Here a quite unexpected circumstance occurred…The door of the reception room opened noisily, and on the threshold appeared a man the very sight of whom turned Mr. Goliadkin to ice. His feet became rooted to the ground. A cry died in his constricted breast. However, Mr. Goliadkin had known it all beforehand and had long anticipated something like it. The stranger gravely and solemnly approached Mr. Goliadkin…Mr. Goliadkin knew this figure very well. He had seen it, had seen it very often, had seen it that same day…The stranger was a tall, solidly built man, in a black tailcoat, with an important cross on his neck, and endowed with bushy, very black side-whiskers; all he lacked to complete the resemblance was a cigar in his mouth…Yet the stranger’s gaze, as has already been said, froze Mr. Goliadkin with terror. With a grave and solemn mien, the fearsome man came up to the lamentable hero of our story…Our hero offered him his hand; the stranger took his hand and pulled him with him…Our hero looked around with a lost, mortified face…
“This, this is Krestyan Ivanovich Rutenspitz, doctor of medicine and surgery, your old acquaintance, Yakov Petrovich!” someone’s disgusting voice chirped right in Mr. Goliadkin’s ear. He turned: it was Mr. Goliadkin’s twin, repulsive in the mean qualities of his soul. An indecent, sinister joy shone in his face; with delight he rubbed his hands, with delight he turned his head around, with delight he minced among all and sundry; he seemed ready to begin dancing straightaway from delight; finally, he leaped forward, snatched a candle from one of the servants, and went ahead, lighting the way for Mr. Goliadkin and Krestyan Ivanovich. Mr. Goliadkin clearly heard how all that was in the reception room rushed after him, how they all pressed and jostled each other, and all together loudly began repeating behind Mr. Goliadkin: “Never mind; don’t be afraid, Yakov Petrovich, it’s just your old friend and acquaintance, Krestyan Ivanovich Rutenspitz…” Finally they went out to the brightly lit main stairway; on the stairway there was also a mass of people; the doors to the porch were noisily flung open, and Mr. Goliadkin found himself on the porch along with Krestyan Ivanovich. At the entrance stood a carriage harnessed with four horses, which were snorting with impatience. The gleeful Mr. Goliadkin Jr. ran down the steps in three bounds and opened the carriage door himself. With an admonitory gesture, Krestyan Ivanovich invited Mr. Goliadkin to get in. However, there was no need for an admonitory gesture; there were enough people to help him in…Sinking with terror, Mr. Goliadkin turned to look back: the entire brightly lit stairway was strung with people; curious eyes looked at him from everywhere; Olsufy Ivanovich himself presided from his easy chair on the upper landing, and watched what was happening with attention and strong concern. Everyone was waiting. A murmur of impatience passed through the crowd when Mr. Goliadkin looked back.
“I hope there’s nothing here…nothing reprehensible…or that might be cause for severity…and the attention of everyone regarding my official relations?” our hero said, at a loss. Talk and noise arose around him; everyone wagged their heads in the negative. Tears gushed from Mr. Goliadkin’s eyes.
“In that case, I’m ready…I fully entrust…and hand over my fate to Krestyan Ivanovich…”
Mr. Goliadkin had only just said that he fully handed over his fate to Krestyan Ivanovich, when a terrible, deafening, joyful shout burst from everyone around him, and its sinister echo passed through the whole expectant crowd. Here Krestyan Ivanovich on the one side and Andrei Filippovich on the other took Mr. Goliadkin under the arms and began putting him into the carriage; his double, as was his mean custom, helped from behind. The unfortunate Mr. Goliadkin Sr. cast a last glance at everyone and everything and, trembling like a kitten that has been doused with cold water—if the comparison be permitted—got into the carriage. Krestyan Ivanovich at once got in behind him. The carriage door slammed, the whip cracked over the horses, the horses tore the vehicle from its place…everything rushed after Mr. Goliadkin. The piercing, furious shouts of all his enemies came rolling after him in the guise of a farewell. For a certain time faces still flashed around the carriage that was bearing Mr. Goliadkin away; but they gradually dropped behind, dropped behind, and finally disappeared completely. Mr. Goliadkin’s indecent twin held out longer than anyone else. His hands in the pockets of his green uniform trousers, he ran along with a pleased look, skipping now on one side of the carriage, now on the other; sometimes, taking hold of the window frame and hanging on, he would thrust his head through the window and blow Mr. Goliadkin little farewell kisses; but he, too, began to tire, appeared more and more rarely, and finally disappeared completely. The heart in Mr. Goliadkin’s breast ached dully; a hot stream of blood rushed to his head; he gasped for air, he wanted to unbutton himself, to bare his chest, to pour snow and cold water on it. He fell, finally, into oblivion…When he came to, he saw that the horses were bearing him along some unfamiliar road. To right and left a forest blackened; it felt desolate and deserted. Suddenly he went dead: two fiery eyes gazed at him from the darkness, and those two eyes shone with sinister, infernal glee. This was not Krestyan Ivanovich! Who was it? Or was it him? Him! It was Krestyan Ivanovich, only not the former, but another Krestyan Ivanovich! This was a terrible Krestyan Ivanovich!…
“Krestyan Ivanovich, I…I seem to be all right, Krestyan Ivanovich,” our hero began timidly and with trepidation, wishing to appease the terrible Krestyan Ivanovich at least somewhat with submissiveness and humility.
