Humiliated and Insulted

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “Listen,” I interrupted him, “do you really think Nelly knows?…”

  “Knows what?”

  “That she’s the Prince’s daughter?”

  “You know yourself that she is,” he replied, looking at me with some kind of an inimical reproach, “so why these idle questions, you silly man? The main thing is not that she knows she’s his daughter, but that she knows she’s his legitimate daughter – do you understand that?”

  “That’s impossible!” I exclaimed.

  “That’s what I said, impossible, at first, and even now I sometimes say to myself, impossible! But the whole point is, it is possible and in all probability that’s just how it is.”

  “No, Masloboyev, you’re wrong, you got carried away,” I exclaimed. “Not only does she not know this, but she really is his love child. What mother could, with any kind of documents available to her, endure so much suffering as she did here in St Petersburg, and on top of that condemn her child to such deprivation? Come off it! It’s just not possible!”

  “That’s what I thought myself; in fact it’s still beyond me even now. But then again you’ve got to remember that the woman herself was as mad as a hatter. She was quite extraordinary. Just consider all the circumstances, the romanticism of it all – all the star-gazing rubbish of the most outlandish and mind-boggling kind. For example, right from the word go she dreamt only of a kind of heaven on earth and of angels, she fell hopelessly in love, she put all her trust in him, and I’m sure lost her mind, not because he stopped loving her and deserted her, but because she had been wrong about him, because she had failed to recognize that he was capable of deceiving and deserting her, because her angel turned out to be a piece of dirt who abused and degraded her. Her romantic and crazed soul could not cope with such a transformation. And on top of that, consider her wretchedness – do you realize how miserable she must have been! She was terrified, but it was above all else her pride that made her shrink from him in infinite contempt. She broke all ties, tore up all documents, spat on the money, forgetting it wasn’t even hers but her father’s, turned her back on it as though it were dirt, filth – so as to crush her wrongdoer, crush him by virtue of her own moral rectitude and brand him the thief he actually was and give herself the right to despise him all her life – and quite likely told him there and then she found it offensive to be called his wife. We’ve no divorce in our country, but to all intents and purposes they were divorced, and after that she could hardly have asked him for assistance! Just think what that crazed woman said to Nelly when she was already on her deathbed – don’t go back to them, work, perish if you must, but don’t go to them, whoever tries to call you (that is, even at that stage she was hoping she’d be called; consequently she’d have an opportunity to get her own back for the second time, to crush the caller with contempt – in a word, she sustained herself not by bread but by fancies of hatred and detestation). I got a great deal out of Nelly too, my friend – and even now I’m still managing to pump her for information. Of course, her mother was sick, consumptive – this illness is especially prone to provoke animosity and every kind of irascibility. However, I’ve definite information from one of Bubnova’s girls that she wrote to the Prince – yes, to the Prince, to the Prince himself…”

  “She did! And did the letter reach him?” I exclaimed with im­patience.

  “Well, that’s the point, I don’t know if it reached him. She’d been in contact with this girl (remember the tarty-looking one at Bubnova’s? She’s been put in a house of correction since), well she was going to send the letter with this girl, had already written it in fact, but in the event took it back and held on to it. That was three weeks before her death… The thing to note is that, if she had once decided to send it, then, even if she took it back, she could have sent it on another occasion. And so, I’ve no idea if she sent the letter or not. But there is one reason to believe she didn’t, because it seems the Prince found out for certain that she was in St Petersburg, as well as her precise whereabouts, only after her death. I bet he must have been delighted!”

  “Yes, I remember Alyosha talking about some letter, which had made his father very happy, but that was very recently, about a couple of months ago, if that. Well, what then, what happened then, how did you get on with the Prince?”

  “With the Prince? You may well ask. How about this? Total moral certainty and not a scrap of concrete evidence to support it. Not one – try as hard as I may. The situation was a fraught one! I ought to have made enquiries abroad, but where abroad? No idea. I realized of course that I had a fight on my hands, that I’d be able to cow him only by subterfuge, by pretending that I knew more than I actually did…”

  “So what happened?”

