Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "Do you know, you are sometimes a fearful reactionary," I cried, laughing nervously.

  "My dear boy, it doesn't matter."

  "Yes, it does! Why not tell the blunt truth to an ass, if he is an ass?"

  "Surely you are not speaking of yourself? To begin with, I can't judge anyone, and I don't want to."

  "Why don't you want to, why can't you?"

  "Laziness and distaste. A clever woman told me once that I had no right to judge others because 'I don't know how to suffer,' that before judging others, one must gain the right to judge, from suffering. Rather exalted, but, as applied to me, perhaps it's true, so that I very readily accepted the criticism."

  "Wasn't it Tatyana Pavlovna who told you that?" I cried.

  "Why, how do you know?" said Versilov, glancing at me with some surprise.

  "I knew it from Tatyana Pavlovna's face: she gave a sudden start."

  I guessed by chance. The phrase, as it appeared later, actually had been uttered by Tatyana Pavlovna, the evening before, in a heated discussion. And indeed, I repeat, I had, brimming over with joy and expansiveness, swooped down upon them at an unfortunate moment; all of them had their separate troubles, and they were heavy ones.

  "I don't understand it," I went on, "because it's all so abstract; it's dreadful how fond you are of abstract discussion, Andrey Petrovitch; it's a sign of egoism; only egoists are fond of generalization."

  "That's not a bad saying, but don't persecute me."

  "But let me ask," I insisted expansively, "what's the meaning of 'gaining the right to judge?' Anyone who is honest may be a judge, that's my idea."

  "You won't find many judges in that case."

  "I know one anyway."

  "Who's that?"

  "He is sitting and talking to me now."

  Versilov laughed strangely, he stooped down to my ear, and taking me by the shoulder whispered, "He is always lying to you."

  I don't know to this day what was in his mind, but evidently he was in some agitation at the time (in consequence of something he had learned, as I found out later). But those words, "he is always lying to you," were so unexpected and uttered so earnestly, and with such a strange and far from playful expression, that it gave me a nervous shudder. I was almost alarmed and looked at him wildly; but Versilov made haste to laugh.

  "Well, thank God!" murmured my mother, who was uneasy at seeing him whisper to me, "I was almost thinking… . Don't be angry with us, Arkasha; you'll have clever friends apart from us, but who is going to love you, if we don't love one another?"

  "The love of one's relations is immoral, mother, just because it's undeserved; love ought to be earned."

  "You'll earn it later on, but here you are loved without."

  Every one suddenly laughed.

  "Well, mother, you may not have meant to shoot, but you hit your bird!" I cried, laughing, too.

  "And you actually imagined that there's something to love you for," cried Tatyana Pavlovna, falling upon me again: "You are not simply loved for nothing, you are loved in spite of loathing."

  "Oh not a bit of it," I cried gaily; "do you know, perhaps, some one told me to-day I was loved."

  "Said it laughing at you!" Tatyana Pavlovna said suddenly with a sort of unnatural malignity, as though she had just been waiting for me to say that, "yes, a person of delicacy, especially a woman, would be moved to disgust by the uncleanness of your soul. Your hair is done with a smart parting, you have fine linen, and a suit made by a French tailor, but it's all uncleanness really! Who's paid your tailor's bill, who keeps you, and gives you money to play roulette with? Think who it is you've been so shameless as to sponge on!"

  My mother flushed painfully, and I had never seen a look of such shame on her face before. Everything seemed to be giving way within me.

  "If I am spending money it's my own, and I am not bound to give an account of it to anyone," I blurted out, turning crimson.

  "Whose own? What money's your own?"

  "If it's not mine, it's Andrey Petrovitch's. He won't refuse it me… . I borrowed from what Prince Sergay owes Andrey Petrovitch… ."

  "My dear boy," Versilov said firmly, all of a sudden, "not a farthing of that money is mine."

  The phrase was horribly significant. I was dumbfoundered. Oh, of course, considering my paradoxical and careless attitude at that time, I might quite well have turned it off with some outburst of "generous" feeling, or high-sounding phrase, or something, but I suddenly caught on Liza's face a resentful accusing expression, an expression I had not deserved, almost a sneer, and a devil seemed to prompt me.

