The poor woman’s story was incoherent in some places. I’ll tell it as I understood it and as I have remembered it.
V
THEY CAME FROM Moscow. She had long been a widow, “though the widow of a court councillor,”55 her husband had been in the service, left almost nothing “except two hundred roubles, though, in a pension. Well, what is two hundred roubles?” She raised Olya, though, and had her educated in high school . . . “And how she studied, how she studied; she was awarded a silver medal at graduation . . .” (Long tears here, naturally.) The deceased husband had lost nearly four thousand in capital with one merchant here in Petersburg. Suddenly this merchant became rich again. “I had papers, got some advice, they said, ‘Make a claim, you’re sure to get everything . . .’ So I began, and the merchant started to agree. ‘Go in person,’ they said. Olya and I made ready and came a month ago now. Our means were only so much; we took this room because it was the smallest, and we saw it was an honorable house, and that was the most important thing for us. We’re inexperienced women, anybody can offend us. Well, we paid you for a month, with one thing and another, Petersburg’s expensive, our merchant flatly refused us. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ and the paper I had was not in order, I understood that myself. So they advise me, ‘Go to this famous lawyer, he was a professor, not simply a lawyer, but a jurist, he’ll tell you for certain what to do.’ I took my last fifteen roubles to him; the lawyer came out, and didn’t listen to me for even three minutes: ‘I see,’ he says, ‘I know,’ he says, ‘if he wants to,’ he says, ‘the merchant will pay you back, if he doesn’t, he won’t, but if you start a case, you may have to pay more, best of all is to make peace.’ And he made a joke from the Gospel: ‘Agree with thine adversary,’ he says, ‘whiles thou art in the way, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’56 He sends me away, laughing. That was the end of my fifteen roubles! I came to Olya, we sit facing each other, I began to weep. She doesn’t weep, she sits there proud, indignant. And she’s always been like that, all her life, even when she was little, she never sighed, never wept, so she sits, glaring terribly, it’s even eerie to look at her. And, would you believe it, I was afraid of her, completely afraid, long afraid; and I’d feel like whining now and then, but I don’t dare in front of her. I went to the merchant for a last time, wept my fill there. ‘All right,’ he says, and doesn’t even listen. Meanwhile, I must confess, since we hadn’t counted on staying so long, we’d already been without money for some time. I gradually began to pawn my clothes, and we lived on that. We pawned everything we had, she began giving up her last bit of linen, and here I started weeping bitter tears. She stamped her foot, jumped up, and ran to the merchant herself. He’s a widower; he talked to her: ‘Come the day after tomorrow at five o’clock,’ he said, ‘maybe I’ll tell you something.’ She came back cheered up: ‘See,’ she says, ‘maybe he’ll tell me something.’ Well, I was glad, too, only my heart somehow went cold in me: what’s going to happen, I think, but I don’t dare ask her. Two days later she came back from the merchant pale, all trembling, threw herself on the bed—I understood everything, but I don’t dare ask. What do you think: he gave her fifteen roubles, the robber, ‘and if I meet with full honor in you,’ he says, ‘I’ll add another forty roubles.’ That’s what he said right to her face, shamelessly. She rushed at him then, she told me, but he pushed her back and even locked himself away from her in another room. And meanwhile, I confess to you in all conscience, we have almost nothing to eat. We took and sold a jacket lined with rabbit fur, and she went to the newspaper and advertised: preparation in all subjects, and also arithmetic. ‘They’ll pay at least thirty kopecks,’ she says. And towards the very end, dear lady, I even began to be horrified at her: she says nothing to me, sits for hours on end at the window, looking at the roof of the house opposite, and suddenly shouts: ‘At least to do laundry, at least to dig the earth!’ She’d shout just some word like that and stamp her foot. And we have no acquaintances here, there’s nobody to go to: ‘What will become of us?’ I think. And I keep being afraid to talk to her. Once she slept in the afternoon, woke up, opened her eyes, looked at me; I sit on the chest, also looking at her; she got up silently, came over to me, embraced me very, very tightly, and then the two of us couldn’t help ourselves and wept, we sit and weep, without letting go of each other’s arms. It was the first time like that in her whole life. So we’re sitting like that with each other, and your Nastasya comes in and says, ‘There’s some lady asking to see you.’ This was just four days ago. The lady comes in. We see she’s very well dressed, speaks Russian, but with what seems like a German accent: ‘You advertised in the newspaper,’ she says, ‘that you give lessons?’ We were so glad then, asked her to sit down, she laughs so sweetly: ‘It’s not me,’ she says, ‘but my niece has small children; if you like, kindly come to see us, we’ll discuss things there.’ She gave the address, by the Voznesensky Bridge, number such-and-such, apartment number such-and-such. She left. Olechka set off, she went running that same day, and what then? She came back two hours later in hysterics, thrashing. Later she told me: ‘I asked the caretaker,’ she says, ‘where apartment number such-and-such was. The caretaker looked at me,’ she says. ‘ “And what,” he says, “do you want with that apartment?” He said it so strangely that I might have thought better of it.’ But she was imperious, impatient, she couldn’t stand these questions and rudeness. ‘Go,’ he says, jabbing his finger towards the stairs, turned and went back to his lodge. And what do you think? She goes in, asks, and women come running at once from all sides: ‘Come in, come in!’—all the women, laughing, painted, foul, piano-playing, rush to her and pull her. ‘I tried to get out of there,’ she says, ‘but they wouldn’t let me go.’ She got frightened, her legs gave way under her, they don’t let her go, and then it’s all sweet talk, coaxing her, they opened a bottle of port, give it to her, insist. She jumped up, shouting with all her might, trembling: ‘Let me go, let me go!’ She rushed to the door, they hold the door, she screams; then the one that had come to us ran up to her, slapped my Olya twice in the face, and shoved her out the door: ‘You’re not worthy, you slut,’ she says, ‘to be in a noble house!’ And another shouts after her on the stairs: ‘You came here yourself, since you’ve got nothing to eat, but we wouldn’t even look at such a mug!’ All that night she lay in a fever, raving, and the next morning her eyes flashed, she’d get up and pace: ‘To court,’ she says, ‘I’ll take her to court!’ I said nothing: well, I thought, what can you do about it in court, what can you prove? She paces, she wrings her hands, her tears pour down, her lips are pressed together, unmoving. And since that same time, her whole face turned dark till the very end. On the third day she felt better, she was silent, she seemed to have calmed down. It was then, at four o’clock in the afternoon, that Mr. Versilov paid us a visit.
“And I’ll say it outright: I still can’t understand how Olya, mistrustful as she was, could have begun to listen to him then almost from the first word. What attracted us both most of all then was that he had such a serious look, stern even, he speaks softly, thoroughly, and so politely—ever so politely, even respectfully, and yet there’s no self-seeking to be seen in him: you see straight off that the man has come with a pure heart. ‘I read your advertisement in the newspaper,’ he says. ‘You didn’t write it correctly, miss,’ he says, ‘and you may even do yourself harm by it.’ And he began to explain, I confess I didn’t understand, there was something about arithmetic, only I can see Olya blushed, and became as if animated, she listens, gets into conversation so willingly (he really must be an intelligent man!), I hear how she even thanks him. He asked her about everything so thoroughly, and you could see he’d lived a long time in Moscow, and, it turned out, knew the directress of her high school personally. ‘I’m sure I’ll find lessons for you,’ he says, ‘because I have many acquaintances here and can even appeal to many influential persons, so that if you want a permanent position, then that, too, can be kept in view . . .
