arrived; he has been her? three days, and, and 30 WHITE NIGHTS " And what ? ' I cried, impatient to hear the end. " And up to now has not shown himself ! " answered Nastenka, as though screwing up all her courage. " There's no sign or sound of him." Here she stopped, paused for a minute, bent her head, and covering her face with her hands broke into such sobs that it sent a pang to my heart to hear them. I had not in the least expected such a denouement. " Nastenka," I began timidly in an ingratiating voice, " Nas- tenka ! For goodness' sake don't cry ! How do you know ? Perhaps he is not here yet. . . ." " He is, he is," Nastenka repeated. " He is here, and I know it. We made an agreement at the time, that evening, before he went away : when we said all that I have told you, and had come to an understanding, then we came out here for a walk on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat on this seat. I was not crying then ; it was sweet to me to hear what he said. . . . And he said that he would come to us directly he arrived, and if I did not refuse him, then we would tell grandmother about it all. Now he is here, I know it, and yet he does not come 1 " And again she burst into tears. " Good God, can I do nothing to help you in your sorrow ? " I cried jumping up from the seat in utter despair. " Tell me, Nastenka, wouldn't it be possible for me to go to him ? " " Would that be possible ? " she asked suddenly, raising her head. " No, of course not/' I said pulling myself up; " but I tell you what, write a letter." " No, that's impossible, I can't do that," she answered with decision, bending her head and not looking at me. " How impossible — why is it impossible ? " I went on, clinging to my idea. " But, Nastenka, it depends what sort of letter; there are letters and letters and. . . . All, Nastenka, I am right ; trust to me, trust to me, I will not give you bad advice. It can all be arranged ! You took the first step — why not now ? " " I can't. I can't ! It would seem as though I were forcing myself on him. ..." " Ah, my good little Nastenka," I said, hardly able to conceal a smile ; " no, no, you have a right to, in fact, because he made you a promise. Besides, I can see from everything that he is WHITE NIGHTS 31 a man of delicate feeling ; that he behaved very well," I went on, more and more carried away by the logic of my own arguments and convictions. " How did he behave ? He bound himself by a promise : he said that if he married at all he would marry no one but you; he gave you full liberty to refuse him at once. . . . Under such circumstances you may take the first step ; you have the right ; you are in the privileged position — if, for instance, you wanted to free him from his promise. ..." " Listen ; how would you write ? " " Write what ? " " This letter." " I tell you how I would write : ' Dear Sir.' ..." " Must I really begin like that, ' Dear Sir ' ? " " You certainly must ! Though, after all, I don't know, I imagine. ..." " Well, well, what next ? " " ' Dear Sir, — I must apologize for ' But, no, there's no need to apologize ; the fact itself justifies everything. Write simply : — " ' I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but I have been happy for a whole year in hope ; am I to blame for being unable to enduie a day of doubt now ? Now that you have come, perhaps you have changed your mind. If so, this letter is to tell you that I do not repine, nor blame you. I do not blame you because I have no power over your heart, such is my fate ! ' You are an honourable man. You will not smile or be vexed at these impatient lines. Remember they are written by a poor girl ; that she is alone ; that she has no one to direct her, no one to advise her, and that she herself could never -control her heart. But forgive me that a doubt has stolen — if only for one instant — into my heart. You are not capable of insulting, even in thought, her who so loved and so loves you.' ' "Yes, yes; that's exactly what I was thinking!" cried Nastenka, and her eyes beamed with delight. " Oh, you have solved my difficulties: God has sent you to" me ! Thank you, thank you I "* - 32 WHITE NIGHTS " What for ? What for ? For God's sending me ? " I answered, looking delighted at her joyful little face. " Why, yes ; for that too." " Ah, Nastenka ! Why, one thanks some people for being alive at the same time with one ; I thank you for having met me, for my being able to remember you all my life ! " " Well, enough, enough ! But now I tell you what, listen : we made an agreement then that as soon as he arrived he would let me know, by leaving a letter with some good simple people of my acquaintance who know nothing about it ; or, if it were impossible to write a letter to me, for a letter does not always tell everything, he would be here at ten o'clock on the day he arrived, where we had arranged to meet. I know he has arrived already; but now it's the third day, and there's no sign of him •v and no letter. It's impossible for me to get away from grand- mother in the morning. Give my letter to-morrow to those kind people I spoke to you about : thgyjwjll send it on to him, and if there is an answer you bring it to-morrow at ten o'clock." " But the letter, the letter ! You see, you must write the letter first ! So perhaps it must all be the day after to-morrow." " The letter ..." said Nastenka, a little confused, " the letter . . . but. . . ." But she did not finish. At first she turned her little face away from me, flushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt in my hand a letter which had evidently been written long before, all ready and sealed up. A familiar sweet and charming reminiscence floated through my mind. " R, o — Ro; s, i — si; n, a — na," I began. " Rosina ! " we both hummed together; I almost embracing her with delight, while she blushed as only she could blush, and laughed through the tears which gleamed like pearls on her black eyelashes. " Come, enough, enough ! Good-bye now," she said speaking rapidly. " Here is the letter, here is the address to which you are to take it. Good-bye, till we meet again ! Till to-morrow ! " She pressed both my hands warmly, nodded her head, and flew like an arrow down her side street. I stood still for a long time following her with my eyes. " Till to-morrow ! till to-morrow ! " was ringing in my ears as she vanished from my sight. WHITE NIGHTS 33 THIRD NIGHT TO-DAY was a gloomy, rainy day without a glimmer of sunlight, like the old age before me. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such gloomy sensations ; questions still so obscure to me are crowding into my brain — and I seem to have neither power nor will to settle them. It's not for me to settle all this ! To-day we shall not meet. Yesterday, when we said good-bye, the clouds began gathering over the ^ky and a mist rose. I said that to-morrow it would be a bad day ; she made no answer, she did not want to speak against her wishes ; for her that day was bright and clear, not one cloud should obscure her happiness. "If it rains we shall not see each other," she said, " I shall not come." I thought that she would not notice to-day's rain, and yet she has not come. ^ . Yesterday was our third interview, our third white night. •. .**. ^ But how fine joy and happiness makes any one ! How brim- ming over with love the heart is ! One seems longing to pour out one's whole heart ; one wants everything to be gay, every- thing to be laughing. And how infectious that joy is ! There was such a softness in her words, such a kindly feeling in her heart towards me yesterday. . . . How solicitous and. friendly she was; how tenderly she tried to give me couragej __ Oh, the coquetry ~of— kappine'ssT While I . TT I tookTt all for the genuine thing, I thought that she. But, my God, how could I have thought it ? How could I have beensp blind, when everything had been taken by another already, wherTnothTng was^mine ; wnen7]m^etrher very tenderness to ' else hut joj^tj,h£^tliought_of_seeing another man so soon, desire to include me, too, m her happiness ? . . . When he did not conie,^^en~w^^aiteTi"irrvain, she frowned, she grew timid and discouraged. Her movements, her words, were no longer so light, so playful, so gay; and, strange to say, she redoubled her attentiveness to me,- as though instinctively desiring to lavish on me what she desired for herself so anxiously, if her wishes were not accomplished. My Nastenka.was so downcast, so dismayed, that I think she realized at last that I loved her, and was sorry D < — 34 WHITE NIGHTS for my poor love. So when we are unhappy we feel the unhappi- ness of others more ; feeling is not destroyed but concentrated. . . I went to meet her with a full heart, and was all impatience. I had no presentiment that I should feel as I do now, that it would not all end happily. She was beaming with pleasure; she was expecting an answer. The answer was himself. He was to come, to run at her call. She arrived a whole hour before I did. At first she giggled at everything, laughed at every word I said. I began talking, but relapsed into silence. " Do you know why I am so glad," she said, " so glad to look at you ? — why I like you so much to-day ? " " Well ? " I asked, and my heart began throbbing. " Irlikc-yoji, because you have not fallen in love with me. You know that some~"meirtn your place would nave been pestering and worrying me, would have been sighing and miserable, while you are so nice ! " Then she wrung my hand so hard that I almost cried out. She laughed. " Ciuodncss, what a friend you are ! " she began gravely a minute later. " God sent you to me. What would have hap- pened to me if you had not been with me now ? How disin- terested you are ! How truly you care for me ! When I am married we will be great friends, more_jjian brother and sister; I sKalTcare almost as I do for him. ..." I felt horribly sad at that moment, yet something like laughter was stirring in my soul. "You are very much upset," I said; "you are frightened; you think he won't come." " Oh dear ! " she answered; " if I were less happy, I believe I should cry at your lack of faith, at your reproaches. However, you have made me think and have given me a lot to think about ; but I shall think later, and now I will own that you are right. Yes, I am somehow not myself; I am all suspense, and feel everything as it were too lightly. But hush ! that's enough about feelings. ..." At that moment we heard footsteps, and in the darkness we saw a figure coming towards us. We both started ; she almost cried out ; I dropped her hand and made a movement as though to walk away. But we were mistaken, it was not he. " What are you afraid of ? Why did you let go of my hand ? " WHITE NIGHTS 35 she said, giving it to me again. " Come, what is it ? We will meet him together ; I want him to see how fond we are of each other." " How fond we are of each other ! " I cried. (" Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka," I thought, " how much you have told me in that saying ! Such fondness at certain moments makes the heart cold and the soul heavy. Ynur_hai\d is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka ! . . . Oh, how unbearable a happy person is sometimes ! But I could not be angry with you ! ") At last my heart was too full. " Listen, Nastenka ! " I cried. " Do you know how it has been with me all day." " Why, how, how ? Tell me quickly ! Why have you said nothing all this time ? " " To begin with, Nastenka, when I had carried out all your commissions, given the letter, gone to see your good friends, then . . . then I went home and went to bed." " Is that all ? " she interrupted, laughing. " yes, almost all," I answered restraining myself, for foolish tears were already starting into my eyes. " I woke an hour before our appointment, and yet, as it were, I had not been asleep. I don't know what happened to me. I came to tell you all about it, feeling as though time were standing still, feeling as though one sensation, one feeling must remain with me from that time for ever ; feeling as though one minute must go on for all eternity, and as though all life had come to a standstill for me. . . . When I woke up it seemed as though some musical motive long familiar, heard somewhere in the past, forgotten and voluptuously sweet, had come back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been clamouring at my heart all my life, and only now. . . ." " Oh my goodness, my goodness," Nastenka interrupted, " what does all that mean ? I don't understand a word." " All, Nastenka, I wanted somehow to convey to you that strange impression. ..." I began in a plaintive voice, in which there still lay hid a hope, though a very faint one. " Leave off. Hush ! " she said, and in one instant the sly puss had guessed. Suddenly she became extraordinarily talkative, gay, mis- chievous; she took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, 36 WHITE NIGHTS and every confused word I uttered evoked from her prolonged ringing laughter. ... I began to feel angry, she had suddenly begun flirting. " Do you know," she began, " I feel a little vexed that you are not in love with me ? There's no understanding human nature ! But all the same, Mr. Unapproachable, you cannot blame me for being so simple ; I tell you everything, everything, whatever foolish thought comes into my head." " Listen ! That's eleven, I believe," I said as the slow chime of a bell rang out from a distant tower. She suddenly stopped, left off laughing and began to count. " Yes, it's eleven," she said at last in a timid, uncertain voice. I regretted at once that I had frightened her, making her count the strokes, and I cursed myself for my spiteful impulse ; I felt sorry for her, and did not know how to atone for what I had done. I began comforting her, seeking for reasons for his not coming, advancing various arguments, proofs. No one could have been easier to deceive than she was at that moment ; and, indeed, any one at such a moment listens gladly to any consolation, whatever it may be, and is overjoyed if a shadow of excuse can be found. " And indeed it's an absurd thing," I began, warming to my task and admiring the extraordinary clearness of my argument, " why, he could not have come ; you have muddled and confused me, Nastenka, so that I too, have lost count of the time. . . . Only think : he can scarcely have received the letter ; suppose he is not able to come, suppose he is going to answer the letter, could not come before to-morrow. I will go for it as soon as it's light to-morrow and let you know at once. Consider, there are thousands of possibilities ; perhaps he was not at home when the letter came, and may not have read it even now ! Anything may happen, you know." " Yes, yes ! " said Nastenka. " I did not think of that. Of course anything may happen ? " she went on in a tone that offered no opposition, though some other far-away thought could be heard like a vexatious discord in it. " I tell you what you must do," she said, "you go as early as possible to-morrow morning, and if you get anything let me know at once. You know where I live, don't you ? " And she began repeating her address to me. WHITE NIGHTS 37 Then she suddenly became so tender, so solicitous with me. She seemed to listen attentively to what I told her ; but when I asked her some question she was silent, was confused, and turned her head away. I looked into her eyes — yes, she was crying. " How can you ? How can you ? Oh, what a baby you are ! what childishness ! . . . Come, come ! " She tried to smile, to calm herself, but her chin was quivering and her bosom was still heaving. " I was thinking about you," she said after a minute's silence. " You are so kind that I should be a stone if I did not feel it. Do you know what has occurred to me now ? I was comparing you two. Why isn't he you ? _ good as you, though I love him more than you." I made no answer. Sli^e^m?3!^^e^pe^rT3erfo say something. " Of course, it may be that I don't understand him fully yet. You know I was always as it were afraid of him ; he was always so grave, as it were so proud. Of course I know it's only that he seems like that, I know there is more tenderness in his heart than in mine ... I remember how he looked at me when I went in to him — do you remember ? — with my bundle ; but yet I respect him too much, and doesn't that show that we are not equals ? " " No, Nastenka, no," I answered, " it shows that you love him more than anything in the world, and far more than yourself." :< Yes, supposing that is so," answered Nastenka naively. " But do you know what strikes me now ? Only I am not talking about him now, but speaking generally; all this came into my mind some time ago. Tell me, how is it that we can't all be like brothers together ? Why is it that even the best of men always seem to hide something from other people and to keep something back ? Why not say straight out what is in one's heart, when one knows that one is not speaking idly ? As it is every one seems harsher than he really is, as though all were afraid of doing injustice to their feelings, by being too quick to express them." " Oh, Nastenka, what you say is true ; but there are many reasons for that," I broke in suppressing my own feelings at that moment more than ever. " No, no ! " she answered with deep feeling. " Here you, for instance, are not like other people ! I really don't know how to tell you what I feel ; but it seems to me that you, for instance . . . at the present moment ... it seems to me that you are sacrificing 38 WHITE NIGHTS something for me," she added timidly, with a fleeting glance at me. " Forgive me for saying so, I am a simple girl you know. I have seen very little of life, and I really sometimes don't know how to say things," she added in a voice that quivered with some hidden feeling, while she tried to smile ; " but I only wanted to tell you that I am grateful, that I feel it all too . . . Oh, may God give you happiness for it ! What you told me about your dreamer is quite untrue now — that is, I mean, it's not true of you. You are recovering, you are quite a different man from what you de- scribed. If you ever fall in love with some one, God give you happiness with her ! I won't wish anything for her, for she will be happy with you. I know, I am a woman myself, so you must believe me when I tell you so.'" She ceased speaking, and pressed my hand warmly. I too could not speak without emotion. Some minutes passed. " Yes, it's clear he won't come to-night," she said at last raising her head. " It's late." " He will come to-morrow," I said in the most firm and con- vincing tone. " Yes," she added with no sign of her former depression. " I see for myself now that he could not come till to-morrow. Well, good-bye, till to-morrow. ' If it rains perhaps I shall not come. But the day after to-morrow, I shall come. I shall come for certain, whatever happens; be sure to be here, I want to see you, I will tell you everything." And then when we parted she gave me her hand and said, looking at me candidly : " We shall always be together, shan't we?" Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka ! If only you knew how lonely I am now ! As soon as it struck nine o'clock I could not stay indoors, but put on my things, and went out in spite of the weather. I was then-, silt in<: on our seat. I went to her street, but I felt ashamed, and turned back without looking at their windows, when I was two steps from her door. I went home more depressed than I had ever been before. What a damp, dreary day ! If it had been fine I should have walked about all niirht. . . . But to-morrow, to-morrow ! To-im>rrmv she will tell me < thing. The letter has not come to-day, however. But that waa to be expected. They are together by now. . . WHITE NIGHTS 39 FOURTH NIGHT MY God, how it has all ended ! What it has all ended in ! I arrived at nine o'clock. She was already there. I noticed her a good way off; she was standing as she had been that first time, with her elbows on the railing, and she did not hear me coming up to her. " Nastenka ! " I called to her, suppressing my agitation with an effort. She turned to me quickly. " Well ? " she said. " Well ? Make haste ! " I looked at her in perplexity. " Well, where is the letter ? Have you brought the letter," she repeated clutching at the railing. " No, there is no letter," I said at last. " Hasn't he been to you yet ? " She turned fearfully pale and looked at me for a long time without moving. I had shattered her last hope. " Well, God be with him," she said at last in a breaking voice ; " God be with him if he leaves me like that." She dropped her eyes, then tried to look at me and could not. For several minutes she was struggling with her emotion. All at once she turned away, leaning her elbows against the railing and burst into tears. " Oh don't, don't ! " I began ; but looking at her I had not the heart to go on, and what was I to say to her ? " Don't try and comfort me," she said ; " don't talk about him ; don't tell me that he will come, that he has not cast me off so cruelly and so inhumanly as he has. What for — what for ? Can there have been something in my letter, that unlucky letter ? " At that point sobs stifled her voice ; my heart was torn as I looked at her. " Oh, how inhumanly cruel it is ! " she began again. " And not a line, not a line ! He might at least have written that he does not want me, that he rejects me— -but-net a- -line- for. -three days ! How~easy il1s"lof.him towoundrto insult a poor, defence- less..girl, whose only fault is that she loves him ! Oh, what I've suffered during" these" three "days ! Oh, dear ! When I think that I was the first to go to him, that I humbled myself before 40 WHITE NIGHTS him, cried, that I begged of him a little love ! . . . and after that ! Listen/' she said, turning to me, and her black eyes flashed, " it isn't so ! It can't be so ; it isn't natural. Either you are mistaken or I; perhaps he has not received the letter? Perhaps he still knows nothing about it ? How could any one — judge for yourself, tell me, for goodness' sake explain it to me, I can't understand it — how could any one behave with such barbarous coarseness as he has behaved to me ? Not one word ! Why, the lowest creature on earth is treated more compassionately. Perhaps he has heard something, perhaps some one has told him something about me," she cried, turning to me inquiringly : " What do you think? " " Listen, Nastenka, I shall go to him to-morrow in your name." " Yes ? " " I will question him about everything; I will tell him every- thing." " Yes, yes ? " " You write a letter. Don't say no, Nastenka, don't say no ! I will make him respect your action, he shall hear all about it, and if " " No, my friend, no," she interrupted, " Enough ! Not another word, not another line from me — enough ! I don't know him ; I don't love him any more. I will . . . forget him." She could not go on. " Calm yourself, calm yourself ! Sit here, Nastenka," I said, making her sit down on the seat. " I am calm. Don't trouble. It's nothing ! It's only tears, they will soon dry. Why, do you imagine I shall do away with myself, that I shall throw myself into the river ? " My heart was full : I tried to speak, but I could not. " Listen," she said taking my hand. " Tell me : you wouldn't have behaved like this, would you ? You would not have aban- doned a girl who had come to you of herself, you would not have thrown into her face a shameless taunt at her \\cak foolish heart ? You would have taken care of her ? You would have realized that she was alone, that she did not know how to look after If, that she could not guard herself from loving you, that it was not her fault, not her fault — that she had done nothing. . . . Oh dear, oh^dear ! " WHITE NIGHTS 41 " Nastenka ! " I cried at last unable, to control my emotion. " Nastenka, you torture me ! You wound my heart, you are killing me, Nastenka ! I cannot be silent ! I must speak at last, give utterance to what is surging in my heart ! " As I said this I got up from the seat. She took my hand and looked at me in surprise. " What is the matter with you ? " she said at last. " Listen," I said resolutely. " Listen to me, Nastenka ! What- I am going to say to you now is all nonsense, all impossible, all stupid ! I know that this can never be, but I cannot be silent. For the sake of what you are suffering now, I beg you beforehand to forgive me ! " " What is it ? What is it ? " she said drying her tears and looking at me intently, while a strange curiosity gleamed in her astonished eyes. " What is the matter ? " " It's impossible, but I love you, Nastenka ! There it is ! Now everything is told," I said with a wave of my hand. " Now you will see whether you can go on talking to me as you did just now, whether you can listen to what I am going to say to you." . . . " Well, what then? " Nastenka interrupted me. " What of it ? I knew you loved me long ago, only I always thought that you simply liked me very much. . . . Oh dear, oh dear ! " " At first it was simply liking, Nastenka, but now, now ! I am just in the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle. In a worse position than you, Nastenka, because he cared for no one else as you do." " What are you saying to me ! I don't understand you in the least. But tell me, what's this for ; I don't mean what for, but why are you ... so suddenly. . . . Oh dear, I am talking nonsense ! But you. . . . And Nastenka broke off in confusion. Her cheeks flamed; she dropped her eyes. " What's to be done, Nastenka, what am I to do ? I am to blame. I have abused your. . . . But no, no, I am not to blame, Nastenka; I feel that, I know that, because my heart tells me I am right, for I cannot hurt you in any way, I cannot wound you ! I was your friend, but I am still your friend, I have betrayed no trust. Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow — they don't hurt anybody. They will dry, Nastenka." 42 WHITE NIGHTS " Sit down, sit down," she said, making me sit down on the seat. " Oh, my God ! " " No, Nastenka, I won't sit down ; I cannot stay here any longer, you cannot see me again ; I will tell you everything and go away. I only want to say that you would never have found out that I loved you. I should have kept my secret. I would not have worried you at such a moment with my egoism. No ! But I could not resist it now ; you spoke of it yourself, it is your fault, your fault and not mine. You cannot drive me away from you.''. . . " No, no, I don't drive you away, no ! " said Nastenka, con- cealing her confusion as best she could, poor child. " You don't drive me away ? No ! But I meant to run from you myself. I will go away, but first I will tell you all, for when you were crying here I could not sit unmoved, when you wept, when you were in torture at being — at being — I will speak of it, Nastenka — at being forsaken, at your love being repulsed, I felt that in my heart there was so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love ! And it seemed so bitter that I could not help you with my love, that my heart was breaking and I ... I could not be silent, I had to speak, Nastenka, I had to speak ! " Y«-s, yes ! tell me, talk to me," said Nastenka with an inde- scribable gesture. " Perhaps you think it strange that I talk to you like this, but . . . speak ! I will tell you afterwards ! I will tell you everything." ' You are sorry for me, Nastenka, you are simply sorry for me, my dear little friend ! What's done can't be mended. What is said cannot be taken back. Isn't that so ? Well, now you know. That's the starting-point. Very well. Now it's all riirht, only listen. When you were sitting crying I thought to myself (oh, let me tell you what I was thinking !), I thought, that (of course it cannot be, Nastenka), I thought that you ... I thought that you somehow . . . quite apart from me, had ceased t o 1 o v e h i m . Then — I thought that yesterday and the day before ••p lay, Xastenka — then I would — I certainly would — have Mirr.-.-.l,.,! in making you love me; you know, you said your- self. Xastenka, that you almost loved me. Well, what next? Well, that's nearly all I wanted to tell you; all that is left to say is how it \vmil«l IKJ if you loved me, only that, nothing morel Listi-n, my friend — for anyway you are my friend — WHITE NIGHTS 43 I am, of course, a poor, humble man, of no great consequence ; but that's not the point (I don't seem to be able to say what I mean, Nastenka, I am so confused), only I would love you, I would love you so, that even if you still loved him, even if you went on loving the man I don't know, you would never feel that my love was a burden to you. You would only feel every minute that at your side was beating a grateful, grateful heart, a warm heart ready for your sake. . . . Oh Nastenka, Nastenka ! What have you done to me ? " " Don't cry; I don't want you to cry," said Nastenka getting up quickly from the seat. " Come along, get up, come with me, don't cry, don't cry," she said, drying her tears wth her handker- chief ; "let us go now ; maybe I will tell you something. ... If he has forsaken me now, if he has forgotten me, though I still love him (I do not want to deceive you) . . . but listen, answer me. If I were to love you, for instance, that is, if I only. . . . Oh my friend, my friend ! To think, to think how I wounded you, when I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love with me. Oh dear ! How was it I did not foresee this, how was it I did not foresee this, how could I have been so stupid ? But . . . Well, I have,- made up my mind, I will tell you." " Look here, Nastenka, do you know what ? I'll go away, that's what I'll do. I am simply tormenting you. Here you are remorseful for having laughed at me, and I won't have you ... in addition to your sorrow. ... Of course it is my fault, Nastenka, but good-bye ! " " Stay, listen to me : can you wait ? " " What for ? How 1 " " I love him; but I shall get over it, I must get over it, I cannot fail to get over it ; I am getting over it, I feel that. . . . Who knows ? Perhaps it will all end to-day, for I hate him, for he has been laughing at me, while you have been weeping here with me, for you have not repulsed me as he has, for you love me while he has never loved me, for in fact, I love you myself. . . . Yes, I love you ! I love you as you love me ; I have told you so before, you heard it yourself — I love you because you are better than he is, because you are nobler than he is, because, because he — The poor girl's. emotion was so violent that she could not say more; she laid her head upon my shoulder, then upon my 44 WHITE NIGHTS bosom, and wept bitterly. I comforted her, I persuaded her, but she could not stop crying; she kept pressing my hand, and saying between her sobs : " Wait, wait, it will be over in a minute ! I want to tell you . . . you mustn't think that these tears — it's nothing, it's weakness, wait till it's over." ... At last she left off crying, dried her eyes and we walked on again. I wanted to speak, but she still begged me to wait. We were silent. ... At last she plucked up courage and began to speak. " It's like this," she began in a weak and quivering voice, in which, however, there was a note that pierced my heart with a sweet pang; "don't think that I am so light and inconstant, don't think that I can forget and change so quickly. I have loved him for a whole year, and I swear by God that I have never, never, even in thought, been unfaithful to him. . . . He has despised me, he has been laughing at me — God forgive him ! But he has insulted me and wounded my heart. I ... I do not love him, for I can only love what is magnanimous, what understands me, what is generous ; for I am like that myself and he is not worthy of me — well, that's enough of him. He has done better than if he had deceived my expectations later, and shown me later what he was. . . . Well, it's over ! But who knows, my dear friend," she went on pressing my hand, " who knows, perhaps my whole love was a mistaken feeling, a delusion — perhaps it began in mis- chief, in nonsense, because I was kept so strictly by grandmother ? Perhaps I ought to love another man, not him, a different man, who would have pity on me and . . . and . . . But don't let us say any more about that," Nastenka broke off, breathless with emotion, " I only wanted to tell you ... I wanted to tell you that if, although I love him (no, did love him), if, in spite of this you still say. ... If you feel that your love is so great that it may at last drive from my heart my old feeling — if you M ill have pity on me — if you do not want to leave me alone to my fate, without hope, without consolation — if you are ready to love UK' always as you do now — I swear to you that gratitude . . . that my love will be at last worthy of your love. . . . Will you take my hand? " " Nastenka ! " I cried breathless with sobs. " Nastenka, oh Nastenka ! " Knough, enough ! Well, now it's quite enough," she said, hardly able to control herself. " Well, now all has been said, WHITE NIGHTS \ 45 hasn't it ? Hasn't it ? You are happy — I am happy too. Not another word about it, wait ; spare me. . . . talk of something else, for God's sake." " Yes, Nastenka, yes ! Enough about that, now I am happy. I -- Yes, Nastenka, yes, let us talk of other things, let us make haste and talk. Yes ! I am ready." And we did not know what to say : we laughed, we wept, we said thousands of things meaningless and incoherent; at one moment we walked along the pavement, then suddenly turned back and crossed the road ; then we stopped and went back again to the embankment ; we were like children. " I am living alone now, Nastenka," I began, " but to-morrow ! Of course you know, Nastenka, I am poor, I have only got twelve hundred roubles, but that doesn't matter." " Of course not, and granny has her pension, so she will be no burden. We must take granny." " Of course we must take granny. But there's Matrona." " Yes, and we've got Fyokla too ! " " Matrona is a good woman, but she has one fault : she has no imagination, Nastenka, absolutely none ; but that doesn't matter." " That's all right — they can live together ; only you must move to us to-morrow." ' ' To you ? How so ? All right, I am ready. ' ' " Yes, hire a room from us. We have a top floor, it's empty. We had an old lady lodging there, but she has gone away ; and I know granny would like to have a young man. I said to her, ' Why a young man ? ' And she said, ' Oh, because I am old ; only don't you fancy, Nastenka, that I want him as a husband for you.' So I guessed it was with that idea." " Oh, Nastenka ! " And we both laughed. " Come, that's enough, that's enough. But where do you live? I've forgotten." " Over that way, near X bridge, Barannikov's Buildings." " It's that big house ? " " Yes, that big house." " Oh, I know, a nice house ; only you know you had better give it up and come to us as soon as possible." " To-morrow, Nastenka, to-morrow ; I owe a little for my rent there but that doesn't matter. I shall soon get my salary." 46 WHITE NIGHTS " And do you know I will perhaps give lessons ; I will learn something myself and then give lessons." " Capital ! And I shall soon get a bonus." " So by to-morrow you will be my lodger." " And we will go to The Barber of Seville, for they are soon going to give it again." " Yes, we'll go," said Nastenka, " but better see something else and not The Barber of Seville." " Very well, something else. Of course that will be better, I did not think- As we talked like this we walked along in a sort of delirium, a sort of intoxication, as though we did not know what was happen- ing to us. At one moment we stopped and talked for a long time at the same place ; then we went on again, and goodness knows where we went ; and again tears and again laughter. All of a sudden Nastenka would want to go home, and I would not dare to detain her but would want to see her to the house ; we set off, and in a quarter of an hour found ourselves at the embankment by our seat. Then she would sigh, and tears would come into her eyes again ; I would turn chill with dismay. . . . But she would press my hand and force me to walk, to talk, to chatter as before. " It's time I was home at last ; I think it must be very late," Nastenka said at last. " We must give over being childish." " Yes, Nastenka, only I shan't sleep to-night ; I am not going home." " I don't think I shall sleep either ; only see me home." " I should think so ! " " Only tliis time we really must get to the house." " We must, we must." " Honour bright ? For you know one must go home some time ! " Honour bright," I answered laughing. " W.-ll. come along! " " Come along ! Look at the sky, Nastenka. Look ! To- morrow it will be a lovely day; what a blue sky, what a moon ! Look ; that yellow cloud is covering it now, look, look ! No, it has passed by. Look, look ! " But Nastenka did not look at the cloud; she stood mute as though turned to stone; a minute later she huddled timidly close up to me. Her hand trembled in my hand ; I looked at her. She pressed still more closely to me. WHITE NIGHTS 47 At that moment a young man passed by us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps on. My heart began throbbing. " Who is it. Nastenka ? " I said in an undertone. " It's he," she answered in a whisper, huddling up to me, still more closely, still more tremulously. ... I could hardly stand on my feet. " Nastenka, Nastenka ! It's you ! " I heard a voice behind us and at the same moment the young man took several steps towards us. My God, how she cried out ! How she started ! How she tore herself out^f^myjarmajind. rushed to meet him ! I stor>d and looEeoTattliem^ utterly crushed. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly flung herself into his arms, when she turned to me again, was beside me again in a flash, and before I knew where I was she threw both arms round my neck and gave me a warm, tender kiss. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him again, took his hand, and drew him after her. I stood a long time looking after them. At last the two vanished from my sight. MORNING MY night ended with the morning. It was a wet day. The rain was falling and beating disconsolately upon my window pane; it was dark in the room and grey outside. My head ached and I was giddy ; fever was stealing over my limbs. " There's a letter for you, sir ; the postman brought it," Matrona said stooping over me. " A letter ? From whom ? " I cried jumping up from my chair. " I don't know, sir, better look — maybe it is written there whom it is from. " I broke the seal. It was from her ! " Oh, forgive me, forgive me ! I beg you on my knees to forgive me ! I deceived you and myself. It was a dream, a mirage. . . . My heart aches for you to-day; forgive me, forgive me ! 48 WHITE NIGHTS " Don't blame me, for I have not changed to you in the least. I told you that I would love you, I love you now, I more than love you. Oh, my God ! If only I could love you both at once ! Oh, if only you were he ! " [" Oh, if only he were you," echoed in my mind. I remembered your words, Nastenka !] " God knows what I would do for you now ! I know that you are sad and dreary. I have wounded you, but you know when one loves a wrong is soon forgotten. And you love me. " Thank you, yes, thank you for that love ! For it will live in my memory like a sweet dream which lingers long after awaken- ing ; for I shall remember for ever that instant when you opened your heart to me like a brother and so generously accepted the gift of my shattered heart to care for it, nurse it. and heal it ... If you forgive me, the memory of you will be exalted by a feeling of everlasting gratitude which will never be effaced from my soul. ... I will treasure that memory : I will be true to it, I will not betray it, I will not betray my heart : it is too constant. It returned so quickly yesterday to him to whom it has always belonged. " We shall meet, you will come to us, you will not leave us, you will be for ever a friend, a brother to me. And when you see me you will give me your hand. . . . yes ? You will give it to me, you have forgiven me, haven't you ? You love me as before ? " Oh, love me, do not forsake me, because I love you so at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I will deserve it ... my dear ! Next week I am to be married to him. Ho has come back in love, he has never forgotten me. You will not be angry at my writing about him. But I want to come and see you with him ; you will like him, won't you ? " Forgive me, remember and love your " NASTENKA." I read that letter over and over again for a long time; tears gushed to my eyes. At last it fell from my hands and I hid my face. arie ! I say, dearie " Matrona began. " What is it, Matrona?" I li ivc taken all the cobwebs off the ceiling; you can have a wedding or give a party." WHITE NIGHTS 49 I looked at Matrona. She was still a hearty , ..youngish, old . woman, but I^djori't-kaow why all at once I suddenly pictured her with lustreless pyea-, a. wrinkled face, bent, decrepit. . . . I don't know why I suddenly pictured my room grown old like Matrona. The walls and the floors looked discoloured, everything seemed dingy_^thLe_sgiders' webs were thicker than ever. I don't know why, but when I looked out of the window it seemed to me that the house opposite had grown old and dingy too, that the stucco on the columns was peeling off and crumbling, that the cornices were cracked and blackened, and that the walls, of a vivid deep yellow, were patchy. Either the sunbeams suddenly peeping out from the clouds for a moment were hidden again behind a veil of rain, and everything had grown dingy again before my eyes; or perhaps the whole vista of my future flashed before me so sad and forbidding, and I saw myself just as I was now, fifteen years hence, older, in the . same room, just as solitary, with the same Matrona grown no cleverer for those fifteen years. But to imagine that I should bear you a grudge, Nastenka ! That I should cast a dark cloud over your serene, untroubled happiness ; that by my bitter reproaches I should cause distress to your heart, should poison it with secret remorse and should force it to throb with anguish at the moment of bliss ; that I should crush a single one of those tender blossoms which you have twined in your dark tresses when you go with him to the altar. . . Oh never, never ! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and untroubled, and may you be blessed for that moment of blissful happiness which you gave to another, lonely and grateful heart ! My God, a whole moment of happiness ! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life ? NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND A NOVEL PART I UNDERGROUND I AM a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of, course I can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite : I am perfectly well aware that I cannot " pay out " the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than any one that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well— 'let it get worse ! I have been going on like that for a long time — twenty years. 1 The author of the diary and the diary itself are, of course, imaginary. Nevertheless it is clear that such persons as the writer of these notes not only may, but positively must, exist in our society, when we consider the circum- stances in the midst of which our society is formed. I have tried to expose to the view of the public more distinctly than is commonly done, one of the characters of the recent past. He is one of the representatives of a generation still living. In this fragment, entitled " Underground," this person introduces linn -i -If and his views, and, as it were, tries to explain the causes owin^ to which he has made his appearance and was bound to make his appearance in our midst. In the second fragment there are added the actual notes of thia person concerning certain events in his life. — AUTHOR'S NOTE. 50 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 61 Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty ; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way, I will not scratch it out on purpose !) When petitioners used to come for information to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody unhappy. I almost always did succeed. For the most part they were all timid people — of course, they wrere petitioners. But of the uppish ones there was one officer in particular I could not endure. He simply would not be humble, and clanked his sword in a dis- gusting way. I carried on a feud with him for eighteen months over that sword. At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking it. That happened in my youth, though. But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite ? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. I might foam at the mouth, but bring me a doll to play with, give me a cup of tea with sugar in it, and maybe I should be appeased. I might even be genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself afterwards and lie awake at night with shame for months after. That was my way. I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with the petitioners and with the officer, and in reality I never could become spiteful. I was conscious every moment in myself of many, very many elements absolutely opposite to that. I felt them positively swarming in me, these opposite elements. I knew that they had been swarming in me all my life and craving some outlet from me, but I would not let them, would not let them, purposely would not let them come out. They tormented me till I was ashamed : they drove me to convulsions and — 52 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND sickened me, at last, how they sickened me ! Now, are not you fancying, gentlemen, that I am expressing remorse for some- thing now, that I am asking your forgiveness for something 1 I am sure you are fancying that . . . However, I assure you I do not care if you are. . . i It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything : neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spite- ful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything. Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature ; a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. That is my conviction of forty years. I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole life -time; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do : fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors ! I tell the whole world that to its face ! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on living to sixty myself. To seventy ! To eighty ! . . . Stay, let me take breath. . . . You imagine no doubt, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mistaken in that, too. I am by no means such a mirthful person as you imagine, or as you may imagine ; however, irritated by all this babble (and I feel that you are irritated) you think fit to ask me who am I — then my answer is, I am a collegiate assessor. I was in the service that I might have something to eat (and solely for that reason), and when last year a distant relation left me six thousand roubles in his will I immediately retired from the service and settled down in my corner. I used to live in tliis corner before, but now I have settled down in it. My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town. My servant is an old country-woman, ill-natured from stupidity, and, moreover, there is always a nasty smell about her. I am told that the Petersburg climate is bad for me, and that with my small means it is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I know all that better than all these sage and experienced NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 53 counsellors and monitors. . . . But I am remaining in Peters- burg ; I am not going away from Petersburg ! I am not going away because . . . ech ! Why, it is absolutely no matter whether I am going away or not going away. g But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure ? Answer : Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself. n I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentle- men, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough- going illness. For man's everyday needs, it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is, half or a quarter of the amount which falls to the lot of a cultivated man of our unhappy nineteenth century, especially one who has the fatal ill-luck to inhabit Petersburg, the most theoretical and intentional town on the whole terrestial globe. (There are intentional and unintentional towns.) It would have been quite enough, for instance, to have the consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and men of action live. I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation, to be witty at the expense of men of action; and what is more, that from ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword like my officer. But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger over them ? Though, after all, every one does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than any one. We will not dispute it; my contention was absurd. But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. I stick to that. Let us leave that, too, for a minute. Tell me this : why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is " good and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that. . . . Well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; 54 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed, The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was " good and beautiful," the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether. But the chief point was that all tliis was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though it were bound to be so. It was as though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease or depravity, so that at last all desire in me to struggle against this depravity passed. It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that tliis was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle ! