Humiliated and Insulted

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

And so he went on for some considerable time. He was getting steadily more drunk and maudlin. Masloboyev had always been a fine fellow, level-headed but rather too clever by half; sly, astute, devious and a scallywag from his school days, but deep down quite a softie – a lost soul. There are many such amongst the Russians. They’re often endowed with considerable talent, but somehow they always end up barking up the wrong tree, on top of which they are capable of acting deliberately against their own conscience, out of a lack of gumption in certain respects, and not only do they always come to grief, but they know in advance they’re on a hiding to nothing. Incidentally, drink proved to be Masloboyev’s undoing eventually.

  “Now let me tell you something else, my friend,” he continued. “I heard you being lauded to the skies first, then I read some critical reviews about you (of course I did – you thought I’d given up reading altogether, did you?), then I met you in muddy shoes, no galoshes, down at heel, tattered hat, and I put two and two together. You’ve gone into journalism now, am I right?”

  “I have, Masloboyev.”

  “That means you’ve hit rock bottom?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well, in that case, this is what I’m going to say to you, my friend – in vino veritas! I get sloshed, I lie myself down on my sofa (I’ve a really comfortable, well-sprung one) and fancy myself a Homer or a Dante or some kind of a Frederick Barbarossa* – there’s no end of things one can imagine. Whereas you can’t fancy you’re Dante or Frederick Barbarossa, first because you want to be your own self, and secondly, because you’re not meant to have any higher aspirations, you’re a workhorse. With me it’s imagination, with you it’s reality. So then, listen carefully and listen good – pal to pal (otherwise you’ll offend and hurt me for the next ten years) – do you need money? I’ve got enough. Stop pulling faces! Let me give you some, you can settle up with your publishers, throw off your shackles, keep enough to live on for a whole year and then go for it, boy, get stuck into that magnum opus of yours! Eh? What say you?”

  “Listen, Masloboyev! I appreciate your friendly offer, but I can’t say anything just now, and if you’re wondering why – it’s a long story. There are reasons. But I promise to tell you everything later – pal to pal. Thanks again for the offer – I promise to come to see you, and to come often. But there is one thing – seeing as you’ve been open with me, let me pick your brains, the more so since you’re a dab hand in these matters.”

  And I told him the whole of the story about Smith and his granddaughter, starting with the coffee house. Strangely enough, as I was talking, I could see by his eyes that he knew something of the matter already. I asked him about this outright.

  “No, it’s not that,” he replied. “Come to think of it though, I did hear about this fellow Smith dying in a coffee house. As for Madam Bubnova, I certainly know something about her. I took a backhander from that lady two months ago. Je prends mon bien où je le trouve,* as Molière would say, and that’s where the resemblance ends. But even though I screwed a hundred roubles out of her, I promised myself there and then to make it five hundred next time. A nasty piece of work she is! Mixed up in all kinds of shady business. You could just about turn a blind eye to that, but sometimes she really overdoes it. Please don’t take me for some kind of a Don Quixote. The point is, I stand to make quite a bit on this, and when I ran into Sizobryukhov half an hour ago, it was just what I needed. Obviously it was fatso who brought Sizobryukhov along, and as I know the sort of things he gets up to, I draw my own conclusions… Well, he’s not going to get away now! I’m glad you told me about this little girl. I can now follow up another lead. You see, my friend, I take on various private assignments, and the people I get to know!… I was recently investigating a little matter for a certain prince, and bless my soul – what a business that turned out to be, never would I have thought it of that gentleman. Or, if you want, I could tell you another story about this married couple. You just stick with me, my friend, because I’ve got such stories for you that, were you to write them down, they’d all gasp—”

  “What’s the prince’s name?” I interrupted him, sensing something.

  “What’s that to you? If you insist – Valkovsky.”

  “Pyotr?”

  “That’s him. You know him?”

  “I do, but not very well. Well, Masloboyev, you can be quite sure I’ll look you up again, if only because of that gentleman,” I said, rising. “You’ve intrigued me no end.”