  "You seem," I said, turning to her suddenly, "to visit Darya Onisimovna very often at Prince Sergay's flat, miss, so will you be pleased to give her this three hundred roubles, which you've given me such a nagging about already to-day?"

  I took out the money and held it out to her. But will it be believed that those mean words were uttered entirely without motive, that is, without the faintest allusion to anything. And indeed there could have been no such allusion, for at that moment I knew absolutely nothing. Perhaps I had just a desire to vex her by something comparatively most innocent, by way of a gibe, "Since you are such an interfering young lady, wouldn't you like to return the money yourself to the prince, a charming young man and a Petersburg officer, as you are so anxious to meddle in young men's business." But what was my amazement when my mother got up, and, with a menacing gesture, cried:

  "How dare you! How dare you!"

  I could never have conceived of anything like it from her, and I too jumped up from my seat, not exactly in alarm, but with a sort of anguish, a poignant wound in my heart, suddenly realizing that something dreadful had happened. But unable to control herself, mother hid her face in her hands and ran out of the room. Liza followed her out without so much as a glance at me. Tatyana Pavlovna gazed at me for half a minute in silence.

  "Can you really have meant to jeer?" she exclaimed enigmatically, looking at me in profound astonishment, but without waiting for me to answer, she, too, ran out to join them. With an unsympathetic, almost angry expression, Versilov got up from the table, and took his hat from the corner.

  "I imagine that you are not so much a fool as an innocent," he mumbled to me ironically. "If they come back, tell them to have their pudding without waiting for me. I am going out for a little."

  I remained alone; at first I felt bewildered, then I felt resentful, but afterwards I saw clearly that I was to blame. However, I did not know exactly how I was to blame, I simply had a feeling of it. I sat in the window and waited. After waiting ten minutes, I, too, took my hat, and went upstairs to the attic, which had been mine. I knew that they, that is my mother and Liza, were there, and that Tatyana Pavlovna had gone away. And so I found them on my sofa, whispering together about something. They left off whispering at once, when I appeared; to my amazement they were not angry with me; mother anyway smiled at me.

  "I am sorry, mother," I began.

  "Never mind!" mother cut me short, "only love each other and never quarrel and God will send you happiness."

  "He is never nasty to me, mother, I assure you," Liza said with conviction and feeling.

  "If it hadn't been for that Tatyana Pavlovna nothing would have happened," I cried; "she's horrid!"

  "You see, mother? You hear?" said Liza with a motion towards me.

  "What I want to tell you both is this," I declared: "if there is anything nasty in the world, it's I that am nasty, and all the rest is delightful!"

  "Arkasha, don't be angry, darling, but if you really would give up … "

  "Gambling, you mean, gambling? I will give it up, mother. I am going there for the last time to-day—especially since Andrey Petrovitch himself has declared that not a farthing of that money is his, you can't imagine how I blush… . I must go into it with him, though … Mother darling, last time I was here I said something clumsy … it was nonsense, darling; I truly want to believe, it was only swagger, I love Christ… ."
>
  On my last visit there had been a conversation about religion. Mother had been much grieved and upset. When she heard my words now, she smiled at me as though I were a little child.

  "Christ forgives everything, Arkasha; he forgives your wrongdoing and worse than yours. Christ is our Father, Christ never fails us, and will give light in the blackest night… ."

  I said good-bye to them, and went away, thinking over the chances of seeing Versilov that day; I had a great deal to talk over with him, and it had been impossible that afternoon. I had a strong suspicion that he would be waiting for me at my lodging. I walked there on foot; it had turned colder and begun to freeze and walking was very pleasant.

  2.

  I lived near the Voznesenky Bridge, in a huge block of flats overlooking the courtyard. Almost as I went into the gate I ran into Versilov coming out.

  "As usual when I go for a walk, I only get as far as your lodging, and I've been to Pyotr Ippolitovitch's, but I got tired of waiting for you; your people there are for ever quarrelling, and to-day his wife is even a little tearful; I looked in and came away."

