Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (568 page)

“Leave the room, leave the room, go away!” screamed Tatyana Pavlovna, almost pushing me out.  “Don’t think anything of his abuse, Katerina Nikolaevna: I’ve told you that they sent us word that he was mad!”

“Mad?  They sent word?  Who sent you word?  No matter, enough of this, Katerina Nikolaevna!  I swear to you by all that’s sacred, this conversation and all that I’ve heard shall remain hidden. . . . Am I to blame for having learned your secrets?  Especially as I am leaving your father’s service to-morrow, so as regards the letter you are looking for, you need not worry yourself!”

“What’s that. . . .  What letter are you talking about?” asked Katerina Nikolaevna in such confusion that she turned pale, or perhaps I fancied it.  I realized that I had said too much.

I walked quickly out; they watched me go without a word, with looks of intense amazement.  I had in fact set them a riddle.

CHAPTER IX

1

I hurried home and — marvellous to relate — I was very well satisfied with myself.  That’s not the way one talks to women, of course, and to such women too — it would be truer to say such a woman, for I was not considering Tatyana Pavlovna.  Perhaps it’s out of the question to say to a woman of that class that one spits on her intrigues, but I had said that, and it was just that that I was pleased with.  Apart from anything else, I was convinced that by taking this tone I had effaced all that was ridiculous in my position.  But I had not time to think much about that: my mind was full of Kraft.  Not that the thought of him distressed me very greatly, but yet I was shaken to my inmost depths, and so much so that the ordinary human feeling of pleasure at another man’s misfortune — at his breaking his leg or covering himself with disgrace, at his losing some one dear to him, and so on — even this ordinary feeling of mean satisfaction was completely eclipsed by another absolutely single- hearted feeling, a feeling of sorrow, of compassion for Kraft — at least I don’t know whether it was compassion, but it was a strong and warm-hearted feeling.  And I was glad of this too.  It’s marvellous how many irrelevant ideas can flash through the mind at the very time when one is shattered by some tremendous piece of news, which one would have thought must overpower all other feelings and banish all extraneous thoughts, especially petty ones; yet petty ones, on the contrary, obtrude themselves.  I remember, too, that I was gradually overcome by a quite perceptible nervous shudder, which lasted several minutes, in fact all the time I was at home and talking to Versilov.

This interview followed under strange and exceptional circumstances. I had mentioned already that we lived in a separate lodge in the courtyard; this lodging was marked “No. 13.”  Before I had entered the gate I heard a woman’s voice asking loudly, with impatience and irritation, “Where is No. 13?”  The question was asked by a lady who was standing close to the gate and had opened the door of the little shop; but apparently she got no answer there, or was even repulsed, for she came down the steps, resentful and angry.

“But where is the porter?” she cried, stamping her foot.  I had already recognized the voice.

“I am going to No. 13,” I said, approaching her.  “Whom do you want?”

“I have been looking for the porter for the last hour.  I keep asking every one; I have been up all the staircases.”

“It’s in the yard.  Don’t you recognize me?”

But by now she had recognized me.

“You want Versilov; you want to see him about something, and so do I,” I went on.  “I have come to take leave of him for ever.  Come along.”

“You are his son?”

“That means nothing.  Granted, though, that I am his son, yet my name’s Dolgoruky; I am illegitimate.  This gentleman has an endless supply of illegitimate children.  When conscience and honour require it a son will leave his father’s house.  That’s in the Bible.  He has come into a fortune too, and I don’t wish to share it, and I go to live by the work of my hands.  A noble-hearted man will sacrifice life itself, if need be; Kraft has shot himself, Kraft for the sake of an idea, imagine, a young man, yet he overcame hope. . . .  This way, this way!  We live in a lodge apart.  But that’s in the Bible; children leave their parents and make homes for themselves. . . .  If the idea draws one on . . . if there is an idea!  The idea is what matters, the idea is everything. . . .”

