Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "What! hasn't he even told you, mother?" I exclaimed. "What a man! There's an example of the indifference and contempt I spoke of just now."

  "It's being decided, how is it being decided? And who told you?" cried Tatyana Pavlovna, pouncing upon me. "Speak, do."

  "Why, here he is himself! Perhaps he will tell you," I announced, catching the sound of his step in the passage and hastily sitting down again beside Liza.

  "Brother, for God's sake, spare mother, and be patient with Andrey Petrovitch … " she whispered to me.

  "I will, I will," with that I turned to her and pressed her hand.

  Liza looked at me very mistrustfully, and she was right.

  2.

  He came in very much pleased with himself, so pleased that he did not feel it necessary to conceal his state of mind. And, indeed, he had become accustomed of late to displaying himself before us without the slightest ceremony, not only in his bad points but even where he was ridiculous, a thing which most people are afraid to do; at the same time, he fully recognized that we should understand to the smallest detail. In the course of the last year, so Tatyana Pavlovna observed, he had become slovenly in his dress: his clothes though old were always well cut and free from foppishness. It is true that he was prepared to put on clean linen only on every alternate day, instead of every day, which was a real distress to my mother; it was regarded by them as a sacrifice, and the whole group of devoted women looked upon it as an act of heroism. He always wore soft wide-brimmed black hats. When he took off his hat his very thick but silvery locks stood up in a shock on his head; I liked looking at his hair when he took off his hat.

  "Good evening; still disputing; and is he actually one of the party? I heard his voice from outside in the passage; he has been attacking me I suppose?"

  It was one of the signs of his being in a good humour for him to be witty at my expense; I did not answer, of course. Lukerya came in with a regular sackful of parcels and put them on the table.

  "Victory! Tatyana Pavlovna! the case is won, and the Sokolskys certainly won't venture to appeal. I've won the day! I was able to borrow a thousand roubles at once. Sonia, put down your work, don't try your eyes. Back from work, Liza?"

  "Yes, father," answered Liza, looking at him affectionately; she used to call him father; nothing would have induced me to submit to doing the same.

  "Tired?"

  "Yes."

  "Give up your work, don't go to-morrow, and drop it altogether."

  "Father, that will be worse for me."

  "I beg you will … I greatly dislike to see women working, Tatyana Pavlovna."

  "How can they get on without work? a woman's not to work?"

  "I know, I know; that's excellent and very true, and I agree with it beforehand, but—I mean needlework particularly. Only imagine, I believe that's one of the morbid anomalous impressions of my childhood. In my dim memories of the time when I was five or six years old I remember more often than anything—with loathing, of course—a solemn council of wise women, stern and forbidding, sitting at a round table with scissors, material, patterns, and a fashion-plate. They thought they knew all about it, and shook their heads slowly and majestically, measuring, calculating, and preparing to cut out. All those kind people who were so fond of me had suddenly become unapproachable, and if I began to play I was carried out of the room at once. Even my poor nurse, who held me by the hand and took no notice of my shouting and pulling at her, was listening and gazing enraptured, as though at a kind of paradise. The sternness of those sensible faces and the solemnity with which they faced the task of cutting out is for some reason distressing for me to picture even now. Tatyana Pavlovna, you are awfully fond of cutting out. Although it may be aristocratic, yet I do prefer a woman who does not work at all. Don't take that as meant for you, Sonia… . How could you, indeed! Woman is an immense power without working. You know that, though, Sonia. What's your opinion, Arkady Makarovitch? No doubt you disagree?"

  "No, not at all," I answered—"that's a particularly good saying that woman is an immense power, though I don't understand why you say that about work. And she can't help working if she has no money—as you know yourself."

  "Well, that's enough," and he turned to my mother, who positively beamed all over (when he addressed me she was all of a tremor); "at least, to begin with, I beg you not to let me see you doing needlework for me. No doubt, Arkady, as a young man of the period you are something of a socialist; well, would you believe it, my dear fellow, none are so fond of idleness as the toiling masses."

  "Rest perhaps, not idleness."

