Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (114 page)

“Foma Fomitch, my dear man, what notion is this?” cried Madame la Générale in despair, almost swooning with horror.

“Well, that is enough, I think,” Foma concluded, paying no attention even to Madame la Generale. “Now to lesser things; they may be small, but they are essential, Yegor Ilyitch. Your hay on the Harinsky waste has not been cut yet. Do not bo too late with it: mow it and mow it quickly. That is my advice. ...”

“But, Foma . . .”

“You meant to cut down the Zyryanovsky copse, I know; don’t cut it — that’s a second piece of advice. Preserve forest land, for trees retain humidity on the surface of the earth. It is a pity that you have sown the spring corn so late; it’s amazing how late you have been in sowing the spring corn! . . .”

“But, Foma . . .”

“But enough! One cannot convey everything, and indeed there is not time I will send you written instructions in a special book. Well, good-bye, good-bye all, God be with you, and the Lord bless you. I bless you too, my child,” he went on, turning to Ilyusha; “and may God keep you from the noxious poison of your passions. I bless you too, Falaley; forget the Komarinsky! . . . And all of you. . . . Remember Foma. . . . Well, let us go, Gavrila! Come and help me in, old man.”

And Foma turned towards the door. Madame la Générale gave a piercing shriek and flew after him.

“No, Foma, I will not let you go like this,” cried my uncle, and overtaking him, he seized him by the hand.

“So you mean to have resort to force?” Foma asked haughtily.

“Yes, Foma. . . even to force,” answered my uncle, quivering with emotion. “You have said too much, and must explain your words! You have misunderstood my letter, Foma! . . .”

“Your letter!” squealed Foma, instantly flaring up as though he had been awaiting that minute for an explosion; “your letter! Here it is, your letter! Here it is. I tear this letter, I spit upon it! I trample your letter under my foot, and in doing so fulfil the most sacred duty of humanity. That is what I will do if you compel me by force to an explanation! Look! Look! Look!”

And scraps of paper flew about the room.

“I repeat, Foma, you have misunderstood it,” cried my uncle, turning paler and paler. “I am making an offer of marriage, Foma, I am seeking my happiness.”

“Marriage! You have seduced this young girl, and are trying to deceive me by offering her marriage, for I saw you with her last night in the garden, under the bushes.”

Madame la Generate uttered a scream and fell fainting into an arm-chair. A fearful hubbub arose. Poor Nastenka sat deathly pale. Sasha, frightened, clutched Ilyusha and trembled as though she were in a fever.

“Foma!” cried my uncle in a frenzy, “if you divulge that secret you are guilty of the meanest action on earth!”

“I do divulge that secret,” squealed Foma, “and I am performing the most honourable action! I am sent by God Himself to unmask your villainies to all the world. I am ready to clamber on some peasant’s thatched roof and from there to proclaim your vile conduct to all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood and all the passers-by. . . . Yes, let me tell you all, all of you, that yesterday in the night I found him in the garden, under the bushes with this young girl whose appearance is so innocent. ...”

“Oh, what a disgrace!” piped Miss Perepelitsyn.

“Foma! Don’t be your own destruction!” cried my uncle, with clenched fists and flashing eyes.

“He,” squealed Foma, “he, alarmed at my having seen him, had the audacity to try with a lying letter to persuade me into conniving at his crime — yes, crime! ... for you have turned a hitherto innocent young girl into a . . .”

“Another insulting word to her and I will kill you, Foma, I swear! ...”

“I say that word, since you have succeeded in turning the most innocent young girl into a most depraved girl.”

Foma had hardly uttered this last word when my uncle seized him by the shoulder, turned him round like a straw, and flung him violently at the glass door, which led from the study into the courtyard. The shock was so violent that the closed door burst open, and Foma, flying head over heels down the stone steps, fell full length in the yard. Bits of broken glass wero scattered tinkling about the steps.

“Gavrila, pick him up!” cried my uncle, as pale as a corpse. “Put him in the cart, and within two minutes let there be no trace of him in Stepantchikovo!”

Whatever Foma’s design may have been, he certainly had not expected such a climax.

