Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "What is it restrains people from suicide, do you think?" I asked.

  He looked at me absent-mindedly, as though trying to remember what we were talking about.

  "I … I don't know much yet… . Two prejudices restrain them, two things; only two, one very little, the other very big."

  "What is the little thing?"

  "Pain."

  "Pain? Can that be of importance at such a moment?"

  "Of the greatest. There are two sorts: those who kill themselves either from great sorrow or from spite, or being mad, or no matter what … they do it suddenly. They think little about the pain, but kill themselves suddenly. But some do it from reasonthey think a great deal."

  "Why, are there people who do it from reason?"

  "Very many. If it were not for superstition there would be more, very many, all."

  "What, all?"

  He did not answer.

  "But aren't there means of dying without pain?"

  "Imagine"he stopped before me" imagine a stone as big as a great house; it hangs and you are under it; if it falls on you, on your head, will it hurt you?"

  "A stone as big as a house? Of course it would be fearful."

  "I speak not of the fear. Will it hurt?"

  "A stone as big as a mountain, weighing millions of tons? Of course it wouldn't hurt."

  "But really stand there and while it hangs you will fear very much that it will hurt. The most learned man, the greatest doctor, all, all will be very much frightened. Every one will know that it won't hurt, and every one will be afraid that it will hurt."

  "Well, and the second cause, the big one?"

  "The other world!"

  "You mean punishment?"

  "That's no matter. The other world; only the other world."

  "Are there no atheists, such as don't believe in the other world at all?"

  Again he did not answer.

  "You judge from yourself, perhaps."

  "Every one cannot judge except from himself," he said, reddening. "There will be full freedom when it will be just the same to live or not to live. That's the goal for all."

  "The goal? But perhaps no one will care to live then?"

  "No one," he pronounced with decision.

  "Man fears death because he loves life. That's how I understand it," I observed, "and that's determined by nature."

  "That's abject; and that's where the deception comes in." His eyes flashed. "Life is pain, life is terror, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and terror. Now man loves life, because he loves pain and terror, and so they have done according. Life is given now for pain and terror, and that's the deception. Now man is not yet what he will be. There will be a new man, happy and proud. For whom it will be the same to live or not to live, he will be the new man. He who will conquer pain and terror will himself be a god. And this God will not be."

  "Then this God does exist according to you?"

  "He does not exist, but He is. In the stone there is no pain, but in the fear of the stone is the pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. He who will conquer pain and terror will become himself a god. Then there will be a new life, a new man; everything will be new … then they will divide history into two parts: from the gorilla to the annihilation of God, and from the annihilation of God to … "

  "To the gorilla?"

  "… To the transformation of the earth, and of man physically. Man will be God, and will be transformed physically, and the world will be transformed and things will be transformed and thoughts and all feelings. What do you think: will man be changed physically then?"

  "If it will be just the same living or not living, all will kill themselves, and perhaps that's what the change will be?"

  "That's no matter. They will kill deception. Every one who wants the supreme freedom must dare to kill himself. He who dares to kill himself has found out the secret of the deception. There is no freedom beyond; that is all, and there is nothing beyond. He who dares kill himself is God. Now every one can do so that there shall be no God and shall be nothing. But no one has once done it yet."

  "There have been millions of suicides."

  "But always not for that; always with terror and not for that object. Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear will become a god at once."

  "He won't have time, perhaps," I observed.

  "That's no matter," he answered softly, with calm pride, almost disdain. "I'm sorry that you seem to be laughing," he added half a minute later.

  "It seems strange to me that you were so irritable this morning and are now so calm, though you speak with warmth."

  "This morning? It was funny this morning," he answered with a smile. "I don't like scolding, and I never laugh," he added mournfully.

  "Yes, you don't spend your nights very cheerfully over your tea."

  I got up and took my cap.

  "You think not?" he smiled with some surprise. "Why? No, I … I don't know." He was suddenly confused. "I know not how it is with the others, and I feel that I cannot do as others. Everybody thinks and then at once thinks of something else. I can't think of something else. I think all my life of one thing. God has tormented me all my life," he ended up suddenly with astonishing expansiveness.

  "And tell me, if I may ask, why is it you speak Russian not quite correctly? Surely you haven't forgotten it after five years abroad?"

  "Don't I speak correctly? I don't know. No, it's not because of abroad. I have talked like that all my life … it's no matter to me."