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed) : I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and con- suming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last — into positive real enjoyment ! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment ! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment ? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one's own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into some- thing different you would most likely not wish to change ; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into. And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one wras not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 55 blame in being a scoundrel ; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realize that he actually is a scoundrel. But enough. . . . Ech, I have talked a lot of nonsense, but what have I explained ? How is enjoyment in this to be explained ? But I will explain it. I will get to the bottom of it ! That is why I have taken up my pen. . . . I, for instance, have a great deal of amour propre. I am as suspicious and prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf. But upon my word I sometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped in the face I should, perhaps, have been positively glad of it. I say, in earnest, that I should probably have been able to discover even in that a peculiar sort of enjoyment — the enjoyment, of course, of despair; but in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. And when one is slapped in the face — why then the consciousness of being rubbed into a pulp would positively overwhelm one. The worst of it is, look at it which way one will, it still turns out that I Avas always the most to blame in everything. And what is most humiliating of all, to blame for no fault of my own but, so to say, through the laws of nature. In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me. (I have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me, and sometimes, would you believe it, have been positively ashamed of it. At any rate, I have all my life, as it were, turned my eyes away and never could look people straight in the face.) To blame, finally, because even if I had had mag nanimity, I should only have had more suffering from the sense of its uselessness. I should certainly have never been able to do anything from being magnanimous — neither to forgive, for my assailant would perhaps have slapped me from the laws of nature, and one cannot forgive the laws of nature ; nor to forget, for even if it were owing to the laws of nature, it is insult- ing all the same. Finally, even if I had wanted to be anything but magnanimous, had desired on the contrary to revenge myself on my assailant, I could not have revenged myself on any one for anything because I should certainly never have made up my mind to do anything, even if I had been able to. Why should I not have made up my mind ? About that in particular I want to say a few words. 56 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND m With people who know how to revenge themselves and to stand up for themselves in general, how is it done ? Why, when they are possessed, let us suppose, by the feeling of revenge, then for the time there is nothing else but that feeling left in their whole being. Such a gentleman simply dashes straight for his object like an infuriated bull with its horns down, and nothing but a wall will stop him. (By the way : facing the wall, such gentle- men— that is, the " direct " persons and men of action — are genuinely nonplussed. For them a wall is not an evasion, as for us people who think and consequently do nothing ; it is not an excuse for turning aside, an excuse for which we are always very glad, though we scarcely believe in it ourselves, as a rule, they are nonplussed in all sincerity. The wall has for them something tranquillizing, morally soothing, final — maybe even something mysterious . . . but of the wall later.) Well, such a direct person I regard as the real normal man, as his tender mother nature wished to see him when she graciously brought him into being on the earth. I envy such a man till lam green in the face. He is stupid. I am not disputing that, but perhaps the normal man should be stupid, how do you know ? Perhaps it is very beautiful, in fact. And I am the more persuaded of that suspicion, if one can call it so. by the fact that if you take, for instance, the antithesis of the normal man, that is, the man of acute consciousness, who has come, of course, not out of the lap of nature but out of a retort (this is almost mysticism, gentlemen, but I-'suspect this, too), this retort -made man is sometimes so nonplussed in the presence of his antithesis with all his exaggerated consciousness he genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man. It may be an acutely conscious mouse, yet it is a mouse, while the other is a man, and therefore, et caetera, et csetera. And the worst of it is. he himself, his very own self, looks on himself as a mouse ; no one asks him to do so; and that is an important point. Now let us look at this mouse in action. Let us suppose, for instance, that it feels insulted, too (and it almost always does feel insulted), and wants to revenge itself, too. There may even be a greater accumulation NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 67 of spite in it than in Vhomme de la nature et de la veriU. The base and nasty desire to vent that spite on its assailant rankles perhaps even more nastily in it than in VJiomme de la nature et de la verite. For through his innate stupidity the latter looks upon his revenge as justice pure and simple; while in consequence of his acute consciousness the mouse does not believe in the justice of it. To come at last to the deed itself, to the very act of revenge. Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache. Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it will recall it all, it will go over and over every detail, it will invent unheard of things against itself, pretending that those things might happen, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it will begin to revenge itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in trivial ways, from behind the stove, incognito, without believing either in its own right to vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, knowing that from all its efforts at revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself, while he, I daresay, will not even scratch himself. On its deathbed it will recall it all over again, with interest accumulated over all the years and. . . . But it is just in that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in that conscious burying oneself alive for grief in the under- world for forty years, in that acutely recognized and yet partly doubtful hopelessness of one's'position, in that hell of unsatisfied 5S IBS FROM UNDERGROUND desires luiikinl inward, in that fever of oscillations, of resolutions determined lor ever and repented of again a minute later — that tike savour of that strange enjoyment of which I have spoken fie*. It is ao subtle, so difficult of analysis, that persons who are even simply p*?*""* of strong nerves, will not of h. " Possibly/- you will add on with a grin, " people win not understand it who have never received a slap in the face," and in that way yon wifl politely hint to me that I, too, perhaps, have had the f*j»MiMMii> of a dap in the face in my hie, and so I speak as one who knows. I bet that yon are thinking that. But set your minds at rest, gentlemen, I have not received a slap in tike face, though it is absolutely a matter of indifference to me what JOB may think about it. Possibly, I even regret, myself, that I have given so lew slaps in the face during my file. Bat ciuiugh . . . not another word on that subject of to you. - •"__ ::.:.:/:- :._:-. . :r:_ j ffiartum M beflow their tins, let us suppose, does them the I have said already, confronted with the at once. The impossible means the ? Why, of course, the laws of \~ '_- 7T~-r " ' . : r .:.-•",:".' -' ~ :.:-.' ~~'~. ",:•- .- - - r. .-: - a monkey, then it is no use scowling, accept it for a fact. When they prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat luust be dcaiu to you than a hundred thousand of your fesW creatures, and that this conclusion is the final solution of afl so-called virtues and duties and afl such prejudices and ffsui •'•, then you have just to accept it, there is no help for it, for twice two is a law of mathematics. Just try refuting it. "* Upon my word, they wiD shout at you, it is no use protesting : it is a case of twice two makes four ! Nature does not ask your pnm'iMMBi, she hag nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you Eke her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently afl her conclusions. A wafl, you see, is a wafl . . . and so on, and so on." HVjuful Heavens ! but what do I care lor the laws of nature NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 59 and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four ? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I reaDy hare not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength. As though such a stone wall really were a consolation, and really did contain some word of conciliation, simply became it is as true as twice two makes four. Oh, absurdity of absurd- ities ! How much better it is to understand it all, to recognize it all, all the impossibilities and the stone wall; not to be recon- ciled to one of those impossibilities and stone walls if it disgusts you to be reconciled to it ; by the way of the most inevitable^ logical combinations to reach the most revolting conclusions on the everlasting theme, that even for the stone wall you axe yourself somehow to blame, though again it is as clear as day you are not to blame in the least, and therefore grinding your teeth in silent impotence to sink into luxurious inertia, brooding on the fact that there is no one even for yon to feel vindictive against, that you have not, and perhaps never will have, an object for your spite, that it is a sleight of hand, a bit of juggling, a card-sharper's trick, that it is simply a mess, no knowing what and no knowing who, but in spite of all these uncertainties and jugglings, still there is an ache in you. and the more you do not know, the worse the ache. IV " Ha, ha, ha ! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next," you cry, with a laugh. " Well ? Even in toothache there is enjoyment," I answer. I had toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan ; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans ; if he did not feel enjoy- ment in them he would not moan. It is a good example, gentle- men, and I will develop it. Those moans express in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain, wjiich is so humiliating to your consciouness ; the whole legal system of nature on which 60 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND you spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same while she does not. They express the consciousness that you have no enemy to punish, but that you have pain ; the consciousness that in spite of all possible Vagenheims you are in complete slavery to your teeth ; that if some one wishes it, your teeth will leave off aching, and if he does not, they will go on aching another three months; and that finally if you are still contumacious and still protest, all that is left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your wall with your fist as hard as you can, and absolutely nothing more. Well, these mortal insults, these jeers on the part of some one unknown, end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the highest degree of voluptuousness. I ask you, gentlemen, listen sometimes to the moans of an educated man of the nine- teenth century suffering from toothache, on the second or third day of the attack, when he is beginning to moan, not as he moaned on the first day, that is, not simply because he has toothache, not just as any coarse peasant, but as a man affected by progress and European civilization, a man who is " divorced from the soil and the national elements," as they express it now-a-days. His moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant, and go on for whole days and nights. And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knows better than any one that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his whole family, listen to him with loathing, do not put a ha'porth of faith in him, and inwardly understand that he might moan differently, more simply, without trills and flourishes, and that he is only amusing himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy. Well, in all these recognitions and • 1 i>_rraces it is that there lies a voluptuous pleasure. As though he would say : " I am worrying you, I am lacerating your hearts, I am keeping every one in the house awake. Well, stay awake then, you, too, feel every minute that I have toothache. I am not a hero to you now, as I tried to seem before, but simply a nasty person, an impostor. Well, so be it, then ! I am very glad that you see through me. It is nasty for you to hear my e in the least surprised if all of a sudden, a propos of notlu'ng, in the midst of general prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 69 putting his arms akimbo, say to us all : "I say, gentlemen, hadn't we better kick over the whole show and scatter rational- ism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will ! " That again would not matter; but what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers — such is the nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning : that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. And one may choose what is contrary to one's own interests, and sometimes one positively ought (that is my idea). One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy — is that very " most advantageous advantage " which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice ? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice ? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that inde- pendence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice. . . . VIII "Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like," you will interpose with a chuckle " Science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than " Stay, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself. I confess, I was rather frightened. I was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing, but I remembered the teaching of science . . . and pulled myself up. And here you have begun upon it. Indeed, if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices — that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they 70 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so -on, that is a real mathematical formula — then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule ? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ- stop or something of the sort ; for what is a man without desires, with- out freewill and without choice, if not a stop in an organ ? What do you think ? Let us reckon the chances — can such a thing happen or not ? " H'm ! " you decide. " Our choice is usually mistaken from a false view of our advantage. We sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a supposed advantage. But when all that is explained and worked out 011 paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand), then certainly so-called desires will no longer exist. For if a desire should come into conflict with reason we shall then reason and not desire, because it will be impossible retaining our reason to be senseless in our desires, and in that way knowingly act against reason and desire to injure ourselves. And as all choice and reasoning can be really calculated — because there will some day be dis- covered the laws of our so-called freewill — so, joking apart, there may one day be something like a table constructed of them, so that we really shall choose in accordance with it. If, for instance, some day they calculate and prove to me that I made a long nose at some one because I could not help making a long nose at him and that I had to do it in that particular way, what freedom is left me, especially if I am a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere ? Then I should be able to calculate my whole life for thirty years beforehand. In short, if t his could be arranged there would be nothing left for us to do ; anyuay, we should have to understand that. And, in fact, \\e ought unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature docs not ask our ii lirlieve in a palace of crystal that can never be destroyed — a i which one will not be able to put out one's tongue or make a long nose on the sly. And perhaps that is just why I am afraid of this edifice, that it is of crystal and^can never be NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 77 destroyed and that one cannot put one's tongue out at it even on the sly. You see, if it were not a palace, but a hen-house, I might creep into it to avoid getting wet, and yet I would not call the hen- house a palace out of gratitude to it for keeping me dry. You laugh and say that in such circumstances a hen-house is as good as a mansion. Yes, I answer, if one had to live simply to keep out of the rain. But what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that that is not the only object in life, and that if one must live one had better live in a mansion. That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate it when you have changed my preference . Well, do change it, allure me with something else, give me an- other ideal. But meanwhile I will not take a hen-house for a mansion. The palace of crystal may be an idle dream, it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have invented it only through my own stupidity, through the old- fashioned irrational habits of my generation. But what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent ? That makes no difference since it exists in my desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist. Perhaps you are laughing again ? Laugh away ; I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry. I know, anyway, that I will not be put off with a compromise, with a recurring zero, simply because it is con- sistent with the laws of nature and actually exists. I will not accept as the crown of my desires a block of buildings with tene- ments for the poor on a lease of a thousand years, and perhaps with a sign-board of a dentist hanging out. Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. You will say, perhaps, that it is not worth your trouble ; but in that case I can give you the same answer. We are dis- cussing things seriously ; but if you won't deign to give me your attention, I will drop your acquaintance. I can retreat into my underground hole. But while I am alive and have desires I would rather my hand were withered off than bring one brick to such a building ! Don't remind me that I have just rejected the palace of crystal for the sole reason that one cannot put out one's tongue at it. I did not say because I am so fond of putting my tongue out. Perhaps the thing I resented was, that of all your edifices 78 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND there has not been one at which one could not put out one's tongue. On the contrary, I would let my tongue be cut off out of gratitude if things could be so arranged that I should lose all desire to put it out. It is not my fault that things cannot be so arranged, and that one must be satisfied with model flats. Then why am I made with such desires ? Can I have been constructed simply in order to come to the conclusion that all my construction is a cheat ? Can this be my whole purpose ? I do not believe it. But do you know what : I am convinced that we underground folk ought to be kept on a curb. Though we may sit forty years underground without speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break out we talk and talk and talk. . . . XI The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do nothing ! Better conscious inertia ! And so hurrah for underground ! Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my bile, yet I should not care to be in his place such as he is now (though I shall not cease envying him). No, no ; anyway the underground life is more advantageous. There, at any rate, one can. . . . Oh, but even now I am lying I I am lying because I know myself that it is not underground that is better, but something different, qiute different, for which I am thirsting, but which I cannot find ! Damn underground ! I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I myself believed in anything of what I have just written. I swear to you, gentlemen, there is not one thing, not one word of what I have written that I really believe. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but at the same time I feel and suspect that I am lying like a cobbler. " Then why have you written all this ? " you will say to me. " I ought to put you underground for forty years without anything to do and then come to you in your cellar, to find out what stage you have reached 1 How can a man be left with nothing to do for forty years ? " " Isn't that shameful, isn't that humiliating ? " you will say, perhaps, wagging your heads contemptuously. " You thirst for life and try to settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 79 And how persistent, how insolent are your sallies, and at the same time what a scare you are in ! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudent things and are in continual alarm and apologizing for them. You declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself in our good opinion. You declare that you are gnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may, perhaps, have really suffered, but you have no respect for your own suffering. You may have sincerity, but you have no modesty ; out of the pettiest vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You doubtlessly mean to say some- thing, but hide your last word through fear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a cowardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sure of your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened and •orrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without a pure heart. And how intrusive you are, how you insist and grimace ! Lies, lies, lies ! " Of course I have myself made up all the things you say. That, too, is from underground. I have been for forty years listening to you through a crack under the floor. I have invented them myself, there was nothing else I could invent. It is no wonder that I have learned it by heart and it has taken a literary form. . . . But can you really be so credulous as to think that I will print all this and give it to you to read too ? And another problem : why do I call you " gentlemen," why do I address you as .though you really were my readers ? Such confessions as I intend to make are never printed nor given to other people to read. Anyway, I am not strong-minded enough for that, and I don't see why I should be. But you see a fancy has occurred to me and I want to realize it at all costs. Let me explain. Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to every one, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to him- self, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in bis mind. The more 80 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind. Anyway, I have only lately determined to remember some of my early adventures. Till now I have always avoided them, even with a certain uneasiness. Now, when I am not only recalling them, but have actually decided to write an account of them, I want to try the experiment whether one can, even with oneself, be perfectly open and not take fright at the whole truth. I will observe, in parenthesis, that Heine says that a true auto- biography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself. He considers that Rousseau certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even intentionally lied, out of vanity. I am convinced that Heine is right; I quite understand how sometimes one may, out of sheer vanity, attribute regular crimes to oneself, and indeed I can very well conceive that kind of vanity. But Heine judged of people who made their confessions to the public. I write only for myself, and I wish to declare once and for all that if I write as though I were address- ing readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to wrrite in that form. It is a form, an empty form — I shall never have readers. I have made this plain already. . . . I don't wish to be hampered by any restrictions in the com- pilation of my notes. I shall not attempt any system or method. I will jot things down as I remember them. But here, perhaps, some one will catch at the word and ask me : if you really don't reckon on readers, why do you make such compacts with yourself — and on paper too — that is, that you won't attempt any system or method, that you jot things down as you remember them, and so on, and so on ? Why are you explaining ? Why do you apologize ? Well, there it is, I answer. There is a whole psychology in all this, though. Perhaps it is simply that I am a coward. And perhaps that I purposely imagine an audience before me in order that I. may be more dignified while I write. There are perhaps thousands of reasons. Again, what is my object precisely in writing ? If it is not for the benefit of the public why should I not simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them on paper ? Quite so; but yet it is more imposing on paper. There is something more impressive in it ; I shall be better able to criticize myself and improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 81 actual relief from writing. To-day, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid of. And yet I must get rid of it somehow. I have hundreds of such reminiscences ; but at times some one stands out from the hundred and oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write it down I should get rid of it. Why not try ? Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will be a sort of work. They say work makes man kind-hearted and honest. Well, here is a chance for me, anyway. Snow is falling to-day, yellow and dingy. It fell yesterday, too, and a few days ago. I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that incident which I cannot shake off now. And so let it be a story a propos of the falling snow. PART II X PROPOS OF THE WET SNOW When from dark error's subjugation My words of passionate exhortation Had wrenched thy fainting spirit free ; And writhing prone in thine affliction Thou didst recall with malediction The vice that had encompassed thee : And when thy slumbering conscience, fretting By recollection's torturing flame, Thou didst reveal the hideous setting Of thy life's current ere I came : When suddenly I saw thee sicken, And weeping, hide thine anguished face, Revolted, maddened, horror-stricken, At memories of foul disgrace. NEKRASSOV (trantlated by Juliet Soskice). I AT that time I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy, ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends with no one and positively avoided talking, and G ^2 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND buried myself more and more in my hole. At work in. the office I never looked at any one, and I was perfectly well aware that my companions looked upon me, not only as a queer fellow, but even looked upon me — I always fancied this — with a sort of loathing. I sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except me fancied, that he was looked upon with aversion ? One of the clerks had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked positively villainous. I believe I should not have dared to look at any one with such an unsightly countenance. Another had such a very dirty old uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his proximity. Yet not one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self -consciousness — either about their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way. Neither of them ever imagined that they were looked at with repulsion; if they had imagined it they would not have minded — so long as their superiors did not look at them in that way. It is clear to me now that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to every one. I hated my face, for instance : I thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there was something base in my expres- sion, and so every day when I turned up at the office I tried to behave as independently as possible, and to assume a lofty expres- sion, so that I might not be suspected of being abject. " My face may be ugly," I thought, " but let it be lofty, expressive, and, above all, extremely intelligent ." But I was positively and pain- fully certain that it was impossible for my countenance ever to express those qualities. And what was worst of all, I thought it actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite satisfied if I could have looked intelligent. In fact, I would even have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have been thought strikingly intelligent. Of course, I hated my fellow clerks one and all, and I des] them all. yet at the same time I was, as it were, afraid of them. In fact, it happened at times that I thought more highly of them than of myself. It somehow happened quite suddenly that I alternated between despising them and thinking them superior to myself. A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments. But whether 83 I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes almost every time I met any one. I even made experiments whether I could face so and so's looking at me, and I was always the first to drop my eyes. This worried me to distraction. I had a sickly dread, too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for the conventional in everything external. I loved to fall into the common rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in myself. But how could I live up to it ? I was morbidly sensitive, as a man of our age should be. They were all stupid, and as like one another as so many sheep. Per- haps I was the only one in the office who fancied that I was a coward and a slave, and I fancied it just because I was more highly developed. But it was not only that I fancied it, it really was so. I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave. It is the law of nature for all decent people all over the earth. If any one of them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted nor carried away by that ; he would show the white feather just the same before something else. That is how it invariably and inevitably ends. Only donkeys and mules are valiant, and they only till they are pushed up to the wall. It is not worth while to pay attention to them for they really are of no consequence. Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days : that there was no one like me and I was unlike any one else. ''I am alone and they are every one," I thought — and pondered. From that it is evident that I was still a youngster. The very opposite sometimes happened. It was loathsome sometimes to go to the office ; things reached such a point that I often came home ill. But all at once, a propos of nothing, there would come a phase of scepticism and indifference (every- thing happened in phases to me), and I wrould laugh myself at my intolerance and fastidiousness, I would reproach myself with being romaitfic' At one time I was- unwilling to speak to any one, while at other time* I would not only talk, but go to 84 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND the length of contemplating making friends with them. All my fastidiousness would suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, vanish. Who knows, perhaps I never had really had it, and it had simply been affected, and got out of books. I have not decided that question even now. Once I quite made friends with them, visited their homes, played preference, drank vodka, talked of promotions. . . . But here let me make a digression. We Russians, speaking generally, have never had those foolish transcendental " romantics " — German, and still more French — on whom nothing produces any effect ; if there were an earth- quake, if all France perished at the barricades, they would still be the same, they would not even have the decency to affect a change, but would still go on singing their transcendental songs to the hour of their death, because they are fools We, in Russia, have no fools; that is well known. That is what distinguishes us from foreign lands. Consequently these transcendental natures are not found amongst us in their pure form. The idea that they are is due to our " realistic " journalists and critics of that day. always on the look out for Kostanzhoglos and Uncle Pyotr Ivanitchs and foolishly accepting them as our ideal ; they have slandered our romantics, taking them for the same tran- scendental sort as in Germany or France. On the contrary, the characteristics of our " romantics " are absolutely and directly opposed to the transcendental European type, and no European standard can be applied to them. (Allow me to make use of this word " romantic " — an old-fashioned and much respected word which has done good service and is familiar to all). The characteristics of our romantic are to understand everything, lo see everything and to see it often incomparably more dearly than our most realistic minds see. it ; to refuse to accept anyone or anything, but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield, from policy; never to lose sight of a useful practical object (such as rent-free quarters at the government expense, pensions, decorations), to keep their eye on that object through all the enthusiasms and volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve " the good and the beautitul " inviolate within them to the hour of their death, and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious jewel wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of " the good and the beautiful." Our " romantic " is a man of great breadth and the 85 greatest rogue of all our rogues, I assure you. ... I can assure you from experience, indeed. Of course, that is, if he is in telligent. But what am I saying ! The romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there — by preference in Weimar or the Black Forest. I, for instance, genuinely despised my official work and did not openly abuse it simply because I was in it myself and got a salary for it. Anyway, take note, I did not openly abuse it. Our romantic would rather go out of his mind — a thing, however, which very rarely happens — than take to open abuse, unless he had some other career in view ; and he is never kicked out. At most, they would take him to the lunatic asylum as " the King of Spain " if he should go very mad. But it is only the thin, fair people who go out of their minds in Russia. Innumerable " romantics " attain later in life to considerable rank in the service. Their many-sidedness is remarkable ! And what a faculty they have for the most contradictory sensations ! I was comforted by this thought even in those days, and I am of the same opinion now. That is why there are so many " broad natures " among us who never lose their ideal even in the depths of degrada- tion ; and though they never stir a finger for their ideal, though they are arrant thieves and knaves, yet they tearfully cherish their first ideal and are extraordinarily honest at heart. Yes, it is only among us that the most incorrigible rogue can be absolutely and loftily honest at heart without in the least ceasing to be a rogue. I repeat, our romantics, frequently, become such accomplished rascals (I use the term " rascals " affectionately), suddenly display such a sense of reality and practical knowledge that their bewildered superiors and the public generally can only ejaculate in amazement. Their many-sidedness is really amazing, and goodness knows what it may develop into later on, and what the future has in store for us. It is not a poor material ! I do not say this from any foolish or boastful patriotism. But I feel sure that you are again imagining that I am joking. Or perhaps it's just the contrary, and you are convinced that I really think so. 86 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Anyway, gentlemen, I shall welcome both views as an honour and a special favour. And do forgive my digression. I did not, of course, maintain friendly relations with my comrades and soon was at loggerheads with them, and in my youth and inexperience I even gave up bowing to them, as though I had cut off all relations. That, however, only happened to me once. As a rule, I was always alone. In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading. Reading, of course, was a great help — exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability. I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too ; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself. . . . But, no ! I am lying. I did want to justify myself, i make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not. And so, furtively, timidly, in solitude, at night, I indulged in filthy vice, with a feeling of shame which never deserted me, even at the most loathsome moments, and which at such moments nearly made me curse. Already even then I had my under- ground world in my soul. I was fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognized. I visited various obscure haunts. One night as I was passing a tavern I saw through a lighted window some gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out of window. At other times I should have felt very much disgusted, but I was in such a mood at the time, that I actually envied the gentleman thrown out of window — and I envied him so much that I even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room. " Perhaps," I thought, " I'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw me out of window." I was not drunk — but what is one to do — depression will drive a man to such a pitch of hysteria ? But nothing happened NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 87 It seemed that I was not even equal to being thrown out of window and I went away without having my fight. An officer put me in my place from the first moment. I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up the way, and he wanted to pass ; he took me by the shoulders and without a word — without a warning or explana- tion— moved me from where I was standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me. I could have for- given blows, but I could not forgive his having moved me without noticing me. Devil knows what I would have given for a real regular quarrel — a more decent, a more literary one, so to speak. I had been treated like a fly. This officer was over six foot, while I was a spindly little fellow. But the quarrel was in my hands. I had only to protest and I certainly would have been thrown out of the window. But I changed my mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat. I went out of the tavern straight home, confused and troubled, and the next night I went out again with the same lewd inten- tions, still more furtively, abjectly and miserably than before, as it were, with tears in my eyes — but still I did go out again. Don't imagine, though, it was cowardice made me slink away from the officer : I never have been a coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in action. Don't be in a hurry to laugh — I assure you I can explain it all. Oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to fight a duel ! But no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long extinct !) who preferred fighting with cues or, like Gogol's Lieutenant Pirogov, appealing to the police. They did not fight duels and would have thought a duel with a civilian like me an utterly unseemly procedure in any case — and they looked upon the duel altogether as something impossible, some- thing free -thinking and French. But they were quite ready to bully, especially when they were over six foot. I did not slink away through cowardice, but through an unbounded vanity. I was afraid not of his six foot, not of getting a sound thrashing and being thrown out of the window ; I should have had physical courage enough, I assure you; but I had not the moral courage. What I was afraid of was that every one present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest 88 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUOT little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when I began to protest and to address them in literary language. For of the point of honour — not of honour, but of the point of honour (point d'tionneur) — one cannot speak among us except in literary language. You can't allude to the " point of honour " in ordinary language. I was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism !) that they would all simply split their sides with laughter, and that the officer would not simply beat me, that is, without insulting me, but would certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the billiard table, and only then perhaps have pity and drop me out of the window. Of course, this trivial incident could not with me end in that. I often met that officer afterwards in the street and noticed him very carefully. I am not quite sure whether he recognized me, I imagine not; I judge from certain signs. But I — I stared at him with spite and hatred and so it went on ... for several years ! My resentment grew even deeper with years. At first I began making stealthy inquiries about this officer. It was difficult for me to do so, for I knew no one. But one day I heard some one shout his surname in the street as I was following him at a distance, as though I were tied to him — and so I learnt his surname. Another time I followed him to his flat, and for ten kopecks learned from the porter where he lived, on which storey, whether he b'ved alone or with others, and so on — in fact, everything one could learn from a porter. One morning, though I had never tried my hand with the pen, it suddenly occurred to me to write a satire on this officer in the form of a novel which would unmask his villainy. I wrote the novel with relish. I did unmask his villainy, I even exaggerated it; at first I so altered his surname that it could easily be recognized, but on second thoughts I changed it, and sent the story to the Otetchest- venniya Zapiski. But at that time such attacks were not the fashion and my story was not printed. That was a great vexation to me. Sometimes I was positively choked with resentment. At last I d'-tcniiincd to challenge my enemy to a duel. I composed a splendid, charming letter to him, imploring him to apologize to me, and hinting rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal. The letter was so composed that if the officer had had the least NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 89 understanding of the good and the beautiful he would certainly haye flung himself on my neck and have offered me his friendship. And how fine that would have been ! How we should have got on together ! " He could have shielded me with his higher rank, while I could have improved his mind with my culture, and, well . . . my ideas, and all sorts of things might have happened." Only fancy, this was two years after his insult to me, and my challenge would have been a ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all the ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the anachronism. But, thank God (to this day I thank the Almighty with tears in my eyes) I did not send the letter to him. Cold shivers run down my back when I think of what might have happened if I had sent it. And all at once I revenged myself in the simplest way, by a stroke of genius ! A brilliant thought suddenly dawned upon me. Sometimes on holidays I used to stroll along the sunny side of the Nevsky about four o'clock in the afternoon. Though it was hardly a stroll so much as a series of innumerable miseries, humiliations and resentments ; but no doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abject- ness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyr- dom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant and direct sensation, that I was a mere fly in the eyes of all this world, a nasty, disgusting fly — more intelligent, more highly developed, more refined in feeling than any of them, of course — but a fly that was continually making way for every one, insulted and injured by every one. Why I inflicted this torture upon myself, why I went to the Nevsky, I don't know. I felt simply drawn there at every possible opportunity. Already then I began to experience a rush of the enjoyment of which I spoke in the first chapter. After my affair with the officer I felt even more drawn there than before : it was on the Nevsky that I met him most frequently, there I could admire him. He, too, went there chiefly on holidays. He, too, turned 90 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND out of his path for generals and persons of high rank, and he, too, wriggled between them like an eel ; but people, like me, or even better dressed like me, he simply walked over ; he made straight for them as though there was nothing but empty space before him, and never, under any circumstances, turned aside. I gloated over my resentment watching him and . . . always resentfully made way for him. It exasperated me that even in the street I could not be on an even footing with him. " Why must you invariably be the first to move aside ? " I kept asking myself in hysterical rage, waking up sometimes at three o'clock in the morning. " Why is it you and not he ? There's no regulation about it; there's no written law. Let the making way be equal as it usually is when refined people meet : he moves half-way and you move half-way ; you pass with mutual respect." But that never happened, and I always moved aside, while he did not even notice my making way for him. And lo and behold a bright idea dawned upon me ! " What," I thought, " if I meet him and don't move on one side ? What if I don't move aside on purpose, even if I knock up against him ? How would that be ? " This audacious idea took such a hold on me that it gave me no peace. I was dreaming of it continually, horribly, and I purposely went more frequently to the Nevsky in order to picture more vividly how I should do it when I did do it. I was delighted. This intention seemed to me more and more practical and possible. " Of course I shall not really push him," I thought, already more good-natured in my joy. " I will simply not turn aside, will run up against him, not very violently, but just shouldering each other — just as much as decency permits. I will push against him just as much as he pushes against me." At last I made up my mind completely. But my preparations took a great deal of time. To begin with, when I carried out my plan I should need to be looking rather more decent, and so I had to think of my get-up. " In case of emergency, if, for instance, there were any sort of public scandal (and the public there is of the most recherchd : the Counteas walks there ; Prince D. walks there; all the literary world is then-), I must be well dressed; that inspin-s respect and of itself puts us on an equal footing in the eyes of society " NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 91 With this object I asked for some of my salary in advance, and bought at Tchurkin's a pair of black gloves and a decent hat. Black gloves seemed to me both more dignified and bon ton than the lemon -coloured ones which I had contemplated at first. " The colour is too gaudy, it looks as though one were trying to be conspicuous," and I did not take the lemon -coloured ones. I had got ready long beforehand a good shirt, with white bone studs ; my overcoat was the only thing that held me back. The coat in itself was a very good one, it kept me warm ; but it was wadded and it had a raccoon collar which was the height of vulgarity. I had to change the collar at any sacrifice, and to have a beaver one like an officer's. For this purpose I began visiting the Gostiny Dvor and after several attempts I pitched upon a piece of cheap German beaver. Though these German beavers soon grow shabby and look wretched, yet at first they look exceedingly well, and I only needed it for one occasion. I asked the price ; even so, it was too expensive. After thinking it over thoroughly I decided to sell my raccoon collar. The rest of the money — a considerable sum for me, I decided to borrow from Anton Antonitch Syetotchkin, my immediate superior, an unassuming person, though grave and judicious. He never lent money to any one, but I had, on entering the service, been specially recommended to him by an important personage who had got me my berth. I was horribly worried. To borrow from Anton Antonitch seemed to me monstrous and shameful. I did not sleep for two or three nights. Indeed, I did not sleep well at that time, I was in a fever ; I had a vague sinking at my heart or else a sudden throbbing, throbbing, throbbing ! Anton Antonitch was surprised at first, then he frowned, then he re- flected, and did after all lend me the money, receiving from me a written authorization to take from my salary a fortnight later the sum that he had lent me. In this way everything was at last ready. The handsome beaver replaced the mean-looking raccoon, and I began by degrees to get to work. It would never have done to act off-hand, at random ; the plan had to be carried out skilfully, by degrees. But I must confess that after many efforts I began to despair : we simply could not run into each other. I made every pre- paration, I was quite determined — it seemed as though we should run into one another directly — and before I knew what 92 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND I was doing I had stepped aside for him again and he had passed Avithout noticing me. I even prayed as I approached him that God would grant me determination. One time I had made up my mind thoroughly, but it ended in my stumbling and falling at his feet because at the very last instant when I was six inches from him my courage failed me. He very calmly stepped over me, while I flew on one side like a ball. That night I was ill again, feverish and delirious. And suddenly it ended most happily. The night before I had made up my mind not to carry out my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with that object I went to the Nevsky for the last time, just to see how I would abandon it all. Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made up my mind — I closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to shoulder, against one another ! I did not budge an inch and passed him on a perfectly equal footing ! He did not even look round and pretended not to notice it; but he was only pretending, I am convinced of that. I am convinced of that to this day ! Of course, I got the worst of it — he was stronger, but that was not the point. The point was that I had attained my object, I had kept up my dignity, I had not yielded a step, and had put myself publicly on an equal social footing with him. I returned home feeling that I was fully avenged for everything. I was delighted. I was triumphant and sang Italian arias. Of course, I will not describe to you what happened to me three days later; if you have read my first chapter you can guess that for yourself. The officer was afterwards transferred; I have not seen him now for fourteen years. What is the dear fellow doing now ? Whom is he walking over ? n But the period of my dissipation would end and I always ft h very sick afterwards. It was followed by remorse — I tried to drive it away : I felt too sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that too. I grew used to everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. But I had a means of escape that reconciled everything — that was to find refuge in " the good and the beautiful," in dreams, of course. I was a terrible NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 93 dreamer, I would dream for three months on end, tucked away in my corner, and you may believe me that at those moments I had no resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation of his chicken heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great coat. I suddenly became a hero. I would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenant even if he had called on me. I could not even picture him before me then. What were my dreams and how I could satisfy myself with them — it is hard to say now, but at the time I was satisfied with them. Though, indeed, even now, I am to some extent satisfied with them. Dreams were particularly sweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation ; they came with remorse and with tears, with curses and trans- ports. There were moments of such positive intoxication, of such happiness, that there was not the faintest trace of irony within me, on my honour. I had faith, hope, love. I believed blindly at such times that by some miracle, by some external circumstance, all this would suddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a vista of suitable activity — beneficent, good, and, above all, ready made (what sort of activity I had no idea, but the great thing was that it should be all ready for me) — would rise up before me — and I should come out into the light of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel. Anything but the foremost place I could not conceive for myself, and for that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the lowest in reality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud — there was nothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud : for an ordinary man it was shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. It is worth noting that these attacks of the " good and the beautiful " visited me even during the period of dissipation and just at the times when I was touching the bottom. They came in separate spurts, as though reminding me of themselves, but did not banish the dissipation by their appearance. On the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only sufficiently present to serve as an appetizing sauce. That sauce was made up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonizing inward analysis and all these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a significance to my dissipation — in fact, completely 94 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND answered the purpose of an appetizing sauce. There was a certain depth of meaning in it. And I could hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct debauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it. What could have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into the street ? No, I had a lofty way of getting out of it all. And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at times in those dreams of mine ! in those " flights into the good and the beautiful;" though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied to anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that one did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality; that would have been superfluous. Everything, however, passed satisfactorily by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere of art, that is, into the beautiful forms of life, lying ready, largely stolen from the poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needs and uses. I, for instance, was triumphant over every one ; every one, of course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spon- taneously to recognize my superiority, and I forgave them all. I was a poet and a grand gentleman, I fell in love ; I came in for countless millions and immediately devoted them to humanity, and at the same time I confessed before all the people my shameful deeds, which, of course, were not merely shameful, but had in them much that was " good and beautiful," something in the Manfred style. Every one would kiss me and weep (what idiots they would be if they did not), while I should go bare- foot and hungry preaching new ideas and fighting a victorious Austerlitz against the obscurantists. Then the band would play a march, an amnesty would be declared, the Pope would agree to retire from Rome to Brazil; then th<>r<> would be a ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on the shores of the Lake of Como, the Lake of Como being for that purpose transferred to the neighbourhood of Rome ; then would come a scene in the bushes, and so on, and so on — as though you did not know all about it ? You will say that it is vulgar and con- temptible to drag all this into public after all the tears and transports which I have myself confessed. But why is it con- temptible ? Can you imagine that I am ashunu-d of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your life, gentlemen ? And I can assure you that some of these fancies were by no meang NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 95 badly composed. ... It did not all happen on the shores of Lake Como. And yet you are right — it really is vulgar and con- temptible. And most contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justify myself to you. And even more con- temptible than that is my making this remark now. But that's enough, or there will be no end to it : each step will be more contemptible than the last. . . . I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge into society meant to visit my superior at the office, Anton Antonitch Syetotchkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my life, and wonder at the fact myself now. But I only went to see him when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of bliss that it became essential at once to embrace my fellows and all man- kind ; and for that purpose I needed, at least, one human being, actually existing. I had to call on Anton Antonitch, however, on Tuesday — his at-home day; so I had always to time my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday. This Anton Antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in Five Corners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of a particularly frugal and sallow appearance. He had two daughters and their aunt, who used to pour out the tea. Of the daughters one was thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and I was awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling together. The master of the house usually sat in his study on a leather couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman, usually a colleague from our office or some other department. I never saw more than two or three visitors there, always the same. They talked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about promotions, about His Excellency, and the best means of pleasing him, and so on. I had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for four hours at a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say to them or venturing to say a word. I became stupified, several times I felt myself perspiring, I was overcome by a sort of paralysis ; but this was pleasant and good -for me. On returning home I deferred for a time my desire to embrace all mankind. 96 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND I had however one other acquaintance of a sort, Simonov, who was an old schoolfellow. I had a number of schoolfellows indeed in Petersburg, but I did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to them in the street. I believe I had transferred into the department I was in simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with my hateful child- hood. Curses on that school and all those terrible years of penal servitude ! In short, I parted from my schoolfellows as soon as I got out into the world. There were two or three left to whom I nodded in the street. One of them was Simonov, who had been in no way distinguished at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but I discovered in him a certain independence of character and even honesty. I don't even suppose that he was particularly stupid. I had at one time spent some rather soulful moments with him, but these had not lasted long and had somehow been suddenly clouded over. He was evidently uncomfortable at these reminiscences, and was, I fancy, always afraid that I might take up the same tone again. I suspected that he had an aversion for me, but still I went on going to see him, not being quite certain of it. And so on one occasion, unable to endure my solitude and knowing that as it was Thursday Anton Antonitch's door would be closed, I thought- of Simonov. Climbing up to his fourth storey I was thinking that the man disliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him. But as it always happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely, to put myself into a false position, I went in. It was almost a year since I had last seen Simonov III I found two of my old schoolfellows with him. They srrinrd to be discussing an important matter. All of them took scarcely any notice of my entrance, which was strange, for I had not met them for years. Evidently they looked upon me as something on the level of a common fly. I had not been treated like that even at school, though they all hated me. I knew, of course, that they must despise me now for my lack of success in the ice, and for my having let myself sink so low, going about NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 97 badly dressed and so on — which seemed to them a sign of my incapacity and insignificance. But I had not expected such contempt. Simonov was positively surprised at my turning up. Even in old days he had always seemed surprised at my coming. All this disconcerted me : I sat down, feeling rather miserable, and began listening to what they were saying. They were engaged in warm and earnest conversation about a farewell dinner which they wanted to arrange for the next day to a comrade of theirs called Zverkov, an officer in the army, who was going away to a distant province. This Zverkov had been all the time at school with me too. I had begun to hate him particularly in the upper forms. In the lower forms he had simply been a pretty, playful boy whom everybody liked. I had hated him, however, even in the lower forms, just because he was a pretty and playful boy. He was always bad at his lessons and got worse and worse as he went on ; however, he left with a good certificate, as he had powerful interest. During his last year at school. he came in for an estate of twro hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he took up a swaggering tone among us. He was vulgar in the extreme, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even in his swaggering. In spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled before Zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. And it was not from any interested motive that they grovelled, but simply because he had been favoured by the gifts of nature. Moreover, it was, as it were, an accepted idea among us that Zverkov was a specialist in regard to tact and the social graces. This last fact par- ticularly infuriated me. I hated the abrupt self-confident tone of his voice, his admiration of his own witticisms, which were often frightfully stupid, though he was bold in his language; I hated his handsome, but stupid face (for which I would, however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent one), and the free-and-easy military manners in fashion in the " 'forties." I hated the way in which he used to talk of his future conquests of women (he did not venture to begin his attack upon women until he had the epaulettes of an officer, and was looking forward to them with impatience), and boasted of the duels he would constantly be fighting. I remember how I. invariably so taciturn, suddenly fastened upon Zverkov, when one day talking at a leisure moment 98 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND with his schoolfellows of his future relations with the fair sex, and growing as sportive as a puppy in the sun, he all at once declared that he would not leave a single village girl on his estate unnoticed, that that was his droit de seigneur, and that if the peasants dared to protest he would have them all flogged and double the tax on them, the bearded rascals. Our servile rabble applauded, but I attacked him, not from compassion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they were applauding such an insect . I got the better of him on that occasion, but though Zverkov was stupid he was lively and impudent, and so laughed it off, and in such a way that my victory was not really complete : the laugh was on his side. He got the better of me on several occasions afterwards, but without malice, jestingly, casually. I remained angrily and contemptuously silent and would not answer him. When we left school he made advances to me; I did not rebuff them, for I was flattered, but we soon parted and quite naturally. Afterwards I heard of his barrack-room success as a lieutenant, and of the fast life he was leading. Then there came other rumours — of his successes in the service. By then he had taken to cutting me in the street, and I suspected that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a per- sonage as insignificant as me. I saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of boxes. By then he was wearing shoulder-straps. He was twisting and twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient General. In three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still rather handsome and adroit. One could see that by the time he was thirty he would be corpulent. So it was to this Zverkov that my schoolfellows were going to give a dinner on his departure. They had kept up with him for those three years, though privately they did not consider them- selves on an equal footing with him, I am convinced of that. Of Simonov's two visitors, one was Ferfitchkin, a Russianized German — a little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always deriding every one, a very bitter enemy of mine from our days in the lower forms — a vulgar, impudent, swaggering fellow, who affected a most sensitive feeling of personal honour, though, of course, he was a wretched little coward at heart. He was one of those worshippers of Zverkov who made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money from him. Simonov's other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 99 remarkable — a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable of thinking of promotion. He was some sort of distant relation of Zverkov^s, and this, foolish as it seems, gave him a certain importance among us. He always thought me of no consequence whatever; his behaviour to me, though not quite courteous, was tolerable. " Well, with seven roubles each." said Trudolyubov, " twenty- one roubles between the three of us, we ought to be able to get a good dinner. Zverkov, of course, won't pay." " Of course not, since we are inviting him," Simonov decided. " Can you imagine," Ferfitchkin interrupted hotly and con- ceitedly, like some insolent flunkey boasting of his master the General's decorations, " can you imagine that Zverkov will let us pay alone ? He will accept from delicacy, but he will order half a dozen bottles of champagne." " Do we want half a dozen for the four of us ? " observed Trudolyubov, taking notice only of the half dozen. " So the three of us. with Zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles, at the Hotel de Paris at five o'clock to-morrow," Simonov, who had been asked to make the arrangements, con- cluded finally. " How twenty-one roubles ? " I asked in some agitation, with a show of being offended; " if you count me it will not be twenty-one, but twenty-eight roubles." It seemed to me that to invite myself so suddenly and un- expectedly would be positively graceful, and that they would all be conquered at once and would look at me with respect. ' Do you want to join, too ? " Simonov observed, with no appearance of pleasure, seeming to avoid looking at me. He knew me through and through. It infuriated me that he knew me so thoroughly. " Why not ? I am an old schoolfellow of his. too, I believe, and I must own I feel hurt that you have left me out," I said, boiling over again. " And where were we to find you ? " Ferfitchkin put in roughly. " You never were on good terms with Zverkov," Trudolyubov added, frowning. But I had already clutched at the idea and would not give it up. " It seems to me that no one has a right to form an opinion 100 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND upon that," I retorted in a shaking voice, as though something tremendous had happened. " Perhaps that is just my reason for wishing it now, that I have not always been on good terms with him." " Oh, there's no making you out . . . with these refinements," Trudolyubov jeered. " We'll put your name down," Simonov decided, addressing me. " To-morrow at five o'clock at the Hotel de Paris." " What about the money? " Fetfitchkin began in an under- tone, indicating me to Simonov, but he broke off, for even Simonov was embarrassed. " That will do," said Trudolyubov, getting up. " If he wants to come so much, let him." " But it's a private thing, between us friends," Ferfitchkin said crossly, as he, too, picked up his hat. " It's not an official gathering." " We do not want at all, perhaps . . ." They went away. Ferfitchkin did not greet me in any way as he went out, Trudolyubov barely nodded. Simonov, with whom I was left tete-d-tSte, was in a state of vexation and perplexity, and looked at me queerly. He did not sit down and did not ask me to. " H'm . . . yes . . . to-morrow, then. Will you pay your subscription now ? I just ask so as to know," he muttered in embarrassment. I flushed crimson, and as I did so I remembered that I had owed Simonov fifteen roubles for ages — which I had, indeed, never forgotten, though I had not paid it. " You will understand, Simonov, that I could have no idea when I came here. ... I am very much vexed that I have forgotten. ..." " All right, all right, that doesn't matter. You can pay to- morrow after the dinner. I simply wanted to know. . . . Please don't . . ." He broke off and began pacing the room still more vexed. As he walked he began to stamp with his heels. " Am I keeping you ? " I asked, after two minutes of eilence. " Oh ! " he said, starting, " that i" — to be truthful — yes. I have to go and see some one . . . not far from here," he added in an apologetic voice, somewhat abashed NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 101 " My goodness, why didn't you say so ? " I cried, seizing my cap, with an astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing I should have expected of myself. " It's close by ... not two paces away," Simonov repeated, accompanying me to the front door with a fussy air which did not suit him at all. " So five o'clock, punctually, to-morrow," he called down the stairs after me. He was very glad to get rid of me. I was in a fury. " What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them ? " I wondered, grinding my teeth as I strode along the street, " for a scoundrel, a pig like that Zverkov ! Of course, I had better not go ; of course, I must just snap my fingers at them. I am not bound in any way. I'll send Simonov a note by to-morrow's post. . . ." But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going ; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go. And there was a positive obstacle to my going : I had no money. All I had was nine roubles, I had to give seven of that to my servant, Apollon, for his monthly wages. That was all I paid him — he had to keep himself. Not to pay him was impossible, considering his character. But I will talk about that fellow, about that plague of mine, another time. However, I knew I should go and should not pay him his wages. That night I had the most hideous dreams. No wonder; all the evening I had been oppressed by memories of my miserable days at school, and I could not shake them off. I was sent to the school by distant relations, upon whom I was dependent and of whom I have heard nothing since — they sent me there a forlorn, silent boy, already crushed by their reproaches, already troubled by doubt, and looking with savage distrust at every one. My schoolfellows met me with spiteful and merciless jibea because I was not like any of them. But I could not endure their taunts ; I could not give in to them with the ignoble readi- ness with which they gave in to one another. I hated them from the first, and shut myself away from every one in timid, wounded and disproportionate pride. Their coarseness revolted 102 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND me. They laughed cynically at my face, at my clumsy figure ; and yet what stupid faces they had themselves. In our school the boys' faces seemed in a special way to degenerate and grow stupider. How many fine-looking boys came to us ! In a few years they became repulsive. Even at sixteen I wondered at them morosely ; even then I was struck by the pettiness of their thoughts, the stupidity of their pursuits, their games, their conversations. They had no understanding of such essential things, they took no interest in such striking, impressive sub- jects, that I could not help considering them inferior to myself. It was not wounded vanity that drove me to it, and for God's sake do not thrust upon me your hackneyed remarks, repeated to nausea, that " I was only a dreamer," while they even then had an understanding of life. They understood nothing, they had no idea of real life, and I swear that that was what made me most indignant with them. On the contrary, the most obvious, striking reality they accepted with fantastic stupidity and even at that time were accustomed to respect success. Every- thing that was just, but oppressed and looked down upon, they laughed at heartlessly and shamefully. They took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about a snug berth. Of course, a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the bad examples with which they had always been surrounded in their childhood and boyhood. They were mon- strously depraved. Of course a great deal of that, too, was superficial and an assumption of cynicism ; of course there were glimpses of youth and freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive, and showed itself in a certain rakishness. I hated them horribly, though perhaps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in the same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not desire their affection : on the contrary I continually longed for their humiliation. To escape from their derision I purposely began to make all the progress I could with my studies and forced my way to the very top. This impressed them. More- over, they all began by degrees to grasp that I had already read books none of them could read, and understood things (not forming part of our school curriculum) of which they had not evrii heard. They took a savage and sarcastic view of it, but were morally impressed, especially as the teachers began to notice me NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 103 on those grounds. The mockery ceased, but the hostility re- mained, and cold and strained relations became permanent between us. In the end I could not put up with it : with years a craving for society, for friends, developed in me. I attempted to get on friendly terms with some of my schoolfellows ; but somehow or other my intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended of itself. Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at heart ; I wanted to exercise un- bounded sway over him; I tried to instil into him a contempt for his surroundings ; I required of him a disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hysterics. He was a simple and devoted soul ; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I began to hate him immediately and repulsed him — as though all I needed him for was to win a victory over him, to subjugate him and nothing else. But I could not subjugate all of them ; my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception. The first tiling I did on leaving school was to give up the special job for which I had been destined so as to break all ties, to curse my past and shake the dust from off my feet. . . , And goodness knows why, after all that, I should go trudging off to Simonov's ! Early next morning I roused myself and jumped out of bed with excitement, as though it were all about to happen at once. But I believed that some radical change in my life was coming, and would inevitably come that day. Owing to its rarity, per- haps, any external event, however trivial, always made me feel as though some radical change in my life were at hand. I went to the office, however, as usual, but sneaked away home two hours earlier to get ready. The great thing, I thought, is not to be the first to arrive, or they will think I am overjoyed at coming. But there were thousands of such great points to consider, and they all agitated and overwhelmed me. I polished my boots a second time with my own hands ; nothing in the world would have induced Apollon to clean them twice a day, as he considered that it was more than his duties required of him. I stole the brushes to clean them from the passage, being careful he should not detect it, for fear of his contempt. Then I minutely examined my clothes and .thought that everything looked old, worn and threadbare. I had let myself get too slovenly. My uniform, 104 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND perhaps, was tidy, but I could not go out to dinner in my uniform. The worst of it was that on the knee of my trousers was a big yellow stain. I had a foreboding that that stain would deprive me of nine-tenths of my personal dignity. I knew, too, that it was very poor to think so. " But this is no time for thinking : now I am in for the real thing," I thought, and my heart sank. I knew, too, perfectly well even then, that I was monstrously exaggerating the facts. But how could I help it ? I could not control myself and was already shaking with fever. With despair I pictured to myself how coldly and disdainfully that " scoundrel " Zverkov would meet me ; with what dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead Trudolyubov would look at me ; with what impudent rudeness the insect Ferfitchkin would snigger at me in order, to curry favour with Zverkov; how completely Simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of my vanity and lack of spirit — and, worst of all, how paltry, unliterary, commonplace it would all be. Of course, the best thing would be not to go at all. But that was most impossible of all : if I feel impelled to do anything, I seem to be pitchforked into it. I should have jeered at myself ever afterwards : " So you funked it, you funked it, you funked the real thing .' " On the contrary, I passionately longed to show all that " rabble " that I was by no means such a spiritless creature as I seemed to myself. What is more, even in the acutest paroxysm of this cowardly fever, I dreamed of getting the upper hand, of dominating them, carrying them away, making them like me — if only for my " elevation of thought and unmistakable wit." They would abandon Zverkov, he would sit on one side, silent and ashamed, while I should crush him. Then, perhaps, we would be reconciled and drink to our ever- lasting friendship; but what .was most bitter and most humiliat- ing for me was that I knew even then, knew fully and for certain, that I needed nothing of all this really, that I did not really want to crush, to subdue, to attract them, and that I did not care a straw really for the result, even if I did achieve it. Oh, how I prayed for the day to pass quickly ! In unutterable anguish 1 went to the window, opened the movable pane and looked out into the troubled darkness of the thickly falling wel SHOW. At last my wretched little clock hissed out five. I seized my hat urn I trying not to look at Apollon, who had been all day expecting NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 105 his month's wages, but in his foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, I slipt between him and the door and jumping into a high-class sledge, on which I spent my last half rouble, I drove up in grand style to the Hotel de Paris. IV I had been certain the day before that I should be the first to arrive. But it was not a question of being the first to arrive. Not only were they not there, but I had difficulty in finding our room. The table was not laid even. What did it mean ? After a good many questions I elicited from the waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for five, but for six o'clock. This was confirmed at the buffet too. I felt really ashamed to go on questioning them. It was only twenty-five minutes past five. If they changed the dinner hour they ought at least to have let me know — that is what the post is for, and not to have put me in an absurd position in my own eyes and . . . and even before the waiters. I sat down ; the servant began laying the table ; I felt even more humiliated when be was present. Towards six o'clock they brought in candles, though there were lamps burning in the room. It had not occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them in at once when I arrived. In the next room two gloomy, angry -looking persons were eating their dinners in silence at two different tables. There was a great deal of noise, even shouting, in a room further away; one could hear the laughter of a crowd of people, and nasty little shrieks in French : there were ladies at the dinner. It was sickening, in fact. I rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did arrive all together punctually at six I was overjoyed to see them, as though they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent upon me to show resentment. Zverkov walked in at the head of them ; evidently he was the leading spirit. He and all of them were laughing; but, seeing me, Zverkov drew himself up a little, walked up to me deliberately with a slight, rather jaunty bend from the waist. He shook hands with me in a friendly, but not over-friendly, fashion, with a sort of circumspect courtesy like that of a General, as though in giving me his hand he were warding off something. I had imagined, 106 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND on the contrary, that on coming in he would at once break into his habitual thin, shrill laugh and fall to making his insipid jokes and witticisms. I had been preparing for them ever since the previous day, but I had not expected such condescension, such high-official courtesy. So, then, he felt himself ineffably superior to me in every respect ! If he only meant to insult me by that high-official tone, it would not matter, I thought — I could pay him back for it one way or another. But what if, in reality, without the least desire to be offensive, that sheepshead had a notion in earnest that he was superior to me and could only look at me in a patronizing way ? The very supposition made me gasp. " I was surprised to hear of your desire to join us," he began, lisping and drawling, which was something new. ' You and I seem to have seen nothing of one another. You fight shy of us. You shouldn't. We are not such terrible people as you think. Well, anyway, I am glad to renew our acquaintance." And he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window. " Have you been waiting long? " Trudolyubov inquired. " I arrived at five o'clock as you told me yesterday," I answered aloud, with an irritability that threatened an explosion. " Didn't you let him know that we had changed the hour? " said Trudolyubov to Simonov. " No, I didn't. I forgot," the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and without even apologizing to me he went off to order the Jiors cTaeuvres. "So you've been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!" Zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. That rascal Ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing. " It isn't funny at all ! " I cried to Ferfitchkin, more and more irritated. " It wasn't my fault, but other people's. They neglected to let me know. It was . . it was ... it was simply absurd." " It's not only absurd, but something else as well," muttered Trudolyubov, naively taking my part. " You are not hard enough upon it. It was simply rudeness — unintentional, of course. And how could Simonov . . . h'm ! " " If a trick like that had been played on me," observed Ferfitchkin, " I should ..." NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 107 "But you should have ordered something for yourself," Zverkov interrupted, " or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us." " You will allow that I might have done that without your permission," I rapped out. " If I waited, it was . . ." " Let us sit down, gentlemen," cried Simonov, coming in. " Everything is ready ; I can answer for the champagne ; it is capitally frozen. . . . You see, I did not know your address, where was I to look for you ? " he suddenly turned to me, but again he seemed to avoid looking at me Evidently he had something against me. It must have been what happened yesterday. All sat down ; I did the same. It was a round table. Trudo- lyubov was on my left, Simonov on my right. Zverkov was sitting opposite, Ferfitchkin next to him, between him and Trudolyubov. " Tell me, are you ... in a government office ? " Zverkov went on attending to me. Seeing that I was embarrassed he seriously thought that he ought to be friendly to me, and, so to speak, cheer me up. " Does he want me to throw a bottle at his head ? " I thought, in a fury. In my novel surroundings I was unnaturally ready to be irritated. " In the N office," I answered jerkily, with my eyes on my plate. "And ha-ave you a go-od berth? I say, what ma-a-de you leave your original job ? " " What ma-a-de me was that I wanted to leave my original job," I drawled more than he, hardly able to control myself. Ferfitchkin went off into a guffaw. Simonov looked at me ironically. Trudolyubov left off eating and began looking at me with curiosity. Zverkov winced, but he tried not to notice it. " And the remuneration ? " " What remuneration ? " "I mean, your sa-a-lary ? " " Why are you cross-examining me ? " However, I told him at once what my salary was. I turned horribly red. " It is not very handsome," Zverkov observed majestically. " Yes, you can't afford to dine at cafes on that," Ferfitchkin added insolently. 108 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND "To my thinking it's very poor," Trudolyiibov observed gravely. " And how thin you have grown ! How you have changed ! " added Zverkov, with a shade of venom in his voice, scanning me and my attire with a sort of insolent compassion. " Oh, spare his blushes," cried Ferfitchkin, sniggering. " My dear sir, allow me to tell you I am not blushing," I broke out at last; "do you hear? I am dining here, at this cafe, at my own expense, not at other people's — note that, Mr. Ferfitchkin." " Wha-at ? Isn't every one here dining at his own expense ? You would seem to be . . ." Ferfitchkin flew out at me, turning as red as a lobster, and looking me in the face with fury. " Tha-at," I answered, feeling I had gone too far, " and I imagine it would be better to talk of something more intelligent." ;' You intend to show off your intelligence, I suppose ? " " Don't disturb yourself, that would be quite out of place here." " Why are you clacking away b'ke that, my good sir, eh ? Have you gone out of your wits in your office ? " " Enough, gentlemen, enough ! " Zverkov cried, authoritatively. " How stupid it is 1 " muttered. Simonov. " It really is stupid. We have met here, a company of friends, for a farewell dinner to a comrade and you carry on an alter- cation," said Trudolyubov, rudely addressing himself to me alone. " You invited yourself to join us, so don't disturb the general harmony." " Enough, enough ! " cried Zverkov. " Give over, gentlemen, it's out of place. Better let me tell you how I nearly got married the day before yesterday. ..." And then followed a burlesque narrative of how this gentle- man had almost been married two days before. There was not a word about the marriage, however, but the story was adorned with generals, colonels and kammer-junkers, while Zverkov almost took the lead among them. It was greeted with .approving laughter; Ferfitchkin positively squealed. No one paid any attention to me, and I sat crushed and humiliated. " Good Heavens, these are not the people for me !" I thought. " And what a fool I have made of myself before them ! I let 1 •'< rfitchkin go too far, though. The brutes imagine they are NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 109 doing me an honour in letting me sit down with them. They don't understand that it's an honour to them and not to me ! I've grown thinner ! My clothes ! Oh, damn my trousers ! Zverkov noticed the yellow stain on the knee as soon as he came in. ... But what's the use ! I must get up at once, this very minute, take my hat and simply go without a word . . . with contempt ! And to-morrow I can send a challenge. The scoundrels ! As though I cared about the seven roubles. They may think. . . . Damn it ! I don't care about the seven roubles. I'll go this minute ! " Of course I remained. I drank sherry and Lafitte by the glassful in my discomfiture. Being unaccustomed to it, I was quickly affected. My annoyance increased as the wine went to my head. I longed all at once to insult them all in a most flagrant manner and then go away. To seize the moment and show what I could do, so that they would say, " He's clever, though he is absurd," and . . . and ... in fact, damn them all! I scanned them all insolently with my drowsy eyes. But they seemed to have torgotten me altogether. They were noisy, vociferous, cheerful. Zverkov was talking all the time. I began listening. Zverkov was talking of some exuberant lady whom he had at last led on to declaring her love (of course, he was lying like a horse), and how he had been helped in this affair by an intimate friend of his, a Prince Kolya, an officer in the hussars, who had three thousand serfs. " And yet this Kolya, who has three thousand serfs, has not put in an appearance here to-night to see you off," I cut in suddenly. For a minute every one was silent. " You are drunk already." Trudolyubov deigned to notice me at last, glancing contemptu- ously in my direction. Zverkov, without a word, examined me as though I were an insect. I dropped my eyes. Simonov made haste to fill up the glasses with champagne. Trudolyubov raised his glass, as did every one else but me. " Your health and good luck on the journey ! " he cried to Zverkov. "JTo old times, to our future, hurrah ! " They all tossed off their glasses, and crowded round Zverkov to kiss him. I did not move; my full glass stood untouched before me. 110 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND " Why, aren't you going to drink it ? " roared Trudolyubov, losing patience and turning menacingly to me. " I want to make a speech separately, on my own account . . . and then I'D drink it, Mr. Trudolyubov." " Spiteful brute ! " muttered Simonov. I drew myself up in my chair and feverislily seized my glass, prepared for something extraordinary, though I did not know myself precisely wh. I was going to say. lence ! " cried Ferfitchkin. " Now for a display of wit ! " Zverkov waited very gravely, knowing what was coming. " Mr. Lieutenant Zverkov," I began, " let me tell you that I hate phrases, phrasemongers and men in corsets . . . t: the first point, and there is a second one to follow it." There was a general stir. " The second point is : I hate ribaldry and ribald talkers. Especially ribald talkers ! The third point : I love justice, truth and honesty." I went on almost mechanically, for I was begin- ning to shiver with horror myself and had no idea how I came to be talking like this. "I love thought, Monsieur Zverkov; I love true comradeship, on an equal footing and not . . . H?m ... I love. . . . But, however, why not ? I will drink your health, too, Mr. Zverkov. Seduce the Circassian girls, shoot the enemies of the fatherland and . . . and ... to your health, Monsieur Zverkov Zverkov got up from his seat, bowed to me and said : " I am very much obliged to you." He was frightfully offended and turned pale. " Damn the fellow ! " roared Trudolyubov, bringing h: down on the table. " Well, he wants a punch in the face for that," squealed Ferfitchkin. " We ought to turn him out," muttered Simonov. " Not a word, gentlemen, not a movement ! " cried Zverkov solemnly, checking the general indignation. " I thank you all, but I can show him for myself how much value I attach to his words." " Mr. Ferfitchkin, you will give me satisfaction to-morrow our words just now ! " I said aloud, turning with dignity to :chkin. " A duel, you mean ? Certainly/' he answered. But probably NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 111 I was so ridiculous as I challenged him and it was so out of keeping with my appearance that everyone, including Ferfitchkin, was prostrate with laughter. " Yes, let him alone, of course ! He is quite drunk," Trudolyu- bov said with disgust. " I shall never forgive myself for letting him join us," Simonov muttered again. " Now is the time to throw a bottle at their heads," I thought to myself. I picked up the bottle . . . and filled my glass. . . . " No, I'd better sit on to the end," I went on thinking; " you would be pleased, my friends if I went away. Nothing will induce me to go. I'll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don't think you of the slightest consequence. I will go on sitting and drinking, because this is a public-house and I paid my entrance money. I'll sit here and drink, for I look upon you as so many pawns, as inanimate pawns. I'll sit here and drink . . . and sing if I want to, yes, sing, for I have the right to ... to sing . . . H'm ! " But I did not sing. I simply tried not to look at any of them. I assumed most unconcerned attitudes and waited with impatience for them to speak first. But alas, they did not address me ! And oh, how I wished, how I wished at that moment to be reconciled to them ! It struck eight, at last nine. They moved from the table to the sofa. Zverkov stretched himself on a lounge and put one foot on a round table. Wine was brought there. He did, as a fact, order three bottles on his own account. I, of course, was not invited to join them. They all sat round him on the sofa. They listened to him, almost with reverence. It was evident that they were fond of him. "What for? What for?" I wondered. From time to time they were moved to drunken enthusiasm and kissed each other. They talked of the Caucasus, of the nature of true passion, of snug berths in the service, of the income of an hussar called Podharzhevsky, whom none of them knew personally, and rejoiced in the largeness of it, of the extraordinary grace and beauty of a Princess D., whom none of them had ever seen; then it came to Shakespeare's being immortal. I smiled contemptuously and walked up and down the other side of the room, opposite the sofa, from the table to the stove and back again. I "tried my very utmost to show them that I 112 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND could do without them, and yet I purposely made a noise with my boots, thumping with my heels. But it was all in vain. They paid no attention. I had the patience to walk up and down in front of them from eight o'clock till eleven, in the same place, from the table to the stove and back again. " I walk up and down to please myself and no one can prevent me." The waiter who came into the room stopped, from time to time, to look at me. I was somewhat giddy from turning round so often; at moments it seemed to me that I was in delirium. During those three hours I was three times soaked with sweat and dry again. At times, with an intense, acute pang I was stabbed to the heart by the thought that ten years, twenty years, forty years would pass, and that even in forty years I would remember with loathing and humiliation those filthiest, most ludicrous, and most awful moments of my life. No one could have gone out of his way to degrade himself more shamelessly, and I fully realized it, fully, and yet I went on pacing up and down from the table to the stove. " Oh, if you only knew what thoughts and feelings I am capable of, how cultured I am ! " I thought at moments, mentally addressing the sofa on which my enemies were sitting. But my enemies behaved as though I were not in the room. Once — only once — they turned towards me, just when Zverkov was talking about Shakespeare, and I suddenly gave a contemptuous laugh. I laughed in such an affected and disgusting way that they all at once broke off their conversation, and silently and gravely for two minutes watched me walking up and down from the table to the stove, taking no notice of them. But nothing came of it : they said nothing, and two minutes later they ceased to notice me again. It struck eleven. " Friends," cried Zverkov getting up from the sofa, " let us all be off now, there I " " Of course, of course," the others assented. I turned sharply to Zverkov. I was so harassed, so exhausted, that I would have cut my throat to put an end to it. I was in a fever; my huir, soaked with perspiration, stuck to my forehead and temples. " Zverkov, I beg your pardon," I said abruptly and resolutely. " Ferfitchkin, yours too, and every one's, every one's : I have insulted you all ! " " Aha ! A duel is not in your line, old man," Ferfitchkin hissed venomously. