In all events I remain
Your humble servant,
N. Vakhrameev.
P.S. You should get rid of your man: he is a drunkard and, in all probability, causes you much trouble, and take Evstafy, who used to work for us and is now without a post. Your present servant is not only a drunkard, but moreover a thief, for last week he sold Karolina Ivanovna a pound of lump sugar at a low price, which, in my opinion, he could not have done unless he had stolen it from you on the sly, in small portions, at various times. I write this to you wishing you well, despite the fact that certain individuals know only how to insult and deceive all people, mostly those who are honest and possessed of a good character; moreover, they denounce them in their absence and present them in a reverse sense, solely out of envy and because they cannot be called such themselves.
V.
Having read Vakhrameev’s letter, our hero remained for a long time in a motionless position on his sofa. Some sort of new light was breaking through all this vague and mysterious fog that had surrounded him for two days. Our hero was partly beginning to understand…He tried to get up from the sofa and pace the room once or twice to refresh himself and somehow collect his broken thoughts, to turn them towards a certain subject, and then, having pulled himself together a little, to give mature consideration to his position. But he was just going to get up when at once, in weakness and impotence, he fell back into his former place. “Of course, I anticipated it all beforehand; though what is it he writes and what is the direct meaning of these words? Suppose I know the meaning; but where does it lead? He should say directly: here, say, thus and so, what’s required is this and that, and I’d do it. Such an unpleasant turn this affair is taking! Ah, if only we could get quickly to tomorrow and get quickly to this affair! Now I know what to do. Say, thus and so, I’ll tell them, I agree with your reasoning, I won’t sell my honor, but sort of…perhaps; how, though, did that one, that well-known individual, that unfavorable person, get mixed up in this? And precisely why did he get mixed up in it? Ah, if only tomorrow would come quickly! They’ll disgrace me meanwhile, they’re intriguing, they’re working against me! Above all—I mustn’t lose time, but now, for instance, I should at least write a letter and only let on that, say, this and that, this and that, and I agree to this and that. And tomorrow at first light send it off and go very early…and work against them from the other side and forestall the dear hearts…They’ll disgrace me, that’s just it!”
Mr. Goliadkin drew paper towards him, took the pen, and wrote the following missive in reply to Provincial Secretary Vakhrameev:
Dear sir, Nestor Ignatievich!
With an astonishment that grieves my heart I have read your letter so insulting to me, for I see clearly that, under the name of certain disreputable individuals and other falsely well-intentioned persons, you imply me. With genuine sorrow I see how quickly, successfully, and how far calumny has sent its roots, to the detriment of my well-being, my honor, and my good name. It is the more grievous and insulting that even honest people with a truly noble cast of mind and, above all, endowed with a direct and open character, abandon the interests of noble people and, with the best qualities of their hearts, cling to a pernicious louse—which, unfortunately, in our difficult and immoral time, have multiplied greatly and extremely ill-intentionedly. In conclusion I will say that I consider it my sacred duty to repay the debt you mentioned, two silver roubles, in its entirety.
With regard, my dear sir, to your hints concerning a certain individual of the female sex, concerning the intentions, calculations, and various designs of this individual, I will tell you, my dear sir, that I have understood all these hints vaguely and unclearly. Allow me, my dear sir, to keep my noble cast of mind and my honest name untainted. In any case, I am ready to condescend to personal explanations, preferring the verity of the personal to the written, and, above all, I am ready to enter into various peaceable—and mutual, to be sure—agreements. To that end I ask you, my dear sir, to convey to this individual my readiness for personal agreement and, moreover, to ask her to appoint the time and place of the meeting. It was bitter for me to read, my dear sir, hints that I had supposedly insulted you, betrayed our original friendship, and had spoken of you in bad terms. I ascribe it all to the misunderstanding, vile slander, envy, and ill-will of those whom I may rightly call my bitterest enemies. But they probably do not know that innocence is strong in its very innocence, that the shamelessness, impudence, and exasperating familiarity of certain individuals will sooner or later earn them the universal brand of contempt, and that those individuals will perish from nothing other than their own indecency and depravity of heart. In conclusion I ask you, my dear sir, to convey to those individuals that their strange claim and ignoble, fantastic desire to supplant with their own being the confines occupied by others in this world, and to occupy their place, are deserving of amazement, contempt, regret, and, moreover, the madhouse; that, moreover, such attitudes are strictly forbidden by law, which, in my opinion, is completely just, for everyone should be satisfied with his own place. There are limits to everything, and if this is a joke, it is an indecent joke; I will say more: it is completely immoral, for, I venture to assure you, my dear sir, that my ideas, enlarged upon above, regarding one’s own place, are purely moral.
In any case, I have the honor to remain
Your humble servant,
Ya. Goliadkin.