  "Another question, a more delicate one. I quitebelieve you that you're disinclined to meet people and talk very little. Why have you talked to me now?"

  "To you? This morning you sat so nicely and you … but it's all no matter … you are like my brother, very much, extremely," he added, flushing. "He has been dead seven years. He was older, very, very much."

  "I suppose he had a great influence on your way of thinking?"

  "N-no. He said little; he said nothing. I'll give your note."

  He saw me to the gate with a lantern, to lock it after me. "Of course he's mad," I decided. In the gateway I met with another encounter.

  I had only just lifted my leg over the high barrier across the bottom of the gateway, when suddenly a strong hand clutched at my chest.

  "Who's this?" roared a voice, "a friend or an enemy? Own up!"

  "He's one of us; one of us!" Liputin's voice squealed near by. "It's Mr. Gv, a young man of classical education, in touch with the highest society."

  "I love him if he's in society, clas-si … that means he's high-ly ed-u-cated. The retired Captain Ignat Lebyadkin, at the service of the world and his friends … if they're true ones, if they're true ones, the scoundrels."

  Captain Lebyadkin, a stout, fleshy man over six feet in height, with curly hair and a red face, was so extremely drunk that he could scarcely stand up before me, and articulated with difficulty. I had seen him before, however, in the distance.

  "And this one!" he roared again, noticing Kirillov, who was still standing with the lantern; he raised his fist, but let it fall again at once.

  "I forgive you for your learning! Ignat Lebyadkin high-ly ed-u-cated… .

  'A bomb of love with stinging smart

  Exploded in Ignaty's heart.

  In anguish dire I weep again

  The arm that at Sevastopol

  I lost in bitter pain!'

  Not that I ever was at Sevastopol, or ever lost my arm, but you know what rhyme is." He pushed up to me with his ugly, tipsy face.

  "Pie is in a hurry, he is going home!" Liputin tried to persuade him. "He'll tell Lizaveta Nikolaevna to-morrow."

  "Lizaveta!" he yelled again. "Stay, don't go! A variation;

  'Among the Amazons a star,

  Upon her steed she flashes by,

  And smiles upon me from afar,

  The child of aris-to-cra-cy!

  To a Starry Amazon.'

  You know that's a hymn. It's a hymn, if you're not an ass! The duffers
, they don't understand! Stay!"

  He caught hold of my coat, though I pulled myself away with all my might.

  "Tell her I'm a knight and the soul of honour, and as for that Dasha … I'd pick her up and chuck her out… . She's only a serf, she daren't … "

  At this point he fell down, for I pulled myself violently out of his hands and ran into the street. Liputin clung on to me.

  "Alexey Nilitch will pick him up. Do you know what I've just found out from him?" he babbled in desperate haste. "Did you hear his verses? He's sealed those verses to the 'Starry Amazon' in an envelope and is going to send them to-morrow to Lizaveta Nikolaevna, signed with his name in full. What a fellow!"

  "I bet you suggested it to him yourself."

  "You'll lose your bet," laughed Liputin. "He's in love, in love like a cat, and do you know it began with hatred. He hated Lizaveta Nikolaevna at first so much, for riding on horseback that he almost swore aloud at her in the street. Yes, he did abuse her! Only the day before yesterday he swore at her when she rode byluckily she didn't hear. And, suddenly, to-day poetry! Do you know he means to risk a proposal? Seriously! Seriously!"

  "I wonder at you, Liputin; whenever there's anything nasty going on you're always on the spot taking a leading part in it," I said angrily.

  "You're going rather far, Mr. Gv. Isn't your poor little

  heart quaking, perhaps, in terror of a rival?"

  "Wha-at!" I cried, standing still.

  "Well, now to punish you I won't say anything more, and wouldn't you like to know though? Take this alone, that that lout is not a simple captain now but a landowner of our province, and rather an important one, too, for Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch sold him all his estate the other day, formerly of two hundred serfs; and as God's above, I'm not lying. I've only just heard it, but it was from a most reliable source. And now you can ferret it out for yourself; I'll say nothing more; good-bye."

  Stepan Trofimovitch was awaiting me with hysterical impatience. It was an hour since he had returned. I found him in a state resembling intoxication; for the first five minutes at least I thought he was drunk. Alas, the visit to the Drozdovs had been the finishing-stroke.