  For some reason I felt annoyed.

  "I suppose you never go to see anyone except me and Pyotr Ippolitovitch; you have no one else in all Petersburg to go to."

  "My dear fellow … but it doesn't matter."

  "Where are you going now?"

  "I am not coming back to you. If you like we'll go for a walk, it's a glorious evening."

  "If instead of abstract discussions, you had talked to me like a human being, and had for instance given me the merest hint about that confounded gambling, I should perhaps not have let myself be drawn into it like a fool," I said suddenly.

  "You regret it? That's a good thing," he answered, bringing out his words reluctantly; "I always suspected that play was not a matter of great consequence with you, but only a temporary aberration… . You are right, my dear boy, gambling is beastly, and what's more one may lose."

  "And lose other people's money, too."

  "Have you lost other people's money?"

  "I have lost yours. I borrowed of Prince Sergay, from what was owing you. Of course it was fearfully stupid and absurd of me … to consider your money mine, but I always meant to win it back."

  "I must warn you once more, my dear boy, that I have no money in Prince Sergay's hands. I know that young man is in straits himself, and I am not reckoning on him for anything, in spite of his promises."

  "That makes my position twice as bad… . I am in a ludicrous position! And what grounds has he for lending me money, and me for borrowing in that case?"

  "That's your affair… . But there's not the slightest reason for you to borrow money from him, is there?"

  "Except that we are comrades… ."

  "No other reason? Is there anything which has made you feel it possible to borrow from him? Any consideration whatever?"

  "What sort of consideration do you mean? I don't understand."

  "So much the better if you don't, and I will own, my boy, that I was sure of it. Brisons-là, mon cher, and do try to avoid playing somehow."

  "If only you had told me before! You seem half-hearted about it even now."

  "If I had spoken to you about it before, we should only have quarrelled, and you wouldn't have let me come and see you in the evenings so readily. And let me tell you, my dear, that all such saving counsels and warnings are simply an intrusion into another person's conscience, at another person's expense. I have done enough meddling with the consciences of others, and in the long run I get nothing but taunts and rebuffs for it. Taunts and rebuffs, of course, don't matter; the point is that one never obtains one's object in that way: no one listens to you, however much you meddle … and every one gets to dislike you."

  "I am glad that you have begun to talk to me of something besides abstractions. I want to ask you one thing, I have wanted to for a long time, but it's always been impossible when I've been with you. It is a good thing we are in the street. Do you remember that evening, the last evening I spent in your house, two months ago, how we sat upstairs in my 'coffin,' and I questioned you about mother and Makar Ivanovitch; do you remember how free and easy I was with you then? How could you allow a young puppy to speak in those terms of his mother? And yet you made not the faintest sign of protest; on the contrary, 'you let yourself go,' and so made me worse than ever."

  "My dear boy, I'm very glad to hear … such sentiments, from you… . Yes, I remember very well; I was actually waiting to see the blush on your cheek, and if I fell in with your tone, it was just to bring you to the limit… ."

  "And you only deceived me then, and troubled more than ever the springs of purity in my soul! Yes, I'm a wretched raw youth, and I don't know from minute to minute what is good and what is evil. Had you given me the tiniest hint of the right road, I should have realized things and should have been eager to take the right path. But you only drove me to fury."

  "Cher enfant, I always foresaw that, one way or another, we should understand one another; that 'blush' has made its appearance of itself, without my aid, and that I swear is better for you… . I notice, my dear boy, that you have gained a great deal of late … can it be the companionship of that princeling?"

  "Don't praise me, I don't like it. Don't leave me with a painful suspicion that you are flattering me without regard for truth, so as to go on pleasing me. Well, lately … you see … I've been visiting ladies. I am very well received, you know, by Anna Andreyevna, for instance."

