“Vasya, what is the matter? What are you thinking? Why do you look like that?”
“Arkady, I really must go to-morrow to wish Yulian Mastakovitch a happy New Year.”
“Well, go then! “ said Arkady, gazing at him open-eyed, in uneasy expectation. “I say, Vasya, do write faster; I am advising you for your good, I really am! How often Yulian Mastakovitch himself has said that what he likes particularly about your writing is its legibility. Why, it is all that Skoroplehin cares for, that writing should bo good and distinct like a copy, so as afterwards to pocket the paper and take it home for his children to copy; he can’t buy copybooks, the blockhead! Yulian Mastakovitch is always saying, always insisting: ‘Legible, legible, legible!’ . . . What is the matter? Vasya, I really don’t know how to talk to you ... it quite frightens me . . . you crush me with your depression.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” said Vasya, and he fell back in his chair as though fainting. Arkady was alarmed.
“Will you have some water? Vasya! Vasya!”
“Don’t, don’t,” said Vasya, pressing his hand. “I am all right, I only feel sad, I can’t tell why. Better talk of something else; let me forget it.”
“Calm yourself, for goodness’ sake, calm yourself, Vasya. You will finish it all right, on my honour, you will. And even if you don’t finish, what will it matter? You talk as though it were a crime!”
“Arkady,” said Vasya, looking at his friend with such meaning that Arkady was quite frightened, for Vasya had never been so agitated before. . . . “If I were alone, as I used to be. . . . No! I don’t mean that. I keep wanting to tell you as a friend, to confide in you. . . . But why worry you, though? . . . You see, Arkady, to some much is given, others do a little thing as I do. Well, if gratitude, appreciation, is expected of you, . . . and you can’t give it?”
“Vasya, I don’t understand you in the least.”
“I have never been ungrateful,” Vasya went on softly, as though speaking to himself, “ but if I am incapable of expressing all I feel, it seems as though ... it seems, Arkady, as though I am really ungrateful, and that’s killing me.”
“What next, what next ! As though gratitude meant nothing more than your finishing that copy in time? Just think what you are saying, Vasya? Is that the whole expression of gratitude?”
Vasya sank into silence at once, and looked open-eyed at Arkady, as though his unexpected argument had settled all his doubts. He even smiled, but the same melancholy expression came back to his face at once. Arkady, taking this smile as a sign that all his uneasiness was over, and the look that succeeded it as an indication that he was determined to do better, was greatly relieved.
“Well, brother Arkasha, you will wake up,” said Vasya, “keep an eye on me; if I fall asleep it will be dreadful. I’ll set to work now. . . . Arkasha?”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, I only ... I meant. . . .”
Vasya settled himself, and said no more, Arkady got into bed. Neither of them said one word about their friends, the Artemyevs. Perhaps both of them felt that they had been a little to blame, and that they ought not to have gone for their jaunt when they did. Arkady soon fell asleep, still worried about Vasya. To his own surprise he woke up exactly at eight o’clock in the morning. Vasya was asleep in his chair with the pen in his hand, pale and exhausted; the candle had burnt out. Mavra was busy getting the samovar ready in the kitchen.
“Vasya, Vasya!” Arkady cried in alarm, “when did you fall asleep?”
Vasya opened his eyes and jumped up from his chair.
“Oh!” he cried, “I must have fallen asleep. . . .”
He flew to the papers — everything was right; all were in order; there was not a blot of ink, nor spot of grease from the candle on them.
“I think I must have fallen asleep about six o’clock,” said Vasya. “How cold it is in the night! Let us have tea, and I will go on again. ...”
“Do you feel better?”
“Yes, yes, I’m all right, I’m all right now.”
“A happy New Year to you, brother Vasya.”
“And to you too, brother, the same to you, dear boy.”
They embraced each other. Vasya’s chin was quivering and his eyes were moist. Arkady Ivanovitch was silent, he felt sad. They drank their tea hastily.
“Arkady, I’ve made up my mind, I am going myself to Yulian Mastakovitch.”
“Why, he wouldn’t notice.”
“But my conscience feels ill at ease, brother.”
“But you know it’s for his sake you are sitting here; it’s for his sake you are wearing yourself out.”
“Enough!”
“Do you know what, brother, I’ll go round and see. . . .”
“Whom?” asked Vasya.
“The Artemyevs. I’ll take them your good wishes for the New Year as well as mine.”
“My dear fellow! Well, I’ll stay here; and I see it’s a good idea of yours; I shall be working here, I shan’t waste my time. Wait one minute, I’ll write a note.”
