Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  She ran to the door, but turned for one instant in the doorway to shout.

  "You've come into a fortune, I'm told."

  With that she vanished like a shadow. I repeat again, it was frenzy. Versilov was greatly astonished; he stood as though pondering and reflecting on something. At last he turned suddenly to me:

  "You don't know her at all?"

  "I happened to see her this morning when she was raging in the passage at Vassin's; she was screaming and cursing you. But I did not speak to her and I know nothing about it, and just now I met her at the gate. No doubt she is that teacher you spoke of yesterday, who also gives lessons in arithmetic."

  "Yes, she is. For once in my life I did a good deed and… . But what's the matter with you?"

  "Here is this letter," I answered. "I don't think explanation necessary: it comes from Kraft, and he got it from Andronikov. You will understand what's in it. I will add that no one but me in the whole world knows about that letter, for Kraft, who gave me that letter yesterday just as I was leaving him, has shot himself."

  While I was speaking with breathless haste he took the letter and, holding it lightly poised in his left hand, watched me attentively. When I told him of Kraft's suicide I looked at him with particular attention to see the effect. And what did I see? The news did not make the slightest impression on him. If he had even raised an eyebrow! On the contrary, seeing that I had paused, he drew out his eyeglasses, which he always had about him hanging on a black ribbon, carried the letter to the candle and, glancing at the signature, began carefully examining it. I can't express how mortified I was at this supercilious callousness. He must have known Kraft very well: it was, in any case, such an extraordinary piece of news! Besides, I naturally desired it to produce an effect. Knowing that the letter was long, I turned, after waiting, and went out. My trunk had been packed long ago, I had only to stuff a few things into my bag. I thought of my mother and that I had not gone up to speak to her. Ten minutes later, when I had finished my preparations and was meaning to go for a cab, my sister walked into my attic.

  "Here are your sixty roubles; mother sends it and begs you again to forgive her for having mentioned it to Andrey Petrovitch. And here's twenty roubles besides. You gave her fifty yesterday for your board; mother says she can't take more than thirty from you because you haven't cost fifty, and she sends you twenty roubles back."

  "Well, thanks, if she is telling the truth. Good-bye, sister, I'm going."

  "Where are you going now?"

  "For the time being to an hotel, to escape spending the night in this house. Tell mother that I love her."

  "She knows that. She knows that you love Andrey Petrovitch too. I wonder you are not ashamed of having brought that wretched girl here!"

  "I swear I did not; I met her at the gate."

  "No, it was your doing."

  "I assure you… ."

  "Think a little, ask yourself, and you will see that you were the cause."

  "I was only very pleased that Versilov should be put to shame. Imagine, he had a baby by Lidya Ahmakov … but what am I telling you!"

  "He? A baby? But it is not his child! From whom have you heard such a falsehood?"

  "Why, you can know nothing about it."

  "Me know nothing about it? But I used to nurse the baby in Luga. Listen, brother: I've seen for a long time past that you know nothing about anything, and meanwhile you wound Andrey Petrovitch— and … mother too."

  "If he is right, then I shall be to blame. That's all, and I love you no less for it. What makes you flush like that, sister? And more still now! Well, never mind, anyway, I shall challenge that little prince for the slap he gave Versilov at Ems. If Versilov was in the right as regards Mlle. Ahmakov, so much the better."

  "Brother, what are you thinking of?"

  "Luckily, the lawsuit's over now… . Well, now she has turned white!"

  "But the prince won't fight you," said Liza, looking at me with a wan smile in spite of her alarm.

  "Then I will put him to shame in public. What's the matter with you, Liza?"

  She had turned so pale that she could not stand, and sank on to my sofa.

  "Liza," my mother's voice called from below.

  She recovered herself and stood up; she smiled at me affectionately.

  "Brother, drop this foolishness, or put it off for a time till you know about ever so many things: it's awful how little you understand."

