you on the ground that you may be able to assist me in a delicate and
very important matter affecting the happiness of my life. I have, Lyubov
Grigoryevna, reached the age of fifty-two; that is a period of life at
which very many have already grown-up children. My position is a secure
one. Though my fortune is not large, yet I am in a position to support a
beloved being and children at my side. I may tell you between ourselves
that apart from my salary I have also money in the bank which my manner
of living has enabled me to save. I am a practical and sober man, I lead
a sensible and consistent life, so that I may hold myself up as an
example to many. But one thing I lack--a domestic hearth of my own and a
partner in life, and I live like a wandering Magyar, moving from place
to place without any satisfaction. I have no one with whom to take
counsel, and when I am ill no one to give me water, and so on. Apart
from that, Lyubov Grigoryevna, a married man has always more weight in
society than a bachelor. . . . I am a man of the educated class, with
money, but if you look at me from a point of view, what am I? A man with
no kith and kin, no better than some Polish priest. And therefore I
should be very desirous to be united in the bonds of Hymen--that is, to
enter into matrimony with some worthy person."
"An excellent thing," said the matchmaker, with a sigh.
"I am a solitary man and in this town I know no one. Where can I go, and
to whom can I apply, since all the people here are strangers to me? That
is why Semyon Ivanovitch advised me to address myself to a person who is
a specialist in this line, and makes the arrangement of the happiness of
others her profession. And therefore I most earnestly beg you, Lyubov
Grigoryevna, to assist me in ordering my future. You know all the
marriageable young ladies in the town, and it is easy for you to
accommodate me."
"I can. . . ."
"A glass of wine, I beg you. . . ."
With an habitual gesture the matchmaker raised her glass to her mouth
and tossed it off without winking.
"I can," she repeated. "And what sort of bride would you like, Nikolay
Nikolayitch?"
"Should I like? The bride fate sends me."
"Well, of course it depends on your fate, but everyone has his own
taste, you know. One likes dark ladies, the other prefers fair ones."
"You see, Lyubov Grigoryevna," said Stytchkin, sighing sedately, "I am a
practical man and a man of character; for me beauty and external
appearance generally take a secondary place, for, as you know yourself,
beauty is neither bowl nor platter, and a pretty wife involves a great
deal of anxiety. The way I look at it is, what matters most in a woman
is not what is external, but what lies within--that is, that she should
have soul and all the qualities. A glass of wine, I beg. . . . Of
course, it would be very agreeable that one's wife should be rather
plump, but for mutual happiness it is not of great consequence; what
matters is the mind. Properly speaking, a woman does not need mind
either, for if she has brains she will have too high an opinion of
herself, and take all sorts of ideas into her head. One cannot do
without education nowadays, of course, but education is of different
kinds. It would be pleasing for one's wife to know French and German, to
speak various languages, very pleasing; but what's the use of that if
she can't sew on one's buttons, perhaps? I am a man of the educated
class: I am just as much at home, I may say, with Prince Kanitelin as I
am with you here now. But my habits are simple, and I want a girl who is
not too much a fine lady. Above all, she must have respect for me and
feel that I have made her happiness."
"To be sure."
"Well, now as regards the essential. . . . I do not want a wealthy
bride; I would never condescend to anything so low as to marry for
money. I desire not to be kept by my wife, but to keep her, and that she
may be sensible of it. But I do not want a poor girl either. Though I am
a man of means, and am marrying not from mercenary motives, but from
love, yet I cannot take a poor girl, for, as you know yourself, prices
have gone up so, and there will be children."
"One might find one with a dowry," said the matchmaker.
"A glass of wine, I beg. . . ."
There was a pause of five minutes.
The matchmaker heaved a sigh, took a sidelong glance at the guard, and
asked:
"Well, now, my good sir . . . do you want anything in the bachelor line?
I have some fine bargains. One is a French girl and one is a Greek. Well
worth the money."
The guard thought a moment and said:
"No, I thank you. In view of your favourable disposition, allow me to
enquire now how much you ask for your exertions in regard to a bride?"
"I don't ask much. Give me twenty-five roubles and the stuff for a
dress, as is usual, and I will say thank you . . . but for the dowry,
that's a different account."
Stytchkin folded his arms over his chest and fell to pondering in
silence. After some thought he heaved a sigh and said:
"That's dear. . . ."
"It's not at all dear, Nikolay Nikolayitch! In old days when there were
lots of weddings one did do it cheaper, but nowadays what are our
earnings? If you make fifty roubles in a month that is not a fast, you
may be thankful. It's not on weddings we make our money, my good sir."