  "I know that from her, my dear boy. Yes, she is very charming and intelligent. Mais brisons-là, mon cher. It's odd how sick I feel of everything to-day, spleen I suppose. I put it down to haemorrhoids. How are things at home? All right? You made it up, of course, and embraces followed? Celà va sans dire. It's melancholy sometimes to go back to them, even after the nastiest walk. In fact, I sometimes go a longer way round in the rain, simply to delay the moment of returning to the bosom of my family… . And how bored I am there, good God, how bored!"

  "Mother … "

  "Your mother is a most perfect and delightful creature, mais… . In short I am probably unworthy of them. By the way, what's the matter with them to-day? For the last few days they've all been out of sorts somehow… . I always try to ignore such things you know, but there is something fresh brewing to-day… . Have you noticed nothing?"

  "I know nothing positive, and in fact I should not have noticed it at all it if hadn't been for that confounded Tatyana Pavlovna, who can never resist trying to get her knife in. You are right; there is something wrong. I found Liza at Anna Andreyevna's this morning, and she was so … she surprised me in fact. You know, of course, that she visits Anna Andreyevna?"

  "I know, my dear. And you … when were you at Anna Andreyevna's, to-day? At what time? I want to know for a reason."

  "From two till three. And only fancy as I was going out Prince Sergay arrived… ."

  Then I described my whole visit very circumstantially. He listened without speaking; he made no comment whatever on the possibility of a match between Prince Sergay and Anna Andreyevna; in response to my enthusiastic praise of Anna Andreyevna he murmured again that "she was very charming."

  "I gave her a great surprise this morning, with the latest bit of drawing-room gossip that Mme. Ahmakov is to be married to Baron Büring," I said all of a sudden, as though something were torn out of me.

  "Yes? Would you believe it, she told me that 'news' earlier in the day, much earlier than you can have surprised her with it."

  "What do you mean?" I was simply struck dumb. "From whom could she have heard it? Though after all, there's no need to ask; of course she might have heard it before I did; but only imagine, she listened to me when I told her as though it were absolutely news to her! But … but what of it? Hurrah for 'breadth!' One must take a broad view of people's characters, mustn't one? I, for instance, should have poured it all out at once, and she shuts it up in a snuff box … and so be it, so be it, she is none the less a m
ost delightful person, and a very fine character!"

  "Oh, no doubt of it, every one must go his own way. And something more original—these fine characters can sometimes baffle one completely—just imagine. Anna Andreyevna took my breath away this morning by asking: 'Whether I were in love with Katerina Nikolaevna Ahmakov or not?'"

  "What a wild and incredible question!" I cried, dumbfoundered again. There was actually a mist before my eyes I had never yet broached this subject with him, and here he had begun on it himself.

  "In what way did she put it?"

  "No way, my dear boy, absolutely no way; the snuff-box shut again at once, more closely than ever, and what's more, observe, I've never admitted the conceivability of such questions being addressed to me, nor has she … however, you say yourself that you know her and therefore you can imagine how far such a question is characteristic… . Do you know anything about it by chance?"

  "I am just as puzzled as you are. Curiosity, perhaps, or a joke."

  "Oh, quite the contrary, it was a most serious question, hardly a question in fact, more a cross-examination, and evidently there were very important and positive reasons for it. Won't you be going to see her? Couldn't you find out something? I would ask you as a favour, do you see … "

  "But the strangest thing is that she could imagine you to be in love with Katerina Nikolaevna! Forgive me, I can't get over my amazement. I should never, never have ventured to speak to you on this subject, or anything like it."

  "And that's very sensible of you, my dear boy."

  "Your intrigues and your relations in the past—well, of course, the subject's out of the question between us, and indeed it would be stupid of me, but of late, the last few days, I have several times exclaimed to myself that if you had ever loved that woman, if only for a moment—oh, you could never have made such a terrible mistake in your opinion of her as you did! I know what happened, I know of your enmity, of your aversion, so to say, for each other, I've heard of it, I've heard too much of it; even before I left Moscow I heard of it, but the fact that stands out so clearly is intense aversion, intense hostility, the very OPPOSITE of love, and Anna Andreyevna suddenly asks point-blank, 'Do you love her?' Can she have heard so little about it? It's wild! She was laughing, I assure you she was laughing!"