  “There now, you’re an old friend, come and see me as often as you like. I’m good at telling stories, within limits, of course – you get my meaning? Else one can lose one’s reputation and credibility, professional one that is – well and all the rest of it.”

  “I’ll leave it to your discretion.”

  I was rather excited. He noticed it.

  “Well, what can you say about the story I just told you? Can you suggest anything or not?”

  “Your story? Hang on a minute – I’ll go and settle up.”

  He went over to the bar and, quite as though by chance, suddenly found himself standing next to the fellow in the frock coat, going by the name of Mitroshka. It struck me that Masloboyev knew him rather better than he had led me to believe. At least it was obvious that this was not the first time the two of them had met. Mitroshka was quite a striking fellow to look at. In his frock coat and a red silk shirt, with his sharp but handsome rather youthful features, his swarthy complexion and bold sparkling eyes, he attracted attention that was not at all unfavourable. He had a jaunty cavalier air about him, though at the given moment he appeared to be holding himself in check in an attempt to cut as far as possible an extremely businesslike, respectable figure.

  “Look here, Vanya,” Masloboyev said after he returned, “why don’t you drop in at my place tonight at seven, you never know, I might just be able to tell you something. By myself, you see, I count for very little. Times were I did, but now I’m just a boozer and no longer in touch with things. But I have my contacts from the past. I can make one or two enquiries, sniff around amongst some dandy people. I’m good at that. True, in my free time – I mean, when I’m sober – I can see a job through on my own too, but generally with a bit of outside help… mostly in the investigative line… Still, what the hell! Enough said… Here’s my address: Shestilavochnaya Street. And now, my friend, I’m fit for nothing. One more stiff one down the hatch and I’m off home. Have a lie-down. If you come, I’ll introduce you to Alexandra Semyonovna, and if there’s time, we can have a chat about poetry.”

  “What about the other matter?”

  “Well, that too, perhaps.”

  “All right then, I’ll be there. I definitely will…”

  6

  Anna andreyevna had already been waiting for me a long time. What I had told her yesterday about Natasha’s note had strongly aroused her curiosity, and she’d been expecting me much earlier in the morning, at about ten at the latest. When, however, I turned up after one in the afternoon, the poor lady’s anxiety had reached fever pitch. Besides, she was dying to inform me of the latest hopes that she’d been cherishing since the previous day, and of Nikolai Sergeich, who had been poorly and quite out of sorts since then too, and yet at the same time somehow unusually considerate with her. When I turned up, she greeted me with a vexed and cold demeanour, was tight-lipped and betrayed no curiosity whatever, as if to say, “Why’ve you come? Couldn’t you have stayed away for a change, young fellow?” She was angry at my being late. But I was in a hurry and therefore without any further ado I recounted to her the whole of yesterday’s scene at Natasha’s. As soon as the kind old lady heard about the Prince’s visit and his solemn proposal, she immediately shed all her feigned malaise. Words fail me to describe her exultation; she was all of a flutter, she crossed herself, she cried, she made obeisance in front of the icons, she hugged me and wanted immediately to rush to Nikolai Sergeich and announce the re
ason for her joy to him.

  “Have a heart, my dear, it’s all because of the various humiliations and insults all round that he’s indisposed, but when he finds out that Natasha has received full satisfaction, he’ll forget everything in a trice.”

  It was as much as I could do to dissuade her. The good lady, in spite of having lived with her husband twenty-five years, still knew him only imperfectly. She was also terribly eager to go with me to see Natasha. I put it to her that Nikolai Sergeich might not only not approve of her action, but that we might thereby damage the whole cause. Reluctantly she changed her mind, but detained me for a further half-hour, and never stopped talking the whole time. “Who’s going to keep me company now?” she kept saying. “Such good fortune, and to be stuck all on my own within these four walls!” At last I persuaded her to let me go, having explained that Natasha must be worried sick waiting for me. Anna Andreyevna made the sign of the cross over me several times for the journey, sent a special blessing to Natasha, and nearly burst into tears after I categorically refused to come again that same evening, unless something out of the ordinary had happened to Natasha. I didn’t see Nikolai Sergeich on that occasion. He hadn’t slept all night, complained of a headache and the shivers, and was at the time fast asleep in his study.

