Complete works of fyodor.., p.487
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, page 487
“And the years pass by and the best of our years!
“I am awfully afraid that he will hang himself. He’ll go and do it without telling anyone. He’s like that. They are all hanging themselves nowadays; why, I don’t know — perhaps there are a great many people like us. I, for instance, can’t exist without money to spend. Luxuries matter a great deal more to me than necessities.
“I say, are you fond of music? I’m awfully fond of it. I’ll play you something when I come and see you. I play very well on the piano and I studied music a very long time. I’ve studied seriously. If I were to compose an opera, do you know I should take the subject from Faust. I am very fond of that subject. I am always making up a scene in the cathedral, just imagining it in my head, I mean. The Gothic cathedral, the interior, the choirs, the hymns; Gretchen enters, and mediaeval singing, you know, so that you can hear the fifteenth century in it. Gretchen overwhelmed with grief; to begin with a recitative, subdued but terrible, full of anguish; the choirs thunder on, gloomily, sternly, callously,
“Dies irae, dies illa!
“And all of a sudden — the voice of the devil, the song of the devil. He is unseen, there is only his song, side by side with the hymns, mingling with the hymns, almost melting into them, but at the same time quite different from them — that must be managed somehow. The song is prolonged, persistent, it must be a tenor, it must be a tenor. It begins softly, tenderly: ‘Do you remember, Gretchen, when you were innocent, when you were a child, you came with your mother to this cathedral and lisped your prayers from an old prayer-book?’ But the song gets louder and louder, more intense; on higher notes: there’s a sound of tears in them, misery unceasing, and hopeless, and finally despair. ‘There’s no forgiveness, Gretchen, there’s no forgiveness for you here!’ Gretchen tries to pray, but only cries of misery rise up from her soul — you know when the breast is convulsed with tears — but Satan’s song never ceases, and pierces deeper and deeper into the soul like a spear; it gets higher and higher, and suddenly breaks off almost in a shriek: ‘The end to all, accursed one!’ Gretchen falls on her knees, clasps her hands before her — and then comes her prayer, something very short, semi-recitative, but naïve, entirely without ornament, something mediaeval in the extreme, four lines, only four lines altogether — Stradella has some such notes — and at the last note she swoons! General confusion. She is picked up, carried out, and then the choir thunders forth. It is, as it were, a storm of voices, a hymn of inspiration, of victory, overwhelming, something in the style of our
‘Borne on high by angels’
— so that everything is shaken to its foundations, and it all passes into the triumphant cry of exaltation ‘Hosanna!’ — as though it were the cry of the whole universe and it rises and rises, and then the curtain falls! Yes, you know if only I could, I should have done something; only I can never do anything now, I do nothing but dream. I am always dreaming; my whole life has turned into a dream. I dream at night too. Ah, Dolgoruky, have you read Dickens”Old Curiosity Shop’?”
“Yes, why?”
“Do you remember — wait, I will have another glass — do you remember, there’s one passage at the end, when they — that mad old man and that charming girl of thirteen, his grandchild, take refuge after their fantastic flight and wandering in some remote place in England, near a Gothic mediaeval church, and the little girl has received some post there, and shows the church to visitors . . . then the sun is setting, and the child in the church porch, bathed in the last rays of light, stands and gazes at the sunset, with gentle pensive contemplation in her child soul, a soul full of wonder as though before some mystery, for both alike are mysteries, the sun, the thought of God, and the church, the thought of man, aren’t they? Oh, I don’t know how to express it, only God loves such first thoughts in children. . . . While near her, on the step, the crazy old grandfather gazes at her with a fixed look . . . you know there’s nothing special in it, in that picture of Dickens, there’s absolutely nothing in it, but yet one will remember it all one’s life, and it has survived for all Europe — why? It’s splendid! It’s the innocence in it! And I don’t know what there is in it, but it’s fine. I used always to be reading novels when I was at school. Do you know I had a sister in the country only a year older than me. . . . Oh, now it’s all sold, and we have no country-place! I was sitting with her on the terrace under our old lime trees, we were reading that novel, and the sun was setting too, and suddenly we left off reading, and said to one another that we would be kind too, that we would be good — I was then preparing for the university and . . . Ach, Dolgoruky, you know, every man has his memories! . . .”
