Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter I
All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the
snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the
street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne
over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning.
The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman’s sledge
kneads up the snow and sand in the street as the driver makes his way
to another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. An
old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn
with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen
are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their
work—but for the gentlefolk it is still evening.
From a window in Chevalier’s Restaurant a light—illegal at that hour—is
still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the entrance a
carriage, a sledge, and a cabman’s sledge, stand close together with
their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge from the
post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with
cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house.
“And what’s the good of all this jawing?” thinks the footman who sits
in the hall weary and haggard. “This always happens when I’m on duty.”
From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three young men,
sitting there at a table on which are wine and the remains of supper.
One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man, sits looking with tired
kindly eyes at his friend, who is about to start on a journey. Another,
a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a table on which are empty bottles,
and plays with his watch-key. A third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat,
is pacing up and down the room stopping now and then to crack an almond
between his strong, rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps
smiling at something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks
warmly and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wants
and those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what has
risen to his heart.
“Now I can speak out fully,” said the traveller. “I don’t want to
defend myself, but I should like you at least to understand me as I
understand myself, and not look at the matter superficially. You say I
have treated her badly,” he continued, addressing the man with the
kindly eyes who was watching him.
“Yes, you are to blame,” said the latter, and his look seemed to
express still more kindliness and weariness.
“I know why you say that,” rejoined the one who was leaving. “To be
loved is in your opinion as great a happiness as to love, and if a man
obtains it, it is enough for his whole life.”
“Yes, quite enough, my dear fellow, more than enough!” confirmed the
plain little man, opening and shutting his eyes.
“But why shouldn’t the man love too?” said the traveller thoughtfully,
looking at his friend with something like pity. “Why shouldn’t one
love? Because love doesn’t come ... No, to be beloved is a misfortune.
It is a misfortune to feel guilty because you do not give something you
cannot give. O my God!” he added, with a gesture of his arm. “If it all
happened reasonably, and not all topsy-turvy—not in our way but in a
way of its own! Why, it’s as if I had stolen that love! You think so
too, don’t deny it. You must think so. But will you believe it, of all
the horrid and stupid things I have found time to do in my life—and
there are many—this is one I do not and cannot repent of. Neither at
the beginning nor afterwards did I lie to myself or to her. It seemed
to me that I had at last fallen in love, but then I saw that it was an
involuntary falsehood, and that that was not the way to love, and I
could not go on, but she did. Am I to blame that I couldn’t? What was I
to do?”
“Well, it’s ended now!” said his friend, lighting a cigar to master his
sleepiness. “The fact is that you have not yet loved and do not know
what love is.”
The man in the fur-lined coat was going to speak again, and put his
hands to his head, but could not express what he wanted to say.
“Never loved! ... Yes, quite true, I never have! But after all, I have
within me a desire to love, and nothing could be stronger than that
desire! But then, again, does such love exist? There always remains
something incomplete. Ah well! What’s the use of talking? I’ve made an
awful mess of life! But anyhow it’s all over now; you are quite right.
And I feel that I am beginning a new life.”
“Which you will again make a mess of,” said the man who lay on the sofa
playing with his watch-key. But the traveller did not listen to him.
“I am sad and yet glad to go,” he continued. “Why I am sad I don’t
know.”
And the traveller went on talking about himself, without noticing that
this did not interest the others as much as it did him. A man is never
such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it
seems to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid and
interesting than himself.
“Dmítri Andréich! The coachman won’t wait any longer!” said a young
serf, entering the room in a sheepskin coat, with a scarf tied round
his head. “The horses have been standing since twelve, and it’s now
four o’clock!”
Dmítri Andréich looked at his serf, Vanyúsha. The scarf round
Vanyúsha’s head, his felt boots and sleepy face, seemed to be calling
his master to a new life of labour, hardship, and activity.
“True enough! Good-bye!” said he, feeling for the unfastened hook and
eye on his coat.
In spite of advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put on
his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once,
then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-lined
coat approached the table and emptied a champagne glass, then took the
plain little man’s hand and blushed.
“Ah well, I will speak out all the same ... I must and will be frank
with you because I am fond of you ... Of course you love her—I always
thought so—don’t you?”
“Yes,” answered his friend, smiling still more gently.
“And perhaps...”
“Please sir, I have orders to put out the candles,” said the sleepy
attendant, who had been listening to the last part of the conversation
and wondering why gentlefolk always talk about one and the same thing.
“To whom shall I make out the bill? To you, sir?” he added, knowing
whom to address and turning to the tall man.
“To me,” replied the tall man. “How much?”
“Twenty-six rubles.”
The tall man considered for a moment, but said nothing and put the bill
in his pocket.
The other two continued their talk.
“Good-bye, you are a capital fellow!” said the short plain man with the
mild eyes. Tears filled the eyes of both. They stepped into the porch.
“Oh, by the by,” said the traveller, turning with a blush to the tall
man, “will you settle Chevalier’s bill and write and let me know?”
“All right, all right!” said the tall man, pulling on his gloves. “How
I envy you!” he added quite unexpectedly when they were out in the
porch.
The traveller got into his sledge, wrapped his coat about him, and
said: “Well then, come along!” He even moved a little to make room in
the sledge for the man who said he envied him—his voice trembled.
“Good-bye, Mítya! I hope that with God’s help you...” said the tall
one. But his wish was that the other would go away quickly, and so he
could not finish the sentence.
They were silent a moment. Then someone again said, “Good-bye,” and a
voice cried, “Ready,” and the coachman touched up the horses.
“Hy, Elisár!” One of the friends called out, and the other coachman and
the sledge-drivers began moving, clicking their tongues and pulling at
the reins. Then the stiffened carriage-wheels rolled squeaking over the
frozen snow.
“A fine fellow, that Olénin!” said one of the friends. “But what an
idea to go to the Caucasus—as a cadet, too! I wouldn’t do it for
anything. ... Are you dining at the club tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
They separated.
The traveller felt warm, his fur coat seemed too hot. He sat on the
bottom of the sledge and unfastened his coat, and the three shaggy
post-horses dragged themselves out of one dark street into another,
past houses he had never before seen. It seemed to Olénin that only
travellers starting on a long journey went through those streets. All
was dark and silent and dull around him, but his soul was full of
memories, love, regrets, and a pleasant tearful feeling.