  "I shall remember, Liza, that you turned pale when you heard I was going to fight a duel."

  "Yes, yes, remember that too!" she said, smiling once more at parting, and she went downstairs.

  I called a cab, and with the help of the man I hauled my things out of the lodge. No one in the house stopped me or opposed my going. I did not go in to say good-bye to my mother as I did not want to meet Versilov again. When I was sitting in the cab a thought flashed upon me:

  "To Fontanka by Semyonovsky Bridge," I told the man, and went back to Vassin's.

  2.

  It suddenly struck me that Vassin would know already about Kraft, and perhaps know a hundred times more than I did; and so it proved to be. Vassin immediately informed me of all the facts with great precision but with no great warmth; I concluded that he was very tired, and so indeed he was. He had been at Kraft's himself in the morning. Kraft had shot himself with a revolver (that same revolver) after dark, as was shown by his diary. The last entry in the diary was made just before the fatal shot, and in it he mentioned that he was writing almost in the dark and hardly able to distinguish the letters, that he did not want to light a candle for fear that it should set fire to something when he was dead. "And I don't want to light it and then, before shooting, put it out like my life," he added strangely, almost the last words. This diary he had begun three days before his death, immediately on his return to Petersburg, before his visit to Dergatchev's. After I had gone away he had written something in it every quarter of an hour; the last three or four entries were made at intervals of five minutes. I expressed aloud my surprise that though Vassin had had this diary so long in his hands (it had been given him to read), he had not made a copy of it, especially as it was not more than a sheet or so and all the entries were short. "You might at least have copied the last page!" Vassin observed with a smile that he remembered it as it was; moreover, that the entries were quite disconnected, about anything that came into his mind. I was about to protest that this was just what was precious in this case, but without going into that I began instead to insist on his recalling some of it, and he did recall a few sentences—for instance, an hour before he shot himself, "That he was chilly," "That he thought of drinking a glass of wine to warm himself, but had been deterred by the idea that it might cause an increase in the flow of blood." "It was almost all that sort of thing," Vassin remarked in conclusion.

  "And you call that nonsense!" I cried.

  "And when did I call it nonsense? I simply did not copy it. But though it's not nonsense, the diary certainly is somewhat ordinary, or rather, natural—that is, it's just what it's bound to be in such circumstances… ."

  "But the last thoughts, the last thoughts!"

  "The last thoughts sometimes are extremely insignificant. One such suicide complained, in fact, in a similar diary that not one lofty idea visited him at that important hour, nothing but futile and petty thoughts."

  "And that he was chilly, was that too a futile thought?"

  "Do you mean his being chilly, or the thought about the blood? Besides, it's a well-known fact that very many people who are capable of contemplating their approaching death, whether it's by their own hand or not, frequently show a tendency to worry themselves about leaving their body in a presentable condition. It was from that point of view that Kraft was anxious about the blood."

  "I don't know whether that is a well-known fact … or whether that is so," I muttered; "but I am surprised that you consider all that natural, and yet it's not long since Kraft was speaking, feeling, sitting among
us. Surely you must feel sorry for him?"

  "Oh, of course, I'm sorry, and that's quite a different thing; but, in any case, Kraft himself conceived of his death as a logical deduction. It turns out that all that was said about him yesterday at Dergatchev's was true. He left behind him a manuscript book full of abtruse theories, proving by phrenology, by craniology, and even by mathematics, that the Russians are a second-rate race, and that therefore, since he was a Russian, life was not worth living for him. What is more striking about it, if you like, is that it shows one can make any logical deduction one pleases; but to shoot oneself in consequence of a deduction does not always follow."

  "At least one must do credit to his strength of will."

  "Possibly not that only," Vassin observed evasively; it was clear that he assumed stupidity or weakness of intellect. All this irritated me.

  "You talked of feeling yourself yesterday, Vassin."

  "I don't gainsay it now; but what has happened betrays something in him so crudely mistaken that, if one looks at it critically, it checks one's compassion in spite of oneself."

