Читать книгу Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Complete Novels & Stories (Wisehouse Classics) - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Страница 86

Part 2

Chapter 1 — The Pursuit

I slept soundly without dreaming. Suddenly I felt as though a load of some hundredweights was lying on my feet. I cried out and woke up. It was daylight; the sun was peeping brightly into the room. On my bed, or rather on my feet, was sitting Mr. Bahtcheyev.

It was impossible to doubt that it was he. Managing somehow to release my legs, I sat up in bed and looked at him with the blank amazement of a man just awake.

“And now he is looking about him,” cried the fat man. “Why are you staring at me? Get up, sir, get up. I have been waking you for the last half-hour; rub away at your eyes!”

“Why, what has happened? What’s the time?”

“It’s still early by the clock, but our Fevronya did not wait for dawn, but has given us the slip. Get up, we are going in pursuit!”

“What Fevronya?”

“Why, our young lady, the crazy one! She has given us the slip! She was off before dawn. I came to you, sir, only for a minute, to wake you, and here I have been busy with you a couple of hours. Get up, your uncle’s waiting for you. They waited for the festive day!” he added, with a malignant quiver in his voice.

“But whom and what are you talking about?” I asked impatiently, though I was beginning to guess. “Surely not Tatyana Ivanovna?”

“To be sure. She it is. I said so, I foretold it; they wouldn’t listen to me. A nice treat she has given us for the festive day now! She is mad on amour, and has amour on the brain. Tfoo! And that fellow, what do you say to that fellow? With his little beard, eh?”

“Can you mean Mizintchikov?”

“Tfoo, plague take it! Why, my dear sir, you had better rub your eyes and pull yourself together—if only for the great holy festive day. You must have had a great deal too much at supper last night if you are still hazy this morning! With Mizintchikov! It’s with Obnoskin, not Mizintchikov. Ivan Ivanovitch Mizintchikov is a moral young man and he is coming with us in pursuit.”

“What are you saying?” I cried, jumping up in bed. “Is it really with Obnoskin?”

“Tfoo, you annoying person!” answered the fat man, leaping up from his seat. “I come to him as to a man of culture to inform him of what has happened, and he still doubts it. Well, sir, if you want to come with us, get up, shoot into your breeches. It’s no good my spending more words on you; I’ve wasted golden time on you as it is.”

And he went out in extreme indignation.

Amazed by the news, I jumped out of bed, hurriedly dressed, and ran downstairs. Thinking to find my uncle in the house, where everyone still seemed asleep and knowing nothing of what had happened, I cautiously mounted the front steps, and in the hall I met Nastenka. She seemed to have dressed hurriedly in some sort of peignoir or schlafrock. Her hair was in disorder; it was evident that she had only just jumped out of bed, and she seemed to be waiting for someone in the hall.

“Tell me, is it true that Tatyana Ivanovna has run away with Obnoskin?” she asked hurriedly in a breaking voice, looking pale and frightened.

“I am told it is true. I am looking for my uncle, we want to go after them.”

“Oh, bring her back, make haste and bring her back. She will be ruined if you don’t fetch her back.”

“But where is uncle?”

“Most likely in the stable; they are getting the carriage out. I have been waiting for him here. Listen: tell him from me that I must go home to-day; I have quite made up my mind. My father will take me; I shall go at once if I can. Everything is hopeless now. All is lost!”

Saying this, she looked at me as though she were utterly lost, and suddenly dissolved into tears. I think she began to be hysterical.

“Calm yourself,” I besought her. “Why, it’s all for the best —you will see. What is the matter with you, Nastasya Yevgrafovna?”

“I... I don’t know... what is the matter with me,” she said, sighing and unconsciously squeezing my hands. “Tell him...”

At that instant there was a sound from the other side of the door on the right.

She let go of my hand and, panic-stricken, ran away upstairs without finishing her sentence.

I found the whole party—that is, my uncle, Bahtcheyev, and Mizintchikov—in the back yard by the stable. Fresh horses had been harnessed in Bahtcheyev’s carriage. Everything was ready for setting off; they were only waiting for me.

“Here he is!” cried my uncle on my appearance. “Have you heard, my boy?” he asked, with a peculiar expression on his face.

Alarm, perplexity, and, at the same time, hope were expressed in his looks, in his voice and in his movements. He was conscious that a momentous crisis had come in his life.

I was immediately initiated into all the details of the case. Mr. Bahtcheyev, who had spent a very bad night, left his house at dawn to reach the monastery five miles away in time for early mass. Just at the turning from the high road to the monastery he suddenly saw a chaise dashing along at full trot, and in the chaise Tatyana Ivanovna and Obnoskin. Tatyana Ivanovna, with a tear-stained and as it seemed frightened face, uttered a shriek and stretched out her hands to Mr. Bahtcheyev as though imploring his protection—so at least it appeared from his story; “while he, the scoundrel, with the little beard,” he went on, “sits more dead than alive and tries to hide himself. But you are wrong there, my fine fellow, you can’t hide yourself.” Without stopping, Stepan Alexyevitch turned back to the road and galloped to Stepantchikovo and woke my uncle, Mizintchikov, and finally me. They decided to set off at once in pursuit.

“Obnoskin, Obnoskin,” said my uncle, looking intently at me, looking at me as though he would like to say something else as well. “Who would have thought it?”

“Any dirty trick might have been expected of that low fellow!” cried Mizintchikov with the most vigorous indignation, and at once turned away to avoid my eye.

“What are we going to do, go or not? Or are we going to stand here till night babbling!” interposed Mr. Bahtcheyev as he clambered into the carriage.

“We are going, we are going,” cried my uncle.

“It’s all for the best, uncle,” I whispered to him. “You see how splendidly it has all turned out?”

“Hush, my boy, don’t be sinful... Ah, my dear! They will simply drive her away now, to punish her for their failure, you understand. It’s fearful, the prospect I see before me!”

“Well, Yegor Ilyitch, are you going on whispering or starting?” Mr. Bahtcheyev cried out a second time. “Or shall we unharness the horses and have a snack of something? What do you say; shall we have a drink of vodka?”

These words were uttered with such furious sarcasm that it was impossible not to satisfy Bahtcheyev at once. We all promptly got into the carriage, and the horses set off at a gallop.

For some time we were all silent. My uncle kept looking at me significantly, but did not care to speak to me before the others. He often sank into thought; then as though waking up, started and looked about him in agitation. Mizintchikov was apparently calm, he smoked a cigar, and his looks expressed the indignation of an unjustly treated man. But Bahtcheyev had excitement enough for all of us. He grumbled to himself, looked at everyone and everything with absolute indignation, flushed crimson, fumed, continually spat aside, and could not recover himself.

“Are you sure, Stepan Alexyevitch, that they have gone to Mishino?” my uncle asked suddenly. “It’s fifteen miles from here, my boy,” he added, addressing me. “It’s a little village of thirty souls, lately purchased from the former owners by a provincial official. The most pettifogging fellow in the world. So at least they say about him, perhaps mistakenly. Stepan Alexyevitch declares that that is where Obnoskin has gone, and that that official will be helping him now.”

“To be sure,” cried Bahtcheyev, starting. “I tell you, it is Mishino. Only by now maybe there is no trace of him left at Mishino. I should think not, we have wasted three hours chattering in the yard!”

“Don’t be uneasy,” observed Mizintchikov. “We shall find them.”

“Find them, indeed! I dare say he will wait for you. The treasure is in his hands. You may be sure we have seen the last of him!”

“Calm yourself, Stepan Alexyevitch, calm yourself, we shall overtake them,” said my uncle. “They have not had time to take any steps yet, you will see that is so.”

“Not had time!” Mr. Bahtcheyev brought out angrily. “She’s had time for any mischief, for all she’s such a quiet one! ‘She’s a quiet one,’ they say, ‘a quiet one,’ he added in a mincing voice, as though he were mimicking someone. ‘She has had troubles.’ Well, now, she has shown us her heels, for all her troubles. Now you have to chase after her along the high roads with your tongue out before you can see where you are going! They won’t let a man go to church for the holy saint’s day. Tfoo!”

“But she is not under age,” I observed; “she is not under guardianship. We can’t bring her back if she doesn’t want to come. What are we going to do?”

“Of course,” answered my uncle; “but she will want to—I assure you. What she is doing now means nothing. As soon as she sees us she will want to come back—I’ll answer for it. We can’t leave her like this, my boy, at the mercy of fate, to be sacrificed; it’s a duty, so to say....”

“She’s not under guardianship!” cried Bahtcheyev, pouncing on me at once. “She is a fool, my dear sir, a perfect fool—it’s not a case of her being under guardianship. I didn’t care to talk to you about her yesterday, but the other day I went by mistake into her room and what did I see, there she was before the looking-glass with her arms akimbo dancing a schottische! And dressed up to the nines: a fashion-plate, a regular fashion-plate! I simply spat in disgust and walked away. Then I foresaw all this, as clear as though it were written in a book!”

“Why abuse her so?” I observed with some timidity. “We know that Tatyana Ivanovna... is not in perfect health... or rather she has a mania.... It seems to me that Obnoskin is the one to blame, not she.”

“Not in perfect health! Come, you get along,” put in the fat man, turning crimson with wrath. “Why, he has taken an oath to drive a man to fury! Since yesterday he has taken an oath to! She is a fool, my dear sir, I tell you, an absolute fool. It’s not that she’s not in perfect health; from early youth she has been mad on Cupid. And now Cupid has brought her to this pass. As for that fellow with the beard, it’s no use talking about him. I dare say by now he is racing off double quick with the money in his pocket and a grin on his face.

“Do you really think, then, that he’ll cast her off at once?”

“What else should he do? Is he going to drag such a treasure about with him? And what good is she to him? He’ll fleece her of everything and then sit her down somewhere under a bush on the high road—and make off. While she can sit there under the bush and sniff the flowers.”

“Well, you are too hasty there, Stepan, it won’t be like that!” cried my uncle. “But why are you so cross? I wonder at you, Stepan. What’s the matter with you?”

“Why, am I a man or not? It does make one cross, though it’s no business of mine. Why, I am saying it perhaps in kindness to her... Ech, damnation take it all! Why, what have I come here for? Why, what did I turn back for? What is it to do with me? What is it to do with me?”

So grumbled Mr. Bahtcheyev, but I left off listening to him and mused on the woman whom we were now in pursuit of— Tatyana Ivanovna. Here is a brief biography of her which I gathered later on from the most trustworthy sources, and which is essential to the explanation of her adventures.

A poor orphan child who grew up in a strange unfriendly house, then a poor girl, then a poor young woman, and at last a poor old maid, Tatyana Ivanovna in the course of her poor life had drained the over-full cup of sorrow, friendlessness, humiliation and reproach, and had tasted to the full the bitterness of the bread of others. Naturally of a gay, highly susceptible and frivolous temperament, she had at first endured her bitter lot in one way or another and had even been capable at times of the gayest careless laughter; but with years destiny at last got the upper hand of her. Little by little Tatyana Ivanovna grew thin and sallow, became irritable and morbidly susceptible, and sank into the most unrestrained, unbounded dreaminess, often interrupted by hysterical tears and convulsive sobbing. The fewer earthly blessings real life left to her lot, the more she comforted and deluded herself in imagination. The more certainly, the more irretrievably her last hopes in real life were passing and at last were lost, the more seductive grew her dreams, never to be realised. Fabulous wealth, unheard-of beauty, rich, elegant, distinguished suitors, always princes and sons of generals, who for her sake had kept their hearts in virginal purity and were dying at her feet from infinite love; and finally, he — he, the ideal of beauty combining in himself every possible perfection, passionate and loving, an artist, a poet, the son of a general — all at once or all by turns — began to appear to her not only in her dreams but almost in reality. Her reason was already beginning to fail, unable to stand the strain of this opiate of secret incessant dreaming.... And all at once destiny played a last fatal jest at her expense. Living in the last extreme of humiliation, in melancholy surroundings that crushed the heart, a companion to a toothless old lady, the most peevish in the world, scolded for everything, reproached for every crust she ate, for every threadbare rag she wore, insulted with impunity by anyone, protected by no one, worn out by her miserable existence and secretly plunged in the luxury of the maddest and most fervid dreams — she suddenly heard the news of the death of a distant relation, all of whose family had died long before (though she in her frivolous way had never taken the trouble to ascertain the fact); he was a strange man, a phrenologist and a money-lender, who led a solitary, morose, unnoticed life, in seclusion somewhere very remote in the wilds. And now all at once immense wealth fell as though by miracle from heaven and scattered gold at Tatyana Ivanovna’s feet; she turned out to be the sole legitimate heiress of the dead money-lender. A hundred thousand silver roubles came to her at once. This jest of destiny was the last straw. Indeed, how could a mind already tottering doubt the truth of dreams when they were actually beginning to come true? And so the poor thing took leave of her last remaining grain of common sense. Swooning with bliss, she soared away beyond recall into her enchanted world of impossible imaginations and seductive fancies. Away with all reflection, all doubt, all the checks of real life, all its laws clear and inevitable as twice two make four. Thirty-five years and dreams of dazzling beauty, the sad chill of autumn and the luxuriance of the infinite bliss of love — all blended in her without discord. Her dreams had once already been realised in life; why should not all the rest come true? Why should not he appear? Tatyana Ivanovna did not reason, but she had faith. But while waiting for him, the ideal — suitors and knights of various orders and simple gentlemen, officers and civilians, infantry men and cavalry men, grand noblemen and simply poets who had been in Paris or had been only in Moscow, with beards and without beards, with imperials and without imperials, Spaniards and not Spaniards (but Spaniards, by preference), began appearing before her day and night in horrifying numbers that awakened grave apprehensions in onlookers; she was but a step ‘from the madhouse. All these lovely phantoms thronged about her in a dazzling, infatuated procession. In reality, in actual life, everything went the same fantastic way: anyone she looked at was in love with her; anyone who passed by was a Spaniard; if anyone died it must be for love of her. As ill-luck would have it, all this was confirmed in her eyes by the fact that men such as Obnoskin,

Mizintchikov, and dozens of others with the same motives began running after her. Everyone began suddenly trying to please her, spoiling her, flattering her. Poor Tatyana Ivanovna refused to suspect that all this was for the sake of her money. She was fully convinced that, as though at some signal, people had suddenly reformed, and all, every one of them, grown gay and kind, friendly and good. He had not appeared himself in person; but though there could be no doubt that he would appear, her daily life as it was so agreeable, so alluring, so full of all sorts of distractions and diversions, that she could wait. Tatyana Ivanovna ate sweetmeats, culled the flowers of pleasure, and read novels. The novels heated her imagination and were usually flung aside at the second page; she could not read longer, but was carried to dreamland by the very first lines, by the most trivial hint at love, sometimes simply by the description of scenery, of a room, of a toilette. New finery, lace, hats, hair ornaments, ribbons, samples, paper patterns, designs, sweetmeats, flowers, lapdogs were being continually sent her. Three girls spent whole days sewing for her in the maid’s room, while their lady was trying on bodices and flounces, and twisting and turning before the looking-glass from morning to night, and even in the night. She actually seemed younger and prettier on coming into her fortune. To this day I don’t know what was her relationship to the late General Krahotkin. I have always been persuaded that it was the invention of Madame la Générale, who wanted to get possession of Tatyana Ivanovna and at all costs to marry her to my uncle for her money. Mr. Bahtcheyev was right when he spoke of its being Cupid that had brought Tatyana Ivanovna to the last point; and my uncle’s idea on hearing of her elopement with Obnoskin — to run after her and bring her back even by force — was the most rational one. The poor creature was not fit to live without a guardian, and would have come to grief at once if she had fallen into evil hands.