  "No, idleness, doing nothing; that's their ideal! I knew a man who was for ever at work, though he was not one of the common people, he was rather intellectual and capable of generalizing. Every day of his life, perhaps, he brooded with blissful emotion on visions of utter idleness, raising the ideal to infinity, so to speak, to unlimited independence, to everlasting freedom, dreaming, and idle contemplation. So it went on till he broke down altogether from overwork. There was no mending him, he died in a hospital. I am sometimes seriously disposed to believe that the delights of labour have been invented by the idle, from virtuous motives, of course. It is one of the 'Geneva ideas' of the end of last century. Tatyana Pavlovna, I cut an advertisement out of the newspaper the day before yesterday, here it is"; he took a scrap of paper out of his waist-coat pocket. "It is one of those everlasting students, proficient in classics and mathematics and prepared to travel, to sleep in a garret or anywhere. Here, listen: 'A teacher (lady) prepares for all the scholastic establishments (do you hear, for all) and gives lessons in arithmetic!' Prepares for all the scholastic establishments—in arithmetic, therefore, may we assume? No, arithmetic is something apart for her. It is a case of simple hunger, the last extremity of want. It is just the ineptitude of it that's so touching: it's evident that the lady has never prepared anyone for any school, and it is doubtful whether she is fit to teach anything. Yet at her last gasp she wastes her one remaining rouble and prints in the paper that she prepares for all the scholastic establishments, and what's more, gives lessons in arithmetic. Per tutto mundo e in altri siti."

  "Oh, Andrey Petrovitch, she ought to be helped! Where does she live?" cried Tatyana Pavlovna.

  "Oh, there are lots of them!" He put the advertisement in his pocket. "That bag's full of treats for you, Liza, and you, Tatyana Pavlovna; Sonia and I don't care for sweet things. And perhaps for you, young man. I bought the things myself at Eliseyev's and at Ballé's. Too long we've gone hungry, as Lukerya said. (NB—None of us had ever gone hungry.) Here are grapes, sweets, duchesses and strawberry tarts; I've even brought some excellent liqueur; nuts, too. It's curious that to this day I'm fond of nuts as I have been from a child, Tatyana Pavlovna, and of the commonest nuts, do you know. Liza takes after me; she is fond of cracking nuts like a squirrel. But there's nothing more charming, Tatyana Pavlovna, than sometimes when recalling one's childhood to imagine oneself in a wood, in a copse, gathering nuts… . The days are almost autumnal, but bright; at times it's so fresh, one hides in the bushes, one wanders in the wood, there's a scent of leaves… . I seem to see something sympathetic in your face, Arkady Makarovitch?"

  "The early years of my childhood, too, were spent in the country."

  "But I thought you were brought up in Moscow, if I am not mistaken."

  "He was living in Moscow at the Andronikovs' when you went there; but till then he used to live in the country with your aunt, Varvara Stepanovna," Tatyana Pavlovna put in.

  "Sonia, here's some money, put it away. I promise you, in a few days, five thousand."

  "So there's no hope then for the Sokolskys?" asked Tatyana Pavlovna.

  "Absolutely none, Tatyana Pavlovna."

  "I have always sympathized with you and all of yours, Andrey Petrovitch, and I have always been a friend of the family, but though the Sokolskys are strangers, yet, upon my word, I am sorry for them. Don't be angry, Andrey Petrovitch."

  "I have no in
tention of going shares with them, Tatyana Pavlovna!"

  "You know my idea, of course, Andrey Petrovitch; they would have settled the case out of court, if at the very beginning you had offered to go halves with them; now, of course, it is too late. Not that I venture to criticize… . I say so because I don't think the deceased would have left them out of his will altogether."

  "Not only he wouldn't have left them out, he'd have certainly left them everything, and would have left none out but me, if he'd known how to do things and to write a will properly; but as it is, the law's on my side, and it's settled. I can't go shares, and I don't want to, Tatyana Pavlovna, and that is the end of the matter."

  He spoke with real exasperation, a thing he rarely allowed himself to do. Tatyana Pavlovna subsided. My mother looked down mournfully. Versilov knew that she shared Tatyana Pavlovna's views.

