Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "Why, are they all saying that?"

  "Well, not yet, and I must confess I have heard nothing of the sort, but what one can do with people, especially when they've been burnt out! Vox populi vox Dei. A stupid rumour is soon set going. But you really have nothing to be afraid of. From the legal point of view you are all right, and with your conscience also. For you didn't want it done, did you? There's no clue, nothing but the coincidence… . The only thing is Fedka may remember what you said that night at Kirillov's (and what made you say it?) but that proves nothing and we shall stop Fedka's mouth. I shall stop it to-day… ."

  "And weren't the bodies burnt at all?"

  "Not a bit; that ruffian could not manage anything properly. But I am glad, anyway, that you are so calm … for though you are not in any way to blame, even in thought, but all the same… . And you must admit that all this settles your difficulties capitally: you are suddenly free and a widower and can marry a charming girl this minute with a lot of money, who is already yours, into the bargain. See what can be done by crude, simple coincidenceeh?"

  "Are you threatening me, you fool?"

  "Come, leave off, leave off! Here you .are, calling me a fool, and what a tone to use! You ought to be glad, yet you … I rushed here on purpose to let you know in good time… . Besides, how could I threaten you? As if I cared for what I could get by threats! I want you to help from goodwill and not from fear. You are the light and the sun… . It's I who am terribly afraid of you, not you of me! I am not Mavriky Nikolaevitch… . And only fancy, as I flew here in a racing droshky I saw Mavriky Nikolaevitch by the fence at the farthest corner of your garden … in his greatcoat, drenched through, he must have been sitting there all night! Queer goings on! How mad people can be!"

  "Mavriky Nikolaevitch? Is that true?"

  "Yes, yes. He is sitting by the garden fence. About three hundred paces from here, I think. I made haste to pass him, but he saw me. Didn't you know? In that case I am glad I didn't forget to tell you. A man like that is more dangerous than anyone if he happens to have a revolver about him, and then the night, the sleet, or natural irritabilityfor after all he is in a nice position, ha ha! What do you think V Why is he sitting there?"

  "He is waiting for Lizaveta Nikolaevna, of course."

  "Well! Why should she go out to him? And … in such rain too … what a fool!"

  "She is just going out to him!"

  "Eh! That's a piece of news! So then … But listen, her position is completely changed now. What does she want with Mavriky now? You are free, a widower, and can marry her to-morrow? She doesn't know yetleave it to me and I'll arrange it all for you. Where is she? We must relieve her mind too."

  "Relieve her mind?"

  "Rather! Let's go."

  "And do you suppose she won't guess what those dead bodies mean?" said Stavrogin, screwing up his eyes in a peculiar way.

  "Of course she won't," said Pyotr Stepanovitch with all the confidence of a perfect simpleton, "for legally … Ech, what a man you are! What if she did guess? Women are so clever at shutting their eyes to such things, you don't understand women! Apart from it's being altogether to her interest to marry you now, because there's no denying she's disgraced herself; apart from that, I talked to her of 'the boat' and I saw that one could affect her by it, so that shows you what the girl is made of. Don't be uneasy, she will step over those dead bodies without turning a hairespecially as you are not to blame for them; not in the least, are you? She will only keep them in reserve to use them against you when you've been married two or three years. Every woman saves up something of the sort out of her husband's past when she gets married, but by that time … what may not happen in a year? Ha ha!"

  "If you've come in a racing droshky, take her to Mavriky Nikolaevitch now. She said just now that she could not endure me and would leave me, and she certainly will not accept my carriage."

  "What! Can she really be leaving? How can this have come about?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, staring stupidly at him.

  "She's guessed somehow during this night that I don't love her … which she knew all along, indeed."

  "But don't you love her?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, with an expression of extreme surprise. "If so, why did you keep her when she came to you yesterday, instead of telling her plainly like an honourable man that you didn't care for her? That was horribly shabby on your part; and how mean you make me look in her eyes!"

  Stavrogin suddenly laughed."

  "I am laughing at my monkey," he explained at once.

  "Ah! You saw that I was putting it on!" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, laughing too, with great enjoyment. "I did it to amuse you! Only fancy, as soon as you came out to me I guessed from your face that you'd been 'unlucky.' A complete fiasco, perhaps. Eh? There! I'll bet anything," he cried, almost gasping with delight, "that you've been sitting side by side in the drawing-room all night wasting your precious time discussing something lofty and elevated … There, forgive me, forgive me; it's not my business. I felt sure yesterday that it would all end in foolishness. I brought her to you simply to amuse you, and to show you that you wouldn't have a dull time with me. I shall be of use to you a hundred times in that way. I always like pleasing people. If you don't want her now, which was what I was reckoning on when I came, then … "

  "So you brought her simply for my amusement?"

  "Why, what else?"

  "Not to make me kill my wife?"

  "Come. You've not killed her? What a tragic fellow you are!

  "It's just the same; you killed her."

