and smiling ironically. "He is to blame all round, and now I've ruined
her, eh? What an innocent lamb! Did he say those very words to you: that
I ruined your mother?"
"Yes, but ... you said that you wouldn't get offended."
"I'm not offended, and ... and it's none of your business! No, it ...
it's quite funny though. I fell, into the trap, yet I'm to be blamed as
well."
The bell rang. The boy dashed from his place and ran out. In a minute a
lady entered the room with a little girl. It was Olga Ivanovna,
Alyosha's mother. After her, hopping, humming noisily, and waving his
hands, followed Alyosha.
"Of course, who is there to accuse except me?" he murmured, sniffing.
"He's right, he's the injured husband."
"What's the matter?" asked Olga Ivanovna.
"What's the matter! Listen to the kind of sermon your dear husband
preaches. It appears I'm a scoundrel and a murderer, I've ruined you and
the children. All of you are unhappy, and only I am awfully happy!
Awfully, awfully happy!"
"I don't understand, Nicolai! What is it?"
"Just listen to this young gentleman," Byelyaev said, pointing to
Alyosha.
Alyosha blushed, then became pale suddenly and his whole face was
twisted in fright.
"Nicolai Ilyich," he whispered loudly. "Shh!"
Olga Ivanovna glanced in surprise at Alyosha, at Byelyaev, and then
again at Alyosha.
"Ask him, if you please," went on Byelyaev. "That stupid fool Pelagueia
of yours, takes them to sweet-shops and arranges meetings with their
dear father there. But that's not the point. The point is that the dear
father is a martyr, and I'm a murderer, I'm a scoundrel, who broke the
lives of both of you...."
"Nicolai Ilyich!" moaned Alyosha. "You gave your word of honour!"
"Ah, let me alone!" Byelyaev waved his hand. "This is something more
important than any words of honour. The hypocrisy revolts me, the lie!"
"I don't understand," muttered Olga Ivanovna, and tears began to glimmer
in her eyes. "Tell me, Lyolka,"--she turned to her son, "Do you see your
father?"
Alyosha did not hear and looked with horror at Byelyaev.
"It's impossible," said the mother. "I'll go and ask Pelagueia."
Olga Ivanovna went out.
"But, but you gave me your word of honour," Alyosha said trembling all
over.
Byelyaev waved his hand at him and went on walking up and down. He was
absorbed in his insult, and now, as before, he did not notice the
presence of the boy. He, a big serious man, had nothing to do with boys.
And Alyosha sat down in a corner and in terror told Sonya how he had
been deceived. He trembled, stammered, wept. This was the first time in
his life that he had been set, roughly, face to face with a lie. He had
never known before that in this world besides sweet pears and cakes and
expensive watches, there exist many other things which have no name in
children's language. A GENTLEMAN FRIEND
When she came out of the hospital the charming Vanda, or, according to
her passport, "the honourable lady-citizen Nastasya Kanavkina," found
herself in a position in which she had never been before: without a roof
and without a son. What was to be done?
First of all, she went to a pawnshop to pledge her turquoise ring, her
only jewellery. They gave her a rouble for the ring ... but what can you
buy for a rouble? For that you can't get a short jacket ? la mode, or
an elaborate hat, or a pair of brown shoes; yet without these things she
felt naked. She felt as though, not only the people, but even the horses
and dogs were staring at her and laughing at the plainness of her
clothes. And her only thought was for her clothes; she did not care at
all what she ate or where she slept.
"If only I were to meet a gentleman friend...." she thought. "I could
get some money ... Nobody would say 'No,' because...."
But she came across no gentleman Mends. It's easy to find them of nights
in the Renaissance, but they wouldn't let her go into the Renaissance in
that plain dress and without a hat. What's to be done? After a long time
of anguish, vexed and weary with walking, sitting, and thinking, Vanda
made up her mind to play her last card: to go straight to the rooms of
some gentleman friend and ask him for money.
"But who shall I go to?" she pondered. "I can't possibly go to Misha ...
he's got a family.... The ginger-headed old man is at his office...."
Vanda recollected Finkel, the dentist, the converted Jew, who gave her a
bracelet three months ago. Once she poured a glass of beer on his head
at the German dub. She was awfully glad that she had thought of Finkel.