Stytchkin looked at the matchmaker in amazement and shrugged his
shoulders.
"H'm! . . . Do you call fifty roubles little?" he asked.
"Of course it is little! In old days we sometimes made more than a
hundred."
"H'm! I should never have thought it was possible to earn such a sum by
these jobs. Fifty roubles! It is not every man that earns as much! Pray
drink your wine. . . ."
The matchmaker drained her glass without winking. Stytchkin looked her
over from head to foot in silence, then said:
"Fifty roubles. . . . Why, that is six hundred roubles a year. . . .
Please take some more. . . With such dividends, you know, Lyubov
Grigoryevna, you would have no difficulty in making a match for
yourself. . . ."
"For myself," laughed the matchmaker, "I am an old woman."
"Not at all. . . . You have such a figure, and your face is plump and
fair, and all the rest of it."
The matchmaker was embarrassed. Stytchkin was also embarrassed and sat
down beside her.
"You are still very attractive," said he; "if you met with a practical,
steady, careful husband, with his salary and your earnings you might
even attract him very much, and you'd get on very well together. . . ."
"Goodness knows what you are saying, Nikolay Nikolayitch."
"Well, I meant no harm. . . ."
A silence followed. Stytchkin began loudly blowing his nose, while the
matchmaker turned crimson, and looking bashfully at him, asked:
"And how much do you get, Nikolay Nikolayitch?"
"I? Seventy-five roubles, besides tips. . . . Apart from that we make
something out of candles and hares."
"You go hunting, then?"
"No. Passengers who travel without tickets are called hares with us."
Another minute passed in silence. Stytchkin got up and walked about the
room in excitement.
"I don't want a young wife," said he. "I am a middle-aged man, and I
want someone who . . . as it might be like you . . . staid and settled
and a figure something like yours. . . ."
"Goodness knows what you are saying . . ." giggled the matchmaker,
hiding her crimson face in her kerchief.
"There is no need to be long thinking about it. You are after my own
heart, and you suit me in your qualities. I am a practical, sober man,
and if you like me . . . what could be better? Allow me to make you a
proposal!"
The matchmaker dropped a tear, laughed, and, in token of her consent,
clinked glasses with Stytchkin.
"Well," said the happy railway guard, "now allow me to explain to you
the behaviour and manner of life I desire from you. . . . I am a strict,
respectable, practical man. I take a gentlemanly view of everything. And
I desire that my wife should be strict also, and should understand that
to her I am a benefactor and the foremost person in the world."
He sat down, and, heaving a deep sigh, began expounding to his bride-
elect his views on domestic life and a wife's duties.
THE LOOKING-GLASS
NEW YEAR'S EVE. Nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a young
and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was sitting in
her room, gazing with exhausted, half-closed eyes into the looking-
glass. She was pale, tense, and as motionless as the looking-glass.
The non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with
endless rows of candles, the reflection of her face, her hands, of the
frame--all this was already clouded in mist and merged into a boundless
grey sea. The sea was undulating, gleaming and now and then flaring
crimson. . . .
Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could hardly
say whether she was asleep or awake, but nevertheless she was seeing. At
first she saw only the smile and soft, charming expression of someone's
eyes, then against the shifting grey background there gradually appeared
the outlines of a head, a face, eyebrows, beard. It was he, the destined
one, the object of long dreams and hopes. The destined one was for
Nellie everything, the significance of life, personal happiness, career,
fate. Outside him, as on the grey background of the looking-glass, all
was dark, empty, meaningless. And so it was not strange that, seeing
before her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss,
of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech or
on paper. Then she heard his voice, saw herself living under the same
roof with him, her life merged into his. Months and years flew by
against the grey background. And Nellie saw her future distinctly in all
its details.
Picture followed picture against the grey background. Now Nellie saw
herself one winter night knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch, the
district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and lazily barked behind the gate.
The doctor's windows were in darkness. All was silence.
"For God's sake, for God's sake!" whispered Nellie.
But at last the garden gate creaked and Nellie saw the doctor's cook.
"Is the doctor at home?"
"His honour's asleep," whispered the cook into her sleeve, as though
afraid of waking her master.
"He's only just got home from his fever patients, and gave orders he was
not to be waked."