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 113 It sent a sharp pang to my heart. " No, it's not the duel I am afraid of, Ferfitchknr! I am ready to fight you to-morrow, after we are reconciled. I insist upon it, in fact, and you cannot refuse. I want to show you that I am not afraid of a duel. You shall fire first and I shall fire into the air.'' "He is comforting himself," said Simonov. " He's simply raving," said Trudolyubov. " But let us pass. Why are you barring our way ? What do you want ? " Zverkov answered disdainfully. They were all flushed ; their eyes were bright : they had been drinking heavily. " I ask for your friendship, Zverkov ; I insulted you, but. . . ." " Insulted ? You insulted me ? Understand, sir, that you never, under any circumstances, could possibly insult me" " And that's enough for you. Out of the way ! " concluded Trudolyubov. " Olympia is mine, friends, that's agreed ! " cried Zverkov. " We won't dispute your right, we won't dispute your right," the others answered, laughing. I stood as though spat upon. The party went noisily out of the room. Trudolyubov struck up some stupid song. Simonov remained behind for a moment to tip the waiters. I suddenly went up to him. " Simonov ! give me six roubles ! " I said, with desperate resolution. He looked at me in extreme amazement, with vacant eyes. He, too, was drunk. " You don't mean you are coming with us ? " " Yes." "I've no money," he snapped out, and with a scornful laugh he went out of the room. I clutched at his overcoat. It was a nightmare. " Simonov, I saw you had money. Why do you refuse me ? And I a scoundrel ? Beware of refusing me : if you knew, if you knew why I am asking ! My whole future, my whole plans depend upon it ! " Simonov pulled out the money and almost flung it at me. " Take it, if you- have no sense of shame ! " he pronounced pitil- >?ly, and ran to overtake them. i 114 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND I was left for a moment alone. Disorder, the remains of dinner, a broken wine-glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, fumes of drink and delirium in my brain, an agonizing misery in my heart and finally the waiter, who had seen and heard all and was looking inquisitively into my face. " I am going there ! " I cried. " Either they shall all go down on their knees to beg for my friendship, or I will give Zverkov a slap in the face ! " V " So this is it, this is it at last — contact with real life." I muttered as I ran headlong downstairs. " This is very different from the Pope's leaving Rome and going to Brazil, very different from the ball on Lake Como ! " " You are a scoundrel," a thought flashed through my mind, " if you laugh at this now." " No matter ! " I cried, answering mj^self. " Now everything is lost ! " There was no trace to be seen of them, but that made no difference — I knew where they had gone. At the steps was standing a solitary night sledge-driver in a rough peasant coat, powdered over with the still falling, wet, and as it were warm, snow. It was hot and steamy. The little shaggy piebald horse was also covered with snow and coughing, I remember that very well. I made a rush for the roughly made sledge ; but as soon as I raised my foot to get into it, the recol- lection of how Simonov had just given me six roubles seemed to double me up and I tumbled into the sledge like a sack. " No, I must do a great deal to make up for all that," I cried. " But I will make up for it or perish on the spot this very night. Start ! " We set off. There was a perfect whirl in my head. " They won't go down on their knees to beg for my friendship. That is a mirage, cheap mirage, revolting, romantic and fan- tastical— that's another ball on Lake Como. And so I am bound to slap Zverkov's face ! It is my duty to. And so it is settled ; I am flying to give him a slap in the face. Hurry up ! " The driver tugged at the reins. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 116 " As soon as I go in I'll give it him. Ought I before giving him the slap to say a few words by way of preface ? No. I'll simply go in and give it him . They will all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with Olympia on the sofa. That damned Olympia ! She laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. I'll pull Olympia's hair, pull Zverkov's ears ! No, better one ear, and pull him by it round the room. Maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. That's most likely, indeed. No matter! Anyway, I shall first slap him; the initiative will be mine ; and by the laws of honour that is every- thing : he will be branded and cannot wipe off the slap by any blows, by nothing but a duel. He will be forced to fight. And let them beat me now. Let them, the ungrateful wretches ! Trudo- lyubov will beat me hardest, he is so strong ; Ferfitchkin will be sure to catch hold sideways and tug at my hair. But no matter, no matter ! That's what I am going for. The blockheads will be forced at last to see the tragedy of it all ! When they drag me to the door I shall call out to them that in reality they are not worth my little finger. Get on, driver, get on ! " I cried to the driver. He started and flicked his whip, I shouted so savagely. " We shall fight at daybreak, that's a settled thing. I've done with the office. Ferfitchkin made a joke about it just now. But where can I get pistols ? Nonsense ! I'll get my salary in ad- vance and buy them. And powder, and bullets ? That's the second's business. And how can it all be done by daybreak? And where am I to get a second ? I have no friends. Non- sense ! " I cried, lashing myself lip more and more. "It's of no consequence ! the first person I meet in the street is bound to be my second, just as he would be bound to pull a drowning man out of water. The most eccentric things may happen. Even if I were to ask the director himself to be my second to- morrow, he would be bound to consent, if only from a feeling of chivalry, and to keep the secret ! Anton Antonitch. ..." The fact is, that at that very minute the disgusting absurdity of my plan and the other side of the question was clearer and more vivid to my imagination than it could be to any one on earth. But. . . . " Get on, driver, get on, you rascal, get on ! " " Ugh, sir ! " said the son of toil. Cold shivers suddenly ran down me Wouldn't it be better 116 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND ... to go straight home ? My God, my God ! Why did I invite myself to this dinner yesterday ? But no, it's impossible. And my walking up and down for three hours from the table to the stove ? No, they, they and no one else must pay for my walking up and down ! They must wipe out this dishonour 1 Drive on ! And what if they give me into custody ? They won't dare ! They'll be afraid of the scandal. And what if Zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel ? He is sure to ; but in that case I'll show them ... I will turn up at the posting station when he is setting off to-morrow, I'll catch him by the leg, I'll pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. I'll get my teeth into his hand, I'll bite him. " See what lengths you can drive a desperate man to ! " He may hit me on the head and they may belabour me from behind. I will shout to the assembled multitude : " Look at this young puppy who is driving off to capti- vate the Circassian girls after letting me spit in his face ! " Of course, after that everything will be over ! The office will have vanished off the face of the earth. I shall be arrested, I shall be tried, I shall be dismissed from the service, 'thrown in prison, sent to Siberia. Never mind ! In fifteen years when they let me out of prison I will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some provincial town. He will be married and happy. He will have a grown-up daughter. ... I shall say to him : " Look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags ! I've lost everything — my career, my happiness, art, science, the woman I loved, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and . . . and I ... for- give you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me. . . ." I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's Silrio and Lermontov's Masquerade. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished. What was I to do ? I could not go on there — it was evidently stupid, and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though . . . Heavens, how could I leave things ! And after such insults ! " No ! " I cried, throwing myself into 117 the sledge again. " It is ordained ! It is fate ! Drive on, drive on ! " And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck. " What are you up to ? What are you hitting me for ? " the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking. The wet snow was falling in big flakes ; I unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen now, at once, and that no force could stop it. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. I did not wrap myself up — all was lost, anyway. At last we arrived. I jumped out, almost unconscious, ran up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. I felt fearfully weak, particularly in my legs and my knees. The door was opened quickly as though they knew I was coming. As a fact, Simonov had warned them that perhaps another gentleman would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to observe certain precautions. It was one of those " milli- nery establishments " which were abolished by the police a good time ago. By day it really was a shop ; but at night, if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes. I walked rapidly through the dark shop into the familiar drawing-room, where there was only one candle burning, and stood still in amazement : there was no one there. " Where are they ? " I asked somebody. But by now, of course, they had separated. Before me was standing a person with a stupid smile, the " madam " herself, who had seen me before. A minute later a door opened and another person came in. Taking no notice of anything I strode about the room, and, I believe, I talked to myself. I felt as though I had been saved from death and was conscious of this, joyfully, all over : I should have given that slap, I should certainly, certainly have given it ! But now they were rot here and . . . everything had vanished and changed ! I looked round. I could not realize my condition yet. I looked mechanically at the girl who had come in : and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather pale face, with straight, dark 118 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND eyebrows, and with grave, as it were wondering, eyes that attracted me at once ; I should have hated her if she had been smiling. I began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. I had not fully collected my thoughts. There was something simple and good-natured in her face, but something strangely grave. I am sure that this stood in her way here, and no one of those fools had noticed her. She could not, however, have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built. She was very simply dressed. Something loathsome stirred within me. I went straight up to her. I chanced to look into the glass. My harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair. " No matter, I am glad of it, " I thought ; " I am glad that I shall seem repulsive to her; I like that." VI . . . Somewhere behind a screen a clock began wheezing, as though oppressed by something, as though some one were stran- gling it. After an unnaturally prolonged wheezing there followed a shrill, nasty, and as it were unexpectedly rapid, chime — as though some one were suddenly jumping forward. It struck two. I woke up, though I had indeed not been asleep but lying half conscious. It was almost completely dark in the narrow, cramped, low- pitched room, cumbered up with an enormous wardrobe and piles of cardboard boxes and all sorts of frippery and litter. The candle end that had been burning on the table was going out and gave a faint flicker from time to time. In a few minutes there would be complete darkness. I was not long in coming to myself ; everything came back to my mind at once, without an effort, as though it had been in ambush to pounce upon me again. And, indeed, even wliile I was unconscious a point seemed continually to remain in my memory unforgotten, and round it my dreams moved drearily. But strange to say, everything that had happened to me in that day seemed to me now, on waking, to be in the far, far away past, as though I had long, long ago lived all that down. My head was full of fumes. Something seemed to be hovering NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 119 over me, rousing me, exciting me, and making me restless. Misery and spite seemed surging up in me again and seeking an outlet. Suddenly I saw beside me two wide open eyes scrutinizing me curiously and persistently. The look in those eyes was coldly detached, sullen, as it were utterly remote ; it weighed upon me. A grim idea came into my brain and passed all over my body, as a horrible sensation, such as one feels when one goes into a damp and mouldy cellar. There was something unnatural in those two eyes, beginning to look at me only now. I recalled, too, that during those two hours I had not said a single word to this creature, and had, in fact, considered it utterly superfluous ; in fact, the silence had for some reason gratified me. Now I sud- denly realized vividly the hideous idea — revolting as a spider — of vice, which, without love, grossly and shamelessly begins with that in which true love finds its consummation. For a long time we gazed at each other like that, but she did not drop her eyes before mine and her expression did not change, so that at last I felt uncomfortable. '; What is 37our name ? " I asked abruptly, to put an end to it. " Liza," she answered almost in a whisper, but somehow far from graciously, and she turned her eyes away. I was silent. " What weather ! The snow . . . it's disgusting ! " I said, almost to myself, putting my arm under my head despondently, and gazing at the ceiling. She made no answer. This was horrible. " Have you always lived in Petersburg? " I asked a minute later, almost angrily, turning my head slightly towards her. " No." " Where do you come from ? " " From Riga," she answered reluctantly. " Are you a German ? " " No, Russian." " Have you been here long ? " " Where ? " " In this house ? " " A fortnight." She spoke more and more jerkily. The candle went out ; I could no longer distinguish her face. " Have you a" father and mother ? " 120 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND " Yes ... no ... I have." " Where are they ? " " There ... in Riga." " What are they ? " " Oh, nothing." " Nothing ? Why, what class are they ? " "Tradespeople."' " Have you always lived with them ? " " Yes." " How old are you ? " " Twenty." " Why did you leave them ? " " Oh, for no reason." That answer meant " Let me alone; I feel sick, sad." We were silent. God knows why I did not go away. I felt myself more and more sick and dreary. The images of the previous day began of themselves, apart from my will, flitting through my memory in con- fusion. I suddenly recalled something I had seen that morning when, full of anxious thoughts, I was hurrying to the office. " I saw them carrying a coffin out yesterday and they nearly dropped it," I suddenly said aloud, not that I desired to open the conversation, but as it were by accident. " A coffin ? " " Yes, in the Haymarket ; they were bringing it up out of a cellar." " From a cellar? " " Not from a cellar, but from a basement. Oh, you know . . down below . . . from a house of ill-fame. It was filthy all round . . . Egg-shells, litter . . . a stench. It was loathsome." Silence. " A nasty day to be buried," I began, simply to avoid being silent. " Nasty, in what way ? " ' The snow, the wet." (I yawned.) " It makes no difference," she said suddenly, after a brief silence. ' No, it's horrid." (I yawned again.) " The gravediggers must have sworn at getting drenched by the snow. And there must have been water in the grave." NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 121 " Why water in the grave ? " she asked, with a sort of curiosity, but speaking even more harshly and abruptly than before. I suddenly began to feel provoked. " Why, there must have been water at the bottom a foot deep. You can't dig a dry grave in Volkovo Cemetery." "Why?" " Why ? Why, the place is waterlogged. It's a regular marsh So they bury them in water. I've seen it myself . . . many times." (I had never seen it once, indeed I had never been in Volkovo, and had only heard stories of it.) " Do you mean to say, you don't mind how you die ? " " But why should I die ? " she answered, as though defending herself. " Why, some day you will die, and you will die just the same as that dead woman. She was ... a girl like you. She died of consumption." " A wench would have died in hospital ..." (She knows all about it already : she said " wench," not " girl.") " She was in debt to her madam," I retorted, more and more provoked by the discussion ; " and went on earning money for her up to the end, though she was in consumption. Some sledge- drivers standing by were talking about her to some soldiers and telling them so. No doubt they knew her. They were laughing. They were going to meet in a pot-house to drink to her memory." A great deal of this was my invention. Silence followed, profound silence. She did not stir. " And is it better to die in a hospital ? " " Isn't it just the same ? Besides, why should I die ? " she added irritably. " If not now, a little later." " Why a little later ? " " Why, indeed ? Now you are young, pretty, fresh, you fetch a high price. But after another year of this life you will be very different — you will go off." "In a year? " " Anyway, in a year you will be worth less," I continued malignantly. " You will go from here to something lower, an- other house ; a year later — to a third, lower and lower, and in seven years you will come to a basement in the Haymarket. 122 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND That will be if you were lucky. But it would be much worse if you got some disease, consumption, say . . . and caught a chill, or something or other. It's not easy to get over an illness in your way of life. If you catch anything you may not get rid of it. And so you would die/' " Oh, well, then I shall die," she answered, quite vindictively, and she made a quick movement " But one is sorry." " Sorry for whom ? " " Sorry for life." Silence " Have you been engaged to be married ? Eh ? " " What's that to you ? " " Oh, I am not cross-examining you. It's nothing to me. Why are you so cross ? Of course you may have had your own troubles. What is it to me ? It's simply that I felt sorry." " Sorry for whom ? " " Sorry for you." " No need," she whispered hardly audibly, and again made a faint movement. That incensed me at once. What ! I was so gentle with her, and she. . . . " Why, do you think that you are on the right path ? " " I don't think anything." '' That's what's wrong, that you don't think. Realize it while there is still time. There still is time. You are still young, good- looking; you might love, be married, be happy. . . ." " Not all married women are happy," she snapped out in the rude abrupt tone she had used at first. " Not all, of course, but anyway it is much better than the life here. Infinitely better. Besides, with love one can live even without happiness. Even in sorrow life is sweet; life is sweet, however one lives. But here what is there but . . . foulness. Phew ! " I turned away with disgust ; I was no longer reasoning coldly. I began to feel myself what I was saying and wanned to the subject. I was already longing to expound the cherished ideas I had brooded over in my corner. Something suddenly flared up in me. An object had appeared before me. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 123 " Never mind my being here, I am not an example for you. I am, perhaps, worse than you are. I was drunk when I came here, though," I hastened, however, to say in self-defence. " Besides, a man is no example for a woman. It's a different thing. I may degrade and defile myself, but I am not any one's slave. I come and go, and that's an end of it. I shake it off, and I am a different man. But you are a slave from the start. Yes, a slave ! You give up everything, your whole freedom. If you want to break your chains afterwards, you won't be able to : you will be more and more fast in the snares. It is an accursed bondage. I know it. I won't speak of anything else, maybe you won't understand, but tell me : no doubt you are in debt to your madam ? There, you see," I added, though she made no answer, but only listened in silence, entirely absorbed, " that's a bondage for you ! You will never buy your freedom. They will see to that. It's like selling your soul to the devil. . . . And besides . . . perhaps I, too, am just as unlucky — how do you know — and wallow in the mud on purpose, out of misery ? You know, men take to drink from grief; well, maybe I am here from grief. Come, tell me, what is there good here ? Here you and I ... came together . . . just now and did not say one word to one another all the time, and it was only afterwards you began staring at me like a wild creature, and I at you. Is that loving ? Is that how one human being should meet another ? It's hideous, that's what it is ! " " Yes ! " she assented sharply and hurriedly. I was positively astounded by the promptitude of this " Yes." So the same thought may have been straying through her mind when she was staring at me just before. So she, too, was capable of certain thoughts ? " Damn it all, this was interesting, this was a point of likeness ! " I thought, almost rubbing my hands. And indeed it's easy to turn a young soul like that ! It was the exercise of my power that attracted me most. She turned her head nearer to me, and it seemed to me in the darkness that she propped herself on her arm. Perhaps she was scrutinizing me. How I regretted that I could not see her eyes. I heard her deep breathing. " Why have you come here ? " I asked her, with a note of authority already -in my voice. " Oh, I don't know." 124 " But how nice it would be to be living in your father's house ! It's warm and free ; you have a home of your own." " But what if it's worse than this ? " " I must take the right tone," flashed through my mind. " I may not get far with sentimentality." But it was only a momentary thought. I swear she really did interest me. Be- sides, I was exhausted and moody. And cunning so easily goes hand -in-hand with feeling. " Who denies it ! " I hastened to answer. " Anything may happen. I am convinced that some one has wronged you, and that you are more sinned against than sinning. Of course, I know nothing of your story, but it's not likely a girl like you has come here of her own inclination. ..." "A girl like me?" she whispered, hardly audibly; but I heard it. Damn it all, I was flattering her. That was horrid. But perhaps it was a good thing. . . . She was silent. " See, Liza, I will tell you about myself. If I had had a home from childhood, I shouldn't be what I am now. I often think that. However bad it may be at home, anyway they are your father and mother, and not enemies, strangers. Once a year at least, they'll show their love of you. Anyway, you know you are at home. I grew up without a home; and perhaps that's why I've turned so ... unfeeling." I waited again. " Perhaps she doesn't understand," I thought, " and, indeed, it is absurd — it's moralizing." " If I were a father and had a daughter, I believe I should love my daughter more than my sons, really," I began indirectly, as though talking of something else, to distract her attention. I must confess I blushed. " Why so? " she asked. Ah ! so she was listening ! " I don't know, Liza. I knew a father who was a stern, austere man, but used to go down on his knees to his daughter, used to kiss her hands, her feet, he couldn't make enough of her, really. When she danced at parties he used to stand for five hours at a stretch, gazing at her. He was mad over her : I understand that ! She would fall asleep tired at night, and he would wake to kiss li< r in her sleep and make the siirn of the cross over her. He would go about in a dirty old coat, he was stingy to every NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 126 one else, but would spend his last penny for her, giving her expensive presents, and it was his greatest delight when she was pleased with what he gave her. Fathers always love their daughters more than the mothers do. Some girls live happily at home ! And I believe I should never let my daughters marry." " What next ? " she said, with a faint smile. " I should be jealous, I really should. To think that she should kiss any one else ! That she should love a stranger more than her father ! It's painful to imagine it. Of course, that's all nonsense, of course every father would be reasonable at last. But I believe before I should let her marry, I should worry myself to death ; I should find fault with all her suitors. But I should end by letting her marry whom she herself loved. The one whom the daughter loves always seems the worst to the father, you know. That is always so. So many family troubles come from that." " Some are glad to sell their daughters, rather than marrying them honourably." Ah, so that was it ! " Such a thing, Liza, happens in those accursed families in which there is neither love nor God," I retorted warmly, " and where there is no love, there is no sense either. There are such families, it's true, but I am not speaking of them. You must have seen wickedness in your own family, if you talk like that. Truly, you must have been unlucky. H'm ! . . . that sort of thing mostly comes about through poverty." " And is it any better with the gentry ? Even among the poor, honest people live happily." " H'm . . . yes. Perhaps. Another thing, Liza, man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. And what if all goes well with the family, if the blessing of God is upon it, if the husband is a good one, loves you, cherishes you, never leaves you ! There is happiness in such a family ! Even sometimes there is happiness in the midst of sorrow ; and indeed sorrow is everywhere. If you marry you will find out for yourself. But think of the first years of married life with one you love : what happiness, what happiness there sometimes is in it t And indeed it's the ordinary 126 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND thing. In those early days even quarrels with one's husband end happily. Some women get up quarrels with their husbands just because they love them. Indeed, I knew a woman like that : she seemed to say that because she loved him, she would torment him and make him feel it. You know that you may torment a man on purpose through love. Women are particularly given to that, thinking to themselves ' I will love him so, I will make so much of him afterwards, that it's no sin to torment him a little now.' And all in the house rejoice in the sight of you, and you are happy and gay and peaceful and honourable. . . . Then there are some women who are jealous. If he went off anywhere — I knew one such woman, she couldn't restrain herself, but would jump up at night and run off on the sly to find out where he was, whether he was with some other woman. That's a pity. And the woman knows herself it's wrong, and her heart fails her and she suffers, but she loves — it's all through love. And how sweet it is to make it up after quarrels, to own herself in the wrong or to forgive him ! And they are both so happy all at once — as though they had met anew, been married over again ; as though their love had begun afresh. And no one, no one should know what passes between husband and wife if they love one another. And whatever quarrels there may be between them they ought not to call in their own mother to judge between them and tell tales of one another. They are their own judges. Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. That makes it holier and better. They respect one another more, and much is built on respect. And if once there has been love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away ? Surely one can keep it ! It is rare that one cannot keep it. And if the husband is kind and straightforward, why should not love last ? The first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still. Then there will be the union of souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets between them. And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy. They will lovs you for it afterwards ; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 127 for them ; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see this is a great duty. How can it fail to draw the father and mother nearer ? People say it's a trial to have children. Who says that ? It is heavenly happiness ! Are you fond of little children, Liza ? I am awfully fond of them. You know — a little rosy baby boy at your bosom, and what husband's heart is not touched, seeing his wife nursing his child ! A plump little rosy baby, sprawling and snuggling, chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it makes one laugh to look at them ; eyes that look as if they understand everything. And while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand, plays. When its father comes up, the child tears itself away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs, as though it were fearfully funny and falls to sucking again. Or it will bite its mother's breast when its little teeth are coming, while it looks sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, ' Look, I am biting ! ' Is not all that happiness when they are the three together, husband, wife and child ? One can forgive a great deal for the sake of such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live oneself before one blames others ! " " It's by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you," I thought to myself, though I did speak with real feeling, and all at once I flushed crimson. "What if she were suddenly to burst out laughing, what should I do then ? " That idea drove me to fury. Towards the end of my speech I really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded. The silence continued. I almost nudged her. " Why are you " she began and stopped. But I under- stood : there was a quiver of something different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and unyielding as before, but something soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced that I suddenly felt ashamed and guilty. " What ? " I asked, with tender curiosity. " Why, you . . ;" " What ? " " Why, you . . . speak somehow like a book," she said, and again there was a note of irony in her voice. 128 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND That remark sent a pang to my heart. It was not what I was expecting. I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste- souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. I ought to have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with an effort. But I did not guess, and an evil feeling took possession of me. " Wait a bit ! " I thought. VII " Oh, hush, Liza ! How can you talk about being like a book, when it makes even me, an outsider, feel sick ? Though I don't look at it as an outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart. ... Is it possible, is it possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself ? Evidently habit does wonders ! God knows what habit can do with any one. Can you seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will always be good-looking, and that they will keep you here for ever and ever ? I say nothing of the loathsomeness of the life here. . . . Though let me tell you this about it — about your present life, I mean ; here though you are young now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet you know as soon as I came to myself just now I felt at once sick at being here with you ! One can only come here when one is drunk. But if you were anywhere else, living as good people live, I should perhaps be more than attracted by you, should fall in love with you, should be glad of a look from you, let alone a word; I should hang about your door, should go down on my knees to you, should look upon you as my be- trothed and think it an honour to be allowed to. I should not dan- to have an impure thought about you. But here, you I know that I have only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it or not. I don't consult your wishes, but you mine. The lowest labourer hires himself as a workman but he doesn't make a slave of himself altogether; besides, he NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 129 knows that he will be free again presently. But when are you free ? Only think what you are giving up here ? What is it you are making a slave of ? It is your soul, together with your body ; you are selling your soul which you have no right to dispose of ! You give your love to be outraged by every drunkard ! Love ! But that's everything, you know, it's a priceless diamond, it's a maiden's treasure, love — why, a man would be ready to give his soul, to face death to gain that love. But how much is your love worth now ? You are sold, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need to strive for love when you can have every- thing without love. And you know there is no greater insult to a girl than that, do you understand ? To be sure, I have heard that they comfort you, poor fools, they let you have lovers of your own here. But you know that's simply a farce, that's simply a sham, it's just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it ! Why, do you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours ? I don't believe it. How can he love you when he knows you may be called away from him any minute ? He would be a low fellow if he did ! Will he have a grain of respect for you ? What have you in common with him ? He laughs at you and robs you — that is all his love amounts to ! You .are lucky if he does not beat you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask him, if you have got one, whether he will marry you. He will laugh in your face, if he doesn't spit in it or give you a blow — though maybe he is not worth a bad halfpenny himself. And for what have you ruined your life, if you come to think of it ? For the coffee they give you to drink and the plentiful meals ? But with what object are they feeding you up ? An honest girl couldn't swallow the food, for she would know what she was being fed for. You are in debt here, and, of course, you will always be in debt, and you will go on in debt to the end, till the visitors here begin to scorn you. And that will soon happen, don't rely upon your youth — all that flies by express train here, you know. You will be kicked out. And not simply kicked out ; long before that she'll begin nagging at you, scolding you, abusing you, as though you had not sacrificed your health for her, had not thrown away your youth and your soul for her benefit, but as though you had ruined her, beggared her, robbed her. And don't expect any one to take your part : the others, your companions, will attack you, too, to win her favour, for all 130 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND are in slavery here, and have lost all conscience and pity here long ago. They have become utterly vile, and nothing on earth is viler, more loathsome, and more insulting than their abuse. And you are laying down everything here, unconditionally, youth and health and beauty and hope, and at twenty-two you will look like a woman of five-and-thirty, and you will be lucky if you are not diseased, pray to God for that ! No doubt you are thinking now that you have a gay time and no work to do ! Yet there is no work harder or more dreadful in the world or ever has been. One would think that the heart alone would be worn out with tears. And you won't dare to say a word, not half a word when they drive you away from here ; you will go away as though j'ou were to blame. You will change to another house, then to a third, then somewhere else, till you come down at last to the Haymarket. There you will be beaten at every turn; that is good manners there, the visitors don't know how to be friendly without beating you. You don't believe that it is so hateful there ? Go and look for yourself some time, you can see with your own eyes. Once, one New Year's Day, I saw a woman at a door. They had turned her out as a joke, to give her a taste of the frost because she had been crying so much, and they shut the door behind her. At nine o'clock in the morning she was already quite drunk, dishevelled, half -naked, covered with bruises, her face was powdered, but she had a black eye, blood was trickling from her nose and her teeth; some cabman had just given her a drubbing. She was sitting on the stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand ; she was crying, wailing something about her luck and beating with the fish on the steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the doorway taunting her. You don't believe that you will over be like that ? I should be sorry to believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe ten years, eight years ago that very woman with the salt fish came here fresh as a cherub, innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. Perhaps she was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others ; perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew what happiness was in store for the man who should love her and whom she should love. Do you see how it ended ? And what if at that very minute when she was beating on the iilthy steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled — what if at that very minute she recalled the pure early days in her father's NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 131 house, when she used to go to school and the neighbour's son watched for her on the way, declaring that he would love her as long as he lived, that he would devote his life to her, and when they vowed to love one another for ever and be married as soon as they were grown up ! No, Liza, it would be happy for you if you were to die soon of consumption in some corner, in some cellar like that woman just now. In the hospital, do you say ? You will be lucky if they take you, but what if you are still of use to the madam here ? Consumption is a queer disease, it is not like fever. The patient goes on hoping till the last minute and says he is all right. He deludes himself. And that just suits your madam. Don't doubt it, that's how it is; you have sold your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you daren't say a word. But when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more, they will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over dying. How- ever you beg you won't get a drink of water without abuse : ' Whenever are you going off, you nasty hussy, you won't let us sleep with your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick.' That's true, I have heard such things said myself. They will thrust you dying into the filthiest corner in the cellar — in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts be, lying there alone ? When you die, strange hands will lay you out, with grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may be ; they will buy a coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor woman to-day, and celebrate your memory at the tavern. In the grave sleet, filth, wet snow — no need to put themselves out for you — ' Let her down, Vanuha ; it's just like her luck — even here, she is head -foremost, the hussy. Shorten the cord, you rascal.' ' It's all right as it is.' ' All right, is it ? Why, she's on her side ! She was a fellow - creature, after all ! But, never mind, throw the earth on her.' And they won't care to waste much time quarrelling over you. They will scatter the wet blue clay as quick as they can and go off to the tavern . . . and there your memory on earth will end; other women have children to go to their graves, fathers, husbands. While for you neither tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance ; no one in the whole world will ever come to you, your name will vanish from the 132 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND face of the earth — as though you had never existed, never been born at all ! Nothing but filth and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead arise, however you cry : ' Let me out, kind people, to live in the light of day ! My life was no life at all ; my life has been thrown away like a dish- clout; it was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind people, to live in the world again.' ' And I worked myself up to such a pitch that I began to have a lump in my throat myself, and . . . and all at once I stopped, sat up in dismay, and bending over apprehensively, began to listen with a beating heart. I had reason to be troubled. I had felt for some time that I was turning her soul upside down and rending her heart, and — and the more I was convinced of it, the more eagerly I desired to gain my object as quickly and as effectually as possible. It was the exercise of my skill that carried me away; yet it was not merely sport. . . . I knew I was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in fact, I could not speak except " like a book." But that did not trouble me : I knew, I felt that I should be under- stood and that this very bookishness might be an assistance. But now, having attained my effect, I was suddenly panic- stricken. Never before had I witnessed such despair ! She was lying on her face, thrusting her face into the pillow and clutching it in both hands. Her heart was being torn. Her youthful body was shuddering all over as though in convulsions. Sup- pressed sobs rent her bosom and suddenly burst out in weeping and wailing, then she pressed closer into the pillow : she did not want any one here, not a living soul, to know of her anguish and her tears. She bit the pillow, bit her hand till it bled (I saw that afterwards), or, thrusting her fingers into her dishevelled hair seemed rigid with the effort of restraint, holding her breath and clenching her teeth. I began saying something, begging her to calm herself, but felt that I did not dare ; and all at once, in a sort of cold shiver, almost in terror, began fumbling in the dark, trying hurriedly to get dressed to go. It was dark : though I tried my best I could not finish dressing quickly. Suddenly I felt a box of matches and a candlestick with a whole candle in it. As soon as the room was lighted up, Liza sprang up, sat up in bed, and with a contorted face, with a half insane smile, looked at me almost senselessly. I sat down beside her and NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 133 took her hands ; she came to herself, made an impulsive move- ment towards me, would have caught hold of me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her head before me. " Liza, my dear, I was wrong . . . forgive me, my dear," I began, but she squeezed my hand in her ringers so tightly that I felt I was saying the wrong thing and stopped. " This is my address, Liza, come to me." " I will come," she answered resolutely, her head still bowed. " But now I am going, good-bye . . . till we meet again." I got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, gave a shudder, snatched up a shawl that was lying on a chair and muffled herself in it to her chin. As she did this she gave another sickly smile, blushed and looked at me strangely. I felt wretched; I was in haste to get away — to disappear. " Wait a minute," she said suddenly, in the passage just at the doorway, stopping me with her hand on my overcoat. She put down the candle in hot haste and ran off; evidently she had thought of something or wanted to show me something. As she ran away she flushed, her eyes shone, and there was a smile on her lips — what was the meaning of it ? Against my will I waited : she came back a minute later with an expression that seemed to ask forgiveness for something. In fact, it was not the same face, not the same look as the evening before : sullen, mistrustful and obstinate. Her eyes now were imploring, soft, and at the same time trustful, caressing, timid. The expression with which children look at people they are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour. Her eyes were a light hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, and capable of expressing love as well as sullen hatred. Making no explanation, as though I, as a sort of higher being, mtist understand everything without explanations, she held out a piece of paper to me. Her whole face was positively beaming at that instant with naive, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her from a medical student or some one of that sort — a very high-flown and flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. I don't recall the words now, but I remember well that through the high-flown phrases there was apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned. When I had finished reading it I met her glowing, questioning, and childishly impatient eyes fixed upon me. She fastened her 134 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND eyes upon my face and waited impatiently for what I should say. In a few words, hurriedly, but with a sort of joy and pride, she explained to me that she had been to a dance somewhere in a private house, a family of " very nice people, wlio knew nothing, absolutely nothing, for she had only come here so lately and it had all happened . . . and she hadn't made up her mind to stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid her debt ..." and at that party there had been the student who had danced with her all the evening. He had talked to her, and it turned out that he had known her in old days at Riga when he was a child, they had played together, but a very long time ago — and he knew her parents, but about this he knew nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion ! And the day after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that letter through the friend with whom she had gone to the party . . . and . . . well, that was all." She dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she finished. The poor girl was keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her. I said nothing, pressed her hand and went out. I so longed to get away. ... I walked all the way home, in spite of the fact that the melting snow was still falling in heavy flakes. I was exhausted, shattered, in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the truth was already gleaming. The loathsome truth. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 135 VIII It was some time, however, before I consented to recognize that truth. Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and immediately realizing all that had happened on the previous day, I was positively amazed at my last night's sentimentality with Liza, at all those " outcries of horror and pity." " To think of having such an attack of womanish hysteria, pah ! " I concluded. And what did I thrust my address upon her for ? What if she comes ? Let her come, though ; it doesn't matter. ... But obviously, that was not now the chief and the most important matter : I had to make haste and at all costs save my reputation in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible ; that was the chief business. And I was so taken up that morning that I actually forgot all about Liza. First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day before from Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure : to borrow fifteen roubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it he was in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on the first asking. I was so de- lighted at this that, as I signed the I 0 U with a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before " I had been keeping it up with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; we were giving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend of my childhood, and you know — a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt — of course, he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant career; he is witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, you understand; we drank an extra ' half-dozen ' and ..." And it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily, unconstrained ly and complacently. On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov. To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly gentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact and good-breeding, and, above all, entirely without super- fluous words, I blamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, " if I really may be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly unaccustomed to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass, which I said, I had drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting for them at the Hotel de Paris 136 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND between five and six o'clock. I begged Simonov's pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially to Zverkov, whom " I seemed to remember as though in a dream " I had insulted. I added that I would have called upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not the face to. I was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almost carelessness (strictly within the bounds of polite- ness, however), which was apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gave them at once to understand that I took rather an independent view of "all that unpleasantness last night ; " that I was by no means so utterly crushed as you, my friends, probably imagine ; but on the contrary, looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look upon it. " On a young hero's past no censure is cast ! " " There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it ! " I thought admiringly, as I read over the letter. And it's all because I am an intellectual and cultivated man ! Another man in my place would not have known how to extricate him- self, but here I have got out of it and am as jolly as ever again, and all because I am " a cultivated and educated man of our day." And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to the wine yesterday. H'm ! . . . no, it was not the wine. I did not drink anything at all between five and six when I was waiting for them. I had lied to Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn't ashamed now. . . . Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid of it. I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to take it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the letter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards evening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy after yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser, my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more different and confused. Some- thing was not dead within me, in the depths of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in acute depres- sion. For the most part I jostled my way through the most crowded business streets, along Myeshtehansky Street, along Su'lovy Street and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked par- ticularly sauntering along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working people of all sorts going NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 137 home from their daily work, with faces looking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle, that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets irritated me more than ever. I could not make out what was wrong with me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my conscience. The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything else I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening ; I dismissed it all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. But on this point I was not satis- fied at all. It was as though I were worried only by Liza. " What if she comes," I thought incessantly, " well, it doesn't matter, let her come ! H'm ! it's horrid that she should see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I seemed such a hero to her, while now, h'm ! It's horrid, though, that I have let myself go so, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to go out to dinner in such a suit ! And my American leather sofa with the stuffing sticking out. And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, such tatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon. That beast is certain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to be rude to me. And I, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, I shall begin bowing and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown round me, I shall begin smiling, telling lies. Oh, the beastliness ! And it isn't the beastliness of it that matters most ! There is something more important, more loathsome, viler ! Yes, viler ! And to put on that dishonest lying mask again ! " . . . When I reached that thought I fired up all at once. " Why dishonest ? How dishonest ? I was speaking sin- cerely last night. I remember there was real feeling in me, too. What I wanted was to excite an honourable feeling in her. . . . Her crying was a good thing, it will have a good effect." Yet I could not feel at ease. All that evening, even when I had come back home, even after nine o'clock, when I calculated that Liza could not possibly come, she still haunted me, and what was worse, she came back to my mind always in the same position 138 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND One moment out of all that had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination ; the moment when I struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its look of torture. And what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what a distorted smile she had at that moment ! But I did not know then, that fifteen years later I should still in my imagination see Liza, always with the pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her face at that minute. Next day I was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to over-excited nerves, and, aBove all, as exaggerated. I was always conscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid of it. "I exaggerate everything, that is where I go wrong," I repeated to myself every hour. But, however, " Liza will very likely come all the same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was so uneasy that I some- times flew into a fury : " She'll come, she is certain to come ! " I cried, running about the room, " if not-day, she will come to-morrow ; she'll find me out ! The damnable romanticism of these pure hearts ! Oh, the vileness — oh, the silliness — oh, the stupidity of these ' wretched sentimental souls ! ' Why, how fail to understand? How could one fail to under- stand? ..." But at this point I stopped short, and in great confusion, indeed. And how few, how few words, I thought, in passing, were needed; how little of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic too) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to my will. That's virginity, to be sure ! Freshness of soil ! At times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, " to tell her all," and beg her not to come to me. But this thought stirred such wrath in me that I believed I should have crushed that " damned " Liza if she had chanced to be near me at the time. I should have insulted her, have spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her ! One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and I began to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine o'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly : I, for instance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to me and my talking to her. . . . NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 139 I develop her, educate her. Finally, I notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect, perhaps). At last all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing, she flings herself at my feet and says that I am her saviour, and that she loves me better than anything in the world. I am amazed, but. ..." Liza," I say, " can you imagine that I have not noticed your love, I saw it all, I divined it, but I did not dare to approach you first, because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that . . . because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, I launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty sub- tleties a la George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are good, you are my noble wife. ' Into my house come bold and free, Its rightful mistress there to be.' " Then we begin living together, go abroad and so on, and so on. In fact, in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began putting out my tongue at myself. Besides, they won't let her out, " the hussy ! " I thought. They don't let them go out very readily, especially hi the evening (for some reason I fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clock precisely). Though she did say she was not altogether a slave there yet, and had certain rights ; so, h'm ! Damn it all, she will come, she is sure to come ! It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my atten- tion at that time by his rudeness. He drove me beyond all patience ! He was the bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by Providence. We had been squabbling continually for years, and I hated him. My God, how I hated him ! I believe I had never hated any one in my life as I hated him, especially at some moments. He was an elderly, dignified man, who worked part of his time as a tailor. But for some unknown reason he despised me beyond all measure, and looked down upon me insufferably. Though, indeed, he looked down upon every one. Simply to glancfe at that flaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he combed up on his forehead and oiled with 140 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth, compressed into the shape of the letter V, made one feel one was confronting a man who never doubted of himself. He was a pedant, to the most extreme point, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, and with that had a vanity only befitting Alexander of Macedon. He was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers — absolutely in love with them, and he looked it ! In his behaviour to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me, and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically self-confident and in- variably ironical look that drove me sometimes to fury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour. Though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider himself bound to do anything. There could be no doubt that he looked upon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that " he did not get rid of me " was simply that he could get wages from me every month. He consented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. Many sins should be forgiven me for what I suffered from him. My hatred reached such a point that sometimes his very step almost threw me into convulsions. What I loathed particularly was his lisp. His tongue must have been a little too long or something of that sort, for ho continually lisped, and seemed to be very proud of it, imagining that it greatly added to his dignity. He spoke in a slow, measured tone, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the ground. He maddened me particularly when he read aloud the psalms to himself behind his partition. Many a battle I waged over that reading ! But he was awfully fond of reading aloud in the evenings, in a slow, even, sing-song voice, as though over the dead. It is interesting that that is how he has ended : ho hires himself out to read the psalms over the dead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes blacking. But at that time I could not get rid of him, it was as though he were chemically combined with my existence. Besides, nothing would have induced him to consent to leave me. I could not live in furnished lodgings : my lodging was my private solitude, my shell, my CHVC, in which I concealed myself from all mankind, and Apollon seemed to me, for some reason, an integral part of that flat, and for seven years I could not turn him away. To be two or three days behind with his wages, for instance, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 141 was impossible. He would have made such a fuss, I should not have known where to hide my head. But I was so exasperated with every one during those days, that I made up my mind for some reason and with some object to punish Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages that were owing him. I had for a long time — for the last two years — been intending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himself airs with me, and to show him that if I liked I could withhold his wages. I purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposely silent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be the first to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles out of a drawer, show him I have the money put aside on purpose, but that I won't, I won't, I simply won't pay him his wages, I won't just because that is " what I wish," because " I am master, and it is for me to decide," because he has been dis- respectful, because he has been rude ; but if he were to ask respectfully I might be softened and give it to him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, a wrhole month. . . . But angry as I was, yet he got the better of me. I could not hold out for four days. He began as he always did begin in such cases, for there had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be observed I knew all this before- hand, I knew his nasty tactics by heart). He would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting me or seeing me out of the house. If I held out and pretended not to notice these stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to further tortures. All at once, a propos of nothing, he would walk softly and smoothly into my room, when I was pacing up and down or reading, stand at the door, one hand behind his back and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a stare more than severe, utterly con- temptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and deliber- ately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiously 142 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND and began staring back at him. So we stared at one another for two minutes ; at last he turned with deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours. If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my revolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long, deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moral degradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphing completely : I raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what he wanted. This time the usual staring mano3uvres had scarcely begun when I lost my temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond endurance apart from him. "Stay," I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning, with one hand behind his back, to go to his room, " stay ! Come back, come back, I tell you I " and I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated me. " How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for 1 Answer ! " After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round again. " Stay ! " I roared, running up to him, " don't stir ! There. Answer, now : what did you come in to look at ? " " If you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp, raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another, all this with exasperating composure. " That's not what I am asking you about, you torturer I " I shouted, turning crimson with anger. " I'll tell you why you came here myself : you see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid stares, to worry me and you have no BUS . . . pic . . . ion how stupid it is — stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid 1 "... He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him. " Listen," I shouted to him. " Here's the money, do you see, here it is " (I took it out of the table drawer) ; " here's the seven roubles complete, but you are not going to have it, you . . . NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 143 are . . . not . . going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear ? " " That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence. " It shall be so," I said, " I give you my word of honour, it shaU be ! " " And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you called me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at the police -station at any time for insulting behaviour." " Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very second ! You are a torturer all the same ! a torturer ! " But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking round. "If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind his screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating slowly and violently. " Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, "go at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer." He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw. " At once, go this minute ! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will happen." " You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle. " Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself ? And as for being frightened — }rou are upsetting yourself about nothing, for nothing will come of it." " Go ! " I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I should strike him in a minute. But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us in perplexity. I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to my room. There, clutching at my 144 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood motionless in that position. Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps. " There is some woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity. Then he stood aside and let in Liza. He would not go away, but stared at us sarcastically. " Go away, go away," I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock began whirring and wheezing and struck seven. IX " Into my house come bold and free, Its rightful mistress there to be." I stood before her crushed, crestfallen, revoltingly confused, and I believe I smiled as I did my utmost to wrap myself in the skirts of my ragged wadded dressing-gown — exactly as I had imagined the scene not long before in a fit of depression. After standing over us for a couple of minutes Apollon went away, but that did not make me more at ease. What made it worse was that she, too, was overwhelmed with confusion, more so, in fact, than I should have expected. At the sight of me, of course. " Sit down," I said mechanically, moving a chair up to the table, and I sat down on the sofa. She obediently sat down at once and gazed at me open-eyed, evidently expecting some- thing from me at once. This naivet6 of expectation drove me to fury, but I restrained myself. She ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as usual, while instead of that, she . . . and I dimly felt that I should make her pay dearly for all this. " You have found me in a strange position, Liza," I began, stammering and knowing that this was the wrong way to begin. " No, no, don't imagine anything," I cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. " I am not ashamed of my poverty. . . . On the contrary I look with pride on my poverty. I am poor but honourable. . . . One can be poor and honourable," I muttered. " However . . . would you like tea? "... " No," she was beginning. " Wait a minute." NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 145 I leapt up and ran to Apollon. I had to get out of the room somehow. " Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, " here are your wages, you see I give them to you ; but for that you must come to my rescue : bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant. If you won't go, you'll make me a miserable man ! You don't know what this woman is. ... This is — everything ! You may be imagining something. . . . But you don't know what that woman is ! " . . . Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle ; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or making any answer he went on busying himself with his needle, which he had not yet threaded. I waited before him for three minutes with my arms crossed a la Napoldon. My temples were moist with sweat. I was pale, I felt it. But, thank God, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me. Having threaded his needle he deliberately got up from his seat, deliberately moved back his chair, deliber- ately took off his spectacles, deliberately counted the money, and finally asking me over his shoulder : " Shall I get a whole portion?" deliberately walked out of the room. As I was going back to Liza, the thought occurred to me on the way : shouldn't I run away just as I was in my dressing-gown, no matter where, and then let happen what would. I sat down again. She looked at me uneasily. For some minutes we were silent. " I will kill him," I shouted suddenly, striking the table with my fist so that the ink spurted out of the inkstand. " What are you saying ! " she cried, starting. " I will kill him ! kill him ! " I shrieked, suddenly striking the table in absolute frenzy, and at the same time fully understanding how stupid it was to be in such a frenzy. " You don't know, Liza, what that torturer is to me. He is my torturer. . . . He has gone now to fetch some rusks; he . . ." And suddenly I burst into tears. It was an hysterical attack. How ashamed I felt in the midst of my sobs; but still I could not restrain them.- She was frightened. L 146 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND " What is the matter ? What is wrong ? " she cried, fussing about me. " Water, give me water, over there I " I muttered in a faint, voice, though I was inwardly conscious that I could have got on very well without water and without muttering in a faint voice, But I was, what is called, putting it on, to save appearances, though the attack was a genuine one. She gave me water, looking at me in bewilderment. At that moment Apollon brought in the tea. It suddenly seemed to me that this commonplace, prosaic tea was horribly undignified and paltry after all that had happened, and I blushed crimson. Liza looked at Apollon with positive alarm. He went out without a glance at either of us. " Liza, do you despise me ? " I asked, looking at her fixedly, trembling with impatience to know what she was thinking. She was confused, and did not know what to answer. " Drink your tea," I said to her angrily. I was angry with myself, but, of course, it was she who would have to pay for it. A horrible spite against her suddenly surged up in my heart; I believe I could have killed her. To revenge myself on her I swore inwardly not to say a word to her all the time. " She is the cause of it all," I thought. Our silence lasted for five minutes. The tea stood on the table ; we did not touch it. I had got to the point of purposely refraining from beginning in order to embarrass her further; it was awkward for her to begin alone. Several times she glanced at me with mournful perplexity. I was obstinately silent. I was, of course, myself the chief sufferer, because I was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful stupidity, and yet at the same time I could not restrain myself. " I want to ... get away . . . from there altogether," she began, to break the silence in some way, but, poor girl, that Avaa just what she ought not to have spoken about at such a stupid moment to a man so stupid as I was. My heart positively ached with pity for her tactless and unnecessary straightforwardness. But something hideous at once stifled all compassion in me ; it even provoked me to greater venom. I did not care what happened. Another five minutes passed. " Perhaps I am in your way," she began timidly, hardly audibly, and was getting up. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 147 But as soon as I saw this first impulse of wounded dignity I positively trembled with spite, and at once burst out. " Why have you come to me, tell me that, please 1 " I began, gasping for breath and regardless of logical connection in my words. I longed to have it all out at once, at one burst ; I did not even trouble how to begin. " Why have you come ? Answer, answer," I cried, hardly knowing what I was doing. "I'll tell you, my good girl, why you have come. You've come because I talked sentimental stuff to you then. So now you are soft as butter and longing for fine sentiments again. So you may as well know that I was laughing at you then. And I am laughing at you now. Why are you shuddering ? Yes, I was laughing at you ! I had been insulted just before, at dinner, by the fellows who came that evening before me. I came to you, meaning to thrash one of them, an officer; but I didn't succeed, I didn't find him; I had to avenge the insult on some one to get back my own again ; you turned up, I vented my spleen on you and laughed at you. I had been humiliated, so I wanted to humiliate ; I had been treated like a rag, so I wanted to show my power. . . . That's what it was, and you imagined I had come there on purpose to save you. Yes 1 You imagined that ? You imagined that ? " I knew that she would perhaps be muddled and not take it all in exactly, but I knew, too, that she would grasp the gist of it, very well indeed. And so, indeed, she did. She turned white as a handkerchief, tried to say something, and her lips worked painfully ; but she sank on a chair as though she had been felled by an axe. And all the time afterwards she listened to me with her lips parted and her eyes wide open, shuddering with awful terror. The cynicism, the cynicism of my words over- whelmed her. . . . " Save you ! " I went on, jumping up from my chair and running up and down the room before her. " Save you from what ? But perhaps I am worse than you myself. Why didn't you throw it in my teeth when I was giving you that sermon : ' But what did yon come here yourself for? was it to read us a sermon ? ' Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I wanted, I wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation, your hysteria — that was what I wanted then ! Of course, I couldn't keep it- up then, because I am a wretched creature, I was frightened, and, the devil knows why, gave you my address 148 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND in my folly. Afterwards, before I got home, I was cursing and swearing at you because of that address, I hated you already because of the lies I had told you. Because I only like playing with words, only dreaming, but, do you know, what I really want is that you should all go to hell. That is what I want. I want peace ; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea ? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know that, or not 1 Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard. Here I have been shuddering for the last three days at the thought of your coming. And do you know what has worried me particularly for these three days ? That I posed as such a hero to you, and now you would see me in a wretched torn dressing-gown, beggarly, loathsome. I told you just now that I was not ashamed of my poverty ; so you may as well know that I am ashamed of it ; I am more ashamed of it than of anything, more afraid of it than of being found out if I were a thief, because I am as vain as though I had been skinned and the very air blowing on me hurt. Surely by now you must realize that I shall never forgive you for having found me in this wretched dressing-gown, just as I was flying at Apollon like a spiteful cur. The saviour, the former hero, was flying like a mangy, unkempt sheep-dog at his lackey, and the lackey was jeering at him ! And I shall never forgive you for the tears I could not help shedding before you just now, like some silly woman put to shame ! And for what I am confessing to you now, I shall never forgive you either ! Yes — you must answer for it all because you turned up like this, because I am a black- guard, because I am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most envious of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than I am, but, the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while I shall always be insulted by every louse, that is my doom ! And what is it to me that you don't understand a word of this ! And what do I care, what do I care about you, and whether you go to ruin there or not ? Do you under- stand ? How I shall hate you now after saying this, for having been here and listening. Why, it's not once in a lifetime a man speaks out like this, and then it is in hysterics ! . . . What more do you want ? Why do you still stand confronting NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 149 me, after all this ? Why are you worrying me ? Why don't you go ? " But at this point a strange thing happened. I was so accus- tomed to think and imagine everything from books, and to picture everything in the world to myself just as I had made it up in my dreams beforehand, that I could not all at once take in this strange circumstance. What happened was this : Liza, insulted and crushed by me, understood a great deal more than I imagined. She understood from all this what a woman understands first of all, if she feels genuine love, that is, that I was myself unhappy. The frightened and wounded expression on her face was followed first by a look of sorrowful perplexity. When I began calling myself a scoundrel and a blackguard and my tears flowed (the tirade was accompanied throughout by tears) her whole face worked convulsively. She was on the point of getting up and stopping me ; when I finished she took no notice of my shouting : " Why are you here, why don't you go away ? " but realized only that it must have been very bitter to me to say all this. Besides, she was so crushed, poor girl; she considered herself infinitely beneath me ; how could she feel anger or resentment ? She suddenly leapt up from her chair with an irresistible impulse and held out her hands, yearning towards me, though still timid and not daring to stir. ... At this point there was a revulsion in my heart, too. Then she suddenly rushed to me, threw her arms round me and burst into tears. I, too, could not restrain myself, and sobbed as I never had before. " They won't let me ... I can't be good ! " I managed to articulate ; then I went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. She came close to me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position. But the trouble was that the hysterics could not go on for ever, and (I am writing the loathsome truth) lying face downwards on the sofa with my face thrust into my nasty leather pillow, I began by degrees to be aware of a far-away, involuntary but irresistible feeling that it would be awkward now for me to raise my head and look Liza straight in the face. Why was I ashamed ? I don't know, but I was ashamed. The thought, too, came into my overwrought brain that our parts now were completely changed, tfrat she was now the heroine, while I was just such a crushed and humiliated creature as she 150 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND had been before me that night — four days before. . . . And all this came into my mind during the minutes I was lying on my face on the sofa. My God ! surely I was not envious of her then. I don't know, to this day I cannot decide, and at the time, of course, I was still less able to understand what I was feeling than now. I cannot get on without domineering and tyrannizing over some one, but . . . there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason. I conquered myself, however, and raised my head; I had to do so sooner or later . . . and I am convinced to this day that it was just because I was ashamed to look at her that another feeling was suddenly kindled and flamed up in my heart . . . a feeling of mastery and possession. My eyes gleamed with pas- sion, and I gripped her hands tightly. How I hated her and how I was drawn to her at that minute ! The one feeling intensified the other. It was almost like an act of vengeance. At first there was a look of amazement, even of terror on her face, but only for one instant. She warmly and rapturously embraced me. A quarter of an hour later I was rushing up and down the room in frenzied impatience, from minute to minute I went up to the screen and peeped through the crack at Liza. She was sitting on the ground with her head leaning against the bed, and must have been crying. But she did not go away, and that irritated me. This time she understood it all. I had insulted her finally, but . . . there's no need to describe it. She realized that my outburst of passion had been simply revenge, a fresh humilia- tion, and that to my earlier, almost causeless hatred was added now a personal haired, born of envy. . . . Though I do not maintain positively that she understood all this distinctly; but she certainly did fully understand that I was a despicable man, and what was worse, incapable of loving her. I know I shall be told that this is incredible — but it is incredible to be as spiteful and stupid as I was ; it may be added that it was strange I should not love her, or at any rate, appreciate her Why is it strange ? In the first place, by then I was NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 151 incapable of love, for I repeat, with me loving meant tyrannizing and showing my moral superiority. I have never in my life boon able to imagine any other sort of love, and have nowadays come to the point of sometimes thinking that love really consists in the right — freely given by the beloved object — to tyrannize over her. Even in my underground dreams I did not imagine love except as a struggle. I began it always with hatred and ended it with moral subjugation, and afterwards I never knew what to do with the subjugated object. And what is there to wonder at in that, since I had succeeded in so corrupting myself, since I was so out of touch with " real life," as to have actually thought of reproaching her, and putting her to shame for having come to me to hear " fine sentiments " ; and did not even guess that she had come not to hear fine sentiments, but to love me, because to a woman all reformation, all salvation from any sort of ruin, and all moral renewal is included in love and can only show itself in that form. I did not hate her so much, however, when I was running about the room and peeping through the crack in the screen. I was only insufferably oppressed by her being here. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted " peace," to be left alone in my under- ground world. Real life oppressed mo with its novelty so much that I could hardly breathe. But several minutes passed and she still remained, without stirring, as though she were unconscious. I had the shameless- ness to tap softly at the screen as though to remind her. . . . She started, sprang up, and flew to seek her kerchief, her hat, her coat, as though making her escape from me. . . . Two minutes later she came from behind the screen and looked with heavy eyes at me. I gave a spiteful grin, which was forced, however, to keep up appearances, and I turned away from her eyes. " Good-bye," she said, going towards the door. I ran up to her, seized her hand, opened it, thrust something in it and closed it again. Then I turned at once and dashed away in haste to the other corner of the room to avoid seeing, anyway. . . . I did mean a moment since to tell a lie — to write that I did this accidentally, not knowing what I was doing through foolishness, 152 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND through losing my head. But I don't want to lie, and so I will say straight out that I opened her hand and put the money in it ... from spite. It came into my head to do this while I was running up and down the room and she was sitting behind the screen. But this I can say for certain : though I did that cruel thing purposely, it was not an impulse from the heart, but came from my evil brain. This cruelty was so affected, so purposely made up, so completely a product of the brain, of books, that I could not even keep it up a minute — first I dashed away to avoid seeing her, and then in shame and despair rushed after Liza. I opened the door in the passage and began listening. " Liza ! Liza ! " I cried on the stairs, but in a low voice, not boldly. There was no answer, but I fancied I heard her footsteps, lower down on the stairs. " Liza 1 " I cried, more loudly. No answer. But at that minute I heard the stiff outer glass door open heavily with a creak and slam violently, the sound echoed up the stairs. She had gone. I went back to my room in hesitation. I felt horribly oppressed. I stood still at the table, beside the chair on which she had sat and looked aimlessly before me. A minute passed, suddenly I started ; straight before me on the table I saw. ... In short, I saw a crumpled blue five-rouble note, the one I had thrust into her hand a minute before. It was the same note; it could be no other, there was no other in the flat. So she had managed to fling it from her hand on the table at the moment when I had dashed into the further corner. " Well ! I might have expected that she would do that. Might I have expected it ? No, I was such an egoist, I was so lacking In respect for my fellow-creatures that I could not even imagine she would do so. I could not endure it. A minute later I flew like a madman to dress, flinging on what I could at random and ran headlong after her. She could not have got two hundred paces away when I ran out into the street. It was a still night and the snow was coming down in masses and falling almost perpendicularly, covering the pavement and the empty street as though with a pillow. There was no one in NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 153 the street, no sound was to be heard. The street lamps gave a disconsolate and useless glimmer. I ran two hundred paces to the cross-roads and stopped short. Where had she gone ? And why was I running after her ? Why? To fall down before her, to sob with remorse, to kiss her feet, to entreat her forgiveness ! I longed for that, my whole breast was being rent to pieces, and never, never shall I recall that minute with indifference. But — what for? I thought. Should I not begin to hate her, perhaps, even to-morrow, just because I had kissed her feet to-day ? Should I give her happi- ness ? Had I not recognized that day, for the hundredth time, what I was worth ? Should I not torture her ? I stood in the snow, gazing into the troubled darkness and pondered this. " And will it not be better ? " I mused fantastically, afterwards at home, stifling the living pang of my heart with fantastic dreams. " Will it not be better that she should keep the resentment of the insult for ever? Resentment — why, it is purification; it is a most stinging and painful consciousness ! To-morrow I should have defiled her soul and have exhausted her heart, while now the feeling of insult will never die in her heart, and however loathsome the filth awaiting her — the feeling of insult will elevate and purify her ... by hatred . . . h'm ! . . . perhaps, too, by forgiveness. . . . Will all that make things easier for her though? . . ." And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question : which is better — cheap happiness or exalted suffer- ings ? Well, which is better ? So I dreamed as I sat at home that evening, almost dead with the pain in my soul. Never had I endured such suffering and remorse, yet could there have been the faintest doubt when I ran out from my lodging that I should turn back half-way ? I never met Liza again and I have heard nothing of her. I will add, too, that I remained for a long time afterwards pleased with the phrase about the benefit from resentment and hatred in spite of the fact that I almost fell ill from misery. Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have, many evil memories now, but . . . hadn't I better end my " Notes " here ? I believe I made a mistake 154 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell 'long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once >a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as har^d work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume some- times ? Why are we perverse and ask for something else ? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us — excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that " all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry half- way, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully ! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called ? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men — men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 155 not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough ; I don't want to write more from " Underground." [The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, Jwwever. He could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here.] A FAINT HEART A STORY UNDER the same roof in the same flat on the same fourth storey lived two young men, colleagues in the service, Arkady Ivanovitch Nefedevitch and Vasya Shumkov. . . . The author of course, feels the necessity of explaining to the reader why one is given his full title, while the other's name is abbreviated, if only that such a mode of expression may not be regarded as unseemly and rather familiar. But, to do so, it would first be necessary to explain and describe the rank and years and calling and duty in the service, and even, indeed, the characters of the persons concerned ; and since there are so many writers who begin in that way the author of the proposed story, solely in order to be unlike them (that is, some people will perhaps say, entirely on account of his boundless vanity), decides to begin straightaway with action. Having completed this introduction, he begins. Towards six o'clock on New Year's Eve Shumkov returned home. Arkady Ivanovitch, who was lying on the bed, woke up and looked at his friend with half-closed eyes. He saw that Vasya had on his very best trousers and a very clean shirt front. That, of course, struck him. " Where had Vasya to go like that ? And he had not dined at home either ! " Meanwhile, Shumkov had lighted a candle, and Arkady Ivanovitch guessed immediately that his friend was intending to wake him accidentally. Vasya did, in fact, clear his throat twice, walked twice up and down the room, and at last, quite accidentally, let the pipe, wlu'ch he had begun filling in the corner by the stove, slip out of his hands. Arkady Ivanovitch laughed to himself. " Vasya, give over pretending ! " he said. " Arkasha, you are not asleep? " " I really cannot say for certain ; it seems to me I am not." " Oh, Arkasha I How are you, dear boy ? Well, brother I 156 A FAINT HEART 167 Well, brother ! . . . You don't know what I have to tell you ! " " I certainly don't know; come here." As though expecting this, Vasya went up to him at once, not at all anticipating, however, treachery from Arkady Ivano- vitch. The other seized him very adroitly by the arms, turned him over, held him down, and began, as it is called, " strangling " his victim, and apparently this proceeding afforded the light- hearted Arkady Ivanovitch great satisfaction. " Caught ! " he cried. " Caught ! " " Arkasha, Arkasha, what are you about ? Let me go. For goodness sake, let me go, I shall crumple my dress coat ! " " As though that mattered ! What do you want with a dress coat ? Why were you so confiding as to put yourself in my hands ? Tell me, where have you been ? Where have you dined ? " " Arkasha, for goodness sake, let me go ! " " Where have you dined ? " " Why, it's about that I want to tell you." " TeU away, then." " But first let me go." " Not a bit of it, I won't let you go till you tell me ! " " Arkasha ! Arkasha ! But do you understand, I can't — it is utterly impossible ! " cried Vasya, helplessly wriggling out of his friend's powerful clutches, " you know there are subjects ! " " How — subjects ? " . . . " Why, subjects that you can't talk about in such a position without losing your dignity; it's utterly impossible; it would make it ridiculous, and this is not a ridiculous matter, it is important." " Here, he's going in for being important ! That's a new idea ! You tell me so as to make me laugh, that's how you must tell me ; I don't want anything important ; or else you are no true friend of mine. Do you call yourself a friend ? Eh ? " " Arkasha, I really can't ! " " Well, I don't want to hear. . . ." " Well, Arkasha ! " began Vasya, lying across the bed and doing his utmost to put all the dignity possible into his words. " Ar- kasha ! If you like, I will tell you ; only . . ." " WeU, what ? . . ." 158 A FAINT HEART " Well, I am engaged to be married ! " Without uttering another word Arkady Ivanovitch took Vasya up in his arms like a baby, though the latter was by no means short, but rather long and thin, and began dexterously carrying him up and down the room, pretending that he was hushing him to sleep. " I'll put you in your swaddling clothes, Master Bridegroom," he kept saying. But seeing that Vasya lay in his arms, not stirring or uttering a word, he thought better of it at once, and reflecting that the joke had gone too far, set him down in the middle of the room and kissed him on the cheek in the most genuine and friendly way. " Vasya, you are not angry ? " " Arkasha, listen. ..." " Come, it's New Year's Eve." " Oh, I'm all right ; but why are you such a madman, such a scatterbrain ? How many times I have told you : Arkasha, it's really not funny, not funny at all ! " " Oh, well, you are not angry ? " " Oh, I'm all right ; am I ever angry with any one ! But you have wounded me, do you understand ? " " But how have I wounded you ? In what way ? " " I come to you as to a friend, with a full heart, to pour out my soul to you, to tell you of my happiness . . ." " What happiness ? Why don't you speak ? . . ." " Oh, well, I am going to get married ! " Vasya answered with vexation, for he really was a little exasperated. " You ! You are going to get married ! So you really mean it ? " Arkasha cried at the top of his voice. " No, no ... but what's this ? He talks like this and his tears are flowing. . . . Vasya, my little Vasya, don't, my little son ! Is it true, really ? " And Arkady Ivanovitch flew to hug him again. " Well, do you see, how it is now ? " said Vasya. " You are kind, of course, you are a friend, I know that. I come to you with such joy, such rapture, and all of a sudden I have to disclose all the joy of my heart, all my rapture struggling across the bed, in an undignified way. . . . You understand, Arkasha," Vasya went on, half laughing. " You see, it made it seem comic : and in a sense I did not belong to myself at that minute. I could not let this be slighted. . . What's more, if you had A FAINT HEART 169 asked me her name, I swear, I would sooner you killed me than have answered you." " But, Vasya, why did you not speak ! You should have told me all about it sooner and I would not have played the fool ! " cried Arkady Ivanovitch in genuine despair. " Come, that's enough, that's enough ! Of course, that's how it is. . . . You know what it all comes from — from my having a good heart. What vezes me is, that I could not tell you as I wanted to, making you glad and happy, telling you nicely and Initiating you into my secret properly. . . . Really, Arkasha, I love you so much that I believe if it were not for you I shouldn't be getting married, and, in fact, I shouldn't be living in this world at all ! " Arkady Ivanovitch, who was excessively sentimental, cried and laughed at once as he listened to Vasya. Vasya did the same. Both flew to embrace one another again and forgot the past. " How is it — how is it ? Tell me all about it, Vasya ! I am astonished, excuse me, brother, but I am utterly astonished; it's a perfect thunderbolt, by Jove ! Nonsense, nonsense, brother, you have made it up, you've really made it up, you are telling fibs 1 " cried Arkady Ivanovitch, and he actually looked into Vasya's face with genuine uncertainty, but seeing in it the radiant confirmation of a positive intention of being married as soon as possible, threw himself on the bed and began rolling from side to side in ecstasy till the walls shook. " Vasya, sit here," he said at last, sitting down on the bed. " I really don't know, brother, where to begin ! " They looked at one another in joyful excitement. " Who is she, Vasya ? " " The Artemyevs ! . . ." Vasya pronounced, in a voice weak with emotion. " No ? " " Well, I did buzz into your ears about them at first, and then I shut up, and you noticed nothing. Ah, Arkasha, if you knew how hard it was to keep it from you ; but I was afraid, afraid to speak ! I thought it would all go wrong, and you know I was in love, Arkasha ! My God ! my God ! You see this was the trouble," he began, pausing continually from agitation, " she had a suitor a year ago, but he was suddenly ordered somewhere ; 160 A FAINT HEART I knew him — he was a fellow, bless him 1 Well, he did not write at all, he simply vanished. They waited and waited, wondering what it meant. . . . Four months ago he suddenly came back married, and has never set foot within their doors I It was coarse — shabby ! And they had no one to stand up for them. She cried and cried, poor girl, and I fell in love with her . . . indeed, I had been in love with her long before, all the time ! I began comforting her, and was always going there. . . . Well, and I really don't know how it has all come about, only she came to love me ; a week ago I could not restrain myself, I cried, I sobbed, and told her everything — well, that I love her — every- thing, in fact !...'