The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  I, for example, wanted to have the wedding à l’anglaise,9 that is, just the two of us, perhaps with two witnesses, one of whom would be Lukerya, and then at once to the train, for example, if only to Moscow (it so happened that I had business there), to a hotel for a fortnight or so. She was against it, she wouldn’t have it and I was forced to visit her aunts and pay my respects to them as the relatives from whom I was taking her. I gave in, and the aunts were rendered their due. I even made a present of a hundred roubles each to those creatures and promised more, of course, without saying a word to her, so as not to distress her with the baseness of the situation. The aunts at once became as soft as silk. There was an argument about the trousseau as well: she didn’t have anything, almost literally, but she didn’t want anything either. However, I managed to convince her that it wasn’t possible to have absolutely nothing, and so I arranged for the trousseau myself, because who else would do anything for her? Well, but to hell with me! Various ideas of mine, however, I nevertheless did manage to convey to her then, so that she would at least know. Perhaps I was even too hasty. The main thing is that from the very beginning, however much she tried to hold out, she would throw herself at me with her love; she would meet me when I came home in the evening with rapture, she would tell me in her prattle (the charming prattle of innocence!) all about her childhood, youth, about her parental home, about her father and mother. But I immediately threw cold water on all these ecstasies right then and there. That was the whole point of my idea. I answered her raptures with silence, gracious, of course … but she nevertheless quickly saw that we were different and that I was – a riddle. And the main thing is that I had set my sights on this riddle! You see, it was in order to pose this riddle perhaps that I committed all this foolishness! First of all, sternness – it was with sternness that I took her into my house. In a word, even though I was quite pleased with things as they were, I began to create a complete system. Oh, it took shape on its own, without any effort. And it couldn’t have been otherwise, I had to create this system on account of one incontrovertible circumstance – really, what is this? I’m slandering myself! The system was genuine. No, listen, if you’re going to judge a person, then you should judge him knowing the case … Listen.

  How should I begin this, because it’s very difficult. When you begin justifying yourself – that’s when it gets difficult. You see: young people despise money, for example – I hammered away about money; I pressed home about money. And I hammered away so that she began to fall silent more and more. She would open her big eyes, listen, look and fall silent. You see: young people are magnanimous, that is, the good ones are magnanimous and impetuous, but they have little tolerance, as soon as something’s not quite right – you get their contempt. But I wanted breadth, I wanted to instil breadth right into her heart, to instil it into her heart’s vista, isn’t that so? I’ll take a trivial example: How could I explain, for example, my pawnshop to a person like that? It goes without saying that I didn’t bring it up directly, or it would have looked like I was asking her forgiveness for the pawnshop; instead I acted, so to speak, with pride – I spoke almost silently. And I’m a master of speaking silently – all my life I’ve spoken silently and I’ve lived through entire tragedies in silence. Oh, and I too have been unhappy! I was cast aside by everyone, cast aside and forgotten, and no one, no one knows it! And suddenly this sixteen-year-old girl got hold of details about me afterwards from vile people and thought that she knew everything, but meanwhile the secret remained only in this man’s breast! I went on being silent, and I was particularly, particularly silent with her until just yesterday – why was I silent? Because I’m a proud man. I wanted her to find out on her own, without me, but not from stories told by scoundrels, but that she should guess herself about this man and comprehend him! When I received her into my house, I wanted her complete respect. I wanted her to stand before me beseechingly, on account of my suffering – and I was worthy of that. Oh, I’ve always been proud, I’ve always wanted all or nothing! And that’s precisely why I’m not for half-measures in happiness, but wanted everything – and that’s precisely why I was forced to act as I did then, as if to say: ‘Figure it out for yourself and appreciate me!’ Because, you must agree, if I had begun by explaining and prompting, being evasive and asking for respect – then, you see, it would have been as if I were asking for charity … However … However, why am I talking about this!