  "Do you know that I guessed yesterday from your eyes that you would disapprove of Kraft, and I resolved not to ask your opinion, that I might not hear evil of him; but you have given it of yourself, and I am forced to agree with you in spite of myself; and yet I am annoyed with you! I am sorry for Kraft."

  "Do you know we are going rather far… ."

  "Yes, yes," I interrupted, "but it's a comfort, anyway, that in such cases those who are left alive, the critics of the dead, can say of themselves: 'Though a man has shot himself who was worthy of all compassion and indulgence, we are left, at any rate, and so there's no great need to grieve.'"

  "Yes, of course, from that point of view… . Oh, but I believe you are joking, and very cleverly! I always drink tea at this time, and am just going to ask for it: you will join me, perhaps."

  And he went out, with a glance at my trunk and bag.

  I had wanted to say something rather spiteful, to retaliate for his judgment of Kraft, and I had succeeded in saying it, but it was curious that he had taken my consoling reflection that "such as we are left" as meant seriously. But, be that as it may, he was, anyway, more right than I was in everything, even in his feelings. I recognized this without the slightest dissatisfaction, but I felt distinctly that I did not like him.

  When they had brought in the tea I announced that I was going to ask for his hospitality for one night only, and if this were impossible I hoped he would say so, and I would go to an hotel. Then I briefly explained my reasons, simply and frankly stating that I had finally quarrelled with Versilov, without, however, going into details. Vassin listened attentively but without the slightest excitement. As a rule he only spoke in reply to questions, though he always answered with ready courtesy and sufficient detail. I said nothing at all about the letter concerning which I had come to ask his advice in the morning, and I explained that I had looked in then simply to call on him. Having given Versilov my word that no one else should know of the letter, I considered I had no right to speak of it to anyone. I felt it for some reason peculiarly repugnant to speak of certain things to Vassin—of some things and not of others; I succeeded, for instance, in interesting him in my description of the scenes that had taken place that morning in the passage, in the next room, and finally at Versilov's. He listened with extreme attention, especially to what I told him of Stebelkov. When I told him how Stebelkov asked about Dergatchev he made me repeat the question again, and seemed to ponder gravely over it, though he did laugh in the end. It suddenly occurred to me at that moment that nothing could ever have disconcerted Vassin; I remember, however, that this idea presented itself at first in a form most complimentary to him.

  "In fact, I could not gather much from what M. Stebelkov said," I added finally; "he talks in a sort of muddle … and there is something, as it were, feather-headed about him… ."

  Vassin at once assumed a serious air.

  "He certainly has no gift for language, but he sometimes manages to make very acute observations at first sight, and in fact he belongs to the class of business men, men of practical affairs, rather than of theoretical ideas; one must judge them from that point of view… ."

  It was exactly what I had imagined him saying that morning. "He made an awful row next door, though, and goodness knows how it might have ended."

  Of the inmates of the next room, Vassin told me that they had been living there about three weeks and had come from somewhere in the provinces; that their room was very small, and that to all appearance they were very poor; that they stayed in and seemed to be expecting something. He did not know the young woman had advertised for lessons, but he had heard that Versilov had been to see them; it had happened in his absence, but the landlady had told him of it. The two ladies had held themselves aloof from every one, even from the landlady. During the last few days he had indeed become aware that something was wrong with them, but there had been no other scenes like the one that morning. I recall all that was said about the people next door because of what followed. All this time there was a dead silence in the next room. Vassin listened with marked interest when I told him that Stebelkov had said he must talk to the landlady about our neighbours and that he had twice repeated, "Ah! you will see! you will see!"

  "And you will see," added Vassin, "that that notion of his stands for something; he has an extraordinarily keen eye for such things."

  "Why, do you think the landlady ought to be advised to turn them out?"