And he suddenly let his pretty little head fall on my shoulder and burst out crying. I felt very very sorry for him. It is true that he had drunk a great deal of wine, but he had talked to me so sincerely, so like a brother, with such feeling. . . . Suddenly, at that instant, we heard a shout from the street, and there was a violent tapping at the window (there was a large plate-glass window on the ground floor, so that anyone could tap on the window with his fingers from the street). This was the ejected Andreyev.
“Ohé Lambert! Où est Lambert? As-tu vu Lambert?” we heard his wild shout in the street.
“Ah! yes, here he is! So he’s not gone away?” cried the boy, jumping up from his place.
“Our account!” Lambert cried through his clenched teeth to the waiter. His hands shook with anger as he paid the bill, but the pock-marked man did not allow Lambert to pay for him.
“Why not? Why, I invited you, you accepted my invitation.”
“No, excuse me,” the pock-marked man pulled out his purse, and reckoning out his share he paid separately.
“You’ll offend me, Semyon Sidorovitch.”
“That’s what I wish,” Semyon Sidorovitch snapped out, taking his hat, and without saying good-bye to anybody, he walked alone out of the room. Lambert tossed the money to the waiter and hurriedly ran after him, even forgetting my existence in his confusion. Trishatov and I walked out last of all. Andreyev was standing like a post at the door, waiting for Trishatov.
“You scoundrel!” cried Lambert, unable to restrain himself.
“There, there!” Andreyev grunted at him, and with one swing of his arm he knocked off his round hat, which went spinning along the pavement. Lambert flew abjectly to pick it up.
“Vinq-cinq roubles!” Andreyev showed Trishatov the note, which he had just got from Lambert.
“That’s enough,” Trishatov shouted to him. “Why must you always make an uproar? . . . And why have you wrung twenty-five roubles out of him? You only ought to have had seven.”
“Why did I wring it out of him? He promised us a private dinner with Athenian women, and instead of women he regaled us with the pock-marked man, and what’s more, I did not finish my dinner and I’ve been freezing here in the cold, it’s certainly worth eighteen roubles. He owed me seven, so that makes twenty-five.”
“Go to the devil both of you!” yelled Lambert. “I’ll send you both packing, I’ll pay you out . . .”
“Lambert, I’ll send you packing. I’ll pay you out!” cried Andreyev. “Adieu, mon prince, don’t drink any more wine! Petya, marche! Ohé Lambert! Où est Lambert? As-tu vu Lambert?” he roared for the last time as he strode away.
“So I shall come and see you, may I?” Trishatov murmured hurriedly, and hastened after his friend.
I was left alone with Lambert.
“Well . . . come along!” he brought out, seeming stupefied and breathing with difficulty.
“Where shall I come along? I’m not coming anywhere with you!” I made haste to reply defiantly.
“You’re not coming,” he said, startled and apprehensive. “Why, I have only been waiting for us to be alone!”
“But where to go?” I must confess I, too, had a slight ringing in my head, from the three glasses of champagne and the two wine- glasses of sherry I had drunk.
“This way, this way. Do you see?”
“But this is an oyster bar: you see it is written up. It smells so horrid . . .”
“That’s only because you have just had dinner. We won’t have oysters, but I’ll give you some champagne. . . .”
“I don’t want any! You want to make me drunk.”
“That’s what they told you; they’ve been laughing at you. You believe blackguards like that!”
“No, Trishatov’s not a blackguard. But I know how to take care of myself — that’s all!”
“So you’ve a will of your own, have you?”
“Yes, I have a character; more than you have, for you’re servile to everybody you meet. You disgraced us, you begged pardon of the Poles like a lackey. I suppose you’ve often been beaten in restaurants?”
