The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  V

  LIZA

  Pavel Pavlovich had no thought of “giving him the slip,” and God knows why Velchaninov had asked him that question yesterday; veritably, he himself had had a darkening. At his first inquiry in the grocery shop near the Pokrov church, he was directed to the Pokrovsky Hotel, two steps away in a lane. At the hotel it was explained to him that Mr. Trusotsky was now “putting up” there in the yard, in the wing, in Marya Sysoevna’s furnished rooms. Going up the narrow, slopped, and very filthy stone stairway of the wing to the second floor, where those rooms were, he suddenly heard weeping. It was as if a child of seven or eight were weeping; It was heavy weeping, stifled sobs could be heard bursting through, accompanied by a stamping of feet and also as if stifled but violent shouts in some hoarse falsetto, but now of a grown man. This grown man seemed to be quieting the child and wishing very much for the weeping not to be heard, but was making more noise himself. The shouts were merciless, and the child was as if begging forgiveness. Entering a small corridor with two doors on each side of it, Velchaninov met a very fat and tall woman, disheveled in a homey way, and asked her about Pavel Pavlovich. She jabbed her finger toward the door behind which the weeping could be heard. The fat and purple face of the forty-year-old woman expressed some indignation.

  “See what fun he has!” she bassed in a half voice and went past him to the stairs. Velchaninov was about to knock, but changed his mind and simply opened Pavel Pavlovich’s door. In the middle of a small room, crudely but abundantly furnished with simple painted furniture, Pavel Pavlovich stood, dressed only by half, without frock coat or waistcoat, his face flushed with vexation, trying to quiet with shouts, gestures, and perhaps (as it seemed to Velchaninov) also kicks, a little girl of about eight, dressed poorly, though like a young lady, in a short black woolen dress. She, it seemed, was in genuine hysterics, hysterically sobbing and reaching out her arms to Pavel Pavlovich, as if wishing to put them around him, to embrace him, to plead and entreat something from him. In an instant everything changed: seeing the visitor, the girl gave a cry and shot into the tiny adjoining room, while Pavel Pavlovich, momentarily taken aback, melted all at once into a smile, exactly as yesterday, when Velchaninov had suddenly opened the door to the stairs.

  “Alexei Ivanovich!” he exclaimed in decided surprise. “In no way could I have expected… but come, come! Here, on this sofa, or this armchair, while I…” And he rushed to get into his frock coat, forgetting to put his waistcoat on.

  “Don’t be ceremonious, stay as you are.” Velchaninov sat down on a chair.

  “No, allow me to be ceremonious, sir; there, now I’m a bit more decent. But why are you sitting in the corner? Here, in the armchair, by the table… Well, I never, never expected!”

  He, too, sat down on the edge of a wicker chair, though not next to the “unexpected” visitor, but turning his chair at an angle so as to face Velchaninov more fully.

  “And why didn’t you expect me? Didn’t I precisely arrange yesterday that I’d come to you at this time?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t come, sir; and once I realized the whole thing yesterday, on waking up, I decidedly despaired of seeing you, even forever, sir.”

  Velchaninov meanwhile was looking around. The room was in disorder, the bed was not made, clothes were strewn about, on the table were glasses with drunk coffee, bread crumbs, and a bottle of champagne, half-finished, uncorked, with a glass beside it. He looked out of the corner of his eye into the adjoining room, but all was quiet there; the girl kept silent and did not stir.

  “You don’t mean you’re drinking this now?” Velchaninov pointed to the champagne.

  “Leftovers, sir…” Pavel Pavlovich was embarrassed.

  “Well, you really have changed!”

  “Bad habits, and suddenly, sir. Really, since that time; I’m not lying, sir! I can’t restrain myself. Don’t worry now, Alexei Ivanovich, I’m not drunk now and won’t pour out drivel, like yesterday at your place, sir, but I’m telling you the truth, it’s all since that time, sir! And if someone had told me half a year ago that I’d get so loose as I am now, sir, had showed me myself in a mirror—I wouldn’t have believed it!”

  “So you were drunk yesterday?”

