The Eternal Husband

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "He'll deceive me," Liza whispered, lowering her eyes.

  "Doesn't he love you, Liza?"

  "No, he doesn't."

  "Has he hurt you? Has he?"

  Liza looked at him darkly and was silent. She turned away from him again and sat stubbornly looking down. He started persuading her, spoke heatedly to her, was in a fever himself. Liza listened mistrustfully, hostilely, but she did listen. Her attention gladdened him extremely: he even began to explain to her what a drinking man was. He said that he himself loved her and would look after her father. Liza finally raised her eyes and gazed at him intently. He started telling her how he had once known her mama, and saw that she was getting caught up in his stories. Little by little she began gradually to answer his questions—but cautiously and monosyllabically, with stubbornness. She still did not give any reply to his main questions: she was stubbornly silent about everything concerning her former relations with her father. As he talked with her, Velchaninov took her little hand in his, as earlier, and would not let it go; she did not pull it away. The girl was not totally silent, however; she did let slip in her vague replies that she used to love her father more than her mama, because formerly her father had always loved her more, and her mama formerly had loved her less; but that when her mama was dying, she had kissed her a lot and wept, when everyone left the room and the two of them remained alone . . . and that she now loved her more than anyone, more than anyone, anyone in the world, and every night she loved her more than anyone. But the girl was indeed proud: catching herself letting it slip, she suddenly withdrew into herself again and fell silent; she even looked hatefully at Velchaninov for making her let it slip. Toward the end of their journey, her hysterical state had nearly passed, but she became terribly pensive and looked around like a little savage, sullenly, with a gloomy, predetermined stubbornness. As for the fact that she was now being taken into a strange home, where she had never been before, this seemed for the moment to embarrass her very little. She was tormerited by something else, Velchaninov could see that; he guessed that she was ashamed of him, that she was precisely ashamed that her father had let her go with him so easily, as if he had thrown her away to him.

  "She's ill," he thought, "maybe very; she's been tormented . . . Oh, mean, drunken creature! I understand him now!" He kept urging the coachman on; he had hopes in the country house, the air, the garden, the children, the new, the unfamiliar to her life, and then, later . . . But of what would come afterward he no longer had any doubts; there were full, clear hopes. Only one thing he knew absolutely: that he had never before experienced what he experienced then, and that it would stay with him for the rest of his life! "Here is the goal, here is life!" he thought rapturously.

  Many thoughts flashed in him now, but he did not dwell on them and stubbornly avoided details: without the details, everything was becoming clear, everything was inviolable. His main plan formed of itself: "We can influence the scoundrel with our combined forces," he dreamed, "and he will leave Liza in Petersburg with the Pogoreltsevs, though at first only temporarily, for a certain period of time, and go away by himself; and Liza will be left for me; and that's all, what more is there to it? And . . . and, of course, he wishes it himself; otherwise why would he torment her." They finally arrived. The Pogoreltsevs' country house was indeed a lovely little place; they were met first of all by a noisy band of children who poured onto the porch of the house. Velchaninov had not visited in far too long, and the children were wild with joy: he was loved. The older ones shouted to him at once, even before he got out of the carriage:

  "And how's your lawsuit, how's your lawsuit?" This was picked up by the smallest ones, who laughed and squealed following the older ones. He was teased there about his lawsuit. But, seeing Liza, they at once surrounded her and began studying her with silent and intent childish curiosity. Klavdia Petrovna came out, and her husband after her. She and her husband also both started from the first word, and laughing, with a question about the lawsuit.

  Klavdia Petrovna was a lady of about thirty-seven, a plump and still beautiful brunette, with a fresh and rosy face. Her husband was about fifty-five, an intelligent and clever man, but a kindly fellow before all. Their house was in the fullest sense "his own home" for Velchaninov, as he himself put it. But a special circumstance also lay hidden here: some twenty years ago this Klavdia Petrovna had almost married Velchaninov, then still almost a boy, still a student. This had been a first love, fervent, ridiculous, and beautiful. It ended, however, with her marrying Pogoreltsev. They met again five years later, and it all ended in serene and quiet friendship. There forever remained a certain warmth, a certain special light shining in this relationship. Here everything in Velchaninov's memories was pure and irreproachable, and all the dearer to him in that it was perhaps so only here. In this family, he was simple, naive, kind, helped with the children, was never affected, admitted everything and confessed everything. More than once he had sworn to the Pogoreltsevs that he would live a little longer in the world and then move in with them completely and start living with them, never to part again. He thought of this intention to himself not at all as a joke.