  "I didn't kill her! I tell you I had no hand in it… . You are beginning to make me uneasy, though… ."

  "Go on. You said, 'if you don't want her now, then … '"

  "Then, leave it to me, of course. I can quite easily marry her off to Mavriky Nikolaevitch, though I didn't make him sit down by the fence. Don't take that notion into your head. I am afraid of him, now. You talk about my droshky, but I simply dashed by… . What if he has a revolver? It's a good thing I brought mine. Here it is." He brought a revolver out of his pocket, showed it, and hid it again at once. "I took it as I was coming such a long way… . But I'll arrange all that for you in a twinkling: her little heart is aching at this moment for Mavriky; it should be, anyway… . And, do you know, I am really rather sorry for her? If I take her to Mavriky she will begin about you directly; she will praise you to him and abuse him to his face. You know the heart of woman! There you are, laughing again! I am awfully glad that you are so cheerful now. Come, let's go. I'll begin with Mavriky right away, and about them … those who've been murdered … hadn't we better keep quiet now? She'll hear later on, anyway."

  "What will she hear? Who's been murdered? What were you saying about Mavriky Nikolaevitch?" said Liza, suddenly opening the door.

  "Ah! You've been listening?"

  "What were you saying just now about Mavriky Nikolaevitch? Has he been murdered?"

  "Ah! Then you didn't hear? Don't distress yourself, Mavriky Nikolaevitch is alive and well, and you can satisfy yourself of it in an instant, for he is here by the wayside, by the garden fence … and I believe he's been sitting there all night. He is drenched through in his greatcoat! He saw me as I drove past."

  "That's not true. You said 'murdered.' … Who's been murdered?" she insisted with agonising mistrust.

  "The only people who have been murdered are my wife, her brother Lebyadkin, and their servant," Stavrogin brought out firmly.

  Liza trembled and turned terribly pale.

  "A strange brutal outrage, Lizaveta Nikolaevna. A simple case of robbery," Pyotr Stepanovitch rattled off at once "Simply robbery, under cover of the fire. The crime was committed by Fedka the convict, and it was all that fool Lebyadkin's fault for showing every one his money… . I rushed here with the news … it fell on me like a thunderbolt. Stavrogin could hardly stand when I told him. We were deliberating here whether to tell you at once or not?"

  "Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, is he telling the truth?" Liza articul
ated faintly.

  "No; it's false."

  "False?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, starting. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Heavens! I-shall go mad!" cried Liza.

  "Do you understand, anyway, that he is mad now!" Pyotr Stepanovitch cried at the top of his voice. "After all, his wife has just been murdered. You see how white he is… . Why, he has been with you the whole night. He hasn't left your side a minute. How can you suspect him?"

  "Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, tell me, as before God, are you guilty or not, and I swear I'll believe your word as though it were God's, and I'll follow you to the end of the earth. Yes, I will. I'll follow you like a dog."

  "Why are you tormenting her, you fantastic creature?" cried Pyotr Stepanovitch in exasperation. "Lizaveta Nikolaevna, upon my oath, you can crush me into powder, but he is not guilty. On the contrary, it has crushed him, and he is raving, you see that. He is not to blame in any way, not in any way, not even in thought! … It's all the work of robbers who will probably be found within a week and flogged… . It's all the work of Fedka the convict, and some Shpigulin men, all the town is agog with it. That's why I say so too."

  "Is that right? Is that right?" Liza waited trembling for her final sentence.

  "I did not kill them, and I was against it, but I knew they were going to be killed and I did not stop the murderers. Leave me, Liza," Stavrogin brought out, and he walked into the drawing-room.

  Liza hid her face in her hands and walked out of the house. Pyotr Stepanovitch was rushing after her, but at once 'hurried back and went into the drawing-room.

  "So that's your line? That's your line? So there's nothing you are afraid of?" He flew at Stavrogin in an absolute fury, muttering incoherently, scarcely able to find words and foaming at the mouth.

  Stavrogin stood in the middle of the room and did not answer a word. He clutched a lock of his hair in his left hand and smiled helplessly. Pyotr Stepanovitch pulled him violently by the sleeve.

  "Is it all over with you? So that's the line you are taking? You'll inform against all of us, and go to a monastery yourself, or to the devil… . But I'll do for you, though you are not afraid of me!"

  "Ah! That's you chattering!" said Stavrogin, noticing him at last. "Run," he said, coming to himself suddenly, "run after her, order the carriage, don't leave her… . Run, run! Take her home so that no one may know … and that she mayn't go there … to the bodies … to the bodies… . Force her to get into the carriage … Alexey Yegorytch! Alexey Yegorytch!"

  "Stay, don't shout! By now she is in Mavriky's arms… . Mavriky won't put her into your carriage… . Stay! There's something more important than the carriage!"

  He seized his revolver again. Stavrogin looked at him gravely.

  "Very well, kill me," he said softly, almost conciliatorily.

