Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “What! what! I’m a tub, too, am I?” shrieked Natalia Dimitrievna. “And what are you yourself, pray? Oh, I have long known that you call me a tub, madam. Never mind! — at all events my husband is a man, madam, and not a fool, like yours!”

  “Ye — yes — quite so! I remember there was something about a tub, too!” murmured the old man, with a vague recollection of his late conversation with Maria Alexandrovna.

  “What — you, too? you join in abusing a respectable woman of noble extraction, do you? How dare you call me names, prince — you wretched old one-legged misery! I’m a tub am I, you one-legged old abomination?”

  “Wha — at, madam, I one-legged?”

  “Yes — one-legged and toothless, sir; that’s what you are!”

  “Yes, and one-eyed too!” shouted Maria Alexandrovna.

  “And what’s more, you wear stays instead of having your own ribs!” added Natalia Dimitrievna.

  “His face is all on wire springs!”

  “He hasn’t a hair of his own to swear by!”

  “Even the old fool’s moustache is stuck on!” put in Maria Alexandrovna.

  “Well, Ma — arie Alexandrovna, give me the credit of having a nose of my ve — ry own, at all events!” said the prince, overwhelmed with confusion under these unexpected disclosures. “My friend, it must have been you betrayed me! you must have told them that my hair is stuck on?”

  “Uncle, what an idea, I —— !”

  “My dear boy, I can’t stay here any lon — ger, take me away somewhere — quelle société! Where have you brought me to, eh? — Gracious Hea — eaven, what dreadful soc — iety!”

  “Idiot! scoundrel!” shrieked Maria Alexandrovna.

  “Goodness!” said the unfortunate old prince. “I can’t quite remember just now what I came here for at all — I suppose I shall reme — mber directly. Take me away, quick, my boy, or I shall be torn to pieces here! Besides, I have an i — dea that I want to make a note of — —”

  “Come along, uncle — it isn’t very late; I’ll take you over to an hotel at once, and I’ll move over my own things too.”

  “Ye — yes, of course, a ho — tel! Good-bye, my charming child; you alone, you — are the only vir — tuous one of them all; you are a no — oble child. Good-bye, my charming girl! Come along, my friend; — oh, good gra — cious, what people!”

  I will not attempt to describe the end of this disagreeable scene, after the prince’s departure.

  The guests separated in a hurricane of scolding and abuse and mutual vituperation, and Maria Alexandrovna was at last left alone amid the ruins and relics of her departed glory.

  Alas, alas! Power, glory, weight — all had disappeared in this one unfortunate evening. Maria Alexandrovna quite realised that there was no chance of her ever again mounting to the height from which she had now fallen. Her long preeminence and despotism over society in general had collapsed.

  What remained to her? Philosophy? She was wild with the madness of despair all night! Zina was dishonoured — scandals would circulate, never-ceasing scandals; and — oh! it was dreadful!

  As a faithful historian, I must record that poor Afanassy was the scapegoat this night; he “caught it” so terribly that he eventually disappeared; he had hidden himself in the garret, and was there starved to death almost, with cold, all night.

  The morning came at last; but it brought nothing good with it! Misfortunes never come singly.

  CHAPTER XV.

  If fate makes up its mind to visit anyone with misfortune, there is no end to its malice! This fact has often been remarked by thinkers; and, as if the ignominy of last night were not enough, the same malicious destiny had prepared for this family more, yea, and worse — evils to come!

  By ten o’clock in the morning a strange and almost incredible rumour was in full swing all over the town: it was received by society, of course, with full measure of spiteful joy, just as we all love to receive delightfully scandalous stories of anyone about us.

  “To lose one’s sense of shame to such an extent!” people said one to another.

  “To humiliate oneself so, and to neglect the first rules of propriety! To loose the bands of decency altogether like this, really!” etc. etc.

  But here is what had happened.

  Early in the morning, something after six o’clock, a poor piteous-looking old woman came hurriedly to the door of Maria Alexandrovna’s house, and begged the maid to wake Miss Zina up as quickly, as possible, — only Miss Zina, and very quietly, so that her mother should not hear of it, if possible.

