This time, that is, after going to Mozer, she brought an amber cigar holder – a so-so little piece, for the connoisseur, but something of no worth to us, because we deal only in gold. Since she had come after yesterday’s rebellion, I greeted her sternly. Sternness for me means dryness. However, as I was giving her the two roubles, I couldn’t resist and said with some irritation, as it were: ‘I’m doing this only for you, Mozer wouldn’t take a thing like this from you.’ I particularly emphasized the words ‘for you’, and precisely with a certain insinuation. I was angry. Once again she flared up, upon hearing that ‘for you’, but she held her tongue, didn’t throw down the money, took it – that’s what poverty is! But how she flared up! I understood that I had wounded her. But when she had gone, I suddenly asked myself: So is this triumph over her really worth two roubles? Hee-hee-hee! I remember that I asked precisely that very question twice: ‘Is it worth it? Is it worth it?’ And, laughing, I answered this question to myself in the affirmative. Then I really cheered up. But this wasn’t a nasty feeling: I had a plan, a purpose; I wanted to test her, because suddenly I began to have some thoughts about her. That was my third particular thought about her.
… Well, it was from that time that it all started. It goes without saying, I immediately tried to find out all her circumstances indirectly and waited for her arrival with particular impatience. You see, I had a feeling that she would come soon. When she came, I launched into an amiable conversation with unusual politeness. You see, I wasn’t badly brought up and have manners. Hmm. That was when I guessed that she was kind and meek. The kind and meek don’t resist for long, and although they are by no means very open, they don’t at all know how to avoid a conversation: they answer grudgingly, but they answer and the longer it goes on, the more they answer; but if this is what you want, you can’t let yourself get tired. It goes without saying that she didn’t explain anything to me then. It was later that I learned about the Voice and about everything else. She was then mustering every last bit she had to advertise – at first, it goes without saying, presumptuously: ‘Governess, willing to travel, send terms by post’; but later: ‘Willing to do anything, tutor, be a companion, housekeeping, care for the sick, can sew’ and so forth and so on. The usual! It goes without saying that all this was added to the advertisement at different stages, and towards the end, when despair had set it, there was even ‘without salary, for board’. No, she didn’t find a position! I made up my mind then to test her for the last time: I suddenly picked up today’s Voice and showed her an advertisement: ‘Young female, orphan, seeks position as governess of small children, preferably with an elderly widower. Willing to do light housework.’
‘There, you see, this was published this morning and by evening she’s sure to have found a job. That’s the way to advertise!’
Again she flared up, again her eyes blazed; she turned around and immediately walked out. I was very pleased. However, by then I was already sure of everything and had no fears: nobody would take her cigar holders. Besides, she had already run out of cigar holders. And so it was, two days later she comes, such a pale, agitated little thing – I understood that something had happened at home, and indeed something had happened. I’ll explain straight away what happened, but now I merely wish to recall how I suddenly did something chic and rose in her eyes. A plan suddenly occurred to me. The fact of the matter is that she brought this icon (she had steeled herself to bring it) … Oh, listen! Listen! This is where it began, but I keep getting muddled … The fact of the matter is that I now want to recall everything, every trifle, every little detail. I still want to collect my thoughts to a T and – I can’t, and now there are these little details, these little details …
An icon of the Mother of God. The Mother of God with Child, a family heirloom, an antique, with a silver gilt frame – worth – well, worth about six roubles. I see that the icon is dear to her, and she’s pawning the whole icon, without removing the mounting. I tell her that it would be better if she removed the mounting and took the icon with her, because after all it’s an icon.
‘Surely you’re not forbidden?’
‘No, it’s not that it’s forbidden, but just that, perhaps, you yourself …’
‘Well, remove it.’
‘You know what, I won’t remove it, but I’ll put it over there in the icon case,’ I said, after giving it some thought, ‘with the other icons, under the lamp.’ (I’ve always had the lamp burning ever since I opened my shop.) ‘And I’ll give you ten roubles – it’s as simple as that.’
