Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (102 page)

“What!” cried Foma. “Slave! Lout! Hamlet! He dares to be rude to me! He, he, a rag to wipe my boots! He dares to call me a fury!”

I slipped forward with unusual determination.

“I must confess that in this affair I am completely of Gavrila’s opinion,” I said, looking Foma Fomitch straight in the face and trembling with excitement.

He was so taken aback by this onslaught that for the first minute he seemed unable to believe his ears.

“What’s this now?” he cried out at last, pouncing upon me in a frenzy, and fixing his little bloodshot eyes upon me. “Why, who are you?”

“Foma Fomitch ..,” my uncle, utterly distracted, began, “this is Seryozha, my nephew. . . .”

“The learned gentleman!” yelled Foma. “So he’s the learned gentleman! Liberie — egahte — fratermte. Journal des Debuts! No, my friend, you won’t take me in! I am not such a fool. This isn’t Petersburg, you won’t impose upon us. And I spit on your des Debats. You have your des Debats, but to us that’s all fiddlesticks, young man! Learned! You know as much as I have forgotten seven times over. So much for your learning!”

If they had not held him back I believe he would have fallen upon me with his fists.

“Why, he is drunk,” I said, looking about me in bewilderment.

“Who, I?” cried Foma, in a voice unlike his own.

“Yes, you!”

“Drunk?”

“Yes, drunk.”

This was more than Foma could endure. He uttered a screech as though he were being murdered and rushed out of the room. Madame la Générale seemed desirous of falling into a swoon, but reflected that it would be better to run after Foma Fomitch. She was followed by all the others, and last of all by my uncle. When I recovered myself and looked round I saw in the room no one but Yezhevikin. He was smiling and rubbing his hands.

“You promised just now to tell me about the Jesuits,” he said in an insinuating voice.

“What?” I asked, not understanding what he was talking about.

“About the Jesuits, you promised just now to tell me . . . some little anecdote. ...”

I ran out into the veranda and from there into the garden. My head was going round. . . .

CHAPTER VIII

A DECLARATION OF LOVE

I WANDERED about the garden for about a quarter of an hour, feeling irritated and extremely dissatisfied with myself, and deliberating what I should do now. The sun was setting. Suddenly at a tuining into a dark avenue I met Nastenka face to face. She had tears in her eyes, in her hand a handkerchief with which she was wiping them.

“I was looking for you,” she said.

“And I for you,” I answered. “Tell me, am I in a madhouse?”

“Certainly not in a madhouse,” she answered resentfully, with an intent glance at me.

“Well, if that’s so, what’s the meaning of it all? For Christ’s sake give me some advice. Where has my uncle gone now? Can I go to him? I am very glad that I have met you; perhaps you will be able to suggest what I ought to do.”

“No, better not go to him. I have just come away from them.”

“Why, where are they?”

“Who knows? Perhaps by now they have run into the kitchen garden again,” she said irritably.

“Into the kitchen garden!”

“Why, last week, Foma Fomitch began shouting that he wouldn’t stay in the house, and all at once he ran into tho kitchen garden, found a spade in the shed and began digging the beds. We were all amazed, and wondered whether he hadn’t gone out of his mind. That I may not be reproached for doing nothing for my keep,’ said he, ‘here I will dig and pay for the bread I have eaten, and then I will go away. That’s what you have driven me to.’ And then they all began crying and almost falling on their knees before him; they took the spade away from him; but he would go on digging; he dug up all the turnips, that was all he did. They humoured him once, he may do it again. That would be just like him.”

“And you . . . you tell that with such coolness!” I cried out, with intense indignation.

She looked at me with flashing eyes.

“Forgive me, I really don’t know what I am saying! Listen! do you know what I’ve come here for?”

“N-no,” she answered, flushing crimson, and some painful feeling was reflected in her charming face.

“You must excuse me,” I went on. “I am upset, I feel that this is not how I ought to have begun speaking of this . . . especially with you. . . . But never mind! To my thinking, openness in such matters is best. I confess . . . that is, I meant to say . . . you know my uncle’s design? He has told me to ask for your hand. ...”

“Oh, what nonsense! don’t speak of it, please,” she said, hurriedly interrupting me and flushing crimson.

