Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "How do you know that I could be a printer?" Shatov asked sullenly.

  "Why, Pyotr Stepanovitch told me of you in Switzerland, and referred me to you as one who knows the business and able to set up a printing-press. He even meant to give me a note to you from himself, but I forgot it."

  Shatov's face changed, as I recollect now. He stood for a few seconds longer, then went out of the room.

  Liza was angry.

  "Does he always go out like that?" she asked, turning to me.

  I was just shrugging my shoulders when Shatov suddenly came back, went straight up to the table and put down the roll of papers he had taken.

  "I'm not going to be your helper, I haven't the time… ."

  "Why? Why? I think you are angry!" Liza asked him in a grieved and imploring voice.

  The sound of her voice seemed to strike him; for some moments he looked at her intently, as though trying to penetrate to her very soul.

  "No matter," he muttered, softly, "I don't want to… ."

  And he went away altogether.

  Liza was completely overwhelmed, quite disproportionately in fact, so it seemed to me.

  "Wonderfully queer man," Mavriky Nikolaevitch observed aloud.

  He certainly was queer, but in all this there was a very great deal not clear to me. There was something underlying it all? I simply did not believe in this publication; then that stupid letter, in which there was an offer, only too barefaced, to give information and produce "documents," though they were all silent about that, and talked of something quite different; finally that printing-press and Shatov's sudden exit, just because they spoke of a printing-press. All this led me to imagine that something had happened before I came in of which I knew nothing; and, consequently, that it was no business of mine and that I was in the way. And, indeed, it was time to take leave, I had stayed long enough for the first call. I went up to say good-bye to Lizaveta Nikolaevna.

  She seemed to have forgotten that I was in the room, and was still standing in the same place by the table with her head bowed, plunged in thought, gazing fixedly at one spot on the carpet.

  "Ah, you, too, are going, good-bye," she murmured in an ordinary friendly tone. "Give my greetings to Stepan Trofimovitch, and persuade him to come and see me as soon as he can. Mavriky Nikolaevitch, Anton Lavrentyevitch is going. Excuse maman's not being able to come out and say good-bye to you… ."

  I went out and had reached the bottom of the stairs when a footman suddenly overtook me at the street door.

  "My lady begs you to come back… ."

  "The mistress, or Lizaveta Nikolaevna?"

  "The young lady."

  I found Liza not in the big room where we had been sitting, but in the reception-room next to it. The door between it and the drawing-room, where Mavriky Nikolaevitch was left alone, was closed.

  Liza smiled to me but was pale. She was standing in the middle of the room in evident indecision, visibly struggling with herself; but she suddenly took me by the hand, and led me quickly to the window.

  "I want to see her at once," she whispered, bending upon me a burning, passionate, impatient glance, which would not admit a hint of opposition. '' I must see her with my own eyes, and I beg you to help me."

  She was in a perfect frenzy, andin despair.

  "Who is it you want to see, Lizaveta Nikolaevna?" I inquired in dismay.

  "That Lebyadkin's sister, that lame girl… . Is it true that she's lame?"

  I was astounded.

  "I have never seen her, but I've heard that she's lame. I heard it yesterday," I said with hurried readiness, and also in a whisper.

  "I must see her, absolutely. Could you arrange it to-day?"

  I felt dreadfully sorry for her.

  "That's utterly impossible, and, besides, I should not know at all how to set about it," I began persuading her. "I'll go to Shatov… ."

  "If you don't arrange it by to-morrow I'll go to her by myself, alone, for Mavriky Nikolaevitch has refused. I rest all my hopes on you and I've no one else; I spoke stupidly to Shatov… . I'm sure that you are perfectly honest and perhaps ready to do anything for me, only arrange it."

  I felt a passionate desire to help her in every way.

  "This is what I'll do," I said, after a moment's thought. "I'll go myself to-day and will see her for sure, for sure. I will manage so as to see her. I give you my word of honour. Only let me confide in Shatov."

  "Tell him that I do desire it, and that I can't wait any longer, but that I wasn't deceiving him just now. He went away perhaps because he's very honest and he didn't like my seeming to deceive him. I wasn't deceiving him, I really do want to edit books and found a printing-press… ."