But Nellie scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting her aside, she rushed
headlong into the doctor's house. Running through some dark and stuffy
rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last reached the doctor's
bedroom. Stepan Lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed, but without his
coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his open hand. A little
night-light glimmered faintly beside him. Without uttering a word Nellie
sat down and began to cry. She wept bitterly, shaking all over.
"My husband is ill!" she sobbed out. Stepan Lukitch was silent. He
slowly sat up, propped his head on his hand, and looked at his visitor
with fixed, sleepy eyes. "My husband is ill!" Nellie continued,
restraining her sobs. "For mercy's sake come quickly. Make haste. . . .
Make haste!"
"Eh?" growled the doctor, blowing into his hand.
"Come! Come this very minute! Or . . . it's terrible to think! For
mercy's sake!"
And pale, exhausted Nellie, gasping and swallowing her tears, began
describing to the doctor her husband's illness, her unutterable terror.
Her sufferings would have touched the heart of a stone, but the doctor
looked at her, blew into his open hand, and--not a movement.
"I'll come to-morrow!" he muttered.
"That's impossible!" cried Nellie. "I know my husband has typhus! At
once . . . this very minute you are needed!"
"I . . . er . . . have only just come in," muttered the doctor. "For the
last three days I've been away, seeing typhus patients, and I'm
exhausted and ill myself. . . . I simply can't! Absolutely! I've caught
it myself! There!"
And the doctor thrust before her eyes a clinical thermometer.
"My temperature is nearly forty. . . . I absolutely can't. I can
scarcely sit up. Excuse me. I'll lie down. . . ."
The doctor lay down.
"But I implore you, doctor," Nellie moaned in despair. "I beseech you!
Help me, for mercy's sake! Make a great effort and come! I will repay
you, doctor!"
"Oh, dear! . . . Why, I have told you already. Ah!"
Nellie leapt up and walked nervously up and down the bedroom. She longed
to explain to the doctor, to bring him to reason. . . . She thought if
only he knew how dear her husband was to her and how unhappy she was, he
would forget his exhaustion and his illness. But how could she be
eloquent enough?
"Go to the Zemstvo doctor," she heard Stepan Lukitch's voice.
"That's impossible! He lives more than twenty miles from here, and time
is precious. And the horses can't stand it. It is thirty miles from us
to you, and as much from here to the Zemstvo doctor. No, it's
impossible! Come along, Stepan Lukitch. I ask of you an heroic deed.
Come, perform that heroic deed! Have pity on us!"
"It's beyond everything. . . . I'm in a fever . . . my head's in a whirl
. . . and she won't understand! Leave me alone!"
"But you are in duty bound to come! You cannot refuse to come! It's
egoism! A man is bound to sacrifice his life for his neighbour, and you
. . . you refuse to come! I will summon you before the Court."
Nellie felt that she was uttering a false and undeserved insult, but for
her husband's sake she was capable of forgetting logic, tact, sympathy
for others. . . . In reply to her threats, the doctor greedily gulped a
glass of cold water. Nellie fell to entreating and imploring like the
very lowest beggar. . . . At last the doctor gave way. He slowly got up,
puffing and panting, looking for his coat.
"Here it is!" cried Nellie, helping him. "Let me put it on to you. Come
along! I will repay you. . . . All my life I shall be grateful to you. .
. ."
But what agony! After putting on his coat the doctor lay down again.
Nellie got him up and dragged him to the hall. Then there was an
agonizing to-do over his goloshes, his overcoat. . . . His cap was lost.
. . . But at last Nellie was in the carriage with the doctor. Now they
had only to drive thirty miles and her husband would have a doctor's
help. The earth was wrapped in darkness. One could not see one's hand
before one's face. . . . A cold winter wind was blowing. There were
frozen lumps under their wheels. The coachman was continually stopping
and wondering which road to take.
Nellie and the doctor sat silent all the way. It was fearfully jolting,
but they felt neither the cold nor the jolts.
"Get on, get on!" Nellie implored the driver.
At five in the morning the exhausted horses drove into the yard. Nellie
saw the familiar gates, the well with the crane, the long row of stables
and barns. At last she was at home.
"Wait a moment, I will be back directly," she said to Stepan Lukitch,
making him sit down on the sofa in the dining-room. "Sit still and wait
a little, and I'll see how he is going on."
On her return from her husband, Nellie found the doctor lying down. He
was lying on the sofa and muttering.
"Doctor, please! . . . doctor!"
"Eh? Ask Domna!" muttered Stepan Lukitch.
"What?"
"They said at the meeting . . . Vlassov said . . . Who? . . . what?"