! am ready to love you, too, Vassily Petro- vitch, only I am a poor girl, don't make a mock of me ; I don't dare to love any one.' Well, brother, you understand ! You understand ? . . . On that we got engaged on the spot . I kept thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, I said to her, ' How are we to tell your mother ? ' She said, ' It will be hard, wait a little ; she's afraid, and now maybe she would not let you have me; she keeps crying, too.' Without telling her I blurted it out to her mother to-day. Lizanka fell on her knees before her, I did the same . . . well, she gave us her blessing. Arkasha, Arkasha ! My dear fellow ! We will live together. No, I won't part from you for anything." " Vasya, look at you as I may, I can't believe it. I don't believe it, I swear. I keep feeling as though. . . . Listen, how can you be engaged to be married ? . . . How is it I didn't know, eh ? Do you know, Vasya, I will confess it to you now. I was thinking of getting married myself; but now since you are going to be married, it is just as good ! Be happy, be happy ! . . ." " Brother, I feel so lighthearted now, there is such sweetness in my soul ..." said Vasya, getting up and pacing about the room excitedly. " Don't you feel the same ? We shall be poor, of course, but we shall be happy ; and you know it is not a wild fancy; our happiness is not a fairy tale; we shall be happy in reality ! . . ." " Vasya, Vasya, listen ! " " What ? " said Vasya, standing before Arkady Ivanovitch. " The idea occurs to me ; I am really afraid to say it to you. . . . Forgive me, and settle my doubts. What are you going A FAINT HEART 161 to live on ? You know I am delighted that you are going to be married, of course, I am delighted, and I don't know what to do with myself, but — what are you going to live on ? Eh ? " " Oh, good Heavens ! What a fellow you are, Arkasha ! " said Vasya, looking' at Nefedevitch in profound astonishment. " What do you mean ? Even her old mother, even she did not think of that for two minutes when I put it all clearly before her. You had better ask what they are living on ! They have five hundred roubles a year between the three of them : the pension, which is all they have, since the father died. She and her old mother and her little brother, whose schooling is paid for out of that income too — that is how they live ! It's you and I are the capitalists ! Some good years it works out to as much as seven hundred for me." " I say, Vasya, excuse me; I really . . . you know I ... I am only thinking how to prevent things going wrong. How do you mean, seven hundred ? It's only three hundred . . ." " Three hundred ! . . . And Yulian Mastakovitch ? Have you forgotten him ? " " Yulian Mastakovitch ? But you know that's uncertain, brother; that's not the same thing as three hundred roubles of secure salary, where every rouble is a friend you can trust. Yulian Mastakovitch, of course, he's a great man, in fact, I respect him, I understand him, though he is so far above us ; and, by Jove, I love him, because he likes you and gives you something for your work, though he might not pay you, but simply order a clerk to work for him — but you will agree, Vasya. . . . Let me tell you, too, I am not talking nonsense. I admit in all Petersburg you won't find a handwriting like your hand- writing, I am ready to allow that to you," Nefedevitch concluded, not without enthusiasm. " But, God forbid ! you may displease him all at once, you may not satisfy him, your work with him may stop, he may take another clerk — all sorts of things may happen, in fact ! You know, Yulian Mastakovitch may be here to-day and gone to-morrow . . ." " Well, Arkasha, the ceiling might fall on our heads this minute." " Oh, of course, of course, I mean nothing." " But listen, hear what I have got to say — you know, I don't see how he can part with me. . . . No, hear what I have to say ! M 162 A FAINT HEART hear what I have to say ! You see, I perform all my duties punctually; you know how kind he is, you know, Arkasha, he gave me fifty roubles in silver to-day 1 " " Did he really, Vasya ? A bonus for you ? " " Bonus, indeed, it was out of his own pocket. He said : ' Why, you have had no money for five months, brother, take some if you want it ; thank you, I am satisfied with you.' . . . Yes, really ! ' Yes, you don't work for me for nothing,' said he. He did, indeed, that's what he said. It brought tears into my eyes, Arkasha. Good Heavens, yes ! " " I say, Vasya, have you finished copying those papers ? . . ." " No. ... I haven't finished them yet." " Vas . . . ya ! My angel ! What have you been doing ? " " Listen, Arkasha, it doesn't matter, they are not wanted for another two days, I have time enough. ..." " How is it you have not done them ? " '' That's all right, that's all right. You look so horror-stricken that you turn me inside out and make my heart ache 1 You are always going on at me like this ! He's for ever crying out : Oh, oh, oh ! ! ! Only consider, what does it matter ? Why, I shall finish it, of course I shall finish it. . . ." " What if you don't finish it ? " cried Arkady, jumping up, " and he has made you a present to-day ! And you going to be married. . . . Tut, tut, tut ! . . ." " It's all right, it's all right," cried Shumkov, " I shall sit down directly, I shall sit down this minute." " How did you come to leave it, Vasya ? " "Oh, Arkasha 1 How could I sit down to work ! Have I been in a fit state ? Why, even at the office I could scarcely sit still, I could scarcely bear the beating of my heart. . . . Oh ! oh ! Now I shall work all night, and I shall work all to-morrow night, and the night after, too — and I shall finish it." " Is there a great deal left ? " " Don't hinder me, for goodness' sake, don't hinder me; hold your tongue." Arkady Ivanovitch went on tip-toe to the bed and sat down, then suddenly wanted to get up, but was obliged to sit down again, remembering that he might interrupt him, though he could not sit still for excitement : it was evident that the news had thoroughly upset him, and the first thrill of delight had not A FAINT HEART 163 yet passed off. He glanced at Shumkov; the latter glanced at him, smiled, and shook his finger at him, then, frowning severely (as though all his energy and the success of his work depended upon it), fixed his eyes on the papers. It seemed that he, too, could not yet master his emotion; he kept changing his pen, fidgeting in his chair, re-arranging things, and setting to work again, but his hand trembled and refused to move. " Arkasha, I've talked to them about you," he cried suddenly, as though he had just remembered it. " Yes," cried Arkasha, " I was just wanting to ask you that. Well?" " Well, I'll tell you everything afterwards. Of course, it is my own fault, but it quite went out of my head that I didn't mean to say anything till I had written four pages, but I thought of you and of them. I really can't write, brother, I keep thinking about you. ..." Vasya smiled. A silence followed. " Phew ! What a horrid pen," cried Shumkov, flinging it on the table in vexation. He took another. " Vasya ! listen ! one word ..." " Well, make haste, and for the last time." " Have you a great deal left to do ? " " Ah, brother ! " Vasya frowned, as though there could be nothing more terrible and murderous in the whole world than such a question. " A lot, a fearful lot." " Do you know, I have an idea " " What ? " " Oh, never mind, never mind ; go on writing." " Why, what ? what 1 " " It's past six, Vasya." Here Nefedevitch smiled and winked slyly at Vasya, though with a certain timidity, not knowing how Vasya would take it. " Well, what is it ? " said Vasya, throwing down his pen, looking him straight in the face and actually turning pale with excitement. " Do you know what ? " " For goodness sake, what is it ? " 164 A FAINT HEART " I tell you what, you are excited, you won't get much done. . . . Stop, stop, stop ! I have it, I have it — listen," said Nefedevitch, jumping up from the bed in delight, preventing Vasya from speaking and doing his utmost to ward off all objec- tions ; " first of all you must get calm, you must pull yourself together, mustn't you ? " " Arkasha, Arkasha ! " cried Vasya, jumping up from bis chair, " I will work all night, I will, really." " Of course, of course, you won't go to bed till morning." " I won't go to bed, I won't go to bed at all." " No, that won't do, that won't do : you must sleep, go to bed at five. I will call you at eight. To-morrow is a holiday; you can sit and scribble away all day long. . . . Then the night and — but have you a great deal left to do ? " " Yes, look, look ! " Vasya, quivering with excitement and suspense, showed the manuscript : " Look ! " " I say, brother, that's not much." " My dear fellow, there's some more of it," said Vasya, looking very timidly at Nefedevitch, as though the decision whether he was to go or not depended upon the latter. " How much ? " " Two signatures." " Well, what's that ? Come, I tell you what. We shall have time to finish it, by Jove, we shall ! " " Arkasha ! " " Vasya, listen ! To-night, on New Year's Eve, every one is at home with his family. You and I are the only ones without a home or relations. . . . Oh, Vasya ! " Nefedevitch clutched Vasya and hugged him in his leonine arms. " Arkasha, it's settled." " Vasya, boy, I only wanted to say this. You see, Vasya — listen, bandy-legs, listen ! . . ." Arkady stopped, with his mouth open, because he could not speak for delight. Vasya held him by the shoulders, gu/.ed into his face and moved his lips, as though he wanted to speak for him. " Well," he brought out at last. " Introduce me to them to-day." A FAINT HEART 166 " Arkady, let us go to tea there. I tell you what, I tell you what. We won't even stay to see in the New Year, we'll come away earlier," cried Vasya, with genuine inspiration. " That is, we'll go for two hours, neither more nor less . . . ." " And then separation till I have finished. ..." " Vasya, boy 1 " " Arkady ! " Three minutes later Arkady was dressed In his best. Vasya did nothing but brush himself, because he had been in such haste to work that he had not changed his trousers. They hurried out into the street, each more pleased than the other. Their way lay from the Petersburg Side to Kolomna. Arkady Ivanovitch stepped out boldly and vigorously, so that from his walk alone one could see how glad he was at the good fortune of his friend, who was more and more radiant with happiness. Vasya trotted along with shorter steps, though his deportment was none the less dignified. Arkady Ivanovitch, in fact, had never seen him before to such advantage. At that moment he actually felt more respect for him, and Vasya's physical defect, of which the reader is not yet aware (Vasya was slightly deformed), which always called forth a feeling of loving sympathy in Arkady Ivanovitch's kind heart, contributed to the deep tenderness the latter felt for him at this moment, a tenderness of which Vasya was in every way worthy. Arkady Ivanovitch felt ready to weep with happiness, but he restrained himself. " Where are you going, where are you going, Vasya ? It is nearer this way," he cried, seeing that Vasya was making in the direction of Voznesenky. " Hold your tongue, Ar kasha." " It really is nearer, Vasya." " Do you know what, Arkasha ? " Vasya began mysteriously, in a voice quivering with joy, " I tell you what, I want to take Lizanka a little present." " What sort of present ? " " At the corner here, brother, is Madame Leroux's, a wonderful shop." " Well." "A cap, my dear, a cap; I saw such a charming little cap to-day. I inquired, I was told it was the fa$on Manon Lescaut 166 A FAINT HEART — a delightful thing. Cherry-coloured ribbons, and if it is not dear . . . Arkasha, even if it is dear. . . ." " I think you are superior to any of the poets. Vasya. Come along." They ran along, and two minutes later went into the shop. They were met by a black-eyed Frenchwoman with curls, who, from the first glance at her customers, became as joyous and happy as they, even happier, if one may say so. Vasya was ready to kiss Madame Leroux in his delight. . . . " Arkasha," he said in an undertone, casting a casual glance at all the grand and beautiful things on little wooden stands on the huge table, " lovely things ! What's that ? What's this ? Tliis one, for instance, this little sweet, do you see ? " Vasya whispered, pointing to a charming cap further away, which was not the one he meant to buy, because he had already from afar descried and fixed his eyes upon the real, famous one, stand- ing at the other end. He looked at it in such a way that one might have supposed some one was going to steal it, or as though the cap itself might take wings and fly into the air just to prevent Vasya from obtaining it. " Look," said Arkady Ivanovitch, pointing to one, " I think that's better." " Well, Arkasha, that does you credit ; I begin to respect you for your taste," said Vasya, resorting to cunning with Arkasha in the tenderness of his heart, " your cap is charming, but come this way." " Where is there a better one, brother ? " " Look; this way." " That," said Arkady, doubtfully. But when Vasya, incapable of restraining himself any longer, took it from the stand from which it seemed to fly spontaneously, as though delighted at falling at last into the hands of so good a customer, and they heard the rustle of its ribbons, ruches and lace, an unexpected cry of delight broke from the powerful chest of Arkady Ivanovitch. Even Madame Leroux, while maintaining her incontestable dignity and pre-eminence in matters of taste, and remaining mute from condescension, rewarded Vasya with a smile of complete approbation, everytlung in her glance, gesture and smile saying at once : " Yes, you have chosen rightly, and are worthy of the happiness which awaits you." A FAINT HEART 167 " It has been dangling its charms in coy seclusion," cried Vasya, transferring his tender feelings to the charming cap. " You have been hiding on purpose, you sly little pet ! " And he kissed it, that is the air surrounding it, for he was afraid to touch his treasure. " Retiring as true worth and virtue," Arkady added enthusi- astically, quoting humorously from a comic paper he had read that morning. " Well, Vasya? " " Hurrah, Arkasha ! You are witty to-day. I predict you will make a sensation, as women say. Madame Leroux, Madame Leroux ! " " What is your pleasure ? " " Dear Madame Leroux." Madame Leroux looked at Arkady Ivanovitch and smiled condescendingly . " You wouldn't believe how I adore you at this moment. . . . Allow me to give you a kiss. ..." And Vasya kissed the shopkeeper. She certainly at that moment needed all her dignity to main- tain her position with such a madcap. But I contend that the Innate, spontaneous courtesy and grace with which Madame Leroux received Vasya's enthusiasm, was equally befitting. She forgave him, and how tactfully, how graciously, she knew how to behave in the circumstances. How could she have been angry with Vasya ? " Madame Leroux, how much ? " " Five roubles in silver," she answered, straightening herself with a new smile. " And this one, Madame Leroux ? " said Arkady Ivanovitch, pointing to his choice. " That one is eight roubles." " There, you see — there, you see I Come, Madame Leroux, tell me which is nicer, more graceful, more charming, which of them suits you best ? " " The second is richer, but your choice c'est plus coquet." " Then we will take it." Madame Leroux took a sheet of very delicate paper, pinned it up, and the paper with the cap wrapped in it seemed even lighter than the paper alone. Vasya took it carefully, almost holding his breath, bowed to Madame Leroux, said something else very polite to her and left the shop. 168 A FAINT HEART " I am a lady's man, I was born to be a lady's man," said Vasya, laughing a little noiseless, nervous laugh and dodging the ">y, whom he suspected of designs for crushing his precious cap. " Listen, Arkady, brother," he began a minute later, and there was a note of triumph, of infinite affection in his voice. " Arkady, I am so happy, I am so happy! " " Vasya ! how glad I am, dear boy ! " " No, Arkasha, no. I know that there is no limit to your affection for me ; but you cannot be feeling one-hundredth part of what I am feeling at this moment. My heart is so full, so full ! Arkasha, I am not worthy of such happiness. I feel that, I am conscious of it. Why has it come to me ? " he said, his voice full of stifled sobs. " What have I done to deserve it ? Tell me. Look what lots of people, what lots of tears, what sorrow, what work-a-day life without a holiday, while I, I am loved by a girl like that, I. ... But you will see her yourself immediately, you will appreciate her noble heart. I was born in a humble station, now I have a grade in the service and an independent income — my salary. I was born with a physical defect, I am a little deformed. See, she loves me as I am. Yulian Mastakovitch was so kind, so attentive, so gracious to-day; he does not often talk to me ; he came up to me : ' Well, how goes it, Vasya ' (yes, really, he called me Vasya), ' are you going to have a good time for the holiday, eh ? ' he laughed. " ' Well, the fact is, Your Excellency, I have work to do,' but then I plucked up courage and said : ' and maybe I shall have a good time, too, Your Excellency.' I really said it. He gave me the money, on the spot, then he said a couple of words more to me. Tears came into my eyes, brother, I actually cried, and he, too, seemed touched, he patted me on the shoulder, and said : ' Feel always, Vasya, as you feel this now.' ' Vasya paused for an instant. Arkady Ivanovitch turned away, and he, too, wiped away a tear with his fist. " And, and . . ." Vasya went on, " I have never spoken to you of this, Arkady. . . Arkady, you make me so happy \\itli your affection, without you I could not live, — no, no, don't say anything, Arkady, let me squeeze your hand, let me . . tha . . . ank . . . you ..." Again Vasya could not finish. Arkady Ivanovitch longed to throw himself on Vasya's neck. A FAINT HEART 169 but as they were crossing the road and heard almost in their ears a shrill : " Hi ! there I " they ran frightened and excited to the pavement. Arkady Ivanovitch was positively relieved. He set down Vasya's outburst of gratitude to the exceptional circumstances of the moment. He was vexed. He felt that he had done so little for Vasya hitherto. He felt actually ashamed of himself when Vasya began thanking him for so little. But they had all their lives before them, and Arkady Ivanovitch breathed more freely. The Artemyevs had quite given up expecting them. The proof of it was that they had already sat down to tea ! And the old, it seems, are sometimes more clear-sighted than the young, even when the young are so exceptional. Lizanka had very earnestly maintained, " He isn't coming, he isn't coming, Mamma; I feel in my heart he is not coming ; " while her mother on the contrary declared " that she had a feeling that he would certainly come, that he would not stay away, that he would run round, that he could have no office work now, on New Year's Eve. Even as Lizanka opened the door she did not in the least expect to see them, and greeted them breathlessly, with her heart throbbing like a captured bird's, flushing and turning as red as a cherry, a fruit which she wonderfully resembled. Good Heavens, what a surprise it was ! What a joyful " Oh ! " broke from her lips. " Deceiver! My darling! " she cried, throwing her arms round Vasya's neck. But imagine her amazement, her sudden con- fusion : just behind Vasya, as though trying to hide behind his back, stood Arkady Ivanovitch, a trifle out of countenance. It must be admitted that he was awkward in the company of women, very awkward indeed, in fact on one occasion something occurred . . . but of that later. You must put yourself in his place, however. There was nothing to laugh at ; he was standing in the entry, in his goloshes and overcoat, and in a cap with flaps over the ears, which he would have hastened to pull off, but he had, all twisted round in a hideous way, a yellow knitted scarf, which, to make things worse, was knotted at the back. He had to disentangle all this, to take it off as quickly as possible, to show himself to more advantage, for there is no one who does not prefer to show himself to advantage. And then Vasya, vexa- tious insufferable Vasya, of course always the same dear kind 170 A FAINT HEART Vasya, but now insufferable, ruthless Vasya. " Here," he shouted, " Lizanka, I have brought you my Arkady ? What do you think of him ? He is my best friend, embrace him, kiss him, Lizanka, give him a kiss in advance ; afterwards — you will know him better — you can take it back again." Well, what, I ask you, was Arkady Ivanovitch to do ? And he had only untwisted half of the scarf so far. I really am some- times ashamed of Vasya's excess of enthusiasm ; it is, of course, the sign of a good heart, but . . . it's awkward, not nice ! At last both went in. ... The mother was unutterably delighted to make Arkady Ivanovitch's acquaintance, " she had heard so much about him, she had ..." But she did not finish. A joyful " Oh ! " ringing musically through the room interrupted her in the middle of a sentence. Good Heavens ! Lizanka was standing before the cap which had suddenly been unfolded before her gaze; she clasped her hands with the utmost simplicity, smiling such a smile. ... Oh, Heavens ! why had not Madame Leroux an even lovelier cap ? Oh, Heavens ! but where could you find a lovelier cap ? It was quite first-rate. Where could you get a better one ? I mean it seriously. This ingratitude on the part of lovers moves me, in fact, to indignation and even wounds me a little. Why, look at it for yourself, reader, look, what could be more beautiful than this little love of a cap ? Come, look at it. ... But, no, no, my strictures are uncalled for ; they had by now all agreed with me ; it had been a momentary aberration ; the blindness, the delirium of feeling; I am ready to forgive them. . . . But then you must look . . . You must excuse me, kind reader, I am still talking about the cap : made of tulle, light as a feather, a broad cherry- coloured ribbon covered with lace passing between the tulle and the ruche, and at the back two wide long ribbons — they would fall down a little below the nape of the neck. . . . All that the cap needed was to be tilted a little to the back of the head ; come, look at it ; I ask you, after that . . . but I see you are not looking . . you think it does not matter. You are looking in a different direction. . . . You are looking at two big tears, big as pearls, that rose in two jet black eyes, quivered for one instant on the cyr lashes, and then dropped on the ethereal tulle of which Madame Leroux's artistic masterpiece was composed. . . . And again I feel vexed, those two tears were scarcely a tribute to the A FAINT HEART 171 cap. . . . No, to my mind, such a gift should be given in cool blood, as only then can its full worth be appreciated. I am, I confess, dear reader, entirely on the side of the cap. They sat down — Vasya with Lizanka and the old mother with Arkady Ivanovitch ; they began to talk, and Arkady Ivanovitch. did himself credit, I am glad to say that for him. One would hardly, indeed, have expected it of him. After a couple of words about Vasya he most successfully turned the conversation to Yulian Mastakovitch, his patron. And he talked so cleverly, so cleverly that the subject was not exhausted for an hour. You ought to have seen with what dexterity, what tact, Arkady Ivano- vitch touched upon certain peculiarities of Yulian Mastakovitch which directly or indirectly affected Vasya. The mother was fascinated, genuinely fascinated; she admitted it herself; she purposely called Vasya aside, and said to him that his friend was a most excellent and charming young man, and, what was of most account, such a serious, steady young man. Vasya almost laughed aloud with delight. He remembered how the serious Arkady had tumbled him on his bed for a quarter of an hour. Then the mother signed to Vasya to follow her quietly and cautiously into the next room. It must be admitted that she treated Lizanka rather unfairly : she behaved treacherously to her daughter, in the fullness of her heart, of course, and showed Vasya on the sly the present Lizanka was preparing to give him for the New Year. It was a paper-case, embroidered in beads and gold in a very choice design : on one side was depicted a stag, absolutely lifelike, running swiftly, and so well done ! On the other side was the portrait of a celebrated General, also an excellent likeness. I cannot describe Vasya's raptures. Mean- while, time was not being wasted in the parlour. Lizanka went straight up to Arkady Ivanovitch. She took his hand, she thanked him for something, and Arkady Ivanovitch gathered that she was referring to her precious Vasya. Lizanka was, indeed, deeply touched: she had heard that Arkady Ivanovitch was such a true friend of her betrothed, so loved him, so watched over him, guiding him at every step with helpful advice, that she, Lizanka, could hardly help thanking him, could not refrain from feeling grateful, and hoping that Arkady Ivanovitch might like her, if only half as well as Vasya. Then she began questioning him as to whether Vasya was careful of his health, expressed some 172 A FAINT HEART apprehensions in regard to his marked impulsiveness of character, and his lack of knowledge of men and practical life ; she said that she would in time watch over him religiously, that she would take care of and cherish his lot, and finally, she hoped that Arkady Ivanovitch would not leave them, but would live with them. " We three shall live like one," she cried, with extremely naive enthusiasm. But it was time to go. They tried, of course, to keep them, but Vasya answered point blank that it was impossible. Arkady Ivanovitch said the same The reason was, of course, inquired into, and it came out at once that there was work to be done entrusted to Vasya by Yulian Mastakovitch, urgent, necessary, dreadful work, which must be handed in on the morning of the next day but one, and that it was not only unfinished, but had been com- pletely laid aside. The mamma sighed when she heard of this, while Lizanka was positively scared, and hurried Vasya off in alarm. The last kiss lost nothing from this haste; though brief and hurried it was only the more warm and ardent. At last they parted and the two friends set off home. Both began at once confiding to each other their impressions as soon as they found themselves in the street. And could they help it ? Indeed, Arkady Ivanovitch was in love, desperately in love, with Lizanka. And to whom could he better confide his feelings than to Vasya, the happy man himself. And so he did; he was not bashful, but confessed everything at once to Vasya. Vasya laughed heartily and was immensely delighted, and even observed that this was all that was needed to make them greater friends than ever. " You have guessed my feelings, Vasya," said Arkady Ivanovitch. " Yes, I love her as I love you ; she will be my good angel as well as yours, for the radiance of your happiness will be shed on me, too, and I can bask in its warmth. She will keep house for me too, Vasya; my happiness will be in her hands. Let her keep house for me as she will for you. Yes, friendship for you is friendship for her ; you are not separable for me now, only I shall have two beings like you instead of one. ..." Arkady paused in the fullness of his feelings, while Vasya was shaken to the depths of his being by his friend's words. Tim fact is, he had never expected anything of the sort from Arkady. Arkady Ivanovitch was not very great at talking as a rule, he was not fond of dreaming, either ; now he gave way to A FAINT HEART 173 the liveliest, freshest, rainbow-tinted day-dreams. " How I will protect and cherish you both," he began again. " To begin with, Vasya, I will be godfather to all your children, every one of them ; and secondly, Vasya, we must bestir ourselves about the future. We must buy furniture, and take a lodging so that you and she and I can each have a little room to ourselves. Do you know, Vasya, I'll run about to-morrow and look at the notices, on the gates ! Three . . . no, two rooms, we should not need more. I really believe, Vasya, I talked nonsense this morning, there will be money enough; why, as soon as I glanced into her eyes I calculated at once that there would be enough to live on. It will all be for her. Oh, how we will work ! Now, Vasya, we might venture up to twenty- five roubles for rent. A lodging is every- thing, brother. Nice rooms . . . and at once a man is cheerful, and his dreams are of the brightest hues. And, besides, Lizanka will keep the purse for both of us : not a farthing will be wasted. Do you suppose I would go to a restaurant ? What do you take me for ? Not on any account. And then we shall get a bonus and reward, for we shall be zealous in the service — oh ! how we shall work, like oxen toiling in the fields. . . . Only fancy," and Arkady Ivanovitch's voice was faint with pleasure, "all at once and quite unexpected, twenty-five or thirty roubles. . . . When- ever there's an extra, there'll be a cap or a scarf or a pair of little stockings. She must knit me a scarf ; look what a horrid one I've got, the nasty yellow thing, it did me a bad turn to-day ! And you wore a nice one, Vasya, to introduce me while I had my head in a halter. . . . Though never mind that now. And look here, I undertake all the silver. I am bound to give you some little present, — that will be an honour, that will flatter my vanity. . . . My bonuses won't fail me, surely ; you don't suppose they would give them to Skorohodov ? No fear, they won't be landed in that person's pocket. I'll buy you silver spoons, brother, good knives — not silver knives, but thoroughly good ones ; and a waistcoat, that is a waistcoat for myself. I shall be best man, of course, Only now, brother, you must keep at it, you must keep at it. I shall stand over you with a stick, brother, to-day and to-morrow and all night ; I shall worry you to work. Finish, make haste and finish, brother. And then again to spend the evening, and then again both of us happy; we will go in for loto. We will spend the evening there — oh, it's jolly ! Oh, the devil ! How, vexing it 174 A FAINT HEART Is I can't help you. I should like to take It and write it all for you. . . . Why is it our handwriting is not alike ? " " Yes," answered Vasya. " Yes, I must make haste. I think it must be eleven o'clock ; we must make haste. ... To work ! " And saying this, Vasya, who had been all the time alternately smiling and trying to interrupt with some enthusiastic rejoinder the flow of his friend's feelings, and had, in short, been showing the most cordial response, suddenly subsided, sank into silence, and almost ran along the street. It seemed as though some burdensome idea had suddenly chilled his feverish head; he seemed all at once dispirited. Arkady Ivanovitch felt quite uneasy; he scarcely got an answer to his hurried questions from Vasya, who confined himself to a word or two, sometimes an irrelevant exclamation. "Why, what is the matter with you, Vasya] " he cried at last, hardly able to keep up with him. " Can you really be so uneasy ? " " Oh, brother, that's enough chatter ! " Vasya answered, with vexation. " Don't be depressed, Vasya — come, come," Arkady interposed. " Why, I have known you write much more in a shorter time ! What's the matter ? You've simply a talent for it ! You can write quickly in an emergency ; they are not going to lithograph your copy. You've plenty of time ! . . . The only thing is that you are excited now, and preoccupied, and the work won't go so easily." Vasya made no reply, or muttered something to himself, and they both ran home in genuine anxiety. Vasya sat down to the papers at once. Arkady Ivanovitch was quiet and silent ; he noiselessly undressed and went to bed, keeping his eyes fixed on Vasya. ... A sort of panic came over him. . . . " What is the matter with him ?" he thought to himself , looking at Vasya's face that grew whiter and whiter, at his feverish eyes, at the anxiety that was betrayed in every movement he made, " why, his hand is shaking . . . what a stupid ! Why did I not advise him to sleep for a couple of hours, till he had slept off his nervous excitement, any way." Vasya had just finished a page, he raised his eyes, glanced casually at Arkady and at once, looking down, took up his pen again. " Listen, ip Mihalitch asks to be discharged,' and under my petition I -signed my full rank! Just think what a notion! Good Lord, it was the cleverest thing I could think of ! As to-day was the first of April, I was pretending, for the sake of a joke, that my resentment was not over, that I had changed my mind in the night and was grumpy, and more offended than ever, as though to say, ' My dear benefactor, I don't want to know yon nor your daughter either. I put the money in my pocket yesterday, so I am secure — so here's my petition for a transfer to be discharged. I don't care to serve under such a chief as Fedosey Nikolaitch. I want to go into a different office and then, maybe, I'll inform.' I pretended to be a regular scoun- drel, I wanted to frighten them. And a nice way£of frighten- POLZUNKOV 219 ing them, wasn't it ? A pretty thing, gentlemen, wasn't it ? You see, my heart had grown tender towards them since the day before, so I thought I would have a little joke at the family — I would tease the fatherly heart of Fedosey Nikolaitch. " As soon as he took my letter and opened it, I saw his whole countenance change. "?' What's the meaning of this, Osip Mihalitch ? ' "And like a little fool I said — " ' The first of April ! Many happy returns of the day, Fedosey Nikolaitch ! ' just like a silly school-boy who hides behind his grandmother's arm-chair and then shouts ' oof ' into her ear suddenly at the top of his voice, meaning to frighten her. Yes . . . yes, I feel quite ashamed to talk about it, gentlemen ! No, I won't tell you." " Nonsense ! What happened then ? " " Nonsense, nonsense ! Tell us ! Yes, do," rose on all sides. " There was an outcry and a hullabaloo, my dear friends ! Such exclamations of surprise ! And ' you mischievous fellow, you naughty man,' and what a fright I had given them — and all so sweet that I felt ashamed and wondered how such a holy place could be profaned by a sinner like me. " ' Well, my dear boy,' piped the^ mamma, ' you gave me such a fright that my legs are all of a tremble still, I can hardly stand on my feet ! I ran to Masha as though I were crazy : " Mashenka," I said, " what will become of us ! See how your friend has turned out ! " and I was unjust to you, my dear boy, You must forgive an old woman like me, I was taken in ! Well, I thought, when he got home last night, he got home late, he began thinking and perhaps he fancied that we sent for him on purpose, yesterday, that we wanted to get hold of him. I turned cold at the thought ! Give over, Mashenka, don't go on winking at me — Osip Mihalitch isn't a stranger ! I am your mother, I am not likely to say any harm ! Thank God, I am not twenty, but turned forty-five.' " Well, gentlemen, I almost flopped at her feet on the spot. Again there were tears, again there were kisses. Jokes began. Fedosey Nikolaitch, too, thought he would make April fools of us. He told us the fiery bird had flown up with a letter in her diamond beak ! He tried to take us in, too — didn't we laugh ? weren't we touched ? Foo 1 I feel ashamed to talk about it. " Well, my good friends, the end is not far off now. One day 220 POLZUNKOV passed, two, three, a week; I was regularly engaged to her. I should think so ! The wedding rings were ordered, the day was fixed, only they did not want to make it public for a time — they wanted to wait for the Inspector's visit to be over. I was all impatience for the Inspector's arrival — my happiness depended upon him. I was in a hurry to get his visit over. And in the excitement and rejoicing Fedosey Nikolaitch threw all the work upon me : writing up the accounts, making up the reports, checking the books, balancing the totals. I found things in terrible disorder — everything had been neglected, there were muddles and irregularities everywhere. Well, I thought, I must do my best for my father-in-law ! And he was ailing all the time, he was taken ill, it appears ; he seemed to get worse day by day. And, indeed, I grew as thin as a rake mj^self, I was afraid I would break down. However, I finished the work grandly. I got things straight for him in time. " Suddenly they sent a messenger for me. I ran headlong — what could it be ? I saw my Fedosey Nikolaitch, his head ban- daged up in a vinegar compress, frowning, sighing, and moaning. " ' My dear boy, my son,' he said, ' if I die, to whom shall I leave you, my darlings ? ' " His wife trailed in with all his children; Mashenka was in tears and I blubbered, too. " ' Oh no,' he said. ' God will be merciful, He will not visit my transgressions on you.' " Then he dismissed them all, told me to shut the door after them, and we were left alone, t£le-a-tfre. " ' I have a favour to ask of you.' '•' ' What favour ? ' " ' Well, my dear boy, there is no rest for me even on my dcath- })<•(!. I am in want.' " ' How so ? ' I positively flushed crimson, I could hardly speak. " ' Why, I had to pay some of my own money into the Treasury. I grudge nothing for the public weal, my boy ! I don't grudge my life. Don't you imagine any ill. I am sad to think that Icrcis have blackened my name to you. . . . You were mistaken, my hair has gone white from grief. The Inspector is coming down upon us and Matveyev is seven thousand roubles short, and I shall have to answer for it. ... Who else ? It will be visited upon me, my boy : where were my eyes ? And how POLZUNKOV 221 can we get it from Matveyev ? He has had trouble enough already : why should I bring the poor fellow to ruin ? ' " ' Holy saints ! ' I thought, ' what a just man 1 What a heart ! ' " ' And I don't want to take my daughter's money, which has been set aside for her dowry : that sum is sacred. I have money of my own, it's true, but I have lent it all to friends — how is one to collect it all in a minute ? ' " I simply fell on my knees before him. ' My benefactor ! ' I cried, ' I've wronged you, I have injured you ; it was slanderers who wrote against you ; don't break my heart, take back your money ! ' " He looked at me and there were tears in his eyes. ' That was just what I expected from you, my son. Get up ! I for- gave you at the time for the sake of my daughter's tears — now my heart forgives you freely ! You have healed my wounds. I bless you for all time ! ' " Well, when he blessed me, gentlemen, I scurried home as soon as I could. I got the money : "'Here, father, here's the money. I've only spent fifty roubles.' " ' Well, that's all right,' he said. ' But now every trifle may count ; the time is short, write a report dated some days ago that you were short of money and had taken fifty roubles on account. I'll tell the authorities you had it in advance.' " Well, gentlemen, what do you think ? I did write that report, too ! " " Well, what then 1 What happened ? How did it end ? " " As soon as I had written the report, gentlemen, this is how it ended. The next day, in the early morning, an envelope with a government seal arrived. I looked at it and what had I got ? The sack ! That is, instructions to hand over my work, to deliver the accounts — and to go about my business ! " " How so ? " " That's just what I cried at the top of my voice, ' How so ? ' Gentlemen, there was a ringing in my ears. I thought there was no special reason for it — but no, the Inspector had arrived in the town. My heart sank. ' It's not for nothing,' I thought. And just as I was I rushed off to Fedosey Nikolaitch. " ' How is this ? ' I said. " ' What do you mean ? ' he said. 222 POLZUNKOV " ' Why, I am dismissed.' " ' Dismissed ? how ? ' " ' Why, look at this ! ' " ' WeU, what of it ? ' " ' Why, but I didn't ask for it ! ' " ' Yes, you did — you sent in your papers on the first of — April/ (I had never taken that letter back !) " ' Fedosey Nikolaitch ! I can't believe my ears, I can't believe my eyes ! Is this you ? ' " ' It is me, why ? ' " ' My God 1 ' " ' I am sorry, sir. I am very sorry that you made up your mind to retire from the service so early. A young man ought to be in the service, and you've begun to be a little light-headed of late. And as for your character, set your mind at rest : I'll see to that ! Your behaviour has always been so exemplary ! ' " ' But that was a little joke, Fedosey Nikolaitch ! I didn't mean it, I just gave you the letter for your fatherly . . . that's all/ " ' That's all? A queer joke, sir ! Does one jest with docu- ments like that ? Why, you are sometimes sent to Siberia for such jokes. Now, good-bye. I am busy. We have the Inspec- tor here — the duties of the service before everything; you can kick up your heels, but we have to sit here at work. But I'll get you a character Oh, another thing : I've just bought a house from Matveyev. We are moving in in a day or two. So I expect I shall not. have the pleasure of seeing you at our new residence. Bon voyage ! ' " I ran home. " ' We are lost, granny 1 ' " She wailed, poor dear, and then I saw the page from Fedosey Nikolaitch's running up with a note and a bird-cage, and in the cage there was a starling. In the fullness of my heart I had given her the starling. And in the note there were the words : ' April 1st,' and nothing more. What do you think of that, gentle- men ? " ' What happened then? What happened then? " " What then ! I met Fedosey Nikolaitch once, I meant to tell him to his face he was a scoundrel." "Well?" " But somehow I couldn't bring myself to it, gentlemen." A LITTLE HERO A STORY AT that time I was nearly eleven, I had been sent in July to spend the holiday in a village near Moscow with a relation of mine called T., whose house was full of guests, fifty, or perhaps more. ... I don't remember, I didn't count. The house was full of noise and gaiety. It seemed as though it were a continual holiday, which would never end. It seemed as though our host had taken a vow to squander all his vast fortune as rapidly as possible, and he did indeed succeed, not long ago, in justifying this surmise, that is, in making a clean sweep of it all to the last stick. Fresh visitors used to drive up every minute. Moscow was close by, in sight, so that those who drove away only made room for others, and the everlasting holiday went on its course. Festivities succeeded one another, and there was no end in sight to the entertainments. There were riding parties about the environs ; excursions to the forest or the river ; picnics, dinners in the open air; suppers on the great terrace of the house, bordered with three rows of gorgeous flowers that flooded with their fragrance the fresh night air, and illuminated the brilliant lights which made our ladies, who were almost every one of them pretty at all times, seem still more charming, with their faces excited by the impressions of the day, with their sparkling eyes, with their interchange of spritely conversation, their peals of ringing laughter ; dancing, music, singing ; if the sky were over- cast tableaux vivants, charades, proverbs were arranged, private theatricals were got up. There were good talkers, story-tellers, wits. Certain persons were prominent in the foreground. Of course backbiting and slander ran their course, as without them the world could not get on, and millions of persons would perish of boredom, like flies. But as I was at that time eleven I was 223 224 A LITTLE HERO absorbed by very different interests, and either failed to observe these people, or if I noticed anything, did not see it all. It was only afterwards that some things came back to my mind. My childish eyes could only see the brilliant side of the picture, and the general animation, splendour, and bustle — all that, seen and heard for the first time, made such an impression upon me that for the first few days, I was completely bewildered and my little head was in a whirl. I keep speaking of my age, and of course I was a child, nothing more than a child. Many of these lovely ladies petted me with- out dreaming of considering my age. But strange to say, a sensa- tion which I did not myself understand already had possession of me ; something was already whispering in my heart, of which till then it had had no knowledge, no conception, and for some reason it began all at once to burn and throb, and often my face glowed with a sudden flush. At times I felt as it were abashed, and even resentful of the various privileges of my childish years. At other times a sort of wonder overwhelmed me, and I would go off into some corner where I could sit unseen, as though to take breath and remember something — something which it seemed to me I had remembered perfectly till then, and now had suddenly forgotten, something without which I could not show myself anywhere, and could not exist at all. At last it seemed to me as though I were hiding something from every one. But nothing would have induced me to speak of it to any one, because, small boy that I was, I was ready to weep with shame. Soon in the midst of the vortex around me I was conscious of a certain loneliness. There were other children, but all were either much older or younger than I; be- sides, I was in no mood for them. Of course nothing would have happened to me if I had not been in an exceptional position. In the eyes of those charming ladies I was still the little un- formed creature whom they at once liked to pet, and with whom tlu-y could play as though he were a little doll. One of them particularly, a fascinating, fair woman, with very thick luxuriant hair, such as I had never seen before and probably shall never see again, seemed to have taken a vow never to leave me in peace. I was confused, while she was amused by the laughter which she continually provoked from all around us by her wild, giddy prinks with me, and this apparently gave her immense enjoy- A LITTLE HERO 225 ment. At school among her schoolfellows she was probably nicknamed the Tease. She was wonderfully good-looking, and there was something in her beauty which drew one's eyes from the first moment. And certainly she had nothing in common with the ordinary modest little fair girls, white as down and soft as white mice, or pastors' daughters. She was not very tall, and was rather plump, but had soft, delicate, exquisitely cut features. There was something quick as lightning in her face, and indeed she was like fire all over, light, swift, alive. Her big open eyes seemed to flash sparks ; they glittered like diamonds, and I would never exchange such blue sparkling eyes for any black ones, were they blacker than any Andalusian orb. And, indeed, my blonde was fully a match for the famous brunette whose praises were sung by a great and well-known poet, who, in a superb poem, vowed by ah1 Castille that he was ready to break his bones to be permitted only to touch the mantle of his divinity with the tip of his finger. Add to that, that my charmer was the merriest in the world, the wildest giggler, playful as a child, although she had been married for the last five years. There was a continual laugh upon her lips, fresh as the morning rose that, with the first ray of sunshine, opens its fragrant crimson bud with the cool dewdrops still hanging heavy upon it. I remember that the day after my arrival private theatricals were being got up. The drawing-room was, as they say, packed to overflowing ; there was not a seat empty, and as I was somehow late I had to enjoy the performance standing. But the amusing play attracted me to move forwarder and forwarder, and uncon- sciously I made my way to the first row, where I stood at last leaning my elbows on the back of an armchair, in which a lady was sitting. It was my blonde divinity, but we had not yet made acquaintance. And I gazed, as it happened, at her marvellous, fascinating shoulders, plump and white as milk, though it did not matter to me in the least whether I stared at a woman's exquisite shoulders or at the cap with flaming ribbons that covered the grey locks of a venerable lady in the front row. Near my blonde divinity sat a spinster lady not in her first youth, one of those who, as I chanced to observe later, always take refuge in the immediate neighbourhood of young and pretty women, selecting such as are not fond of cold-shouldering young men. But that is not the point, only this lady, noting my fixed gaze, bent down Q 226 A LITTLE HERO to her neighbour and with a simper whispered something in her ear. The blonde lady turned at once, and I remember that her glowing eyes so flashed upon me in the half dark, that, not pre- pared to meet them, I started as though I were scalded. The beauty smiled. " Do you like what they are acting ? " she asked, looking into my face with a shy and mocking expression. " Yes," I answered, still gazing at her with a sort of wonder that evidentty pleased her. " But why are you standing ? You'll get tired. Can't you find a seat ? " " That's just it, I can't," I answered, more occupied with my grievance than with the beauty's sparkling eyes, and rejoicing in earnest at having found a kind heart to whom I could confide my troubles. " I have looked everywhere, but all the chairs are taken," I added, as though complaining to her that all the chairs were taken. " Come here," she said briskly, quick to act on every decision, and, indeed, on every mad idea that flashed on her giddy brain, " come here, and sit on my knee." " On your knee," I repeated, taken aback. I have men- tioned already that I had begun to resent the privileges of childhood and to be ashamed of them in earnest. This lady, as though in derision, had gone ever so much further than the others. Moreover, I had always been a shy and bashful boy, and of late had begun to be particularly shy with women. " Why yes, on my knee. Why don't you want to sit on my knee ? " she persisted, beginning to laugh more and more, so that at last she was simply giggling, goodness knows at what, perhaps at her freak, or perhaps at my confusion. But that was just what she wanted. I flushed, and in my confusion looked round trying to find where to escape; but seeing my intention she managed to catch hold of my hand to prevent me from going away, and pulling it to- wurds her, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, to my intense astonish- ment, squeezed it in her mischievous warm fingers, and began t<> pinch my fingers till they hurt so much that I had to do my \c TV utmost not to cry out, and in my effort to control myself made the most absurd grimaces. I was, besides, moved to the greatest amazement, perplexity, and even horror, at the discovery A LITTLE HERO 227 that there were ladies so absurd and spiteful as to talk nonsense to boys, and even pinch their fingers, for no earthly reason and before everybody. Probably my unhappy face reflected my bewilderment, for the mischievous creature laughed in my face, as though she were crazy, and meantime she was pinching my fingers more and more vigorously. She was highly delighted in playing such a mischievous prank and completely mystifying and embarrassing a poor boy. My position was desperate. In the first place I was hot with shame, because almost every one near had turned round to look at us, some in wonder, others with laughter, grasping at once that the beauty was up to some mis- chief. I dreadfully wanted to scream, too, for she was wringing my fingers with positive fury just because I didn't scream; while I, like a Spartan, made up my mind to endure the agony, afraid by crying out of causing a general fuss, which was more than I could face. In utter despair I began at last struggling with her, trying with all my might to pull away my hand, but my persecutor was much stronger than I was. At last I could bear it no longer, and uttered a shriek — that was all she was waiting for ! Instantly she let me go, and turned away as though nothing had happened, as though it was not she who had played the trick but some one else, exactly like some school- boy who, as soon as the master's back is turned, plays some trick on some one near him, pinches some small weak boy, gives him a flip, a kick, or a nudge with his elbows, and instantly turns again, buries himself in his book and begins repeating his lesson, and so makes a fool of the infuriated teacher who flies down like a hawk at the noise. But luckily for me the general attention was distracted at the moment by the masterly acting of our host, who was playing the chief part in the performance, some comedy of Scribe's. Every one began to applaud; under cover of the noise I stole away and hurried to the furthest end of the room, from which, concealed behind a column, I looked with horror towards the place