  "Foo. Damn it! What a maze of false sentiment a man can get into!" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, shaking with rage. "Yes, really, you ought to be killed! She ought simply to spit at you! Fine sort of 'magic boat,' you are; you are a broken-down, leaky old hulk! … You ought to pull yourself together if only from spite! Ech! Why, what difference would it make to you since you ask for a bullet through your brains yourself?"

  Stavrogin smiled strangely.

  "If you were not such a buffoon I might perhaps have said yes now… . If you had only a grain of sense … "

  "I am a buffoon, but I don't want you, my better half, to be one! Do you understand me?" , .

  Stavrogin did understand, though perhaps no one else did. Shatov, for instance, was astonished when Stavrogin told him that Pyotr Stepanovitch had enthusiasm.

  "Go to the devil now, and to-morrow perhaps I may wring something out of myself. Come to-morrow."

  "Yes? Yes?"

  "How can I tell! … Go to hell. Go to hell." And he walked out of the room.

  "Perhaps, after all, it may be for the best," Pyotr Stepanovitch muttered to himself as he hid the revolver.

  He rushed off to overtake Lizaveta Nikolaevna. She had not got far away, only a few steps, from the house. She had been detained by Alexey Yegorytch, who was following a step behind her, in a tail coat, and without a hat; his head was bowed respectfully. He was persistently entreating her to wait for a carriage; the old man was alarmed and almost in tears.

  "Go along. Your master is asking for tea, and there's no one to give it to him," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, pushing him away. He took Liza's arm.

  She did not pull her arm away, but she seemed hardly to know what she was doing; she was still dazed.

  "To begin with, you are going the wrong way," babbled Pyotr Stepanovitch. "We ought to go this way, and not by the garden, and, secondly, walking is impossible in any case. It's over two miles, and you are not properly dressed. If you would wait a second, I came in a droshky; the horse is in the yard. I'll get it instantly, put you in, and get you home so that no one sees you."

  "How kind you are," said Liza graciously. "Oh, not at all. Any humane man in my position would do the same… ."

  Liza looked at him, and was surprised.

  "Good heavens! Why I thought it was that old man here still."

  "Listen. I am awfully glad that you take it like this, because it's all such a frightfully stupid convention, and since it's come to that, hadn't I better tell the old man to get the carriage at once. It's only a matter of ten minutes and we'll turn back and wait in the porch, eh?"

  "I want first … where are those murdered people?"

  "Ah! What next? That was what I was afraid of… . No, we'd better leave those wretched creatures alone; it's no use your looking at them."

  "I know where they are. I know that house."

  "Well? What if you do know it? Come; it's raining, and there's a fog. (A nice job this sacred duty I've taken upon myself.) Listen, Lizaveta Nikolaevna! It's one of two alternatives. Either you come with me in the droshkyin that case wait here, and don't take another step, for if we go another twenty steps we must be seen by Mavriky Nikolaevitch."

  "Mavriky Nikolaevitch! Where? Where?"

  "Well, if you want to go with him, I'll take you a little farther, if you like, and show you where he sits, but I don't care to go up to him just now. No, thank you."

  "He is waiting for me. Good God!" she suddenly stopped, and a flush of colour flooded her face.

  "Oh! Come now. If he is an unconventional man! You know, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, it's none of my business. I am a complete outsider, and you know that yourself. But, still, I wish you well… . If your 'fairy boat' has failed you, if it has turned out to be nothing more than a rotten old hulk, only fit to be chopped up … "

  "Ah! That's fine, that's lovely," cried Liza.

  "Lovely, and yet your tears are falling. You must have spirit. You must be as good as a man in every way. In our age, when woman … Foo, hang it," Pyotr Stepanovitch was on the point of spitting. "And the chief point is that there is nothing to regret. It may all turn out for the best. Mavriky Nikolaevitch is a man… . In fact, he is a man of feeling though not talkative, but that's a good thing, too, as long as he has no conventional notions, of course… ."

  "Lovely, lovely!" Liza laughed hysterically.

  "Well, hang it all … Lizaveta Nikolaevna," said Pyotr Stepanovitch suddenly piqued. "I am simply here on your account… . It's nothing to me… . I helped you yesterday when you wanted it yourself. To-day … well, you can see Mavriky Nikolaevitch from here; there he's sitting; he doesn't see us. I say, Lizaveta Nikolaevna, have you ever read 'Polenka Saxe'?"

  "What's that?"

  "It's the name of a novel, 'Polenka Saxe.' I read it when I was a student… . In it a very wealthy official of some sort, Saxe, arrested his wife at a summer villa for infidelity… . But, hang it; it's no consequence! You'll see, Mavriky Nikolaevitch will make you an offer before you get home. He doesn't see us yet."

  "Ach! Don't let him see us!" Liza cried suddenly, like a mad creature. "Come away, come away! To the woods, to the fields!"