  “I was, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich admitted in a half whisper, lowering his eyes abashedly, “and you see, not so much drunk as somewhat past it, sir. I wish to explain this, because past it is worse for me, sir: there’s not much drunkenness, but some sort of cruelty and recklessness remain, and I feel grief more strongly. Maybe I drink for the sake of grief, sir. And then I may pull some pranks, even quite stupidly, sir, and get at people with insults. I must have presented myself to you very strangely yesterday?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “How not remember, I remember everything, sir…”

  “You see, Pavel Pavlovich, I thought it over and explained it to myself in exactly the same way,” Velchaninov said conciliatorily, “and besides, I was somewhat irritable myself yesterday and… overly impatient with you, which I freely admit. Sometimes I don’t feel myself quite well, and your unexpected arrival in the night…”

  “Yes, in the night, in the night!” Pavel Pavlovich shook his head as if surprised and disapproving. “And what on earth prompted me! I wouldn’t have come in for anything if you yourself hadn’t opened the door, sir; I’d have gone away. I came to you about a week ago, Alexei Ivanovich, and didn’t find you at home, but afterward I might never have come another time, sir. All the same, I also have a touch of pride, Alexei Ivanovich, though I’m aware that I’m in… such a state. We met in the street, too, but I kept thinking: well, and what if he doesn’t recognize me, what if he turns away, nine years are no joke—so I didn’t dare approach. And yesterday I came trudging from the Petersburg side, and forgot the time, sir. All on account of this” (he pointed to the bottle) “and from emotion, sir. Stupid! very, sir! and if it was a man not like you—because you did come to me even after yesterday, remembering old times—I’d even have lost hope of renewing the acquaintance.”

  Velchaninov listened attentively. The man seemed to be speaking sincerely and even with a certain dignity; and yet he had not believed a thing from the very moment he set foot in the place.

  “Tell me, Pavel Pavlovich, you’re not alone here, then? Whose girl is it that I just found with you?”

  Pavel Pavlovich was even surprised and raised his eyebrows, but the look he gave Velchaninov was bright and pleasant.

  “Whose girl, you ask? But that’s Liza!” he said with an affable smile.

  “What Liza?” Velchaninov murmured, and something as if shook in him. The impression was too unexpected. Earlier, when he came in and saw Liza, he was surprised, but felt decidedly no presentiment, no special thought in himself.

  “Why, our Liza, our daughter Liza!” Pavel Pavlovich went on smiling.

  “How, daughter? You mean you and Natalia… and the late Natalia Vassilievna had children?” Velchaninov asked mistrustfully and timidly, somehow in a very soft voice.

  “But, how’s that, sir? Ah, my God, but who indeed could you have learned it from? What’s the matter with me! It was after you that God granted us!”

  Pavel Pavlovich even jumped up from his chair in some excitement, also as if pleasant, however.

  “I never heard a thing,” Velchaninov said and—paled.

  “Indeed, indeed, who could you have learned it from, sir!” Pavel Pavlovich repeated in a tenderly slack voice. “We had lost all hope, my late wife and I, you remember it yourself, and suddenly God blessed us, and what came over me then—he alone knows that! exactly a year after you, it seems, or not, not a year after, much less, wait, sir: you left us then, unless memory deceives me, in October or even November?”

  “I left T———at the beginning of September, on the twelfth of September; I remember it well…”

  “In September was it? hm… what’s the matter with me?” Pavel Pavlovich was very surprised. “Well, if so, then permit
me: you left on the twelfth of September, and Liza was born on the eighth of May, so that makes it September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April—after eight months and something, there, sir! and if only you knew how my late wife…”

  “But show me… call her…” Velchaninov babbled in some sort of breaking voice.

  “Certainly, sir!” Pavel Pavlovich bustled, interrupting at once what he had intended to say, as altogether unnecessary. “Right away, I’ll introduce her to you right away, sir!” and he hurriedly went to Liza’s room.

  Perhaps a whole three or four minutes went by; there was quick and rapid whispering in the little room, and the sounds of Liza’s voice were faintly heard. “She’s begging not to be brought out,” Velchaninov thought. They finally came out.

  “Here, sir, she’s all embarrassed,” Pavel Pavlovich said, “she’s so bashful, so proud, sir… just like her late mother!”