where the treacherous beauty was sitting. She was still laughing, holding her handkerchief to her lips. And for a long time she was continually turning round, looking for me in every direction, probably regretting that our silly tussle was so soon over, and hatching some other trick to play on me. That -was the beginning of our acquaintance, and from that 228 A LITTLE HERO evening she would never let me alone. She persecuted me without consideration or conscience, she became my tyrant and tormentor. The whole absurdity of her jokes with me lay in the fact that she pretended to be head over ears in love with me, and teased me before every one. Of course for a wild creature as I was all this was so tiresome and vexatious that it almost reduced me to tears, and I was sometimes put in such a difficult position that I was on the point of fighting with my treacherous admirer. My naive confusion, my desperate distress, seemed to egg her on to persecute me more ; she knew no mercy, while I did not know how to get away from her. The laughter which always accom- panied us, and which she knew so well how to excite, roused her to fresh pranks. But at last people began to think that she went a little too far in her jests. And, indeed, as I remember now, she did take outrageous liberties with a child such as I was. But that was her character; she was a spoilt child in every respect. I heard afterwards that her husband, a very short, very fat, and very red-faced man, very rich and apparently very much occupied with business, spoilt her more than any one. Always busy and flying round, he could not stay two hours in one place. Every day he drove into Moscow, sometimes twice in the day, and always, as he declared himself, on business. It would be hard to find a livelier and more good-natured face than his facetious but always well-bred countenance. He not only loved his wife to the point of weakness, softness : he simply worshipped her like an idol. He did not restrain her in anything. She had masses of friends, male and female. In the first place, almost everybody liked her ; and secondly, the feather-headed creature was not herself over particular in the choice of her friends, though there was a much more serious foundation to her character than might be suppled from what I have just said about her. But of all her friends she liked best of all one young lady, a distant relation, who was also of our party now. There existed between them a tender and subtle affection, one of those attachments which sometimes spring up at the meeting of two dispositions often the very opposite of each other, of which one is deeper, purer and more austere, while the other, with lofty humility, and generous self-criticism, lovingly gives way to the other, conscious of the friend's superiority and cherishing the friendship as a A LITTLE HERO 229 happiness. Then begins that tender and noble subtlety in the relations of such characters, love and infinite indulgence on the one side, on the other love and respect — a respect approaching awe, approaching anxiety as to the impression made on the friend so highly prized, and an eager, jealous desire to get closer and closer to that friend's heart in every step in life. These two friends were of the same age, but there was an immense difference between them in everything — in looks, to begin with. Madame M. was also very handsome, but there was some- thing special in her beauty that strikingly distinguished her from the crowd of pretty women; there was something in her face that at once drew the affection of all to her, or rather, which aroused a generous and lofty feeling of kindliness in every one who met her. There are such happy faces. At her side everyone grew as it were better, freer, more cordial; and yet her big mournful eyes, full of fire and vigour, had a timid and anxious look, as though every minute dreading something antagonistic and menacing, and this strange timidity at times cast so mournful a shade over her mild, gentle features which recalled the serene faces of Italian Madonnas, that looking at her one soon became oneself sad, as though for some trouble of one's own. The pale, thin face, in which, through the irreproachable beauty of the pure, regular lines and the mournful severity of some mute hidden grief, there often flitted the clear looks of early childhood, telling of trustful years and perhaps simple- hearted happiness in the recent past, the gentle but diffident, hesitating smile, all aroused such unaccountable sympathy for her that every heart was unconsciously stirred with a sweet and warm anxiety that powerfully interceded on her behalf even at a distance, and made even strangers feel akin to her. But the lovely creature seemed silent and reserved, though no one could have been more attentive and loving if any one needed sympathy. There are women who are like sisters of mercy in life. Nothing can be hidden from them, nothing, at least, that is a sore or wound of the heart. Any one who is suffering may go boldly and hopefully to them without fear of being a burden, for few men know the infinite patience of love, compassion and forgiveness that may be found in some women's hearts. Perfect treasures of sympathy, consolation and hope are laid up in these pure hearts, so often full of suffering of their own — for a heart 230 A LITTLE HERO which loves much grieves much — though their wounds are care- fully hidden from the curious eye, for deep sadness is most often mute and concealed. They are not dismayed by the depth of the wound, nor by its foulness and its stench; any one who comes to them is deserving of help ; they are, as it were, born for heroism. . . . Mme. M. was tall, supple and graceful, but rather thin. All her movements seemed somehow irregular, at times slow, smooth, and even dignified, at times childishly hasty; and yet, at the same time, there was a sort of timid humility in her gestures, something tremulous and defenceless, though it neither desired nor asked for protection. I have mentioned already that the outrageous teasing of the- treacherous fair lady abashed me, flabbergasted me, and wounded me to the quick. But there was for that another secret, strange and foolish reason, which I concealed, at which I shuddered as at a skeleton. At the very thought of it, brooding, utterly alone and overwhelmed, in some dark mj'sterious corner to which the inquisitorial mocking eye of the blue-eyed rogue could not penetrate, I almost gasped with confusion, shame and fear — in short, I was in love ; that perhaps is nonsense, that could hardly have been. But why was it, of all the faces surrounding me, only her face caught my attention ? Why was it that it only she whom I cared to follow with my eyes, though I certainly had no inclination in those days to watch ladies and seek their acquaintance ? This happened most frequently on the evenings when we were all kept indoors by bad weather, and when, lonely, hiding in some corner of the big drawing-room, I stared about me aimlessly, unable to find anything to do, for except my teasing ladies, few people ever addressed me, and I was insuffer- ably bored on such evenings. Then I stared at the people round me, listened to the conversation, of which I often did not under- stand one word, and at that time the mild eyes, the gentle smile and lovely face of Mine. M. (for she was the object of my passion) for some reason caught my fascinated attention ; and the strange vague, but unutterably sweet impression remained with me. Often for hours together I could not tear myself away from her ; 1 si tidied every LOslnrv. ev< ry movement she made, listened to every vibration of her rich, silvery, but rather nmflled voice; but strange to say, as the result of all my observations, I felt, mixed with a sweet and timid impression, a feeling of intense A LITTLE HERO 231 curiosity. It seemed as though I were on the verge of some mystery. Nothing distressed me so much as being mocked at in the presence of Mme. M. This mockery and humorous persecution, as I thought, humiliated me. And when there was a general burst of laughter at my expense, in which Mme. M. sometimes could not help joining, in despair, beside myself with misery, I used to tear myself from my tormentor and run away upstairs, where I remained in solitude the rest of the day, not daring to show my face in the drawing-room. I did not yet, however, understand my shame nor my agitation ; the whole process went on in me unconsciously. I had hardly said two words to Mme. M., and indeed I should not have dared to. But one evening after an unbearable day I turned back from an expedition with the rest of the company. I was horribly tired and made my way home across the garden. On a seat in a secluded avenue I saw Mme. M. She was sitting quite alone, as though she had pur- posely chosen this solitary spot, her head was drooping and she was mechanically twisting her handkerchief. She was so lost in thought that she did not hear me till I reached her. Noticing me, she got up quickly from her seat, turned round, and I saw her hurriedly wipe her eyes with her handkerchief. She was crying. Drying her eyes, she smiled to me and walked back with me to the house. I don't remember what we talked about ; but she frequently sent me off on one pretext or another, to pick a flower, or to see who was riding in the next avenue. And when I walked away from her, she at once put her hand- kerchief to her eyes again and wiped away rebellious tears, which would persist in rising again and again from her heart and dropping from her poor eyes. I realized that I was very much in her way when she sent me off so often, and, indeed, she saw herself that I noticed it all, but yet could not control herself, and that made my heart ache more and more for her. I raged at myself at that moment and was almost in despair ; curst <>n, very sad. I got glimpses from time to time through the green foliage of her white dress before me : I followed her mechanically, never losing sight of her, though I trembled at the thought that she might notice me. At last she came out on the little path that led to the house. After wait'inir half a minute I, too, emerged from th( bushes ; but what was my amazement when I saw lying A LITTLE HERO 251 on the red sand of the path a sealed packet, which I recognized, from the first glance, as the one that had been given to Mme. M. ten minutes before. I picked it up. On both sides the paper was blank, there was no address on it. The envelope was not large, but it was fat and heavy, as though there were three or more sheets of notepaper in it. What was the meaning of this envelope ? No doubt it would explain the whole mystery. Perhaps in it there was said all that N. had scarcely hoped to express in their brief, hurried interview. He had not even dismounted. . . . Whether he had been in haste or whether he had been afraid of being false to himself at the hour of parting — God only knows. . . . I stopped, without coming out on the path, threw the envelope in the most conspicuous place on it, and kept my eyes upon it, supposing that Mme. M. would notice the loss and come back and look for it. But after waiting four minutes I could stand it no longer, I picked up my find again, put it in my pocket, and set off to overtake Mme. M. I came upon her in the big avenue in the garden. She was walking straight towards the house with a swift and hurried step, though she was lost in thought, and her eyes were on the ground. I did not know what to do. Go up to her, give it her ? That would be as good as saying that I knew everything, that I had seen it all. I should betray myself at the first word. And how should I look, at her ? How would she look at me. I kept expecting that she would discover her loss and return on her tracks. Then I could, unnoticed, have flung the envelope on the path and she would have found it. But no ! We were approaching the house ; she had already been noticed. . . . As ill-luck would have it every one had got up very early that day, because, after the unsuccessful expedition of the evening before, they had arranged something new, of which I had heard nothing. All were preparing to set off, and were having breakfast in the verandah. I waited for ten minutes, that I might not be seen with Mme. M., and making a circuit of the garden approached the house from the other side a long time after her. She was walking up and down the verandah with her arms folded, looking pale and agitated, and was obviously trying her utmost to suppress the agonizing, despairing misery which could 252 A LITTLE HERO be plainly discerned in her eyes, her walk, her every movement. Sometimes she went down the verandah steps and walked a few paces among the flower-beds in the direction of the garden ; her eyes were impatiently, greedily, even incautiously, seeking something on the sand of the path and on the floor of the verandah. There could be no doubt she had discovered her loss and imagined she had dropped the letter somewhere here, near the house — yes, that must be so, she was convinced of it. 'Some one noticed that she was pale and agitated, and others made the same remark. She was besieged with questions about her health and condolences. She had to laugh, to jest, to appear lively. From time to time she looked at her husband, who was standing at the end of the terrace talking to two ladies, and the poor woman was overcome by the same shudder, the same embarrassment, as on the day of his first arrival. Thrusting my hand into my pocket and holding the letter tight in it, I stood at a little distance from them all, praying to fate that Mine. M. should notice me. I longed to cheer her up, to relieve her anxiety if only by a glance ; to say a word to her on the sly. But when she did chance to look at me I dropped my eyes. I saw her distress and I was not mistaken. To this day I don't know her secret. I know nothing but what I saw and what I have just described. The intrgiue was not such, perhaps, as one might suppose at the first glance. Perhaps that kiss was the of farewell, perhaps it was the last slight reward for the sacrifice made to her peace and honour. N. was going away, he was leav- ing her, perhaps for ever. Even that letter I was holding in my hand — who can tell what it contained ! How can one judge ? and who can condemn? And yet there is no doubt thai the sudden discovery of her secret would have been terrible — would have been a fatal blow for her. I still remember her face at that minute, it could not have shown more suffering. To feel, to know, to l)e convinced, to expect, as though it were one's execution, that in a quarter of an hour, in a minute perhaps, all might be di-i -ov. -red, the letter might be found by some one, picked up; there was no address on it, it might be opened, and then . . . What then ? What torture could be worse than what was awaiting her ? She moved about among those^who would be }H r judges. In another minute their smiling' flattering faces would be menacing and merciless. She would read mockery, A LITTLE HERO 263 malice and icy contempt on those faces, and then her life would be plunged in everlasting darkness, with no dawn to follow. . . Yes, I did not understand it then as I understand it now. I could only have vague suspicions and misgivings, and a heart- ache at the thought of her danger, which I could not fully understand. But whatever lay hidden in her secret, much was expiated, if expiation were needed, by those moments of anguish of which I was witness and which I shall never forget. But then came a cheerful summons to set off; immediately every one was bustling about gaily; laughter and lively chatter were heard on all sides. Within two minutes the verandah was deserted. Mme. M. declined to join the party, acknowledging at last that she was not well. But, thank God, all the others set off, every one was in haste, and there was no time to worry her with commiseration, inquiries, and advice. A few remained at home. Her husband said a few words to her; she answered that she would be all right directly, that he need not be uneasy, that there was no occasion for her to lie down, that she would go into the garden, alone . . . with me . . . here she glanced at me. Nothing could be more fortunate ! I flushed with pleasure, with delight ; a minute later we were on the way. She walked along the same avenues and paths by which she had returned from the copse, instinctively remembering the way she had come, gazing before her with her eyes fixed on the ground, looking about intently without answering me, possibly forgetting that I was walking beside her. But when we had already reached the place where I had picked up the letter, and the^path ended, Mme. M. suddenly stopped, and in a voice faint and weak with misery said that she felt worse, and that she would go home. But when she reached the garden fence she stopped again and thought a minute ; a smile of des- pair came on her lips, and utterly worn out and exhausted, resigned, and making up her mind to the worst, she turned with- out a word and retraced her steps, even forgetting to tell me of her intention. My heart was torn with sympathy, and I did not know what to do. We went, or rather I led her, to the place from which an hour before I had heard the tramp of a horse and their conversation. Here, close to a shady elm tree, was a seat hewn out of one huge 254 A LITTLE HERO stone, about which grew ivy, wild jasmine, and dog-rose ; the whole wood was dotted with little bridges, arbours, grottoes, and similar siarprises. Mine. M. sat down on the bench and glanced unconsciously at the marvellous view that lay open before us. A minute later she opened her book, and fixed her eyes upon it without reading, without turning the pages, almost unconscious of what she was doing. It was about half -past nine. The sun was already high and was floating gloriously in the deep, dark blue sky, as though melting away in its own light. The mowers were by now far away ; they were scarcely visible from our side of the river ; endless ridges of mown grass crept after them in unbroken succession, and from time to time the faintly stirring breeze wafted their fragrance to us. The never ceasing concert of those who " sow not, neither do they reap " and are free as the air they cleave with their sportive wings was all about us. It seemed as though at that moment every flower, every blade of grass was exhaling the aroma of sacrifice, was saying to its Creator, " Father, I am blessed and happy." I glanced at the poor woman, who alone was like one dead amidst all this joyous life ; two big tears hung motionless on her lashes, wrung from her heart by bitter grief. It was in my power to relieve and console this poor, fainting heart, only I did not know how to approach the subject, how to take the first step. I was in agonies. A hundred times I was on the point of going up to her, but every time my face glowed like fire. Suddenly a bright idea dawned upon me. I had found a way of doing it ; I revived. " Would you like me to pick you a nosegay ? " I said, in such a joyful voice that Mme M. immediately raised her head and looked at me intently. Sea, do," she said at last in a weak voice, with a fault smile, at once dropping her eyes on the book again. " Or soon they will be mowing the grass here and there will bo no flowers," I cried, eagerly setting to work. I had soon picked my nosegay, a poor, simple one, I should have been ashamed to take it indoors ; but how light my heart was as I picked the flowers and tied them up ! The dog-rose and the wild jasmine I picked closer to the seat, I knew that not far off then- \vjis a field of rye, not. yet ri]M>. I ran there for cornflowers; I mixed them with tall ears of rye, picking out the A LITTLE HERO 265 finest and most golden. Close by I came upon a perfect nest of forget-me-nots, and my nosegay was almost complete. Farther away in the meadow there were dark-blue campanulas and wild pinks, and I ran down to the very edge of the river to get yellow water-lilies. At last, making my way back, and going for an instant into the wood to get some bright green fan-shaped leaves of the maple to put round the nosegay, I happened to come across a whole family of pansies, close to which, luckily for me, the fragrant scent of violets betrayed the little flower hiding in the thick lush grass and still glistening with drops of dew. The nosegay was complete. I bound it round with fine long grass which twisted into- a rope, and I carefully lay the letter in the centre, hiding it with the flowers, but in such a way that it could be very easily noticed if the slightest attention were bestowed upon my nosegay. I carried it to Mme. M. On the way it seemed to me that the letter was lying too much in view : I hid it a little more. As I got nearer I thrust it still further in the flowers; and finally, when I was on the spot, I suddenly poked it so deeply into the centre of the nosegay that it could not be noticed at all from outside. My cheeks were positively flaming. I wanted to hide my face in my hands and run away at once, but she glanced at my flowers as though she had completely forgotten that I had gathered them. Mechani- cally, almost without looking, she held out her hand and took my present ; but at once laid it on the seat as though I had handed it to her for that purpose and dropped her eyes to her book again, seeming lost in thought. I was ready to cry at this mischance. " If only my nosegay were close to her," I thought ; "if only she had not forgotten it ! " I lay down on the grass not far off, put my right arm under my head, and closed my eyes as though I were overcome by drowsiness. But I waited, keeping my eyes fixed on her. Ten minutes passed, it seemed to me that she was getting paler and paler . . . fortunately a blessed chance came to my aid. This was a big, golden bee, brought by a kindly breeze, luckily for me. It first buzzed over my head, and then flew up to Mme. M. She Avaved it off once or twice, but the bee grew more and more persistent. At last Mme. M. snatched up my nosegay and waved it before my face. At that instant the letter dropped out from 256 A LITTLE HERO among the flowera and fell straight upon the open book. I started. For some time Mme. M., mute with amazement, stared first at the letter and then at the flowers which she was holding in her hands, and she seemed unable to believe her eyes. All at once she flushed, started, and glanced at me. But I caught her movement and I shut my eyes tight, pretending to be asleep. Nothing would have induced me to look her straight in the face at that moment. My heart was throbbing and leaping like a bird in the grasp of some village boy. I don't remember how long I lay with my eyes shut, two or three minutes. At last I ventured to open them. Mme. M. was greedily reading the letter, and from her glowing cheeks, her sparkling, tearful < her bright face, every feature of which was quivering with joyful emotion, I guessed that there was happiness in the letter and all her misery was dispersed like smoke. An agonizing, sweet feeling gnawed at my heart, it was hard for me to go on pretending. . . . I shall never forget that minute ! Suddenly, a long way off, we heard voices — " Mme. M. ! Natalie ! Natalie 1 " Mme. M. did not answer, but she got up quickly from the seat, came up to me and bent over me. I felt that she was looking straight into my face. My eyelashes quivered, but I controlled myself and did not open my eyes. I tried to breathe more evenly and quietly, but my heart smothered me with its violent throb- bing. Her burning breath scorched my cheeks; she bent close down to my face as though trying to make sure. At last a kiss and tears fell on my hand, the one which was lying on my breast. " Natalie ! Natalie ! where are you," we heard again, this time quite close. " Coming," said Mme. M., in her mellow, silvery voice, which was so choked and quivering with tears and so subdued that no one but I could hear that, " Coming ! " But at that instant my heart at last betrayed me and seemed to send all my blood rushing to my face. At that instant a swift, burning kiss scalded my lips. I uttered a faint cry. I opened my eyes, but at once the same gauze kercliief fell upon them, as though she meant to screen me from the sun. An instant later she was gone. I heard nothing but the sound of rapidly retreating stops. I was alone. A LITTLE HERO 257 I pulled off her kerchief and kissed it, . beside myself with rapture; for some moments I was almost frantic. . . . Hardly able to breathe, leaning on my elbow on the grass, I stared uncon- sciously before me at the surrounding slopes, streaked with cornfields, at the river that flowed twisting and winding far away, as far as the eye could see, between fresh hills and villages that gleamed like dots all over the sunlit distance — at the dark-blue, hardly visible forests, which seemed as though smoking at the edge of the burning sky, and a sweet stillness inspired by the triumphant peacefulness of the picture gradually brought calm to my troubled heart. I felt more at ease and breathed more freely, but my whole soul was full of a dumb, sweet yearning, as though a veil had been drawn from my eyes as though at a foretaste of something. My frightened heart, faintly quivering with expectation, was groping timidly and joyfully towards some conjecture . . . and all at once my bosom heaved, began aching as though something had pierced it, and tears, sweet tears, gushed from my eyes. I hid my face in my hands, and quivering like a blade of grass, gave myself up to the first consciousness and revelation of my heart, the first vague glimpse of my nature. My childhood was over from that moment. When two hours later I returned home I did not find Mme. M. Through some sudden chance she had gone back to Moscow with her husband. I never saw her again. MR. PROHARTCHIN A STORY IN the darkest and humblest corner of Ustinya Fyodorovna's flat lived Semyon Ivanovitch Prohartchin, a well-meaning elderly man, who did not drink. Since Mr. Prohartchin was of a very humble grade in the service, and received a salary strictly pro- portionate to his official capacity, Ustinya Fyodorovna could not get more than five roubles a month from him for his lodging. Some people said that she had her own reasons for accepting him as a lodger ; but, be that as it may, as though in despite of all his detractors, Mr. Prohartchin actually became her favourite, in an honourable and virtuous sense, of course. It must be ob- served that Ustinya Fj'odorovna, a very respectable woman, who had a special partiality for meat and coffee, and found it difficult to keep the fasts, let rooms to several other boarders who paid twice as much as Semyon Ivanovitch, yet not being quiet lodgers, but on the contrary all of them " spiteful scoffers " at her feminine ways and her forlorn helplessness, stood very low in her good opinion, so that if it had not been for the rent they paid, she would not have cared to let them stay, nor indeed to see them in her 'flat at all. Semyon Ivanovitch had become her favourite from the day when a retired, or, perhaps more correctly speaking, discharged clerk, with a weakness for strong drink, was carried to his last resting-place in Volkovo. Though this gentle- man had only one eye, having had the other knocked out owing, in his own words, to his valiant behaviour ; and only one leg, the other having been broken in the same way owing to his valour; yet he had succeeded in winning all the kindly feeling of which Ustinya Fyodorovna was capable, and took the fullest advantage of it, and would probably have gone on for years living as her devoted satellite and toady if he had not finally drunk himself to death in the most pitiable way. All this had happened at 258 MR. PROHARTCHIN 259 Peski, where Ustinya Fyodorovna only had three lodgers, of whom, when she moved into a new flat and set up on a larger scale, letting to about a dozen new boarders, Mr. Prohartchin was the only one who remained. Whether Mr. Prohartchin had certain incorrigible defects, or whether his companions were, every one of them, to blame, there seemed to be misunderstandings on both sides from the first. We must observe here that all Ustinya Fyodorovna's new lodgers without exception got on together like brothers ; some of them were in the same office ; each one of them by turns lost all his money to the others at faro, preference and bixe ; they all liked in a merry hour to enjoy what they called the fizzing moments of life in a crowd together; they were fond, too, at times of discussing lofty subjects, and though in the end things rarely passed off without a dispute, yet as all prejudices were banished from the whole party the general harmony was not in the least disturbed thereby. The most remarkable among the lodgers were Mark Ivanovitch, an intelligent and well-read man; then Oplevaniev; then Prepolovenko, also a nice and modest person; then there was a certain Zinovy Prokofyevitch, whose object in life was to get into aristocratic society ; then there was Okeanov, the copying clerk, who had in his time almost wrested the distinction of prime favourite from Semyon Ivanovitch; then another copying clerk called Sudbin; the plebeian Kantarev; there were others too. But to all these people Semyon Ivanovitch was, as it were, not one of themselves. No one wished him harm, of course, for all had from the very first done Prohartchin justice, and had decided in Mark Ivanovitch's words that he, Prohartchin, was a good and harmless fellow, though by no means a man of the world, trustworthy, and not a flatterer, who had, of course, his failings; but that if he were sometimes unhappy it was due to nothing else but lack of imagina- tion. What is more, Mr. Prohartchin, though deprived in this way of imagination, could never have made a particularly favour- able impression from his figure or manners (upon which scoffers are fond of fastening), yet his figure did not put people against him. Mark Ivanovitch, who was an intelligent person, formally undertook Semyon Ivanovitch's defence, and declared in rather happy and flowery language that Prohartchin was an elderly and respectable man, who had long, long ago passed the age of 2«0 MR. PROHARTCHIN romance. And so, if Semyon Ivanovitch did not know how to get on with people, it must have been entirely his own fault. The first thing they noticed was the unmistakable parsimony and niggardliness of Semyon Ivanovitch. That was at once observed and noted, for Semyon Ivanovitch would never lend any one his teapot, even for a moment ; and that was the more unjust as he himself hardly ever drank tea, but when he wanted anything drank, as a rule, rather a pleasant decoction of wild flowers and certain medicinal herbs, of which he always had a considerable store. His meals, too, were quite different from the other lodgers'. He never, for instance, permitted himself to partake of the whole dinner, provided daily by Us tiny a Fyodorovna for the other boarders. The dinner cost half a rouble ; Semyon Ivanovitch paid only twenty-five kopecks in copper, and never exceeded it, and so took either a plate of soup with pie, or a plate of beef ; most frequently he ate neither soup nor beef, but he partook in moderation of white bread with onion, curd, salted cucumber, or something similar, which was a great deal cheaper, and he would only go back to his half dinner when he could stand it no longer. . . . Here the biographer confesses that nothing would have in- duced him to allude to such realistic and low details, positively shocking and offensive to some lovers of the heroic style, if it were not that these details exhibit one peculiarity, one character- istic, in the hero of this story ; for Mr. Prohartchin was by no means so poor as to be unable to have regular and sufficient meals, though he sometimes made out that he was. But he acted as he did regardless of obloquy and people's prejudices, simply to satisfy his strange whims, and from frugality and excessive carefulness : all this, however, will be much clearer later on. But we will beware of boring the reader with the description of all Semyon Ivanovitch's whims, and will omit, for instance, the curious and very amusing description of his attire ; and, in fact, if it were not for Ustinya Fyodorovna's own reference to it we should hardly have alluded even to the fact that Semyon Ivanovitch never could make up his mind to send his linen to the wash, or if he ever did so it was so rarely that in the intervals one might have com- pletely forgotten the existence of linen on Semyon Ivanovitch. From the landlady's evidence it appeared that " Semyon Ivano- vitch, bless his soul, poor lamb, for twenty years had been tucked MR. PROHARTCHIN 261 away in his corner, without caring what folks thought, for all the days of his life on earth he was a stranger to socks, handkerchiefs, and all such things," and what is more, Ustinya Fyodorovna had seen with her own eyes, thanks to the decrepitude of the screen, that the poor dear man sometimes had had nothing to cover his bare skin. Such were the rumours in circulation after Semyon Ivanovitch's death. But in his lifetime (and this was one of the most frequent occasions of dissension) he could not endure it if any one, even somebody on friendly terms with him, poked his inquisitive nose uninvited into his corner, even through an aperture in the decrepit screen. He was a taciturn man difficult to deal with and prone to ill health. He did not like people to give him advice, he did not care for people who put themselves forward either, and if any one jeered at him or gave him advice unasked, he would fall foul of him at once, put him to shame, and settle his business. " You are a puppy, you are a featherhead, you are not one to give advice, so there — you mind your own business, sir. You'd better count the stitches in your own socks, sir, so there ! " Semyon Ivanovitch was a plain man, and never used the formal mode of address to any one. He could not bear it either when some one who knew his little ways would begin from pure sport pestering him with questions, such as what he had in his little trunk. . . . Semyon Ivanovitch had one little trunk. It stood under his bed, and was guarded like the apple of his eye ; and though every one knew that there was nothing in it except old rags, two or three pairs of damaged boots and all sorts of rubbish, yet Mr. Prohartchin prized his property very highly, and they used even to hear him at one time express dissatisfaction with his old, but still sound, lock, and talk of getting a new one of a special German pattern with a secret spring and various complications. When on one occasion Zinovy Prokofyevitch, carried away by the thoughtlessness of youth, gave expression to the very coarse and unseemly idea, that Semyon Ivanovitch was probably hiding and treasuring something in his box to leave to his descendants, every one who happened to be by was stupefied at the extra- ordinary effects of Zinovy Prokofyevitch's sally. At first Mr. Prohartchin could not find suitable terms for such a crude and coarse idea. For a long time words dropped from his lips quite incoherently, and it was only after a while they made out that 262 MR. PROHARTCHIN Semyon Ivanovitch was reproaching Zinovy Prokofyevitch for some shabby action in the remote past ; then they realized that Semyon Ivanovitch was predicting that Zinovy Prokofyevitch would never get into aristocratic society, and that the tailor to whom he owed a bill for his suits would beat him — would certainly beat him — because the puppy had not paid him for so long ; and finally, " You puppy, you," Semyon Ivanovitch added, " here you want to get into the hussars, but you won't, I tell you, you'll make a fool of yourself. And I tell you what, you puppy, when your superiors know all about it they will take and make you a copying clerk ; so that will be the end of it ! Do you hear, puppy ? " Then Semyon Ivanovitch subsided, but after lying down for five hours, to the intense astonishment of every one he seemed to have reached a decision, and began suddenly re- proaching and abusing the young man again, at first to himself and afterwards addressing Zinovy Prokofyevitch. But the matter did not end there, and in the evening, when Mark Ivanovitch and Prepolovenko made tea and asked Okeanov to drink it with them, Semyon Ivanovitch got up from his bed, purposely joined them, subscribing his fifteen or twenty kopecks, and on the pretext of a sudden desire for a cup of tea began at great length going into the subject, and explaining that he was a poor man, nothing but a poor man, and that a poor man like him had nothing to save. Mr. Prohartchin confessed that he was a poor man on this occasion, he said, simply because the subject had come up; that the day before yesterday he had meant to borrow a rouble from that impudent fellow, but now he should not borrow it for fear the puppy should brag, that that was the fact of the matter, and that his salary was such that one could not buy enough to eat, and that finally, a poor man, as you see, he sent his sister-in-law in Tver five roubles every month, that if he did not send his sister-in-law in Tver five roubles every month his sister-in-law would die, and if his sister-in-law, who was dependent on him, were dead, he, Semyon Ivanovitch, would long ago have bought himself a new suit. . . . And Semyon Ivanovitch went on talking in this way at great length about being a poor man, about his sister-in-law and about roubles, and kept repeating the same thing over and over again to impress it on his audience till he got into a regular muddle and relapsed into silence. Only three days later, when they had all forgotten ME. PROHARTCHIN 263 about him, and no one was thinking of attacking him, he added something in conclusion to the effect that when Zinovy Proko- fyevitch went into the hussars the impudent fellow would have his leg cut off in the war, and then he would come with a wooden leg and say ; " Semyon Ivanovitch, kind friend, give me some- thing to eat ! " and then Semyon Ivanovitch would not give him something to eat, and would not look at the insolent fellow ; and that's how it would be, and he could just make the best of it. All this naturally seemed very curious and at the same time fearfully amusing. Without much reflection, all the lodgers joined together for further investigation, and simply from curio- sity determined to make a final onslaught on Semyon Ivanovitch en masse. And as Mr. Prohartchin, too, had of late — that is, ever since he had begun living in the same flat with them — been very fond of finding out everything about them and asking inquisitive questions, probably for private reasons of his own, relations sprang up between the opposed parties without any preparation or effort on either side, as it were by chance and of itself. To get into relations Semyon Ivanovitch always had in reserve his peculiar, rather sly, and very ingenuous manoeuvre, of which the reader has learned something already. He would get off his bed about tea-time, and if he saw the others gathered together in a group to make tea he would go up to them like a quiet, sensible, and friendly person, hand over his twenty kopecks, as he was entitled to do, and announce that he wished to join them. Then the young men would wink at one another, and so indicating that they were in league together against Semyon Ivanovitch, would begin a conversation, at first strictly proper and decorous. Then one of the wittier of the party would, a propos of nothing, fall to telling them news consisting most usually of entirely false and quite incredible details. He would say, for instance, that some one had heard His Excellency that day telling Demid Vassilye- vitch that in his opinion married clerks were more trustworthy than unmarried, and more suitable for promotion ; for they were steady, and that their capacities were considerably improved by marriage, and that therefore he — that is, the speaker — in order to improve and be better fitted for promotion, was doing his utmost to enter the bonds of matrimony as soon as possible with a certain Fevronya Prokofyevna. Or he would say that it had more than once been remarked about certain of his colleagues 264 ME. PROHARTCHIN that they were entirely devoid of social graces and of well-bred, agreeable manners, and consequently unable to please ladies in good society, and that, therefore, to eradicate this defect it would be suitable to deduct something from their salary, and with the sum so obtained, to hire a hall, where they could learn to dance, acquire the outward signs of gentlemanliness and good- breeding, courtesy, respect for their seniors, strength of will, a good and grUteful heart and various agreeable qualities. Or he would say that it was being arranged that some of the clerks, beginning with the most elderly, were to be put through an ex- amination in all sorts of subjects to raise their standard of culture, and in that way, the speaker would add, all sorts of things would come to light, and certain gentlemen would have to lay their cards on the table — in short, thousands of similar very absurd rumours were discussed. To keep it up, every one believed the story at once, showed interest in it, asked questions, applied it to themselves ; and some of them, assuming a despondent air, began shaking their heads and asking every one's advice, saying what were they to do if they were to come under it ? It need hardly be said that a man far less credulous and simple-hearted than Mr. Prohartchin would have been puzzled and carried away by a rumour so unanimously believed. Moreover, from all appear- ances, it might be safely concluded that Semyon Ivanovitch was exceedingly stupid and slow to grasp any new unusual idea, and that when he heard anything new, he had always first, as it were, to chew it over and digest it, to find out the meaning, and struggling with it in bewilderment, at last perhaps to overcome it, though even then in a quite special manner peculiar to himself alone. . . . In this way curious and hitherto unexpected qualities began to show themselves in Semyon Ivanovitch. . . . Talk and tittle- tattle followed, and by devious ways it all reached the office at last, with additions. What increased the sensation was the fact that Mr. Prohartchin, who had looked almost exactly the same from time immemorial, suddenly, d propos of nothing, wore quite a different countenance. His face was uneasy, his eyes were timid and had a scared and rather suspicious expression. He took to walking softly, starting and listening, and to put the finishing touch to his new characteristics developed a passion for investigating the truth. He carried his love of truth at last to MR. PROHARTCHIN 265 such a pitch as to venture, on two occasions, to inquire of Demid Vassilyevitch himself concerning the credibility of the strange rumours that reached him daily by dozens, and if we say nothing here of the consequence of the action of Semyon Ivanovitch, it is for no other reason but a sensitive regard for his reputation. It was in this way people came to consider him as misanthropic and regardless of the proprieties. Then they began to discover that there was a great deal that was fantastical about him, and in this they were not altogether mistaken, for it was observed on more than one occasion that Semyon Ivanovitch completely forgot himself, and sitting in his seat with his mouth open and liis pen in the air, as though frozen or petrified, looked more like the shadow of a rational being than that rational being itself. It sometimes happened that some innocently gaping gentleman, on suddenly catching his straying, lustreless, questioning eyes, was scared and all of a tremor, and at once inserted into some important document either a smudge or some quite inappropri- ate word. The impropriety of Semyon Ivanovitch's behaviour embarrassed and annoyed all really well-bred people. ... At last no one could feel any doubt of the eccentricity of Semyon Ivanovitch's mind, when one fine morning the rumour was all over the office that Mr. Prohartchin had actually frightened Demid Vassilyevitch himself, for, meeting him in the corridor, Semyon Ivanovitch had been so strange and peculiar that he had forced his superior to beat a retreat. . . . The news of Semyon Ivanovitch's behaviour reached him himself at last. Hearing of it he got up at once, made his way carefully between the chairs and tables, reached the entry, took down his overcoat with his own hand, put it on, went out, and disappeared for an indefinite period. Whether he was led into this by alarm or some other impulse we cannot say, but no trace was seen of him for a time either at home or at the office. . . . We will not attribute Semyon Ivanovitch's fate simply to his eccentricity, yet we must observe to the reader that our hero was a very retiring man, unaccustomed to society, and had, until he made the acquaintance of the new lodgers, lived in complete unbroken solitude, and had been marked by his quietness and even a certain mysteriousness ; for he had spent all the time that he lodged at Peski lying on his bed behind the screen, without talking or having any sort of relation! with any one. Both his 266 MR. PROHARTCHIN old fellow- lodgers lived exactly as he did : they, too were, somehow mysterious people and spent fifteen years lying behind their screens. The happy, drowsy hours and days trailed by, one after the other, in patriarchal stagnation, and as everything around them went its way in the same happy fashion, neither Semyon Ivano- vitch nor Ustinya Fyodorovna could remember exactly when fate had brought them together. " It may be ten years, it may be twenty, it may be even twenty-five altogether," she would say at times to her new lodgers, " since he settled with me, poor dear man, bless his heart ! " And so it was very natural that the hero of our story, being so unaccustomed to society was disagreeably surprised when, a year before, he, a respectable and modest man, had found himself, suddenly in the midst of a noisy and boisterous crew, consisting of a dozen young fellows, his colleagues at the office, and his new house-mates. The disappearance of Semyon Ivanovitch made no little stir in the lodgings. One thing was that he was the favourite ; another, that his passport, which had been in the landlady's keeping, appeared to have been accidentally mislaid. Ustinya Fyodorovna raised a howl, as was her invariable habit on all critical occa- sions. She spent two days in abusing and upbraiding the lodgers. She wailed that they had chased away her lodger like a chicken, and all those spiteful scoffers had been the ruin of him ; and on the third day she sent them all out to hunt for the fugitive and at all costs to bring him back, dead or alive. Towards even- ing Sudbin first came back with the news that traces had been discovered, that he had himself seen the runaway in Tolkutchy Market and other places, had followed and stood close to him, but had not dared to speak to him ; he had been near him in a crowd watching a house on fire in Crooked Lane. Half an hour later Okeanov and Kantarev came in and confirmed Sudbin's story, word for word ; they, too, had stood near, had followed him quite close, had stood not more than ten paces from him, but they also had not ventured to speak to him, but both ob- served that Semyon Ivanovitch was walking with a drunken cadger. The other lodgers were all back and together at last, and after listening attentively they made up their minds that Prohartchin could not be far off and would not be long in return- ing ; but they said that they had all known beforehand that he MR. PROHARTCHIN 267 was about with a drunken cadger. This drunken cadger was a thoroughly bad lot, insolent and cringing, and it seemed evi- dent that he had got round Semyon Ivanovitch in some way. He had turned up just a week before Semyon Ivanovitch's dis- appearance in company with Remnev, had spent a little time in the flat telling them that he had suffered in the cause of justice, that he had formerly been in the service in the provinces, that an inspector had come down on them, that he and his associates had somehow suffered in a good cause, that he had come to Peters- burg and fallen at the feet of Porfiry Grigoryevitch, that he had been got, by interest, into a department ; but through the cruel persecution of fate he had been discharged from there too, and that afterwards through reorganization the office itself had ceased to exist, and that he had not been included in the new revised staff of clerks owing as much to direct incapacity for official work as to capacity for something else quite irrelevant — all this mixed up with his passion for justice and of course the trickery of his enemies. After finishing his story, in the course of which Mr. Zimoveykin more than once kissed his sullen and unshaven friend Remnev, he bowed down to all in the room in turn, not forgetting Avdotya the servant, called them all his benefactors, and explained that he was an unde- serving, troublesome, mean, insolent and stupid man, and that good people must not be hard on his pitiful plight and simplicity. After begging for their kind protection Mr. Zimoveykin showed his livelier side, grew very cheerful, kissed Ustinya Fyodorovna's hands, in spite of her modest protests that her hand was coarse and not like a lady's ; and towards evening promised to show the company his talent in a remarkable character dance. But next day his visit ended in a lamentable denouement. Either because there had been too much character in the character- dance, or because he had, in Ustinya Fyodorovna's own words, somehow " insulted her and treated her as no lady, though she was on friendly terms with Yaroslav Hyitch himself, and if she liked might long ago have been an officer's wife," Zimoveykin had to steer for home next day. He went away, came back again, was again turned out with ignominy, then wormed his way into Semyon Ivanovitch's good graces, robbed him incidentally of his new breeches, and now it appeared he had led Semyon Ivanovitch astray. 