Humiliated and Insulted

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “What, have you quarrelled already!” I exclaimed in surprise.

  “Not at all! Only I felt a little sad; as for him, from being cheerful, he changed to thoughtful, and was rather distant at parting. I’ll send for him… Why don’t you come too, Vanya?”

  “I will, only I’m afraid something might hold me up.”

  “Now what? What something?”

  “Something I brought upon myself! On second thoughts, I definitely will come.”

  7

  At seven o’clock sharp I was at Masloboyev’s. He lived on Shestilavochnaya Street, in the wing of a small house in a rather untidy, but fairly expensively furnished, three-roomed apartment. There was evidence of some affluence and at the same time extreme disorderliness. The door was opened by a very pretty girl of about nineteen with soft, lively eyes, and very simply but neatly dressed. I guessed immediately that this was the very same Alexandra Semyonovna whom he mentioned in passing the previous day, inviting me to get to know her. She asked me who I was and, hearing my name, said that he was expecting me, but was asleep in his room, where she presently took me. Masloboyev was sleeping on a splendid, well-sprung sofa, covered with his grimy overcoat, with a frayed leather cushion under his head. He was a very light sleeper; no sooner had we entered the room than he immediately greeted me by name.

  “Ah! Is that you? I’ve been expecting you. I dreamt you had arrived and were trying to wake me up. It’s time then. Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “To see a lady.”

  “What lady? What for?”

  “Madam Bubnova, to see the colour of her money. Isn’t she a beauty!” he drooled, addressing Alexandra Semyonovna and even kissed the tips of his fingers at the memory of Madam Bubnova.

  “Get away, you fibber, you!” Alexandra Semyonovna said, considering it obligatory to betray a little pique.

  “You don’t know each other? May I introduce you? This, Alexandra Semyonovna, is a literary general. Only once a year can he be inspected for free, the rest of the time you have to pay.”

  “You think I’m a fool, don’t you. Don’t listen to him, please, he teases me all the time. Fancy making out this gentleman’s a general!”

  “And a very special kind at that, I tell you. As for you, Your Excellency, don’t imagine we’re so stupid. We’re much more clued up than we would care to let on.”

  “Don’t listen to him! He loves to embarrass me in front of respectable people. There’s not an ounce of shame in him. Can’t even take me to the theatre once in a while, can you?”

  “Alexandra Semyonovna, cherish thy hearth and home… Have you forgotten how else you can put it? Have you not forgotten the little word? The one I taught you?”

  “Of course, I haven’t. It probably means some nonsense.”

  “Well, what was that word again?”

  “Not in front of guests. It’s probably something indecent. I’d rather die.”

  “So you’ve forgotten it?”

  “No I haven’t. Penates!* Cherish thy penates… whatever next! Perhaps there’s no such thing as penates. And why should they be cherished? He’s just fibbing!”

  “But then at Madam Bubnova’s…”

  “I’m sick of your Bubnova!” and Alexandra Semyonovna rushed out in high dudgeon.

  “We must go! Come on! Goodbye, Alexandra Semyonovna!”

  We left.

  “Look here, Vanya, let’s begin by taking this cab. Good! Now, after I left you yesterday I found out one or two things, and not by guesswork either, but for certain. I spent an hour on Vasìlevsky Island. That fat-guts is a real bastard, a filthy nasty foul-mouthed pervert. As for Bubnova, her misdeeds have already earned her a record in this town. The other day she nearly got nabbed over a girl from a decent home. Those cotton dresses she was tarting the orphan up in – the one you were telling me about yesterday – made me see red. You see I’d already heard something like it before. Just recently I came across something else, quite by chance as it happens, but believable for all that. How old’s the girl?”

  “About thirteen, going by her looks.”

  “Less, going by her height. Well, that’s how she operates. If need be, she’ll say eleven, else fifteen. And as the poor thing has no protection, no family, then…”

  “Really?”