  Liza came out without tears now, her eyes lowered, her father leading her by the hand. She was a tall, slim, and very pretty little girl. She quickly raised her large blue eyes to the guest, looked at him with curiosity, but sullenly, and at once lowered her eyes again. There was in her gaze that child’s seriousness, as when children, left alone with a stranger, go into a corner and from there keep glancing, seriously and mistrustfully, at the new, first-time visitor; but perhaps there was also another thought, as if no longer a child’s—so it seemed to Velchaninov. Her father brought her over to him.

  “This nice man used to know Mama, he was our friend, don’t be shy, give him your hand.”

  The girl bowed slightly and timidly offered her hand.

  “Natalia Vassilievna wanted not to teach her to curtsy in greeting but simply to bow slightly in the English manner and offer her hand to a guest,” he added in explanation to Velchaninov, studying him intently.

  Velchaninov knew he was studying him, but he no longer cared at all about concealing his excitement; he was sitting motionlessly on the chair, holding Liza’s hand in his, and gazing intently at the child. But Liza was very preoccupied with something and, forgetting her hand in the visitor’s hand, would not take her eyes off her father. She listened timorously to everything he said. Velchaninov recognized those large blue eyes at once, but most of all he was struck by the astonishing, remarkably tender whiteness of her face and the color of her hair; these signs were all too significant for him. The shape of the face and the curve of the lips, on the other hand, distinctly resembled Natalia Vassilievna. Pavel Pavlovich meanwhile had long since begun telling something, with extraordinary ardor and feeling, it seemed, but Velchaninov did not hear him at all. He caught only one last phrase:

  “… so that you cannot even imagine, Alexei Ivanovich, our joy in this gift of the Lord, sir! For me her appearance constituted everything, so that even if by the will of God my quiet happiness should disappear—then, I thought, Liza would be left to me; that at least I knew firmly, sir!”

  “And Natalia Vassilievna?” asked Velchaninov.

  “Natalia Vassilievna?” Pavel Pavlovich’s face twisted. “You know her, remember, sir, she didn’t like to say much, but when she was bidding farewell to her on her deathbed… it all got said there, sir! And I just said to you ‘on her deathbed’; and yet suddenly, the day before she died, she got excited, angry—said they wanted to finish her off with medications, that she just had a simple fever, and that both our doctors knew nothing, and that as soon as Koch (remember, our staff physician, a little old man) came back, she’d be out of bed in two weeks! Not only that, just five hours before passing away, she remembered that we had to be sure and visit her aunt in three weeks, for her name day, on her estate, Liza’s godmother, sir…”

  Velchaninov suddenly got up from his chair, still without letting go of Liza’s hand. It seemed to him, incidentally, that in the burning glance the girl directed at her father there was something reproachful.

  “She’s not sick?” he asked somehow strangely, hurriedly.

  “Seems not, sir, but… our circumstances here came together this way,” Pavel Pavlovich said with rueful concern. “She’s a strange child to begin with, a nervous one, after her mother’s death she was sick for two weeks, with hysterics, sir. Just now we’ve had such weeping, as you came in, sir—do you hear, Liza, do you?—and over what? The whole thing is that I go away and leave her, so it means I no longer love her anymore as I loved her when Mama was alive—that’s what she accuses me of. Why should such a fantasy enter the head of a child, sir, who ought to be playing with toys? But there’s no one here for her to play with.”

  “And how is it you’re… it’s really just the two of you here?”

  “Quite alone, sir; only a maid comes once a day to straighten up.”

  “And when you go out, she stays alone like that?”

  “And what else, sir? And yesterday as I went out I even locked her in that little room, it’s because of that that we’re having tears today. But what was there to do, judge for yourself: two days ago she went downstairs without me, and a boy threw a stone at her head. Or else she’ll burst into tears and rush around to everyone in the yard asking where I went, and that’s not good, sir. And I’m a fine one, too: I leave her for an hour, and come back the next morning—that’s how it turned out yesterday. It’s a good thing the landlady let her out while I was gone, she called a locksmith to open the lock—it’s even a disgrace, sir—I feel myself a veritable monster, sir. It’s all from darkening…”

  “Papa!” the girl said timidly and anxiously.

