I wasn’t going to justify myself, was I? You see, it was the pawnshop that was the chief source of trouble between us. Mind you, I knew that a woman, and particularly a girl of sixteen, simply must submit to her husband. Women have no originality. That—that is axiomatic. Yes, I regard it as axiomatic even now. Even now! Never mind what’s lying there in the sitting-room. Truth is truth, and John Stuart Mill himself can do nothing about it! And a woman who loves—oh, a woman who loves—will worship even vice, the crimes even of the man she loves. He would himself never invent such justifications for his crimes as she will find for them. That is generous, but it is not original. It is the lack of originality that has been the ruin of women. And what, I repeat, are you pointing at the table in the sitting-room for? Is that original? Is what’s lying there on the table original? Aha!
Listen. I was quite certain of her love then. After all, she did fling herself on my neck even at that time. That proves that she loved or, at all events, wanted to love. Yes, that’s what it was: she wanted to love, she did her best to love. And the point is that there were no crimes there for which she might have had to find a justification. You say, a pawnbroker. And every one else says the same. But what if I am a pawnbroker? I mean, there must have been some reasons for one of the most generous of men to have become a pawnbroker. You see, there are ideas—I mean, if one were to put some ideas into words, say them out aloud, they would sound very silly. Why, I’d be ashamed of doing it myself. And why? For no reason at all. Just because we are all rotters and can’t bear the truth. At all events, I know of no other reason. I said just now—“one of the most generous of men.” It may sound ridiculous, and yet that is how it was. It is the truth. It’s the truth and nothing but the truth. Yes, I had a right to want to make myself secure at the time. I had a right to open the pawnshop. You have rejected me, you—the people, I mean—have cast me out with contemptuous silence. For my passionate desire to love you, you have repaid me with a wrong from the consequences of which I shall suffer all my life. Now I have the right to erect a wall against you, to save up the thirty thousand roubles and spend the rest of my life somewhere in the Crimea, on the south coast, among the mountains and vineyards, on my own estate bought with the thirty thousand, and—above all—far away from you all, with malice against none, with the woman I love at my side, with a family, if God will send me one, and—and “being an help to them that dwell in the country round about.” Well, of course, it doesn’t matter if I’m saying this to myself now, but at the time what could have been more stupid than making a long story to her about it. That was the reason for my proud silence. That was why we sat together in silence. For what could she have made of it all? She was only sixteen, a girl in her teens—what could she have made of my justifications and sufferings? What I had to deal with was a straitlaced, uncompromising attitude, ignorance of life, the cheap convictions of youth, the utter blindness of “a noble soul,” and, above all, the pawnshop. Good God, the pawnshop! The pawnshop! (And was I a villain in the pawnshop? Did she not see how I treated people? Did I ever take more than was my due?) Oh, how awful truth is in the world! That exquisite creature, that gentle creature, that heavenly creature was a tyrant, she was the pitiless tyrant and torturer of my soul! I must say it. I shouldn’t be fair to myself if I didn’t. Do you think I did not love her? Who can honestly say I didn’t love her? Don’t you see? That was the irony of it, the terrible irony of fate and nature! We are accursed. The life of people (and mine, in particular) is accursed. For I can see now that I must have made some mistake. That something went wrong somewhere. Everything was so clear. My plan was as clear as daylight. “Stern—proud—is in need of no moral consolations from anyone—suffers in silence.” And that was true. I was not lying. I was not lying. “She will see herself later on that it was generosity on my part, though now she cannot see it. And when she does realise it one day she will appreciate me ten times as much, and she will fall in the dust at my feet, her hands folded in supplication.” That was my plan. But there was something I forgot or failed to see. There was something I mismanaged badly. But enough, enough! Whose forgiveness am I to ask now? What is done is done. Be brave, man, and proud! It is not your fault!…
Well, why should I not tell the truth? Why should I be afraid to face the truth squarely? It was her fault, her fault.…
V
THE GENTLE CREATURE REBELS
Our quarrels began as a result of her sudden decision to issue loans for any amount she pleased. On two occasions she presumed to start an argument with me on this very subject. I told her I could not allow it. And then the captain’s widow turned up.
The old woman brought a locket. A present from her late husband. The usual thing—a keepsake. I gave her thirty roubles. She started wailing plaintively, asking me to be sure not to lose the thing. I naturally told her not to worry: it would be safe. Well, anyway, five days later she came again to exchange it for a bracelet that was not worth eight roubles. I, quite naturally, refused. But I suppose she must have read something in my wife’s eyes, for she came back later when I was out, and my wife exchanged the medallion for her bracelet.
Having learnt about it the same day, I spoke to her gently, but firmly and sensibly. She was sitting on the bed, her eyes fixed on the floor, tapping with the toe of her right boot on the carpet (a habit of hers); an ugly smile played on her lips. Then, without raising my voice, I told her quietly that the money was mine, and that I had a right to look on life with my own eyes, and—and that when I had asked her to become my wife I had concealed nothing from her.