  Zina, pale and miserable, ran out to the old woman immediately.

  The latter fell at Zina’s feet and kissed them and begged her with tears to come with her at once to see poor Vaísia, her son, who had been so bad, so bad all night that she did not think he could live another day.

  The old woman told Zina that Vaísia had sent to beg her to come and bid him farewell in this his death hour: he conjured her to come by all the blessed angels, and by all their past — otherwise he must die in despair.

  Zina at once decided to go, in spite of the fact that, by so doing, she would be justifying all the scandal and slanders disseminated about her in former days, as to the intercepted letter, her visits to him, and so on. Without a word to her mother, then, she donned her cloak and started off with the old woman, passing through the whole length of the town, into one of the poorest slums of Mordasof — and stopped at a little low wretched house, with small miserable windows, and snow piled round the basement for warmth.

  In this house, in a tiny room, more than half of which was occupied by an enormous stove, on a wretched bed, and covered with a miserably thin quilt, lay a young man, pale and haggard: his eyes were ablaze with the fire of fever, his hands were dry and thin, and he was breathing with difficulty and very hoarsely. He looked as though he might have been handsome once, but disease had put its finger on his features and made them dreadful to look upon and sad withal, as are so many dying consumptive patients’ faces.

  His old mother who had fed herself for a year past with the conviction that her son would recover, now saw at last that Vaísia was not to live. She stood over him, bowed down with her grief — tearless, and looked and looked, and could not look enough; and felt, but could not realize, that this dear son of hers must in a few days be buried in the miserable Mordasof churchyard, far down beneath the snow and frozen earth!

  But Vaísia was not looking at her at this moment! His poor suffering face was at rest now, and happy; for he saw before him the dear image which he had thought of, dreamed of, and loved through all the long sad nights of his illness, for the last year and a half! He realised that she forgave him, and had come, like an angel of God, to tell him of her forgiveness, here, on his deathbed.

  She pressed his hands, wept over him, stood and smiled over him, looked at him once more with those wonderful eyes of hers, and all the past, the undying ever-present past rose up before the mind’s eye of the dying man. The spark of life flashed up again in his soul, as though to show, now that it was about to die out for ever on this earth, how hard, how hard it was to see so sweet a light fade away.

  “Zina, Zina!” he said, “my Zina, do not weep; don’t grieve, Zina, don’t remind me that I must die! Let me gaze at you, so — so, — and feel that our two souls have come together once more — that you have forgiven me! Let me kiss your dear hands again, as I used, and so let me die without noticing the approach of death.

  “How thin you have grown, Zina! and how sweetly you are looking at me now, my Zina! Do you remember how you used to laugh, in bygone days? Oh, Zina, my angel, I shall not ask you to forgive me, — I will not remember anything about — that, you know what! for if you do forgive me, I can never forgive myself!

  “All the long, long nights, Zina, I have lain here and thought, and thought; and I have long since decided that I had better die, Zina; for I am not fit to live!”

  Zina wept, and silently pressed his hands, a
s though she would stop him talking so.

  “Why do you cry so?” continued the sick man. “Is it because I am dying? but all the past is long since dead and buried, Zina, my angel! You are wiser than I am, you know I am a bad, wicked man; surely you cannot love me still? Do you know what it has cost me to realise that I am a bad man? I, who have always prided myself before the world — and what on? Purity of heart, generosity of aim! Yes, Zina, so I did, while we read Shakespeare; and in theory I was pure and generous. Yet, how did I prove these qualities in practice?”

  “Oh, don’t! don’t!” sobbed Zina, “you are not fair to yourself: don’t talk like this, please don’t!”