“Yes, do brother, do, there’s plenty of time. I’ve still to wash and shave and to brush my best coat. Well, Vasya, we are going to be contented and happy. Embrace me, Vasya.”
“Ah, if only we may, brother. ...”
“Does Mr. Shumkov live here?” they heard a child’s voice on the stairs.
“Yes, my dear, yes,” said Mavra, showing the visitor in.
“What’s that? What is it? “ cried Vasya, leaping up from the table and rushing to the entry, “ Petinka, you?”
“Good morning, I have the honour to wish you a happy New Year, Vassily Petrovitch,” said a pretty boy of ten years old with curly black hair. “Sister sends you her love, and so does Mamma, and Sister told me to give you a kiss for her.”
Vasya caught the messenger up in the air and printed a long, enthusiastic kiss on his lips, which were very much like Lizanka’s.
“Kiss him, Arkady,” he said handing Petya to him, and without touching the ground the boy was transferred to Arkady Ivanovitch’s powerful and eager arms.
“Will you have some breakfast, dear?”
“Thank-you, very much. We have had it already, we got up early to-day, the others have gone to church. Sister was two hours curling my hair, and pomading it, washing me and mending my trousers, for I tore them yesterday, playing with Sashka in the street, we were snowballing.”
“Well, well, well!”
“So she dressed me up to come and see you, and then pomaded my head and then gave me a regular kissing. She said : ‘Go to Vasya, wish him a happy New Year, and ask whether they are happy, whether they had a good night, and . . .’ to ask something else, oh yes! whether you had finished the work you spoke of yesterday . . . when you were there. Oh, I’ve got it all written down,” said the boy, reading from a slip of paper which he took out of his pocket. “ Yes, they were uneasy.”
“It will be finished! It will be! Tell her that it will be. I shall finish it, on my word of honour!”
“And something else. . . . Oh yes, I forgot. Sister sent a little note and a present, and I was forgetting it ! . . .”
“My goodness! Oh, you little darling! Where is it? where is it? That’s it, oh! Look, brother, see what she writes. The darling, the precious! You know I saw there yesterday a paper-case for me; it’s not finished, so she says, ‘I am sending you a lock of my hair, and the other will come later.’ Look, brother, look!”
And overwhelmed with rapture he showed Arkady Ivanovitch a curl of luxuriant, jet-black hair; then he kissed it fervently and put it in his breast pocket, nearest his heart.
“Vasya, I shall get you a locket for that curl,” Arkady Ivanovitch said resolutely at last.
“And we are going to have hot veal, and to-morrow brains. Mamma wants to make cakes . . . but we are not going to have millet porridge,” said the boy, after a moment’s thought, to wind up his budget of interesting items.
“Oh! what a pretty boy,” cried Ar
kady Ivanovitch. “Vasya, you are the happiest of mortals.”
The boy finished his tea, took from Vasya a note, a thousand kisses, and went out happy and frolicsome as before.
“Well, brother,” began Arkady Ivanovitch, highly delighted, you see how splendid it all is; you see. Everything is going well, don’t be downcast, don’t be uneasy. Go ahead! Get it done, Vasya, get it done. I’ll be home at two o’clock. I’ll go round to them, and then to Yulian Mastakovitch.”
“Well, good-bye, brother; good-bye ... Oh! if only. . . . Very good, you go, very good,” said Vasya, “then I really won’t go to Yulian Mastakovitch.”
“Good-bye.”
“Stay, brother, stay, tell them . . . well, whatever you think fit. Kiss her. . . and give me a full account of everything afterwards.”
“Come, come of course, I know all about it. This happiness has upset you. The suddenness of it all; you’ve not been yourself since yesterday. You have not got over the excitement of yesterday. Well, it’s settled. Now try and get over it, Vasya. Good-bye, good-bye!”
At last the friends parted. All the morning Arkady Ivanovitch was preoccupied, and could think of nothing but Vasya. He knew his weak, highly nervous character. “Yes, this happiness has upset him, I was right there,” he said to himself. “Upon my word, he has made me quite depressed, too, that man will make a tragedy of anything! What a feverish creature! Oh, I must save him! I must save him!” said Arkady, not noticing that he himself was exaggerating into something serious a slight trouble, in reality quite trivial. Only at eleven o’clock he reached the porter’s lodge of Yulian Mastakovitch’s house, to add his modest name to the long list of illustrious persons who had written their names on a sheet of blotted and scribbled paper in the porter’s lodge. What was his surprise when he saw just above his own the signature of Vasya Shumkov! It amazed him. “What’s the matter with him?” he thought. Arkady Ivanovitch, who had just been so buoyant with hope, came out feeling upset. There was certainly going to be trouble, but how? And in what form? He reached the Artemyevs with gloomy forebodings; he seemed absent-minded from the first, and after talking a little with Lizanka went away with tears in his eyes; he was really anxious about Vasya. He went home running, and on the Neva came full tilt upon Vasya himself. The latter, too, was uneasy.