It was past nine when we reached Mishino. It was a poor little village, lying in a hole two miles from the high road. Six or seven peasants’ huts, begrimed with smoke, slanting on one side and barely covered with blackened thatch, looked dejectedly and inhospitably at the traveller. There was not a garden, not a bush, to be seen for a quarter of a mile round. Only an old willow hung drowsily over the greenish pool that passed for a pond. Such a new abode could hardly make a cheering impression on Tatyana Ivanovna. The manor house consisted of a new long, narrow, wooden building with six windows in a row, and had been roughly thatched. The owner, the official, had only lately taken possession. The yard was not even fenced, and only on one side a new hurdle had been begun from which the dry leaves of the nut branches had not yet dropped. Obnoskin’s chaise was standing by the hurdle. We had fallen on the fugitives like snow on the head. From an open window came the sound of cries and weeping.

The barefoot boy who met us dashed away at breakneck speed. In the first room Tatyana Ivanovna with a tear-stained face was seated on a long chintz-covered sofa without a back. On seeing us she uttered a shriek and hid her face in her hands. Beside her stood Obnoskin, frightened and pitifully confused. He was so distraught that he flew to shake hands with us, as though overjoyed at our arrival. From the door that opened into the other room we had a peep of some lady’s dress; someone was listening and looking through a crack imperceptible to us. The people of the house did not put in an appearance; it seemed as though they were not in the house; they were all in hiding somewhere.

“Here she is, the traveller! Hiding her face in her hands too!” cried Mr. Bahtcheyev, lumbering after us into the room.

“Restrain your transports, Stepan Alexyevitch! They are quite unseemly. No one has a right to speak now but Yegor Ilyitch; we have nothing to do here!” Mizintchikov observed sharply.

My uncle, casting a stem glance at Mr. Bahtcheyev, and seeming not to observe the existence of Obnoskin who had rushed to shake hands with him, went up to Tatyana Ivanovna, whose face was still hidden in her hands, and in the softest voice, with the most unaffected sympathy, said to her—

“Tatyana Ivanovna, we all so love and respect you that we have come ourselves to learn your intentions. Would you care to drive back with us to Stepantchikovo? It is Ilyusha’s name- day, mamma is expecting you impatiently, while Sasha and Nastenka have no doubt been crying over you all the morning...

Tatyana Ivanovna raised her head timidly, looked at him through her fingers, and suddenly bursting into tears, flung herself on his neck.

“Oh, take me away, make haste and take me away from here!” she said, sobbing. “Make haste, as much haste as you can!”

“She’s gone off on the spree and made an ass of herself!” hissed Mr. Bahtcheyev, nudging my arm.

“Everything is at an end, then,” said my uncle, turning dryly to Obnoskin and scarcely looking at him. “Tatyana Ivanovna, please give me your arm. Let us go!”

There was a rustle the other side of the door; the door creaked and opened wider.

“If you look at it from another point of view though,” Obnoskin observed uneasily, looking at the open door, “you will see yourself, Yegor Ilyitch... your action in my house... and in fact I was bowing to you, and you would not even bow to me, Yegor Ilyitch...”

“Your action in my house, sir, was a low action,” said my uncle, looking sternly at Obnoskin, “and this house is not yours. You have heard: Tatyana Ivanovna does not wish to remain here a minute. What more do you want? Not a word— do you hear? not another word, I beg! I am extremely desirous of avoiding further explanations, and indeed it would be more to your interest to do so.”

But at this point Obnoskin was so utterly crestfallen that he began uttering the most unexpected drivel.

“Don’t despise me, Yegor Ilyitch,” he began in a half-whisper, almost crying with shame and continually glancing towards the door, probably from fear of being overheard. “It’s not my doing, but my mother’s. I didn’t do it from mercenary motives, Yegor Ilyitch; I didn’t mean anything; I did, of course, do it from interested motives, Yegor Ilyitch... but I did it with a noble object, Yegor Ilyitch. I should have used the money usefully... I should have helped the poor. I wanted to support the movement for enlightenment, too, and even dreamed of endowing a university scholarship... That was what I wanted to turn my wealth to, Yegor Ilyitch; and not to use it just for anything, Yegor Ilyitch.”

We all felt horribly ashamed. Even Mizintchikov reddened and turned away, and my uncle was so confused that he did not know what to say.

“Come, come, that’s enough,” he said at last. “Calm yourself, Pavel Semyonitch. It can’t be helped! It might happen to anyone.... If you like, come to dinner... and I shall be delighted.”

But Mr. Bahtcheyev behaved quite differently.

“Endow a scholarship!” he bawled furiously. “You are not the sort to endow a scholarship! I bet you’d be ready to fleece anyone you come across... Not a pair of breeches of his own, and here he is bragging of scholarships! Oh, you rag-and- bone man! So you’ve made a conquest of a soft-heart, have you? And where is she, the parent? Hiding, is she? I bet she is sitting somewhere behind a screen, or has crept under the bed in a fright...

“Stepan, Stepan!” cried my uncle.

Obnoskin flushed and was on the point of protesting; but before he had time to open his mouth the door was flung open and Anfisa Petrovna herself, violently irritated, with flashing eyes, crimson with wrath, flew into the room.

“What’s this?” she shouted. “What’s this going on here? You break into a respectable house with your rabble, Yegor Ilyitch, frighten ladies, give orders!... What’s the meaning of it? I have not taken leave of my senses yet, Yegor Ilyitch! And you, you booby,” she went on yelling, pouncing on her son, “you are snivelling before them already. Your mother is insulted in her own house, and you stand gaping. Do you call yourself a gentlemanly young man after that? You are a rag, and not a young man, after that.”

Not a trace of the mincing airs and fashionable graces of the day before, not a trace of the lorgnette even was to be seen about Anfisa Petrovna now. She was a regular fury, a fury without a mask.

As soon as my uncle saw her he made haste to take Tatyana Ivanovna on his arm, and would have rushed out of the room, but Anfisa Petrovna at once barred the way.

“You are not going away like that, Yegor Ilyitch,” she clamoured again. “By what right are you taking Tatyana Ivanovna away by force? You are annoyed that she has escaped the abominable snares you had caught her in, you and your mamma and your imbecile Foma Fomitch; you would have liked to marry her yourself for the sake of filthy lucre. I beg your pardon, but our ideas here are not so low! Tatyana Ivanovna, seeing that you were plotting against her, that you were bringing her to ruin, confided in Pavlusha of herself. She herself begged him to save her from your snares, so to say; she was forced to run away from you by night—that’s a pretty thing! That’s what you have driven her to, isn’t it, Tatyana Ivanovna? And since that’s so, how dare you burst, a whole gang of you, into a respectable gentleman’s house and carry off a young lady by force in spite of her tears and protests? I will not permit it! I will not permit it! I have not taken leave of my senses! Tatyana Ivanovna will remain because she wishes it! Come, Tatyana Ivanovna, it is useless to listen to them, they are your enemies, not your friends! Come along, don’t be frightened! I’ll see them all out directly!...”

“No, no!” cried Tatyana Ivanovna, terrified, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to! He is no husband for me. I don’t want to marry your son! He’s no husband for me!”

“You don’t want to!” shouted Anfisa Petrovna, breathless with rage. “You don’t want to! You have come and you don’t want to! Then how dared you deceive us like this? Then how dared you give him your promise? You ran away with him by night, you forced yourself upon him, and have led us into embarrassment and expense. My son has perhaps lost an excellent match through you! He may have lost a dowry of ten thousand through you!... No! you must pay for it, you ought to pay for it; we have proofs; you ran away at night...”

But we did not hear this tirade to the end. All at once, grouping ourselves round my uncle, we moved forward straight upon Anfisa Petrovna and went out on to the steps. The carriage was at hand at once.

“None but dishonourable people, none but scoundrels behave like that,” cried Anfisa Petrovna from the steps, in an absolute frenzy. “I will lodge a petition, you shall pay for it... you are going to a disreputable house, Tatyana Ivanovna. You cannot marry Yegor Ilyitch; under your very nose he is keeping his governess as his mistress.”

My uncle shuddered, turned pale, bit his lip and rushed to assist Tatyana Ivanovna into the carriage. I went round to the other side of the carriage, and was waiting for my turn to get in, when I suddenly found Obnoskin by my side, clutching at my hand.

“Allow me at least to seek your friendship!” he said warmly, squeezing my hand, with an expression of despair on his face.

“What’s that, friendship?” I said, lifting my foot to the carriage step.

“Yes! I recognised in you yesterday a man of culture; do not condemn me... My mother led me on, I had nothing to do with it. My inclinations are rather for literature—I assure you; this was all my mother...

“I believe you, I believe you,” I said. “Good-bye!”

We got in and the horses set off at a gallop. The shouts and curses of Anfisa Petrovna resounded for a long way after us, and unknown faces suddenly poked out of all the windows of the house and stared after us with wild curiosity.

There were five of us now in the carriage, but Mizintchikov got on to the box, giving up his former seat to Mr. Bahtcheyev, who had now to sit directly facing Tatyana Ivanovna. The latter was greatly relieved that we had taken her away, but she was still crying. - My uncle consoled her as best he could. He was himself sad and brooding; it was evident that Anfisa Petrovna’s frantic words about Nastenka were echoing painfully and bitterly in his heart. Our return journey would, however, have ended without any disturbance if only Mr. Bahtcheyev had not been with us.

Sitting opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, he seemed not himself, he could not look indifferent, he shifted in his seat, turned as red as a crab, and rolled his eyes fearfully, particularly when my uncle began trying to console Tatyana Ivanovna. The fat man was absolutely beside himself, and growled like a bulldog when it is teased. My uncle looked at him apprehensively. At last Tatyana Ivanovna, noticing the extraordinary state of mind of her vis-a-vis, began watching him intently; then she looked at us, smiled, and all at once picking up her parasol gracefully gave Mr. Bahtcheyev a light tap on the shoulder.

“Crazy fellow!” she said with a most enchanting playfulness, and at once hid her face in her fan.

This sally was the last straw.

“Wha-a-at?” roared the fat man. “What’s that, madam? So you are after me now!”

“Crazy fellow! crazy fellow!” repeated Tatyana Ivanovna, and she suddenly burst out laughing and clapped her hands.

“Stop!” cried Bahtcheyev to the coachman, “stop!”

We stopped. Bahtcheyev opened the door, and hurriedly began clambering out of the carriage.

“Why, what is the matter, Stepan Alexyevitch? Where are you off to?” cried my uncle in astonishment.

“No, I have had enough of it,” answered the fat man, trembling with indignation. “Deuce take it all! I am too old, madam, to be besieged with amours. I would rather die on the high road! Good-bye, madam. Comment vous portez-vous?”

And he actually began walking on foot. The carriage followed him at a walking pace.

“Stepan Alexyevitch!” cried my uncle, losing all patience at last. “Don’t play the fool, come, get in! Why, it’s time we were home.”

“Bother you!” Stepan Alexyevitch brought out, breathless with walking, for owing to his corpulence he had quite lost the habit of exercise.

“Drive on full speed,” Mizintchikov shouted to the coachman.

“What are you doing? Stop!” my uncle cried out as the carriage dashed on.

Mizintchikov was not out in his reckoning, the desired result followed at once.

“Stop! Stop!” we heard a despairing wail behind us. “Stop, you ruffian! Stop, you cut-throat...”

The fat man came into sight at last, half dead with exhaustion, with drops of sweat on his brow, untying his cravat and taking off his cap. Silently and gloomily he got into the carriage, and this time I gave him my seat; he was not anyway sitting directly opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, who all through this scene had been gushing with laughter and clapping her hands. She could not look gravely at Stepan Alexyevitch all the rest of the journey. He for his part sat without uttering a single word all the way home, staring intently at the hind wheel of the carriage.

It was midday when we got back to Stepantchikovo. I went straight to my lodge, where Gavrila immediately made his appearance with tea. I flew to question the old man, but my uncle walked in almost on his heels and promptly sent him away.

Chapter 2 — New Developments

“I have come to you for a minute, dear boy,” he began, “I was in haste to tell you.... I have heard all about everything. None of them have even been to mass to-day, except Ilyusha, Sasha and Nastenka. They tell me mamma has been in convulsions. They have been rubbing her, it was all they could do to bring her to by rubbing. Now it has been settled for us all to go together to Foma, and I have been summoned. Only I don’t know whether to congratulate Foma on the name- day or not—it’s an important point! And in fact how are they going to take this whole episode? It’s awful, Seryozha, I foresee it...

“On the contrary, uncle,” I hastened in my turn to reply, “everything is settling itself splendidly. You see you can’t marry Tatyana Ivanovna now—that’s a great deal in itself. I wanted to make that clear to you on our way.”

“Oh, yes, my dear boy. But that’s not the point; there is the hand of Providence in it no doubt, as you say, but I wasn’t thinking of that... Poor Tatyana Ivanovna! What adventures happen to her, though!... Obnoskin’s a scoundrel, a scoundrel! Though why do I call him ‘a scoundrel’? Shouldn’t I have been doing the same if I married her?... But that, again, is not what I have come about... Did you hear what that wretch Anfisa Petrovna shouted about Nastenka this morning?”

“Yes, uncle. Haven’t you realised now that you must make haste?”

“Certainly, at all costs!” answered my uncle. “It is a solemn moment. Only there is one thing, dear boy, which we did not think of, but I was thinking of it afterwards all night. Will she marry me, that’s the point?”

“Mercy on us, uncle! After she told you herself that she loves you...”

“But, my dear boy, you know she also said at once that nothing would induce her to many me.”

“Oh, uncle, that’s only words; besides, circumstances are different to-day.”

“Do you think so? No, Sergey, my boy, it’s a delicate business, dreadfully delicate! H’m... But do you know, though I was worrying, yet my heart was somehow aching with happiness all night. Well, good-bye, I must fly. They are waiting for me; I am late as it is. I only ran in to have a word with you. Oh, my God!” he cried, coming back, “I have forgotten what is most important! Do you know what? I have written to him, to Foma!”

