August 1st.
MY DARLING BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,--Thank God that He has sent you a chance
of repaying my good with good. I believe in so doing, as well as in the
sweetness of your angelic heart. Therefore, I will not reproach you.
Only I pray you, do not again blame me because in the decline of my life
I have played the spendthrift. It was such a sin, was it not?--such a
thing to do? And even if you would still have it that the sin was there,
remember, little friend, what it costs me to hear such words fall from
your lips. Do not be vexed with me for saying this, for my heart is
fainting. Poor people are subject to fancies--this is a provision of
nature. I myself have had reason to know this. The poor man is exacting.
He cannot see God’s world as it is, but eyes each passer-by askance, and
looks around him uneasily in order that he may listen to every word that
is being uttered. May not people be talking of him? How is it that he
is so unsightly? What is he feeling at all? What sort of figure is
he cutting on the one side or on the other? It is matter of common
knowledge, my Barbara, that the poor man ranks lower than a rag, and
will never earn the respect of any one. Yes, write about him as you
like--let scribblers say what they choose about him--he will ever remain
as he was. And why is this? It is because, from his very nature, the
poor man has to wear his feelings on his sleeve, so that nothing about
him is sacred, and as for his self-respect--! Well, Emelia told me the
other day that once, when he had to collect subscriptions, official
sanction was demanded for every single coin, since people thought that
it would be no use paying their money to a poor man. Nowadays charity
is strangely administered. Perhaps it has always been so. Either folk do
not know how to administer it, or they are adept in the art--one of the
two. Perhaps you did not know this, so I beg to tell it you. And how
comes it that the poor man knows, is so conscious of it all? The answer
is--by experience. He knows because any day he may see a gentleman enter
a restaurant and ask himself, “What shall I have to eat today? I will
have such and such a dish,” while all the time the poor man will
have nothing to eat that day but gruel. There are men, too--wretched
busybodies--who walk about merely to see if they can find some wretched
tchinovnik or broken-down official who has got toes projecting from his
boots or his hair uncut! And when they have found such a one they make
a report of the circumstance, and their rubbish gets entered on the
file.... But what does it matter to you if my hair lacks the shears? If
you will forgive me what may seem to you a piece of rudeness, I declare
that the poor man is ashamed of such things with the sensitiveness of a
young girl. YOU, for instance, would not care (pray pardon my bluntness)
to unrobe yourself before the public eye; and in the same way, the poor
man does not like to be pried at or questioned concerning his family
relations, and so forth. A man of honour and self-respect such as I
am finds it painful and grievous to have to consort with men who would
deprive him of both.
Today I sat before my colleagues like a bear’s cub or a plucked sparrow,
so that I fairly burned with shame. Yes, it hurt me terribly, Barbara.
Naturally one blushes when one can see one’s naked toes projecting
through one’s boots, and one’s buttons hanging by a single thread!
As though on purpose, I seemed, on this occasion, to be peculiarly
dishevelled. No wonder that my spirits fell. When I was talking on
business matters to Stepan Karlovitch, he suddenly exclaimed, for no
apparent reason, “Ah, poor old Makar Alexievitch!” and then left the
rest unfinished. But I knew what he had in his mind, and blushed so
hotly that even the bald patch on my head grew red. Of course the whole
thing is nothing, but it worries me, and leads to anxious thoughts. What
can these fellows know about me? God send that they know nothing! But
I confess that I suspect, I strongly suspect, one of my colleagues. Let
them only betray me! They would betray one’s private life for a groat,
for they hold nothing sacred.
I have an idea who is at the bottom of it all. It is Rataziaev. Probably
he knows someone in our department to whom he has recounted the
story with additions. Or perhaps he has spread it abroad in his own
department, and thence, it has crept and crawled into ours. Everyone
here knows it, down to the last detail, for I have seen them point at
you with their fingers through the window. Oh yes, I have seen them do
it. Yesterday, when I stepped across to dine with you, the whole crew
were hanging out of the window to watch me, and the landlady exclaimed
that the devil was in young people, and called you certain unbecoming
names. But this is as nothing compared with Rataziaev’s foul intention
to place us in his books, and to describe us in a satire. He himself has
declared that he is going to do so, and other people say the same.
In fact, I know not what to think, nor what to decide. It is no use
concealing the fact that you and I have sinned against the Lord God....
You were going to send me a book of some sort, to divert my mind--were
you not, dearest? What book, though, could now divert me? Only such
books as have never existed on earth. Novels are rubbish, and written
for fools and for the idle. Believe me, dearest, I know it through long
experience. Even should they vaunt Shakespeare to you, I tell you that
Shakespeare is rubbish, and proper only for lampoons--Your own,