And to her horror Nellie saw that the doctor was as delirious as her
husband. What was to be done?
"I must go for the Zemstvo doctor," she decided.
Then again there followed darkness, a cutting cold wind, lumps of frozen
earth. She was suffering in body and in soul, and delusive nature has no
arts, no deceptions to compensate these sufferings. . . .
Then she saw against the grey background how her husband every spring
was in straits for money to pay the interest for the mortgage to the
bank. He could not sleep, she could not sleep, and both racked their
brains till their heads ached, thinking how to avoid being visited by
the clerk of the Court.
She saw her children: the everlasting apprehension of colds, scarlet
fever, diphtheria, bad marks at school, separation. Out of a brood of
five or six one was sure to die.
The grey background was not untouched by death. That might well be. A
husband and wife cannot die simultaneously. Whatever happened one must
bury the other. And Nellie saw her husband dying. This terrible event
presented itself to her in every detail. She saw the coffin, the
candles, the deacon, and even the footmarks in the hall made by the
undertaker.
"Why is it, what is it for?" she asked, looking blankly at her husband's
face.
And all the previous life with her husband seemed to her a stupid
prelude to this.
Something fell from Nellie's hand and knocked on the floor. She started,
jumped up, and opened her eyes wide. One looking-glass she saw lying at
her feet. The other was standing as before on the table.
She looked into the looking-glass and saw a pale, tear-stained face.
There was no grey background now.
"I must have fallen asleep," she thought with a sigh of relief.
OLD AGE
UZELKOV, an architect with the rank of civil councillor, arrived in his
native town, to which he had been invited to restore the church in the
cemetery. He had been born in the town, had been at school, had grown up
and married in it. But when he got out of the train he scarcely
recognized it. Everything was changed. . . . Eighteen years ago when he
had moved to Petersburg the street-boys used to catch marmots, for
instance, on the spot where now the station was standing; now when one
drove into the chief street, a hotel of four storeys stood facing one;
in old days there was an ugly grey fence just there; but nothing--neither
fences nor houses--had changed as much as the people. From his enquiries
of the hotel waiter Uzelkov learned that more than half of the people he
remembered were dead, reduced to poverty, forgotten.
"And do you remember Uzelkov?" he asked the old waiter about himself.
"Uzelkov the architect who divorced his wife? He used to have a house in
Svirebeyevsky Street . . . you must remember."
"I don't remember, sir."
"How is it you don't remember? The case made a lot of noise, even the
cabmen all knew about it. Think, now! Shapkin the attorney managed my
divorce for me, the rascal . . . the notorious cardsharper, the fellow
who got a thrashing at the club. . . ."
"Ivan Nikolaitch?"
"Yes, yes. . . . Well, is he alive? Is he dead?"
"Alive, sir, thank God. He is a notary now and has an office. He is very
well off. He has two houses in Kirpitchny Street. . . . His daughter was
married the other day."
Uzelkov paced up and down the room, thought a bit, and in his boredom
made up his mind to go and see Shapkin at his office. When he walked out
of the hotel and sauntered slowly towards Kirpitchny Street it was
midday. He found Shapkin at his office and scarcely recognized him. From
the once well-made, adroit attorney with a mobile, insolent, and always
drunken face Shapkin had changed into a modest, grey-headed, decrepit
old man.
"You don't recognize me, you have forgotten me," began Uzelkov. "I am
your old client, Uzelkov."
"Uzelkov, what Uzelkov? Ah!" Shapkin remembered, recognized, and was
struck all of a heap. There followed a shower of exclamations,
questions, recollections.
"This is a surprise! This is unexpected!" cackled Shapkin. "What can I
offer you? Do you care for champagne? Perhaps you would like oysters? My
dear fellow, I have had so much from you in my time that I can't offer
you anything equal to the occasion. . . ."
"Please don't put yourself out . . ." said Uzelkov. "I have no time to
spare. I must go at once to the cemetery and examine the church; I have
undertaken the restoration of it."
"That's capital! We'll have a snack and a drink and drive together. I
have capital horses. I'll take you there and introduce you to the
church-warden; I will arrange it all. . . . But why is it, my angel, you
seem to be afraid of me and hold me at arm's length? Sit a little
nearer! There is no need for you to be afraid of me nowadays. He-he! . .
. At one time, it is true, I was a cunning blade, a dog of a fellow . .
. no one dared approach me; but now I am stiller than water and humbler
than the grass. I have grown old, I am a family man, I have children.