“Where are you going!” cried Arkady Ivanovitch.
Vasya stopped as though he had been caught in a crime.
“Oh, it’s nothing, brother, I wanted to go for a walk.”
“You could not stand it, and have been to the Artemyevs? Oh, Vasya, Vasya! Why did you go to Yulian Mastakovitch?”
Vasya did not answer, but then with a wave of his hand, he said: “ Arkady, I don’t know what is the matter with me. I. . . .”
“Come, come, Vasya. I know what it is. Calm yourself. You’ve been excited, and overwrought ever since yesterday. Only think, it’s not much to bear. Everybody’s fond of you, everybody’s ready to do anything for you; your work is getting on all right; you will get it done, you will certainly get it done. I know that you have been imagining something, you have had apprehensions about something. ...”
“No, it’s all right, it’s all right. . . .”
“Do you remember, Vasya, do you remember it was the same with you once before; do you remember, when you got your promotion, in your joy and thankfulness you were so zealous that you spoilt all your work for a week? It is just the same with you now.”
“Yes, yes, Arkady; but now it is different, it is not that at all.”
“How is it different? And very likely the work is not urgent at all, while you are killing yourself. . . .”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. I am all right, it’s nothing. Well, come along!”
“Why, are you going home, and not to them?”
“Yes, brother, how could I have the face to turn up there? . . . I have changed my mind. It was only that I could not stay on alone without you; now you are coming back with me — I’ll sit down to write again. Let us go!”
They walked along and for some time were silent. Vasya was in haste.
“Why don’t you ask me about them?” said Arkady Ivanovitch.
“Oh, yes! Well, Arkasha, what about them?”
“Vasya, you are not like yourself.”
“Oh, I am all right, I am all right. Tell me everything, Arkasha,” said Vasya, in an imploring voice, as though to avoid further explanations. Arkady Ivanovitch sighed. He felt utterly at a loss, looking at Vasya.
His account of their friends roused Vasya. He even grew talkative. They had dinner together. Lizanka’s mother had filled Arkady Ivanovitch’s pockets with little cakes, and eating them the friends grew more cheerful. After dinner Vasya promised to take a nap, so as to sit up all night. He did, in fact lie down. In the morning, some one whom it was impossible to refuse had invited Arkady Ivanovitch to tea. The friends parted. Arkady promised to come back as soon as he could, by eight o’clock if possible. The three hours of separation seemed to him like three years. At last he got away and rushed back to Vasya. When he went into the room, he found it in darkness. Vasya was not at home. He asked Mavra. Mavra said that he had been writing all the time, and had not slept at all, then he had paced up and down the room, and after that, an hour before, he had run out, saying he would be back in half -an -hour; “and when, says he, Arkady Ivanovitch comes in, tell him, old woman, says he,” Mavra told him in conclusion, “ that I have gone out for a walk,” and he repeated the order three or four times.
“He is at the Artemyevs,” thought Arkady Ivanovitch, and he shook his head.
A minute later he jumped up with renewed hope.
“He has simply finished,” he thought, “that’s all it is; he couldn’t wait, but ran off there. But, no! he would have waited for me. . . . Let’s have a peep what he has there.”
He lighted a candle, and ran to Vasya’s writing-table: the work had made progress and it looked as though there were not much left to do. Arkady Ivanovitch was about to investigate further, when Vasya himself walked in. . . .
“Oh, you are here?” he cried, with a start of dismay.
Arkady Ivanovitch was silent. He was afraid to question Vasya. The latter dropped his eyes and remained silent too, as he began sorting the papers. At last their eyes met. The look in Vasya’s was so beseeching, imploring, and broken, that Arkady shuddered when he saw it. His heart quivered and was full.
“Vasya, my dear boy, what is it? What’s wrong?” he cried, rushing to him and squeezing him in his arms. “Explain to me, I don’t understand you, and your depression. What is the matter with you, my poor, tormented boy? What is it? Tell me all about it, without hiding anything. It can’t be only this.”