  "Mon ami! I have completely lost the thread … Lise … I love and respect that angel as before; just as before; but it seems to me they both asked me simply to find out something from me, that is more simply to get something out of me, and then to get rid of me… . That's how it is."

  "You ought to be ashamed!" I couldn't help exclaiming. "My friend, now I am utterly alone. Enfin, c'est ridicule. Would you believe it, the place is positively packed with mysteries there too. They simply flew at me about those ears and noses, and some mysteries in Petersburg too. You know they hadn't heard till they came about the tricks Nicolas played here four years ago. 'You were here, you saw it, is it true that he is mad?' Where they got the idea I can't make out. Why is it that Praskovya is so anxious Nicolas should be mad? The woman will have it so, she will. Ce Maurice, or what's his name, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, brave homme tout de meme … but can it be for his sake, and after she wrote herself from Paris to cette pauvre amie? … Enfin, this Praskovya, as cette chere amie calls her, is a type. She's Gogol's Madame Box, of immortal memory, only she's a spiteful Madame Box, a malignant Box, and in an immensely exaggerated form."

  "That's making her out a regular packing-case if it's an exaggerated form."

  "Well, perhaps it's the opposite; it's all the same, only don't interrupt me, for I'm all in a whirl. They are all at loggerheads, except Lise, she keeps on with her 'Auntie, auntie!' but Lise's sly, and there's something behind it too. Secrets. She has quarrelled with the old lady. Cette pauvre auntie tyrannises over every one it's true, and then there's the governor's wife, and the rudeness of local society, and Karmazinov's 'rudeness'; and then this idea of madness, ce Lipoutine, ce que je ne comprends pas … and … and they say she's been putting vinegar on her head, and here are we with our complaints and letters… . Oh, how I have tormented her and at such a time! Je suis un ingrat! Only imagine, I come back and find a letter from her; read it, read it! Oh, how ungrateful it was of me!"

  He gave me a letter he had just received from Varvara Petrovna. She seemed to have repented of her "stay at home." The letter was amiable but decided in tone, and brief. She invited Stepan Trofimovitch to come to her the day after to-morrow, which was Sunday, at twelve o'clock, and advised him to bring one of his friends with him. (My name was mentioned in parenthesis). She promised on her side to invite Shatov, as the brother of Darya Pavlovna. "You can obtain a final answer from her: will that be enough for you? Is this the formality you were so anxious for?"

  "Observe that irritable phrase about formality. Poor thing, poor thing, the friend of my whole life! I confess the sudden determination of my whole future almost crushed me… . I confess I still had hopes, but now tout est dit. I know now that all is over. C'est terrible! Oh, that that Sunday would never come and everything would go on in the old way. You would have gone on coming and I'd have gone on here… ."

  "You've been upset by all those nasty things Liputin said, those slanders."

  "My dear, you have touched on another sore spot with your friendly finger. Such friendly fingers are generally merciless and sometimes unreasonable; pardon, you may riot believe it, but I'd almost forgotten all that, all that nastiness, not that I forgot it, indeed, but in my foolishness I tried all the while I was with Lise to be happy and persuaded myself I was happy. But now … Oh, now I'm thinking of that generous, humane woman, so long-suffering with my contemptible failingsnot that she's been altogether long-suffering, but what have I been with my horrid, worthless character! I'm a capricious child, with all the egoism of a child and none of the innocence. For the last twenty years she's been looking after me like a nurse, cette pauvre auntie, as Lise so charmingly calls her… . And now, after twenty years, the child clamours to be married, sending letter after letter, while her head's in a vinegar-compress and … now he's got it on Sunday I shall be a married man, that's no joke… . And why did I keep insisting myself, what did I write those letters for? Oh, I forgot. Lise idolizes Darya Pavlovna, she says so anyway; she says of her 'c'est un ange, only rather a reserved one.' They both advised me, even Praskovya… . Praskovya didn't advise me though. Oh, what venom lies concealed in that 'Box'! And Lise didn't exactly advise me: 'What do you want to get married for,' she said, 'your intellectual pleasures ought to be enough for you.' She laughed. I forgive her for laughing, for there's an ache in her own heart. You can't get on without a woman though, they said to me. The infirmities of age are coming upon you, and she will tuck you up, or whatever it is… . Ma foi, I've been thinking myself all this time I've been sitting with you that Providence was sending her to me in the decline of my stormy years and that she would tuck me up, or whatever they call it … enfin, she'll be handy for the housekeeping. See what a litter there is, look how everything's lying about. I said it must be cleared up this morning, and look at the book on the floor! La pauvre amie was always angry at the untidiness here… . Ah, now I shall no longer hear her voice! Vingt ans! And it seems they've had anonymous letters. Only fancy, it's said that Nicolas has sold Lebyadkin his property. C'est un monstre; et enfin what is Lebyadkin? Lise listens, and listens, ooh, how she listens! I forgave her laughing. I saw her face as she listened, and ce Maurice … I shouldn't care to be in his shoes now, brave homme tout de meme, but rather shy; but never mind him… ."