“When?”

“In the night, and in the morning, at daybreak, I sent the letter by Vidoplyasov. I put it all before him on two sheets of paper, I told him everything truthfully and frankly, in short that I ought, that is, absolutely must—do you understand— make Nastenka an offer. I besought him not to say a word about our meeting in the garden, and I have appealed to all the generosity of his heart to help me with mamma. I wrote a poor letter, of course, my boy, but I wrote it from my heart and, so to say, watered it with my tears....”

“Well? No answer?”

“So far no; only this morning when we were getting ready to set off, I met him in the hall in night attire, in slippers and nightcap—he sleeps in a nightcap—he had come out of his room. He didn’t say a word, he didn’t even glance at me. I peeped up into his face, not a sign.”

“Uncle, don’t rely on him; he’ll play you some dirty trick.”

“No, no, my boy, don’t say so!” cried my uncle, gesticulating. “I am sure of him. Besides, you know, it’s my last hope. He will understand, he’ll appreciate it. He’s peevish, he’s capricious, I don’t deny it; but when it comes to a question of nobility, then he shines out like a pearl... Yes, like a pearl. You think all that, Sergey, because you have never seen him yet when he is most noble... but, my God! if he really does spread abroad my secret of yesterday, then... I don’t know what will happen then, Sergey! What will be left me in the world that I can believe in? But no, he cannot be such a scoundrel. I am not worth the sole of his shoe. Don’t shake your head, my boy; it’s true—I am not.”

“Yegor Ilyitch! Your mamma is anxious about you.” We hear from below the unpleasant voice of Miss Perepelitsyn, who had probably succeeded in hearing the whole of our conversation from the open window. “They are looking for you all over the house, and cannot find you.”

“Oh, dear, I am late! How dreadful!” cried my uncle in a fluster. “My dear boy, for goodness’ sake dress and come too. Why, it was just for that I ran in, so that we might go together.... I fly, I fly! Anna Nilovna, I fly!”

When I was left alone, I recalled my meeting with Nastenka that morning and was very glad I had not told my uncle of it; I should have upset him even more. I foresaw a great storm, and could not imagine how my uncle would arrange his plans and make an offer to Nastenka. I repeat: in spite of my faith in his honour, I could not help feeling doubtful of his success.

However, I had to make haste. I considered myself bound to assist him, and at once began dressing; but as I wanted to be as well-dressed as possible, I was not very quick in spite of my haste. Mizintchikov walked in.

“I have come for you,” he said. “Yegor Ilyitch begs you to come at once.”

“Let us go!”

I was quite ready, we set off.

“What news there?” I asked on the way.

“They are all in Foma’s room, the whole party,” answered Mizintchikov. “Foma is not in bad humour, but he is somewhat pensive and doesn’t say much, just mutters through his teeth. He even kissed Ilyusha, which of course delighted Yegor Ilyitch. He announced beforehand through Miss Perepelitsyn that they were not to congratulate him on the nameday, and that he had only wanted to test them... Though the old lady keeps sniffing her smelling-salts, she is calm because Foma is calm. Of our adventure no one drops a hint, it is as though it had never happened; they hold their tongues because Foma holds his. He hasn’t let anyone in all the morning, though. While we were away the old lady implored him by all the saints to come that she might consult him, and indeed she hobbled down to the door herself; but he locked himself in and answered that he was praying for the human race, or something of the sort. He has got something up his sleeve, one can see that from his face. But as Yegor Ilyitch is incapable of seeing anything from anyone’s face, he is highly delighted now with Foma’s mildness; he is a regular baby! Ilyusha has prepared some verses, and they have sent me to fetch you.”

“And Tatyana Ivanovna?”

“What about Tatyana Ivanovna?”

“Is she there? With them?”

“No; she is in her own room,” Mizintchikov answered dryly. “She is resting and crying. Perhaps she is ashamed too. I believe that... governess is with her now. I say! surely it is not a storm coming on? Look at the sky!”

“I believe it is a storm,” I answered, glancing at a storm- cloud that looked black on the horizon.

At that moment we went up on to the terrace.

“Tell me, what do you think of Obnoskin, eh?” I went on, not able to refrain from probing Mizintchikov on that point.

“Don’t speak to me of him! Don’t remind me of that blackguard,” he cried, suddenly stopping, flushing red and stamping. “The fool! the fool! to ruin such a splendid plan, such a brilliant idea! Listen: I am an ass, of course, for not having detected what a rogue he is!—I admit that solemnly, and perhaps that admission is just what you want. But I swear if he had known how to carry it through properly, I should perhaps have forgiven him. The fool! the fool! And how can such people be allowed in society, how can they be endured! How is it they are not sent to Siberia, into exile, into prison! But that’s all nonsense, they won’t get over me! Now I have experience anyway, and we shall see who gets the best of it. I am thinking over a new idea now... You must admit one can’t lose one’s object simply because some outside fool has stolen one’s idea and not known how to set about it. Why, it’s unjust! And, in fact, this Tatyana will inevitably be married, that’s her predestined fate. And if no one has put her into a madhouse up to now, it was just because it is still possible to marry her. I will tell you my new idea....”

“But afterwards, I suppose,” I interrupted him, “for here we are.”

“Very well, very well, afterwards,” Mizintchikov answered, twisting his bps into a spasmodic smile. “And now... But where are you going? I tell you, straight to Foma Fomitch’s room! Follow me; you have not been there yet. You will see another farce... For it has really come to a farce.”

Chapter 3 — Ilyusha’s Nameday

Foma occupied two large and excellent rooms; they were even better decorated than any other of the rooms in the house. The great man was surrounded by perfect comfort. The fresh and handsome wall-paper, the parti-coloured silk curtains on the windows, the rugs, the pier-glass, the fireplace, the softly upholstered elegant furniture—all testified to the tender solicitude of the family for Foma’s comfort. Pots of flowers stood in the windows and on little marble tables in front of the windows. In the middle of the study stood a large table covered with a red cloth and littered with books and manuscripts. A handsome bronze inkstand and a bunch of pens which Vidoplyasov had to look after—all this was to testify to the severe intellectual labours of Foma Fomitch. I will mention here by the way that though Foma had sat at that table for nearly eight years, he had composed absolutely nothing that was any good. Later on, when he had departed to a better world, we went through his manuscripts; they all turned out to be extraordinary trash. We found, for instance, the beginning of an historical novel, the scene of which was laid in Novgorod, in the seventh century; then a monstrous poem, “An Anchorite in the Churchyard”, written in blank verse; then a meaningless meditation on the significance and characteristics of the Russian peasant, and how he should be treated; and finally “The Countess Vlonsky”, a novel of aristocratic life, also unfinished. There was nothing else. And yet Foma Fomitch had made my uncle spend large sums every year on books and journals. But many of them were actually found uncut. Later on, I caught Foma Fomitch more than once reading Paul de Kock, but he always slipped the book out of sight when people came in. In the further wall of the study there was a glass door which led to the courtyard of the house.

They were waiting for us. Foma Fomitch was sitting in a comfortable arm-chair, wearing some sort of long coat that reached to his heels, but yet he wore no cravat. He certainly was silent and thoughtful. When we went in he raised his eyebrows slightly and bent a searching glance on me. I bowed; he responded with a slight bow, a fairly polite one, however. Grandmother, seeing that Foma Fomitch was behaving graciously to me, gave me a nod and a smile. The poor woman had not expected in the morning that her paragon would take the news of Tatyana Ivanovna’s “escapade” so calmly, and so she was now in the best of spirits, though she really had been in convulsions and fainting fits earlier in the day. Behind her chair, as usual, stood Miss Perepelitsyn, compressing her lips till they looked like a thread, smiling sourly and spitefully and rubbing her bony hands one against the other. Two always mute lady companions were installed beside Madame la Générale. There was also a nun of sorts who had strayed in that morning, and an elderly lady, a neighbour who had come in after mass to congratulate Madame la Générale on the nameday and who also sat mute. Aunt Praskovya Ilyinitchna was keeping in the background somewhere in a comer, and was looking with anxiety at Foma Fomitch and her mother. My uncle was sitting in an easy-chair, and his face was beaming with a look of exceptional joy. Facing him stood Ilyusha in his red holiday shirt, with his hair in curls, looking like a little angel. Sasha and Nastenka had in secret from everyone taught him some verses to rejoice his father on this auspicious day by his progress in learning. My uncle was almost weeping with delight. Foma’s unexpected mildness, Madame la Générale’s good humour, Ilyusha’s name- day, the verses, all moved him to real enthusiasm, and with a solemnity worthy of the occasion he had asked them to send for me that I might hasten to share the general happiness and listen to the verses. Sasha and Nastenka, who had come in just after us, were standing near Ilyusha. Sasha was continually laughing, and at that moment was as happy as a little child. Nastenka, looking at her, also began smiling, though she had come into the room a moment before pale and depressed. She alone had welcomed Tatyana Ivanovna on her return from her excursion, and until then had been sitting upstairs with her. The rogue Ilyusha seemed, too, as though he could not keep from laughing as he looked at his instructresses. It seemed as though the three of them had prepared a very amusing joke which they meant to play now.... I had forgotten Bahtcheyev. He was sitting on a chair at a little distance, still cross and red in the face; holding his tongue, sulking, blowing his nose and altogether playing a very gloomy part at the family festivity. Near him Yezhevikin was fidgeting about; he was fidgeting about everywhere, however, kissing the hands of Madame la Générale and of the visitors, whispering something to Miss Perepelitsyn, showing attention to Foma Fomitch, in fact he was all over the place. He, too, was awaiting Ilyusha’s verses with great interest, and at my entrance flew to greet me with bows as a mark of the deepest respect and devotion. Altogether there was nothing to show that he had come to protect his daughter, and to take her from Stepantchikovo for ever.

“Here he is!” cried my uncle gleefully on seeing me. “Ilyusha has got a poem for us, that’s something unexpected, a real surprise! I am overpowered, my boy, and sent for you on purpose, and have put off the verses till you came... Sit down beside me! Let us listen. Foma Fomitch, confess now, it must have been you who put them all up to it to please an old fellow like me. I’ll wager that is how it is!”

Since my uncle was talking in such a tone and voice in Foma’s room one would have thought that all must be well. But unluckily my uncle was, as Mizintchikov expressed it, incapable of reading any man’s face. Glancing at Foma’s face, I could not help admitting that Mizintchikov was right and that something was certainly going to happen...

“Don’t trouble about me, Colonel,” Foma answered in a faint voice, the voice of a man forgiving his enemies. “I approve of the surprise, of course; it shows the sensibility and good principles of your children... Poetry is of use, too, even for the pronunciation... But I have not been busy over verses this morning, Yegor Ilyitch; I have been praying... you know that.... I am ready to listen to the verses, however.”

Meanwhile I had congratulated Ilyusha and kissed him.

“Quite so, Foma, I beg your pardon! Kiss him once more, though I am sure of your affection, Foma! Kiss him once more, Seryozha! Look what a fine big boy! Come, begin, Ilyusha! What is it about? I suppose it is something solemn from Lomonosov?”

And my uncle drew himself up with a dignified air. He could scarcely sit still in his seat for impatience and delight.

“No, papa, not from Lomonosov,” said Sashenka, hardly able to suppress her laughter; “but as you have been a soldier and fought the enemy, Ilyusha has learnt a poem about warfare... The siege of Pamba, papa!”

“The siege of Pamba! I don’t remember it... What is this Pamba, do you know, Ilyusha? Something heroic, I suppose.”

And my uncle drew himself up again.

“Begin, Ilyusha!” Sasha gave the word of command.

Ilyusha began in a little, clear, even voice, without stops or commas, as small children generally recite verses they have learned by heart—

“Nine long years Don Pedro Gomez

Has besieged the fort of Pamba,

On a diet of milk supported.

And Don Pedro’s gallant warriors,

Brave Castilians, full nine thousand,

All to keep the vow they’ve taken

Taste no bread nor other victuals,

Milk they drink and milk alone.”

“What? What’s that about milk?” cried my uncle, looking at me in perplexity.

“Go on reciting, Ilyusha!” cried Sashenka.

“Every day Don Pedro Gomez,

In his Spanish cloak enveloped,

Bitterly his lot bewails.

Lo, the tenth year is approaching;

Still the fierce Moors are triumphant;

And of all Don Pedro’s army

Only nineteen men are left...”

“Why, it’s a regular string of nonsense!” cried my uncle uneasily. “Come, that’s impossible. Only nineteen men left out of a whole army, when there was a very considerable corps before? What is the meaning of it, my boy?”

But at that point Sasha could not contain herself, and went off into the most open and childish laughter; and though there was nothing very funny, it was impossible not to laugh too as one looked at her.

“They are funny verses, papa,” she cried, highly delighted with her childish prank. “The author made them like that on purpose to amuse everybody.”

“Oh! Funny!” cried my uncle, with a beaming face. “Comic, you mean! That’s just what I thought... Just so, just so, funny! And very amusing, extremely amusing: he starved all his army on milk owing to some vow. What possessed them to take such a vow? Very witty, isn’t it, Foma? You see, mamma, these are jesting verses, such as authors sometimes do write, don’t they, Sergey? Extremely amusing. Well, well, Ilyusha, what next?”

“Only nineteen men are left!

Them Don Pedro doth assemble

And says to them: ‘Noble Nineteen!

Let us raise aloft our standards!

Let us blow on our loud trumpets!

And with clashing of our cymbals

Let us from Pamba retreat!

Though the fort we have not taken,

Yet with honour still untarnished

We can swear on faith and conscience

That our vow we have not broken;

Nine long years we have not eaten,

Not a morsel have we eaten,

Milk we’ve drunk and milk alone!’”

“What a noodle! What comfort was it for him that he had drunk milk for nine years?” my uncle broke in again. “What is there virtuous in it? He would have done better to have eaten a whole sheep, and not have been the death of people! Excellent! capital! I see, I see now: it’s a satire on... what do they call it? an allegory, isn’t it? And perhaps aimed at some foreign general,” my uncle added, addressing me, knitting his brows significantly and screwing up his eyes, “eh? What do you think? But of course a harmless, good, refined satire that injures nobody I Excellent! excellent, and what matters most, it is refined. Well, Ilyusha, go on. Ah, you rogues, you rogues!” he added with feeling, looking at Sasha and stealthily also at Nastenka, who blushed and smiled.

“And emboldened by that saying,

Those nineteen Castilian warriors,

Each one swaying in his saddle,

Feebly shouted all together:

‘Sant’ Iago Compostello!

Fame and glory to Don Pedro!

Glory to the Lion of Castile!’

And his chaplain, one Diego,

Through his teeth was heard to mutter:

‘But if I had been commander,

I’d have vowed to eat meat only,

Drinking good red wine alone.’”