  "He is honest, very honest," I assented warmly.

  "If it's not arranged by to-morrow, though, I shall go myself whatever happens, and even if every one were to know."

  "I can't be with you before three o'clock to-morrow," I observed, after a moment's deliberation.

  "At three o'clock then. Then it was true what I imagined yesterday at Stepan Trofimovitch's, that you-are rather devoted to me?" she said with a smile, hurriedly pressing my hand to say good-bye, and hurrying back to the forsaken Mavriky Nikolaevitch.

  I went out weighed down by my promise, and unable to understand what had happened. I had seen a woman in real despair, not hesitating to compromise herself by confiding in a man she hardly knew. Her womanly smile at a moment so terrible for her and her hint that she had noticed my feelings the day before sent a pang to my heart; but I felt sorry for her, very sorrythat was all! Her secrets became at once something sacred for me, and if anyone had begun to reveal them to me now, I think I should have covered my ears, and should have refused to hear anything more. I only had a presentiment of something … yet I was utterly at a loss to see how I could do anything. What's more I did not even yet understand exactly what I had to arrange; an interview, but what sort of an interview? And how could I bring them together? My only hope was Shatov, though I could be sure that he wouldn't help me in any way. But all the same, I hurried to him.

  I did not find him at home till past seven o'clock that evening. To my surprise he had visitors with himAlexey Nilitch, and another gentleman I hardly knew, one Shigalov, the brother of Virginsky's wife.

  This gentleman must, I think, have been staying about two months in the town; I don't know where he came from. I had only heard that he had written some sort of article in a progressive Petersburg magazine. Virginsky had introduced me casually to him in the street. I had never in my life seen in a man's face so much despondency, gloom, and moroseness. He looked as though he were expecting the destruction of the world, and not at some indefinite time in accordance with prophecies, which might never be fulfilled, but quite definitely, as though it were to be the day after to-morrow at twenty-five minutes past ten. We hardly said a word to one another on that occasion, but had simply shaken hands like two conspirators. I was most struck by his ears, which were of unnatural size, long, broad, and thick, sticking out in a peculiar way. His gestures were slow and awkward.

  If Liputin had imagined that a phalanstery might be established in our province, this gentleman certainly knew the day and the hour when it would be founded. He made a sinister impression on me. I was the more surprised at finding him here, as Shatov was not fond of visitors.

  I could hear from the stairs that they were talking very loud, all three at once, and I fancy they were disputing; but as soon as I went in, they all ceased speaking. They were arguing, standing up, but now they all suddenly sat down, so that I had to sit down too. There was a stupid silence that was not broken for fully three minutes. Though Shigalov knew me, he affected not to know me, probably not from hostile feelings, but for no particular reason. Alexey Nilitch and I bowed to one another in silence, and for some reason did not shake hands. Shigalov began at last looking at me sternly and frowningly, with the most naive assurance that I should immediately get up and go away. At last Shatov got up from his chair
and the others jumped up at once. They went out without saying good-bye. Shigalov only said in the doorway to Shatov, who was seeing him out:

  "Remember that you are bound to give an explanation."

  "Hang your explanation, and who the devil am I bound to?" said Shatov. He showed them out and fastened the door with the latch.

  "Snipes!" he said, looking at me, with a sort of wry smile.

  His face looked angry, and it seemed strange to me that he spoke first. When I had been to see him before (which was not often) it had usually happened that he sat scowling in a corner, answered ill-humouredly and only completely thawed and began to talk with pleasure after a considerable time. Even so, when he was saying good-bye he always scowled, and let one out as though he were getting rid of a personal enemy.

  "I had tea yesterday with that Alexey Nilitch," I observed. "I think he's mad on atheism."

  "Russian atheism has never gone further than making a joke," growled Shatov, putting up a new candle in place of an end that had burnt out.

  "No, this one doesn't seem to me a joker, I think he doesn't know how to talk, let alone trying to make jokes."

  "Men made of paper! It all comes from flunkeyism of thought," Shatov observed calmly, sitting down on a chair in the corner, and pressing the palms of both hands on his knees.