265 MR. PROHARTCHIN As soon as the landlady knew that Semyon Ivanovitch was alive and well, and that there was no need to hunt for his passport, she promptly left off grieving and was pacified. Meanwhile some of the lodgers determined to give the runaway a trium- phal reception ; they broke the bolt and moved away the screen fom Mr. Prohartchin's bed, rumpled up the bed a little, took the famous box, put it at the foot of the bed ; and on the bed laid the sister-in-law, that is, a dummy made up of an old kerchief, a cap and a mantle of the landlady's, such an exact counterfeit of a sister-in-law that it might have been mistaken for one. Having finished their work they waited for Semyon Ivanovitch to return, meaning to tell him that his sister-in-law had arrived from the country and was there behind his screen, poor thing ! But they waited and waited. Already, while they waited, Mark Ivanovitch had staked and lost half a month's salary to Prepolovenko and Kantarev; al- ready Okeanov's nose had grown red and swollen playing " flips on the nose " and " three cards ; " already Avdotya the servant had almost had her sleep out and had twice been on the point of getting up to fetch the wood and light the stove, and Zinovy Prokofyevitch, who kept running out every minute to see whether Semyon Ivanovitch were coming, was wet to the skin ; but there was no sign of any one yet — neither Semyon Ivanovitch nor the drunken cadger. At last every one went to bed, leaving the sister- in-law behind the screen in readiness for any emergency ; and it was not till four o'clock that a knock was heard at the gate, but when it did come it was so loud that it quite made up to the expectant lodgers for all the wearisome trouble they had been through. It was he — he himself — Semyon Ivanovitch, Mr. Pro- hartchin, but in such a condition that they all cried out in dismay, and no one thought about the sister-in-law. The lost man was unconscious. He was brought in, or more correctly carried in, by a sopping and tattered night-cabman. To the landlady's question where the poor dear man had got so groggy, the cabman answered : " Why, he is not drunk and has not had a drop, that I can tell you, for sure ; but seemingly a faintness has come over him, or some sort of a fit, or maybe he's been knocked down b)T a blow." They began examining him, propping the culprit against the stove to do so more conveniently, and saw that it really was not a taae of drunkenness, nor had he had a blow, but that something MB. PROHARTCHIN 269 else was wrong, for Semyon Ivanovitch could not utter a word, but seemed twitching in a sort of convulsion, and only blinked, fixing his eyes in bewilderment first on one and then on another of the spectators, who were all attired in night array. Then they began questioning the cabman, asking where he had got him from. " Why, from folks out Kolomna way," he answered. " Deuce knows what they are, not exactly gentry, but merry, rollicking gentlemen ; so he was like this when they gave him to me ; whether they had been fighting, or whether he was in some sort of a fit, goodness knows what it was ; but they were nice, jolly gentlemen ! " Semyon Ivanovitch was taken, lifted high on the shoulders of two or three sturdy fellows, and carried to his bed. When Semyon Ivanovitch on being put in bed felt the sister-in-law, and put his feet on his sacred box, he cried out at the top of his voice, squatted up almost on his heels, and trembling and shaking all over, with his hands and his body he cleared a space as far as he could in his bed, while gazing with a tremulous but strangely resolute look at those present, he seemed as it were to protest that he would sooner die than give up the hundredth part of his poor belongings to any one. . . . Semyon Ivanovitch lay for two or three days closely barri- caded by the screen, and so cut off from all the world and all its vain anxieties. Next morning, of course, every one had forgotten about him; time, meanwhile, flew by as usual, hour followed hour and day followed day. The sick man's heavy, feverish brain was plunged in something between sleep and delirium ; but he lay quietly and did not moan or complain ; on the contrary he kept still and silent and controlled himself, lying low in his bed, just as the hare lies close to the earth when it hears the hunter. At times a long depressing stillness prevailed in the flat, a sign that the lodgers had all gone to the office, and Semyon Ivanovitch, waking up, could relieve his depression by listening to the bustle in the kitchen, where the landlady was busy close by ; or to the regular flop of Avdotya's down-trodden slippers as, sighing and moaning, she cleared away, rubbed and polished, tidying all the rooms in the flat. Whole hours passed by in that way, drowsy, languid, sleepy, wearisome, like the water that dripped with a regular sound from the locker into the basin in the kitchen. At last the lodgers would arrive, one by one or in groups, and Semyon 270 MR. PROHARTCHIN Ivanovitch could very conveniently hear them abusing the weather, saying they were hungry, making a noise, smoking, quarrelling, and making friends, playing cards, and clattering the cups as they got ready for tea. Semyon Ivanovitch mechanically made an effort to get up and join them, as he had a right to do at tea; but he at once sank back into drowsiness, and dreamed that he had been sitting a long time at the tea-table, having tea with them and talking, and that Zinovy Prokofyevitch had already seized the opportunity to introduce into the conversation some scheme concerning sisters-in-law and the moral relation of various worthy people to them. At this point Semyon Ivanovitch was in haste to defend himself and reply. But the mighty formula that flew from every tongue — " It has more than once been observed " — cut short all his objections, and Semyon Ivano- vitch could do nothing better than begin dreaming again that to-day was the first of the month and that he was receiving money in his office. Undoing the paper round it on the stairs, he looked about him quickly, and made haste as fast as he could to subtract half of the lawful wages he had received and conceal it in his boot. Then on the spot, on the stairs, quite regardless of the fact that he was in bed and asleep, he made up his mind when he reached home to give his landlady what was due for board and lodging ; then to buy certain necessities, and to show any one it might concern, as it were casually and unintentionally, that some of his salary had been deducted, that now he had nothing left to send his sister-in-law ; then to speak with commiseration of his sister-in- law, to say a great deal about her the next day and the day after, and ten days later to say something casually again about her poverty, that his companions might not forget. Making this determination he observed that Andrey Efimovitch, that ever- lastingly silent, bald little man who sat in the office three rooms from where Semyon Ivanovitch sat, and hadn't said a word to him for twenty years, was standing on the stairs, that he, too, was counting his silver roubles, and shaking his head, he said to him : " Money ! " "If there's no money there will be no porridge," he added grimly as he went down the stairs, and just at the door he ended : " And I have seven children, sir." Then the little bald man, probably equally unconscious that he was acting as a phantom and not as a substantial reality, hold up hi* hand about MR PROHARTCHIN 271 thirty inches from the floor, and waving it vertically, muttered that the eldest was going to school, then glancing with indignation at Semyon Ivanovitch, as though it were Mr. Prohartchin's fault that he was the father of seven, pulled his old hat down over his eyes, and with a whisk of his overcoat he turned to the left and disappeared. Semyon Ivanovitch was quite frightened, and though he was fully convinced of his own innocence in regard to the unpleasant accumulation of seven under one roof, yet it seemed to appear that in fact no one else was to blame but Semyon Ivanovitch. Panic-stricken he set off running, for it seemed to him that the bald gentleman had turned back, was running after him, and meant to search him and take away all his salary, insist- ing upon the indisputable number seven, and resolutely denying any possible claim of any sort of sisters-in-law upon Semyon Ivano- vitch. Prohartchin ran and ran, gasping for breath. . . . Beside him was running, too, an immense number of people, and all of them were jingling their money in the tailpockets of their skimpy little dress-coats ; at last every one ran up, there was the noise of fire engines, and whole masses of people carried him almost on their shoulders up to that same house on fire which he had watched last time in company with the drunken cadger. The drunken cadger — alias Mr. Zimoveykin — was there now, too, he met Semyon Ivano- vitch, made a fearful fuss, took him by the arm, and led himinto the thickest part of the crowd. Just as then in reality, all about them was the noise and uproar of an immense crowd of people, flooding the whole of Fontanka Embankment between the two bridges, as well as all the surrounding streets and alleys; just as then, Semyon Ivanovitch, in company with the drunken cadger, was carried along behind a fence, where they were squeezed as though in pincers in a huge timber-yard full of spectators who had gathered from the street, from Tolkutchy Market and from all the surrounding houses, taverns, and restaurants. Semyon Ivanovitch saw all this and felt as he had done at the time ; in the whirl of fever and delirium all sorts of strange figures began flitting before him. He remembered some of them. One of them was a gentleman who had impressed every one extremely, a man seven feet high, with whiskers half a yard long, who had been standing behind Semyon Ivanovitch's back during the fire, and had given him encouragement from behind, when our hero had felt something like ecstasy and had stamped as though 272 MR. PROHARTCHIN intending thereby to applaud the gallant work of the firemen, from which he had an excellent view from his elevated position. Another was the sturdy lad from whom our hero had received a shove by way of a lift on to another fence, when he had been disposed to climb over it, possibly to save some one. He had a glimpse, too, of the figure of the old man with a sickly face, in an old wadded dressing-gown, tied round the waist, who had made his appearance before the fire in a little shop buying sugar and tobacco for his lodger, and who now, with a milk-can and a quart pot in his hands, made his way through the crowd to the house in which his wife and daughter were burning together with thirteen and a half roubles in the corner under the bed. But most distinct of all was the poor, sinful woman of whom he had dreamed more than once during his illness — she stood before him now as she had done then, in wretched bark shoes and rags, with a crutch and a wicker-basket on her back. She was shouting more loudly than the firemen or the crowd, waving her crutch and her arms, saying that her own children had turned her out and that she had lost two coppers in consequence. The children and the coppers, the coppers and the children, were mingled together in an utterly incomprehensible muddle, from which every one withdrew baffled, after vain efforts to understand. But the woman would not desist, she kept wailing, shouting, and waving her arms, seeming to pay no attention either to the fire up to which she had been carried by the crowd from the street or to the people about her, or to the misfortune of strangers, or even to the sparks and red-hot embers which were beginning to fall in showers on the crowd standing near. At last Mr. Prohart- chin felt that a feeling of terror was coming upon him ; for he saw clearly that all this was not, so to say, an accident, and that he would not get off scot-free. And, indeed, upon the woodstack, close to him, was a peasant, in a torn smock that hung loose about him, with his hair and beard singed, and he began stirring up all the people against Semyon Ivanovitch. The crowd pressed closer and closer, the peasant shouted, and foaming at the mouth with horror, Mr. Prohartchin suddenly realized that this peasant was a cabman whom he had cheated five years before in the most inhuman way, slipping away from him without paying through a side gate and jerking up his heels as he ran as though he were barefoot on hot bricks. In despair Mr. Prohartchin tried to MR. PROHARTCHIX 273 speak, to scream, but his voice failed him. He felt that the infuriated crowd was twining round him like a many-coloured snake, strangling him, crushing him. He made an incredible effort and awoke. Then he saw that he was on fire, that all his corner was on fire, that his screen was on fire, that the whole flat was on fire, together with Ustinya Fyodorovna and all her lodgers, that his bed was burning, his pillow, his quilt, his box, and last of all, his precious mattress. Semyon Ivanovitch jumped up, clutched at the mattress and ran dragging it after him. But in the landlady's room into which, regardless of de- corum, our hero ran just as he was, barefoot and in his shirt, he was seized, held tight, and triumphantly carried back behind the screen, which meanwhile was not on fire — it seemed that it was rather Semyon Ivanovitch's head that was on fire — and was put back to bed. It was just as some tattered, unshaven, ill- humoured organ-grinder puts away in his travelling box the Punch who has been making an upset, drubbing all the other puppets, selling his soul to the devil, and who at last ends his existence, till the next performance, in the same box with the devil, the negroes, the Pierrot, and Mademoiselle Katerina with her fortunate lover, the captain. Immediately every one, old and young, surrounded Semyon Ivanovitch, standing in a row round his bed and fastening eyes full of expectation on the invalid. Meantime he had come to him- self, but from shame or some other feeling, began pulling up the quilt over him, apparently wishing to hide himself under it from the attention of his sympathetic friends. At last Mark Ivano- vitch was the first to break silence, and as a sensible man he began saying in a very friendly way that Semyon Ivanovitch must keep calm, that it was too bad and a shame to be ill, that only little children behaved like that, that he must get well and go to the office. Mark Ivanovitch , ended by a little joke, saying that no regular salary had yet been fixed for invalids, and as he knew for a fact that their grade would be very low in the service, to his thinking anyway, their calling or condition did not promise great and substantial advantages. In fact, it was evident that they were all taking genuine interest in Semyon Ivanovitch's fate and were very sympathetic. But with incomprehensible rudeness, Semyon Ivanovitch persisted in lying in bed in silence, and obsti- nately pulling the quilt higher and higher over his head. Mark T 274 MR. PROHARTCHIN Ivanovitch, however, would not be gainsaid, and restraining his feelings, said something very honeyed to Semyon Ivanovitch again, knowing that that was how he ought to treat a sick man. But Semyon Ivanovitch would not feel this : on the contrary he muttered sometliing between his teeth with the most distrustful air, and suddenly began glancing askance from right to left in a hostile way, as though he would have reduced his sjTnpathetic friends to ashes with his eyes. It was no use letting it stop there. Mark Ivanovitch lost patience, and seeing that the man was offended and completely exasperated, and had simply made up his mind to be obstinate, told him straight out, without any softening suavity, that it was time to get up, that it was no use lying there, that shouting day and night about houses on fire, sisters-in-law, drunken cadgers, locks, boxes and goodness knows what, was all stupid, improper, and degrading, for if Semyon Ivanovitch did not want to sleep himself he should not hinder other people, and please would he bear it in mind. This speech produced its effects, for Semyon Ivanovitch, turning promptly to the orator, articulated firmly, though in a hoarse voice, " You hold your tongue, puppy ! You idle speaker, you foul-mouthed man ! Do you hear, young dandy ? Are you a prince, eh ? Do you understand what I say ? " Hearing such insults, Mark Ivanovitch fired up, but realizing that he had to deal with a sick man, magnanimously overcame his resentment and tried to shame him out of his humour, but was cut short in that too ; for Semyon Ivanovitch observed at once that he would not allow people to play with him for all that Mark Ivanovitch wrote poetry. Then followed a silence of two minutes; at last recovering from his amazement Mark Ivanovitch, plainly, clearly, in well-chosen language, but with firmness, declared that Semyon Ivanovitch ought to understand that he was among gentlemen, and " you ought to understand, sir, how to behave with gentlemen." Mark Ivanovitch could on occasion speak effectively and liked to impress his hearers, but, probably from the habit of years of silence, Semyon Ivanovitch talked and acted somewhat abruptly; and, moreover, when he did on occasion begin a long sentence, as he got further into it every word seemed to lead to another word, that other word to a third word, that third to & fourth and so on, so that his mouth seemed brimming over; «/ " Why, "I tell MR. PROHARTCHIN 276 he began stuttering, and the crowding words took to flying out in picturesque disorder. That was why Semyon Ivanovitch, who was a sensible man, sometimes talked terrible nonsense. " You are lying," he said now. " You booby, you loose fellow ! You'll come to want — you'll go begging, you seditious fellow, you — you loafer. Take that, you poet ! " T, you are still raving, aren't you, Semyon Ivanovitch ? " tell you what," answered Semyon Ivanovitch, " fools rave, drunkards rave, dogs rave, but a wise man acts sensibly. I tell you, you don't know your own business, you loafer, you educated gentleman, you learned book ! Here, you'll get on fire and not notice your head's burning off. What do you think of that ? " " Why . . . you mean . . . How do you mean, burn my head off, Semyon Ivanovitch ? " Mark Ivanovitch said no more, for every one saw clearly that Semyon Ivanovitch was not yet in his sober senses, but delirious. But the landlady could not resist remarking at this point that the house in Crooked Lane had been burnt owing to a bald wench ; that there was a bald-headed wench li ving there, that she had lighted a candle and set fire to the lumber room; but nothing would happen in her place, arid everything would be all right in the flats. " But look here, Semyon Ivanovitch," cried Zinovy Proko- fyevitch, losing patience and interrupting the landlady, " you old fogey, you old crock, you silly fellow — are they making jokes with you now about your sister-in-law or examinations in dancing ? Is that it ? Is that what you think ? " " Now, I tell you what," answered our hero, sitting up in bed and making a last effort in a paroxysm of fury with his sym- pathetic friends. " Who's the fool ? You are the fool, a dog is a fool, you joking gentleman. But I am not going to make jokes to please you, sir ; do you hear, puppy ? I am not your servant, sir." Semyon Ivanovitch would have said something more, but he fell back in bed helpless. His sympathetic friends were left gaping in perplexity, for they understood now what was wrong with Semyon Ivanovitch and did not know how to begin. Sud- denly the kitchen door creaked and opened, and the drunken cadger — alias Mr. Zimoveykin — timidly thrust in his head, 276 MR. PROHARTCHIN cautiously sniffing round the place as his habit was. It seemed as though he had been expected, every one waved to him at once to come quickly, and Zimoveykin, highly delighted, with the utmost readiness and haste jostled his way to Semyon Ivanovitch's bedside. It was evident that ZLmoveykin had spent the whole night in vigil and in great exertions of some sort. The right side of his face was plastered up; his swollen eyelids were wet from his running eyes, his coat and all his clothes were torn, while the whole left side of his attire was bespattered with some- thing extremely nasty, possibly mud from a puddle. Under hi.s arm was somebody's violin, which he had been taking some- where to sell. Apparently they had not made a mistake in summoning him to their assistance, for seeing the position of affairs, he addressed the delinquent at once, and with the air of a man who knows what he is about and feels that he has the upper hand, said : " What are you thinking about ? Get up, Senka. What are you doing, a clever chap like you ? Be sensible, or I shall pull you out of bed if you are obstreperous. Don't be obstreperous ! " This brief but forcible speech surprised them all; still more were they surprised when they noticed that Semyon Ivanovitch, hearing all this and seeing this person before him, was so flustered and reduced to such confusion and dismay that he could scarcely mutter through his teeth in a whisper the inevitable protest . " Go away, you wretch," he said. " You are a wretched creature — you are a thief ! Do you hear ? Do you understand ? You are a great swell, my fine gentleman, you regular swell." " No, my boy," Zimoveykin answered emphatically, retaining all his presence of mind, " you're wrong there, you \\ise fellow, you regular Prohartchin," Zimoveykin went on, parodying Semyon Ivanovitch and looking round gleefully. " Don't be obstreperous ! Behave yourself, Senka, behave yourself, or I'll give you away, I'll tell them all about it, my lad, do you understand ? " Apparently Semyon Ivanovitch did understand, for he stai when he heard the conclusion of the speech, and began looking rapidly about him with an utterly desperate air. Satisfied with the effect, Mr. Zimoveykin would have con- tinued, but Mark Ivanovitch checked hi.s zeal, and wailing till MR. PROHARTCHIN 277 Semyon Ivanovitch was still and almost calm again began judiciously impressing on the uneasy invalid at great length that, " to harbour ideas such as he now had in his head was, first, useless, and secondly, not only useless, but harmful; and, in fact, not so much harmful as positively immoral ; and the cause of it all was that Semyon Ivanovitch was not only a bad example, but led them all into temptation." Every one expected satisfactory results from this speech. Moreover by now Semyon Ivanovitch was quite quiet and replied in measured terms. A quiet discussion followed. They appealed to him in a friendly way, inquiring what he was so frightened of. Semyon Ivanovitch answered, but his answers were irrelevant. They answered him, he answered them. There were one or two more observations on both sides and then every one rushed into discussion, for suddenly such a strange and amazing subject cropped up, that they did not know how to express themselves. The argument at last led to im- patience, impatience led to shouting, and shouting even to tears ; and Mark Ivanovitch went away at last foaming at the mouth and declaring that he had never known such a block- head. Oplevaniev spat in disgust, Okeanov was frightened, Zinovy Prokofyevitch became tearful, while Ustinya Fyodorovna positively howled, wailing that her lodger was leaving them and had gone off his head, that he would die, poor dear man, without a passport and without telling any one, while she was a lone, lorn woman and that she would be dragged from pillar to post. In fact, they all saw clearly at last that the seed they had sown had yielded a hundred-fold, that the soil had been too productive, and that in their company, Semyon Ivanovitch had succeeded in overstraining his wits completely and in the most irrevocable manner. Every one subsided into silence, for though they saw that Semyon Ivanovitch was frightened, the sympathetic friends were frightened too. " What ? " cried Mark Ivanovitch; " but what are you afraid of ? What have you gone off your head about ? Who's thinking about you, my good sir? Have you the right to be afraid? Who* are you ? What are you ? Nothing, sir. A round nought, sir, that is what you are. What are you making a fuss about ? A woman has been run over in the street, so are you going to be run over ? Some drunkard did not take care of his pocket, 278 MR. PROHARTCHIX but is that any reason why your coat-tails should be cut off ? A house is burnt down, so your head is to be burnt off, is it ? Is that it, sir, is that it ? " " You . . . you . . . you stupid ! " muttered Semyon Ivano- vitch, " if your nose were cut off you would eat it up with a bit of bread and not notice it." " I may be a dandy," shouted Mark Ivanovitch, not listening; " I may be a regular dandy, but I have not to pass an examination to get married — to learn dancing; the ground is firm under me, sir. Why, my good man, haven't you room enough ? Is the floor giving way under your feet, or what ? " " Well, they won't ask you, will they ? They'll shut one up and that will be the end of it ? " " The end of it ? That's what's up ? What's your idea now, eh?" " Why, they kicked out the drunken cadger." " Yes ; but you see that was a drunkard, and j-ou are a man, and so am I." " Yes, I am a man. It's there all right one day and then it's gone." " Gone ! But what do you mean by it ? " " Why, the office ! The off— off— ice ! " " Yes, you blessed man, but of course the office is wanted and necessary." " It is wanted, I tell you ; it's wanted to-day and it's wanted to-m'orrow, but the day after to-morrow it will not be wanted. You have heard what happened ? " " Why, but they'll pay you your salary for the year, you doubting Thomas, you man of little faith. They'll put you into another job on account of your age." " Salary ? But what if I have spent my salary, if thieves come and take my money ? And I have a sister-in-law, do you hear? A sister-in-law ! You battering-ram. . . ." " A sister-in-law ! You are a man. ..." " Yes, I am ; I am a man. But you are a well -read gentleman and a fool, do you hear ? — you battering-ram — you regular battering-ram ! That's what you are ! I am not talking about your jokes; but there are jobs such that all of a sudden they are done away with. And Demid — do you hear ? — Dernid Vassilyevitch says that the post will be done away with. ..." MR. PROHARTCHIX 279 " Ah, bless you, -with your Demid 1 You sinner, vrhy, you know. . . ." " In a twinkling of an eye you'll be left without a post, then you'll just have to make the best of it." " Why, you are simply raving, or clean off your head ! Tell us plainly, what have you done ? Own up if you have done something wrong ! It's no use being ashamed ! Are you off your head, my good man, eh ? " " He's off his head ! He's gone off his head ! " they all cried, and wrung their hands in despair, while the landlady threw both her arms round Mark Ivanovitch for fear he should tear Semyon Ivanovitch to pieces. " You heathen, you heathenish soul, you wise man ! " Zimovey- kin besought him. " Senka, you are not a man to take offence, you are a polite, prepossessing man. You are simple, you are good ... do you hear ? It all comes from your goodness. Here I am a ruffian and a fool, I am a beggar ; but good people haven't abandoned me, no fear; you see they treat me with respect, I thank them and the landlady. Here, you see, I bow down to the ground to them ; here, see, see, I am paying what is due to you, landlady ! " At this point Zimoveykin swung off with pedantic dignity a low bow right down to the ground. After that Semyon Ivanovitch would have gone on talking; but this time they would not let him, they all intervened, began entreating him, assuring him, comforting him, and succeeded in making Semyon Ivanovitch thoroughly ashamed of himself, and at last, in a faint voice, he asked leave to explain himself. " Very well, then," he said, " I am prepossessing, I am quiet, I am good, faithful and devoted ; to the last drop of my blood you know ... do you hear, you puppy, you swell ? . . . granted the job is going on, but you see I am poor. And what if they take it ? do you hear, you swell ? Hold your tongue and try to understand ! They'll take it and that's all about it ... it's going on, brother, and then not going on ... do you under- stand ? And I shall go begging my bread, do you hear ? " " Senka," Zimoveykin bawled frantically, drowning the general hubbub with his voice. " You are seditious ! I'll inform against you ! What are you saying ? Who are you ? Are you a rebel, you sheep's head ? A rowdy, stupid man they would turn off without a character. But what are you ? " 280 AIR. PROHARTC'HTN " WeU, that's just it." " What ? " " WeU, there it is." " How do you mean ? " " Why, I am free, he's free, and here one lies and thinks . . ." " What 1 " " What if they say I'm seditious ? " " Se — di — tious ? Senka, you seditious ! " " Stay," cried Mr. Prohartchin, waving his hand and in- terrupting the rising uproar, " that's not what I mean. Try to understand, only try to understand, you sheep. I am law- abiding. I am law-abiding to-day, I am law-abiding to-morrow, and then all of a sudden they kick me out and call me seditious." " What are you saying ? " Mark Ivanovitch thundered at last, jumping up from the chair on which he had sat down to rest, running up to the bed and in a frenzy shaking with vexation and fury. " What do you mean ? You sheep ! You've nothing to call your own. Why, are you the only person in the world ? Was the world made for you, do you suppose ? Are you a Napoleon ? What are you ? Who are you ? Are you a Napoleon, eh ? Tell me, are you a Napoleon ? " But Mr. Prohartchin did not answer this question. Not because he was overcome with shame at being a Napoleon, and was afraid of taking upon himself such a responsibility — no, he was incapable of disputing further, or saying anything. . . . His illness had reached a crisis. Tiny teardrops gushed suddenly from his glittering, feverish, grey eyes. He hid his burning head in his bony hands that were wasted by illness, sat up in bed, and sobbing, began to say that he was quite poor, that he was a simple, unlucky man, that he was foolish and unlearned, he begged kind folks to forgive him, to take care of him, to protect him, to give him food and drink, not to leave him in want, and goodness knows what else Semyon Ivanovitch said. As he uttered this appeal he looked about him in wild terror, as though he were expecting the ceiling to fall or the floor to give way. Every one felt his heart soften and move to pity as he looked at the poor fellow. The landlady, sobbing and wailing like a peasant woman at her forlorn condition, laid the invalid back in bed with her own hands. Mark Ivanovitch, seeing the use- of touching upon the memory of Napoleon, instantly MR. PROHARTCHTN relapsed into kindliness and came to her assistance. The others, in order to do something, suggested raspberry tea, saying that it always did good at once and that the invalid would like it very much; but Zimoveykin contradicted them all, saying there was nothing better than a good dose of camomile or something of the sort. As for Zinovy Prokofyevitch, having a good heart, he sobbed and shed tears in his remorse, for having frightened Semyon Ivanovitch with all sorts of absurdities, and gathering from the invalid's last words that he was quite poor and needing assistance, he proceeded to get up a subscription for him, con- fining it for a time to the tenants of the flat. Every one was sighing and moaning, every one felt sorry and grieved, and yet all wondered how it was a man could be so completely panic- stricken. And what was he frightened about ? It would have been all very well if he had had a good post, had had a wife, a lot of children ; it would have been excusable if he were being hauled up before the court on some charge or other; but he was a man utterly insignificant, with nothing but a trunk and a German lock ; he had been lying more than twenty years behind his screen, saying nothing, knowing nothing of the world nor of trouble, saving his half-pence, and now at a frivolous, idle word the man had actually gone off his head, was utterly panic- stricken at the thought he might have a hard time of it. . . . And it never occurred to him that every one has a hard time of it ! "If he would only take that into consideration," Okeanov said afterwards, " that we all have a hard time, then the man would have kept his head, would have given up his antics and would have put up with things, one way or another." All day long nothing was talked of but Semyon Ivanovitch. They went up to him, inquired after him, tried to comfort him ; but by the evening he was beyond that. The poor fellow began to be delirious, feverish. He sank into unconsciousness, so that they almost thought of sending for a doctor; the lodgers all agreed together and undertook to watch over Semyon Ivanovitch and soothe him by turns through the night, and if anything happened to wake all the rest immediately. With the object of keeping awake, they sat down to cards, setting beside the invalid his friend, the drunken cadger, who had spent the whole day in the flat and had asked leave to stay the night. As the game was played on credit and was not at all interesting 282 MR. PR05ARTCHIK they soon got bored. They gave up the game, then got into an argument about something, then began to be loud and noisy, finally dispersed to their various corners, went on for a long time angrily shouting and wrangling, and as all of them felt suddenly ill-humoured they no longer cared to sit up, so went to sleep. Soon it was as still in the flat as in an empty cellar, and it was the more like one because it was horribly cold. The last to fall asleep was Okeanov. " And it was between sleeping and waking," as he said afterwards, " I fancied just before morning two men kept talking close by me." Okeanov said that he recognized Zimoveykin, arid that Zimoveykin began waking his old friend Remnev just beside him, that they talked for a long time in a whisper; then Zimoveykin went away and could be heard trying to unlock the door into the kitchen. The key, the land- lady declared afterwards, was lying under her pillow and -was lost that night. Finally — Okeanov testified — he had fancied he had heard them go behind the screen to the invalid and light a candle there, " and I know nothing more," he said, " I fell asleep, and woke up," as everybody else did, when every one in the flat jumped out of bed at the sound behind the screen of a shriek that . would have roused the dead, and it seemed to many of them that a candle went out at that moment. A great hubbub arose, every one's heart stood still ; they rushed pell-mell at the shriek, but at that moment there was a scuffle, with shouting, swearing, and fighting. They struck a light and saw that Zimoveykin and Remnev were fighting together, that they were swearing and abusing one another, and as they turned the b'ght on them, one of them shouted : "It's not me, it's this ruffian," and the other who was Zimoveykin, was shouting : " Don't touch me, I've done nothing ! I'll take my oath any minute ! " Both of them looked hardly like human beings ; but for the first minute they had no attention to spare for them ; the invalid was not where he had been behind the screen. They immediately parted the com- batants and dragged them away, and saw that Mr. Prohartchin was lying under the bed ; he must, while completely unconscious, have dragged the quilt and pillow after him so that there was nothing left on the bedstead but the bare mattress, old and greasy (he never had sheets). They pulled Semyon Ivanovitch out, stretched him on the mattress, but soon realized that there was no need to make trouble over him, that he was completely MR. PEOHARTCHIN 283 done for ; his arms were stiff, and he seemed all to pieces. They stood over him, he still faintly shuddered and trembled all over, made an effort to do something with his arms, could not utter a word, but blinked his eyes as they say heads do when still warm and bleeding, after being just chopped off by the executioner. At last the body grew more and more still; the last faint convulsions died awray. Mr. Prohartchin had set off with his good deeds and his sins. Whether Semyon Ivanovitch had been frightened by something, whether he had had a dream, as Renmev maintained afterwards, or there had been some other mischief — nobody knew ; all that can be said is, that if the head clerk had made his appearance at that moment in the flat and had announced that Semyon Ivanovitch was dismissed for sedition, insubordina- tion, and drunkenness ; if some old draggle-tailed beggar woman had come in at the door, calling herself Semyon Ivanovitch's sister-in-law; or if Semyon Ivanovitch had just received two hundred roubles as a reward ; or if the house had caught fire and Semyon Ivanovitch's head had been really burning — he would in all probability not have deigned to stir a finger in any of these eventualities. While the first stupefaction was passing over, while all present were regaining their powers of speech, were working themselves up into a fever of excitement, shouting and flying to conjectures and suppositions; while Ustinya Fyodo- rovna was pulling the box from under his bed, was rummaging in a fluster under the mattress and even in Semyon Ivanovitch's boots ; while they cross-questioned Remnev and Zimoveykin, Okeanov, who had hitherto been the quietest, humblest, and least original of the lodgers, suddenly plucked up all his presence of mind and displayed all his latent talents, by taking up his hat and under cover of the general uproar slipping out of the flat. And just when the horrors of disorder and anarchy had reached their height in the agitated flat, till then so tranquil, the door opened and suddenly there descended upon them, like snow upon their heads, a personage of gentlemanly appearance, with a severe and displeased-looking face, behind him Yaroslav Hyitch, behind Yaroslav Hyitch his subordinates and the functionaries whose duty it is to be present 011 such occasions, and behind them all, much embarrassed, Mr. Okeanov. The severe-looking personage of gentlemanly appearance went straight up to Semyon Ivanovitch, examined him, made a wry face, shrugged hig 284 MR. PROHARTCHIN shoulders and announced what everybody knew, that is, that the dead man was dead, only adding that the same thing had happened a day or two ago to a gentleman of consequence, highly respected, who had died suddenly in his sleep. Then the personage of gentlemanly, but displeased-looking, appearance walked away saying that they had troubled him for nothing, and took himself off. His place was at once filled (while Remnev and Zimoveykin were handed over to the custody of the proper functionaries), by Yaroslav Hyitch, who questioned some one, adroitly took possession of the box, which the landlady was already trying to open, put the boots back in their proper place, observing that they were all in holes and no use, asked for the pillow to be put back, called up Okeanov, asked for the key of the box which was found in the pocket of the drunken cadger, and solemnly, in the presence of the proper officials, unlocked Semyon Ivanovitch's property. Everything was displayed : two rags, a pair of socks, half a handkerchief, an old hat, several buttons, some old soles, and the uppers of a pair of boots, that is, all sorts of odds and ends, scraps, rubbish, trash, which had a stale smell. The only thing of any value was the German lock. They called up Okeanov and cross-questioned him sternly; but Okeanov was ready to take his oath. They asked for the pillow, they examined it ; it was extremely dirty, but in other respects it was like all other pillows. They attacked the mattress, they were about to lift it up, but stopped for a moment's consideration, when suddenly and quite unexpectedly something heavy fell with a clink on the floor. They bent down and saw on the floor a screw of paper and in the screw some dozen roubles. " A-hey ! " said Yaroslav Ilyitch, pointing to a slit in the mattress from which hair and stuffing were sticking out. They examined the slit and found that it had only just been made with a knife and was half a yard in length ; they thrust hands into the gap and pulled out a kitchen knife, probably hurriedly thrust in there after slitting the mattress. Before Yaroslav Ilyitch had time to pull the knife out of the slit and to say " A-hey ! " again, another screw of money fell out, and after it, one at a time, two half roubles, a quarter rouble, then some small change, and an old- fashioned, solid five-kopeck piece — all this was seized upon. At this point it was realized that it would not be amiss to cut up the •whole mattress with scissors. They asked for scissors. MR. PROHARTCHIN 285 Meanwhile, the guttering candle lighted up a scene that would have been extremely curious to a spectator. About a dozen lodgers were grouped round the bed in the most picturesque costumes, all unbrushed, unshaven, unwashed, sleepy -loo king, just as they had gone to bed. Some were quite pale, while others had drops of sweat upon their brows : some were shuddering, while others looked feverish. The landlady, utterly stupefied, was stand- ing quietly with her hands folded waiting for Yaroslav Ilyitch's good pleasure. From the stove above, the heads of Avdotya, the servant, and the landlady's favourite cat looked down with frightened curiosity. The torn and broken screen lay cast on the floor, the open box displayed its uninviting contents, the quilt and pillow lay tossed at random, covered with fluff from the mattress, and on the three-legged wooden table gleamed the steadily growing heap of silver and other coins. Only Semyon Ivanovitch preserved his composure, lying calmly on the bed and seeming to have no foreboding of his ruin. When the scissors had been brought and Yaroslav Ilyitch's assistant, wishing to be of service, shook the mattress rather impatiently to ease it from under the back of its owner, Semyon Ivanovitch with his habitual civility made room a little, rolling on his side with his back to the searchers; then at a second shake he turned on his face, finally gave waystill further, and as the last slat in the bedstead was missing, he suddenly and quite unexpectedly plunged head downward, leaving in view only two bony, thin, blue legs, which stuck upwards like two branches of a charred tree. As this was the second time that morning that Mr. Prohartchin had poked his head under his bed it at once aroused suspicion, and some of the lodgers, headed by Zinovy Prokofye- vitch, crept under it, with the intention of seeing whether there were something hidden there too. But they knocked their heads together for nothing, and as Yaroslav Ilyitch shouted to them, bidding them release Semyon Ivanovitch at once from his unpleasant position, two of the more sensible seized each a leg, dragged the unsuspected capitalist into the light of day and laid him across the bed. Meanwhile the hair and flock were flying about, the heap of silver grew — and, my goodness, what a lot there was ! . . . Noble silver roubles, stout solid rouble and a half pieces, pretty half rouble coins, plebeian quarter roubles, twenty kopeck pieces, even the unpromising old crone's small 286 MR. PROHARTCHIN fry of ten and five kopeck silver pieces — all done up in separate bits of paper in the most methodical and systematic way ; there were curiosities also, two counters of some sort, one napoleon d'or, one very rare coin of some unknown kind . . . Some of the roubles were of the greatest antiquity, they were rubbed and hacked coins of Elizabeth, German kreutzers, coins of Peter, of Catherine ; there were, for instance, old fifteen-kopeck pieces, now very rare, pierced for wearing as earrings, all much worn, yet with the requisite number of dots . . . there was even copper, but all of that was green and tarnished. . . . They found one red note, but no more. At last, when the dissection was quite over and the mattress case had been shaken more than once without a clink, they piled all the money on the table and set to work to count it. At the first glance one might well have been deceived and have estimated it at a million, it was such an immense heap. But it was not a million, though it did turn out to be a very considerable sum — exactly 2497 roubles and a half — so that if Zinovy Prokofyevitch's subscription had been raised the day before there would perhaps have been just 2500 roubles. They took the money, they put a seal on the dead man's box, they listened to the landlady's complaints, and informed her when and where she ought to lodge information in regard to the dead man's little debt to her. A receipt was taken from the proper person. At that point hints were dropped in regard to the sister-in-law ; but being persuaded that in a certain sense the sister-in-law was a myth, that is, a product of the defective imagination with which they had more than once reproached Semyon Ivanovitch — they abandoned the idea as useless, mischievous and disadvantageous to the good name of Mr. Prohartchin, and so the matter ended. When the first shock was over, when the lodgers had recovered themselves and realized the sort of person their late companion had been, they all subsided, relapsed into silence and began looking distrustfully at one another. Some seemed to take Semyon Ivanovitch's behaviour very much to heart, and even to feel affronted by it. What a fortune ! So the man had saved up like this ! Not losing his composure, Mark Ivanovitch pro- ceeded to explain why Semyon Ivanovitch had been so suddenly panic-stricken; but they did not listen to liim. Zinovy Proko- fyevitch was very thoughtful, Okeanov had had a b'ttle to drink, MR. PROHARTCHIN 287 the others seemed rather crestfallen, while a little man called Kantarev, with a nose like a sparrow's beak, left the flat that even- ing after very carefully packing up and cording all his boxes and bags, and coldly explaining to the curious that times were hard and that the terms here were beyond his means. The landlady wailed without ceasing, lamenting for Semyon Ivanovitch, and cursing him for having taken advantage of her lone, lorn state. Mark Ivanovitch was asked why the dead man had not taken his .money to the bank. " He was too simple, my good soul, he hadn't enough imagination," answered Mark Ivanovitch. " Yes, and you have been too simple, too, my good woman," Okeanov put in. " For twenty years the man kept himself close here in your flat, and here he's been knocked down by a feather — while you went on cooking cabbage-soup and had no time to notice it. ... Ah-ah, my good woman ! " " Oh, the poor dear," the landlady went on, " what need of a bank ! If he'd brought me his pile and said to me : ' Take it, Ustinyushka, poor dear, here is all I have, keep and board me in my helplessness, so long as I am on earth,' the.n, by the holy ikon I would have fed him, I would have given him drink, I would have looked after him. Ah, the sinner ! ah, the deceiver ! He deceived me, he cheated me, a poor lone woman ! " They went up to the bed again. Semyon Ivanovitch was lying properly now, dressed in his best, though, indeed, it was his only suit, hiding his rigid chin behind a cravat which was tied rather awkwardly, washed, brushed, but not quite shaven, because there was no razor in the flat ; the only one, which had belonged to Zinovy Prokofyevitch, had lost its edge a year ago and had been very profitably sold at Tolkutchy Market; the others used to go to the barber's. They had not yet had time to clear up the disorder. The broken screen lay as before, and exposing Semyon Ivanovitch's seclusion, seemed like an emblem of the fact that death tears away the veil from all our secrets, our shifty dodges and intrigues. The stuffing from the mattress lay about in heaps. The whole room, suddenly so still, might well have been compared by a poet to the ruined nest of a swallow, broken down and torn to pieces by the storm, the nestlings and their mother killed, and their warm little bed of fluff, feather and flock scattered about them. . . . Sernyon Ivanovitch, however, looked more like a 288 MR. PROHARTCHIN conceited, thievish old cock-sparrow. He kept quite quiet now, seemed to be lying low, as though he were not guilty, as though he had had nothing to do with the shameless, conscienceless, and unseemly duping and deception of all these good people. He did not heed now the sobs and wailing of his bereaved and wounded landlady. On the contrary, like a wary, callous capitalist, anxious not to waste a minute in idleness even in the coffin, he seemed to be wrapped up in some speculative calcula- tion. There was a look of deep reflection in his face, while his lips were drawn together with a significant air, of which Semj^on Ivanovitch during his lifetime had not been suspected of being capable. He seemed, as it were, to have grown shrewder, his right eye was, as it were, slyly screwed up. Semyon Ivanovitch seemed wanting to say something, to make some very important communication and explanation and without loss of time, because things were complicated and there was not a minute to lose. . . . And it seemed as though they could hear him. " What is it ? Give over, do you hear, you stupid woman? Don't whine 1 Go to bed and sleep it off, my good woman, do you hear ? I am dead; there's no need of a fuss now. What's the use of it, really? It's nice to lie here. . . . Though I don't mean that, do you hear ? You are a fine lady, you are a regular fine lady. Understand that ; here I am dead now, but look here, what if — that is, perhaps it can't be so — but I say what if I'm not dead, what if I get up, do you hear? What would happen then ? " PKIKTU> i» UKKAT BRITAIN or KICUARD CI.AV * Huns, LIMITED. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. SRLF QL ••RECK) APR 1 MAN '1989 2 4 1989 000048136 ^•••1 jversity of Califo; Jouthern Regions Library Facility