“But we must have a talk, you fool!” he cried with the same contemptuous impatience, which almost implied, what are you driving at? “Why, you are afraid, aren’t you? Are you my friend or not?”
“I am not your friend and you are a swindler. We’ll go along simply to show you I’m not afraid of you. Oh, what a horrid smell, it smells of cheese! How disgusting!”
CHAPTER VI
1
I must beg the reader to remember again that I had a slight giddiness in my head; if it had not been for that I should have acted and spoken differently. In the shop, in a back room, one could indeed have eaten oysters, and we sat down to a table covered with a filthy cloth. Lambert ordered champagne; a glass of cold wine of a golden colour was set before me and seemed looking at me invitingly; but I felt annoyed.
“You see, Lambert, what annoys me most is that you think you can order me about now as you used to do at Touchard’s, while you are cringing upon everybody here.”
“You fool! Aië, let’s clink glasses.”
“You don’t even deign to keep up appearances with me: you might at least disguise the fact that you want to make me drunk.”
“You are talking rot and you’re drunk. You must drink some more, and you’ll be more cheerful. Take your glass, take it!”
“Why do you keep on ‘take it’? I am going and that’s the end of it.”
And I really did get up. He was awfully vexed:
“It was Trishatov whispered that to you: I saw you whispering. You are a fool for that. Alphonsine is really disgusted if he goes near her. . . . He’s a dirty beast, I’ll tell you what he’s like.”
“You’ve told me already. You can talk of nothing but your Alphonsine, you’re frightfully limited.”
“Limited?” he did not understand. “They’ve gone over now to that pock-marked fellow. That’s what it is! That’s why I sent them about their business. They’re dishonest. That fellow’s a blackguard and he’s corrupting them. I insisted that they should always behave decently.”
I sat still and as it were mechanically took my glass and drank a draught.
“I’m ever so far ahead of you in education,” I said. But he was only too delighted that I went on sitting there, and at once filled up my glass.
“And you know you’re afraid of them!” I went on taunting him, and no doubt I was even nastier than he was at that moment. “Andreyev knocked your hat off, and you gave him twenty-five roubles for it.”
“I did give it him, but he’ll pay me back. They are rebellious, but I’ll be quits with them.”
“You are awfully upset by that pock-marked man. And do you know it strikes me that I’m the only one left you. All your hopes now are resting on me — aren’t they?”
“Yes, Arkasha, that is so: you are the only friend left me; you are right in saying that!” he slapped me on the shoulder.
What could be done with a man so crude; he was utterly obtuse, and took irony for serious praise.
“You could save me from bad things if you would be a good comrade, Arkady,” he went on, looking at me caressingly.
“In what way could I save you?”
“You know yourself what it is. Without me, like a fool, you will certainly be stupid; but I’d get you thirty thousand and we would go halves and you know how. Why, think who you are; you’re nothing — no name, no position, and here you’d win first prize straight off: and having such a fortune, you’ll know how to make a career!”
I was simply astounded at this attack. I had taken for granted that he would dissemble, but he had begun upon it with such bluntness, such schoolboyish bluntness. I resolved to listen to him from a desire to be open-minded and . . . from intense curiosity.
“Look here, Lambert, you won’t understand this, but I’m consenting to listen to you because I’m open-minded,” I declared firmly, and again I took a gulp at my glass. Lambert at once filled it up.
“I’ll tell you what, Arkady: if a fellow like Büring had dared to abuse me and strike me in the presence of a lady I adored, I don’t know what I should have done! But you put up with it, I’m ashamed of you: you’re a poor creature!”
“How dare you say that Büring struck me!” I shouted, turning crimson. “It was more I struck him than he me.”
“No, it was he struck you, not you struck him.”
“You’re lying, I trod on his foot too!”
“But he shoved you back, and told the footman to drag you away . . . and she sat and looked on from her carriage and laughed at you; she knows that you have no father and that you can be insulted.”
