“How dare you come in like that? Out!” he shouted, trembling and even barely articulating the words. But suddenly he saw his wallet in my hand.
“It seems you dropped it,” I said as calmly and drily as I could. (Anyhow, that was the only proper way.)
The man stood before me totally frightened and for some time was as if unable to understand anything; then he quickly clutched his side pocket, opened his mouth in horror, and struck himself on the forehead with his hand.
“God! Where did you find it? How on earth?”
I explained in the briefest terms and as drily as I could how I had picked up the wallet, how I had run and called out to him, and how, finally, by guessing and almost groping my way, I had run after him up the stairs.
“Oh, God!” he cried, turning to his wife. “All our documents are in it, all my last instruments, everything … oh, my dear sir, do you know what you have done for me? I’d have perished!”
I had taken hold of the door handle meanwhile, so as to leave without replying; but I was out of breath myself and suddenly my agitation broke out in such a violent fit of coughing that I could barely stay on my feet. I saw how the gentleman rushed in all directions to find an empty chair for me, finally seized all the rags on one chair, threw them on the floor, and hurriedly offered me the chair and carefully sat me down on it. But my coughing went on and did not let up for about three more minutes. When I recovered, he was sitting next to me on another chair, from which he had probably also thrown the rags on the floor, and was studying me intently.
“You seem to be … suffering?” he said in the tone in which doctors usually speak when they approach a patient. “I myself am a … medical man” (he did not say “doctor”), and having said that, he pointed to the room with his hand for some reason, as if protesting against his present situation. “I see that you …”
“I have consumption,” I said as curtly as possible and stood up.
He also jumped up at once.
“Maybe you exaggerate and … if measures are taken …”
He was very bewildered and still as if unable to come to his senses; the wallet stuck out of his left hand.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I interrupted again, taking hold of the door handle, “last week B—n examined me” (again I put B—n into it) “and my case is decided. Excuse me …”
I was again about to open the door and leave my embarrassed, grateful, and crushed-with-shame doctor, but just then the cursed cough seized me again. Here my doctor insisted that I again sit down to rest; he turned to his wife, and she, without leaving her place, spoke a few friendly words of gratitude. She became very embarrassed as she did so, and color even played over her dry, pale yellow cheeks. I stayed, but with a look which showed every second that I was terribly afraid of being in their way (as was proper). Remorse finally tormented my doctor, I could see that.
“If I …” he began, constantly breaking off and jumping to another subject, “I’m so grateful to you, and so guilty before you … I … you see …” and again he pointed to the room, “at the present moment my situation …”
“Oh,” I said, “there’s nothing to see; it’s a well-known thing; you must have lost your job, and you’ve come to explain things and look for another job?”
“How … did you know?” he asked in surprise.
“It’s obvious at first glance,” I said with unintentional mockery. “Many people come here from the provinces with hopes, go running around, and live like this.”
He suddenly began speaking heatedly, his lips trembling; he complained, talked, and, I confess, got me carried away; I sat there for almost an hour. He told me his story, a very ordinary one, by the way. He had been a provincial doctor, had occupied a government post, but then some intrigues had started, which his wife was even mixed up in. He had shown his pride, his hot temper; a change had occurred in the provincial government to the advantage of his enemies; there had been sabotage, complaints; he had lost his job and on his last means had come to Petersburg for an explanation; in Petersburg, to be sure, they did not listen to him for a long time, then they heard him out, then responded with a refusal, then lured him with promises, then responded with severity, then told him to write something in explanation, then refused to accept what he had written, told him to petition—in short, it was already the fifth month that he had been running around, everything had been eaten up, his wife’s last clothes had been pawned, and now the baby had been born and, and … “today came the final negative response to my petition, and I have almost no food, nothing, my wife has given birth. I … I …”
He jumped up from his chair and turned away. His wife wept in the corner, the baby began squealing again. I took out my notebook and started writing in it. When I finished and got up, he was standing before me and looking at me with timorous curiosity.
“I’ve written down your name,” I said to him, “well, and all the rest: the place of work, the name of your governor, the days, the months. I have a friend from my school days, Bakhmutov, and his uncle, Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov, an actual state councillor,15 who serves as the director …”
“Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov!” my medical man cried out, all but trembling. “But it’s on him that almost everything depends!”
Indeed, in my medical man’s story and in its denouement, to which I inadvertently contributed, everything came together and got settled as if it had been prepared that way on purpose, decidedly as in a novel. I told these poor people that they should try not to place any hopes in me, that I myself was a poor high-school student (I exaggerated the humiliation on purpose; I finished my studies long ago and am not a student), and that they need not know my name, but that I would go at once to Vassilievsky Island, to see my friend Bakhmutov, and as I knew for certain that his uncle, an actual state councillor, a bachelor, and with no children, decidedly adored his nephew and loved him to the point of passion, seeing in him the last bearer of his name, “maybe my friend will be able to do something for you—and for me, of course—through his uncle …”
“If only I could be allowed to explain things to his excellency! If only I could be vouchsafed the honor of explaining it verbally!” he exclaimed, trembling as if in fever and with flashing eyes. He did say vouchsafed. Having repeated once more that the thing would probably be a flop and turn out to be all nonsense, I added that if I did not come to see them the next morning, it would mean that the matter was ended and they had nothing to expect. They saw me off, bowing, they were nearly out of their minds. I will never forget the expressions on their faces. I hired a cab and headed at once for Vassilievsky Island.