"He'll be certain to give me some, if only I find him in..." she
thought, on her way to him. "And if he won't, then I'll break every
single thing there."
She had her plan already prepared. She approached the dentist's door.
She would run up the stairs, with a laugh, fly into his private room and
ask for twenty-five roubles.... But when she took hold of the bell-pull,
the plan went clean out of her head. Vanda suddenly began to be afraid
and agitated, a thing which had never happened to her before. She was
never anything but bold and independent in drunken company; but now,
dressed in common clothes, and just like any ordinary person begging a
favour, she felt timid and humble.
"Perhaps he has forgotten me..." she thought, not daring to pull the
bell. "And how can I go up to him in a dress like this? As if I were a
pauper, or a dowdy respectable..."
She rang the bell irresolutely.
There were steps behind the door. It was the porter.
"Is the doctor at home?" she asked.
She would have been very pleased now if the porter had said "No," but
instead of answering he showed her into the hall, and took her jacket.
The stairs seemed to her luxurious and magnificent, but what she noticed
first of all in all the luxury was a large mirror in which she saw a
ragged creature without an elaborate hat, without a modish jacket, and
without a pair of brown shoes. And Vanda found it strange that, now that
she was poorly dressed and looking more like a seamstress or a
washerwoman, for the first time she felt ashamed, and had no more
assurance or boldness left. In her thoughts she began to call herself
Nastya Kanavkina, instead of Vanda as she used.
"This way, please!" said the maid-servant, leading her to the private
room. "The doctor will be here immediately.... Please, take a seat."
Vanda dropped into an easy chair.
"I'll say: 'Lend me ...'" she thought. "That's the right thing, because
we are acquainted. But the maid must go out of the room.... It's awkward
in front of the maid.... What is she standing there for?"
In five minutes the door opened and Finkel entered--a tall, swarthy,
convert Jew, with fat cheeks and goggle-eyes. His cheeks, eyes, belly,
fleshy hips--were all so full, repulsive, and coarse! At the Renaissance
and the German club he used always to be a little drunk, to spend a lot
of money on women, patiently put up with all their tricks--for instance,
when Vanda poured the beer on his head, he only smiled and shook his
finger at her--but now he looked dull and sleepy; he had the pompous,
chilly expression of a superior, and he was chewing something.
"What is the matter?" he asked, without looking at Vanda. Vanda glanced
at the maid's serious face, at the blown-out figure of Finkel, who
obviously did not recognise her, and she blushed.
"What's the matter?" the dentist repeated, irritated.
"To ... oth ache...." whispered Vanda.
"Ah ... which tooth ... where?"
Vanda remembered she had a tooth with a hole.
"At the bottom ... to the right," she said.
"H'm ... open your mouth."
Finkel frowned, held his breath, and began to work the aching tooth
loose.
"Do you feel any pain?" he asked, picking at her tooth with some
instrument.
"Yes, I do...." Vanda lied. "Shall I remind him?" she thought, "he'll be
sure to remember.... But ... the maid ... what is she standing there
for?"
Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine straight into her mouth, and
said:
"I don't advise you to have a stopping.... Anyhow the tooth is quite
useless."
Again he picked at the tooth for a little, and soiled Vanda's lips and
gums with his tobacco-stained fingers. Again he held his breath and
dived into her mouth with something cold....
Vanda suddenly felt a terrible pain, shrieked and seized Finkel's
hand....
"Never mind...." he murmured. "Don't be frightened.... This tooth isn't
any use."
And his tobacco-stained fingers, covered with blood, held up the
extracted tooth before her eyes. The maid came forward and put a bowl to
her lips.
"Rinse your mouth with cold water at home," said Finkel. "That will make
the blood stop."
He stood before her in the attitude of a man impatient to be left alone
at last.
"Good-bye ..." she said, turning to the door.
"H'm! And who's to pay me for the work?" Finkel asked laughingly.
"Ah ... yes!" Vanda recollected, blushed and gave the dentist the rouble
she had got for the turquoise ring.
When she came into the street she felt still more ashamed than before,
but she was not ashamed of her poverty any more. Nor did she notice any
more that she hadn't an elaborate hat or a modish jacket. She walked
along the street spitting blood and each red spittle told her about her
life, a bad, hard life; about the insults she had suffered and had still
to suffer-to-morrow, a week, a year hence--her whole life, till death....