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! I straight away and ruthlessly (and I want to emphasize that it was ruthlessly) explained to her then, in a few words, that the magnanimity of young people was lovely, but not worth a brass button. Why not? Because it comes cheap, they get it without having lived; it’s all, so to speak, the ‘first impressions of existence’,10 but let’s see you do some work! Cheap magnanimity is always easy, and even to give your life – even that’s easy, because that’s just a matter of the blood boiling and an over-abundance of energy,11 one passionately longs for beauty! No, take an act of magnanimity that is difficult, quiet, muted, without splendour, where you’re slandered, where there’s much sacrifice and not a drop of glory – where you, a shining man, are brought forward before everyone as a scoundrel, when you are the most honest man in the world – come on, try your hand at that sort of deed, no, sir, you’ll give it up! While I – all I’ve done my whole life is to shoulder that sort of deed. In the beginning she would argue – and how! But then she began to fall silent, completely and totally, she would just open her eyes terribly wide as she listened, such big, big eyes, and so attentive. And … and besides that I suddenly saw a smile, a mistrustful, silent, bad smile. It was with that smile that I brought her into my house. And it’s also true that she had nowhere else to go …

  IV. Plans and More Plans

  Which of us was the first to begin then?

  Neither. It began on its own from the very first. I have said that I had brought her into my house with sternness; however, I softened it from the very first. When she was still my fiancée it had been explained to her that she would assist in taking in the pledges and paying out the money, and she didn’t say anything then (note that). And what’s more, she even took to the business with zeal. Well, of course, the apartment, the furniture – everything remained the same as before. The apartment has two rooms: one is a large room in which the shop is partitioned off from the rest, and the other one is also a large room in which we have our sitting room and bedroom. My furniture isn’t much; even her aunts had better. My icon-stand with the lamp is in the room with the shop; in the other room I have my bookcase with some books and a trunk to which I have the keys; and there’s a bed, tables, chairs. When she was still my fiancée I told her that one rouble a day and no more was allotted for our board, that is, food, for me, her and Lukerya, whom I had enticed away: ‘I need 30,000 in three years,’ I told her, ‘otherwise I won’t be able to save up enough money.’ She didn’t stand in the way, but I myself added to our board by thirty kopecks. It was the same thing with the theatre. When she was still my fiancée I told her that there wouldn’t be any theatre; however, I decided that we should go to the theatre once a month, and decently at that, in the orchestra. We went together, three times, and saw In Pursuit of Happiness and Songbirds,12 I think. (Oh, to hell with it, to hell with it!) We went in silence and returned in silence. Why, why did we from the very beginning choose to be silent? After all, there weren’t any quarrels in the beginning, but there was silence then, too. As I recall, she somehow kept looking at me then on the sly; when I noticed that I increased my silence. True, I was the one who insisted upon silence, and not she. On her part there were outbursts once or twice, when she would rush to embrace me; but since these outbursts were unhealthy and hysterical, and what I required was steadfast happiness, together with her respect, I received them coldly. And I was right to do so: each time the outburst was followed the next day by a quarrel.

  That is, there weren’t any quarrels, but there was silence and – and on her part a mo
re and more insolent look. ‘Rebellion and independence’ – that’s what it was, only she didn’t know how. Yes, that meek face was becoming more and more insolent. Can you believe it? I was becoming repulsive to her – I came to understand that. And there could be no doubt about these outbursts that came over her. For example, after leaving behind such filth and beggary, after scrubbing floors, how could she suddenly begin to grumble about our poverty! You see, gentlemen: it wasn’t poverty, it was economy, and where necessary there was some luxury, when it came to linens and cleanliness, for example. I had always dreamed before that cleanliness in a husband attracts a wife. However, it wasn’t poverty, but my supposed miserly economy that bothered her: ‘He has goals, he’s showing his firm character.’ She suddenly declined to go to the theatre. And there was more and more of that sardonic grin … While I intensified my silence, I intensified my silence.

