This was the third encounter. Then for five days in a row he encountered decidedly "no one," and of the "rascal" there was not a sound. And yet every now and then the gentleman with crape on his hat would be remembered. Velchaninov caught himself at it with some surprise. "Am I pining for him, or what?—Hm! . . . And it must be that he also has a lot to do in Petersburg—and for whom is this crape of his? He evidently recognized me, but I don't recognize him. And why do these people wear crape? It somehow doesn't become them ... I suppose if I look at him more closely, I'll recognize him...”
And something was as if beginning to stir in his memories, like some familiar but for some reason suddenly forgotten word, which you try as hard as you can to remember; you know it perfectly—and you know that you know it; you know precisely what it means, you circle around it; but the word simply refuses to be remembered, no matter how you struggle over it!
"It was ... It was long ago . . . and it was somewhere . . . There was . . . there was . . . —well, devil take it all, whatever there was or wasn't!...” he suddenly cried out spitefully. "And is it worth befouling and humiliating myself over this rascal!...”
He got terribly angry; but in the evening, when he suddenly recalled that he had gotten angry that day, and "terribly" so— it felt extremely unpleasant to him; as if someone had caught him at something. He was embarrassed and surprised:
"It means, then, that there are reasons for my getting so angry . . . out of the blue . . . just from remembering...” He did not finish his thought.
And the next day he got still angrier, but this time it seemed to him that there was a cause and that he was perfectly right; it was "an unheard-of impertinence": the thing was that a fourth encounter had taken place. The gentleman with the crape had appeared again, as if from under the ground. Velchaninov had only just caught in the street that very state councillor and necessary gentleman whom he was now trying to catch by coming upon him by chance at his country house, because this official, barely acquainted with Velchaninov, but needed for his case, refused to be caught, then as now, and was hiding as well as he could, not wishing for his part to meet with Velchaninov; rejoicing that he had finally run into him, Velchaninov walked beside him, hurrying, peeking into his eyes, and trying as well as he could to guide the gray-haired old fox toward a certain theme, toward a certain conversation in which he might divulge and let drop one much-sought and long-awaited little phrase; but the gray-haired old fox also kept his own counsel, laughed it off, and said nothing—and then, precisely at this extremely tricky moment, Velchaninov's eye suddenly picked out, across the street, the gentleman with crape on his hat. He was standing there and gazing intently at them both; he was watching them—that was obvious—and even seemed to be chuckling.
"Devil take it!" Velchaninov flew into a rage, having already parted from the official and ascribing all his failure with him to the sudden appearance of this "impudent fellow." "Devil take it, is he spying on me, or what! He's obviously keeping watch on me! Has somebody hired him, or what, and . . . and . . . and, by God, he was chuckling! I'll beat him up, by God . . . Too bad I don't carry a stick! I'll buy a stick! I won't leave it like this! Who is he? I absolutely must know who he is!"
Finally—exactly three days after this (fourth) encounter— we find Velchaninov in his restaurant, as we have already described him, now completely and seriously alarmed, and even somewhat at a loss. He even could not help admitting it himself, despite all his pride. He was forced, finally, to realize, having juxtaposed all the circumstances, that all his spleen, all this peculiar anguish and all his two-week-long alarm—had been caused by none other than this same mourning gentleman, "despite all his nonentity."
"Granted I'm a hypochondriac," thought Velchaninov, "and am therefore ready to make an elephant out of a gnat, but, all the same, is it any easier for me if all this might be merely a fantasy? If every such rogue is able to turn a man completely upside down, then it's . . . it's...”
Indeed, in this (fifth) encounter today, which so alarmed Velchaninov, the elephant seemed almost altogether a gnat: the gentleman, as before, whisked past, but this time no longer examining Velchaninov and not making a show, as before, of recognizing him—but, on the contrary, lowering his eyes and seeming to wish very much not to be noticed himself. Velchaninov turned and shouted to him at the top of his voice:
"Hey, you! crape-hat! So now you're hiding! Wait—who are you?"
The question (and the whole shout) was quite witless. But Velchaninov realized it only after he shouted. At this shout— the gentleman turned, paused for a moment, became flustered, smiled, was about to say something, to do something—for a moment, obviously, was in terrible indecision, and suddenly— turned and ran away without looking back. Velchaninov gazed after him in astonishment.
"And what?" he thought, "what if it's not in fact he who is bothering me, but, on the contrary, I him, and that's the whole thing?"