"Oh, how terrible it is!" she whispered. "My God, how terrible!"
But the next day she was at the Renaissance and she danced there. She
wore a new, immense red hat, a new jacket ? la mode and a pair of brown
shoes. She was treated to supper by a young merchant from Kazan.
OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS
This happened not so very long ago in the Moscow Circuit Court. The
jurymen, left in court for the night, before going to bed, began a
conversation about overwhelming sensations. It was occasioned by
someone's recollection of a witness who became a stammerer and turned
grey, owing, as he said, to one dreadful moment. The jurymen decided
before going to bed that each one of them should dig into his memories
and tell a story. Life is short; but still there is not a single man who
can boast that he had not had some dreadful moments in his past.
One juryman related how he was nearly drowned. A second told how one
night he poisoned his own child, in a place where there was neither
doctor nor chemist, by giving the child white copperas in mistake for
soda. The child did not die, but the father nearly went mad. A third,
not an old man, but sickly, described his two attempts to commit
suicide. Once he shot himself; the second time he threw himself in front
of a train.
The fourth, a short, stout man, smartly dressed, told the following
story:
"I was no more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, when I fell
head over heels in love with my present wife and proposed to her. Now, I
would gladly give myself a thrashing for that early marriage; but
then--well, I don't know what would have happened to me if Natasha had
refused. My love was most ardent, the kind described in novels as mad,
passionate, and so on. My happiness choked me, and I did not know how to
escape from it. I bored my father, my friends, the servants by
continually telling them how desperately I was in love. Happy people are
quite the most tiresome and boring. I used to be awfully exasperating.
Even now I'm ashamed.
"At the time I had a newly-called barrister among my friends. The
barrister is now known all over Russia, but then he was only at the
beginning of his popularity, and he was not rich or famous enough to
have the right not to recognise a friend when he met him or not to raise
his hat. I used to go and see him once or twice a week.
"When I came, we used both to stretch ourselves upon the sofas and begin
to philosophise.
"Once I lay on the sofa, harping on the theme that there is no more
ungrateful profession than a barrister's. I tried to show that after the
witnesses have been heard the Court can easily dispense with the Crown
Prosecutor and the barrister, because they are equally unnecessary and
only hindrances. If an adult juryman, sound in spirit and mind, is
convinced that this ceiling is white, or that Ivanov is guilty, no
Demosthenes has the power to fight and overcome his conviction. Who can
convince me that my moustache is carroty when I know it is black? When I
listen to an orator I may perhaps get sentimental and even shed a tear,
but my rooted convictions, for the most part based on the obvious and on
facts, will not be changed an atom. My friend the barrister contended
that I was still young and silly and was talking childish nonsense. In
his opinion an obvious fact when illumined by conscientious experts
became still more obvious. That was his first point. His second was that
a talent is a force, an elemental power, a hurricane, that is able to
turn even stones to dust, not to speak of such trifles as the
convictions of householders and small shopkeepers. It is as hard for
human frailty to struggle against a talent as it is to look at the sun
without being blinded or to stop the wind. By the power of the word one
single mortal converts thousands of convinced savages to Christianity.
Ulysses was the most convinced person in the world, but he was all
submission before the Syrens, and so on. All history is made up of such
instances. In life we meet them at every turn. And so it ought to be;
otherwise a clever person of talent would not be preferred before the
stupid and untalented.
"I persisted and continued to argue that a conviction is stronger than
any talent, though, speaking frankly, I myself could not define what
exactly is a conviction and what is a talent. Probably I talked only for
the sake of talking.
"'Take even your own case' ... said the barrister. 'You are convinced
that your fiancée is an angel and that there's not a man in all the
town happier than you. I tell you, ten or twenty minutes would be quite
enough for me to make you sit down at this very table and write to break
off the engagement.'
"I began to laugh.
"'Don't laugh. I'm talking seriously,' said my friend. 'If I only had
the desire, in twenty minutes you would be happy in the thought that you
have been saved from marriage. My talent is not great, but neither are
you strong?'
"'Well, try, please,' I said.
"'No, why should I? I only said it in passing. You're a good boy. It
would be a pity to expose you to such an experiment. Besides, I'm not in
the mood, to-day.'