  "He has not forgotten that slap in the face at Ems," I thought to myself. The document given me by Kraft and at that moment in my pocket would have a poor chance if it had fallen into his hands. I suddenly felt that the whole responsibility was still weighing upon me, and this idea, together with all the rest, had, of course, an irritating effect upon me.

  "Arkady, I should like you to be better dressed, my dear fellow; your suit is all right, but for future contingencies I might recommend you to an excellent Frenchman, most conscientious and possessed of taste."

  "I beg you never to make such suggestions again," I burst out suddenly.

  "What's that?"

  "It is not that I consider it humiliating, of course, but we are not agreed about anything; on the contrary, our views are entirely opposed, for in a day or two—to-morrow—I shall give up going to the prince's, as I find there is absolutely no work for me to do there."

  "But you are going and sitting there with him—that is the work."

  "Such ideas are degrading."

  "I don't understand; but if you are so squeamish, don't take money from him, but simply go. You will distress him horribly, he has already become attached to you, I assure you… . However, as you please… ." He was evidently put out.

  "You say, don't ask for money, but thanks to you I did a mean thing to-day: you did not warn me, and I demanded my month's salary from him to-day."

  "So you have seen to that already; I confess I did not expect you to ask for it; but how sharp you all are nowadays! There are no young people in these days, Tatyana Pavlovna." He was very spiteful: I was awfully angry too.

  "I ought to have had things out with you … you made me do it, I don't know now how it's to be."

  "By the way, Sonia, give Arkady back his sixty roubles at once; and you, my dear fellow, don't be angry at our repaying it so quickly. I can guess from your face that you have some enterprise in your mind and that you need it… . So invest it … or something of the sort."

  "I don't know what my face expresses, but I did not expect mother would have told you of that money when I so particularly asked her… ." I looked at my mother with flashing eyes, I cannot express how wounded I felt.

  "Arkasha, darling, for God's sake forgive me, I couldn't possibly help speaking of it… ."

  "My dear fellow, don't make a grievance of her telling me your secrets: besides, she did it with the best intentions—it was simply a mother's longing to boast of her son's feeling for her. But I assure you I should have guessed without that you were a capitalist. All your secrets are written on your honest countenance. He has 'his idea,' Tatyana Pavlovna, as I told you."

  "Let's drop my honest countenance," I burst out again. "I know that you often see right through things, but in some cases you see no further than your own nose, and I have marvelled at your powers of penetration. Well then, I have 'my idea.' That you should use that expression, of course, was an accident, but I am not afraid to admit it; I have 'an idea' of my own, I am not afraid and I am not ashamed of it."

  "Don't be ashamed, that's the chief thing."

  "And all the same I shall never tell it you."

  "That's to say you won't condescend to; no need to, my dear fellow, I know the nature of your idea as it is; in any case it implies:

  Into the wilderness I flee.

  Tatyana Pavlovna, my notion is that he wants … to become a Rothschild, or something of the kind, and shut himself up in his grandeur… . No doubt he'll magnanimously allow us a pension, though perhaps he won't allow me one—but in any case he will vanish from our sight. Like the new moon he has risen, only to set again."

  I shuddered in my inmost being; of course, it was all chance; he knew nothing of my idea and was not speaking about it, though he did mention Rothschild; but how could he define my feelings so precisely, my impulse to break with them and go away? He divined everything and wanted to defile beforehand with his cynicism the tragedy of fact. That he was horribly angry, of that there could be no doubt.

  "Mother, forgive my hastiness, for I see that there's no hiding things from Andrey Petrovitch in any case," I said, affecting to laugh and trying if only for a moment to turn it into a joke.

  "That's the very best thing you can do, my dear fellow, to laugh. It is difficult to realize how much every one gains by laughing even in appearance; I am speaking most seriously. He always has an air, Tatyana Pavlovna, of having something so important on his mind, that he is quite abashed at the circumstance himself."

  "I must ask you in earnest, Andrey Petrovitch, to be more careful what you say."