and meanwhile,’ he says, ‘forgive me one direct question to you: may I not be of use to you right now in some way? It will not be I who give you pleasure,’ he says, ‘but, on the contrary, you who give it to me, if you allow me to be of use to you in any way at all. Let it be your debt,’ he says, ‘and once you get a position, you can pay it back to me in the shortest time. And, believe me on my honor, if I ever fell into such poverty afterwards, while you were provided with everything—I’d come straight to you for a little help, I’d send my wife and daughter . . .’ That is, I don’t remember all his words, only at this point I shed a few tears, because I saw Olya’s lips quiver with gratitude. ‘If I accept,’ she answers him, ‘it’s because I trust an honorable and humane man who could be my father . . .’ She said it to him so beautifully, briefly and nobly: ‘a humane man,’ she says. He stood up at once: ‘I’ll find lessons and a post for you without fail, without fail,’ he says, ‘I’ll busy myself with it starting today, because you have quite enough qualifications for that . . .’ And I forgot to say that at the very beginning, when he came in, he looked over all her documents from high school, she showed them to him, and he examined her in various subjects . . . ‘He examined me in some subjects, mama,’ Olya says to me later, ‘and how intelligent he is,’ she says, ‘it’s not every day you get to talk with such a developed and educated man . . .’ And she’s just beaming all over. The money, sixty roubles, is lying on the table. ‘Put it away, mama,’ she says, ‘we’ll get a post and pay it back to him first thing, we’ll prove that we’re honest, and that we’re delicate he’s already seen.’ She fell silent then, I see, she’s breathing so deeply: ‘You know, mama,’ she suddenly says to me, ‘if we were coarse people, maybe we wouldn’t have accepted it out of pride, but now that we’ve accepted it, we’ve proved our delicacy to him, showing that we trust him in everything, as a respectable, gray-haired man, isn’t it true?’ At first I didn’t understand right and said, ‘Why not accept the benevolence of a noble and wealthy man, Olya, if on top of that he’s kindhearted?’ She frowned at me: ‘No, mama,’ she says, ‘it’s not that, we don’t need his benevolence, what’s precious is his “humaneness.” And as for the money, it would even be better not to take it, mama. Since he’s promised to find me a position, that would be enough . . . though we are in need.’ ‘Well, Olya,’ I say, ‘our need is such that we simply can’t refuse’—I even smiled. Well, in myself I’m glad, only an hour later she slipped this in for me: ‘You wait, mama,’ she says, ‘and don’t spend the money.’ She said it so resolutely. ‘What?’ I say. ‘Just don’t,’ she said, broke off, and fell silent. She was silent the whole evening; only past one o’clock at night I wake up and hear Olya tossing on her bed. ‘You’re not asleep, mama?’ ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m not.’ ‘Do you know,’ she says, ‘that he wanted to insult me?’ ‘How can you, how can you?’ I say. ‘It has to be so; he’s a mean man, don’t you dare spend one kopeck of his money.’ I tried to talk to her, I even cried a little right there in bed—she turned to the wall: ‘Be quiet,’ she says, ‘let me sleep!’ The next morning I watch her, she goes about not looking herself; and believe me or not, I’ll say it before God’s judgment seat: she wasn’t in her right mind then! Ever since they insulted her in that mean house, she got troubled in her heart . . . and in her mind. I look at her that morning and I have doubts about her; I feel frightened; I won’t contradict her, I thought, not in a single word. ‘Mama,’ she says, ‘he didn’t even leave his address.’ ‘Shame on you, Olya,’ I say, ‘you heard him yourself yesterday, you praised him yourself afterwards, you were about to weep grateful tears yourself.’ As soon as I said it, she shrieked, stamped her foot: ‘You’re a woman of mean feelings,’ she says, ‘you’re of the old upbringing on serfdom!’ . . . and despite all I said, she snatched her hat, ran out, and I shouted after her. ‘What’s the matter with her,’ I think, ‘where has she run to?’ And she ran to the address bureau, found out where Mr. Versilov lived, came back. ‘Today,’ she says, ‘right now, I’ll bring him the money and fling it in his face; he wanted to insult me,’ she says, ‘like Safronov’ (that’s our merchant); ‘only Safronov insulted me like a crude peasant, and this one like a cunning Jesuit.’ And here suddenly, as bad luck would have it, that gentleman from yesterday knocked: ‘I heard you speaking about Versilov, I can give you information.’ When she heard about Versilov, she fell on the man, totally beside herself, she talks and talks, I look at her, wondering: she’s so taciturn, she never speaks like that with anyone, and here it’s a complete stranger. Her cheeks are burning, her eyes flashing . . . And he up and says, ‘You’re perfectly right, miss,’ he says. ‘Versilov,’ he says, ‘is exactly like these generals here, that they describe in the newspapers; the general would deck himself out with all his medals and go calling on governesses who advertise in the newspapers, he’d go about and find what he wanted; and if he didn’t find what he wanted, he’d sit and talk and promise heaps of things, and go away—even so he provides himself with entertainment.’ Olya even burst out laughing, only so spitefully, and this gentleman, I see, takes her hand, puts it to his heart. ‘I, too, miss,’ he says, ‘have capital of my own, and I could always offer it to a beautiful girl, but it’s better,’ he says, ‘if I first kiss her sweet little hand . . .’ And I see him pulling her hand to kiss it. She just jumped up, but here I jumped up with her, and the two of us chased him out. Then, before evening, Olya snatched the money from me, ran out, comes back: ‘Mama,’ she says, ‘I took revenge on the dishonorable man!’ ‘Ah, Olya, Olya,’ I say, ‘maybe we’ve missed our chance, you’ve insulted a noble, benevolent man!’ I wept from vexation at her, I couldn’t help myself. She shouts at me: ‘I don’t want it,’ she shouts, ‘I don’t want it! Even if he’s the most honorable man, even then I don’t want his charity! If anybody pities me, even that I don’t want!’ I lay down, and there was nothing in my thoughts. How many times I had looked at that nail in your wall, left over from the mirror—it never occurred to me, never once occurred to me, not yesterday, not before, and I never thought of it, never dreamed of it at all, and never, ever expected it of Olya. I usually sleep soundly, I snore, it’s the blood flowing to my head, but sometimes it goes to my heart, I cry out in my sleep, so that Olya wakes me up in the night: ‘You sleep so soundly, mama,’ she says, ‘it’s even impossible to wake you up if I need to.’ ‘Oh, Olya,’ I say, ‘soundly, so soundly!’ So I must have started snoring last night, she waited a while, and then she was no longer afraid, and she got up. This long strap from the suitcase was there all the time, this whole month, I was still thinking about it yesterday morning: ‘Put it away, finally, so that it doesn’t lie about.’ And the chair she must have pushed away with her foot, and she spread her skirt beside it so that it wouldn’t make any noise. And I must have woken up long, long after, a whole hour or more. ‘Olya!’ I call, ‘Olya!’ I suspected something at once. I call her. It was either that I couldn’t hear her breathing in bed, or perhaps I made out in the darkness that her bed was empty—only I suddenly got up and felt with my hand: there was no one in the bed, and the pillow was cold. My heart just sank, I stand where I am as if senseless, my mind goes dim. ‘She went out,’ I thought—took a step, and I see her there by the bed, in the corner, near the door, as if she’s standing there herself. I stand, silent, look at her, and she also seems to be looking at me out of the darkness, without stirring . . . ‘Only why,’ I think, ‘did she get up on a chair?’ ‘Olya,’ I whisper, getting scared, ‘Olya, do you hear?’ Only suddenly it was as if it all dawned on me, I took a step, thrust both arms out, straight at her, put them around her, and she sways in my arms, I clutch her, and she sways, I understand everything, and I don’t want to understand . . . I want to cry out, but no cry comes . . . ‘Ah!’ I think. I dropped to the floor, and then I cried out . . .”
“Vasin,” I said in the morning, already past five o’clock, “if it hadn’t been for your Stebelkov, maybe this woudn’t have happened.”
�
�Who knows, it probably would. It’s impossible to judge like that here, it was all prepared for even without that . . . True, this Stebelkov sometimes . . .”
He didn’t finish and winced very unpleasantly. Before seven he went out again; he kept bustling about. I was finally left completely alone. Dawn had broken. My head was spinning slightly. I kept imagining Versilov; this lady’s story presented him in a totally different light. To think it over more comfortably, I lay down on Vasin’s bed, as I was, dressed and with my boots on, for a moment, with no intention of sleeping—and suddenly fell asleep. I don’t even remember how it happened. I slept for nearly four hours; nobody woke me up.
Chapter Ten
I
I WOKE UP at around half-past ten and for a long time could not believe my eyes: on the sofa where I had slept the night before sat my mother, and beside her—the unfortunate neighbor, the mother of the suicide. They were holding each other’s hands, speaking in whispers, probably so as not to wake me up, and both were weeping. I got out of bed and rushed straight to kiss mama. She beamed all over, kissed me, and crossed me three times with her right hand. We had no time to say a word: the door opened, and Versilov and Vasin came in. Mama stood up at once and took the neighbor with her. Vasin gave me his hand, but Versilov didn’t say a word to me and lowered himself into an armchair. He and mama had evidently been there for some time. His face was somber and preoccupied.
“I regret most of all,” he began saying measuredly to Vasin, obviously continuing a conversation already begun, “that I didn’t manage to settle it last evening, and—surely this dreadful thing wouldn’t have come about! And there was time enough: it wasn’t eight o’clock yet. As soon as she ran away from us last night, I at once resolved mentally to follow her here and reassure her, but this unforeseen and urgent matter, which, however, I could very well have put off until today . . . or even for a week—this vexatious matter hindered and ruined everything. That things should come together like that!”
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