“There! Didn’t I tell you so?” cried my uncle, extremely delighted. “Only one sensible man was found in the whole army, and he was some sort of a chaplain. And what is that, Sergey: a captain among them, or what?”

“A monk, an ecclesiastical person, uncle.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Chaplain! I know, I remember. I have read of it in Radcliffe’s novels. They have all sorts of orders, don’t they... Benedictines, I believe?... There are Benedictines, aren’t there?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“H’m!... I thought so. Well, Ilyusha, what next? Excellent! capital!”

“And Don Pedro overhearing,

With loud laughter gave the order:

‘Fetch a sheep and give it to him!

He has jested gallantly!’”

‘What a time to laugh! What a fool! Even he saw it was funny at last! A sheep! So they had sheep; why did he not eat some himself! Well, Ilyusha, go on. Excellent! capital! Extraordinarily cutting!”

“But that’s the end, papa!”

“Oh, the end. Indeed there wasn’t much left to be done— was there, Sergey? Capital, Ilyusha! Wonderfully nice. Kiss me, darling. Ah, my precious! Who was it thought of it: you, Sasha?”

“No, it was Nastenka. We read it the other day. She read it and said: ‘What ridiculous verses! It will soon be Ilyusha’s nameday, let us make him learn them and recite them. It will make them laugh!”

“Oh, it was Nastenka? Well, thank you, thank you,” my uncle muttered, suddenly flushing like a child. “Kiss me again, Ilyusha. You kiss me too, you rogue,” he said, embracing Sashenka and looking into her face with feeling. “You wait a bit, Sashenka, it will be your nameday soon,” he added, as though he did not know what to say to express his pleasure.

I turned to Nastenka and asked whose verses they were.

“Yes, yes, whose are the verses?” my uncle hurriedly chimed in. “It must have been a clever poet who wrote them, mustn’t it, Foma?”

“H’m...” Foma grunted to himself.

A biting sarcastic smile had not left his face during the whole time of the recitation of the verses.

“I have really forgotten,” said Nastenka, looking timidly at Foma Fomitch.

“It’s Mr. Kuzma Prutkov wrote it, papa; it was published in the Contemporary,” Sashenka broke in.

“Kuzma Prutkov! I don’t know his name,” said my uncle. “Pushkin I know!... But one can see he is a gifted poet— isn’t he, Sergey? And what’s more, a man of refined qualities, that’s as clear as twice two! Perhaps, indeed, he is an officer.... I approve of him. And the Contemporary is a first-rate magazine. We certainly must take it in if poets like that are among the contributors.... I like poets! They are fine fellows! They picture everything in verse. Do you know, Sergey, I met a literary man at your rooms in Petersburg. He had rather a peculiar nose, too... really!... What did you say, Foma?”

Foma Fomitch, who was getting more and more worked up, gave a loud snigger.

“No, I said nothing...” he said, as though hardly able to suppress his laughter. “Go on, Yegor Ilyitch, go on! I will say my word later... Stepan Alexyevitch is delighted to hear how you made the acquaintance of literary men in Petersburg.”

Stepan Alexyevitch, who had been sitting apart all the time lost in thought, suddenly raised his head, reddened, and turned in his chair with exasperation.

“Don’t you provoke me, Foma, but leave me in peace,” he said, looking wrathfully at Foma, with his little bloodshot eyes. “What is your literature to me? May God only give me good health,” he muttered to himself, “and plague take them all... and their authors too... Voltairians, that’s what they are!”

“Authors are Voltairians?” said Yezhevikin immediately at his side. “Perfectly true what you have been pleased to remark, Stepan Alexyevitch. Valentin Ignatyitch was pleased to express the same sentiments the other day. He actually called me a Voltairian, upon my soul he did! And yet, as you all know, I have written very little so far.... If a bowl of milk goes sour—it’s all Voltaire’s fault! That’s how it is with everything here.”

“Well, no,” observed my uncle with dignity, “that’s an error, you know! Voltaire was nothing but a witty writer; he laughed at superstitions; and he never was a Voltairian! It was his enemies spread that rumour about him. Why were they all against him, really, poor fellow?...”

Again the malignant snigger of Foma Fomitch was audible. My uncle looked at him uneasily and was perceptibly embarrassed.

“Yes, Foma, I am thinking about the magazine, you see,” he said in confusion, trying to put himself right somehow. “You were perfectly right, my dear Foma, when you said the other day that we ought to subscribe to one. I think we ought to, myself. H’m... after all, they do assist in the diffusion of enlightenment; one would be a very poor patriot if one did not support them. Wouldn’t one, Sergey. H’m... Yes... The Contemporary, for instance. But, do you know, Seryozha, the most instruction, to my thinking, is to be found in that thick magazine—what’s its name?—in a yellow cover...”

“Notes of the Fatherland, papa.”

“Oh, yes, Notes of the Fatherland, and a capital title, Sergey, isn’t it? It is, so to say, the whole Fatherland sitting writing notes.... A very fine object. A most edifying magazine. And what a thick one! What a job to publish such an omnibus! And the information in it almost makes one’s eyes start out of one’s head. I came in the other day, the volume was lying here, I took it up and from curiosity opened it and reeled off three pages at a go. It made me simply gape, my dear! And, you know, there is information about everything; what is meant, for instance, by a broom, a spade, a ladle, an ovenrake. To my thinking, a broom is a broom and an ovenrake an ovenrake! No, my boy, wait a bit. According to the learned, an ovenrake turns out not an ovenrake, but an emblem or something mythological; I don’t remember exactly, but something of the sort.... So that’s how it is! They have gone into everything!”

I don’t know what precisely Foma was preparing to do after this fresh outburst from my uncle, but at that moment Gavrila appeared and stood with bowed head in the doorway.

Foma Fomitch glanced at him significantly.

“Ready, Gavrila?” he asked in a faint but resolute voice.

“Yes, sir,” Gavrila answered mournfully, and heaved a sigh.

“And have you put my bundle on the cart?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, I am ready too!” said Foma, and he deliberately go up from his easy-chair. My uncle looked at him in amazement. Madame la Générale jumped up from her seat and looked about her uneasily.

“Allow me, Colonel,” Foma began with dignity, “to ask you to leave for a moment the interesting subject of literary oven- rakes; you can continue it after I am gone. As I am taking leave of you for ever, I should like to say a few last words to you...”

Every listener was spellbound with alarm and amazement.

“Foma! Foma! but what is the matter with you? Where are you going?” my uncle cried at last.

“I am about to leave your house, Colonel,” Foma brought out in a perfectly composed voice. “I have made up my mind to go where fortune takes me, and so I have hired at my own expense a humble peasant’s cart. My bundle is lying in it already, it is of no great dimensions: a few favourite books, two changes of linen—that is all! I am a poor man, Yegor Ilyitch, but nothing in the world would induce me now to take your gold, which I refused even yesterday!”

“But for God’s sake, Foma, what is the meaning of it?” cried my uncle, turning as white as a sheet.

Madame la Générale uttered a shriek and looked in despair at Foma Fomitch, stretching out her hands to him. Miss Perepelitsyn flew to support her. The lady companions sat petrified in their chairs. Mr. Bahtcheyev got up heavily from his seat.

“Well, here’s a pretty to-do!” Mizintchikov whispered beside me.

At that moment a distant rumble of thunder was heard; a Storm was coming on.

Chapter 4 — The Expulsion

“You ask me, I believe, Colonel, what is the meaning of this?” Foma brought out with a solemn dignity, as though enjoying the general consternation. “I am surprised at the question! Will you on your side explain how it is you can bring yourself to look me in the face now? Explain to me this last psychological problem in human shamelessness, and then I shall depart, the richer for new knowledge of the depravity of the human race.”

But my uncle was not equal to answering him. With open mouth and staring eyes he gazed at Foma, alarmed and annihilated.

“Merciful heavens! What passions!” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn.

“Do you understand, Colonel,” Foma went on, “that you had better let me go now, simply without asking questions? In your house even I, a man of years and understanding, begin to feel the purity of my morals gravely endangered. Believe me, that your questions can lead to nothing but putting you to shame.”

“Foma! Foma!” cried my uncle, and a cold perspiration came out on his forehead.

“And so allow me without further explanation to say a few farewell words at parting, my last words in your house, Yegor Ilyitch. The thing is done and there is no undoing it! I hope that you understand to what I am referring. But I implore you on my knees: if one spark of moral feeling is left in your heart, curb your unbridled passions! And if the noxious poison has not yet caught the whole edifice, then, as far as possible, extinguish the fire!”

“Foma, I assure you that you are in error!” cried my uncle, recovering himself little by little and foreseeing with horror the climax.

“Moderate your passions,” Foma continued in the same solemn voice, as though he had not heard my uncle’s exclamation, “conquer yourself. ‘If thou would’st conquer all the world —conquer thyself.’ That is my invariable rule. You are a landowner; you ought to shine like a diamond in your estate, and what a vile example of unbridled passion you set your inferiors! I have been praying for you the whole night, and trembled as I sought for your happiness. I did not find it, for happiness lies in virtue....”

“But this is impossible, Foma!” my uncle interrupted him again. “You have misunderstood and what you say is quite wrong.”

“And so remember you are a landowner,” Foma went on, still regardless of my uncle’s exclamations. “Do not imagine that repose and sensuality are the destined vocation of the landowning class. Fatal thought! Not repose, but zealous work, zealous towards God, towards your sovereign, and towards your country! Hard work, hard work is the duty of the landowner, he should work as hard as the poorest of his peasants!”

“What, am I to plough for the peasant, or what?” growled Bahtcheyev. “Why, I am a landowner, too....”

“I turn to you now, servants of the house,” Foma went on, addressing Gavrila and Falaley, who had appeared in the doorway. “Love your master and his family, and obey them humbly and meekly, and they will reward you with their love. And you, Colonel, be just and compassionate to them. A fellow-man—the image of God—like a child of tender years, so to say, is entrusted to you by your sovereign and your country. Great is the duty, but great also is the merit.”

“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 Générale. “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 be 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 com 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 Générale 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 were 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.”

“Mammal 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 Générale 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 everything, 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 drivelling if Miss Perepelitsyn and all the lady companions had 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, Nastasya 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 shall be gone....”

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 protesting, of 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 you 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 softheartedness....”

“Just because of your soft-heartedness! Just because you are so so]t-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 is 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 Générale. “What he says is right, my dear!...”

“Yes,” Yezhevikin went on. “Here your 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 comer, 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 Générale 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 prophet!” 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 Perepelitsyn.

“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!” Bahtcheyev 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, trending 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.”

“My dear,” answered my uncle, raising his head and looking at me resolutely,” I have been judging myself at this moment and I know what I ought to do. Don’t be uneasy, there shall be no offence to Nastenka, I will see to that....”

He got up from his seat and went to his mother.

“Mamma,” he said, “don’t worry yourself, I will bring Foma Fomitch back, I will overtake him; he cannot have gone far yet. But I swear he shall come back only on one condition, that here publicly in the presence of all who were witnesses of the insult he should acknowledge how wrong he has been, and solemnly beg the forgiveness of this noble young lady. I will secure that, I will make him do it! He shall not cross the threshold of this house without it! I swear, too, mamma, solemnly, that if he consents to this of his own free will, I shall be ready to fall at his feet, and will give him anything, anything I can, without injustice to my children. I myself will renounce everything from this very day. The star of my happiness has set. I shall leave Stepantchikovo. You must all live here calmly and happily. I am going back to my regiment, and in the turmoil of war, on the field of battle, I will end my despairing days... Enough! I am going!”

At that moment the door opened, and Gavrila, soaked through and incredibly muddy, stood facing the agitated company.

“What’s the matter? Where have you come from? Where is Foma?” cried my uncle, rushing up to Gavrila.

Everyone followed him, and with eager curiosity crowded round the old man, from whom dirty water was literally trickling in streams. Shrieks, sighs, exclamations accompanied every word Gavrila uttered.

“I left him at the birch copse, a mile away,” he began in a tearful voice. “The horse took fright at the lightning and bolted into a ditch.”

“Well?...” cried my uncle.

“The cart was upset...”

“Well?... and Foma?”

“He fell into the ditch.”

“And then? Tell us, you tantalising old man!”

“He bruised his side and began crying. I unharnessed the horse, got on him and rode here to tell you.”

“And Foma remained there?”

“He got up and went on with his stick,” Gavrila concluded; then he heaved a sigh and bowed his head.

The tears and sobs of the tender sex were indescribable.

“Polkan!” cried my uncle, and he flew out of the room. Polkan was brought, my uncle leapt on him barebacked, and a minute later the thud of the horse’s hoofs told us that the pursuit of Foma Fomitch had begun. My uncle had actually galloped off without his cap.

The ladies ran to the windows. Among the sighs and groans were heard words of advice. There was talk of a hot bath, of Foma Fomitch being rubbed with spirits, of some soothing drink, of the fact that Foma Fomitch “had not had a crumb of bread between his lips all day and that he is wet through on an empty stomach.” Miss Perepelitsyn found his forgotten spectacles in their case, and the find produced an extraordinary effect: Madame la Générale pounced on them with tears and lamentations, and still keeping them in her hand, pressed up to the window again to watch the road. The suspense reached the utmost pitch of intensity at last. In another comer Sashenka was trying to comfort Nastya; they were weeping in each other’s arms. Nastenka was holding Ilyusha’s hand and kissing him from time to time. Ilyusha was in floods of tears, though he did not yet know why. Yezhevikin and Mizintchikov were talking of something aside. I fancied that Bahtcheyev was looking at the girls as though he were ready to blubber himself. I went up to him.

“No, my good sir,” he said to me, “Foma Fomitch may leave here one day perhaps, but the time for that has not yet come; they haven’t got gold-homed bulls for his chariot yet. Don’t worry yourself, sir, he’ll drive the owners out of the house and stay there himself!”

The storm was over, and Mr. Bahtcheyev had evidently changed his views.

All at once there was an outcry: “They are bringing him, they are bringing him,” and the ladies ran shrieking to the door. Hardly ten minutes had passed since my uncle set off; one would have thought it would have been impossible to bring Foma Fomitch back so quickly; but the enigma was very simply explained later on. When Foma Fomitch had let Gavrila go he really had “set off walking with his stick”, but finding himself in complete solitude in the midst of the storm, the thunder, and the pouring rain, he was ignominiously panic- stricken, turned back towards Stepantchikovo and ran after Gavrila. He was already in the village when my uncle came upon him. A passing cart was stopped at once; some peasants ran up and put the unresisting Foma Fomitch into it. So they conveyed him straight to the open arms of Madame la Générale, who was almost beside herself with horror when she saw the condition he was in. He was even muddier and wetter than Gavrila. There was a terrific flurry and bustle; they wanted at once to drag him upstairs to change his linen; there was an outcry for elder-flower tea and other invigorating beverages, they scurried in all directions without doing anything sensible; they all talked at once... But Foma seemed to notice nobody and nothing. He was led in, supported under the arms. On reaching his easy-chair, he sank heavily into it and closed his eyes. Someone cried out that he was dying; a terrible howl was raised, and Falaley was the loudest of all, trying to squeeze through the crowd of ladies up to Foma Fomitch to kiss his hand at once...

