PART II

À 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 (_translated 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 buried myself more and more

in my hole. At work in the office I never looked at anyone, and 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 anyone 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 everyone. I hated my face,

for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there

was something base in my expression, and so every day when I turned up

at the office I tried to behave as independently as possible, and to

assume a lofty expression, 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 painfully 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 despised 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 I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes

almost every time I met anyone. 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. Perhaps 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 anyone 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 anyone else. “I am alone and they are

_everyone_,” 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, _à propos_ of nothing, there would come a phase of

scepticism and indifference (everything happened in phases to me), and

I would laugh myself at my intolerance and fastidiousness, I would

reproach myself with being _romantic_. At one time I was unwilling to

speak to anyone, while at other times I would not only talk, but go to

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 earthquake, 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 transcendental 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, _to see

everything and to see it often incomparably more clearly 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 sublime

and the beautiful” 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 sublime and the

beautiful.” Our “romantic” is a man of great breadth and the greatest

rogue of all our rogues, I assure you.... I can assure you from

experience, indeed. Of course, that is, if he is intelligent. 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 degradation; 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. 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 underground world in my soul. I was

fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognised. 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 the 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 the 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 the 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. It seemed that I was

not even equal to being thrown out of the 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 explanation—moved me from where I was

standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me.

I could have forgiven 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 intentions, 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, something 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 everyone present, from the insolent

marker down to the lowest 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’honneur_)—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 recognised 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 someone 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

lived 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 recognised, but

on second thoughts I changed it, and sent the story to the

_Otetchestvenniya 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 determined

to challenge my enemy to a duel. I composed a splendid, charming letter

to him, imploring him to apologise 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 understanding of the sublime and the

beautiful he would certainly have 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 abjectness of my

little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, 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 everyone, insulted and injured by everyone.

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 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 than 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 _recherché:_ the Countess walks there; Prince D. walks there; all

the literary world is there), I must be well dressed; that inspires

respect and of itself puts us on an equal footing in the eyes of the

society.”

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 the 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 anyone, 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 reflected, and did after all lend me

the money, receiving from me a written authorisation 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 offhand, 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 preparation, I was quite determined—it seemed as though we

should run into one another directly—and before I knew what I was doing

I had stepped aside for him again and he had passed without 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 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?

II

But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt 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 sublime and the beautiful,” in dreams, of course. I was

a terrible 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 transports. 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 “sublime 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 appetising

sauce. That sauce was made up of contradictions and sufferings, of

agonising inward analysis, and all these pangs and pin-pricks gave a

certain piquancy, even a significance to my dissipation—in fact,

completely answered the purpose of an appetising 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 sublime 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 everyone; everyone, of

course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to

recognise 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 “sublime and beautiful”

something in the Manfred style. Everyone would kiss me and weep (what

idiots they would be if they did not), while I should go barefoot 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

there would be a ball for the whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on

the shores of Lake Como, Lake 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 contemptible to drag all this into public

after all the tears and transports which I have myself confessed. But

why is it contemptible? Can you imagine that I am ashamed 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 means badly

composed.... It did not all happen on the shores of Lake Como. And yet

you are right—it really is vulgar and contemptible. And most

contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justify myself to

you. And even more contemptible 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 I 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 mankind; 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 stupefied, 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.

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 childhood. 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 in no way been

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 seemed 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 service, and for my having let myself sink so low,

going about 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 interests. During his last year at

school he came in for an estate of two 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 particularly 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 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

personage 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 themselves on an equal footing with him, I am convinced of

that.

Of Simonov’s two visitors, one was Ferfitchkin, a Russianised German—a

little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always

deriding everyone, 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 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 conceitedly, 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 Hôtel de Paris at five o’clock tomorrow,” Simonov, who had been

asked to make the arrangements, concluded 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 unexpectedly

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 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. “Tomorrow

at five-o’clock at the Hôtel de Paris.”

“What about the money?” Ferfitchkin began in an undertone, 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 _tête-à-tête_,

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 ... tomorrow, then. Will you pay your subscription now? I

just ask so as to know,” he muttered in embarrassment.

I flushed crimson, 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 tomorrow 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 silence.

“Oh!” he said, starting, “that is—to be truthful—yes. I have to go and

see someone ... not far from here,” he added in an apologetic voice,

somewhat abashed.

“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, tomorrow,” 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 tomorrow’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 everyone. My schoolfellows met me with spiteful and

merciless jibes 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

readiness with which they gave in to one another. I hated them from the

first, and shut myself away from everyone in timid, wounded and

disproportionate pride. Their coarseness revolted 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 subjects, 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. Everything 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 monstrously

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. Moreover, 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 even heard. They took a savage and sarcastic view of it,

but were morally impressed, especially as the teachers began to notice

me on those grounds. The mockery ceased, but the hostility remained,

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

unbounded 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 thing 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, perhaps, 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, 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 everlasting friendship; but what was most bitter and

humiliating 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 I went to

the window, opened the movable pane and looked out into the troubled

darkness of the thickly falling wet snow. At last my wretched little

clock hissed out five. I seized my hat and, trying not to look at

Apollon, who had been all day expecting his month’s wages, but in his

foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, I slipped

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

Hôtel 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 he 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, 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 patronising 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 apologising to me he went off to order the _hors

d’œuvres_.

“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 ...”

“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. Trudolyubov 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 cafés on that,” Ferfitchkin added

insolently.

“To my thinking it’s very poor,” Trudolyubov 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 like 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!” 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 altercation,” 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 gentleman 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 Ferfitchkin go too far,

though. The brutes imagine they are 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 tomorrow 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 forgotten 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 tonight to see you off,” I cut in suddenly.

For one minute every one was silent. “You are drunk already.”

Trudolyubov deigned to notice me at last, glancing contemptuously 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 everyone else but me.

“Your health and good luck on the journey!” he cried to Zverkov. “To

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.

“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’ll drink it, Mr. Trudolyubov.”

“Spiteful brute!” muttered Simonov. I drew myself up in my chair and

feverishly seized my glass, prepared for something extraordinary,

though I did not know myself precisely what I was going to say.

“_Silence!_” 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 ... that’s 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 beginning 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 his fist 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 tomorrow for your words

just now!” I said aloud, turning with dignity to Ferfitchkin.

“A duel, you mean? Certainly,” he answered. But probably 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,” Trudolyubov 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 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 realised 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!_”

“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 hair, soaked with

perspiration, stuck to my forehead and temples.

“Zverkov, I beg your pardon,” I said abruptly and resolutely.

“Ferfitchkin, yours too, and everyone’s, everyone’s: I have insulted

you all!”

“Aha! A duel is not in your line, old man,” Ferfitchkin hissed

venomously.

It sent a sharp pang to my heart.

“No, it’s not the duel I am afraid of, Ferfitchkin! I am ready to fight

you tomorrow, 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? Am 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 pitilessly, and

ran to overtake them.

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 agonising 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 myself. “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 recollection 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 fantastical—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.

“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 everything: 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! Trudolyubov 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 advance 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.

Nonsense!” I cried, lashing myself up 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 tomorrow, 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 anyone 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 ... 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!

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’s setting off

tomorrow, 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

captivate 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 ... forgive 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 _Silvio_ 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 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 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 “millinery 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 not here

and ... everything had vanished and changed! I looked round. I could

not realise 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 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 someone were strangling it. After an

unnaturally prolonged wheezing there followed a shrill, nasty, and as

it were unexpectedly rapid, chime—as though someone were suddenly

jumping forward. It struck two. I woke up, though I had indeed not been

asleep but lying half-conscious.