‘I don’t need ten, give me five; I’ll redeem it without fail.’
‘But don’t you want ten? The icon is worth it,’ I added, after observing that her little eyes had flashed once again. She held her tongue. I brought her five roubles.
‘Don’t despise anybody – I’ve been in tight squeezes myself, and even a bit worse, and if you now see me in such an occupation … well, you see, after all that I’ve endured …’
‘You’re taking revenge on society? Is that it?’ she suddenly interrupted me with a rather sarcastic gibe, in which, however, there was a good deal of innocence (that is, of a general sort, because she certainly did not single me out from the others then, so it was said almost inoffensively). ‘Aha!’ I thought, ‘so that’s what you’re like, your character is showing itself, you belong to the new movement.’6
‘You see,’ I immediately observed, half-jokingly, half-mysteriously. ‘I – I am part of that part of the whole that desires to do evil, but creates good …’7
She looked at me quickly and with great curiosity, in which, however, there was a great deal of childishness:
‘Wait a moment … What’s that saying? Where’s it from? I’ve heard it somewhere …’
‘Don’t rack your brains: Mephistopheles recommends himself to Faust in those words. Have you read Faust?’
‘No … not carefully.’
‘That is, you haven’t read it at all. You should read it. However, once again I see a sardonic grin on your lips. Please, don’t suppose that I have so little taste that I wished to paint over my role as a pawnbroker by recommending myself to you as Mephistopheles. Once a pawnbroker, always a pawnbroker. We know that, miss.’
‘You’re such a strange person … I didn’t in the least want to say anything of the kind …’
She wanted to say: I didn’t expect that you were an educated man, but she didn’t say it, though I knew that she had thought it; I had pleased her terribly much.
‘You see,’ I observed, ‘one can do good in any walk of life. Of course, I’m not speaking of myself; let’s suppose that I do nothing but bad things …’
‘Of course, one can do good in any position,’ she said, looking at me with a quick and penetrating glance. ‘Precisely in any position,’ she added suddenly.
Oh, I remember, I remember all those moments! And I also want to add that when these young people, these dear young people, want to say something intelligent and penetrating, then their faces suddenly show you all too sincerely and naively: ‘Here I am, I’m telling you something intelligent and penetrating.’ And it’s not at all from vanity, as is the case with the likes of us, but you see that she herself sets great store on all this terribly, and she believes, and respects and thinks that you, too, respect all this just as she does. Oh, sincerity! That’s what they win you over with! And it was so charming in her!
I remember, I have forgotten nothing! When she left, I made up my mind at once. That same day I made my final enquiries and learned absolutely everything else there was to know about her present particulars; all the particulars of her past I already knew from Lukerya, who was then their servant and whom I had bribed several days earlier. These circumstances were so horrible that I don’t understand how it had been possible for her to laugh, as she had that day, and be curious about Mephistopheles’ words, when she herself was faced with such horrors. But – youth! That’s precisely what I thought about her then with pride and joy, because, y
ou see, there was also magnanimity about it, as if she were to say: the great works of Goethe shine even on the brink of ruin. Youth is always magnanimous, if only ever so slightly and ever so distortedly. That is, I’m speaking of her, you see, her alone. And the main thing, I then looked upon her as mine and did not doubt my power. You know, that’s a most voluptuous thought, when you no longer have any doubt.
But what’s wrong with me? If I keep going on like this, then when will I collect everything to a T? Quickly, quickly – this isn’t the point at all, oh God!