  “What did you think? Madam Bubnova wouldn’t take an orphan in just out of the goodness of her heart, that’s for sure. And if fat-guts has started turning up there, that’s it. He went to see her the other morning. And as for that idiot Sizobryukhov, they’ve lined up a charmer for him for today, an officer’s wife who works as a clerk. Merchants’ sons out on the town are funny that way – rank and standing always matter. As in Latin grammar, remember – ending before meaning. Hell, I think I’m still drunk from the night before. But I won’t have Bubnova getting in on the act. She’s after bamboozling the police too, but not so fast, my lady! That’s why I’ll give her a bit of a scare because she knows I’ve a thing or two on her from the past… and all that – you understand?”

  I was flabbergasted. All these revelations perturbed me. I was still worried we’d be late, and urged the driver to go faster.

  “Don’t worry, everything’s been taken care of,” Masloboyev said. “Mitroshka’s there already. Sizobryukhov will pay him in cash, and the fat rogue – in kind. That’s all been agreed upon already. As for Bubnova, I’ll see to her myself… She really ought to watch her step…”

  We arrived and stopped at the restaurant, but the man going by the name of Mitroshka wasn’t there. The driver was told to wait outside, and we headed for Bubnova’s. Mitroshka was waiting for us at the gate. There were bright lights in the windows and Sizobryukhov’s strident drunken laughter resounded from within.

  “They’ve all been there for the past quarter of an hour,” Mitroshka informed us. “Now’s the best time.”

  “But how do we get in?” I asked.

  “As visitors,” Masloboyev answered. “She knows me, and she knows Mitroshka too. Everything’s barred and bolted, only not for the likes of us.”

  He tapped softly on the gate and it was opened immediately by the caretaker with whom Mitroshka exchanged knowing glances. We entered softly; no one heard us in the house. The caretaker took us up a flight of steps and knocked. A voice responded from within. He replied that he was on his own: “Something’s up.” The door was opened and we all entered together. The caretaker vanished.

  “Ay, who’s that?” Bubnova exclaimed, drunk and dishevelled, standing in the tiny entrance hall with a candle in her hand.

  “Who?” Masloboyev repeated. “Shame on you, Anna Trifonovna, not to recognize your dear visitors! It’s us, who else?… Filip Filipych.”

  “Ah, Filip Filipych! It’s you?… What a lovely surprise… I must say… I… well I never… this way, please.”

  She was in a total flap.

  “What, here? It’s screened off here… No, you show us somewhere nicer. We’ll have some of your chilled stuff too – and you wouldn’t happen to have any little mam’zelles about, hey what?”

  The woman perked up at once.

  “For such important visitors I’ll go to the end of the world to oblige them, to China and back if you please.”

  “A word in your ear, Anna Trifonovna, my darling – is Sizobryukhov here?”

  “Y… yes.”

  “He’s the one I’m after. Fancy throwing a party without me, what a rogue!”

  “He hasn’t forgotten about you, honestly. He’s been expecting some­one all the time – must be you.”

  Masloboyev kicked the door open and we found ourselves in a medium-sized room with two windows, geraniums, wickerwork chairs and a battered old upright piano; all true to form. But just before we entered, even while we were talking in the entrance hall, Mitroshka was no longer to be seen. I later discovered
that he never went in at all, but had waited outside. There was someone to open the door for him later. It was the dishevelled and brightly rouged young woman who had been peering over Bubnova’s shoulder the other morning, and who happened to be his friend.

  Sizobryukhov was seated on a flimsy, mahogany-colour settee in front of a round table spread over with a tablecloth. On the table stood two bottles of lukewarm champagne and a bottle of cheap rum; there were plates with boiled sweets, honey cakes and three varieties of nuts. At the table, facing Sizobryukhov, sat a loathsome pockmarked woman of about forty in a black taffeta dress, wearing bronze bracelets and brooches. This was the officer’s wife, by all appearances a fake. Sizobryukhov was drunk and very pleased with himself. His fat companion was not with him.