Chapter 5 — Foma Fomitch Makes Everyone Happy

Where have they brought me?” Foma articulated at last, in the voice of a man dying in a righteous cause.

“Damnable humbug!” Mizintchikov whispered beside me. “As though he didn’t see where he had been brought! Now he will give us a fine exhibition!”

“You are among us, Foma, you are in your own circle!” cried my uncle. “Don’t give way, calm yourself! And really, Foma, you had better change your things, or you will be ill... And won’t you take something to restore you, eh? Just something... a little glass of something to warm you....”

“I could drink a little Malaga,” Foma moaned, closing his eyes again.

“Malaga? I am not sure there is any,” my uncle said, anxiously looking towards Praskovya Ilyinitchna.

“To be sure there is!” the latter answered. “There are four whole bottles left.” And jingling her keys she ran to fetch the Malaga, followed by exclamations of the ladies, who were clinging to Foma like flies round jam. On the other hand, Mr. Bahtcheyev was indignant in the extreme.

“He wants Malaga!” he grumbled almost aloud. “And asks for a wine that no one drinks. Who drinks Malaga nowadays but rascals like him? Tfoo, you confounded fellow! What am I standing here for? What am I waiting for?”

“Foma,” my uncle began, stumbling over every word, “you see now... when you are rested and are with us again... that is, I meant to say, Foma, that I understand how accusing, so to say, the most innocent of beings...”

“Where is it, my innocence, where?” Foma interrupted, as though he were feverish and in delirium. “Where are my golden days? Where art thou, my golden childhood, when innocent and lovely I ran about the fields chasing the spring butterflies? Where are those days? Give me back my innocence, give it me back!...”

And Foma, flinging wide his arms, turned to each one of us in succession as though his innocence were in somebody’s pocket. Bahtcheyev was ready to explode with wrath.

“Ech, so that’s what he wants!” he muttered in a fury. “Give him his innocence! Does he want to kiss it, or what? Most likely he was as great a villain when he was a boy as he is now! I’ll take my oath he was.”

“Foma!”... my uncle was beginning again.

“Where, where are they, those days when I still had faith in love and loved mankind?” cried Foma; “when I embraced man and wept upon his bosom? But now where am I? Where am I?”

“You are with us, Foma, calm yourself,” cried my uncle. “This is what I wanted to say to you, Foma....”

“You might at least keep silent now,” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn, with a spiteful gleam in her viperish eyes.

“Where am I?” Foma went on. “Who are about me? They are bulls and buffaloes turning their horns against me. Life, what art thou? If one lives one is dishonoured, disgraced, humbled, crushed; and when the earth is scattered on one’s coffin, only then men will remember one and pile a monument on one’s poor bones!”

“Holy saints, he is talking about monuments!” whispered Yezhevikin, clasping his hands.

“Oh, do not put up a monument to me,” cried Foma, “do not! I don’t need monuments. Raise up a monument to me in your hearts, I want nothing more, nothing more!”

“Foma,” my uncle interposed, “enough, calm yourself! There is no need to talk about monuments. Only listen. You see, Foma, I understand that you were perhaps, so to say, inspired with righteous fervour when you reproached me, but you were carried away, Foma, beyond the limit of righteousness—I assure you you were mistaken, Foma....”

“Oh, will you give over?” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn again. “Do you want to murder the poor man because he is in your hands?...”

After Miss Perepelitsyn, Madame la Générale made a stir, and all her suite followed her example; they all waved their hands at my uncle to stop him.

“Anna Nilovna, be silent yourself, I know what I am saying!” my uncle answered firmly. “This is a sacred matter! A question of honour and justice. Foma! you are a sensible man, you must at once ask the forgiveness of the virtuous young lady whom you have insulted.”

“What young lady? What young lady have I insulted?” Foma articulated in amazement, staring round at everyone as though he had entirely forgotten everything that had happened, and did not know what was the matter.

“Yes, Foma; and if now of your own accord you frankly acknowledge you have done wrong, I swear, Foma, I will fall at your feet and then...”

“Whom have I insulted?” wailed Foma. “What young lady? Where is she? Where is the young lady? Recall to me something about the young lady!...”

At that instant, Nastenka, confused and frightened, went up to Yegor Ilyitch and pulled him by the sleeve.

“No, Yegor Ilyitch, leave him alone, there is no need of an apology. What is the object of it all?” she said in an imploring voice. “Give it up!”

“Ah, now I begin to remember,” cried Foma. “My God, I understand. Oh, help me, help me to remember!” he implored, apparently in great excitement. “Tell me, is it true that I was turned out of this house, like the mangiest of curs? Is it true that I was struck by lightning? Is it true that I was kicked down the steps? Is it true? Is that true?”

The weeping and wailing of the fair sex were the most eloquent reply to Foma Fomitch.

“Yes, yes,” he repeated, “I remember... I remember now that after the lightning and my fall I was running here, pursued by the thunder, to do my duty and then vanish for ever! Raise me up! Weak as I may be now, I must do my duty.”

He was at once helped up from his chair. Foma stood in the attitude of an orator and stretched out his hands.

“Colonel,” he cried, “now I have quite recovered. The thunder has not extinguished my intellectual capacities; it has left, it is true, a deafness in my right ear, due perhaps not so much to the thunder as to my fall down the steps, but what of that? And what does anyone care about Foma’s right ear!”

Foma threw such a wealth of mournful irony into these last words, and accompanied them with such a pathetic smile, that the groans of the deeply-moved ladies resounded again. They all looked with reproach, and some also with fury, at my uncle, who was beginning to be crushed by so unanimous an expression of public opinion. Mizintchikov, with a curse, walked away to the window. Bahtcheyev kept prodding me more and more violently with his elbow; he could hardly stand still.

“Now listen to my whole confession!” yelled Foma, turning upon all a proud and determined gaze, “and at the same time decide the fate of poor Opiskin! Yegor Ilyitch, for a long time past I have been watching over you, watching over you with a tremor at my heart, and I have seen everything, everything, while you were not suspecting that I was watching over you. Colonel! Perhaps I was mistaken, but I knew your egotism, your boundless vanity, your phenomenal sensuality, and who would blame me for trembling for the honour of an innocent young person?”

“Foma, Foma!... you need not enlarge on it, Foma,” cried my uncle, looking uneasily at Nastenka’s suffering face.

“What troubled me was not so much the innocence and trustfulness of the person in question as her inexperience,” Foma went on, as though he had not heard my uncle’s warning. “I saw that a tender feeling was blossoming in her heart, like a rose in spring, and I could not help recalling Petrarch’s saying, ‘Innocence is often but a hair’s breadth from ruin.’ I sighed, I groaned, and though I was ready to shed the last drop of my blood to safeguard that pure pearl of maidenhood, who could answer to me for you, Yegor Ilyitch? I know the unbridled violence of your passions, and knowing that you are ready to sacrifice everything for their momentary gratification, I was plunged in the depths of alarm and apprehension for the fate of the noblest of girls....”

“Foma! Could you really imagine such a thing?” cried my uncle.

“With a shudder at my heart I watched over you. And if you want to know what I have been suffering, go to Shakespeare: in his Hamlet he describes the state of my soul. I became suspicious and terrible. In my anxiety, in indignation, I saw everything in the blackest colour and that not the ‘black colour’ sung of in the well-known song—I can assure you. That was the cause of the desire you saw in me to remove her far away from this house: I wanted to save her; that was why you have seen me of late irritable and bitter against the whole human race. Oh! who will reconcile me with humanity? I feel that I was perhaps over-exacting and unjust to your guests, to your nephew, to Mr. Bahtcheyev, when I expected from him a knowledge of astronomy; but who will blame me for my state of mind at the time? Going to Shakespeare again, I may say that the future looked to my imagination like a gloomy gulf of unfathomed depth with a crocodile lying at the bottom. I felt that it was my duty to prevent disaster, that I was destined, appointed for that purpose—and what happened? You did not understand the generous impulse of my heart, and have been repaying me all this time with anger, with ingratitude, with jeers, with slights...”

“Foma! If that is so... of course I feel...” cried my uncle, in extreme agitation.

“If you really do feel it, Colonel, be so kind as to listen and not interrupt me. I will continue. My whole fault lay in the fact, therefore, that I was too much troubled over the fate and the happiness of this child; for compared with you she is a child. It was the truest love for humanity that turned me all this time into a fiend of wrath and suspicion. I was ready to fall on people and tear them to pieces. And you know, Yegor Ilyitch, all your actions, as though of design, made me more suspicious every hour, and confirmed my fears. You know, Yegor Ilyitch, when you showered your gold upon me yesterday to drive me from you, I thought: ‘He is driving away in my person his conscience, so as more easily to perpetrate this wickedness...”

“Foma, Foma, can you have thought that yesterday?” my uncle cried out with horror. “Merciful heavens! and I hadn’t the faintest suspicion...”

“Heaven itself inspired those suspicions,” Foma went on. “And judge for yourself: what could I suppose when chance led me that very evening to that fatal seat in the garden? What were my feelings at that moment—oh, my God!—when I saw with my own eyes that all my suspicions were justified in the most flagrant manner? But I had still one hope left, a faint one indeed, but still it was a hope, and—this morning you shattered it into dust and ashes! You sent me your letter, you alleged your intention to marry; you besought me not to make it public... ‘But why?’ I wondered. ‘Why did he write now after I have found him out and not before? Why did he not run to me before, happy and comely—for love adorns the countenance—why did he not fly to my embrace, why did he not weep upon my bosom tears of infinite bliss and tell me all about it, all about it?’ Or am I a crocodile who would have devoured you instead of giving you good advice? Or am I some loathsome beetle who would only have bitten you and not assisted your happiness? ‘Am I his friend or the most repulsive of insects?’ that was the question I asked myself this morning. ‘With what object,’ I asked myself, ‘with what object did he invite his nephew from Petersburg and try to betroth him to this girl, if not to deceive us and his frivolous nephew, and meanwhile in secret to persist in his criminal designs?’ Yes, Colonel, if anyone confirmed in me the thought that your mutual love was criminal, it was you yourself and you only! What is more, you have behaved like a criminal to this young girl; for through your tactlessness and selfish mistrustfulness you have exposed her, a modest and high-principled girl, to slander and odious suspicions.”

My uncle stood silent with bowed head, Foma’s eloquence was evidently getting the better of his convictions, and he was beginning to regard himself as a complete criminal. Madame la Générale and her followers were listening to Foma in awestruck silence, while Miss Perepelitsyn looked with spiteful triumph at poor Nastenka.

“Overwhelmed, nervously exhausted and shattered,” Foma went on, “I locked myself in this morning and prayed, and the Lord showed me the right path. At last I decided: for the last time and publicly to put you to the test. I may have gone about it with too much fervour, I may have given way too much to my indignation; but for my well-meaning effort, you flung me out of the window! As I fell out of the window I thought to myself: ‘This is how virtue is rewarded all the world over.’ Then I struck the earth, and I scarcely remember what happened to me afterwards.”

Shrieks and groans interrupted Foma Fomitch at this tragic recollection. Madame la Générale made a dash at him with a bottle of Malaga in her hand, which she had just snatched from Praskovya Ilyinitchna, but Foma majestically waved aside the hand and the Malaga and Madame la Générale herself.

“Let me alone,” he shouted; “I must finish. What happened after my fall—I don’t know. I know one thing only, that now, wet through and on the verge of fever, I am standing here to secure your mutual happiness. Colonel! From many signs which I do not wish now to particularise, I am convinced at last that your love was pure and even exalted, though at the same time criminally distrustful. Beaten, humiliated, suspected of insulting a young lady in defence of whose honour I am ready like a medieval knight to shed the last drop of my blood, I have made up my mind to show you how Foma Opiskin revenges an injury. Give me your hand, Colonel!”

“With pleasure, Foma!” cried my uncle. “And since you have now fully cleared the honour of this young lady from every aspersion, why... of course... here is my hand, Foma, together with my regrets....”

And my uncle gave him his hand warmly, not yet suspecting what was to come of it.

“Give me your hand too,” went on Foma in a faint voice, parting the crowd of ladies who were pressing round him and appealing to Nastenka.

Nastenka was taken aback and confused, she looked timidly at Foma.

“Approach, approach, my sweet child! It is essential for your happiness,” Foma added caressingly, still holding my uncle’s hand in his.

“What’s he up to now?” said Mizintchikov.

Nastenka, frightened and trembling, went slowly up to Foma and timidly held out her hand.

Foma took her hand and put it in my uncle’s.

“I join your hands and bless you,” he pronounced in the most solemn voice. “And if the blessing of a poor sorrow- stricken sufferer may avail you, be happy. This is how Foma Opiskin takes his revenge! Hurrah!”

The amazement of everyone was immense. The conclusion was so unexpected that everyone was struck dumb. Madame la Générale stood rooted to the spot, with her mouth open and the bottle of Malaga in her hand. Miss Perepelitsyn turned pale and trembled with fury. The lady companions clasped their hands and sat petrified in their seats. My uncle trembled and tried to say something, but could not. Nastya turned deathly pale and timidly murmured that “it could not be”... but it was too late. ‘Bahtcheyev was the first—we must do him that credit—to second Foma’s hurrah. I followed suit, and after me Sashenka shouted at the top of her ringing voice as she flew to embrace her father; then Ilyusha joined in, then Yezhevikin, and last of all Mizintchikov.

“Hurrah!” Foma cried once more; “hurrah! And on your knees, children of my heart, on your knees before the tenderest of mothers! Ask her blessing, and if need be I will kneel before her by your side....”

My uncle and Nastya, not looking at each other, and seeming not to understand what was being done to them, fell on their knees before Madame la Générale, tire whole company flocked round them; but the old lady seemed to be stupefied, not knowing what to do. Foma came to the rescue at this juncture too; he plumped down himself before his patroness. This at once dispelled all her hesitation. Dissolving into tears, she said at last that she consented. My uncle jumped up and clasped Foma in his arms.

“Foma, Foma!...” he began, but his voice broke and he could not go on.

“Champagne!” bawled Mr. Bahtcheyev. “Hurrah!”

“No, sir, not champagne,” Miss Perepelitsyn caught him up. She had by now recovered herself, and realised the position and at the same time its consequences. “Put up a candle to God, pray to the holy image and bless with the holy image, as is done by all godly people....”