CHAPTER X
GENERALLY IT MAY be said that the happenings of the previous day had shaken Mr. Goliadkin to his foundations. Our hero rested very poorly, that is, did not fall completely asleep even for five minutes: as if some joker had put cut-up bristles in his bed. He spent the whole night in some sort of half-sleeping, half-waking state, tossing and turning from side to side, sighing, groaning, falling asleep for a moment, waking up again a moment later, and all this was accompanied by some strange anguish, vague recollections, grotesque visions—in short, every available unpleasantness…Now, in some strange, mysterious half-light, the figure of Andrei Filippovich appeared before him—a dry figure, an angry figure, with a dry, hard gaze and a stiffly courteous reproach…And Mr. Goliadkin was just about to go up to Andrei Filippovich in order to justify himself before him in some way, by this or by that, and prove to him that he was not at all as his enemies described him, that he was this and he was that, and, on top of his ordinary, innate qualities, even possessed such and such; but just then the person known for his indecent tendency appeared and by some most outrageous means destroyed at one blow all Mr. Goliadkin’s preliminaries, thoroughly blackened his reputation, right there, almost in front of Mr. Goliadkin’s eyes, trampled his pride in the mud, and then immediately took over his place at work and in society. Now Mr. Goliadkin’s head itched from some flick, recently acquired and accepted in all humility, and received either in everyday life or somehow out of duty, against which flick it was difficult to protest…And meanwhile, as Mr. Goliadkin began to rack his brain over precisely why it was so difficult to protest at least against such a flick—meanwhile this thought of the flick imperceptibly recast itself into some other form—into the form of some certain small or rather significant meanness, seen, heard of, or even recently performed by himself—and often performed not even on mean grounds, not even from some mean urge, but just so—sometimes, for instance, by chance—out of delicacy; or another time owing to his total defenselessness, well, and, finally, because…because, in short, this Mr. Goliadkin knew very well why! Here Mr. Goliadkin blushed in his sleep and, suppressing his blushes, muttered to himself that here, say, for instance, one could show firmness of character, considerable firmness of character could be shown on this occasion…but then concluded that, “say, what of this firmness of character!…say, why mention it now!…” But what enraged and annoyed Mr. Goliadkin most of all was that here, and unfailingly at this moment, summoned or not summoned, the person known for the grotesqueness and lampoonishness of his tendency appeared and also, despite the fact that the ma
tter seemed to be well known—also muttered with an indecent little smile, that, “say, what has firmness of character got to do with it! what firmness of character, say, are you and I going to show, Yakov Petrovich!…” Now Mr. Goliadkin fancied that he was in excellent company, known for the wit and noble tone of all the persons who constituted it; that Mr. Goliadkin in his turn distinguished himself in respect of amiability and wittiness; that everyone loved him—even some of his enemies, who were right there, loved him—which Mr. Goliadkin found very agreeable; that everyone acknowledged his superiority; and that, finally, Mr. Goliadkin himself overheard with pleasure how his host, just then, leading one of the guests aside, praised Mr. Goliadkin…and suddenly, out of the blue, the person known for his ill intentions and beastly impulses appeared again, in the guise of Mr. Goliadkin Jr., and straightaway, at once, in an instant, by his appearance alone, Goliadkin Jr. destroyed all the triumph and glory of Mr. Goliadkin Sr., eclipsed Goliadkin Sr., trampled Goliadkin Sr. in the mud, and, finally, proved clearly that Goliadkin Sr., the real one at that, was not the real one at all but a counterfeit, and that he was the real one, that, finally, Goliadkin Sr. was not at all what he appeared to be, but was this and that, and consequently should not and had no right to belong to the society of well-intentioned and high-toned people. And all this was done so quickly that, before Mr. Goliadkin Sr. managed to open his mouth, everyone had already given themselves body and soul to the grotesque and counterfeit Mr. Goliadkin, and with the profoundest contempt had rejected him, the real and blameless Mr. Goliadkin. Not a person remained whose opinion the grotesque Mr. Goliadkin had not in one instant remade in his own way. Not a person remained, even the most insignificant of the whole company, whom the useless and false Mr. Goliadkin had not sucked up to in his own way, in the sweetest manner, whom he had not sidled up to in his own way, before whom he had not burned, as was his wont, the most sweet and pleasing incense, so that the censed person only sniffed and sneezed to the point of tears as a sign of the highest satisfaction. And, chiefly, all this had been done in an instant: the speed of the suspect and useless Mr. Goliadkin’s course was astonishing! He barely manages, for instance, to smooch with one, to earn his good favor—and in the twinkling of an eye he’s already with somebody else. He smooches with the second on the quiet, wins a little smile of benevolence, kicks up his short, round, though rather crudely made little leg, and here he is with a third, already paying court to a third, also smooching with him in a friendly way: you haven’t managed to open your mouth, haven’t managed to feel astonished, and he’s already with a fourth, and is on the same terms with the fourth—terrible: witchcraft, that’s all! And everybody is glad of him, and everybody loves him, and everybody extols him, and everybody announces in a chorus that his amiability and satirical turn of mind are far better than the amiability and satirical turn of mind of the real Mr. Goliadkin, and they use that to shame the real and blameless Mr. Goliadkin, and they reject the truth-loving Mr. Goliadkin, and they drive out the well-intentioned Mr. Goliadkin, and they shower flicks on the real Mr. Goliadkin, known for loving his neighbor!