  He gave them quite a detailed account of all that was necessary about Liza; but his request alone, without any special accounts, would have been enough. Klavdia Petrovna kissed the "little orphan" and promised to do everything for her part. The children took Liza up and led her out to play in the garden. After half an hour of lively talk, Velchaninov got up and started saying good-bye. He was so impatient that they all could notice it. They were all surprised: he had not visited in three weeks and was now leaving after half an hour. He laughed and swore to come the next day. It was brought to his notice that he was much too excited; he suddenly took Klavdia Petrovna by the hands and, under the pretext of having forgotten something very important, led her to another room.

  "Remember what I told you—you alone, what even your husband doesn't know—about the T—year of my life?"

  "I remember only too well; you spoke of it often."

  "I wasn't speaking, I was confessing, and to you alone, you alone! I never told you the woman's last name; she's Trusot-sky, the wife of this Trusotsky. It's she who died, and Liza, her daughter—is my daughter!"

  "Is it certain? You're not mistaken?" Klavdia Petrovna asked in some agitation.

  "Absolutely not, absolutely not!" Velchaninov uttered rapturously.

  And, as briefly as possible, hurrying and terribly agitated, he told her—all. Klavdia Petrovna had known it all before, but she had not known the lady's last name. Velchaninov had become so frightened each time at the mere thought that someone he knew might one day meet Mme. Trusotsky and think of him having loved this woman so much, that he had not dared up to then to reveal "that woman's" name even to Klavdia Petrovna, his only friend.

  "And the father knows nothing?" she asked, having heard the whole story.

  "N-no, he does . . . That's what torments me, that I haven't made it all out yet!" Velchaninov went on heatedly. "He knows, he knows; I noticed it today and yesterday. But I have to find out how much of it he knows. That's why I'm in a hurry now. He'll come tonight. I'm perplexed, though, where he could have learned it—that is, learned everything. About Bagautov he knows everything, no question of it. But about me? You know how wives are able to reassure their husbands on such occasions! If an angel came down from heaven—the husband would believe not him, but her! Don't shake your head, don't condemn me, I condemn myself, and condemned myself for everything long, long ago! . . . You see, earlier, at his place, I was so sure he knew everything that I compromised myself before him. Believe me: I'm quite ashamed and pained that I met him so rudely yesterday. (I'll tell you everything later in more detail!) He came to me yesterday out of an invincible, malicious desire to let me know that he knew his offense and that the offender was known to him! That's the whole reason for this stupid appearance in a drunken state. But it's so natural on his part! He precisely came to reproach me! Generally, I conduc
ted things too hotly this morning and yesterday. Imprudently stupid! I gave myself away! Why did he accost me at such a troubled moment? I tell you, he even tormented Liza, tormented a child, and probably also in reproach, to vent his spite if only on a child! Yes, he's spiteful—nonentity that he is, he's spiteful, even very much so. It goes without saying that he's nothing but a buffoon, though before, by God, he had the look of a decent man, as far as he could, but it's so natural that he's turned dissolute! Here, my friend, one must take a Christian view! And you know, my dear, my good one—I want to change completely toward him: I want to show him kindness. It will even be a 'good deed' on my part. Because, after all, I am guilty before him! Listen, you know, I'll tell you another thing: once in T— I suddenly needed four thousand roubles, and he gave it to me in a second, without any receipt, sincerely glad that he was able to please me, and I did take it then, I took it from his own hands, took money from him, do you hear, took it as from a friend!"