All of a sudden she jumped up, all of a sudden she began shaking all over, and all of a sudden—what do you think—she stamped her foot at me. She was a wild beast. She was in a rage. A wild beast in a rage. I was petrified with amazement. I had never expected her to behave like that. But never for a moment did I lose control of myself. Never by a movement did I betray my astonishment. Again, in the same quiet voice, I told her straight that from now on I would not allow her to meddle in my affairs. She laughed in my face and walked out of the flat.
Now, you see, the point is that she had no right to walk out of the flat. She was to go nowhere without me—that was our understanding before our marriage. She came back in the evening. I never said a word.
Next day too she went out in the morning; the day after again. I closed my pawnshop and went to see her aunts. I had broken off all relations with them after our wedding: I did not want them to call on us, and we did not call on them. But it seemed she had not been there. They listened to me with great interest, and then laughed in my face. “Serves you right!” they said. I expected them to laugh at me. Anyway, I at once bribed the younger aunt, the old maid, with a hundred roubles, giving her twenty-five in advance. Two days later she came to see me. “An army officer is mixed up in this,” she said. “A lieutenant by the name of Yefimovich. A former regimental colleague of yours.” I was very much astonished. That Yefimovich had done me more harm than anyone in the regiment, and about a month ago, lacking all sense of shame, he had come to my pawnshop once or twice on the pretext of pawning something, and, I remember, begun laughing with my wife. I went up to him at once and told him not to dare to show his face in my house again in view of what our relations had been. But I had no idea that there was anything between him and my wife. I simply thought that it was just his confounded cheek. But now the aunt informed me that she had already made an appointment to meet him, and that the moving spirit behind the whole affair was a former acquaintance of theirs, Julia Semyonovna, a widow and a colonel’s wife, to boot. “It is her your wife goes to see,” the aunt told me.
I shall be brief about this affair. Altogether it cost me about three hundred roubles, but in a couple of days everything was arranged. I was to be in an adjoining room, behind closed doors, and overhear the first rendezvous between my wife and Yefimovich. In expectation of this, on the day before, there occurred between us a brief, but for me significant, scene.
; She came back late in the afternoon, sat down on the bed, and looked at me sardonically, tapping the carpet with her foot. As I looked at her, the idea suddenly flashed through my head that for the whole of the last month, or rather the last fortnight, she had not been acting in character, or one ought perhaps to say, she was acting out of character. I saw before me a creature of a violent, aggressive nature; I don’t want to say shameless, but disreputable, one that seemed to be looking for trouble. Yes. Asking for it. Her gentleness, however, seemed to be in her way. When such a woman gives way to violence, however she may overdo things, she cannot conceal the fact that she is behaving against her better nature, that she is egging herself on, that she is quite unable to overcome her own feelings of shame and her own outraged sense of decency. It is because of this that such women sometimes behave so outrageously that you can hardly believe your eyes. A woman accustomed to a life of immorality will, on the contrary, always try to tone everything down; she will make everything a hundred times more disgusting, but all under the pretence of decorum and decency, a pretence that in itself is a sort of claim to superiority over you.
“Is it true that you were turned out of the regiment because you were afraid to fight a duel?” she asked suddenly, without rhyme or reason, and her eyes flashed.
“It’s quite true. Following a decision of my fellow-officers, I was asked to leave the regiment, though as a matter of fact I had sent in my resignation before that.”
“They expelled you for being a coward, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they sentenced me as a coward. But I refused to fight this duel not because I was a coward, but because I would not submit to their tyrannical decision and send a challenge to someone when I did not consider myself to be insulted. You ought to know,” I could not resist the temptation to proceed, “that to take action against such tyranny in spite of all the consequences it might entail meant showing more pluck than fighting any kind of duel.”
I am afraid I could not restrain myself. By the last phrase I tried, as it were, to justify myself. And that’s what she was waiting for. She wanted this new proof of my humiliation. She laughed maliciously.
“And is it true that for three years afterwards you wandered about the streets of Petersburg like a tramp, begging for coppers and sleeping under billiard-tables?”
“Yes, it’s quite true. I slept in the markets and in Vyazemsky’s dosshouse. Quite true. There was a lot of disgrace and degradation in my life after my expulsion from the regiment. But not moral degradation. For even at the time I was the first to hate my own actions. It was only a degradation of my will and mind, and was only caused by the desperateness of my position. But all that is over now.…”
“Oh, now you’re a man of importance—a financier!”
A hint at my pawnshop, you see. But by then I had already succeeded in taking a firm hold of myself. I saw that what she wanted most was explanations that would be humiliating to me, and—and I did not give them. Besides, just then the doorbell rang and I went out into the large room to attend to a client. Afterwards, an hour later, when she suddenly put on her things to go out, she stopped in front of me and said:
“You didn’t tell me anything about it before we were married, did you?”
I made no answer, and she went away.
So next day I was standing in that room behind the closed doors, listening to hear how my fate was being decided. I had a gun in my pocket. She had dressed up for the occasion, and she was sitting at the table while Yefimovich played the fool before her. And what do you think? The result was—I say it to my credit—the result turned out to be just as I had anticipated, though at the time I might not have realised that I did expect it. I don’t know whether I am expressing myself clearly.
