The Eternal Husband

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "He eternally forgets!" a middle Zakhlebinin girl picked up.

  "Forgot his handkerchief! Pavel Pavlovich forgot his handkerchief! Maman, Pavel Pavlovich forgot his handkerchief again, Maman, Pavel Pavlovich has caught cold again!" voices came.

  "Why doesn't he say so? Pavel Pavlovich, you are so fastidious!" Mme. Zakhlebinin drawled in a singsong voice. "It's dangerous to joke with a cold; I'll send you a handkerchief right away. And why is it he's always catching cold!" she added as she left, glad of an occasion to go back to the house.

  "I have two handkerchiefs, and no cold, ma'am," Pavel Pavlovich called after her, but she must not have understood, and a minute later, as Pavel Pavlovich was trotting after everyone, trying to keep closer to Velchaninov and Nadya, a maid came puffing up to him and indeed brought him a handkerchief.

  "Let's play, let's play, let's play proverbs!" shouts came from all sides, as if they expected God knows what from their "proverbs."

  They chose a place and sat down on benches; it fell to Marya Nikitishna to guess; they demanded that she go as far away as possible and not eavesdrop; in her absence a proverb was chosen and the words were distributed. Marya Nikitishna came back and guessed it at once. The proverb was: "Dreadful the dream, but God is merciful."

  Marya Nikitishna was followed by the ruffled young man in blue spectacles. Of him still greater precautions were demanded—that he stand by the gazebo and turn his face fully toward the fence. The gloomy young man did his duty with disdain and even seemed to feel a certain moral humiliation. When he was called back, he could not guess anything, went around to each person, listening twice to what they told him, spent a long time gloomily reflecting, but nothing came of it. He was put to shame. The proverb was: "Prayer to God and service to the tsar are never in vain."

  "Besides, it's a disgusting proverb!" the wounded youth grumbled indignantly, retreating to his place.

  "Ah, how boring!" voices were heard.

  Velchaninov went; he was hidden farther away than the others; he also failed to guess.

  "Ah, how boring!" still more voices were heard.

  "Well, now I'll go," said Nadya.

  "No, no, now Pavel Pavlovich will go, it's Pavel Pavlovich's turn," they all shouted and livened up a bit.

  Pavel Pavlovich was taken right to the fence, to the corner, and placed facing it, and to keep him from turning around, the little redhead was set to watch him. Pavel Pavlovich, already cheered up and almost merry again, piously intended to do his duty and stood like a stump staring at the fence, not daring to turn around. The little redhead kept watch some twenty paces behind him, closer to the company, by the gazebo, exchanging excited winks with the other girls; one could see that they were all expecting something, even with a certain anxiousness; something was being prepared. Suddenly the little redhead waved her arms from behind the gazebo. That instant they all jumped up and rushed off somewhere at breakneck speed.

  "You run, too!" ten voices whispered to Velchaninov, all but horrified that he was not running.

  "What is it? What's happened?" he kept asking, hurrying after them all.

  "Quiet, don't shout! Let him stand there and stare at the fence while we all run away. Here's Nastya running, too!"

  The little redhead (Nastya) was running headlong as if God knows what had happened, and waving her arms. They all came finally, beyond the pond, to a completely different end of the garden. When Velchaninov got there, he saw that Kater-ina Fedoseevna was having a big argument with all the girls and especially with Nadya and Marya Nikitishna.

  "Katya, darling, don't be angry!" Nadya was kissing her.

  "All right, I won't tell Mama, but I shall leave myself, because this is not nice at all. What must the poor man be feeling there by the fence?"

  She left out of pity, but all the rest remained as implacable and pitiless as before. It was sternly demanded of Velchaninov that, when Pavel Pavlovich came back, he also pay no attention to him, as if nothing had happened. "And let's all play fox and hounds!" the little redhead cried out rapturously.

  Pavel Pavlovich rejoined the company only after at least a quarter of an hour. He must have spent two thirds of that time standing at the fence. Fox and hounds was in full swing and succeeded excellently—everyone shouted and had fun. Mad with rage, Pavel Pavlovich sprang straight up to Velchaninov and again grabbed him by the sleeve.