"We sat down to supper. The wine and thoughts of Natasha and my love
utterly filled me with a sense of youth and happiness. My happiness was
so infinitely great that the green-eyed barrister opposite me seemed so
unhappy, so little, so grey!"
"'But do try,' I pressed him. 'I beg you.'
"The barrister shook his head and knit his brows. Evidently I had begun
to bore him.
"'I know,' he said, 'that when the experiment is over you will thank me
and call me saviour, but one must think of your sweetheart too. She
loves you, and your refusal would make her suffer. But what a beauty she
is 'I envy you.'
"The barrister sighed, swallowed some wine, and began to speak of what a
wonderful creature my Natasha was. He had an uncommon gift for
description. He could pour out a whole heap of words about a woman's
eyelashes or her little finger. I listened to him with delight.
"'I've seen many women in my life-time;' he said, 'but I give you my
word of honour, I tell you as a friend, your Natasha Andreevna is a gem,
a rare girl! Of course, there are defects, even a good many, I grant
you, but still she is charming.'
"And the barrister began to speak of the defects of my sweetheart. Now I
quite understand it was a general conversation about women, one about
their weak points in general; but it appeared to me then as though he
was speaking only of Natasha. He went into raptures about her snub-nose,
her excited voice, her shrill laugh, her affectation--indeed, about
everything I particularly disliked in her. All this was in his opinion
infinitely amiable, gracious and feminine. Imperceptibly he changed from
enthusiasm first to paternal edification, then to a light, sneering
tone.... There was no Chairman of the Bench with us to stop the
barrister riding the high horse. I hadn't a chance of opening my
mouth--and what could I have said? My friend said nothing new, his truths
were long familiar. The poison was not at all in what he said, but
altogether in the devilish form in which he said it. A form of Satan's
own invention! As I listened to him I was convinced that one and the
same word had a thousand meanings and nuances according to the way it is
pronounced and the turn given to the sentence. I certainly cannot
reproduce the tone or the form. I can only say that as I listened to my
friend and paced from corner to corner of my room, I was revolted,
exasperated, contemptuous according as he felt. I even believed him
when, with tears in his eyes, he declared to me that I was a great man,
deserving a better fate, and destined in the future to accomplish some
remarkable exploit, from which I might be prevented by my marriage.
"'My dear friend,' he exclaimed, firmly grasping my hand, 'I implore
you, I command you: stop before it is too late. Stop! God save you from
this strange and terrible mistake! My friend, don't ruin your youth.'
"Believe me or not as you will, but finally I sat down at the table and
wrote to my sweetheart breaking off the engagement. I wrote and rejoiced
that there was still time to repair my mistake. When the envelope was
sealed I hurried into the street to put it in a pillar box. The
barrister came with me.
"'Splendid! Superb!' he praised me when my letter to Natasha disappeared
into the darkness of the pillar-box. 'I congratulate you with all my
heart. I'm delighted for your sake.'
"After we had gone about ten steps together, the barrister continued:
"'Of course, marriage has its bright side too. I, for instance, belong
to the kind of men for whom marriage and family life are everything.'
"He was already describing his life: all the ugliness of a lonely
bachelor existence appeared before me.
"He spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, of the pleasures of an
ordinary family life, and his transports were so beautiful and sincere
that I was in absolute despair by the time we reached his door.
"'What are you doing with me, you damnable man?' I said panting. 'You've
ruined me! Why did you make me write that cursed letter? I love her! I
love her!'
"And I swore that I was in love. I was terrified of my action. It
already seemed wild and absurd to me. Gentlemen, it is quite impossible
to imagine a more overwhelming sensation than mine at that moment! If a
kind man had happened to slip a revolver into my hand I would have put a
bullet through my head gladly.
"'Well, that's enough, enough!' the advocate said, patting my shoulder
and beginning to laugh. 'Stop crying! The letter won't reach your
sweetheart. It was I, not you, wrote the address on the envelope, and I
muddled it up so that they won't be able to make anything of it at the
post-office. But let this be a lesson to you. Don't discuss things you
don't understand.'"
"Now, gentlemen, next, please."
The fifth juryman had settled himself comfortably and already opened his
mouth to begin his story, when we heard the dock striking from Spaisky
Church-tower.