  "Only be more prudent," Klavdia Petrovna observed worriedly to all this. "And how rapturous you are, really, I'm afraid for you! Of course, Liza's now my daughter, too, but there's so much here, so much that's still unresolved! And above all, be more circumspect now; you absolutely must be circumspect when you're in happiness or in such rapture; you're too magnanimous when you're in happiness," she added with a smile.

  Everyone came out to see Velchaninov off; the children brought Liza, with whom they had been playing in the garden. They looked at her now, it seemed, with still greater perplexity than before. Liza turned completely shy when Velchaninov, taking his leave, kissed her in front of everyone and warmly repeated his promise to come the next day with her father. She was silent and did not look at him till the last minute, but then she suddenly seized him by the sleeve and pulled him somewhere aside, looking at him with imploring eyes; she wanted to tell him something. He took her to another room at once.

  "What is it, Liza?" he asked tenderly and encouragingly, but she, still looking around timorously, pulled him farther into the corner; she wanted to hide completely from everyone.

  "What is it, Liza, what is it?"

  She was silent and undecided; she looked fixedly into his eyes with her blue eyes, and all the features of her little face expressed nothing but mad fear.

  "He'll . . . hang himself!" she whispered as if in delirium.

  "Who will hang himself?" Velchaninov asked in fright.

  "He will, he will! During the night he wanted to hang himself from a noose!" the girl said, hurrying and breathless. "I saw it myself! Last night he wanted to hang himself from a noose, he told me, he did! He wanted to before, too, he's always wanted to ... I saw it in the night...”

  "It can't be!" whispered Velchaninov in perplexity. She suddenly rushed to kiss his hands; she wept, barely catching her breath from sobbing, she begged and pleaded with him, but he could understand nothing of her hysterical prattle. And forever after there remained in his memory, there came to him awake and in his dreams, those tormented eyes of a tormented child, who looked at him in mad fear and with her last hope.

  "And can it be, can it be that she loves him so much?" he thought jealously and enviously, going back to town in feverish impatience. "She herself said today that she loved her mother more . . . maybe she hates him and doesn't love him at all . . .

  "And what is this: hang himself? What was she saying? A fool like him hang himself? ... I must find out; I absolutely must find out! I must resolve everything as soon as possible— resolve it definitively!"

  VII: Husband and Lover Kiss

  He was in a terrible hurry to "find out." "I was stunned earlier; I had no time earlier to reflect on it," he thought, recalling his first encounter with Liza, "but now I must find out." In order to find out the quicker, he gave orders in his impatience to drive straight to Trusotsky's place, but changed his mind at once: "No, better if he comes to me himself, and meanwhile I'll finish this damned business."

  He feverishly got down to business; but this time he felt he was very distracted and ought not to be occupying himself with business matters. At five o'clock, on his way to have dinner, suddenly, for the first time, a funny thought came to his head: what if in fact he was, perhaps, only hindering things by interfering in the lawsuit himself, bustling and hanging out in offices and trying to catch his lawyer, who had begun to hide from him. He laughed merrily at his own supposition. "And if this thought had come to my head yesterday, I'd have been terribly upset," he added, still more merrily. Despite the merriment, he was growing ever more distracted and impatient; finally he fell to thinking; and though his uneasy mind kept clinging to many things, on the whole the result was not at all what he needed.

  "I need him, this man!" he finally decided. "I've got to figure him out first and then decide. This is—a duel!"

  Returning home at seven o'clock, he did not find Pavel Pavlovich there, which first caused him great surprise, then wrath, and then even despondency; finally, he began to be afraid. "God knows, God knows what it will end with!" he repeated, now pacing the room, now stretching out on the sofa, and constantly looking at his watch. Finally, at around nine o'clock, Pavel Pavlovich did appear. "If the man was being cunning, he couldn't have wangled anything better than this—the way I'm upset right now," he thought, suddenly completely cheered up and terribly merry.

  To the pert and merry question: why had he taken so long in coming?—Pavel Pavlovich smiled crookedly, sat down casually, not like the day before, and somehow carelessly flung his hat with crape onto another chair. Velchaninov noticed the casualness at once and took it into consideration.