II. A Marriage Proposal
The ‘particulars’ I learned about her I can set forth in a few words: her father and mother had died a long time ago, three years previously, and she had been left with her disreputable aunts. That is, it’s saying too little to call them disreputable. One aunt was a widow with a large family, six children, each one smaller than the next; the other was a spinster, old and nasty. Both of them were nasty. Her father had been a government official, but only a clerk, and a non-hereditary nobleman – in a word: everything played into my hands. I appeared as if from some higher world: after all, I was a retired staff captain of a brilliant regiment, a nobleman by birth, independent and so on, and as far as the pawnshop went, the aunts could only look at it with respect. She had been slaving for her aunts for three years, but nevertheless she had passed an examination somewhere – she had managed to pass it, snatched a free minute to pass it, despite relentless work day in and day out – and that meant something about aspirations for the noble and the sublime on her part. After all, why did I want to get married? But who cares about me, we’ll save that for later … As if that were the point! She taught her aunt’s children, she sewed their underclothes, and towards the end she washed not only these underclothes, but she, with her bad chest, also washed the floors. To put it bluntly, they even beat her, reproaching her for every crumb. It ended with them intending to sell her. Ugh! I’ll omit the dirty details. Later she told me everything in detail. A neighbour, a fat shopkeeper, had been observing all this for a whole year, and he wasn’t just an ordinary shopkeeper, but the owner of two grocery stores. He had already beat two wives to death and was looking for a third, and had cast his eye on her: ‘She’s a quiet one,’ he thought, ‘she grew up in poverty and I’m marrying for the sake of my orphans.’ Indeed, he did have orphans. He began to seek her hand, started negotiations with the aunts, and on top of that – he’s fifty years old; she’s horrified. And that’s when she started coming to me to get money for advertisements in the Voice. In the end, she began asking the aunts to give her just the littlest bit of time to think it over. They gave her that little bit, but only one, they didn’t give her another; they badgered her: ‘We don’t know where we’ll get our next meal, even without an extra mouth to feed.’ I already knew all this, and on that same day, after her visit in the morning, I made up my mind. That evening the merchant came, he had brought from the shop a pound of candies worth fifty kopecks; she’s sitting with him, and I summon Lukerya from the kitchen and tell her to go to her and whisper that I’m standing by the gate and wish to tell her something most urgently. I remained pleased with myself. And in general I was terribly pleased with myself that entire day.
Right there at the gate, already dumbfounded that I had summoned her, I explained to her, in Lukerya’s presence, that I would consider myself happy and honoured … Secondly, she was not surprised by my manner or by the fact that this was taking place by the gate: ‘I am a straightforward man,’ I said, ‘and have studied the circumstances of the matter.’ And I wasn’t lying that I’m straightforward. Well, to hell with it. I spoke not only decently, that is, by showing myself to be a person of good breeding, but originally as well, and that’s the main thing. What, is it a sin to acknowledge this? I want to judge myself and am doing so. I must speak both pro and contra,8 and I am doing so. I recalled it with delight afterwards, even though it was stupid: I announced straight out then, without any embarrassment, that, in the first place, I wasn’t particularly talented, not particularly intelligent, and perhaps not even particularly kind, that I was a rather cheap egoist (I remember this expression, I had composed it on my way there and remained pleased with it) and that – very, very likely – there was much that was unpleasant about me in other respects as well. All this was said with a particular kind of pride – we know how these sorts of things are said. Of course, I had sufficient good taste, after nobly declaring my deficiencies, not to launch into a declaration of my virtues: ‘But to make up for this, I have this, that and the other.’ I could see that she was still terribly afraid, but I didn’t soften anything; instead, seeing that she was afraid I deliberately intensified it: I said straight out that she wouldn’t go hungry, but as for fancy clothes, the theatre and balls – there would be none of that, though perhaps later, when I had achieved my goal. I was definitely carried away by this stern tone. I added, and as casually as possible, that if I had taken up such an occupation, that is, keeping this pawnshop, it was for one purpose only – that is, there was a certain circumstance, so to speak … But you see I had a right to speak like that: I really did have such a purpose and such a circumstance. Wait a moment, gentlemen, all my life I have been the first to hate this pawnbroking business, but in essence, you see, even though it’s ridiculous to talk to oneself in mysterious phrases, I was ‘taking revenge on society’, you see, I really, really, really was! Therefore, her joke about the fact that I was ‘taking revenge’ was unfair. That is, you see, if I had said to her straight out in so many words: ‘Yes, I’m taking revenge on society’, and she had burst out laughing, the way she did that morning, it would indeed have come out ridiculous. But with an indirect hint and by dropping a mysterious phrase it turned out that it was possible to engage her imagination. Moreover, I wasn’t afraid of anything then: you see, I knew that in any event the fat shopkeeper was more repulsive than I and that I, standing by the gate, was her liberator. I understood that, you see. Oh, man understands baseness particularly well! But was it baseness? How is one to judge a man in a case like this? Didn’t I love her already even then?