  Natasha too had spent the whole morning waiting for me. When I entered, she was pacing up and down as was her wont, her arms folded, and immersed in thought. Even now, when I think of her, I invariably picture her always alone in a sparsely furnished little room, pensive, forlorn, waiting, arms folded, eyes to the ground, pacing aimlessly up and down.

  Without stopping, she asked me softly why I was so late. I told her all my adventures in brief, but she hardly listened to me. It was clear she was deeply preoccupied with something. “What’s new?” I asked. “Nothing new,” she replied, but with a look that immediately told me there was, and that she had been waiting to tell me all about it, though, as was her habit, not immediately, but just before I was about to leave. That’s how it always was with us. I had already got used to her ways and waited.

  Naturally we started our conversation by talking about the previous evening. I was especially struck by the fact that we were completely at one as regards our opinion of the Prince senior – she now positively disliked him, even more than she had done the night before. And when we started going through the whole of his visit point by point, Natasha suddenly said, “Listen, Vanya, doesn’t it always happen that if you take a dislike to a person on sight, it’s almost a sure sign that you’ll get to like him later. At least that’s how it has always been with me.”

  “Let’s hope so, Natasha. Anyway, here’s my opinion for what it’s worth – I’ve weighed everything up and concluded that the Prince may perhaps have been dissembling, but his consent to your marriage was serious and honest enough.”

  Natasha stopped in the middle of the room and looked hard at me; her whole face became transformed – even her lips gave a slight twitch.

  “Would he have dissembled in such a matter and… lied?” she asked in proud dismay.

  “Precisely!” I hastened to agree.

  “Of course, he didn’t lie. It seems to me it’s not even worth thinking about. There couldn’t possibly be any grounds for deceit. And, come to that, what would I have to be in his eyes, to be trifled with so? Could a person really be capable of causing such an affront?”

  “Quite so, quite so!” I assured her, but the thought went through my mind, “That’s probably the very thing you’re thinking about as you pace up and down the room, you poor thing, and perhaps you’re even more suspicious than me.”

  “Oh, I really wish he’d return soon!” she said. “He was going to spend the whole evening with me, and then… there must have been something urgent for him to have thrown everything aside and left. You wouldn’t happen to know what it was, Vanya, would you? Have you heard anything?”

  “God knows what he’s up to. All he wants is to make money. I heard he’s got a stake in some government contract here in St Petersburg. You and I, Natasha, have no head for business matters.”

  “True enough, we haven’t. Alyosha mentioned some kind of a letter last night.”

  “Some piece of news or other. Was Alyosha here?”

  “He was.”

  “Early?”

  “At twelve o’clock – you know, he likes to lie in. He stayed for a while. I made him go to Katerina Fyodorovna. There was nothing else I could do, Vanya.”

  “Didn’t he want to go there himself?”

  “Yes, he did…”

  She was about to add something else, but stopped. I looked at her and waited. Her face was sad. I would have pursued the matter, but she sometimes hated being questioned.

  “He’s a strange lad,” she said at last, screwing up her mouth a little and trying hard not to look at me.

  “Why is that? Has something happened between you two?”

  “No, nothing. Just… Actually he was very sweet… Only…”

  “Well, all his woes and troubles are at an end now,” I said.

  Natasha looked long and hard at me. She might well have wanted to reply, “Not that he had all that many woes and troubles before,” but having in all probability guessed that I was thinking the same thing, she pouted.

  However, she was immediately back to being her amiable and gracious self. On this occasion she was extremely subdued. I spent more than an hour with her. She was very agitated. The Prince made her feel uneasy. Listening to some of her questions, I could tell she was very keen to establish what kind of an impression she had made on him the previous night. Had she conducted herself correctly? Had she not been too eager to demonstrate her joy to him? Had she not been too quick to take offence? Or, on the contrary, too condescending? Would he think any the worse of her? Would he not ridicule her, or feel contemptuous of her?… The very thought made her cheeks burn.

  “How much can one fret over what a disagreeable person might think? Let him think!” I said.