I will not undertake to describe what happened for the first minutes after this episode. The heart-rending wail of Madame la Générale as she rolled from side to side in an arm-chair; the stupefaction of Miss Perepelitsyn at this unexpected behaviour of my hitherto submissive uncle; the sighs and groans of the lady companions; Nastenka almost fainting with fright while her father hovered over her; Sashenka terror-stricken; my uncle in indescribable excitement pacing up and down the room waiting for his mother to come to herself; and lastly, the loud weeping of Falaley in lamentation over the troubles of his betters — all this made up an indescribable picture. I must add, too, that at this moment a violent storm broke over us; peals of thunder were more and more frequent, and big drops of rain began pattering on the window.

“Here’s a nice holiday!” muttered Mr. Bahtcheyev, bowing his head and flinging wide his arms.

“It’s a bad business,” I whispered to him, beside myself with excitement too. “But anyway they have turned Foma out, and he won’t come back again.”

“Mamma! Are you conscious? Are you better? Can you listen to me at last?” asked my uncle, stopping before the old lady’s arm-chair.

She raised her head, clasped her hands, and looked with imploring eyes at her son, whom she had never in her life before seen moved to such wrath.

“Mamma,” he went on, “it was the last straw, you have seen for yourself. It was not like this that I meant to approach this subject, but the hour has come, and it is useless to put it off. You have heard the calumny, hear my defence. Mamma, I love this noble and high-minded girl, I have loved her a long while, and I shall never cease to love her. She will make the happiness of my children, and will be a dutiful daughter to you. And so now, before you, and in the presence of my friends and my family, I solemnly plead at her feet, and beseech her to do me infinite honour by consenting to be my wife.”

Nastenka started, then flushed crimson all over and got up from her seat. Madame la Générale stared some time at her son as though she did not understand what he was saying to her, and all at once with a piercing wail flung herself on her knees.

“Yegorushka, my darling, bring Foma Fomitch back,” she cried. “Bring him back at once, or without him I shall die before night.”

My uncle was petrified at the sight of his self-willed and capricious old mother kneeling before him. His painful distress was reflected in his face. At last, recovering himself, he flew to raise her up and put her back in her chair.

“Bring Foma Fomitch back, Yegorushka,” the old lady went on wailing. “Bring him back darling! I cannot live without him!”

“Mamma,” my uncle cried sorrowfully, “have you heard nothing of what I have just said to you? I cannot bring Foma back — understand that. I cannot and I have not the right to after his low and scoundrelly slander on this angel of honour and virtue. Do you understand, mamma, that it is my duty, that my honour compels me now to defend virtue? You have heard: I am asking this young lady to be my wife, and I beg you to bless our union.”

Madame la Generate got up from her seat again and fell on her knees before Nastenka.

“My dear girl!” she wailed, “do not marry him. Do not marry him, but entreat him, my dear, to fetch back Foma Fomitch. Nastasya Yevgrafovna, darling! I will give up every-

thing, I will sacrifice everything if only you will not marry him. Old as I am, I have not spent everything, I had a little left me when my poor husband died. It’s all yours, my dear, I will give you everything, and Yegorushka will give you something too, but do not lay me living in my grave, beg him to bring back Foma Fomitch.”

And the old woman would have gone on wailing and diiveiling if Miss Perepelitsyn and all the lady companions nad not, with shrieks and moans, rushed to lift her up, indignant that she should be on her knees before a hired governess. Nastenka was so frightened that she could hardly stand, while Miss Perepelitsyn positively shed tears of fury.

“You will be the death of your mamma,” she screamed at my uncle. “You will be the death of her. And you, Nastasva Yevgrafovna, ought not to make dissension between mother and son; the Lord has forbidden it. . . .”

“Anna Nilovna, hold your tongue!” cried my uncle. “I have put up with enough!”

“Yes, and I have had enough to put up with from you too. Why do you reproach me with my friendless position? It is easy to insult the friendless. I am not your slave yet. I am the daughter of a major myself. You won’t see me long in your house, this very day ... I

But my uncle did not hear her; he went up to Nastenka and with reverence took her by the hand.

“Nastasya Yevgrafovna! You have heard my offer?” he said, looking at her with anguish, almost with despair.

“No, Yegor Ilyitch, no! We had better give it up,” said Nastenka, utterly dejected too. “It is all nonsense,” she said, pressing his hand and bursting into tears. “You only say this because of yesterday . . . but it cannot be. You see that yourself. We have made a mistake, Yegor Ilyitch. . . . But I shall always think of you as my benefactor and ... I shall pray for you always, always! ...”