  "You are right, my dear boy; but one must speak out once for all, so as never to touch upon the matter again. You have come to us from Moscow, to begin making trouble at once. That's all we know as yet of your object in coming. I say nothing, of course, of your having come to surprise us in some way. And all this month you have been snorting and sneering at us. Yet you are obviously an intelligent person, and as such you might leave such snorting and sneering to those who have no other means of avenging themselves on others for their own insignificance. You are always shutting yourself up, though your honest countenance and your rosy cheeks bear witness that you might look every one straight in the face with perfect innocence. He's a neurotic; I can't make out, Tatyana Pavlovna, why they are all neurotic nowadays… ?"

  "If you did not even know where I was brought up, you are not likely to know why a man's neurotic."

  "Oh, so that's the key to it! You are offended at my being capable of forgetting where you were brought up!"

  "Not in the least. Don't attribute such silly ideas to me. Mother! Andrey Petrovitch praised me just now for laughing; let us laugh—why sit like this! Shall I tell you a little anecdote about myself? Especially as Andrey Petrovitch knows nothing of my adventures."

  I was boiling. I knew this was the last time we should be sitting together like this, that when I left that house I should never enter it again, and so on the eve of it all I could not restrain myself. He had challenged me to such a parting scene himself.

  "That will be delightful, of course, if it is really amusing," he observed, looking at me searchingly. "Your manners were rather neglected where you were brought up, my dear fellow, though they are pretty passable. He is charming to-day, Tatyana Pavlovna, and it's a good thing you have undone that bag at last."

  But Tatyana Pavlovna frowned; she did not even turn round at his words, but went on untying the parcels and laying out the good things on some plates which had been brought in. My mother, too, was sitting in complete bewilderment, though she had misgivings, of course, and realized that there would be trouble between us. My sister touched my elbow again.

  3.

  "I simply want to tell you all," I began, with a very free-and-easy air, "how a father met for the first time a dearly loved son: it happened 'wherever you were brought up' … "

  "My dear fellow, won't it be … a dull story? You know, tous les genres… ."

  "Don't frown, Andrey Petrovitch, I am not speaking at all with the object you imagine. All I want is to make every one laugh."

  "Well, God hears you, my dear boy. I know tha
t you love us all … and don't want to spoil our evening," he mumbled with a sort of affected carelessness.

  "Of course, you have guessed by my face that I love you?"

  "Yes, partly by your face, too."

  "Just as I guessed from her face that Tatyana Pavlovna's in love with me. Don't look at me so ferociously, Tatyana Pavlovna, it is better to laugh! it is better to laugh!"

  She turned quickly to me, and gave me a searching look which lasted half a minute.

  "Mind now," she said, holding up her finger at me, but so earnestly that her words could not have referred to my stupid joke, but must have been meant as a warning in case I might be up to some mischief.

  "Andrey Petrovitch, is it possible you don't remember how we met for the first time in our lives?"

  "Upon my word I've forgotten, my dear fellow, and I am really very sorry. All that I remember is that it was a long time ago … and took place somewhere… ."

  "Mother, and don't you remember how you were in the country, where I was brought up, till I was six or seven I believe, or rather were you really there once, or is it simply a dream that I saw you there for the first time? I have been wanting to ask you about it for a long time, but I've kept putting it off; now the time has come."

  "To be sure, Arkasha, to be sure I stayed with Varvara Stepanovna three times; my first visit was when you were only a year old, I came a second time when you were nearly four, and afterwards again when you were six."

  "Ah, you did then; I have been wanting to ask you about it all this month."

  My mother seemed overwhelmed by a rush of memories, and she asked me with feeling:

  "Do you really mean, Arkasha, that you remembered me there?"

  "I don't know or remember anything, only something of your face remained in my heart for the rest of my life, and the fact, too, that you were my mother. I recall everything there as though it were a dream, I've even forgotten my nurse. I have a faint recollection of Varvara Stepanovna, simply that her face was tied up for toothache. I remember huge trees near the house—lime-trees I think they were—then sometimes the brilliant sunshine at the open windows, the little flower garden, the little paths and you, mother, I remember clearly only at one moment when I was taken to the church there, and you held me up to receive the sacrament and to kiss the chalice; it was in the summer, and a dove flew through the cupola, in at one window and out at another… ."