After dinner, he hastened off to the official in his country house. He did not find the official; he was told that "the master has not come back since morning, and is unlikely to come back tonight before three or four o'clock, because he is staying in town for a name-day party." This was such a "bother" that, in his first fit of rage, Velchaninov decided to go to the name-day party himself and in fact even set off; but, realizing on the way that this was going too far, he dismissed the coachman halfway there and dragged himself on foot to his place near the Bolshoi Theater. He felt a need for movement. To calm his agitated nerves, he needed to have a good night's sleep at all costs, despite his insomnia; and to fall asleep, he had at least to be tired. Thus he reached his place only at half past ten, for it was no small distance—and he indeed got very tired.
The apartment he had rented in March, which he so gleefully denounced and criticized, making excuses to himself that it was "all on the march," and that he "got stuck" in Petersburg accidentally, because of this "cursed lawsuit"—this apartment of his was not at all as bad and indecent as he said it was. The entrance was indeed a bit dark and "grimy," under the gateway; but the apartment itself, on the second floor, consisted of two big, bright, high-ceilinged rooms, separated from each other by a dark hall, and thus looking one onto the street, the other onto the courtyard. The one with windows on the courtyard had an adjacent little study meant to serve as a bedroom; but Velchaninov had books and papers there, lying about in disorder; he slept in one of the big rooms, the one with windows on the street. His bed was made up for him on the sofa. He had quite good, though secondhand, furniture, and there were, besides, even some expensive objects—fragments of former well-being: porcelain and bronze knick-knacks, large and genuine Bukhara rugs; even two rather good paintings survived; but everything had been in obvious disorder, not in place and even covered with dust, since his servant girl Pelageya went to visit her family in Novgorod and left him alone. This strange fact of a bachelor and man of society, who still wished to preserve his gentlemanliness, keeping a single girl as a servant, almost made Velchaninov blush, though he was very pleased with this Pelageya. The girl had entered his employment at the moment of his moving into this apartment in the spring, from the household of acquaintances of his who had gone abroad, and she had brought order to the place. But at her departure he had not ventured to hire another female servant; nor was it worthwhile hiring a lackey for a short term, and besides he did not like lackeys. So it was arranged that the tidying up would be done each morning by Mavra, the sister of the caretaker's wife, with whom he left the key on his way out, and who did precisely nothing, took the money, and, it seems, was pilfering. But he had already waved his hand at it all and was even pleased to be left at home quite alone. Yet there is measure in all things—and his nerves decidedly refused at times, in certain bilious moments, to endure all this "muck," and, returning home, he entered his rooms almost every time with disgust.
But this time he barely took the trouble to undress, threw himself on his bed, and irritably decided not to think about anyt
hing, but to fall asleep at all costs "this very minute." And, strangely, he suddenly fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow; this had not happened to him for almost a month.
He slept for about three hours, but it was a troubled sleep; he dreamed some strange dreams, such as one dreams in fever. They had to do with some crime he had supposedly committed and kept secret, and of which he was unanimously accused by people who were constantly coming into his place from somewhere. A terrible crowd gathered, yet people still kept coming in, so that the door could no longer be closed, but stood wide open. But all interest finally concentrated on one strange man, someone very closely acquainted with him at some time, who had since died, and now for some reason also suddenly came into his room. The most tormenting thing was that Velchaninov did not know who the man was, had forgotten his name and simply could not remember it; he knew only that he had once loved him very much. It was as if all the rest of the people who had come also expected the most important word from this man: either an accusation or a vindication of Velchaninov—and they were all impatient. But he sat motionless at the table, kept silent, and refused to speak. The noise would not subside, his vexation grew stronger, and suddenly Velchaninov, in a rage, struck the man, because he refused to speak, and felt a strange pleasure in it. His heart sank with horror and suffering at his action, yet it was in this sinking that the pleasure consisted. Completely frenzied, he struck a second and a third time, and in some sort of intoxication from fury and fear, which reached the point of madness, but also contained in itself an infinite pleasure, he no longer counted the blows, but struck without stopping. He wanted to destroy all, all of it. Suddenly something happened; everyone shouted terribly and turned expectantly to the door, and at that moment there came three resounding strokes of the bell, with such force as if someone wanted to tear it off the door. Velchaninov woke up, instantly came to his senses, flew out of bed, and rushed to the door; he was absolutely sure that the ringing of the bell had not been a dream and that someone had actually rung for him that minute. "It would be far too unnatural if such a clear, such an actual, tangible ringing were just my dream!"
But, to his surprise, the ringing of the bell also turned out to be a dream. He opened the door and went out to the hall, even peeked onto the stairs—there was decidedly no one. The bell hung motionless. Marveling, but also rejoicing, he went back to the room. As he was lighting the candle, he remembered that the door had only been shut, but not locked with key or hook. Before, too, when he came home, he had often forgotten to lock the door for the night, considering it a matter of no importance. Pelageya had reprimanded him several times for it. He went back to the hall to lock the door, opened it once more and looked out, then closed it just with the hook, but was still too lazy to turn the key. The clock struck two-thirty; it meant he had slept for three hours.