  “Don’t stop me, Zina! You forgave me, my angel; I know you forgave me long ago, but you must have judged me, and you know what sort of man I really am; and that is what tortures me so! I am unworthy of your love, Zina! And you were good and true, not only in theory, but in practice too! You told your mother you would marry me, and no one else, and you would have kept your word! Do you know, Zina, I never realized before what you would sacrifice in marrying me! I could not even see that you might die of hunger if you did so! All I thought of was that you would be the bride of a great poet (in the future), and I could not understand your reasons for wishing to delay our union! So I reproached you and bullied you, and despised you and suspected you, and at last I committed the crime of showing your letter! I was not even a scoundrel at that moment! I was simply a worm-man. Ah! how you must have despised me! No, it is well that I am dying; it is well that you did not marry me! I should not have understood your sacrifice, and I should have worried you, and perhaps, in time, have learned to hate you, and ... but now it is good, it is best so! my bitter tears can at least cleanse my heart before I die. Ah! Zina! Zina! love me, love me as you did before for a little, little while! just for the last hour of my life. I know I am not worthy of it, but — oh, my angel, my Zina!”

  Throughout this speech Zina, sobbing herself, had several times tried to stop the speaker; but he would not listen. He felt that he must unburden his soul by speaking out, and continued to talk — though with difficulty, panting, and with choking and husky utterance.

  “Oh, if only you had never seen me and never loved me,” said Zina, “you would have lived on now! Ah, why did we ever meet?”

  “No, no, darling, don’t blame yourself because I am dying! think of all my self-love, my romanticism! I am to blame for all, myself! Did they ever tell you my story in full? Do you remember, three years ago, there was a criminal here sentenced to death? This man heard that a criminal was never executed whilst ill! so he got hold of some wine, mixed tobacco in it, and drank it. The effect was to make him so dreadfully sick, with blood-spitting, that his lungs became affected; he was taken to a hospital, and a few weeks after he died of virulent consumption! Well, on that day, you know, after the letter, it struck me that I would do the same; and why do you think I chose consumption? Because I was afraid of any more sudden death? Perhaps. But, oh, Zina! believe me, a romantic nonsense played a great part in it; at all events, I had an idea that it would be striking and grand for me to be lying here, dying of consumption, and you standing and wringing your hands for woe that love should have brought me to this! You should come, I thought, and beg my pardon on your knees, and I should forgive you and die in your arms!”

  “Oh, don’t! don’t!” said Zina, “don’t talk of it now, dear! you are not really like that. Think of our happy days together, think of something else — not that, not that!”

  “Oh, but it’s so bitter to me, darling; and that’s why I must speak of it. I havn’t seen you for a year and a half, you know, and all that time I have been alone; and I don’t think there was one single minute of all that time when I have not thought of you, my angel, Zina! And, oh! how I longed to do something to earn a better opinion from you! Up to these very last days I have never believed that I should really die; it has not killed me all at once, you know. I have long walked about with my lungs affected. For instance, I have longed to become a great poet suddenly, to publish a poem such as has never appeared before on this earth; I intended to pour my whole soul and being into it, so that wherever I was, or wherever you were, I should always be with you and remind you of myself in my poems! And my greatest longing of all was that you should think it all over and say to yourself at last some day, ‘No, he is not such a wretch as I thought, after all!’ It was stupid of me, Zina, stupid — stupid — wasn’t it, darling?”

  “No, no, Vaísia — no!” cried Zina. She fell on his breast and kissed his poor hot, dry hands.

  “And, oh! how jealous I have been of you all this time, Zina! I think I should have died if I had heard of your wedding. I kept a watch over you, you know; I had a spy — there!” (he nodded towards his mother). “She used to go over and bring me news. You never loved Mosgliakoff — now did you, Zina? Oh, my darling, my darling, will you remember me when I am dead? Oh, I know you will; but years go by, Zina, and hearts grow cold, and yours will cool too, and you’ll forget me, Zina!”

  “No, no, never! I shall never marry. You are my first love, and my only — only — undying love!”