  “So that’s what people get up to!” Masloboyev roared. “Fancy inviting me to Dussot’s then!”

  “Filip Filipych, what a pleasure!” Sizobryukhov muttered, his face beaming as he rose to greet us.

  “Knocking it back, eh?”

  “My apologies.”

  “No need for that, just see to your visitors. We’ve come for a bit of a knees-up with you. I’ve brought someone with me – a friend!” Masloboyev pointed at me.

  “Such pleasure, I’m sure… Hehe!”

  “Look, is this meant to be champagne? More like sour cabbage soup.”

  “My apologies.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d dare show your face at Dussot’s. Fancy inviting me along then.”

  “Just now he was telling us he’d been to Paris,” the officer’s wife chipped in, “all lies, I’m sure!”

  “Fedosya Titishna, don’t embarrass me. I have been. I was there.”

  “The likes of you, in Paris?”

  “Indeed. Truly so. Karp Vasilych and I distinguished ourselves there. You do know Karp Vasilych, don’t you?”

  “Why would I know your Karp Vasilych?”

  “No reason… socially, perhaps. He and I in a Paris suburb, at Madame Joubert’s, smashed an English cheval glass.”

  “A what?”

  “A cheval glass. A mirror, the whole height of the wall, reached up to the ceiling, and what with Karp Vasilych so drunk he spoke Russian to Madame Joubert. He was stood by this mirror, when he leant against it. Joubert yells out (in her own tongue, that is), ‘My mirror’s worth seven hundred francs (crowns to us), you’ll break it!’ He smirks and looks at me. There’s me sat on the sofa opposite with my gorgeous one – not like that eyesore over there, but a real knockout, I tell you. He yells out, ‘Stepan Terentych, I say, Stepan Terentych! Go halves, shall we?’ And I says, ‘Right you are!’ He just goes smack with his bunch of fives straight into it – ping! Splinters everywhere. Joubert hits the roof, goes for him tooth and claw, ‘You pig, where do you think you are?’ (in her own tongue, that is). And he says to her, ‘Look here, Madame Joubert, take this money and let me have my way,’ and he dealt her out six hundred and fifty francs on the spot. We managed to knock her down fifty.”

  Just at that moment there was a terrible, piercing shriek from some­where behind several sets of doors, two or three rooms away from where we were. I started and cried out too. I recognized the voice. It was Yelena’s. This piteous cry was immediately followed by more screams, oaths, then a scuffle ending finally in a series of sharp, resounding, unmistakable slaps with the flat of a hand across a face. That was probably Mitroshka settling his own scores. The door suddenly burst open violently and Yelena rushed into the room, pale, bleary-eyed, in a white, completely torn and rumpled cotton shift, her hair combed but tousled as though in a struggle. I stood in front of the door as she rushed straight towards me and flung her arms around me. Everyone sprang to his feet, everyone was in a state of turmoil. Her appearance was greeted with screaming and screeching. Hard on her heels, Mitroshka appeared in the doorway, dragging by the hair his fat foe, who was in a most disorderly state. He hauled him across the threshold and hurled him into the room.

  “Here he is! Take him!” Mitroshka said, well pleased with himself.

  “Listen,” Masloboyev said, approaching me calmly and tapping me on the shoulder, “get the cab, take the girl and go home, there’s nothing more for you to do here. We’ll see to the rest tomorrow.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing Yelena by her hand, I led her out of that den. I’ve no idea how it all ended there. No one stopped us – Madam was in a state of shock. Everything happened so quickly, she had no chance to intervene. The driver was waiting for us, and in twenty minutes we were already back at my place.

  Yelena was more dead than alive. I undid the hooks of her dress, bathed her brow with water and laid her on the settee. She was flushed and looked as if she were sickening for a fever. I looked at her pallid little face, her bloodless lips, her black hair, combed out in neat strands and perfumed, but now all tousled to one side, at her whole attire, at those pink bows, which had still survived here and there on her dress – and realized the full extent of this nasty business. Poor thing! She was becoming progressively worse. I stayed by her and decided not to go to Natasha’s that night. From time to time Yelena would raise her long eyelashes and cast me an intent, lingering glance, as though recognizing me for the first time. It was late, past midnight, when she fell asleep. I lay myself down to sleep beside her on the floor.