At once all flew to carry out the sage suggestion; a fearful bustle followed. They had to light the candle. Mr. Bahtcheyev drew up a chair and got up on it to put the candle before the holy image, but immediately broke the chair and came down heavily on the floor—still on his feet, however. Not in the least irritated by this, he at once respectfully made way for Miss Perepelitsyn. The slender Miss Perepelitsyn had done the job in a flash: the candle was lighted. The nun and the lady companions began crossing themselves and bowing down to the ground. They took down the image of the Saviour and carried it to Madame la Générale. My uncle and Nastya went down on their knees again and the ceremony was carried out under the pious instructions of Miss Perepelitsyn, who was saying every minute: “Bow down to her feet, kiss the image, kiss your mamma’s hand.” Mr. Bahtcheyev thought himself bound to kiss the image after the betrothed couple, and at the same time he kissed the hand of Madame la Générale.

“Hurrah!” he shouted again. “Come, now we will have some champagne.”

Everyone, however, was delighted. Madame la Générale was weeping, but it was now with tears of joy. Foma’s blessing had at once made the union sanctified and suitable, and what mattered most to her was that Foma Fomitch had distinguished himself and that now he would remain with her for ever. All the lady companions, in appearance at least, shared the general satisfaction. My uncle at one moment was on his knees kissing his mother’s hands, at the next was flying to embrace me, Bahtcheyev, Mizintchikov and Yezhevikin. Ilyusha he almost smothered in his embraces. Sasha ran to hug and kiss Nastenka. Praskovya Ilyinitchna dissolved into tears. Bahtcheyev, noticing this, went up to kiss her hand. Poor old Yezhevikin was completely overcome, he was weeping in a comer and was wiping his eyes with the same check handkerchief. In another corner Gavrila was whimpering and gazing reverently at Foma Fomitch, and Falaley was sobbing loudly and going up to each of the company in turn, kissing his hand. All were overwhelmed with feeling; no one yet had begun to talk, or explain things; it seemed as though everything had been said; nothing was heard but joyful exclamations. No one understood yet how all this had been so quickly arranged. They knew one thing only, that it had all been arranged by Foma Fomitch, and that this was a solid fact which could not be changed.

But not five minutes had passed after the general rejoicing, when suddenly Tatyana Ivanovna made her appearance among us. In what way, by what intuition could she, sitting in her own room upstairs, have so quickly divined love and marriage below? She fluttered in with a radiant face, with tears of joy in her eyes, in a fascinating and elegant get-up (she had had time to change her dress before coming down), and flew straight to embrace Nastenka with loud exclamations.

“Nastenka, Nastenka! You loved him and I did not know!” she cried. “Goodness! They loved each other, they suffered in silence! They have been persecuted. What a romance! Nastya, darling, tell me the whole truth: do you really love this crazy fellow?”

By way of reply Nastya hugged and kissed her.

“My goodness, what a fascinating romance!” And Tatyana Ivanovna clapped her hands in delight. “Nastya, listen, my angel: all these men, all, every one, are ungrateful wretches, monsters, and not worthy of our love. But perhaps he is the best of them. Come to me, you crazy fellow!” she cried, addressing my uncle and clutching him by the arm. “Are you really in love? Are you really capable of loving? Look at me, I want to look into your eyes, I want to see whether those eyes are lying or not? No, no, they are not lying; there is the light of love in them. Oh, how happy I am! Nastenka, my dear, you are not rich—I shall make you a present of thirty thousand roubles. Take it, for God’s sake. I don’t want it, I don’t want it; I shall have plenty left. No, no, no,” she cried, waving her hand as she saw Nastenka was meaning to refuse. “Don’t you speak, Yegor Ilyitch, it is not your affair. No, Nastya, I had made up my mind already to give you the money; I have been wanting to make you a present for a long time, and was only waiting for you to be in love.... I shall see your happiness. You will wound me if you don’t take it; I shall cry, Nastya. No, no, no and no!”

Tatyana Ivanovna was so overjoyed that for the moment at least it was impossible, it would have been a pity indeed, to cross her. They could not bring themselves to do it, but put it off. She flew to kiss Madame la Générale, Miss Perepelitsyn and all of us. Mr. Bahtcheyev squeezed his way up to her very respectfully and asked to kiss her hand.

“My dear, good girl! Forgive an old fool like me for what happened this morning. I didn’t know what a heart of gold you had.”

“Crazy fellow! I know you,” Tatyana Ivanovna lisped with gleeful playfulness. She gave Mr. Bahtcheyev a flick on the nose with her glove, and swishing against him with her gorgeous skirts, fluttered away like a zephyr.

The fat man stepped aside respectfully.

“A very worthy young lady!” he said with feeling. “They have stuck a nose on to the German! You know!” he whispered to me confidentially, looking at me joyfully.

“What nose? What German?” I asked in surprise.

“Why, the one I ordered, the German kissing his lady’s hand while she is wiping away a tear with her handkerchief. Only yesterday my Yevdokem mended it; and when we came back from our expedition this morning I sent a man on horseback to fetch it... They will soon be bringing it. A superb thing.”

“Foma!” cried my uncle in a frenzy of delight. “It is you who have made our happiness. How can I reward you?”

“Nohow, Colonel,” replied Foma, with a sanctimonious air. “Continue to pay no attention to me and be happy without Foma.”

He was evidently piqued; in the general rejoicing he seemed, as it were, forgotten.

“It is all due to our joy, Foma,” cried my uncle. “I don’t know whether I am on my head or my feet. Listen, Foma, I have insulted you. My whole blood is not enough to atone for my wrong to you, and that is why I say nothing and do not even beg your pardon. But if ever you have need of my head, my life, if you ever want someone to throw himself over a precipice for your sake, call upon me, and you shall see... I will say nothing more, Foma.”

And my uncle waved his hand, fully recognising the impossibility of adding anything that could more strongly express his feeling. He only gazed at Foma with grateful eyes full of tears.

“See what an angel he is!” Miss Perepelitsyn piped in her turn in adulation of Foma.

“Yes, yes,” Sashenka put in. “I did not know you were such a good man, Foma Fomitch, and I was disrespectful to you. But forgive me, Foma Fomitch, and you may be sure I will love you with all my heart. If you knew how much I respect you now!”

“Yes, Foma,” Bahtcheyev chimed in. “Forgive an old fool like me too. I didn’t know you, I didn’t know you. You are not merely a learned man, Foma, but also—simply a hero. My whole house is at your service. But there, the best of all would be, if you would come to me the day after tomorrow, old man, with Madame la Générale too, and the betrothed couple—the whole company, in fact. And we will have a dinner, I tell you. I won’t praise it beforehand, but one thing I can say, you will find everything you want unless it is bird’s milk. I give you my word of honour.”

In the midst of these demonstrations, Nastenka, too, went up to Foma Fomitch and without further words warmly embraced him and kissed him.

“Foma Fomitch,” she said, “you have been a true friend to us, you have done so much for us, that I don’t know how to repay you for it all; but I only know that I will be for you a most tender and respectful sister...”

She could say no more, she was choked by tears. Foma kissed her on the head and grew tearful.

“My children, the children of my heart,” he said. “Live and prosper, and in moments of happiness think sometimes of the poor exile. For myself, I will only say that misfortune is perhaps the mother of virtue. That, I believe, is said by Gogol, a frivolous writer, but from whom one may sometimes glean fruitful thoughts. Exile is a misfortune. I shall wander like a pilgrim with my staff over the face of the earth, and who knows?—perchance my troubles will make me more righteous yet! That thought is the one consolation left me!”

“But... where are you going, Foma?” my uncle asked in alarm.

All were startled, and pressed round Foma.

“Why, do you suppose I can remain in your house after your behaviour this morning?” Foma inquired with extraordinary dignity.

But he was not allowed to finish, outcries from all the company smothered his voice. They made him sit down in an easy- chair, they besought him, they shed tears over him, and I don’t know what they didn’t do. Of course he hadn’t the faintest intention of leaving “this house”, just as he had not earlier that morning, nor the day before, nor on the occasion when he had taken to digging in the garden. He knew now that they would reverently detain him, would clutch at him, especially since he had made them all happy, since they all had faith in him again and were ready to carry him on their shoulders and to consider it an honour and a happiness to do so. But most likely his cowardly return, when he was frightened by the storm, was rankling in his mind and egging him on to play the hero in some way. And above all, there was such a temptation to give himself airs; the opportunity of talking, of using fine phrases and laying it on thick, of blowing his own trumpet, was too good for any possibility of resisting the temptation. He did not resist it; he tore himself out of the grasp of those who held him. He asked for his staff, besought them to let him have his freedom, to let him wander out into the wide wide world, declared that in that house he had been dishonoured, beaten, that he had only come back to make everyone happy, and, he asked, could he remain in this “house of ingratitude and eat soup, sustaining, perhaps, but seasoned with blows?” At last he left off struggling. He was reseated in his chair, but his eloquence was not arrested.

“Have I not been insulted here?” he cried. “Have I not been taunted? Haven’t you, you yourself, Colonel, have you not every hour pointed the finger of scorn and made the long nose of derision at me, like the ignorant children of the working class in the streets of the town? Yes, Colonel, I insist on that comparison, because if you have not done so physically it has yet been a moral long nose, and in some cases a moral long nose is more insulting than a physical one. I say nothing of blows...”

“Foma, Foma,” cried my uncle, “do not crush me with these recollections. I have told you already that all my blood is not enough to wash out the insults. Be magnanimous! Forgive, forget, and remain to contemplate our happiness! Your work, Foma...”

“I want to love my fellow-man, to love him,” cried Foma, “and they won’t give me him, they forbid me to love him, they take him from me. Give me, give me my fellow-man that I may love him! Where is that fellow-man? Where is he hidden? Like Diogenes with his candle, I have been looking for him all my life and cannot find him; and I can love no one, to this day I cannot find the man. Woe to him who has made me a hater of mankind! I cry: give me my fellow-man that I may love him, and they thrust Falaley upon me! Am I to love Falaley? Do I want to love Falaley? Could I love Falaley, even it I wanted to? No. Why not? Because he is Falaley. Why do I not love humanity? Because all on earth are Falaleys or like Falaley. I don’t want Falaley, I hate Falaley, I spit on Falaley, I trample Falaley under my feet. And if I had to choose I would rather love Asmodeus than Falaley. Come here, come here, my everlasting torment, come here,” he cried, suddenly addressing Falaley, who was in the most innocent way standing on tiptoe, looking over the crowd that was surrounding Foma Fomitch. “Come here. I will show you, Colonel,” cried Foma, drawing towards him Falaley, who was almost unconscious with terror, “I will show you the truth of my words about the everlasting long nose and finger of scorn! Tell me, Falaley, and tell the truth: what did you dream about last night? Come, Colonel, you will see your handiwork! Come, Falaley, tell us!”

The poor boy, shaking with terror, turned despairing eyes about him, looking for someone to rescue him; but everyone was in a tremor waiting for his answer.

“Come, Falaley, I am waiting.”

Instead of answering, Falaley screwed up his face, opened his mouth wide, and began bellowing like a calf.

“Colonel! Do you see this stubbornness? Do you mean to tell me it’s natural? For the last time I ask you, Falaley, tell me: what did you dream of last night?”

“O-of...”

“Say you dreamed of me,” said Bahtcheyev.

“Of your virtue, sir,” Yezhevikin prompted in his other ear.

Falaley merely looked about him.

“O-of... of your vir... of a white bu-ull,” he roared at last, and burst into scalding tears.

Everyone groaned. But Foma Fomitch was in a paroxysm of extraordinary magnanimity.

“Anyway, I see your sincerity, Falaley,” he said. “A sincerity I do not observe in others. God bless you! If you are purposely mocking at me with that dream at the instigation of others, God will repay you and those others. If not, I respect your truthfulness; for even in the lowest of creatures like you it is my habit to discern the image and semblance of God... I forgive you, Falaley. Embrace me, my children. I will remain with you.”

“He will remain!” they all cried in delight.

“I will remain and I will forgive. Colonel, reward Falaley with some sugar, do not let him cry on such a day of happiness for all.”

I need hardly say that such magnanimity was thought astounding. To take so much thought at such a moment, and for whom? For Falaley. My uncle flew to carry out his instruction in regard to the sugar. Immediately a silver sugar-basin—I don’t know where it came from—appeared in the hands of Praskovya Ilyinitchna. My uncle was about to take out two pieces with a trembling hand, then three, then he dropped them, at last, seeing he was incapable of doing anything from excitement.

“Ah!” he cried, “for a day like this! Hold out your coat, Falaley,” and he poured into his coat all the contents of the sugar-basin. “That’s for your truthfulness,” he said, by way of edification.

“Mr. Korovkin!” Vidoplyasov announced, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

A slight flutter of consternation followed—Korovkin’s visit was obviously ill-timed. They all looked inquiringly at my uncle.

“Korovkin!” cried my uncle, in some embarrassment. “Of course I am delighted...” he added, glancing timidly towards Foma; “but really I don’t know whether to ask him in at such a moment. What do you think, Foma?”

“Oh, yes, why not,” said Foma amicably. “Invite Korovkin too; let him, too, share in the general rejoicing.”

In short, Foma Fomitch was in an angelic frame of mind.

“I most respectfully make bold to inform you,” observed Vidoplyasov, “that the gentleman is not quite himself.”

“Not quite himself? How? What nonsense are you talking?” cried my uncle.

“It is so, indeed; he is not quite in a sober condition.”

But before my uncle had time to open his mouth, flush red, and show his alarm and extreme embarrassment, the mystery was explained. Korovkin appeared in the doorway, pushed Vidoplyasov aside and confronted the astonished company. He was a short, thick-set gentleman of forty, with dark hair touched with grey and closely cropped, with a round purple face and little bloodshot eyes, wearing a high horsehair cravat, fastened at the back with a buckle, an extraordinarily threadbare swallow-tail coat covered with fluff and hay and disclosing a bad rent under the arm, and unspeakable trousers, and carrying an incredibly greasy cap which he was holding out at arm’s length. This gentleman was completely drunk. Advancing into the middle of the room, he stood still, staggering, nodding his head as though he were pecking at something with his nose in drunken hesitation; then he slowly grinned from ear to ear.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I... er...” (here he gave a tug at his collar) “got ‘em!”

Madame la Générale immediately assumed an air of offended dignity. Foma, sitting in his easy-chair, ironically looked the eccentric visitor up and down. Bahtcheyev stared at him in perplexity, through which some sympathy was, however, apparent. My uncle’s embarrassment was incredible; he was deeply distressed on Korovkin’s account.

“Korovkin,” he began. “Listen.”

“Attendez!” Korovkin interrupted him. “Let me introduce myself: a child of nature... But what do I see? There are ladies here... Why didn’t you tell me, you rascal, that you had ladies here?” he added with a roguish smile. “Never mind! Don’t be shy. Let us be presented to the fair sex. Charming ladies,” he began, articulating with difficulty and stumbling over every word, “you see a luckless mortal... who... and so on... The rest must remain unsaid... Musicians! A polka!”