“I don’t understand this schoolboyish conversation, Lambert, and I’m ashamed of it. You are saying this to irritate me, and as crudely and as openly as though I were a boy of sixteen. You’ve been plotting with Anna Andreyevna!” I cried, trembling with anger, and still mechanically sipping my wine.
“Anna Andreyevna’s a sly jade! She’s humbugging you and me and all the world! I have been waiting for you, because you can best finish off with that woman.”
“With what woman?”
“With Madame Ahmakov. I know all about it. You told me yourself that she is afraid of that letter you’ve got . . .”
“What letter . . . you’re talking nonsense. . . . Have you seen her?” I muttered in confusion.
“Yes, I saw her. She’s beautiful. Très belle; and you’ve taste.”
“I know you’ve seen her but you did not dare speak to her, and I wish you did not dare to speak of her either.”
“You’re a boy, and she laughs at you — so there! We had a virtuous lady like that in Moscow. Ough, didn’t she turn up her nose! but she began to tremble when we threatened that we would tell all we knew and she knuckled under directly; and we got all we wanted both ways, money, and — you understand? Now she’s virtue unapproachable again in society — foo! my word, isn’t she high and mighty, and hasn’t she got a turn-out. Ah, you should have seen that little back room it happened in! You’ve not lived; if only you knew the little back rooms they don’t shrink from . . .”
“I’ve thought that,” I could not help muttering.
“They’re corrupt to their very finger-tips; you don’t know what they’re capable of! Alphonsine lived in a house like that, and she was disgusted.”
“I have thought of that,” I chimed in again.
“But they beat you, and you complain . . .”
“Lambert, you’re a blackguard, you’re a damned beast!” I cried, suddenly pulling myself together and beginning to tremble. “I have dreamed all this, you were in it and Anna Andreyevna. . . . Oh, you damned brute! Did you really think I was such a scoundrel? I dreamed it because I knew that you would say this. And besides, all this can’t be so simple that you can talk to me about it so simply and directly.”
“He is in a rage, tut, tut, tut!” Lambert drawled, laughing and triumphant. “Well, Arkasha, my boy, now I’ve found out all I wanted to know. That’s why I was so eager to see you. Listen, you love her I see, and want to revenge yourself on Büring. That’s what I wanted to find out. I’ve been suspecting it all this time while I’ve been waiting to see you. Ceci posé, celà change la question. And so much the better, for she loves you too. So you must marry her without a moment’s delay, that’s the best thing; you can’t do anything else, that’s your safest position. And then remember, Arkady, that you have a friend in me of whom you can make any use you like. And that friend will help you, and will marry you: I’ll move heaven and earth, Arkasha! And you can give your old friend thirty thousand for his trouble afterwards, eh? And I’ll help you, don’t doubt that. I know all the ins and outs of the business, and they shall give you the whole dowry, and you’ll be a wealthy man with a career before you!”
Though my head was in a whirl I looked at Lambert with wonder. He was in earnest, and not merely in earnest in what he said, but in believing in the possibility of my marrying; I could see that he thoroughly believed in it himself, and, in fact, caught at the idea with enthusiasm. I saw, of course, too, that he was entrapping me like a schoolboy (I certainly must have seen it even then); but the thought of marrying her so thrilled me that though I wondered how Lambert could believe in such a fantastic notion, yet, at the same time I tried violently to believe in it myself, though I did not for an instant lose consciousness of the fact that it could not possibly come to pass. All this was mingled together at the same time.
“But is it possible?” I faltered.
“Why not? you will show her the letter, she’ll be frightened and marry you to keep her money.”
I made up my mind not to stop Lambert in his vile suggestions, for he disclosed them to me with such simplicity and did not suspect that I might be revolted by them; I did mutter, however, that I should not like to marry her simply by force.
“I don’t want to use force for anything; how can you be so base as to think me capable of it!”
“Hoity-toity! Why, she’ll marry you of her own accord: it won’t be your doing, she’ll be frightened and marry you herself, and she’ll marry you because she loves you, too,” Lambert put in hastily.