Vasya held him tight and could say nothing. He could scarcely breathe.
“Don’t, Vasya, don’t ! Well, if you don’t finish it, what then? I don’t understand you; tell me your trouble. You see it is for your sake I ... Oh dear! oh dear!” he said, walking up and down the room and clutching at everything he came across, as though seeking at once some remedy for Vasya. “I will go to Yulian Mastakovitch instead of you to-morrow. I will ask him — entreat him to let you have another day. I will explain it all to him, anything, if it worries you so. . . .”
“God forbid!” cried Vasya, and turned as white as the wall. He could scarcely stand on his feet.
“Vasya! Vasya!”
Vasya pulled himself together. His lips were quivering; he tried to say something, but could only convulsively squeeze Arkady’s hand in silence. His hand was cold. Arkady stood facing him, full of anxious and miserable suspense. Vasya raised his eyes again.
“Vasya, God bless you, Vasya! You wring my heart, my dear boy, my friend.”
Tears gushed from Vasya’s eyes; he flung himself on Arkady’s bosom.
“I have deceived you, Arkady,” he said. “I have deceived you. Forgive me, forgive me! I have been faithless to your friendship ...”
“What is it, Vasya? What is the
matter? “ asked Arkady, in real alarm.
“Look!”
And with a gesture of despair Vasya tossed out of the drawer on to the table six thick manuscripts, similar to the one he had copied.
“What’s this?”
“What I have to get through by the day after to-morrow. I haven’t done a quarter! Don’t ask me, don’t ask me how it has happened,” Vasya went on, speaking at once of what was distressing him so terribly. “Arkady, dear friend, I don’t know myself what came over me. I feel as though I were coming out of a dream. I have wasted three weeks doing nothing. I kept ... I ... kept going to see her. . . . My heart was aching, I was tormented by ... the uncertainty ... I could not write. I did not even think about it. Only now, when happiness is at hand for me, I have come to my senses.”
“Vasya,” began Arkady Ivanovitch resolutely, “Vasya, I will save you. I understand it all. It’s a serious matter; I will save you. Listen! listen to me: I will go to Yulian Mastakovitch to-morrow. . . . Don’t shake your head; no, listen! I will tell him exactly how it has all been; let me do that . . . I will explain to him. ... I will go into everything. I will tell him how crushed you are, how you are worrying yourself.”
“Do you know that you are killing me now? “ Vasya brought out, turning cold with horror.
Arkady Ivanovitch turned pale, but at once controlling himself, laughed.
“Is that all? Is that all?” he said. “Upon my word, Vasya, upon my word ! Aren’t you ashamed ? Come, listen! I see that I am grieving you. You see I understand you; I know what is passing in your heart. Why, we have been living together for five years, thank God! You are such a kind, soft-hearted fellow, but weak, unpardonably weak. Why, even Lizaveta Mikalovna has noticed it. And you are a dreamer, and that’s a bad thing, too; you may go from bad to worse, brother. I tell you, I know what you want! You would like Yulian Mastakovitch, for instance, to be beside himself and, maybe, to give a ball, too, from joy, because you are going to get married. . . . Stop, stop! you are frowning. You see that at one word from me you are offended on Yulian Mastakovitch’s account. Let him alone. You know I respect him just as much as you do. But argue as you may, you can’t prevent my thinking that you would like there to be no one unhappy in the whole world when you are getting married. . . . Yes, brother, you must admit that you would like me, for instance, your best friend, to come in for a fortune of a hundred thousand all of a sudden, you would like all the enemies in the world to be suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, reconciled, so that in their joy they might all embrace one another in the middle of the street, and then, perhaps, come here to call on you. Vasya, my dear boy, I am not laughing; it is true; you’ve said as much to me long ago, in different ways. Because you are happy, you want every one, absolutely every one, to become happy at once. It hurts you and troubles you to be happy alone. And so you want at once to do your utmost to be worthy of that happiness, and maybe to do some great deed to satisfy your conscience. Oh! I understand how ready you are to distress yourself for having suddenly been remiss just where you ought to have shown your zeal, your capacity . . . well, maybe your gratitude, as you say. It is very bitter for you to think that Yulian Mastakovitch may frown and even be angry when he sees that you have not justified the expectations he had of you. It hurts you to think that you may hear reproaches from the man you look upon as your benefactor and at such a moment! when your heart is full of joy and you don’t know on whom to lavish your gratitude. . . . Isn’t that true? It is, isn’t it?”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 628