  "No, I did not mean that they should be turned out … simply that there might be a scandal … but all such cases end one way or another… . Let's drop the subject."

  As for Versilov's visit next door, he absolutely refused to give any opinion.

  "Anything is possible: a man feels that he has money in his pocket … but he may very likely have given the money from charity; that would perhaps be in accordance with his traditions and his inclinations."

  I told him that Stebelkov had chattered that morning about "a baby."

  "Stebelkov is absolutely mistaken about that," Vassin brought out with peculiar emphasis and gravity (I remembered this particularly). "Stebelkov sometimes puts too much faith in his practical common sense, and so is in too great a hurry to draw conclusions to fit in with his logic, which is often very penetrating; and all the while the actual fact may be far more fantastic and surprising when one considers the character of the persons concerned in it. So it has been in this case; having a partial knowledge of the affair, he concluded the child belonged to Versilov; and yet the child is not Versilov's."

  I pressed him, and, to my great amazement, learned from him that the infant in question was the child of Prince Sergay Sokolsky. Lidya Ahmakov, either owing to her illness or to some fantastic streak in her character, used at times to behave like a lunatic. She had been fascinated by the prince before she met Versilov, "and he had not scrupled to accept her love," to use Vassin's expression. The liaison had lasted but for a moment; they had quarrelled, as we know already, and Lidya had dismissed the prince, "at which the latter seems to have been relieved." "She was a very strange girl," added Vassin; "it is quite possible that she was not always in her right mind. But when he went away to Paris, Prince Sokolsky had no idea of the condition in which he had left his victim, he did not know until the end, until his return. Versilov, who had become a friend of the young lady's, offered her his hand, in view of her situation (of which it appears her parents had no suspicion up to the end). The lovesick damsel was overjoyed, and saw in Versilov's offer "something more than self-sacrifice," though that too she appreciated. "Of course, though, he knew how to carry it through," Vassin added. "The baby (a girl) was born a month or six weeks before the proper time; it was placed out somewhere in Germany but afterwards taken back by Versilov and is now somewhere in Russia—perhaps in Petersburg."

  "And the phosphorus matches?"

  "I know nothing about that," Vassin said in conclusion.
"Lidya Ahmakov died a fortnight after her confinement: what had happened I don't know. Prince Sokolsky, who had only just returned from Paris, learned there was a child, and seems not to have believed at first that it was his child… . The whole affair has, in fact, been kept secret by all parties up till now."

  "But what a wretch this prince must be," I cried indignantly. "What a way to treat an invalid girl!"

  "She was not so much of an invalid then… . Besides, she sent him away herself… . It is true, perhaps, that he was in too great a hurry to take advantage of his dismissal."

  "You justify a villain like that!"

  "No, only I don't call him a villain. There is a great deal in it besides simple villainy. In fact, it's quite an ordinary thing."

  "Tell me, Vassin, did you know him intimately? I should particularly value your opinion, owing to a circumstance that touches me very nearly."

  But to this Vassin replied with excessive reserve. He knew the prince, but he was, with obvious intention, reticent in regard to the circumstances under which he had made his acquaintance. He added further that one had to make allowances for Prince Sokolsky's character. "He is impressionable and full of honourable impulses, but has neither good sense nor strength of will enough to control his desires. He is not a well-educated man; many ideas and situations are beyond his power to deal with, and yet he rushes upon them. He will, for example, persist in declaring, 'I am a prince and descended from Rurik; but there's no reason why I shouldn't be a shoemaker if I have to earn my living; I am not fit for any other calling. Above the shop there shall be, "Prince So- and-so, Bootmaker"—it would really be a credit.' He would say that and act upon it, too, that's what matters," added Vassin; "and yet it's not the result of strong conviction, but only the most shallow impressionability. Afterwards repentance invariably follows, and then he is always ready to rush to an opposite extreme; his whole life is passed like that. Many people come to grief in that way nowadays," Vassin ended, "just because they are born in this age."