  “He stuck to his guns, but in the end he funked it, and funked it so badly he still hasn’t quite got over it. We had a few encounters – what a Lazarus he turned out to be! At one stage he took to telling me everything as if I were a bosom pal. That’s when he thought I knew the lot. He kept it up well, to a fault – the lying hound. It was then that I twigged just how much he was afraid of me. I took to acting really dumb, though outwardly I had to pretend I had one over him. In the end I made a show of putting the frighteners on him – it was all mock real. I was deliberately rude to him to the point of threatening him, well, just so that he’d take me for a simpleton and drop his guard. He saw me coming, the bastard! On another occasion I pretended I was drunk – that didn’t work either. The cunning fox! You see, Vanya old chap, I don’t know if you can follow me, but all along I needed to find out just how wary he was of me, and at the same time to convince him that I knew more than I actually did…”

  “Well, so what happened in the end?”

  “Nothing happened. I needed evidence, facts, and I didn’t have them. But one thing he did see: I could make his name mud. Of course, a scandal was just what he was afraid of most of all, the more so since he’d started to make contacts here. You do know, he’s getting married, don’t you?”

  “No…”

  “Next year! He’s picked himself a bride a year ago. She was just fourteen then; now she’s fifteen, still wears a pinafore, I believe, poor thing. Her parents are delighted! Do you see he couldn’t have considered such a thing unless his wife was dead? Her father’s a general, wealthy girl – pots of money! You and I, Vanya old chap, will never marry like that… The only thing I’ll never forgive myself as long as I live,” Masloboyev cried out, bringing his fist down hard upon the table, “is that he outsmarted me, two weeks ago… the villain!”

  “How so?”

  “Just like that. I could see he’d twigged I had nothing positive on him, and finally I saw that the more I dragged things out, the more he’d sense my helplessness. Well, so I agreed to accept two thousand roubles from him.”

  “You took two thousand roubles!…”

  “In silver, Vanya, perversely, but I took it. Just think for yourself, was that the best price I could have got! To my shame I took it. I ought to be shot for it. He says to me, ‘I hadn’t paid you yet for your former services,’ (he had though long ago, one hundred and fifty roubles, as was agreed) ‘well, I’m going away now. Here’s two thousand and I hope we’re now all quits over this business of ours.’ Well I replied, ‘Absolutely, Prince,’ and even as I spoke I didn’t dare look in his face – I was sure one thing was written all over it: ‘You haven’t made much on this, have you? And what you’re getting from me is purely out of the goodness of my heart, idiot that you are!’ I can’t even remember how I slunk from his presence!”

  “But that’s disgraceful, Masloboyev!” I exclaimed. “What have you done to Nelly?”

  “Disgraceful is not the word, it was criminal, it was abominable… It was… it was… unspeakable!”

  “Good Heavens! He should at least provide for Nelly!”

  “Of course he should. But how are you going to make him? Frighten him? It’s n
ot going to work, because I took the money. I myself admitted to him that all my suspicion amounted to was just two thousand roubles in silver – I myself as much as named the sum! How are you going to frighten him now?”

  “And does it, does it mean that Nelly’s case has collapsed?” I exclaimed almost in despair.