It's time I was dead."
The friends had lunch, had a drink, and with a pair of horses drove out
of the town to the cemetery.
"Yes, those were times!" Shapkin recalled as he sat in the sledge. "When
you remember them you simply can't believe in them. Do you remember how
you divorced your wife? It's nearly twenty years ago, and I dare say you
have forgotten it all; but I remember it as though I'd divorced you
yesterday. Good Lord, what a lot of worry I had over it! I was a sharp
fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. . . . Sometimes I was
burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a
good one, as, for instance, in your case. What did you pay me then? Five
or six thousand! That was worth taking trouble for, wasn't it? You went
off to Petersburg and left the whole thing in my hands to do the best I
could, and, though Sofya Mihailovna, your wife, came only of a merchant
family, she was proud and dignified. To bribe her to take the guilt on
herself was difficult, awfully difficult! I would go to negotiate with
her, and as soon as she saw me she called to her maid: 'Masha, didn't I
tell you not to admit that scoundrel?' Well, I tried one thing and
another. . . . I wrote her letters and contrived to meet her
accidentally--it was no use! I had to act through a third person. I had a
lot of trouble with her for a long time, and she only gave in when you
agreed to give her ten thousand. . . . She couldn't resist ten thousand,
she couldn't hold out. . . . She cried, she spat in my face, but she
consented, she took the guilt on herself!"
"I thought it was fifteen thousand she had from me, not ten," said
Uzelkov.
"Yes, yes . . . fifteen--I made a mistake," said Shapkin in confusion.
"It's all over and done with, though, it's no use concealing it. I gave
her ten and the other five I collared for myself. I deceived you both. .
. . It's all over and done with, it's no use to be ashamed. And indeed,
judge for yourself, Boris Petrovitch, weren't you the very person for me
to get money out of? . . . You were a wealthy man and had everything you
wanted. . . . Your marriage was an idle whim, and so was your divorce.
You were making a lot of money. . . . I remember you made a scoop of
twenty thousand over one contract. Whom should I have fleeced if not
you? And I must own I envied you. If you grabbed anything they took off
their caps to you, while they would thrash me for a rouble and slap me
in the face at the club. . . . But there, why recall it? It is high time
to forget it."
"Tell me, please, how did Sofya Mihailovna get on afterwards?"
"With her ten thousand? Very badly. God knows what it was--she lost her
head, perhaps, or maybe her pride and her conscience tormented her at
having sold her honour, or perhaps she loved you; but, do you know, she
took to drink. . . . As soon as she got her money she was off driving
about with officers. It was drunkenness, dissipation, debauchery. . . .
When she went to a restaurant with officers she was not content with
port or anything light, she must have strong brandy, fiery stuff to
stupefy her."
"Yes, she was eccentric. . . . I had a lot to put up with from her . . .
sometimes she would take offence at something and begin being
hysterical. . . . And what happened afterwards?"
"One week passed and then another. . . . I was sitting at home, writing
something. All at once the door opened and she walked in . . . drunk.
'Take back your cursed money,' she said, and flung a roll of notes in my
face. . . . So she could not keep it up. I picked up the notes and
counted them. It was five hundred short of the ten thousand, so she had
only managed to get through five hundred."
"Where did you put the money?"
"It's all ancient history . . . there's no reason to conceal it now. . .
. In my pocket, of course. Why do you look at me like that? Wait a bit
for what will come later. . . . It's a regular novel, a pathological
study. A couple of months later I was going home one night in a nasty
drunken condition. . . . I lighted a candle, and lo and behold! Sofya
Mihailovna was sitting on my sofa, and she was drunk, too, and in a
frantic state--as wild as though she had run out of Bedlam. 'Give me back
my money,' she said, 'I have changed my mind; if I must go to ruin I
won't do it by halves, I'll have my fling! Be quick, you scoundrel, give
me my money!' A disgraceful scene!"
"And you . . . gave it her?"
"I gave her, I remember, ten roubles."
"Oh! How could you?" cried Uzelkov, frowning. "If you couldn't or
wouldn't have given it her, you might have written to me. . . . And I
didn't know! I didn't know!"
"My dear fellow, what use would it have been for me to write,
considering that she wrote to you herself when she was lying in the
hospital afterwards?"
"Yes, but I was so taken up then with my second marriage. I was in such
a whirl that I had no thoughts to spare for letters. . . . But you were
an outsider, you had no antipathy for Sofya. . . why didn't you give her
a helping hand? . . ."