  Surely there was no need to justify my actions? The main thing here was the pawnshop. Come now, sirs: I knew that a woman, especially one who was sixteen years old, couldn’t help but submit completely to a man. Women have no originality, that’s – that’s an axiom, even now it’s an axiom for me! Never mind what’s lying there in the front room: truth is truth, and even Mill13 himself can’t do anything about it! But a loving woman, oh, a loving woman idolizes even the vices, even the villainy of her beloved being. He would not seek such justifications for his villainy as she will find for him. That’s magnanimous but not original. It is this lack of originality alone that has been the undoing of women. And what, I repeat, what are you pointing to there on the table? Is there really anything original about what’s there on the table? Oh-h-h!

  Listen: I was certain of her love then. You see, she would throw herself on my neck then. That meant she loved me, or rather – she wished to love me. Yes, that’s what it was: she wished to love, she sought to love. But the main thing, you see, is that there weren’t any villainies for which she needed to find justifications. You say a ‘pawnbroker’ and that’s what everyone says. But what if I am a pawnbroker? That means there are reasons, if the most magnanimous of men became a pawnbroker. You see, gentlemen, there are ideas … that is, you see, when some ideas are said out loud, put into words, they come out terribly stupid. They come out so that you’re ashamed of them yourself. But why? For no reason at all. Because we’re all good-for-nothings and can’t bear the truth, or I don’t know why else. I said just now ‘the most magnanimous of men’. That’s ridiculous, you see, and yet that’s how it was. You see, it’s the truth, that is, it’s the most truthful truth of all! Yes, I had the right then to want to provide for myself and open this shop: ‘You, that is, you people, have spurned me, you have driven me away with your contemptuous silence. You have answered my outbursts of passion with an insult that I will feel for the rest of my life. Consequently, I now am within my rights to protect myself from you with a wall, to amass those 30,000 roubles and end my days somewhere in the Crimea,14 on the southern shore, amidst mountains and vineyards, on my own estate purchased with that 30,000, and the main thing, far away from you all, but without malice towards you, with an ideal in my soul, with my beloved woman at my heart, with a family if God should send one, and – helping out the neighbouring peasants.’ It goes without saying that it’s good that I’m telling this to myself now, but what could have been more stupid than if I had described all this out loud to her then? That was the reason behind my proud silence, and that was the reason we sat in silence. Because what would she have understood? Just sixteen years old, so very young – what could she have understood of my justifications, of my suffering? I was dealing with straightforwardness, ignorance of life, cheap, youthful convictions, the blindness of ‘beautiful hearts’, and the main thing, the pawnshop and – basta!15 (But was I a scoundrel in the pawnshop, didn’t she see how I conducted myself and did I charge more than I should?) Oh, how terrible is truth on this earth! This charming one, this meek one, this heaven – she was a tyrant, the unbearable tyrant of my soul and my tormentor! I’d be slandering myself, you see, if I didn’t say that! You think I didn’t love her? Who can say that I didn’t love her? You see: there was irony here, the malicious irony of fate and nature! We are accursed, the life of people in general is accursed! (And mine in particular!) I understand now, you see, that I made some mistake here! Something didn’t come out the way it was supposed to. Everything was clear, my plan was as clear at the sky: ‘Severe, proud, requires no moral consolation, suffers in silence.’ That’s how it was, I wasn’t lying, I wasn’t lying! ‘She’ll see for herself later on that there was magnanimity here, but she just wasn’t able to see it now – and when she does fathom it some day, she’ll appreciate it ten times more and will fall down in the dust with her hands folded in supplication.’ That was the plan. But I forgot something here or failed to take it into account. I wasn’t able to do something here. But enough, enough. And of whom can I ask forgiveness now? What’s done is done. Take courage, man, and be proud! It’s not you who are to blame! …

  Now then, I’ll tell the truth, I won’t be afraid to stand face to face with the truth: she is to blame, she is to blame! …

  V. The Meek One Rebels

  The quarrels began when she suddenly took it into her head to pay out money as she saw fit, to appraise things for more than they were worth, and a couple of times she even thought fit to enter into an argument with me on the subject. I didn’t agree. But then this captain’s widow turned up.