  “Why is he disagreeable?”

  Natasha was mistrustful, but pure of heart and artless. Her mistrust derived from an untainted source. She was proud, staunchly proud, and could not abide if what she esteemed above all else were subjected to ridicule before her very eyes. Contempt from an unworthy person would of course have been met with like contempt, and yet her heart would have bled to see her shrine desecrated, no matter at whose hands. Nor was this the result of a lack of fortitude. It came about partly due to an inadequate knowledge of the world, inexperience of people, a sheltered life. She had spent her life immersed in her own little world, hardly venturing outside. And finally, the tendency, characteristic of all the most kind-hearted of people, inherited perhaps from her father – to shower a person with praise, to try and make him out to be better than he actually was, recklessly to exaggerate all that’s best in him – was very pronounced in her indeed. It is difficult for such people eventually to bear the pangs of disillusionment; the more so if they realize they have only themselves to blame. Why did one always expect more than could be delivered? The result is that such people suffer disillusionment over and over again. The best thing for such people is to remain safely secluded within their own four walls and never to venture into the wider world; I have noticed that they can get so fond of their cages that they’re liable to lose all social graces in them. To be sure, Natasha had endured many misfortunes, many insults. She was already an afflicted creature, and she must not be reproached, that is, if there were any reproach in my words.

  But I was in a hurry and got up to leave. She was surprised and nearly burst into tears that I was going, although all the time I was with her, she did not show me any particular tenderness, quite the contrary; in fact, she seemed even to treat me more coldly than usual. She gave me a burning kiss and looked long and hard into my eyes.

  “Listen, Alyosha was so very funny today, he quit
e surprised me. He was very nice, very happy by all appearances, the way he flounced in, so full of himself, stood and admired himself in front of the mirror all the time. He seems altogether too off hand these days… besides, he only stayed a short while. Imagine, he brought me sweets!”

  “Sweets? What can I say, it’s very nice and ingenuous of him. My word, what a pair you two are! Now you’ll be forever watching each other, snooping, spying, studying each other’s faces, looking to read secret thoughts in them, and not have a clue what on earth it’s all about! I could just about excuse him. He’s happy-go-lucky and immature as ever. But as for you, you!”

  And whenever Natasha changed her tone and approached me either with a complaint against Alyosha or to resolve some awkward misunderstandings, or with some secret or wish that I was meant to discern even before it was articulated, she would always look at me, and, as I remember, bite her lip as though imploring me to reach a decision that would immediately ease her heart. But I remember too that on such occasions I would somehow always assume a harsh and peremptory tone of voice, as if I were upbraiding someone, and this would come to me quite spontaneously, the effect never falling short of the mark. My harshness and pompousness would be appropriate, would lend me an air of authority, for, let’s face it, a person will sometimes experience an irresistible craving to be hauled over the coals. Be that as it may, Natasha at times came away from me quite comforted.

  “No, you see, Vanya,” she continued, one of her hands resting on my shoulder, the other clutching my hand and her eyes staring into mine, anxious to please, “It struck me he was taking things for granted… he seemed like a husband already – you know, like someone who’d already been married ten years and yet was still paying court to his wife. Wasn’t it a little premature?… He kept laughing, fidgeting, but as though it was all just by the by, as though I was only partially involved, not at all as before… He was in a great hurry to go to Katerina Fyodorovna’s… I’d start saying something, and he’d be miles away or he’d be on about something else altogether – you know, this awful habit of his that we’ve both tried to get him out of. In a word, he was so… it seemed, unconcerned… But there I go again! Once I start, there’s no stopping me! Oh, how demanding we all are, Vanya, what capricious despots we are! It’s only now that I see it! Even a simple change in a person’s face we can’t let go unchallenged, and God knows he could have had any number of reasons for the change! You were right, Vanya, for censuring me just now! It’s I alone who am to blame for everything! We create our own misfortunes and then feel sorry for ourselves… Thank you, Vanya, you have completely put my mind at rest. Oh, if only he’d come today! Dear me! I hope he won’t be upset for what happened before.”