I babbled on like this while we were making our way to the lodge.  The reader will, no doubt, observe that I don’t spare myself much, though I give myself a good character on occasion; I want to train myself to tell the truth.  Versilov was at home.  I went in without taking off my overcoat; she did the same.  Her clothes were dreadfully thin: over a wretched gown of some dark colour was hung a rag that did duty for a cloak or mantle; on her head she wore an old and frayed sailor-hat, which was very unbecoming.  When we went into the room my mother was sitting at her usual place at work, and my sister came out of her room to see who it was, and was standing in the doorway.  Versilov, as usual, was doing nothing, and he got up to meet us.  He looked at me intently with a stern and inquiring gaze.

“It’s nothing to do with me,” I hastened to explain, and I stood on one side.  “I only met this person at the gate; she was trying to find you and no one could direct her.  I have come about my own business, which I shall be delighted to explain afterwards. . . .”

Versilov nevertheless still scrutinized me curiously.

“Excuse me,” the girl began impatiently.  Versilov turned towards her.

“I have been wondering a long while what induced you to leave money for me yesterday. . . .  I . . . in short . . . here’s your money!” she almost shrieked, as she had before, and flung a bundle of notes on the table.  “I’ve had to hunt for you through the address bureau, or I should have brought it before.  Listen, you!”  She suddenly addressed my mother, who had turned quite pale.  “I don’t want to insult you; you look honest, and perhaps this is actually your daughter.  I don’t know whether you are his wife, but let me tell you that this gentleman gets hold of the advertisements on which teachers and governesses have spent their last farthing and visits these luckless wretches with dishonourable motives, trying to lure them to ruin by money.  I don’t understand how I could have taken his money yesterday: he looked so honest. . . .  Get away, don’t say a word!  You are a villain, sir!  Even if you had honourable intentions I don’t want your charity.  Not a word, not a word!  Oh, how glad I am that I have unmasked you now before your women!  Curse you!”

She ran to the door, but turned for one instant in the doorway to shout.

“You’ve come into a fortune, I’m told.”

With that she vanished like a shadow.  I repeat again, it was frenzy.  Versilov was greatly astonished; he stood as though pondering and reflecting on something.  At last he turned suddenly to me:

“You don’t know her at all?”

“I happened to see her this morning when she was raging in the passage at Vassin’s; she was screaming and cursing you.  But I did not speak to her and I know nothing about it, and just now I met her at the gate.  No doubt she is that teacher you spoke of yesterday, who also gives lessons in arithmetic.”

“Yes, she is.  For once in my life I did a good deed and. . . .  But what’s the matter with you?”

“Here is this letter,” I answered.  “I don’t think explanation necessary: it comes from Kraft, and he got it from Andronikov.  You will understand what’s in it.  I will add that no one but me in the whole world knows about that letter, for Kraft, who gave me that letter yesterday just as I was leaving him, has shot himself.”

While I was speaking with breathless haste he took the letter and, holding it lightly poised in his left hand, watched me attentively.  When I told him of Kraft’s suicide I looked at him with particular attention to see the effect.  And what did I see?  The news did not make the slightest impression on him.  If he had even raised an eyebrow!  On the contrary, seeing that I had paused, he drew out his eyeglasses, which he always had about him hanging on a black ribbon, carried the letter to the candle and, glancing at the signature, began carefully examining it.  I can’t express how mortified I was at this supercilious callousness.  He must have known Kraft very well: it was, in any case, such an extraordinary piece of news!  Besides, I naturally desired it to produce an effect.  Knowing that the letter was long, I turned, after waiting, and went out.  My trunk had been packed long ago, I had only to stuff a few things into my bag.  I thought of my mother and that I had not gone up to speak to her.  Ten minutes later, when I had finished my preparations and was meaning to go for a cab, my sister walked into my attic.

“Here are your sixty roubles; mother sends it and begs you again to forgive her for having mentioned it to Andrey Petrovitch.  And here’s twenty roubles besides.  You gave her fifty yesterday for your board; mother says she can’t take more than thirty from you because you haven’t cost fifty, and she sends you twenty roubles back.”

“Well, thanks, if she is telling the truth.  Good-bye, sister, I’m going.”

“Where are you going now?”

“For the time being to an hotel, to escape spending the night in this house.  Tell mother that I love her.”

“She knows that.  She knows that you love Andrey Petrovitch too.  I wonder you are not ashamed of having brought that wretched girl here!”