…In anguish, in terror, in rage, the much-suffering Mr. Goliadkin ran outside and tried to hire a cab to fly straight to his excellency, and if not to him, then at least to Andrei Filippovich, but—oh, horror!—the cabbies would in no way agree to take Mr. Goliadkin: “Say, master, it’s impossible to take two that are completely alike; say, Your Honor, a good man strives to live honorably, and not just anyhow, and he never comes double.” In a frenzy of shame, the perfectly honorable Mr. Goliadkin glanced around and indeed convinced himself with his own eyes that the cabbies, and Petrushka in collusion with them, were within their rights; for the depraved Mr. Goliadkin was indeed there beside him, at no great a distance from him, and, in line with his habitual mean morals, here, too, in this critical case, was certainly preparing to do something highly indecent and revealing not the slightest trace of the particular noble character that one usually receives through upbringing—a nobility which the disgusting Mr. Goliadk-in-the-second liked to glory in on every convenient occasion. Forgetting himself, in shame and despair, the lost and perfectly righteous Mr. Goliadkin rushed off wherever his legs would carry him, as fate willed, whatever turn it might take; but with every step, with every blow of his feet on the granite pavement, there sprang up as if from under the ground—each an exact and perfect likeness and of a revolting depravity of heart—another Mr. Goliadkin. And all these perfect likenesses, as soon as they appeared, began running after each other, and stretched out in a long line like a string of geese, went hobbling after Mr. Goliadkin Sr., so that there was no escaping these perfect likenesses, so that Mr. Goliadkin, worthy of all compassion, was left breathless with horror—so that, finally, a frightful multitude of perfect likenesses was born—so that the whole capital was flooded, finally, with perfect likenesses, and a policeman, seeing such a violation of decency, was forced to take all these perfect likenesses by the scruff of the neck and put them in the sentry box that happened to be there beside him…Stiff and frozen with horror, our hero would wake up and, stiff and frozen with horror, feel that he was hardly going to have a merrier time of it when awake. It was painful, tormenting…Such anguish rose in him as though someone was gnawing the heart in his breast…
Finally, Mr. Goliadkin could endure no longer. “This will not be!” he shouted, resolutely sitting up in bed, and after this exclamation, he awakened completely.
Day had evidently begun long ago. The room was somehow unusually bright; the sun’s rays strained thickly through the frost-covered windowpanes and abundantly flooded the room, which surprised Mr. Goliadkin not a little; for the sun in its due progress peeked in on him only at noontime; previously such exceptions to the course of the heavenly luminary, at least as far as Mr. Goliadkin himself could recall, had almost never occurred. Our hero had just managed to marvel at it, when the wall clock behind the partition began to buzz and thus became completely ready to strike. “Ah, there!” thought Mr. Goliadkin, and in anguished expectation he got ready to listen…But, to Mr. Goliadkin’s complete and utter shock, his clock strained and struck only once. “What’s this story?” our hero cried, jumping out of bed altogether. Not believing his ears, he rushed behind the partition just as he was. The clock indeed showed one. Mr. Goliadkin glanced at Petrushka’s bed; but there was not even a whiff of Petrushka in the room: his bed had evidently long been made and left; there were no boots anywhere—an unquestionable sign that Petrushka was indeed not at home. Mr. Goliadkin rushed to the door: the door was locked. “But where is Petrushka?” he went on in a whisper, in terrible agitation, and feeling a considerable trembling in all his limbs…Suddenly a thought raced through his head…Mr. Goliadkin rushed to his desk, looked it over, searched around—that was it: yesterday’s letter to Vakhrameev was not there…Petrushka was also not there at all behind the partition; the wall clock showed one, and in yesterday’s letter from Vakhrameev some new points had been introduced which, though vague at first glance, were now quite explainable. Finally, Petrushka, too—obviously, Petrushka had been bribed! Yes, yes, it was so!
“So it was there that the chief knot was tied!” cried Mr. Goliadkin, striking himself on the forehead and opening his eyes wider and wider. “So it’s in that niggardly German woman’s nest that the chief unclean powers are hidden now! So that means she was only making a strategic diversion when she directed me to the Izmailovsky Bridge—distracting my attention, confusing me (the worthless witch!), and in that way undermining me!!! Yes, it’s so! If you look at it from that side, it’s all precisely so! And the appearance of the scoundrel is now fully explained: it all goes together. They’ve been keeping him for a long time, preparing him and saving him for a rainy day. That’s how it is now, that’s how it all turns out! That’s the whole solution! Ah, well, never mind! I still have time!…” Here Mr. Goliadkin recalled with terror that it was already past one in the afternoon. “What if they’ve now managed to…” A groan burst from his breast�
�“But no, nonsense, they haven’t managed—we’ll see…” He dressed haphazardly, seized some paper, a pen, and scribbled the following missive:
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