“Wouldn’t you like a nap?” asked Mizintchikov, quietly going up to Korovkin.

“A nap? You say that to insult me?”

“Not at all. You know a little sleep is a good thing after a journey...”

“Never!” Korovkin answered with indignation. “Do you think I am drunk?—not a bit. But where do they sleep here?”

“Come along, I’ll take you at once.”

“Where? In the coach-house? No, my lad, you won’t take me in! I have spent a night there already... Lead the way, though. Why not go along with a good fellow.... I don’t want a pillow. A military man does not want a pillow.... But you produce a sofa for me, old man... a sofa. And, I say,” he added, stopping, “I see you are a jolly fellow; produce something else for me... you know? A bit of the rummy, enough to drown a fly in, only enough for that, only one little glass, I mean.”

“Very well, very well!” answered Mizintchikov.

“Very well. But you wait a bit, I must say good-bye. Adieu, mesdames and mesdemoiselles. You have, so to speak, smitten... But there, never mind! We will talk about that afterwards... only do wake me when it begins... or even five minutes before it begins... don’t begin without me! Do you hear? Don’t begin!...”

And the merry gentleman vanished behind Mizintchikov.

Everyone was silent. The company had not got over their astonishment. At last Foma without a word began noiselessly chuckling, his laughter grew into a guffaw. Seeing that, Madame la Générale, too, was amused, though the expression of insulted dignity still remained on her face. Irrepressible laughter arose on all sides. My uncle stood as though paralysed, flushing almost to tears, and was for some time incapable of uttering a word.

“Merciful heavens!” he brought out at last. “Who could have known this? But you know... you know it might happen to anyone. Foma, I assure you that he is a most straightforward, honourable man, and an extremely well-read man too, Foma... you will see!...”

“I do see, I do see,” cried Foma, shaking with laughter; “extraordinarily well-read. Well-read is just the word.”

“How he can talk about railways!” Yezhevikin observed in an undertone.

“Foma,” my uncle was beginning, but the laughter of all the company drowned his words. Foma Fomitch was simply in fits, and looking at him, my uncle began laughing too.

“Well, what does it matter?” he said enthusiastically. “You are magnanimous, Foma, you have a great heart; you have made me happy... you forgive Korovkin too.”

Nastenka was the only one who did not laugh. She looked with eyes full of love at her future husband, and looked as though she would say—

“How splendid, how kind you are, the most generous oi men, and how I love you!”

Chapter 6 — Conclusion

Foma’s triumph was complete and beyond attack.

Certainly without him nothing would have been settled, and the accomplished fact stifled all doubts and objections. The gratitude of those he had made happy was beyond all bounds. My uncle and Nastya waved me off when I attempted to drop a faint hint at the process by which Foma’s consent to their marriage had been obtained. Sashenka cried: “Good, kind Foma Fomitch; I will embroider him a cushion in woolwork!” and even reproached me for my hard-heartedness. I believe that Bahtecheyev in the fervour of his conversion would have strangled me if I had ventured to say anything disrespectful about Foma Fomitch. He followed Foma about like a little dog, gazed at him with devout reverence, and at every word the latter uttered he would exclaim: “You are a noble man, Foma. You are a learned man, Foma.” As for Yezhevikin, he was highly delighted. The old man had for a long time past seen that Nastenka had turned Yegor Ilyitch’s head, and from that time forward his one dream, waking and sleeping, was to bring about this marriage. He had clung to the idea to the last, and had only given it up when it had been impossible not to do so. Foma had changed the aspect of the affair. I need hardly say that in spite of his delight the old man saw through Foma; in short, it was clear that Foma Fomitch would be supreme in that household for ever, and that there would be no limit to his despotism. We all know that even the most unpleasant and ill-humoured people are softened, if only for a time, when their desires are gratified. Foma Fomitch, on the contrary, seemed to grow stupider when he was successful, and held his nose higher in the air than ever. Just before dinner, having changed all his clothes, he settled down in an arm-chair, summoned my uncle, and in the presence of the whole family began giving him another lecture.

“Colonel,” he began, “you are about to enter upon holy matrimony. Do you realise the obligation…”

And so on and so on. Imagine ten pages of the size of the Journal des Débats, of the smallest print, filled with the wildest nonsense, in which there was absolutely nothing dealing with the duties of marriage, but only the most shameful eulogies of the intellect, mildness, magnanimity, manliness and disinterestedness of himself, Foma Fomitch. Everyone was hungry, they all wanted their dinners; but in spite of that no one dared to protest, and everyone heard the twaddle reverently to the end. Even Bahtcheyev, in spite of his ravenous appetite, sat without stirring, absolutely respectful. Gratified by his own eloquence, Foma Fomitch grew livelier, and even drank rather heavily at dinner, proposing the most extraordinary toasts. He proceeded to display his wit by being jocose, at the expense of the happy pair, of course. Everybody laughed and applauded. But some of the jokes were so gross and suggestive that even Bahtcheyev was embarrassed by them. At last Nastenka jumped up from the table and ran away, to the indescribable delight of Foma Fomitch, but he immediately pulled himself up. Briefly but in strong terms he dwelt upon Nastenka’s virtues, and proposed a toast to the health of the absent one. My uncle, who a minute before had been embarrassed and unhappy, was ready to hug Foma Fomitch again. Altogether the betrothed pair seemed somewhat ashamed of each other and their happiness—and I noticed that they had not said a word to each other from the time of the blessing, they even seemed to avoid looking at one another. When they got up from dinner, my uncle vanished, I don’t know where. I strolled out on to the terrace to look for him. There I found Foma sitting in an easy-chair, drinking coffee and holding forth, extremely exhilarated. Only Yezhevikin, Bahtcheyev and Mizintchikov were by him. I stopped to listen.

“Why,” asked Foma, “am I ready at this moment to go through fire for my convictions? And why is it that none of you are capable of going through fire? Why is it? Why is it?”

“Well, but it’s unnecessary, Foma Fomitch, to go through fire,” Yezhevikin said banteringly. “Why, what’s the sense of it? In the first place it would hurt, and in the second it would bum—what would be left?”

“What would be left? Noble ashes would be left. But how should you understand, how should you appreciate me? To you, no great men exist but perhaps some Caesar or Alexander of Macedon. And what did your Caesars do? Whom did they make happy? What did your vaunted Alexander of Macedon do? He conquered the whole earth? But give me such a phalanx and I could be a conqueror too, and so could you, and so could he... On the other hand, he killed the virtuous Clitus, but I have not killed the virtuous Clitus.... A puppy, a scoundrel! He ought to have had a thrashing, and not to have been glorified in universal history... and Caesar with him!”

“You might spare Caesar, anyway, Foma Fomitch!”

“I won’t spare the fool!” cried Foma.

“No, don’t spare him!” Bahtcheyev, who had also been drinking, backed him up. “There is no need to spare them, they are all flighty fellows, they care for nothing but pirouetting on one leg! Sausage-eaters! Here, one of them was wanting to found a scholarship just now—and what is a scholarship? The devil only knows what it means! I bet it’s some new villainy! And here is another who in honourable society is staggering about and asking for rum. I have no objection to drinking. But one should drink and drink and then take a rest, and afterwards, maybe, drink again. It’s no good sparing them! They are all scoundrels. You are the only enlightened one among them, Foma!”

If Bahtcheyev surrendered to anyone he surrendered unconditionally and absolutely without criticism.

I looked for my uncle in the garden, by the pond in the most secluded spot. He was with Nastenka. Seeing me, Nastenka shot into the bushes as though she were in fault. My uncle came to meet me with a beaming face; there were tears of happiness in his eyes. He took both my hands and warmly pressed them.

“My dear,” he said, “I still cannot believe in my happiness.... Nastya feels the same. We only marvel and glorify the Almighty. She was crying just now. Would you believe it, I hardly know what I am doing yet, I am still utterly beside myself, and don’t know whether to believe it or not! And why has this come to me? Why? What have I done? How have I deserved it?”

“If anyone deserves anything, it is you, uncle,” I said with conviction. “I have never seen such an honest, such a fine, such a kind-hearted man as you.”

“No, Seryozha, no, it is too much,” he answered, as it were with regret. “What is bad is that we are kind (I am talking only about myself really) when we are happy; but when we are unhappy it is best not to come near us! Nastenka and T were only just talking of that. Though I was dazzled by Foma, up to this very day perhaps, would you believe it, I did not quite believe in him, though I did assure you of his perfection; even yesterday I did not believe in him when he refused such a present! To my shame I say it. My heart shudders at the memory of this morning, but I could not control myself... When he spoke of Nastya something seemed to stab me to the very heart. I did not understand and behaved like a tiger....”

“Well, uncle, perhaps that was only natural.

My uncle waved away the idea.

“No, no, my boy, don’t say so. The fact of it is, all this comes from the depravity of my nature, from my being a gloomy and sensual egoist and abandoning myself to my passions without restraint. That’s what Foma says.” (What could one answer to that?) “You don’t know, Seryozha,” he went on with deep feeling, “how often I have been irritable, unfeeling, unjust, haughty, and not only to Foma. Now it has all come back to my mind, and I feel ashamed that I have done nothing hitherto to deserve such happiness. Nastya has just said the same thing, though I really don’t know what sins she has, as she is an angel, not a human being! She has just been saying that we owe a terrible debt of gratitude to God; that we must try now to be better and always to be doing good deeds... And if only you had heard how fervently, how beautifully she said all that! My God, what a wonderful girl!”

He stopped in agitation. A minute later he went on.

“We resolved, my dear boy, to cherish Foma in particular, mamma and Tatyana Ivanovna. Tatyana Ivanovna! What a generous-hearted creature! Oh, how much I have been to blame towards all of them! I have behaved badly to you too... But if anyone should dare to insult Tatyana Ivanovna now, oh! then... Oh, well, never mind!... We must do something for Mizintchikov too.”

“Yes, uncle, I have changed my opinion of Tatyana Ivanovna now. One cannot help respecting her and feeling for her.”

“Just so, just so,” my uncle assented warmly. “One can’t help respecting her! Now Korovkin, for instance, no doubt you laugh at him,” he added, glancing at me timidly, “and we all laughed at him this afternoon. And yet, you know, that was perhaps unpardonable... You know, he may be an excellent, good-hearted man, but fate... he has had misfortunes.... You don’t believe it, but perhaps it really is so.”

“No, uncle, why shouldn’t I believe it?”

And I began fervently declaring that even in the creature who has fallen lowest there may still survive the finest human feelings; that the depths of the human soul are unfathomable; that we must not despise the fallen, but on the contrary ought to seek them out and raise them up; that the commonly accepted standards of goodness and morality were not infallible, and so on, and so on; in fact I warmed up to the subject, and even began talking about the realist school. In conclusion I even repeated the verses: ’When from dark error’s subjugation’...”

My uncle was extraordinarily delighted.

“My dear, my dear,” he said, much touched, “you understand me fully, and have said much better than I could what I wanted to express. Yes, yes! Good heavens! Why is it man is wicked? Why is it that I am so often wicked when it is so splendid, so fine to be good? Nastya was saying the same thing just now... But look, though, what a glorious place this is,” he added, looking round him. “What scenery! What a picture! What a tree! Look: you could hardly get your arms round it. What sap! What foliage! What sunshine! How gay everything is, washed clean after the storm!... One would think that even the trees understand something, have feeling and enjoyment of life.... Is that out of the question—eh? What do you think?”

“It’s very likely they do, uncle, in their own way, of course...”

“Oh, yes, in their own way, of course... Marvellous, marvellous is the Creator! You must remember all this garden very well, Seryozha; how you used to race about and play in it when you were little! I remember, you know, when you were little,” he added, looking at me with an indescribable expression of love and happiness. “You were not allowed to go to the pond alone. But do you remember one evening dear Katya called you to her and began fondling you...You had been running in the garden just before, and were flushed; your hair was so fair and curly... She kept playing with it, and said: ‘It is a good thing that you have taken the little orphan to live with us!’ Do you remember?”

“Faintly, uncle.”

“It was evening, and you were both bathed in the glow of sunset, I was sitting in a corner smoking a pipe and watching you.... I drive into the town every month to her grave...” he added, dropping his voice, which quivered with suppressed tears. “I was just speaking to Nastya about it; she said we would go together...”

My uncle paused, trying to control his emotion. At that instant Vidoplyasov came up to us.

“Vidoplyasov!” said my uncle, starting. “Have you come from Foma Fomitch?”

“No, I have come more on my own affairs.”

“Oh, well, that’s capital. Now we shall hear about Korovkin. I wanted to inquire.... I told him to look after him—Korovkin I mean. What’s the matter, Vidoplyasov?”

“I make bold to remind you,” said Vidoplyasov, “that yesterday you were graciously pleased to refer to my petition and to promise me your noble protection from the daily insults I receive.”

“Surely you are not harping on your surname again?” cried my uncle in alarm.

“What can I do? Hourly insults...”

“Oh, Vidoplyasov, Vidoplyasov! What am I to do with you?” said my uncle in distress. “Why, what insults can you have to put up with? You will simply go out of your mind. You will end your days in a madhouse!”

“I believe I am in my right mind...” Vidoplyasov was beginning.

“Oh, of course, of course,” my uncle interposed. “I did not say that to offend you, my boy, but for your good. Why, what sort of insults do you complain of? I am ready to bet that it is only some nonsense.”

“They won’t let me pass.”

“Who interferes with you?”

“They all do, and chiefly owing to Matryona. My life is a misery through her. It is well known that all discriminating people who have seen me from my childhood up have said that I am exactly like a foreigner, especially in the features of the face. Well, sir, now they won’t let me pass on account of it. As soon as I go by, they all shout all sorts of bad words after me; even the little children, who ought to be whipped, shout after me.... As I came along here now they shouted... I can’t stand it. Defend me, sir, with your protection!”

“Oh, Vidoplyasov! Well, what did they shout? No doubt it was some foolishness that you ought not to notice.”

“It would not be proper to repeat.”

“Why, what was it?”

“It’s a disgusting thing to say.”

“Well, say it!”

“Grishka the dandy has eaten the candy.”

“Foo, what a man! I thought it was something serious! You should spit, and pass by.”

“I did spit, they shouted all the more.”

“But listen, uncle,” I said. “You see he complains that he can’t get on in this house; send him to Moscow for a time, to that calligrapher. You told me that he was trained by a calligrapher.”

“Well, my dear, that man, too, came to a tragic end.”

“Why, what happened to him?”

“He had the misfortune,” Vidoplyasov replied, “to appropriate the property of another, for which in spite of his talent he was put in prison, where he is ruined irrevocably.”