  “But all things die, Zina, even our memories, and our good and noble feelings die also, and in their place comes reason. No, no, Zina, be happy, and live long. Love another if you can, you cannot love a poor dead man for ever! But think of me now and then, if only seldom; don’t think of my faults: forgive them! For oh, Zina, there was good in that sweet love of ours as well as evil. Oh, golden, golden days never to be recalled! Listen, darling, I have always loved the sunset hour — remember me at that time, will you? Oh no, no! why must I die? oh how I should love to live on now. Think of that time — oh, just think of it! it was all spring then, the sun shone so bright, the flowers were so sweet, ah me! and look, now — look!”

  And the poor thin finger pointed to the frozen window-pane. Then he seized Zina’s hand and pressed it tight over his eyes, and sighed bitterly — bitterly! His sobs nearly burst his poor suffering breast.... And so he continued suffering and talking all the long day. Zina comforted and soothed him as she best could, but she too was full of deadly grief and pain. She told him — she promised him — never to forget; that she would never love again as she loved him; and he believed her and wept, and smiled again, and kissed her hands. And so the day passed.

  Meanwhile, Maria Alexandrovna had sent some ten times for Zina, begging her not to ruin her reputation irretrievably. At last, at dusk, she determined to go herself; she was out of her wits with terror and grief.

  Having called Zina out into the next room, she proceeded to beg and pray her, on her knees, “to spare this last dagger at her heart!”

  Zina had come out from the sick-room ill: her head was on fire, — she heard, but could not comprehend, what her mother said; and Marie Alexandrovna was obliged to leave the house again in despair, for Zina had determined to sit up all night with Vaísia.

  She never left his bedside, but the poor fellow grew worse and worse. Another day came, but there was no hope that the sick man would see its close. His old mother walked about as though she had lost all control of her actions; grief had turned her head for the time; she gave her son medicines, but he would none of them! His death agony dragged on and on! He could not speak now, and only hoarse inarticulate sounds proceeded from his throat. To the very last instant he stared and stared at Zina, and never took his eyes off her; and when their light failed them he still groped with uncertain fingers for her hand, to press and fondle it in his own!

  Meanwhile the short winter day was waning! And when at even the last sunbeam gilded the frozen window-pane of the little room, the soul of the sufferer fled in pursuit of it out of the emaciated body that had kept it prisoner.

  The old mother, seeing that there was nothing left her now but the lifeless body of her beloved Vaísia, wrung her hands, and with a loud cry flung herself on his dead breast.

  “This is your doing, you viper, you cursed snake,” she y
elled to Zina, in her despair; “it was you ruined and killed him, you wicked, wretched girl.” But Zina heard nothing. She stood over the dead body like one bereft of her senses.

  At last she bent over him, made the sign of the Cross, kissed him, and mechanically left the room. Her eyes were ablaze, her head whirled. Two nights without sleep, combined with her turbulent feelings, were almost too much for her reason; she had a sort of confused consciousness that all her past had just been torn out of her heart, and that a new life was beginning for her, dark and threatening.

  But she had not gone ten paces when Mosgliakoff suddenly seemed to start up from the earth at her feet.

  He must have been waiting for her here.

  “Zenaida Afanassievna,” he began, peering all around him in what looked like timid haste; it was still pretty light. “Zenaida Afanassievna, of course I am an ass, or, if you please, perhaps not quite an ass, for I really think I am acting rather generously this time. Excuse my blundering, but I am rather confused, from a variety of causes.”

  Zina glanced at him almost unconsciously, and silently went on her way. There was not much room for two on the narrow pavement, and as Zina did not make way for Paul, the latter was obliged to walk on the road at the side, which he did, never taking his eyes off her face.

  “Zenaida Afanassievna,” he continued, “I have thought it all over, and if you are agreeable I am willing to renew my proposal of marriage. I am even ready to forget all that has happened; all the ignominy of the last two days, and to forgive it — but on one condition: that while we are still here our engagement is to remain a strict secret. You will depart from this place as soon as ever you can, and I shall quietly follow you. We will be married secretly, somewhere, so that nobody shall know anything about it; and then we’ll be off to St. Petersburg by express post — don’t take more than a small bag — eh? What say you, Zenaida Afanassievna; tell me quick, please, I can’t stay here. We might be seen together, you know.”