The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  First of all, the odor. About fifteen dead people arrived. Palls of various prices; there were even two catafalques: for a general, and for some lady. A lot of mournful faces, a lot of sham mourning, a lot of outright merriment. The clergy can’t complain: it’s a living. But the odor, the odor. I wouldn’t wish it on myself even for the odor of sanctity.

  I peeked cautiously into the dead men’s faces, not trusting my impressionability. Some of the expressions are soft, some unpleasant. Generally, the smiles are not nice, and in some even very much so. I don’t like them; they visit my dreams.

  During the liturgy I stepped out of church for some air; the day was grayish but dry. Cold, too; but then, it’s October. I strolled among the little graves. Various classes. The third class costs thirty roubles: decent and not so expensive. The first two are inside the church and under the porch; now, that’s a bit stiff. This time some six people were buried third class, the general and the lady among them.

  I peeked into the graves—terrible: water, and such water! Absolutely green and… well, never mind! The grave digger was constantly bailing it out with a scoop. While the service was going on, I went for a walk outside the gates. There was an almshouse just there, and a little farther on a restaurant. A so-so restaurant, not bad: you can have a bite and all. A lot of mourners were packed in there. I noticed a lot of merriment and genuine animation. I had a bite and a drink.

  After that I took part with my own hands in carrying the coffin from the church to the grave. Why is it that the dead become so heavy in their coffins? They say it’s from some sort of inertia, that the body supposedly is no longer controlled by its own… or some such rubbish; it contradicts mechanics and common sense. I don’t like it when people with only a general education among us set about resolving special questions; and it’s rife among us. Civilians love discussing military subjects, even a field marshal’s, and people with an engineer’s education reason mainly about philosophy and political economy.

  I didn’t go to the wake. I’m proud, and if they receive me only out of urgent necessity, why drag myself to their dinners, even funeral ones? Only I don’t understand why I stayed at the cemetery; I sat on a tombstone and lapsed appropriately into thought.

  I began with the Moscow exhibition,5 and ended with astonishment, generally speaking, as a theme. About “astonishment,” here is what I came up with:

  “To be astonished at everything is, of course, stupid, while to be astonished at nothing is much more beautiful and for some reason is recognized as good tone. But it is hardly so in essence. In my opinion, to be astonished at nothing is much stupider than to be astonished at everything. And besides: to be astonished at nothing is almost the same as to respect nothing. And a stupid man even cannot respect.”

  “But I wish first of all to respect. I yearn to respect,” an acquaintance of mine said to me once, the other day.

  He yearns to respect! And God, I thought, what would happen to you if you dared to publish that now!

  It was here that I became oblivious. I don’t like reading the inscriptions on tombstones; it’s eternally the same. Next to me on the slab lay a half-eaten sandwich: stupid and out of place. I threw it on the ground, since it wasn’t bread but merely a sandwich. Anyhow, dropping bread on the ground, it seems, is not sinful; on the floor is sinful. Look it up in Suvorin’s calendar.6

  It must be supposed that I sat there for a long time, even much too long; that is, I even lay down on the oblong stone shaped like a marble coffin. And how did it happen that I suddenly started hearing various things? I didn’t pay any attention at first and treated it with contempt. But, nevertheless, the conversation continued. I listened—the sounds were muffled, as if the mouths were covered with pillows; but distinct for all that, and very close. I came to, sat up, and started listening attentively.

  “Your Excellency, this is simply quite impossible, sir. You named hearts, I’m whisting, and suddenly you’ve got the seven of diamonds. We ought to have arranged beforehand about the diamonds, sir.”

  “What, you mean play by memory? Where’s the attraction in that?”

  “It’s impossible, Your Excellency, without a guarantee it’s quite impossible. It absolutely has to be with a dummy, and so that there’s only blind dealing.”

  “Well, you’ll get no dummy here.”

  What presumptuous words, though! Both strange and unexpected. One voice is so weighty and solid, the other as if softly sweetened; I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself. It seems I was not at the wake. And yet what was this card game doing here, and who was this general? That it was coming from under the gravestone, there was no doubt. I bent down and read the inscription on the memorial.

  “Here lies the body of Major General Pervoedov… knight of such-and-such orders.” Hm. “Died in August of the year… aged fifty-seven… Rest, dear dust, till the gladsome morning!”7

  Hm, the devil, an actual general! The other grave, from which the fawning voice was coming, had no memorial as yet, just a slab; must have been a newcomer. A court councillor, by his voice.