  "For one little moment, sir!"

  "Oh, Lord, what's with him and his little moments!"

  "Asking for a handkerchief again," the cry came after them.

  "Well, this time it's you, sir; here it's you now, sir, you are the cause of it!" Pavel Pavlovich's teeth even chattered as he articulated this.

  Velchaninov interrupted him and peaceably advised him to be more cheerful, or else he would be teased to death: "They tease you because you're angry while everyone else is having fun." To his amazement, Pavel Pavlovich was terribly struck by his words and advice; he at once became quiet, even to the point of returning to the company like a guilty man and obediently taking part in the general games; for some time afterward they did not bother him and played with him like anyone else—and before half an hour had gone by, he was almost cheerful again. In all the games, he engaged himself as a partner, when need be, predominantly with the treacherous little redhead or one of the Zakhlebinin sisters. But Velchani-nov noticed, to his still greater amazement, that Pavel Pavlovich hardly dared even once to address Nadya, though he ceaselessly fussed around her or near her; at least he accepted the position of one unnoticed and scorned by her as if it were proper, natural. But in the end a prank was again played on him even so.

  The game was hide-and-seek. The person hiding, incidentally, had the right to change his place within the whole area in which he was allowed to hide. Pavel Pavlovich, who had managed to hide by getting himself into a thick bush, suddenly decided to change his place and run into the house. There was shouting, he was seen; he hastily sneaked upstairs, having in mind a little place behind a chest of drawers where he wanted to hide. But the little redhead flew up after him, tiptoed stealthily to the door, and snapped the lock. As before, everyone at once stopped playing and again ran beyond the pond to the other end of the garden. About ten minutes later, Pavel Pavlovich, sensing that no one was looking for him, peeked out the window. No one was there. He did not dare shout lest he awaken the parents; the maid and the serving girl had been given strict orders not to come or respond to Pavel Pavlovich's call. Katerina Fedoseevna could have opened the door for him, but she, having returned to her room, sat down in reverie and unexpectedly fell asleep herself. He sat like that for about an hour. At last, girls began to appear in twos and threes, passing by as if inadvertently.

  "Pavel Pavlovich, why don't you join us? Ah, it's such fun there! We're playing theater. Alexei Ivanovich had the role of the 'young man.' "

  "Pavel Pavlovich, why don't you join us, it's you one always misses!" other young misses observed, passing by.

  "Who is it, again, that one always misses?" suddenly came the voice of Mme. Zakhlebinin, who had just woken up and decided finally to take a stroll in the garden and watch the "children's" games while waiting for tea.

  "It's Pavel Pavlovich there." She was shown the window through which peeked, with a distorted smile, pale with anger, the face of Pavel Pavlovich.

  "The man would just rather sit there alone, while others are having such fun!" the mother of the family shook her head.

  Meanwhile Velchaninov had the honor, finally, of receiving from Nadya an explanation of her words earlier about being "glad he had come owing to a certain circumstance." The explanation took place in a solitary alley. Marya Nikitishna purposely summoned Velchaninov, who had participated in some of the games and was already beginning to languish greatly, and brought him to this alley, where she left him alone with Nadya.

  "I'm perfectly convinced," she rattled out in a bold and quick patter, "that you are not at all such a friend of Pavel Pavlovich's as he boasted you were. I calcula
te that you alone can render me an extremely important service; here is today's nasty bracelet," she took the case from her pocket, "I humbly beg you to return it to him immediately, because I myself will not speak to him ever or for anything for the rest of my life. Anyhow, you may tell him so on my behalf and add that henceforth he dare not thrust his presents at me. The rest I'll let him know through others. Will you kindly give me the pleasure of fulfilling my wish?"

  "Ah, no, spare me, for God's sake!" Velchaninov all but cried out, waving his hands.

  "What! Spare me?" Nadya was unbelievably astonished by his refusal and stared wide-eyed at him. All her prepared tone broke down in an instant, and she was nearly in tears. Velchaninov laughed.

  "It's not that I . . . I'd be very glad . . . but I've got my own accounts with him...”