Wait a moment: it goes without saying that I didn’t say a word to her about doing a good deed: on the contrary, oh, on the contrary: ‘It is I,’ I said, ‘who am being done the favour, and not you.’ So that I even expressed this in words, I couldn’t help myself, and perhaps it came out stupidly, because I noticed a fleeting grin on her face. But on the whole I had definitely won. Wait a moment, if I’m going to recall all this filth, then I’ll recall this final bit of swinishness: I was standing there and this is what was going through my head: You’re tall, fit, educated and – and finally, to speak without any boasting, you’re not bad looking. That’s what was running through my head. It goes without saying, she said ‘yes’ there and then by the gate. But … but I should add: she thought it over for a long time, right there and then by the gate, before she said ‘yes’. She was so deep in thought, so deep in thought that I was on the verge of asking, ‘Well, what is it going to be?’ – and I couldn’t even help myself from asking with a certain sense of chic: ‘Well, what is it going to be, Miss?’ – adding the ‘Miss’ for good measure.
‘Wait, I’m thinking.’
And her little face was so serious, so serious – that even then I might have read it! But instead I was offended: ‘Is she really,’ I thought to myself, ‘choosing between me and the merchant?’ Oh, I still didn’t understand then! I still didn’t understand anything, anything then! I didn’t understand until today! I remember Lukerya ran after me when I was already walking away, stopped me in the street and said, catching her breath: ‘God will reward you, sir, for taking our dear young lady – only don’t say anything about it to her, she’s proud.’
Well now, proud! I like them proud, I said to myself. The proud ones are particularly nice, when … well, when you no longer harbour any doubts about your power over them. Eh? Oh, base, awkward man! Oh, how pleased I was! Do you know, while she was standing
there by the gate deep in thought about whether to say ‘yes’ to me, and I was surprised, do you know, that she might even have been thinking: ‘If it’s to be misfortune either way, isn’t it better to choose the worst straight away, that is, the fat shopkeeper; let him get drunk, the sooner the better, and beat me to death!’ Eh? What do you think, could that have been what she was thinking?
And even now I don’t understand, even now I don’t understand anything! I just now said that she might have been thinking that she should choose the worse of the two misfortunes, that is, the merchant. But who was worse for her then – the merchant or I? The merchant or the pawnbroker who quotes Goethe? That’s still a question! What question? You don’t understand even that: the answer is lying on the table, and you say ‘what question’! But to hell with me! I’m not the point here at all … And at the same time, what do I care now – whether I’m the point or not? That’s something I’m utterly incapable of deciding. I’d better go to bed. I have a headache …
III. The Noblest of Men, But I Don’t Believe It Myself
I didn’t fall asleep. And how could I with that pulse hammering away in my head. I want to absorb all this, all this filth. Oh, the filth! Oh, the filth I dragged her out of then! She should have realized that, you know, she should have appreciated my deed! I was pleased, too, by various thoughts, for example, that I was forty-one years old and that she was only sixteen. That fascinated me, this sense of inequality, it was very sweet, very sweet.
The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.) Page 38