  He paused. He was tired and upset, and sat with drooping head, staring at the floor with his tired eyes. I took advantage of the interval to tell him of my visit to Filipov's house, and curtly and dryly expressed my opinion that Lebyadkin's sister (whom I had never seen) really might have been somehow Victimised by Nicolas at some time during that mysterious period of his life, as Liputin had called it, and that it was very possible that Lebyadkin received sums of money from Nicolas for some reason, but that was all. As for the scandal about Darya Pavlovna, that was all nonsense, all that brute Liputin
's misrepresentations, that this was anyway what Alexey Nilitch warmly maintained, and we had no grounds for disbelieving him. Stepan Trofimovitch listened to my assurances with an absent air, as though they did not concern him. I mentioned by the way my conversation with Kirillov, and added that he might be mad.

  "He's not mad, but one of those shallow-minded people," he mumbled listlessly. "Ces gens-il supposent la nature et la societe humaine autres que Dieu ne les a faites et qu'elles ne sont reellement. People try to make up to them, but Stepan Verhovensky does not, anyway. I saw them that time in Petersburg avec cette chere amie (oh, how I used to wound her then), and I wasn't afraid of their abuse or even of their praise. I'm not afraid now either. Mais parlous d'autre chose… . I believe I have done dreadful things. Only fancy, I sent a letter yesterday to Darya Pavlovna and … how I curse myself for it!"

  "What did you write about?"

  "Oh, my friend, believe me, it was all done in' a noble spirit. I let her know that I had written to Nicolas five days before, also in a noble spirit."

  "I understand now!" I cried with heat. "And what right had you to couple their names like that?"

  "But, mon cher, don't crush me completely, don't shout at me; as it is I'm utterly squashed like … a black-beetle. And, after all, I thought it was all so honourable. Suppose that something really happened … en Suisse … or was beginning. I was bound to question their hearts beforehand that I . enfin, that I might not constrain their hearts, and be a stumbling-block in their paths. I acted simply from honourable feeling."

  "Oh, heavens! What a stupid thing you've done!" I cried involuntarily.

  "Yes, yes," he assented with positive eagerness. "You have never said anything more just, c'etait bete, mais que faire? Tout est dit. I shall marry her just the same even if it be to cover 'another's sins.' So there was no object in writing, was there?"

  "You're at that idea again!"

  "Oh, you won't frighten me with your shouts now. You see a different Stepan Verhovensky before you now. The man I was is buried. Enfin, tout est dit. And why do you cry out? Simply because you're not getting married, and you won't have to wear a certain decoration on your head. Does that shock you again? My poor friend, you don't know woman, while I have done nothing but study her. 'If you want to conquer the world, conquer yourselfthe one good thing that another romantic like you, my bride's brother, Shatov, has succeeded in saying. I would gladly borrow from him his phrase. Well, here I am ready to conquer myself, and I'm getting married. And what am I conquering by way of the whole world? Oh, my friend, marriage is the moral death of every proud soul, of all independence. Married life will corrupt me, it will sap my energy, my courage in the service of the cause. Children will come, probably not my own eithercertainly not my own: a wise man is not afraid to face the truth. Liputin proposed this morning putting up barricades to keep out Nicolas; Liputin's a fool. A woman would deceive the all-seeing eye itself. Le bon Dieu knew what He was in for when He was creating woman, but I'm sure that she meddled in it herself and forced Him to create her such as she is … and with such attributes: for who would have incurred so much trouble for nothing? I know Nastasya may be angry with me for free-thinking, but … enfin, taut est dit."