  Calmly and without unnecessary words, without his former agitation, he told, as if making a report, how he had taken Liza, how nicely she had been received there, how good it was going to be for her, and little by little, as if completely forgetting Liza, imperceptibly came down to talking only about the Pogoreltsevs—that is, what nice people they were, how long he had known them, what a good and even influential man Pogoreltsev was, and the like. Pavel Pavlovich listened distractedly and from time to time glanced at the narrator, covertly, with a peevish and sly grin.

  "What an ardent man you are," he muttered with some especially nasty smile.

  "You, however, are somehow wicked today," Velchaninov observed vexedly.

  "And why shouldn't I be wicked, sir, like everybody else?" Pavel Pavlovich suddenly heaved himself up, as if pouncing from around a corner; even as if he had just been waiting to pounce.

  "That's entirely as you will," Velchaninov grinned. "I thought something might have happened to you?"

  "And so it did happen, sir!" the man exclaimed, as if boasting that it had happened.

  "What is it?"

  Pavel Pavlovich waited a little before answering:

  "Well, you see, sir, it's all our Stepan Mikhailovich at his whimsies . . . Bagautov, a most elegant Petersburg young man, of the highest society, sir."

  "He didn't receive you again, or what?"

  "N-no, this time I precisely was received, I was admitted for the first time, sir, and looked upon the countenance . . . only it was already a dead man's!...”

  "Wha-a-at! Bagautov died?" Velchaninov was terribly surprised, though it would seem there was nothing for him to be so surprised at.

  "Himself, sir! An unfailing friend of six years! He died yesterday around noon, and I didn't know! Maybe it was at the very moment when I came to inquire about his health. The funeral and burial are tomorrow, he's already lying in his little coffin, sir. The coffin's lined with damson velvet, trimmed with gold braid ... he died of nervous fever, sir. I was admitted, admitted, I looked upon his countenance! I told them at the front door that I was considered a true friend, so I was admitted. What has he been pleased to do to me now, this true friend of six years—I ask you? Maybe I came to Petersburg just for his sake alone!"

  "But why are you angry with him," Velchaninov laughed, "he didn't die on purpose!"

  "But I'm saying it in pity; such a precious
friend; this is what he meant to me, sir."

  And Pavel Pavlovich suddenly, quite unexpectedly, put two fingers like horns over his bald forehead and went off into a long and quiet titter. He spent a whole half minute sitting like that, with horns and tittering, looking into Velchaninov's eyes as if reveling in his most sarcastic impudence. The latter was stupefied as if he were seeing some sort of ghost. But his stupefaction lasted no more than a tiny moment; a mocking smile, calm to the point of impudence, slowly came to his lips.

  "And what might that signify?" he asked carelessly, drawing out his words.

  "That signifies horns, sir," Pavel Pavlovich snapped, finally taking his fingers from his forehead.

  "That is . . . your horns?"

  "My very own splendid acquisition!" Pavel Pavlovich again made a terribly nasty grimace.

  They both fell silent.

  "You're a brave man, anyhow!" said Velchaninov.

  "Because I showed you the horns? You know what, Alexei Ivanovich, you'd do better to treat me to something! I treated you in T—for a whole year, sir, every blessed day . . .

  Send for a little bottle, my throat's dry."

  "With pleasure; you should have said so long ago. What'll you have?"

  "Why you? make it we—we'll drink together, won't we?" Pavel Pavlovich peered into his eyes defiantly and at the same time with some strange uneasiness.

  "Champagne?"

  "What else? It's not vodka's turn yet, sir...”

  Velchaninov rose unhurriedly, rang for Mavra downstairs, and gave the order.

  "For the joy of a happy reunion, sir, after nine years of separation," Pavel Pavlovich tittered along needlessly and inappropriately. "Now you and you alone are left me as a true friend, sir! Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov is no more! It's as the poet said:

  The great Patroclus is no more, Vile Thersites is living still!"

  [A quotation from the ballad Der Siegesfest ("The Victory Banquet") by the German poet and playwright Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805). Pavel Pavlovich quotes the Russian translation by Vassily Zhukovsky, published in 1828.]