  “Oh, woe, woe, woe!” quite a new voice came, some thirty-five feet from the general’s place, this time from under a perfectly fresh little grave—a male and low-class voice, but gone lax in a reverentially tender manner.

  “Oh, woe, woe, woe!”

  “Ah, he’s hiccuping again!” suddenly came the squeamish and haughty voice of an irritated lady, seemingly of high society. “What a punishment to be next to this shopkeeper!”

  “I didn’t hiccup, I didn’t even take any food, it’s just my nature, that’s all. And you, lady, with all these caprices of yours, you simply never can calm down.”

  “Why did you lie here, then?”

  “I got laid here, I got laid by my spouse and little children, I didn’t lay myself. The mystery of death! And I’d never lay next to you for anything, not even gold; but I’m laying by my own capital, according to the price, ma’am. For we’re always able to pay up for our little third-class grave.”

  “Saved up? Cheated people?”

  “Much I could cheat you, when there’s been no payment from you, I reckon, since January. You’ve run up quite a little account in our shop.”

  “Well, this is stupid; I think looking for debts here is very stupid! Take yourself up there. Ask my niece; she’s my heir.”

  “Where am I going to ask now, and where am I going to go? We’ve both reached the limit, and before God’s judgment we’re equal in our trespasses.”

  “In our trespasses!” the dead lady contemptuously mimicked. “Don’t you dare even speak to me at all!”

  “Oh, woe, woe, woe!”

  “Nevertheless, the shopkeeper obeys the lady, Your Excellency.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Well, you know, Your Excellency, considering there’s a new order here.”

  “What sort of new order?”

  “But we’ve died, so to speak, Your Excellency.”

  “Ah, yes! Well, there’s still order…”

  Well, thank you very much! Some comfort, really! If it’s come to that here, what can we expect on the upper floor? But, anyhow, what antics! I went on listening, however, though with boundless indignation.

  “No, I could live a little! No… you know, I… could live a little!” suddenly came someone’s new voice, from somewhere in between the general and the irritable lady.

  “Listen, Your Excellency, our man’s at it again. For three days he’s silent as can be, then suddenly: ‘I could live a little, no, I could live a little!’ And with, you know, such appetite, hee, hee!”

  “And such light-mindedness.”

  “It’s getting to him, Your Excellency, and, you know, he falls asleep, he’s fast asleep already, he’s been here since April, and suddenly: ‘I could live a little!’ ”

  “A bit boring, though,” His Excellency observed.

  “A bit boring, Your Excellency, maybe we’ll tease Avdotya Ignatievna again, hee
, hee?”

  “Ah, no, I beg you, spare me that. I can’t stand that insolent loudmouth.”

  “And I, on the other hand, can stand neither of you,” the loudmouth squeamishly retorted. “You’re both utterly boring and cannot talk about anything ideal. And as for you, Your Excellency—you needn’t swagger so—I know a little story of how a lackey swept you from under some marital bed one morning with a broom.”

  “Nasty woman!” the general growled through his teeth.

  “Avdotya Ignatievna, dearie,” the shopkeeper suddenly cried out again, “my dear lady, meaning no harm, tell me what it is, am I visiting the torments,8 or is something else happening?…”

  “Ah, he’s at it again, I just knew it, because I get this smell from him, this smell, it’s from him tossing around there.”

  “I don’t toss around, dearie, and there’s no special smell from me, because I preserved myself in the wholeness of my body, and it’s you, dear lady, who’s a bit gone off—because the smell really is unbearable, even considering the place. I don’t say anything only out of politeness.”

  “Ah, nasty offender! Such a stink coming from him, and he shifts it onto me.”

  “Oh, woe, woe, woe! If only the fortieth day9 would come sooner: to hear the tearful voices above me, the wailing of my spouse and the quiet weeping of my children!…”

  “Well, look what he’s weeping about: they’ll stuff their faces with kutya10 and leave. Ah, if only someone would wake up!”

  “Avdotya Ignatievna,” the fawning official spoke. “Wait a bit, the new ones will speak.”

  “And are any of them young?”

  “There are young ones, Avdotya Ignatievna. Adolescents, even.”