“Very well, Vidoplyasov, calm yourself now, and I will go into it all and set it right,” said my uncle, “I promise! Well, what news of Korovkin? Is he asleep?”

“No, sir, his honour has just gone away. I came to tell you.”

“What? Gone away! What do you mean? How could you let him go?” cried my uncle.

“Through the kindness of my heart, sir, it was pitiful to see him, sir. When he came to himself and remembered all the proceedings, he struck himself on the forehead and shouted at the top of his voice...”

“At the top of his voice!...”

“It would be more respectful to express it, he gave utterance to many varied lamentations. He cried out: how could he present himself now to the fair sex? And then he added: ‘I am unworthy to be a man!’ and he kept talking so pitifully in choice language.”

“A man of refined feeling! I told you, Sergey... But how could you let him go, Vidoplyasov, when I told you particularly to look after him? Oh, dear! oh, dear!”

“It was through the pity of my heart. He begged me not to tell you. His cabman fed the horses and harnessed them. And for the sum lent him three days ago, he begged me to thank you most respectfully and say that he would send the money by one of the first posts.”

“What money is that, uncle?”

“He mentioned twenty-five silver roubles,” answered Vidoplyasov.

“I lent it him at the station, my dear; he hadn’t enough with him. Of course he will send it by the first post... Oh, dear, how sorry I am! Shouldn’t we send someone to overtake him, Seryozha?”

“No, uncle, better not send.”

“I think so too. You see, Seryozha, I am not a philosopher of course, but I believe there is much more good in every man than appears on the surface. Korovkin now: he couldn’t face the shame of it... But let us go to Foma! We have lingered here a long time; he may be wounded by our ingratitude, and neglect... Let us go. Oh, Korovkin, Korovkin!”

R

My story is ended. The lovers were united, and their good genius in the form of Foma Fomitch held undisputed sway. I might at this point make very many befitting observations; but in reality all such observations are now completely superfluous. Such, anyway, is my opinion. I will instead say a few words about the subsequent fortunes of all the heroes of my tale. As is well known, no story is finished without this, and indeed it is prescribed by the rules.

The wedding of the couple who had been so graciously “made happy” took place six weeks after the events I have described. It was a quiet family affair, without much display or superfluous guests. I was Nastenka’s best man, Mizintchikov was my uncle’s. There were some visitors, however. But the foremost, the leading figure, was of course Foma Fomitch. He was made much of; he was carried on their shoulders. But it somehow happened that on this one occasion he was overcome by champagne. A scene followed, with all the accompaniment of reproaches, lamentations and outcries. Foma ran off to his room, locked himself in, cried that he was held in contempt, that now “new people had come into the family and that he was therefore nothing, not more than a bit of rubbish that must be thrown away.” My uncle was in despair; Nastenka wept; Madame la Générale, as usual, had an attack of hysterics.... The wedding festival was like a funeral. And seven years of living like that with their benefactor, Foma

Fomitch, fell to the lot of my poor uncle and poor Nastenka. Up to the time of his death (Foma Fomitch died a year ago), he was sulky, gave himself airs, was ill-humoured and quarrelsome; but the reverence for him of the couple he had “made happy”, far from diminishing, actually increased every day with his caprices. Yegor Ilyitch and Nastenka were so happy with each other that they were actually afraid of their happiness, and thought that God had given them too much, that they were not worthy of such blessings; and were inclined to expect that their latter days would be spent in hardship and suffering to atone for them. It will be readily understood that in this meek household, Foma Fomitch could do anything that took his fancy. And what did he not do in those seven years! One could never imagine to what unbridled absurdities his pampered, idle soul led him in inventing the most perverse, morally Sybaritic caprices. My grandmother died three years after my uncle’s marriage. Foma was stricken with despair at his bereavement. His condition at the time is described with horror in my uncle’s household to this day. When they were throwing earth into the grave, he leapt into it, shouting that he would be buried in it too. For a whole month they would not give him a knife or fork; and on one occasion four of them forced open his mouth and took out of it a pin which he was trying to swallow. An outsider who witnessed the conflict, observed that Foma Fomitch might have swallowed the pin a thousand times over during the struggle, but did not, however, do so. But everyone heard this criticism with positive indignation, and at once charged the critic with hard-heartedness and bad manners. Only Nastenka held her peace and gave a faint smile, while my uncle looked at her with some uneasiness. It must be observed that though Foma gave himself airs, and indulged his whims in my uncle’s house as before, yet the insolent and despotic presumption with which he used to rail at my uncle was now a thing of the past. Foma complained, wept, blamed, reproached, cried shame, but did not scold as he had done — there was never another scene like the one concerned with “your Excellency”, and this, I think, was due to Nastenka. Almost imperceptibly she compelled Foma to yield some points and to recognise some limits. She would not see her husband humiliated, and insisted on her wishes being respected. Foma perceived clearly that she almost understood him. I say almost, for Nastenka, too, humoured Foma and even seconded her husband whenever he sang the praises of his mentor. She tried to make other people, too, respect everything in her husband, and so publicly justified his devotion to Foma Fomitch. But I am sure that Nastenka’s pure heart had forgiven all the insults of the past; she forgave Foma everything when he brought about her marriage. And what is more, I believe she seriously with all her heart entered into my uncle’s idea that too much must not be expected from a “victim” who had once been a buffoon, but on the contrary, balm must be poured on his wounded heart. Poor Nastenka had herself been one of the humiliated, she had suffered and she remembered it. A month after the death of his old patroness, Foma became quieter, even mild and friendly; but on the other hand, he began to have quite sudden attacks of a different sort — he would fall into a sort of magnetic trance, which alarmed everyone extremely. Suddenly, for instance, the sufferer, while saying something, or even laughing, would in one instant become unconscious and rigid, and rigid in the very position he happened to be in a moment before the attack. If, for instance, he was laughing, he would remain with a smile on his lips; if he were holding something, a fork for instance, the fork would remain in his raised hand. Later on, of course, the hand would drop, but Foma Fomitch felt nothing and knew nothing of its dropping. He would sit, stare, even blink, but would say nothing, hear nothing, and understand nothing. This would last sometimes for a whole hour. Of course everyone in the house nearly died of fright, held their breath, walked about on tiptoe and shed tears. At last Foma would wake up feeling terribly exhausted, and would declare that he had seen and heard absolutely nothing all that time. The man must have been so perverse, so eager to show off, that he endured whole hours of voluntary agony, solely in order to say afterwards: “Look at me, I even feel more intensely than you.” Finally Foma cursed my uncle for the “hourly slights and insults” he received from him, and went to stay with Mr. Bahtcheyev. The latter, who had quarrelled with Foma Fomitch many times since my uncle’s marriage, but always ended by begging his pardon, on this occasion took the matter up with extraordinary warmth; he welcomed Foma with enthusiasm, stuffed him with good things, and at once resolved on a formal breach with my uncle, and even on lodging a complaint against him. There was a bit of land in dispute between them, though they never disputed about it, for my uncle had yielded all claim to it and had freely given it to Mr. Bahtcheyev. Without saying a word to anyone, Mr. Bahtcheyev ordered out his carriage, drove off to the town, there scribbled off a petition and handed it in, appealing to the court to adjudge him the land formally with compensation for loss and damage and so to punish contumacy and robbery. Meanwhile next day Foma Fomitch, getting bored at Mr. Bahtcheyev’s, forgave my uncle, who came to apologise, and went back to Stepantchikovo. The wrath of Mr. Bahtcheyev, when he returned from the town and did not find Foma, was terrible; but three days later, he turned up at Stepantchikovo to apologise, begged my uncle’s pardon with tears in his eyes, and quashed his petition. My uncle made the peace between him and Foma Fomitch the same day, and Bahtcheyev followed Foma Fomitch about like a little dog, and again said at every word: “You are a clever fellow, Foma! You are a learned man, Foma!”

Foma Fomitch is now lying in his grave near his old patroness; over him stands an expensive monument of white marble covered with lamentations and eulogistic inscriptions. Yegor Ilyitch and Nastenka sometimes go for a walk to the cemetery to pay reverent homage to his memory. They cannot even now speak of him without great feeling; they recall all his sayings, what he ate, what he liked. His things have been preserved as priceless treasures. Feeling so bereaved, my uncle and Nastya grew even more attached to each other. God has not granted them children; they grieve over this, but dare not repine. Sashenka has long been married to an excellent young man. Ilyusha is studying in Moscow. And so my uncle and Nastya are alone together, and are devoted to each other. Their anxiety over each other is almost morbid. Nastya prays unceasingly. If one of them dies first, I think the other will not survive a week. But God grant them long life. They receive everyone with a most cordial welcome, and are ready to share all they have with anyone who is unfortunate. Nastenka is fond of reading the lives of the saints, and says with compunction that to do ordinary good work is not enough, that one ought to give everything to the poor and be happy in poverty. But for his concern for Ilyusha and Sashenka, my uncle would have done this long ago, for he always agrees with his wife in everything. Praskovya Ilyinitchna lives with them, and enjoys looking after their comfort; she superintends the management of the place. Mr. Bahtcheyev made her an offer of marriage very soon after my uncle’s wedding, but she refused him point-blank. It was concluded from that that she would go into a nunnery, but that did not come off either. There is one striking peculiarity about Praskovya Ilyinitchna’s character: — the craving to obliterate herself completely for the sake of those she loves, to efface herself continually for them, to watch for their every inclination, to humour all their caprices, to wait upon them and serve them. Now, on the death of her mother, she considers it her duty not to leave her brother, and to take care of Nastenka in every way. Old Yezhevikin is still living, and has taken to visiting his daughter more and more frequently of late. At first he drove my uncle to despair by absenting himself from Stepantchikovo almost entirely, and also keeping away his “small fry” (as he called his children). All my uncle’s invitations were in vain; he was not so much proud as sensitive and touchy. His over-sensitive amour-propre sometimes approached morbidity. The idea that he, a poor man, should be entertained in a wealthy house from kindness, that he might be regarded as an intrusive and unwelcome guest, was too much for him; he sometimes even declined Nastenka’s help, and only accepted what was absolutely essential. From my uncle he would take absolutely nothing. Nastenka was quite mistaken when she told me that time in the garden that her father played the fool for her sake. It was true that he was extremely eager at that time to marry Nastenka to Yegor Ilyitch; but he acted as he did simply through an inner craving to give vent to his accumulated malice. The impulse to jeer and mock was in his blood. He posed as the most abject, grovelling flatterer, but at the same time made it perfectly clear that he was only doing this for show; and the more cringing his flattery, the more malignantly and openly apparent was the mockery behind it. It was his way. All his children were successfully placed in the best scholastic establishments in Moscow and Petersburg. But this was only after Nastenka had made it perfectly clear to him that it was being paid for out of her own pocket, that is, out of the thirty thousand given her by Tatyana Ivanovna. That thirty thousand she had actually never taken from Tatyana Ivanovna; but not to grieve and mortify her, they appeased her by promising to appeal to her at any sudden emergency. What they did was this: to satisfy her, considerable sums were borrowed from her on two occasions. But Tatyana Ivanovna died three years ago, and Nastya received her thirty thousand all the same. The death of poor Tatyana Ivandvna was sudden. The whole family were getting ready for a ball given by a neighbour, and she had hardly decked herself out in her ball-dress and put on a fascinating wreath of white roses, when she suddenly felt giddy, sat down in an easy-chair and died. They buried her in the wreath. Nastya was in despair. Tatyana Ivanovna had been cherished and looked after like a little child in the house. She astonished everyone by the good sense of her will. Apart from Nastenka’s thirty thousand, her whole fortune of three hundred thousand was devoted to the education of poor orphan girls and the provision of a sum of money for each on leaving the institution. In the year that she died Miss Perepelitsyn was married; on the death of Madame la Générale she had remained in the family in the hope of ingratiating herself with Tatyana Ivanovna. Meanwhile the petty official who had bought Mishino, the little village in which our scene with Obnoskin and his mother over Tatyana Ivanovna took place, was left a widower. This individual was terribly fond of going to law, and had six children. Supposing that Miss Perepelitsyn had money, he began making proposals to her through a third person and she promptly accepted them. But Miss Perepelitsyn was as poor as a hen, her whole fortune was three hundred silver roubles, and that was given her by Nastenka on her wedding day. Now the husband and wife are quarrelling from morning till night. She pulls his children’s hair, and boxes their ears; as for him, she scratches his face (so people say), and is constantly throwing her superior station as a major’s daughter in his face. Mizintchikov has also established himself. He very sensibly gave up all his hopes of Tatyana Ivanovna, and began little by little to learn farming. My uncle recommended him to a wealthy count, who had an estate of three thousand serfs, sixty miles from Stepantchikovo, and who occasionally visited his property. Observing Mizintchikov’s abilities, and influenced by my uncle’s recommendation of him, the count offered him the post of steward on his estate, dismissed his former German steward, who in spite of the vaunted German honesty stripped his master like a lime tree. Five years later the estate was unrecognisable: the peasants were prosperous; the farming was developed in ways previously impossible; the returns were almost doubled; in fact the new steward distinguished himself, and was talked of for his abilities as a farmer all over the province. Great was the amazement and chagrin of the count when at the end of the five years Mizintchikov insisted on giving up his situation in spite of all protests and offers of increased salary! The count imagined that he had been lured away by a rival landowner in his own neighbourhood or in another province. And everyone was astonished when, two months after giving up his post, Mizintchikov acquired an excellent estate of a hundred serfs, about thirty miles from the count’s, purchased from a hussar, a friend of his who had squandered all his fortune! The hundred serfs he promptly mortgaged, and a year later he had acquired another property of sixty serfs in the neighbourhood. Now he is a landowner, and the management of his estate is unequalled. Everyone wonders how he came by the money all at once. Some people shake their heads. But Mizintchikov is perfectly self-possessed, and feels that he is absolutely right. He has sent for his sister from Moscow, the sister who gave him her last three roubles to buy boots when he was setting off for Stepantchikovo — a very sweet girl, no longer in her first youth, gentle and loving, well-educated, but extremely timid. She had been all the time dragging out a miserable existence in Moscow as a companion to some charitable lady. Now she worships her brother, and keeps house for him; she regards his will as law and thinks herself happy. Her brother does not spoil her, he makes her work rather hard, but she does not notice it. She has become a great favourite at Stepantchikovo, and I am told that Mr. Bahtcheyev is not indifferent to her. He would make her an offer, but is afraid of being refused. We hope, however, to give a fuller account of Mr. Bahtcheyev’s doings in another story.

Well, I think I have dealt with all the characters of Stepantchikovo... Oh! I had forgotten: Gavrila has greatly aged and completely forgotten his French; Falaley has made a very decent coachman; while poor Vidoplyasov was for many years in a madhouse and, I believe, died there. In a few days I am going to Stepantchikovo, and will certainly inquire about him from my uncle.

A