In school, over the course of several years, I was constantly at enmity with this Bakhmutov. Among us he was considered an aristocrat, or at least I called him one: he was excellently dressed, drove around in his own carriage, did not show off in the least, was always a wonderful comrade, was always remarkably cheerful and sometimes even very witty, though none too long on intelligence, despite the fact that he was always first in the class; while I was never first in anything. All our classmates liked him, except for me alone. He approached me several times during those several years; but each time I sullenly and irritably turned my back on him. Now I had not seen him for about a year; he was at the university. When, towards nine o’clock, I entered his room (with great ceremony: I was announced), he met me at first with surprise, even quite ungraciously, but he cheered up at once and, looking at me, suddenly burst into laughter.
“But why did you take it into your head to call on me, Terentyev?” he cried with his usual sweet casualness, sometimes bold but never offensive, which I so loved in him and for which I so hated him. “But what’s wrong,” he cried in fear, “you’re quite ill!”
Coughing tormented me again, I fell into a chair and was barely able to catch my breath.
“Don’t worry, I have consumption,” I said. “I’ve come to you with a request.”
He sat down in surprise, and I at once told him the docto
r’s whole story and explained that he himself, having great influence on his uncle, might be able to do something.
“I will, I certainly will, I’ll assault my uncle tomorrow; and I’m even glad, and you told it all so well … But still, Terentyev, why did you take it into your head to turn to me?”
“So much of it depends on your uncle, and besides, Bakhmutov, you and I were always enemies, and since you are a noble man, I thought you would not refuse an enemy,” I added with irony.
“Like Napoleon turning to England!”16 he cried, bursting into laughter. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’ll even go right now if I can!” he hastened to add, seeing that I was getting up seriously and sternly from my chair.
And in fact the matter, quite unexpectedly, got settled for us in the best possible way. A month and a half later our medical man obtained a new post, in another province, was given travel money and even financial assistance. I suspect that Bakhmutov, who began calling on them frequently (while I, because of that, purposely stopped seeing them and received the doctor, who kept running by, almost drily)—Bakhmutov, I suspect, even persuaded the doctor to accept a loan from him. I saw Bakhmutov a couple of times during those six weeks, we met for a third time when we saw the doctor off. Bakhmutov arranged a farewell party at his own house, in the form of a dinner with champagne, at which the doctor’s wife was also present; she left very soon, however, to go to the baby. It was at the beginning of May, the evening was bright, the enormous ball of the sun was sinking into the bay. Bakhmutov saw me home; we crossed the Nikolaevsky Bridge; we were both a bit drunk. Bakhmutov spoke of his delight that the matter had ended so well, thanked me for something, explained how pleasant it was for him now, after this good deed, insisted that all the credit was mine, and that what many now taught and preached about the meaning-lessness of individual good deeds was wrong. I also wanted terribly to talk.
“Whoever infringes upon individual ‘charity,’ ” I began, “infringes upon man’s nature and scorns his personal dignity. But the organizing of ‘social charity’ and the question of personal freedom are two different questions and are not mutually exclusive. Individual goodness will always abide, because it is a personal need, a living need for the direct influence of one person on another. In Moscow there lived an old man, a ‘general,’ that is, an actual state councillor, with a German name; all his life he dragged himself around to jails and prisoners; every group of exiles to Siberia knew beforehand that ‘the little old general’ would visit them on Sparrow Hills. He did it all seriously and piously in the highest degree; he arrived, walked along the rows of exiles, who surrounded him, stopped before each one, asked each one about his needs, hardly ever admonished anyone, called them all ‘dear hearts.’ He gave them money, sent them necessary things—leg wrappings, foot-cloths, pieces of linen, sometimes brought pious tracts and gave them to all who were literate, fully convinced that they would read them on the way, and that the literate ones would read to the illiterate. He rarely asked about their crimes, though he would listen when a prisoner began talking. He placed all the criminals on an equal footing, he made no distinctions. He talked with them as with brothers, but in the end they themselves came to regard him as a father. If he noticed some woman exile with a baby in her arms, he would go up to her, caress the child, snap his fingers to make the child laugh. He did this for many years, till his own death; it reached the point where he was known over the whole of Russia and the whole of Siberia, that is, to all the criminals. I was told by someone who had been in Siberia that he himself had witnessed how the most hardened criminals remembered the general, and yet, when he visited them, he would rarely give them more than twenty kopecks each. True, they did not remember him all that warmly or in any very serious way. Some one of those ‘unfortunates,’ who had killed some twelve souls, who had stabbed six children solely for his own pleasure (they say there were such men), suddenly, out of the blue, at some point, and maybe only once in all of twenty years, would suddenly sigh and say: ‘And what’s with the little old general now, can he still be alive?’ He might even smile as he said it—and that was all. But how do you know what seed had been sown forever in his soul by this ‘little old general’ whom he had not forgotten in twenty years? How do you know, Bakhmutov, what meaning this communion of one person with another will have in the destiny of the person communed with?… Here the whole of life stands before us and a countless number of ramifications that are hidden from us. The best chess player, the sharpest of them, can calculate only a few moves ahead; one French player, who could calculate ten moves ahead, was written about as a wonder. And how many moves are there, and how much is unknown to us? In sowing your seed, in sowing your ‘charity,’ your good deed in whatever form it takes, you give away part of your person and receive into yourself part of another’s; you mutually commune in each other; a little more attention, and you will be rewarded with knowledge, with the most unexpected discoveries. You will be bound, finally, to look at your work as a science; it will take in the whole of your life and maybe fill the whole of it. On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds you have sown, which you may already have forgotten, will take on flesh and grow; what was received from you will be passed on to someone else. And how do you know what share you will have in the future outcome of human destiny? And if the knowledge and the whole life of this work finally raises you so high that you are able to plant a tremendous seed, to bequeath a tremendous thought to mankind, then …” And so on, I talked a lot then.