  “Ah, that would be most welcome!”

  “And what, they haven’t started yet?” His Excellency inquired.

  “Even the ones from two days ago haven’t come to yet, Your Excellency, you know yourself they’re sometimes silent for a whole week. It’s a good thing so many suddenly got brought all at once yesterday, and the day before, and today. Otherwise, for a hundred feet around, they’re all from last year.”

  “Yes, interesting.”

  “Look, Your Excellency, today they buried the actual privy councillor Tarasevich, I could tell from the voices. His nephew is an acquaintance of mine, he was lowering the coffin just now.”

  “Hm, is he here somewhere?”

  “About five steps away from you, Your Excellency, to the left. Almost at your feet, sir… You ought to get acquainted, Your Excellency.”

  “Hm, no… I can’t be the first.”

  “But he’ll start it himself, Your Excellency. He’ll even be flattered, leave it to me, Your Excellency, and I…”

  “Ah, ah… ah, what’s happened to me?” someone’s frightened, new little voice suddenly groaned.

  “A new one, Your Excellency, a new one, thank God, and so soon! Other times they’re silent for a whole week.”

  “Ah, I think it’s a young man!” squealed Avdotya Ignatievna.

  “I… I… from complications, and so suddenly!” the young man prattled again. “Just the day before, Schulz says to me: you have complications, he says, and in the morning all at once I up and died. Ah! Ah!”

  “Well, no help for it, young man,” the general observed benignly, obviously glad of the newcomer, “you must take comfort! Welcome to our, so to speak, valley of Jehoshaphat.11 We’re kindly folk, you’ll come to know and appreciate us. Major General Vassily Vassiliev Pervoedov, at your service.”

  “Ah, no! No, no, not to me! I went to Schulz; I had complications, you know, it got my chest first and I coughed, and then I caught cold: chest and grippe… and then suddenly, quite unexpectedly… above all, quite unexpectedly.”

  “You say it was the chest first,” the official softly intervened, as if wishing to encourage the newcomer.

  “Yes, the chest and phlegm, and suddenly no phlegm, and the chest, and I couldn’t breathe… and you know…”

  “I know, I know. But if it was your chest, you should have gone to Ecke, not to Schulz.”

  “And, you know, I kept thinking of Botkin12… and suddenly…”

  “Well, Botkin’s a bit stiff,” the general observed.

  “Ah, no, he’s not stiff at all; I hear he’s so attentive and tells you everything beforehand.”

  “His Excellency was referring to the cost,” the official corrected.

  “Ah, come now, just three roubles, and he examines so well, and his prescriptions… and I absolutely wanted to, because I was told… What about it, gentlemen, shall I go to Ecke or to Botkin?”

  “What? Where?” the general’s corpse heaved, guffawing pleasantly. The official seconded him in falsetto.

  “Dear boy, dear, delightful boy, how I love you!” Avdotya Ignatievna squealed rapturously. “I wish they’d laid one like him next to me!”

  No, this I simply cannot allow! And this is a contemporary dead person! However, I must listen further and not jump to conclusions. This milksop newcomer—I remember him in his coffin just now—the expression of a frightened chick, the most disgusting in the world! What next, though.

  But next such a hullabaloo broke out that my memory has not retained it all, for a great many woke up at once: an official woke up, one of our state councillors, and started in with the general right there and then about a projected subcommission in the ministry of———affairs and about a probable reshuffling of official posts attendant upon the subcommission, which the general found quite, quite amusing. I confess, I myself learned many new things, so that I marveled at the ways in which administrative news can sometimes be learned in this capital. Then some engineer half awoke, but for a long time he went on muttering complete nonsense, so that our people didn’t even bother with him, but left him to lie it out for a while. Finally, the noble lady buried in the morning under a catafalque displayed signs of sepulchral inspiration. Lebezyatnikov (for the fawning court councillor I hated, the one placed next to General Pervoedov, turned out to be named Lebezyatnikov) fussed a lot, surprised at them all waking up so quickly this time. I confess that I, too, was surprised; however, some of the ones that woke up had been buried two days before, for instance, one very young girl, about sixteen years old, who kept giggling—vilely and carnivorously giggling.

  “Your Excellency, the privy councillor Tarasevich is waking up!” Lebezyatnikov announced suddenly in great haste.