“I swear I did not; I met her at the gate.”

“No, it was your doing.”

“I assure you. . . .”

“Think a little, ask yourself, and you will see that you were the cause.”

“I was only very pleased that Versilov should be put to shame.  Imagine, he had a baby by Lidya Ahmakov . . . but what am I telling you!”

“He?  A baby?  But it is not his child!  From whom have you heard such a falsehood?”

“Why, you can know nothing about it.”

“Me know nothing about it?  But I used to nurse the baby in Luga.  Listen, brother: I’ve seen for a long time past that you know nothing about anything, and meanwhile you wound Andrey Petrovitch — and . . . mother too.”

“If he is right, then I shall be to blame.  That’s all, and I love you no less for it.  What makes you flush like that, sister?  And more still now!  Well, never mind, anyway, I shall challenge that little prince for the slap he gave Versilov at Ems.  If Versilov was in the right as regards Mlle. Ahmakov, so much the better.”

“Brother, what are you thinking of?”

“Luckily, the lawsuit’s over now. . . .  Well, now she has turned white!”

“But the prince won’t fight you,” said Liza, looking at me with a wan smile in spite of her alarm.

“Then I will put him to shame in public.  What’s the matter with you, Liza?”

She had turned so pale that she could not stand, and sank on to my sofa.

“Liza,” my mother’s voice called from below.

She recovered herself and stood up; she smiled at me affectionately.

“Brother, drop this foolishness, or put it off for a time till you know about ever so many things: it’s awful how little you understand.”

“I shall remember, Liza, that you turned pale when you heard I was going to fight a duel.”

“Yes, yes, remember that too!” she said, smiling once more at parting, and she went downstairs.

I called a cab, and with the help of the man I hauled my things out of the lodge.  No one in the house stopped me or opposed my going.  I did not go in to say good-bye to my mother as I did not want to meet Versilov again.  When I was sitting in the cab a thought flashed upon me:

“To Fontanka by Semyonovsky Bridge,” I told the man, and went back to Vassin’s.

2

It suddenly struck me that Vassin would know already about Kraft, and perhaps know a hundred times more than I did; and so it proved to be.  Vassin immediately informed me of all the facts with great precision but with no great warmth; I concluded that he was very tired, and so indeed he was.  He had been at Kraft’s himself in the morning.  Kraft had shot himself with a revolver (that same revolver) after dark, as was shown by his diary.  The last entry in the diary was made just before the fatal shot, and in it he mentioned that he was writing almost in the dark and hardly able to distinguish the letters, that he did not want to light a candle for fear that it should set fire to something when he was dead.  “And I don’t want to light it and then, before shooting, put it out like my life,” he added strangely, almost the last words.  This diary he had begun three days before his death, immediately on his return to Petersburg, before his visit to Dergatchev’s.  After I had gone away he had written something in it every quarter of an hour; the last three or four entries were made at intervals of five minutes.  I expressed aloud my surprise that though Vassin had had this diary so long in his hands (it had been given him to read), he had not made a copy of it, especially as it was not more than a sheet or so and all the entries were short.  “You might at least have copied the last page!”  Vassin observed with a smile that he remembered it as it was; moreover, that the entries were quite disconnected, about anything that came into his mind.  I was about to protest that this was just what was precious in this case, but without going into that I began instead to insist on his recalling some of it, and he did recall a few sentences — for instance, an hour before he shot himself, “That he was chilly,”

“That he thought of drinking a glass of wine to warm himself, but had been deterred by the idea that it might cause an increase in the flow of blood.”  “It was almost all that sort of thing,” Vassin remarked in conclusion.

“And you call that nonsense!” I cried.

“And when did I call it nonsense?  I simply did not copy it.  But though it’s not nonsense, the diary certainly is somewhat ordinary, or rather, natural — that is, it’s just what it’s bound to be in such circumstances. . . .”

“But the last thoughts, the last thoughts!”

“The last thoughts sometimes are extremely insignificant.  One such suicide complained, in fact, in a similar diary that not one lofty idea visited him at that important hour, nothing but futile and petty thoughts.”

“And that he was chilly, was that too a futile thought?”