I was disconcerted.

“How nonsense? But he wrote to me, you see.”

“So he wrote to you?” she asked eagerly. “Oh, what a man! How he promised that he would not write! What nonsense! Good heavens, what nonsense!”

“Forgive me,” I muttered, not knowing what to say. “Perhaps I have acted incautiously, crudely . . . but, you see, it’s such a moment! Only think, goodness knows what’s going on around us. . . .”

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t apologise! Believe me that it is painful for me to hear this apart from that, and yet, do you know, I wanted to speak to you myself, to find out something. . . . Oh, how vexatious! So he really wrote to you? That’s what I was most afraid of! My God, what a man he is! And you believed him and galloped here full speed? Well, that’s the last straw!”

She did not conceal her annoyance. My position was not an attractive one.

“I must confess I did not expect ...” I blurted out in the utmost confusion, “such a turn ... I expected, on the contrary . . .”

“Ah, so that’s what you expected? ..,” she brought out with light irony, biting her lip. “And do you know, you must show me the letter he wrote.”

“Very good.”

“And please don’t be angry with me, don’t be offended; I have trouble enough without that!” she said in an imploring voice, though a mocking smile faintly gleamed on her pretty hps.

“Oh, please don’t take me for a fool,” I cried hotly. “But perhaps you are prejudiced against me, perhaps someone has spoken against me? Perhaps you say this because I put my foot in it just now? But that is nothing, I assure you. I know what a fool I must look to you now. Don’t laugh at me, please! I don’t know what I am saying, and it is all because I am twenty-two, damn it.”

“Oh, mercy on us, why?”

“You ask why? Anyone who is twenty-two, you know, has it written in his face; as I had, for instance, when I bounced out just now in the middle of the room, or as when I stand before you now. . . . It’s a damnable age!”

“Oh, no, no!” answered Nastenka, hardly able to restrain her laughter. “I am sure that you are kind and nice and clever, and I say that sincerely, I do really! But . . . you are only very vain. You may get over that in time.”

“I fancy I am only as vain as I ought to be.”

“Oh, no. Think how embarrassed you were just now, and what for? Because you stumbled as you came in! ... What right had you to turn into ridicule your good generous uncle who has done you so much kindness? Why did you try to turn the laugh against him when you were laughable yourself? That was horrid, shameful I It does not do you credit, and I must own I disliked you very much at that minute, so there!”

“That’s true! I was a blockhead! more than that — I did a mean thing! You noticed it, and that is my punishment. Abuse me, laugh at me, but listen; perhaps you will change your opinion of me in the end,” I added, carried away by a strange feeling. “You know so little of me as yet; afterwards when you know more of me, then . . . perhaps ...”

“For God’s sake let us stop this conversation!” cried Nastenka, with visible impatience.

“Very well, very well, let us stop! But . . . where can I see you?”

“Where can you see me?”

“Why, you know, this cannot be the last word we have to say to each other, Nastasya Yevgrafovna! For God’s sake, let me meet you again to-day, for instance. But it’s already getting dark. So if it is anyhow possible let it be to-morrow early, I will ask to be called earlier on purpose. You know there’s an arbour over there by the pond. You see, I remember it, I know the way. I used to stay here when I was little.”

“Meet you! What for? Why, we are talking now.”

“But I know nothing yet, Nastasya Yevgrafovna, I will first find out everything from my uncle. Why, he is bound to tell me everything now. And then, perhaps, I shall have something very important to tell you. ...”

“No, no! You mustn’t, you mustn’t!” cried Nastenka. “Let us end it all at once now, so that we may never think of it again. And don’t go to that arbour for nothing; I assure you I shall not go. And please put all this nonsense out of your head — I beg you in earnest. ...”

“So then uncle has behaved like a madman to me!” I cried in an excess of insufferable vexation. “Why did he send for me? But listen, what is that noise?”

We were close to the house; from the open windows came the sounds of shrieking and extraordinary outcries.

“My God!” she said, turning pale, “again! I foresaw it would be so!”

“You foresaw it? Nastasya Yevgrafovna, one more question. Of course I have not the least right to do so, but I venture to put this last question to you for the good of us all. Tell me —

and I will keep it secret to the grave — tell me frankly: is my uncle in love with you or not?”