  "I knew you weren't his friend and that he was lying!" Nadya interrupted him fervently and quickly. "I'll never marry him, you should know that! Never! I don't even understand how he dared . . . Only you must return his vile bracelet to him even so, otherwise what am I to do? I absolutely, absolutely want him to get it back today, the same day—and lump it. And if he peaches to Papa, he'll be in real trouble."

  Suddenly and quite unexpectedly the ruffled young man in blue spectacles popped from behind a bush.

  "You must give him back the bracelet," he fell upon Velchaninov furiously, "if only in the name of women's rights, assuming you yourself stand on the level of the question...”

  But he had no time to finish; Nadya pulled him by the sleeve with all her might and tore him away from Velchaninov.

  "Lord, how stupid you are, Predposylov!" [Another of Dostoevsky's plausible but wonderfully absurd names, derived from predposylka, Russian for "premise" or "presupposition."] she cried. "Go away! Go away, go away, and don't you dare eavesdrop, I told you to stand far off!...” She stamped her little feet at him, and when he had slipped back into his bushes, she still went on pacing back and forth across the path, as if beside herself, flashing her eyes and clasping her hands in front of her.

  "You wouldn't believe how stupid they are!" she suddenly stopped in front of Velchaninov. "To you it's funny, but how is it for me!"

  "But it's not him, not him?" Velchaninov was laughing.

  "Naturally it's not him, how could you think such a thing!" Nadya smiled and turned red. "He's only his friend. But what friends he chooses, I don't understand it, they all say he's a 'future mover,' but I don't understand a thing . . . Alexei Ivanovich, I have no one to turn to; your final word, will you give it back or not?"

  "Well, all right, I'll give it back, let me have it."

  "Ah, you're a dear, ah, you're so kind!" she suddenly rejoiced, handing him the case. "For that I'll sing for you the whole evening, because I sing wonderfully, you should know that, and I lied earlier about not liking music. Ah, if only you'd come again, just once, how glad I'd be, I'd tell you everything, everything, everything, and a lot more besides, because you're so kind, so kind, like—like Katya!"

  And indeed, when they went back home for tea, she sang two romances for him in a voice not yet trained at all and only just beginning, but rather pleasant and strong. When they all came back from the garden, Pavel Pavlovich was sitting sedately with the parents at the tea table, on which a big family samovar was already boiling and heirloom Sevres porcelain teacups were set out. Most likely he and the old folks were discussing very serious things—because in two days he would be leaving for a whole nine months. He did not even glance at those who came in from the garden, least of all at Velchani-nov; it was also obvious that he had not "peached" and that so far everything was quiet.

  But when Nadya started singing, he, too, appeared at once. Nadya purposely did not answer his one direct question, but Pavel Pavlovich was not embarrassed or shaken by that; he stood at the back of her chair and his whole bearing showed that this was his place and he would yield it to no one.

  "Alexei Ivanovich will sing, Maman, Alexei Ivanovich wants to sing!" nearly all the girls cried, crowding around the piano, at which Velchaninov was confidently sitting down, intending to accompany himself. The old folks came out along with Katerina Fedoseevna, who had been sitting with them and pouring tea.

  Velchaninov chose a certain romance by Glinka, which almost no one knows anymore:

  When you do open your merry lips, my love

  And coo to me more sweetly than a dove . . .

  He sang it addressing Nadya alone, who stood right at his elbow and closest to him of all. He had long ago lost his voice, but from what remained, one could see that it had once been not bad. Velchaninov had managed to hear this romance for the first time some twenty years before, when he was still a student, from Glinka himself, in the house of one of the late composer's friends, at a literary-artistic bachelor party. Glinka, carried away, had played and sung all his favorite things from his own works, including this romance. He also had no voice left by then, but Velchaninov remembered the extraordinary impression produced then precisely by this romance. No artistic salon singer could ever have achieved such an effect. In this romance, the intensity of the passion rises and grows with every line, every word; precisely because of this extraordinary intensity, the slightest falseness, the slightest exaggeration or untruth—which one gets away with so easily in opera—would here ruin and distort the whole meaning. To sing this small but remarkable thing, one had absolutely—yes, absolutely—to have a full, genuine inspiration, a genuine passion or its full poetic assimilation. Otherwise the romance would not only fail altogether, but might even appear outrageous and all but something shameless: it would be impossible to show such intensity of passionate feeling without provoking disgust, yet truth and simple-heartedness saved everything. Velchaninov remembered that he himself once used to succeed with this romance. He had almost assimilated Glinka's manner of singing; but now, from the very first sound, from the first line, a genuine inspiration blazed up in his soul and trembled in his voice. With every word of the romance, the feeling broke through and bared itself more strongly and boldly, in the last lines cries of passion were heard, and when, turning his flashing eyes to Nadya, he finished singing the last words of the romance:

  Now I do gaze more boldly in your eyes

  My lips approach, to list I no more rise,

  I want to kiss, I want to kiss and kiss,

  I want to kiss, to kiss and kiss and kiss!

  —Nadya almost started in fright, and even recoiled a little; a blush poured over her cheeks, and at the same moment Velchaninov saw something as if responsive flash in her embarrassed and almost abashed little face. Fascination, and at the same time perplexity, showed on the faces of all the listening girls as well; to everyone it seemed as if impossible and shameful to sing like that, and at the same time all these little faces and eyes burned and shone as if waiting for something more. Among these faces there especially flashed before Velchaninov the face of Katerina Fedoseevna, which had become almost beautiful.

  "Some romance!" muttered old Zakhlebinin, slightly taken aback. "But . . . isn't it too strong? Pleasant, but strong...”

  "Strong...” Mme. Zakhlebinin echoed, but Pavel Pavlo-vich did not let her finish: he suddenly popped forward and, as if mad, forgetting himself so much that with his own hand he seized Nadya by the hand and drew her away from Velchaninov, he then leaped up to him and stared at him like a lost man, moving his trembling lips.

  "For one moment, sir," he finally managed to utter.

  Velchaninov saw clearly that in another moment this gentleman might venture on something ten times more absurd; he quickly took him by the arm and, ignoring the general perplexity, led him out to the balcony and even took several steps with him down to the garden, where it was already almost completely dark.

  "Do you understand that you must leave with me right now, this very minute!" Pavel Pavlovich said.

  "No, I don't...”

  "Do you remember," Pavel Pavlovich went on in his frenetic whisper, "do you remember how you demande
d once that I tell you everything, everything, openly, sir, 'the very last word . . .'—do you remember, sir? Well, the time has come for saying that word . . . let's go, sir!"

  Velchaninov reflected, glanced once more at Pavel Pavlovich, and agreed to leave.

  Their suddenly announced departure upset the parents and made all the girls terribly indignant.

  "At least another cup of tea," Mme. Zakhlebinin moaned plaintively.

  "Why did you get so upset?" the old man, in a stern and displeased tone, addressed the grinning and stubbornly silent Pavel Pavlovich.

  "Pavel Pavlovich, why are you taking Alexei Ivanovich away?" the girls cooed plaintively, at the same time glancing at him with bitterness. And Nadya looked at him so angrily that he cringed all over, yet—he did not yield.

  "But in fact, Pavel Pavlovich—and I thank him for it—has reminded me of an extremely important matter, which I might have let slip," Velchaninov laughed, shaking hands with the host, bowing to the hostess and to the girls, and, as if especially among them, to Katerina Fedoseevna, which again was noticed by everyone.

  "We thank you for coming and will always be glad to see you, all of us," Zakhlebinin concluded weightily.

  "Ah, we're so glad...” the mother of the family picked up with feeling.

  "Come again, Alexei Ivanovich, come again!" many voices were heard from the balcony when he was already sitting in the carriage with Pavel Pavlovich; barely heard was one little voice, softer than all the others, that said: "Come again, dear, dear Alexei Ivanovich!"

  "It's the little redhead!" thought Velchaninov.

  XIII: Whose Side Has More on It

  He was able to think about the little redhead, and yet vexation and repentance had long been wearying his soul. And during this whole day—spent so amusingly, one would have thought—sorrow had almost never left him. Before singing the romance, he had already not known where to escape from it; maybe that was why he had sung with such feeling.