“You vill haf a gofernment apartment, mit firewood, mit licht, und mit serfices, vich you don’t deserf,” Krestyan Ivanovich’s reply came sternly and terribly, like a verdict.
Our hero cried out and clutched his head. Alas! he had long foreseen it!
THE GAMBLER
A Novel
(From a Young Man’s Notes)
CHAPTER I
I ’VE FINALLY COME BACK from my two-week absence. Our people have already been in Roulettenburg for three days. I thought they would be waiting for me God knows how eagerly, but I was mistaken. The general had an extremely independent look, spoke to me condescendingly, and sent me to his sister. It was clear they had got hold of money somewhere. It even seemed to me that the general was a little ashamed to look at me. Marya Filippovna was extremely busy and scarcely spoke with me; she took the money, however, counted it, and listened to my whole report. Mezentsov, the little Frenchman, and some Englishman or other were expected for dinner; as usual, when there’s money, then at once it’s a formal dinner; Moscow-style. Polina Alexandrovna, seeing me, asked what had taken me so long, and went off somewhere without waiting for an answer. Of course, she did it on purpose. We must have a talk, however. A lot has accumulated.
I’ve been assigned a small room on the fourth floor of the hotel. It’s known here that I belong to the general’s suite. Byall appearances, they’ve managed to make themselves known. The general is regarded by everyone here as a very rich Russian grandee. Before dinner he managed, among other errands, to give me two thousand-franc notes to have changed. I changed them in the hotel office. Now they’ll look at us as millionaires for at least a whole week. I was about to take Misha and Nadya for a walk, but on the stairs I was summoned to the general; he had seen fit to inquire where I was going to take them. The man is decidedly unable to look me straight in the eye; he would very much like to, but I respond each time with such an intent—that is, irreverent—gaze, that he seems disconcerted. In a highly pompous speech, piling one phrase on another and finally becoming totally confused, he gave me to understand that I should stroll with the children somewhere in the park, a good distance from the vauxhall. 1 He finally became quite angry and added abruptly: “Or else you might just take them to the vauxhall, to the roulette tables. Excuse me,” he added, “but I know you’re still rather light-minded and perhaps capable of gambling. In any case, though I am not your mentor, and have no wish to take that role upon myself, I do at any rate have the right to wish that you not, so to speak, compromise me…”
“But I don’t even have any money,” I said calmly. “To lose it,
you have to have it.”
“You shall have it at once,” the general replied, blushing slightly. He rummaged in his desk, consulted a ledger, and it turned out that he owed me about a hundred and twenty roubles.
“How are we going to reckon it up?” he began. “It has to be converted into thalers. Here, take a hundred thalers, a round figure—the rest, of course, won’t get lost.”
I silently took the money.
“Please don’t be offended by my words, you’re so touchy…If I made that observation, it was, so to speak, to warn you, and, of course, I have a certain right to do so…”
Coming back home with the children before dinner, I met a whole cavalcade. Our people had gone to have a look at some ruins. Two excellent carriages, magnificent horses! Mlle Blanche in the same carriage with Marya Filippovna and Polina; the little Frenchman, the Englishman, and the general on horseback. Passersby stopped and looked; an effect was produced; only it won’t come to any good for the general. I calculated that with the four thousand francs I had brought, plus whatever they had evidently managed to get hold of here, they now had seven or eight thousand francs. That is too little for Mlle Blanche.
Mlle Blanche is also staying in our hotel, along with her mother; our little Frenchman is here somewhere as well. The servants call him “M. le comte,” Mlle Blanche’s mother is called “Mme la comtesse”; well, maybe they really are comte and comtesse. *2
I just knew that M. le comte would not recognize me when we gathered for dinner. The general, of course, did not even think of introducing us or of presenting me to him; and M. le comte himself has visited Russia and knows what small fry an outchitel *3 —as they call it—is there. He knows me very well, however. But, I must confess, I appeared at dinner uninvited; it seems the general forgot to give orders, otherwise he would surely have sent me to eat at the table d’hôte. †4 I appeared on my own, so that the general looked at me with displeasure. Kindly Marya Filippovna showed me to a place at once; but my having met Mr. Astley helped me, and willy-nilly I wound up making part of their company.