  “Not on your life!” Masloboyev responded fervently and with a start. “No, I’m not going to let him get away with it! I’ll start all over again, Vanya – I’ve already decided! So what if I took two thousand? So what! I took it for the offence, you see, because the bastard had strung me along, in other words made a fool of me. Swindled, and on top of that made a fool of me! Nobody makes a fool of me… This time I’m going to start with Nelly herself. Something tells me that’s where all the clues are to be found. She knows everything, everything… Her mother must have told her all about it – could have been when she was depressed or raving, when there was no shoulder to cry on except Nelly’s, and she would have told her. Perhaps we might even come across some document or other,” he said excitedly, rubbing his hands in glee. “Now you understand, Vanya, why I’ve been coming here? First out of friendship for you, that goes without saying, but mainly to keep an eye on Nelly, and thirdly, Vanya old chap – whether you want to or not, you’ve got to help me – because you have influence over Nelly!…”

  “Of course, I swear to you,” I exclaimed, “and I hope, Masloboyev, you’ll be doing it first and foremost for Nelly – a poor deprived orphan – and not just for your personal benefit—”

  “What’s it got to do with you whose benefit I’ll be doing it for, my good man? It’s the doing of it that matters! Of course the orphan must be at the top of the list, that’s only common humanity. Only Vanya, my old cock, don’t condemn me outright if I have a care for myself too. I’m a poor man, and he shouldn’t dare ride roughshod over poor people. The bastard robs me of what’s rightfully mine and then makes a fool of me into the bargain! You tell me one good reason why I should spare the scoundrel after all that? Like hell I will!”

  But our floral tribute the following day did not come off. Nelly got worse and she could no longer leave her room.

  Nor did she leave it again ever.

  She died two weeks later. In those two weeks of her agony she never quite came to even once or shook off her weird fantasies. Her mind appeared to have warped. Right up to her death she was firmly convinced that her granddad was calling her and getting angry with her for not responding, beating the ground at her with his stick and ordering her to go begging for bread and snuff. Often she would cry in her sleep and on waking tell us that she had dreamt of her mummy.

  Only occasionally did her mind appear to clarify completely. Once, she and I happened to be alone, when she suddenly leant forwards and grabbed my hand with her thin, feverishly hot fingers.

  “Vanya,” she said to me, “when I’m dead, promise you’ll marry Natasha!”

  I believe that was the one thought that had been uppermost in her mind for a long time. I smiled at her in silence. On seeing me smile, she smiled back, wagged her thin little finger at me roguishly and immediately began to kiss me.

  Three days before her death, on a wonderful summer’s evening, she asked for the blinds to be drawn back and her bedroom window opened. The window looked out on to the garden. She gazed a long time at the lush, green foliage, at the setting sun, and all of a sudden asked for us to be left alone.

  “Vanya,” she said in a barely audible voice, because she was already very weak, “soon I shall die. Very soon, and I want to ask you, not to forget me. As a keepsake I’m going to leave you this.” (And she showed me a large amulet, which was hanging round her neck together with a cross.) “It was Mummy who left me this when she was dying. So there, after I’m dead, take this amulet off me, take it and read what’s inside. I’ll tell them all today to give it to you and to no one else. And after you’ve read what’s inside, go and tell him that I’m dead and I haven’t forgiven him. Tell him also that I’ve been reading the Bible recently. It says there: forgive all thy enemies. Well, I read it, but I still haven’t forgiven him, because when Mummy was dying and could still speak, her very last words were ‘I curse him’ – well then, I too curse him, not for my own sake, but for Mummy’s… Tell him how Mummy died, how I was left on my own at Bubnova’s. Tell him you saw me there, tell him everything, everything, and while you’re about it tell him I preferred to stay at Bubnova’s rather than go to him…”

  As she said this, Nelly went pale, her eyes flashed and her heart began to beat so fast she had to lean back on her pillows and for about a couple of minutes could not utter a single word.

  “Ask the others to come in, Vanya,” she said at last in a weak voice, “I want to say goodbye to them all. Goodbye, Vanya!…”

  She embraced me tightly for the last time. Everyone came into the room. The old man could not bring himself round to the idea that she was dying – he could not contemplate such a thing. Right up to the last he argued with everybody that she would recover. He had completely worn himself out with worry as he sat days, even nights on end, at her bedside… The last few nights he had literally not slept a wink. He tried to anticipate her least caprice, her least wish, and, on leaving her to join us, cried bitterly, but a moment later would be full of hope again, assuring us that she’d recover. He filled the whole of her room with flowers. On one occasion he bought a whole bunch of the most magnificent red and white roses that he had to walk for miles to find and bring to his little Nellikins… All this could not but unsettle her. She could not help but respond with all her heart to such all-encompassing love. That evening, the evening of our farewell, Ikhmenev was quite reluctant to bid his final adieus. Nelly smiled at him and the whole evening tried to appear happy, joked with him and even laughed… We all left her room almost in hope, but the following day she was no longer able to speak. Two days later she died.