  8

  I got up very early. All through the night I kept waking up almost every half-hour to approach my poor visitor and look at her carefully. She had a fever and was slightly delirious. But towards the morning she fell into a deep sleep. A good sign, I thought, but having woken up in the morning, I decided, while the poor child was still asleep, to fetch the doctor. I knew one, a good-natured old bachelor, who had from time immemorial been living with his German housekeeper on Vladimirsky Square. It was to him that I went. He promised to be at my place by ten o’clock. It was eight when I arrived at his house. I was dying to drop in on Masloboyev’s on the way but I thought better of it. He would probably still be asleep after the day before, and besides, Yelena could easily wake up and take fright on finding herself alone in my room. In her feverish state she might well not remember how she got there.

  She woke just as I was entering the room. I approached her and enquired gently how she was feeling. She did not reply, but looked at me long and intently with her dark, expressive eyes. The look in her eyes told me that she probably understood and recollected everything. She did not answer, perhaps from habit. Yesterday, just like the day she came to see me, she would not say a single word in response to a number of my questions, but would merely fix me with a long, stubborn gaze, in which, together with consternation and wild curiosity, there was some kind of a strange expression of pride. Now I noticed a hardness in her look and, it seemed, even mistrust. I put my hand on her forehead to feel if she had a fever, but without a word and in complete silence, she brushed it aside with her own thin hand and turned away from me to face the wall. I drew away so as not to disturb her.

  I had a large brass tea kettle. I had been using it from way back instead of a samovar and to boil water in. The caretaker kept me stocked up with firewood, delivering at least a five days’ supply at a time. I lit a fire in the stove, fetched some water and put the kettle on. On the table I arranged my tea service. Yelena turned towards me and kept watching everything with curiosity. I asked if she wanted anything. But she again turned away from me without a word.

  “Why should she be angry with me?” I thought. “Strange girl.”

  My old doctor arrived as promised at ten o’clock. He examined the patient with his wonted German thoroughness and reassured me enormously by saying that though there was some feverishness, she was in no imminent danger. He added that she was probably suffering from another, chronic condition, something like an irregular heartbeat, but that that would require detailed investigation, whereas for the time being she was out of danger. He prescribed a mixture and s
ome kind of powders, more as a matter of form than necessity, and immediately began to question how she came to be with me. At the same time he kept looking round my room with great bemusement. The old fellow was an awful chatterbox.

  Yelena, however, astonished him; she withdrew her hand from his when he was checking her pulse and didn’t want to show him her tongue. She wouldn’t answer any of his questions, but kept her eyes fixed on his enormous Cross of the St Stanislas Order* that dangled about his neck.

  “She probably has a bad headache,” the old man observed. “Have you noticed the way she looks?”

  I didn’t think it necessary to tell him about Yelena and got out of it by saying it was a long story.

  “Contact me if necessary,” he said as he was leaving. “As for now there’s no danger.”

  I decided to stay with Yelena the whole of that day and, as far as possible, not to leave her on her own until she had fully recovered. But knowing that Natasha and Anna Andreyevna might get anxious as they waited for me in vain, I decided to contact at least Natasha by post, to say I wasn’t coming that day. I couldn’t very well write to Anna Andreyevna. She had strictly asked me not to do so after I had on one occasion posted her a message during Natasha’s illness. “Nikolai Sergeich frets every time he sees a letter from you,” she said to me. “He’s dying, bless him, to know what’s in it, but can’t bring himself to ask. Just moans and groans all day long. Besides, a letter would only make me crave for more. What’s the good of a dozen or so lines! I get the urge to go into details, and what with you not being around!…” That was why I wrote only to Natasha and posted the letter on my way to the chemist’s with the prescription.