“And to think that it is you to whom life has been denied!” Bakhmutov cried with burning reproach against someone.
At that moment we were standing on the bridge, leaning on the handrail, and looking at the Neva.
“And do you know what’s just come into my head?” I said, bending still further over the handrail.
“Not to throw yourself into the river?” cried Bakhmutov, almost in fright. Perhaps he had read my thought in my face.
“No, for the time being it’s just the following reflection: here I’m left now with two or three months to live, maybe four; but, for instance, when I have only two months left, and I want terribly to do a good deed that would require work, running around and petitioning, something like our doctor’s affair, I would in that case have to renounce the deed for lack of sufficient time and look for another ‘good deed,’ a smaller one, which would be within my means (if I should happen to have the urge to do good deeds). You must agree, it’s an amusing thought.”
Poor Bakhmutov was very alarmed about me; he went with me as far as my home and was so delicate that he never once tried to comfort me and was silent nearly all the way. Taking leave of me, he warmly pressed my hand and asked permission to visit me. I answered him that if he came to me as a “comforter” (because even if he was silent, he would still be coming as a comforter, I explained that to him), then it meant that each time he would be reminding me still more of death. He shrugged his shoulders, but he agreed with me; we parted rather politely, something I had not even expected.
But that evening and that night the first seed of my “ultimate conviction” was sown. I greedily seized upon this new thought, greedily analyzed it in all its windings, in all its aspects (I did not sleep all night), and the more I delved into it, the more I received it into myself, the more frightened I was. A dreadful fear came over me finally and did not leave me during the days that followed. Sometimes, thinking about this constant fear of mine, I would quickly freeze from a new terror: from this fear I was able to conclude that my “ultimate conviction” had lodged itself all too seriously in me and was bound to reach its resolution. But I lacked resolve for that resolution. Three weeks later it was all over, and the resolve came, but owing to a very strange circumstance.
Here in my explanation I am noting down all these numbers and dates. For me, of course, it will make no difference, but now (and maybe only at this moment) I want those who will judge my act to be able to see clearly from what logical chain of conclusion
s my “ultimate conviction” came. I just wrote above that the final resolution, which I lacked for the accomplishing of my “ultimate conviction,” came about in me, it seems, not at all as a logical conclusion, but from some strange jolt, a certain strange circumstance, perhaps quite unconnected with the course of events. About ten days ago Rogozhin came to see me on business of his own, which I need not discuss here. I had never seen Rogozhin before, but I had heard a lot about him. I gave him all the information he needed, and he quickly left, and as he had come only for information, the business between us should have ended there. But he interested me greatly, and I spent that whole day under the influence of strange thoughts, so that I decided to call on him myself the next day, to return the visit. Rogozhin was obviously not glad to see me, and even hinted “delicately” that there was no point in our continuing the acquaintance; but all the same I spent a very curious hour, as he probably did, too. There was this contrast between us, which could not fail to tell in both of us, especially me: I was a man whose days were already numbered, while he was living the fullest immediate life, in the present moment, with no care for “ultimate” conclusions, numbers, or anything at all that was not concerned with what … with what … well, say, with what he’s gone crazy over; may Mr. Rogozhin forgive me this expression of, shall we say, a bad writer, who is unable to express his thought. Despite all his ungraciousness, it seemed to me that he was a man of intelligence and could understand a great deal, though he had little interest in extraneous things. I gave him no hint of my “ultimate conviction,” but for some reason it seemed to me that he guessed it as he listened to me. He said nothing, he is terribly taciturn. I hinted to him, as I was leaving, that in spite of all the differences between us and all the contrasts—les extrémités se touchent§17 (I explained it to him in Russian), so that he himself might not be so far from my “ultimate conviction” as it seemed. To this he responded with a very sullen and sour grimace, stood up, fetched my cap for me himself, pretending that I was leaving on my own, and quite simply led me out of his gloomy house on the pretext of politely seeing me off. His house struck me; it resembles a graveyard, but he seems to like it, which, however, is understandable: such a full, immediate life as he lives is too full in itself to need any setting.
The Idiot Page 52