  I remember the old man adorning her coffin with flowers and looking with despair at her wasted lifeless features, at her lifeless smile, at her arms crossed on her chest. He cried over her as though she had been his own child. Natasha, I and everybody else tried to console him, but he was inconsolable and, after Nelly’s funeral, fell seriously ill.

  Anna Andreyevna herself handed me the amulet which she had taken from Nelly’s neck. In it was her mother’s letter to the Prince. I read it on the day Nelly died. She addressed the Prince with a malediction, saying she was unable to forgive him, and went on to describe all her past life and the horrors to which she was abandoning Nelly, imploring him to do at least something for the child. “She’s yours,” she wrote, “she is your daughter, and you know yourself that she is your legitimate daughter. I’ve told her to go to you after my death and hand this letter to you personally. If you don’t turn Nelly away, perhaps I’ll forgive you there, and on the Day of Judgement shall myself stand before the throne of God to implore the Almighty for the forgiveness of your sins. Nelly knows the contents of this letter; I read it to her; I explained everything, she knows everything, everything…”

  But Nelly did not fulfil her mother’s command – she knew everything, but did not go to the Prince and died unreconciled.

  After we returned from Nelly’s funeral, Natasha and I went out into the garden. The day was hot, bathed in sunshine. In a week’s time they were due to depart. Natasha cast me a strange, long look.

  “Vanya,” she said, “Vanya, do you realize it was all just a dream!”

  “What was?” I asked.

  “Everything, everything,” she replied, “everything that happened this year. Vanya, why have I destroyed your happiness?”

  And in her eyes I read, “We could have been happy together for ever!”

  Note on the Text

  This translation is based on the Russian text taken from volume 3 of the Complete Edition in Thirty Volumes of Dostoevsky’s works, edited by G.M. Fridlender (Полное со
брание сочинений в тридцати томах), produced in Leningrad in 1972–87 by the Nauka publishing company.

  Notes

  p.5, Mephistopheles: The name of the devil in the Faust legend, to whom Dr Faust sells his soul.

  p.6, a Gavarni illustration to a tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann: Paul Gavarni (1804–66) was a celebrated French illustrator and cartoonist. E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was the famous German writer, painter and composer whose supernatural tales explored the foibles of human nature and were a great influence on Dostoevsky’s work.

  p.6, a patrician in the German sense of the word: In medieval Germany, wealthy non-noble citizens formed guilds were known as Patrizier and given local administrative and ceremonial posts. This title was transmitted by birth.

  p.7, ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin!’: A seventeenth-century Viennese folk song about Marx Augustin, a famous local street singer who drunkenly falls into a pit of plague victims and is taken for dead.

  p.7, famous wit Saphir: Moritz Gottlieb Saphir (1795–1858) was an Austrian journalist and humorist, who wrote in Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Paris and whose controversial wit often landed him in hot water.

  p.9, Aber: “But” (German).

  p.10, ein Glas: “A glass” (German).

  p.11, Schwernot! Was für eine Geschichte!: “Misery! What a story!” (German).

  p.11, Vasìlevsky: The name of the largest of the islands at the mouth of the Neva. At its eastern extremity are a series of parallel streets, formerly canals, which are known as линии, [linii] (plural), линия, [liniya] (singular); literally, lines, line, respectively. They are referred to by numbers, 1 to 27. Here the equivalent used is “lane”, hence “Sixth Lane”.