I first met this strange Englishman in Prussia, on a train where we sat opposite each other, when I was catching up with our people; then I ran into him on entering France, and finally in Switzerland; twice in the course of these two weeks—and now I suddenly met him in Roulettenburg. Never in my life have I met a shyer man; he’s shy to the point of stupidity, and, of course, he knows it himself, because he’s not at all stupid. However, he’s very nice and quiet. I got him to talk at our first meeting in Prussia. He announced to me that he had been at Nordkap that summer, and that he would like very much to go to the Nizhny Novgorod fair. I don’t know how he became acquainted with the general; I believe he’s boundlessly in love with Polina. When she came in, he flushed a flaming crimson. He was very glad that I sat down beside him at the table, and it seems he considers me a bosom friend.
At table the Frenchman set the tone extraordinarily; he was careless and pompous with everyone. And in Moscow, I remember, he just blew soap bubbles. He talked terribly much about finance and Russian politics. The general sometimes ventured to contradict—but modestly, only enough so as not to definitively damage his own importance.
I was in a strange state of mind. Of course, before dinner was half-through, I managed to ask myself my customary and habitual question: “How come I hang around with this general and didn’t leave them long, long ago?” Now and then I glanced at Polina Alexandrovna; she ignored me completely. It ended with me getting angry and deciding to be rude.
It began with me suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, interfering in their conversation, loudly and without being asked. Above all, I wanted to quarrel with the little Frenchman. I turned to the general and suddenly, quite loudly and distinctly, and, it seems, interrupting him, observed that in hotels this summer it was almost impossible for Russians to dine at the table d’hôte. The general shot me an astonished glance.
“If you’re a self-respecting man,” I let myself go on, “you will unavoidably invite abuse and will have to put up with being exceedingly slighted. In Paris, on the Rhine, even in Switzerland, there are so many little Poles and sympathizing little Frenchmen at the table d’hôte that it’s impossible to utter a word, if you happen to be a Russian.”
I said it in French. The general looked at me in perplexity, not knowing whether he should get angry or merely be astonished that I had forgotten myself so.
“That means that somebody somewhere has taught you a lesson,” the little Frenchman said carelessly and contemptuously.
“In Paris I began by quarreling with a Pole,” I replied, “then with a French officer who supported the Pole. And then some of the Frenchmen took my side, when I told them how I wanted to spit in the monseigneur’s coffee.”
“Spit?” the general asked with pompous perplexity, and even looked around. The little Frenchman studied me mistrustfully.
“Just so, sir,” I replied. “Since I was convinced for a whole two days that I might have to go to Rome briefly to take care of our business, I went to the office of the Holy Father’s embassy in Paris to get a visa in my passport. 2 There I was met by a little abbé, about fifty years old, dry and with frost in his physiognomy, who, having heard me out politely, but extremely dryly, asked me to wait. Though I was in a hurry, I did sit down, of course, took out L’Opinion nationale, 3 and began reading some terrible abuse of Russia. Meanwhile, I heard someone go through the next room to see monseigneur; I saw my abbé bow to him. I addressed him with my former request; again, still more dryly, he asked me to wait. A little later another stranger came, but on business—some Austrian. He was listened to and at once taken upstairs. Then I became extremely vexed. I stood up, went over to the abbé, and told him resolutely that since monseigneur was receiving, he could finish with me as well. The abbé suddenly drew back from me in extraordinary surprise. It was simply incomprehensible to him how a Russian nonentity dared to put himself on a par with monseigneur’s visitors. In the most insolent tone, as if glad that he could insult me, he looked me up and down and cried: ‘Can you possibly think that Monseigneur would interrupt his coffee for you?’ Then I, too, cried, but still louder than he: ‘Let it be known to you that I spit on your monseigneur’s coffee! If you do not finish with my passport this very minute, I’ll go to him myself.’
“ ‘What! Just when the cardinal is sitting with him!’ the abbé cried, recoiling from me in horror, rushed to the door, and spread his arms crosswise, showing that he would sooner die than let me pass.
“Then I answered him that I was a heretic and a barbarian, ‘que je suis hérétique et barbare,’ and that to me all these archbishops, cardinals, monseigneurs, etc., etc.—were all the same. In short, I showed him that I would not leave off. The abbé gave me a look of boundless spite, then snatched my passport and took it upstairs. A minute later it had a visa in it. Here, sirs, would you care to have a look?” I took out the passport and showed the Roman visa.
“Really, though,” the general began…
“What saved you was calling yourself a barbarian and a heretic,” the little Frenchman observed, grinning. “Cela n’était pas si bête.” *5
“What, should I look to our Russians? They sit here, don’t dare peep, and are ready, perhaps, to renounce the fact that they’re Russians. At any rate in my hotel in Paris they began to treat me with much greater attention when I told everybody about my fight with the abbé. The fat Polish pan, *6 the man most hostile to me at the table d’hôte, faded into the background. The Frenchmen even put up with it when I told them that about two years ago I saw a man whom a French chasseur had shot in the year twelve 4 —simply so as to fire off his gun. The man was a ten-year-old child then, and his family hadn’t managed to leave Moscow.”
The Double and The Gambler Page 20