His dream had agitated him so much that he did not want to go back to bed right away and decided to pace the room for some half an hour—"time enough to smoke a cigar." Having dressed hastily, he went up to the window, raised the thick damask curtain and the white blind behind it. Outside it was already quite light. The bright summer Petersburg nights always produced a nervous irritation in him and lately had only contributed to his insomnia, so that about two weeks ago he had purposely provided his windows with these thick damask curtains, which did not let in any light when completely closed. Having let in the light and forgetting the burning candle on the table, he began pacing back and forth still with some heavy and sick feeling. The impression of the dream still worked. The serious suffering at having raised his hand against this man and beaten him went on.
"And this man doesn't even exist and never did, it's all a dream, so what am I whining about?"
With bitterness and as if all his cares converged in this, he began to think that he was decidedly becoming sick, a "sick person."
It had always been hard for him to admit that he was getting old or feeble, and out of spite, in his bad moments, he exaggerated both the one and the other, on purpose, to taunt himself.
"Old age! I'm getting quite old," he muttered, pacing, "I'm losing my memory, seeing phantoms, dreams, bells ringing . . . Devil take it! I know from experience that such dreams have always been a sign of fever in me . . . I'm sure this whole 'story' with this crape is also perhaps a dream. I decidedly thought right yesterday: it's I, I who keep bothering him, and not he me! I made up a poem out of him, and hid under the table from fear myself. And why do I call him a rascal? He may be quite a decent man. True, his face is disagreeable, though nothing especially unattractive; he's dressed like everybody else. Only his look is somehow . . . I'm at it again! about him again!! and what the devil do I care about his look? What, can't I live without this . . . gallowsbird?"
Among other thoughts that popped into his head, one also wounded him painfully: he suddenly became as if convinced that this gentleman with the crape had once been acquainted with him in a friendly way and now, meeting him, was making fun of him, because he knew some big former secret of his, and saw him now in such humiliating circumstances. Mechanically, he went up to the window to open it and breathe the night air, and—and all at once gave a great start: it seemed to him that something unheard-of and extraordinary suddenly occurred before him.
He had not yet had time to open the window, but hastened to slip behind the corner of the window niche and hide himself: on the deserted sidewalk opposite he had suddenly seen, right in front of the house, the gentleman with crape on his hat. The gentleman was standing on the sidewalk facing his windows, but evidently without noticing him, and was examining the house with curiosity, as if trying to figure something out. It seemed he was pondering something and as if making up his mind to do it; he raised his hand and as if put a finger to his forehead. Finally, he made up his mind: he looked furtively around and, on tiptoe, stealthily, began hurriedly to cross the street. That was it: he went to their gate, through the door (which in summer sometimes stayed unbolted till three in the morning). "He's coming to me," quickly flashed in Velchaninov, and suddenly, headlong and also on tiptoe, he rushed to the door and—stopped in front of it, stock-still in expectation, lightly resting his twitching right hand on the door hook he had fastened earlier and listening as hard as he could for the rustle of the expected footsteps on the stairs.
His heart was pounding so that he was afraid he might not hear the stranger tiptoeing up the stairs. He did not understand the fact, but he felt everything with some tenfold fullness. As if his earlier dream had merged with reality. Velchaninov was brave by nature. He liked sometimes to carry his fearlessness in the face of danger to the point of a certain swagger—even if no one was watching him, just so as to admire himself. But now there was something else there as well. The recent hypochondriac and insecure whiner was completely transformed; this was now a totally different man. Nervous, inaudible laughter was bursting from his breast. From behind the closed door he could guess the stranger's every move.
"Ah! there he is coming up, he's here, he's looking around; listening down the stairs; barely breathing, sneaking ... ah! he's taken hold of the handle, he's pulling, trying! he was counting on finding my place unlocked! That means he knows I sometimes forget to lock it! He's pulling the handle again; what, does he think the hook will pop out? He's sorry to go away! Sorry to leave with nothing?"
And, indeed, everything must certainly have been happening as he pictured it: someone was indeed standing outside the door and kept gently, inaudibly trying the lock and pulling at the handle and—"so, naturally, had some purpose." But Velchaninov already had the solution of the problem ready, and, with a sort of ecstasy, was waiting for the right moment, calculating and taking aim; he had an invincible desire to suddenly lift the hook, suddenly fling the door open and find himself face-to-face with the "bogey." To say, "And what are you doing here, my dear sir?"
The Eternal Husband Page 2