  An old lady, the widow of a captain, came with a locket – a present from her late husband, well, you know, a keepsake. I gave thirty roubles. She started to whine plaintively, begging me to keep the thing for her; it goes without saying that we keep it. Well, in a word, suddenly she comes five days later to exchange it for a bracelet that’s not worth even eight roubles; it goes without saying that I refused. She must have guessed then something from my wife’s eyes, but in any case she came when I wasn’t there, and my wife exchanged the locket.

  When I learned about it that very same day, I began by speaking meekly, but firmly and reasonably. She was sitting on the bed, looking at the floor, tapping the rug with the toe of her right shoe (her gesture); an unpleasant smile played on her lips. Then without raising my voice at all I announced calmly that the money was mine, that I had the right to look at life with my own eyes and that when I invited her into my house I had not concealed anything from her.

  She suddenly jumped up, suddenly began trembling all over and – what do you think – she suddenly began stamping her feet at me; this was a wild animal, this was a fit, this was a wild animal having a fit. I froze in astonishment: I had never expected such an outburst. But I didn’t become flustered, I didn’t even move a muscle, and once again in the same calm voice I declared plainly that from that time forward I refused to let her take part in my affairs. She laughed in my face and walked out of the apartment.

  The fact of the matter is that she had no right to leave the apartment. Nowhere without me, that was the agreement we made when she was still my fiancée. She returned towards evening; I didn’t say a word.

  The next day, too, she went out in the morning, and it was the same thing the following day. I locked up the shop and set off to see her aunts. I had broken off relations with them from the day of the wedding – I hadn’t invited them to visit me, we didn’t visit them. Now it turned out that she wasn’t with them. They heard me out with curiosity and laughed in my face. ‘Serves you right,’ they said. But I had expected their laughter. I then and there bribed the younger aunt, the spinster, with a hundred roubles, and gave her twenty-five in advance. Two days later she comes to me: ‘An officer,’ she says, ‘a Lieutenant Yefimovich, a former comrade of yours from the regiment, is mixed up in this.’ I was quite astonished. This Yefimovich had done me more harm than anyone else in the regiment, and a month ago he stopped by my shop a couple of times, and being the shameless fellow that he is, under the pretence of pawning something, I remember, he began laughing with my wif
e. I went up to him then and told him that, considering our relations, he should not presume to visit me; but no idea of anything like that crossed my mind, I simply thought that he was an insolent fellow. But now suddenly her auntie informs me that she had made an appointment to see him and that this whole affair is being handled by a certain former acquaintance of the aunts, Yuliya Samsonovna, a widow, and a colonel’s widow at that – ‘It’s her that your spouse goes to visit now,’ she says.

  I’ll cut this story short. This business cost me almost 300 roubles, but in two days it was arranged that I would stand in the adjoining room, behind closed doors, and listen to my wife’s first rendezvous alone with Yefimovich. Meanwhile, the previous evening a brief but for me very significant scene between myself and my wife took place.

  She returned towards evening, sat down on the bed, looked at me mockingly and thumped the rug with her foot. Suddenly, as I was looking at her, the idea flew into my head then that all this past month, or, rather, for the past two weeks, she had not been herself at all – one could even say that she had been exactly the opposite: a wild, aggressive being had made its appearance; I can’t say shameless, but disorderly and looking for trouble. Asking for trouble. Meekness, however, held her back. When a girl like that starts creating an uproar, even if she does cross the line, it’s nevertheless plain to see that she’s only hurting herself, that she’s egging herself on and that she will be the first who is unable to cope with her feelings of modesty and shame. That’s why girls like that sometimes go too far, so that you don’t believe your own eyes when you witness it. A soul accustomed to debauchery, on the contrary, always softens it, making it more vile, but in a guise of decorum and decency that claims to be superior to you.