  “Ah, what’s this?” the suddenly awakened privy councillor maundered squeamishly and in a lisping voice. The sound of his voice had something capriciously peremptory about it. I listened with curiosity, for in recent days I had heard something about this Tarasevich—tempting and alarming in the highest degree.

  “It’s me, Your Excellency, so far it’s just me, sir.”

  “What is your request and what is it you want?”

  “Only to inquire after Your Excellency’s health; being unaccustomed, everybody feels sort of cramped here at first, sir… General Pervoedov wishes to have the honor of making Your Excellency’s acquaintance and hopes…”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Good gracious, Your Excellency, General Pervoedov, Vassily Vassilievich…”

  “You are General Pervoedov?”

  “No, Your Excellency, I’m merely Court Councillor Lebezyatnikov, at your service, sir, but General Pervoedov…”

  “Nonsense! And I beg you to leave me in peace.”

  “Leave off,” General Pervoedov himself finally put a dignified stop to the vile haste of his sepulchral client.

  “He’s not awake yet, Your Excellency, you must keep that in view, sir; it’s from not being accustomed: he’ll wake up and then take it differently, sir…”

  “Leave off,” the general repeated.

  “Vassily Vassilievich! Hey there, Your Excellency!” an entirely new voice suddenly shouted loudly and eagerly right next to Avdotya Ignatievna—a gentlemanly and brash voice with a fashionably weary articulation and an impudent
scansion. “I’ve been observing the lot of you for two hours already; I’ve been lying here for three days; remember me, Vassily Vassilievich? Klinevich—we used to meet at the Volokonskys’, where I don’t know why but you, too, were admitted.”

  “Well, Count Pyotr Petrovich… but can it be that you, too… and so young… I am sorry!”

  “I’m sorry myself, only it’s all the same to me, and I want to get the most I can from everywhere. And it’s not count, it’s baron, just plain baron. We’re some mangy little barons, from lackey ancestry, and I don’t even know why—spit on it. I’m just a blackguard from pseudo-high-society and considered a ‘sweet polisson.’13 My father was some sort of little general, and my mother was once received en haut lie.14 Ziefel the Yid and I passed fifty thousand in false banknotes last year, but I denounced him, and Yulka Charpentier de Lusignan15 took all the money with her to Bordeaux. And, imagine, I was already quite engaged—the Shchevalevsky girl, three months shy of sixteen, still in boarding school, comes with ninety thousand in dowry. Avdotya Ignatievna, remember how you corrupted me fifteen years ago, when I was just a fourteen-year-old page?…”

  “Ah, it’s you, you blackguard! Well, at least God sent you, otherwise here it’s…”

  “You shouldn’t have suspected your negotiant neighbor of smelling bad… I just kept quiet and laughed. It’s from me; they even buried me in a nailed coffin.”

  “Ah, nasty man! Only I’m glad even so; you wouldn’t believe, Klinevich, you wouldn’t believe what a dearth of life and wit there is here.”

  “Yes, yes, but I intend to start something original here. Your Excellency—not you, Pervoedov—Your Excellency, the other one, Mr. Tarasevich, the privy councillor! Answer me! It’s Klinevich, the one who took you to Mademoiselle Furie last lent, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Klinevich, and I’m very glad, and believe me…”

  “I don’t believe a groat’s worth, and spit on it. I’d simply like to kiss you, dear old boy, but I can’t, thank God. Do you know, gentlemen, what this grand-père pulled off? He died two or three days ago and, can you imagine, left a whole four hundred thousand missing from the treasury? The fund was intended for widows and orphans, and for some reason he alone was in charge of it, so that in the end he wasn’t audited for about eight years. I can picture what long faces they’ve all got there now and how they’ll remember him! A delectable thought, isn’t it? All last year I kept being surprised at how such a seventy-year-old codger, podagric and chiragric, could have preserved so much strength for depravity, and—and now here’s the answer! Those widows and orphans—oh, the mere thought of them must have inflamed him!… I knew about it for a long time, I was the only one, Charpentier told me, and the moment I found out, right then, during Holy Week, I pressed him in a friendly way: ‘Hand me over twenty-five thousand or else you’ll be audited tomorrow.’ And, imagine, he came up with only thirteen thousand then, so it seems very opportune that he died now. Grand-père, grand-père, do you hear me?”