This is what happened. I listened for a whole hour, and for a whole hour I was present at a battle of wits between a woman, a most honourable and high-principled woman, and a man about town with no principles, a dissolute and dull creature with a cringing, grovelling soul. And how, thought I, lost in amazement, how does this innocent, this gentle, this reserved woman, know it all? The most witty author of a comedy of manners could not have devised this scene of ridicule, most innocent laughter, and sacred contempt of virtue for vice. And how scintillating were her words and sly digs! What wit in her quick repartees! What withering truth in her condemnation! And, at the same time, what almost girlish artlessness! She laughed in his face at his protestations of love, at his gestures, at his proposals. Having arrived with his mind made up to take her crudely by storm and without expecting to meet with any serious opposition, the bubble of his conceit was suddenly pricked. At first I might have thought that she was flirting with him. “The flirtation of a witty, though vicious, creature to enhance her own value.” But no. I was mistaken. Truth shone forth like the sun, and there was no room left for doubt in my mind. She, who had so little experience of the world, could have made up her mind to keep the appointment only out of hatred for me, an impulse and insincere hatred, but as soon as matters came to a head her eyes were opened at once. It was simply the case of a woman who was trying her hardest to humiliate me, but having made up her mind to stoop so low, she could not bear the horrible disgrace of it. And how indeed could Yefimovich, or any other society rake, hope to seduce a woman like her, a woman so pure and innocent, a woman who had such an unquenchable faith in her ideals? On the contrary, he merely aroused laughter. The whole truth rose up from her soul, and her indignation evoked sarcasm from her heart. I repeat, in the end the damn fool looked utterly dumbfounded. He sat there frowning, hardly replying to her, so that I was even beginning to fear that he might go so far as to insult her out of a mean desire for revenge. And I repeat again: to my credit be it said that I listened to the scene almost without surprise. It was as though I had come across something I had known all my life. It was as though I had gone there on purpose to meet it. I went there without believing anything against her, without making any accusations against her, though I did have a gun in my pocket. That is the truth! And how could I have imagined her to be different? Why else did I marry her? Oh, it’s true enough I knew perfectly well at the time how she hated me, but I was also convinced that she was guiltless. I brought the scene to a sudden close by opening the door. Yefimovich jumped to his feet. I took her by the hand and asked her to leave the house with me. Yefimovich recovered himself and burst into loud peals of laughter.
“Oh,” he said, “I’ve certainly nothing against the sacred right of holy matrimony. Take her away! Take her away! And, you know,” he shouted after me, “though a decent man would think twice before fighting a duel with you, I feel that out of respect for your lady I ought to tell you that I’m at your service if, that is, you’d care to run the risk—”
“Do you hear?” I said, stopping her for a second on the threshold.
Then not another word all the way home. I led her by the arm, and she offered no resistance. On the contrary, she was too bewildered, too much taken by surprise by all that had happened. But that only lasted till we got home. Once at home, she sat down and stared at me. She was very pale, and though when she sat down there might have been a sardonic smile on her lips, she regarded me a moment later with a solemn and grim challenge in her eyes, and I believe that at first she was quite convinced that I would kill her with the gun. But I took it silently out of my pocket and laid it on the table. She looked at me and the gun. (Note that she knew all about the gun. I had acquired it and kept it always loaded ever since I had opened my pawnshop. For when I opened my pawnshop I made up my mind that I would not keep huge dogs or employ a strong manservant as Mozer does, for instance. My cook opens the door to my clients. But people in my profession cannot afford to dispense with the means of self-defence in case of need, and I kept a loaded revolver. During the first days of our marriage, she took a great interest in that gun. She asked all sorts of questions about it, and I explained to her its mechanism and how it worked. I even persuaded her one day to fire at a target. Note t
hat, too, please.) Taking no notice of her frightened look, I half undressed myself and lay down on the bed. I felt terribly exhausted: it was about eleven o’clock. She remained sitting in the same place, without moving, for about an hour. Then she extinguished the candle and lay down, also without undressing, on the sofa by the wall. For the first time she did not come to bed with me. Note that, too, please.…
VI
A TERRIBLE REMINISCENCE
Now about this terrible reminiscence.…
I woke in the morning at about eight o’clock, I think, and it was already quite light in the room. I woke all at once, with all my mental faculties wide awake, and suddenly opened my eyes. She was standing by the window with the gun in her hand. She did not see that I was awake and that I was looking at her. Suddenly I saw that she began moving slowly towards me with the gun in her hand. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep.
She went up to the bed and stood over me. I heard everything. The silence in the room was so deep that I could hear it. All at once I became conscious of one spasmodic movement, and I opened my eyes suddenly, irresistibly, against my will. She was looking straight at me. Straight into my eyes. And the gun was already near my temple. Our eyes met. But we looked at each other for no more than a second. With a great effort I closed my eyes again, and in that instant I resolved with all the strength I possessed not to make another movement, not to open my eyes, whatever happened.
The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky Page 29