  "There's hatred in it, too," he went on, after a minute's pause. "They'd be the first to be terribly unhappy if Russia could be suddenly reformed, even to suit their own ideas, and became extraordinarily prosperous and happy. They'd have no one to hate then, no one to curse, nothing to find fault with. There is nothing in it but an immense animal hatred for Russia which has eaten into their organism… . And it isn't a case of tears unseen by the world under cover of a smile! There has never been a falser word said in Russia than about those unseen tears," he cried, almost with fury.

  "Goodness only knows what you're saying," I laughed.

  "Oh, you're a 'moderate liberal,'" said Shatov, smiling too. "Do you know," he went on suddenly, "I may have been talking nonsense about the 'flunkeyism of thought.' You will say to me no doubt directly, 'it's you who are the son of a flunkey, but I'm not a flunkey.' "

  "I wasn't dreaming of such a thing… . What are you saying!"

  "You need not apologise. I'm not afraid of you. Once I was only the son of a flunkey, but now I've become a flunkey myself, like you. Our Russian liberal is a flunkey before everything, and is only looking for some one whose boots he can clean."

  "What boots? What allegory is this?"

  "Allegory, indeed! You are laughing, I see… . Stepan Trofimovitch said truly that I lie under a stone, crushed but not killed, and do nothing but wriggle. It was a good comparison of his."

  "Stepan Trofimovitch declares that you are mad over the Germans," I laughed. "We've borrowed something from them anyway."

  "We took twenty kopecks, but we gave up a hundred roubles of our own."

  We were silent a minute.

  "He got that sore lying in America."

  "Who? What sore?"

  "I mean Kirillov. I spent four months with him lying on the floor of a hut."

  "Why, have you been in America?" I asked, surprised. "You never told me about it."

  "What is there to tell? The year before last we spent our last farthing, three of us, going to America in an emigrant steamer, to test the life of the American workman on ourselves, and to verify by personal experiment the state of a man in the hardest social conditions. That was our object in going there."

  "Good Lord!" I laughed. "You'd much better have gone somewhere in our province at harvest-time if you wanted to 'make a personal experiment' instead of bolting to America."

  "We hired ourselves out as workmen to an exploiter; there were six of us Russians working for himstudents, even landowners coming from their estates, some officers, too, and all with the same grand object. Well, so we worked, sweated, wore ourselves out; Kirillov and I were exhausted at last; fell ill went awaywe couldn't stand it. Our employer cheated us when he paid us off; instead of thirty dollars, as he had agreed, he paid me eight and Kirillov fifteen; he beat us, too, more than once. So then we were left without work, Kirillov and I, and we spent four months lying on the floor in that little town. He thought of one thing and I thought of another."

  "You don't mean to say your employer beat you? In America? How you must have sworn at him!"

  "Not a bit of it. On the contrary, Kirillov and I made up our minds from the first that we Russians were like little children beside the Americans, and that one must be born in America, or at least live for many years with Americans to be on a level with them. And do you know, if we were asked a dollar for a thing worth a farthing, we used to pay it with pleasure, in fact with enthusiasm. We approved of everything: spiritualism, lynch-law, revolvers, tramps. Once when we were travelling a fellow slipped his hand into my pocket, took my brush, and began brushing his hair with it. Kirillov and I only looked at one another, and made up our minds that that was the right thing and that we liked it very much… ."

  "The strange thing is that with us all this is not only in the brain but is carried out in practice," I observed.

  "Men made of paper," Shatov repeated.

  "But to cross the ocean in an emigrant steamer, though, to go .to an unknown country, even to make a personal experiment and all thatby Jove … there really is a large-hearted staunchness about it… . But how did you get out of it?"

  "I wrote to a man in Europe and he sent me a hundred roubles."

  As Shatov talked he looked doggedly at the ground as he always did, even when he was excited. At this point he suddenly raised his head.

  "Do you want to know the man's name?"

  "Who was it?"

  "Nikolay Stavrogin."

  He got up suddenly, turned to his limewood writing-table and began searching for something on it. There was a vague, though well-authenticated rumour among us that Shatov's wife had at one time had a liaison with Nikolay Stavrogin, in Paris, and just about two years ago, that is when Shatov was in America. It is true that this was long after his wife had left him in Geneva.