  “What, again! you’re at it again! what did I just tell you?”

  “I won’t, I won’t,” Liza repeated in fear, hurriedly clasping her hands before him.

  “It can’t go on with you like this, in such circumstances,” Velchaninov suddenly spoke impatiently, with the voice of one in authority. “You… you are a man of means; how can you live like that—first of all, in this wing, and in such circumstances?”

  “In this wing, sir? But we may leave in a week, and we’ve spent a lot of money as it is, means or no means, sir…”

  “Well, enough, enough,” Velchaninov interrupted him with ever-increasing impatience, as if clearly saying: “No point in talking, I know everything you’re going to say, and I know with what intention you’re saying it!”

  “Listen, I’ll make you an offer: you just said you’d stay for perhaps a week, maybe two. I have a house here—that is, a certain family—where I’m as if in my own home, for twenty years now. The family of one Pogoreltsev. Pogoreltsev, Alexei Pavlovich, a privy councillor; he might even be helpful to you in your case. They are at their country house now. They have their own quite splendid country house. Klavdia Petrovna Pogoreltsev is like a sister to me, like a mother. They have eight children. Let me take Liza there right now… so as not to lose any time. They’ll receive her gladly, for the whole time, they’ll be good to her, like their own daughter, their own daughter!”

  He was terribly impatient and did not conceal it.

  “That’s somehow impossible, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich said with a little grimace and, as it seemed to Velchaninov, peeking slyly into his eyes.

  “Why? Why impossible?”

  “But how, sir, let the child go like that, and suddenly, sir—even supposing it’s with such a sincere well-wisher as yourself, I don’t mean that, sir, but all the same to a strange house, and of such high society, sir, where I still don’t know how she’ll be received.”

  “But I told you I’m like one of them,” Velchaninov cried out almost in wrath. “Klavdia Petrovna will consider it a happiness just at one word from me. Like my daughter… but, devil take it, you know yourself you’re just babbling… what’s there to talk about!”

  He even stamped his foot.

  “I mean, won’t it be very strange, sir? After all, I, too, would have to go and see her once or twice, she can’t be entirely without a father, sir? heh, heh… and in such an important house, sir.”

  “But it’s the sim
plest house, not at all an ‘important’ one!” Velchaninov shouted. “I’m telling you, there are lots of children there. She’ll resurrect there, that’s the whole purpose… And I’ll introduce you there tomorrow if you like. And you certainly will have to go and thank them; we’ll go every day if you wish…”

  “Still, sir, it’s somehow…”

  “Nonsense! Above all, you know it yourself! Listen, why don’t you come to me this evening and spend the night, perhaps, and early in the morning we’ll go, so as to be there by noon.”

  “My benefactor! Even to spend the night with you…” Pavel Pavlovich suddenly consented with tender emotion, “a veritable benefactor… and where is their country house?”

  “Their country house is in Lesnoye.”

  “Only what about her clothes, sir! Because to go to such a noble house, and in the country besides, you know… A father’s heart, sir!”

  “What’s wrong with her clothes? She’s in mourning. How can she have any other clothes? This is the most appropriate thing imaginable! Only maybe her linen could be cleaner, and the kerchief…” (The kerchief and what could be seen of her linen were indeed very dirty.)

  “Right away, she absolutely must change,” Pavel Pavlovich started bustling, “and the rest of the necessary linen we’ll also collect right away; Marya Sysoevna took it for laundering, sir.”

  “Send for a carriage, then,” Velchaninov interrupted, “and quickly, if possible.”

  But an obstacle arose: Liza was decidedly against it, she had been listening all the while in fear, and if, as he talked with Pavel Pavlovich, Velchaninov had managed to observe her well, he would have seen total despair on her little face.

  “I won’t go,” she said firmly and softly.

  “There, you see, just like her mama!”

  “I’m not like Mama, I’m not like Mama!” Liza cried, wringing her little hands in despair, and as if justifying herself before her father’s terrible reproach of being like her mama. “Papa, Papa, if you abandon me…”