“Oh! Please, please put that nonsense out of your head once for all,” she cried, flushing crimson with anger. “And you, too! If he were in love with me, he wouldn’t have wanted to have married me to you,” she added with a bitter smile. “And what put that idea into your head? Don’t you know what the trouble’s about? Do you hear those shouts?”

“But. . . . It’s Foma Fomitch. . . .”

“Yes, of course it is Foma Fomitch; but now the trouble is over me because they are saying the same thing as you, the same senseless thing; they, too, suspect that he is in love with me. And as I am poor and of no consequence, and as it costs nothing to throw dirt on me and they want to marry him to someone else, they are insisting that he should send me home to my father to make things sure. And when they talk to’him of that he flies into a rage at once; he’s ready to tear Foma Fomitch to pieces even. They are quarrelling about that now; I feel that it is about that.”

“So that’s the truth! So he really is going to marry that Tatyana, then.”

“That Tatyana?”

“Yes, that silly fool!”

“Not a silly fool at all! She is good; you have no right to talk like that! She has a noble heart, nobler than many other people. It’s not her fault that she is unfortunate.”

“Forgive me. Supposing you are quite right about that, yet aren’t you mistaken about the chief point? Tell me, how is it, then, that they make your father welcome, as I noticed? Why, if they were so set against you as you say and were turning you out, they would be angry with him too, and would give him a cold welcome.”

“Why, don’t you see what my father is doing for my sake? He is playing the fool before them! He is received just because he has succeeded in ingratiating himself with Foma Fomitch; and as Foma Fomitch was a buffoon himself, you see it flatters him to have buffoons about him now. For whose sake do you suppose my father does it? He does it for me, only for me. He wants nothing; he wouldn’t bow down to anyone for himself. He may be very absurd in some people’s eyes, but he is a noble man, the noblest of men! He thinks — goodness knows why, and certainly not because I get a good salary here, I assure you — he thinks that it is best for me to stay here in this house;

but now I have quite brought him round. I wrote to him firmly. He has come on purpose to take me; and if it comes to extremes, to-morrow. For things have got beyond everything; they are ready to tear me to pieces, and I am certain that they are quarrelling about me now. They are at him, on my account, they will be the death of him! And he is like a father to me — do you hear? more even than my own father. I won’t stay to see it. I know more than other people. To-morrow, to-morrow I am going! Who knows: perhaps that will make them put off, if only for a time, his marriage to Tatyana Ivanovna. . . . Here I have told you all about it now. Tell him this, because I can’t speak to him now; we arc watched, especially by that Perepelitsyn woman. Tell him not to worry about me, tell him I would rather eat black bread and live in my father’s hut than be the cause of his sufferings here. I am a poor girl, and I ought to live like a poor girl. But, my God, what an uproar! What shouting! What is happening? Yes, come what may I shall go in! I will tell them all this straight to their faces myself, whatever happens! I ought to do it! Good-bye.”

She ran away. I remained standing on the same spot, fully conscious of the absurdity of the part it had just been my lot to play, and completely puzzled to think how it would all be settled. I was sorry for the poor girl, and I was afraid for my uncle. All at once I found Gavrila at my side; he was still holding the exercise book in his hand.

“Please come to your uncle,” he said in a dejected voice.

I pulled myself together.

“To my uncle? Where is he? What’s happening to him now?”

“In the tea-room. Where your honour had tea this afternoon.”

“Who is with him?”

“His honour’s alone. He is waiting.”

‘‘For whom? For me?”

“He has sent for Foma Fomitch. Happy days have come for us,” he added, with a deep sigh.

“Foma Fomitch? H’m! Where are the others? Where’s your mistress?”

“In her own apartments. Her honour’s fallen into a swoon, and now she is lying unconscious and crying.”

Conversing in this way, we reached the veranda. It was almost completely dark outside. My uncle really was alone in the very room in which my encounter with Foma Fomitch had taken place, and he was striding up and down it. There were lighted candles on the tables. He was pale and breathing hard; his hands were trembling, and from time to time a nervous shudder ran over his whole frame.

CHAPTER IX

YOUR EXCELLENCY