"Twelve...." one of the jurymen counted. "To which class, gentlemen,
would you assign the sensations which our prisoner at the bar is now
feeling? The murderer passes the night here in a prisoner's cell, either
lying or sitting, certainly without sleeping and all through the
sleepless night listens to the striking of the hours. What does he think
of? What dreams visit him?"
And all the jurymen suddenly forgot about overwhelming sensations. The
experience of their friend, who once wrote the letter to his Natasha,
seemed unimportant, and not even amusing. Nobody told any more stories;
but they began to go to bed quietly, in silence. EXPENSIVE LESSONS
It is a great bore for an educated person not to know foreign languages.
Vorotov felt it strongly, when on leaving the university after he had
got his degree he occupied himself with a little scientific research.
"It's awful!" he used to say, losing his breath (for although only
twenty-six he was stout, heavy, and short of breath). "It's awful.
Without knowing languages I'm like a bird without wings. I'll simply
have to chuck the work."
So he decided, come what might, to conquer his natural laziness and to
study French and German, and he began to look out for a teacher.
One winter afternoon, as Vorotov sat working in his study, the servant
announced a lady to see him.
"Show her in," said Vorotov.
And a young lady, exquisitely dressed in the latest fashion, entered the
study. She introduced herself as Alice Ossipovna Enquette, a teacher of
French, and said that a friend of Vorotov's had sent her to him.
"Very glad! Sit down!" said Vorotov, losing his breath, and clutching at
the collar of his night shirt. (He always worked in a night shirt in
order to breathe more easily.) "You were sent to me by Peter
Sergueyevich? Yes.... Yes ... I asked him.... Very glad!"
While he discussed the matter with Mademoiselle Enquette he glanced at
her shyly, with curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant,
and still quite young. From her pale and languid face, from her short,
curly hair and unnaturally small waist, you would not think her more
than eighteen, but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, her
charming back and severe eyes, Vorotov decided that she was certainly
not less than twenty-three, perhaps even twenty-five; but then again it
seemed to him that she was only eighteen. Her face had the cold,
business-like expression of one who had come to discuss a business
matter. Never once did she smile or frown, and only once a look of
perplexity flashed into her eyes, when she discovered that she was not
asked to teach children but a grown up, stout young man.
"So, Alice Ossipovna," Vorotov said to her, "you will give me a lesson
daily from seven to eight o'clock in the evening. With regard to your
wish to receive a rouble a lesson, I have no objection at all. A
rouble--well, let it be a rouble...."
And he went on asking her if she wanted tea or coffee, if the weather
was fine, and, smiling good naturedly, stroking the tablecloth with the
palm of his hand, he asked her kindly who she was, where she had
completed her education, and how she earned her living.
In a cold, business-like tone Alice Ossipovna answered that she had
completed her education at a private school, and had then qualified as a
domestic teacher, that her father had died recently of scarlet fever,
her mother was alive and made artificial flowers, that she, Mademoiselle
Enquette, gave private lessons at a pension in the morning, and from one
o'clock right until the evening she taught in respectable private
houses.
She went, leaving a slight and almost imperceptible perfume of a woman's
dress behind her. Vorotov did not work for a long time afterwards but
sat at the table stroking the green cloth and thinking.
"It's very pleasant to see girls earning their own living," he thought.
"On the other hand it is very unpleasant to realise that poverty does
not spare even such elegant and pretty girls as Alice Ossipovna; she,
too, must struggle for her existence. Rotten luck!..."
Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen he also thought that this
exquisitely dressed Alice Ossipovna, with her well-developed shoulders
and unnaturally small waist was in all probability, engaged in something
else besides teaching.
Next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven, Alice
Ossipovna arrived, rosy from the cold; she opened Margot (an elementary
text-book) and began without any preamble:
"The French grammar has twenty-six letters. The first is called A, the
second B...."
"Pardon," interrupted Vorotov, smiling, "I must warn you, Mademoiselle,
that you will have to change your methods somewhat in my case. The fact
is that I know Russian, Latin and Greek very well. I have studied
comparative philology, and it seems to me that we may leave out Margot
and begin straight off to read some author." And he explained to the
Frenchwoman how grown-up people study languages.