  "If so, what possesses him now to bring his name forward and to lay stress on it?" I thought.

  "I haven't paid him back yet," he said, turning suddenly to me again, and looking at me intently he sat down in the same place as before in the corner, and asked abruptly, in quite a different voice:

  "You have come no doubt with some object. What do you want?"

  I told him everything immediately, in its exact historical order, and added that though I had time to think it over coolly after the first excitement was over, I was more puzzled than ever. I saw that it meant something very important to Lizaveta Nikolaevna. I was extremely anxious to help her, but the trouble was that I didn't know how to keep the promise I had made her, and didn't even quite understand now what I had promised her. Then I assured him impressively once more that she had not meant to deceive him, and had had no thought of doing so; that there had been some misunderstanding, and that she had been very much hurt by the extraordinary way in which he had gone off that morning.

  He listened very attentively.

  "Perhaps I was stupid this morning, as I usually am… . Well, if she didn't understand why I went away like that … so much the better for her."

  He got up, went to the door, opened it, and began listening on the stairs.

  "Do you want to see that person yourself?"

  "That's just what I wanted, but how is it to be done?" I cried, delighted.

  "Let's simply go down while she's alone. When he conies in he'll beat her horribly if he finds out we've been there. I often go in on the sly. I went for him this morning when he began beating her again."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I dragged him off her by the hair. He tried to beat me, but I frightened him, and so it ended. I'm afraid he'll come back drunk, and won't forget ithe'll give her a bad beating because of it."

  We went downstairs at once.r />
  The Lebyadkins' door was shut but not locked, and we were able to go in. Their lodging consisted of two nasty little rooms, with smoke-begrimed walls on which the filthy wall-paper literally hung in tatters. It had been used for some years as an eating-house, until Filipov, the tavern-keeper, moved to another house. The other rooms below what had been the eating-house were now shut up, and these two were all the Lebyadkins had. The furniture consisted of plain benches and deal tables, except for an old arm-chair that had lost its arms. In the second room there was the bedstead that belonged to Mile. Lebyadkin standing in the corner, covered with a chintz quilt; the captain himself went to bed anywhere on the floor, often without undressing. Everything was in disorder, wet and filthy; a huge soaking rag lay in the middle of the floor in the first room, and a battered old shoe lay beside it in the wet. It was evident that no one looked after anything here. The stove was not heated, food was not cooked; they had not even a samovar as Shatov told me. The captain had come to the town with his sister utterly destitute, and had, as Liputin said, at first actually gone from house to house begging. But having unexpectedly received some money, he had taken to drinking at once, and had become so besotted that he was incapable of looking after things.

  Mile. Lebyadkin, whom I was so anxious to see, was sitting quietly at a deal kitchen table on a bench in the corner of the inner room, not making a sound. When we opened the door she did not call out to us or even move from her place. Shatov said that the door into the passage would not lock and it had once stood wide open all night. By the dim light of a thin candle in an iron candlestick, I made out a woman of about thirty, perhaps, sickly and emaciated, wearing an old dress of dark cotton material, with her long neck uncovered, her scanty dark hair twisted into a knot on the nape of her neck, no larger than the fist of a two-year-old child. She looked at us rather cheerfully. Besides the candlestick, she had on the table in front of her a little peasant looking-glass, an old pack of cards, a tattered book of songs, and a white roll of German bread from which one or two bites had been taken. It was noticeable that Mile. Lebyadkin used powder and rouge, and painted her lips. She also blackened her eyebrows, which were fine, long, and black enough without that. Three long wrinkles stood sharply conspicuous across her high, narrow forehead in spite of the powder on it. I already knew that she was lame, but on this occasion she did not attempt to get up or walk. At some time, perhaps in early youth, that wasted face may have been pretty; but her soft, gentle grey eyes were remarkable even now. There was something dreamy and sincere in her gentle, almost joyful, expression. This gentle serene joy, which was reflected also in her smile, astonished me after all I had heard of the Cossack whip and her brother's violence. Strange to say, instead of the oppressive repulsion and almost dread one usually feels in the presence of these creatures afflicted by God, I felt it almost pleasant to look at her from the first moment, and my heart was filled afterwards with pity in which there was no trace of aversion.