At this point tears choked her. “My poor uncle had evidently foreseen this answer; he did not even think of protecting, ot insisting. He listened, bending down to her, still holding her hand, crushed and speechless There were tears in his eyes.

“I told you yesterday,” Nastya went on, “that I could not be your wife. You see that I am not wanted here . . . and I foresaw all this long ago; your mamma will not give vou her blessing . . . others too. Though you would not regret it afterwards, because you are the most generous of men, yet you would be made miserable through me . . . with your soft-heartedness. ...”

“Just because of your soft-heartedness! Just because you are so soft-hearted! That’s it, Nastenka, that’s it!” chimed in her old father, who was standing on the other side of her chair. “That’s just it, that’s just the right word.”

“I don’t want to bring dissension into your house on my account,” Nastenka went on. “And don’t be uneasy about me, Yegor Ilyitch; no one will interfere with me, no one will insult me ... I am going to my father’s . . . this very day. . . . We had better say good-bye, Yegor Ilyitch, . . .”

And poor Nastenka dissolved into tears again.

“Nastasya Yevgrafovna! Surely this not not your final answer!” said my uncle, looking at her in unutterable despair. “Say only one word and I will sacrifice everything for you! . . .”

“It is final, it is final, Yegor Ilyitch . . .” Yezhevikin put in again, “and she has explained it all very well to you, as I must own I did not expect her to. You are a very soft-hearted man, Yegor Ilyitch, yes, very soft-hearted, and you have graciously done us a great honour! A great honour, a great honour! . . . But all the same we are not a match for you, Yegor Ilyitch. You ought to have a bride, Yegor Ilyitch, who would be wealthy and of high rank, and a great beauty and with a voice too, who would walk about your rooms all in diamonds and ostrich feathers. . . . Then perhaps Foma Fomitch would make a little concession and give his blessing! And you will bring Foma Fomitch back! It was no use, no use your insulting him. It was from virtue, you know, from excess of fervour that he said too much, you know. You will say yourself that it was through his virtue — you will see! A most worthy man. And here he is getting wet through now. It would be better to fetch him back now. . . . For you will have to fetch him back, you know. . . .”

“Fetch him back, fetch him back!” shrieked Madame la Generale. “What he says is right, my dear! . . .”

“Yes,” Yezhevikin went on. “Here youi* illustrious parent has upset herself about nothing. . . . Fetch him back! And Nastaya and I meanwhile will be on the march. . . .”

“Wait a minute, Yevgraf Larionitch!” cried my uncle, “I entreat you. There is one thing more must be said, Yevgraf, one thing only. . . .”

Saying this, he walked away, sat down in an arm-chair in the corner, bowed his head, and put his hands over his eyes as though he were thinking over something.

At that moment a violent clap of thunder sounded almost directly over the house. The whole building shook. Madame la Generate gave a scream, Miss Perepelitsyn did the same, the lady companions, and with them Mr. Bahtcheyev, all stupefied with terror, crossed themselves.

“Holy Saint, Elijah the prophetI” five or six voices murmured at once.

The thunder was followed by such a downpour that it seemed as though the whole lake were suddenly being emptied upon Stepantchikovo.

“And Foma Fomitch, what will become of him now out in the fields?” piped Miss Pcrepelitsyn.

“Yegorushka, fetch him back!” Madame la Générale cried in a voice of despair, and she rushed to the door as though crazy. Her attendant ladies held her back; they surrounded her, comforted her, whimpered, squealed. It was a perfect Bedlam!

“He went off with nothing over his coat. If he had only taken an overcoat with him!” Miss Perepelitsyn went on. “He did not take an umbrella either. He will be struck by lightning! . . .”

“He will certainly be struck!” Bahtchcycv chimed in. “And he will be soaked with rain afterwards, too.”

“You might hold you tongue!” I whispered to him.

“Why, he is a man, I suppose, or isn’t he?” Bahtcheyev answered wrathfully. “He is not a dog. I bet you wouldn’t go out of doors yourself. Come, go and have a bath for your plaisir.”

Foreseeing how it might end and dreading the possibility, I went up to my uncle, who sat as though chained to his chair.

“Uncle,” I said, bending down to his ear, “surely you won’t consent to bring Foma Fomitch back? Do understand that that would be the height of unseemliness, at any rate as long as Nastasya Yevgrafovna is here.”