The Eternal Husband

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "What's the matter with you," Velchaninov cried, "why didn't you come? what are you doing here?"

  "My duty, sir—don't shout, don't shout—I'm doing my duty," Pavel Pavlovich tittered, squinting merrily. "I'm accompanying the mortal remains of my true friend Stepan Mikhailovich."

  "That's all absurd, you drunken, crazy man!" Velchaninov, puzzled for a moment, cried still louder. "Get out right now and come with me—right now!"

  "I can't, sir, it's a duty, sir...”

  "I'll drag you out," Velchaninov screamed.

  "And I'll raise a cry, sir! I'll raise a cry!" Pavel Pavlovich went on with the same merry titter—just as if it were all a game—hiding, however, in the far corner of the coach.

  "Watch out, watch out, you'll get run over!" a policeman shouted. Indeed, some extraneous carriage had broken through the train at the descent from the bridge and was causing alarm. Velchaninov was forced to jump down; other vehicles and people pushed him farther back. He spat and made his way to his carriage.

  "In any case, I can't take him there the way he is!" he thought with continuing anxious amazement.

  When he had related Marya Sysoevna's story and the strange encounter at the funeral to Klavdia Petrovna, she fell to thinking hard: "I'm afraid for you," she said to him, "you must break all relations with him, and the sooner the better."

  "He's a drunken buffoon and nothing more!" Velchaninov cried out vehemently. "Why should I be afraid of him! And how can I break relations when Liza's here? Remember about Liza!"

  Meanwhile Liza was lying sick in bed; since last evening she had been in a fever, and they were awaiting a well-known doctor from the city, for whom a messenger had been sent at daybreak. All this definitively upset Velchaninov. Klavdia Petrovna took him to the sick girl.

  "Yesterday I watched her very closely," she observed, stopping outside Liza's room. "She's a proud and gloomy child; she's ashamed that she's with us and that her father abandoned her like that; that's the whole of her illness, in my opinion."

  "How, abandoned her? Why do you think he's abandoned her?"

  "From the fact alone that he let her come here to a completely strange house, and with a man . . . also almost a stranger, or in such relations...”

  "But I took her myself, by force, I don't find ..."

  "Ah, my God, even a child like Liza could find it! In my opinion, he'll simply never come."

  Seeing Velchaninov alone, Liza was not surprised, she only smiled sorrowfully and turned her feverish little head to the wall. She did not respond at all to Velchaninov's timid consolations and ardent promises to bring her father to her the next day without fail. Coming out of her room, he suddenly wept.

  The doctor came only toward evening. Having examined the sick girl, he frightened everyone from the first word by observing that he ought to have been sent for sooner. When told that the girl had become sick only the evening before, he did not believe it at first. "Everything depends on how this night goes," he finally decided, and, giving his orders, he left, promising to come the next day as early as possible. Velchaninov wanted absolutely to stay overnight, but Klavdia Petrovna herself convinced him to try once more "to bring that monster here."

  "Once more?" Velchaninov repeated in frenzy. "Why, I'll tie him up now and bring him here with my own hands!"

  The thought of tying Pavel Pavlovich up and bringing him with his own hands suddenly took possession of him to the point of extreme impatience. "Now I don't feel guilty before him for anything, not for anything!" he said to Klavdia Petrovna as he was taking leave of her. "I renounce all the base, tearful words I said here yesterday!" he added indignantly.

  Liza was lying with her eyes closed, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninov bent down carefully to her little head, to kiss at least the edge of her dress in farewell—she suddenly opened her eyes as if she had been waiting for him, and whispered: "Take me away."

  It was a quiet, sorrowful request, without any shadow of yesterday's irritation, but at the same time one could hear something in it, as if she herself were completely certain that her request would not be granted for anything. As soon as Velchaninov, quite in despair, began assuring her that it was impossible, she silently closed her eyes and did not say a word more, as if she did not hear or see him.

  On reaching the city, he gave orders to drive straight to the Pokrov. It was already ten o'clock; Pavel Pavlovich was not in his rooms. Velchaninov waited for him for a whole half hour, pacing the corridor in morbid impatience. Marya Sysoevna finally convinced him that Pavel Pavlovich would come back perhaps only toward morning, at daybreak. "Well, then I, too, will come at daybreak," Velchaninov resolved, and, beside himself, went home.

  But what was his amazement when, even before entering his place, he heard from Mavra that yesterday's visitor had been waiting for him since before ten.

  "And he had his tea here, and sent for wine again, and gave me a fiver for the purpose."

  IX: A Phantom

  Pavel Pavlovich had made himself extremely comfortable. He was sitting in yesterday's chair, smoking cigarettes, and had just poured himself the fourth and last glass from the bottle. A teapot and a glass of unfinished tea stood near him on the table. His flushed face radiated good humor. He had even taken his tailcoat off, summer-fashion, and was sitting in his waistcoat.

  "Excuse me, my most faithful friend!" he cried out, seeing Velchaninov and leaping up from his place to put his tailcoat on. "I took it off for the greater enjoyment of the moment...”

  Velchaninov approached him menacingly.

  "You're not completely drunk yet? Can I still talk with your Pavel Pavlovich was somewhat taken aback.

  "No, not completely ... I commemorated the deceased, but—not completely, sir...”

  "Can you understand me?"

  "That's what I came for, to understand you, sir."

  "Well, then I'll begin directly with the fact that you are a blackguard!" Velchaninov shouted in a breaking voice.

  "If you begin with that, sir, what will you end with?" Pavel Pavlovich, obviously much frightened, made a slight attempt to protest, but Velchaninov was shouting without listening:

  "Your daughter is dying, she's sick; have you abandoned her or not?"

  "Dying is she, sir?"

  "She's sick, sick, extremely dangerously sick!"

  "Maybe it's some little fits, sir...”

  "Don't talk nonsense! She's ex-treme-ly sick! You ought to have gone, if only so as to...”

  "To express my thanks, sir, my thanks for their hospitality! I understand only too well, sir! Alexei Ivanovich, my dear, my perfect one," he suddenly seized his hand in both of his own, and, with drunken emotion, almost in tears, as if asking forgiveness, proceeded to shout: "Alexei Ivanovich, don't shout, don't shout! If I die, if I fall, drunk, into the Neva now—what of it, sir, considering the true meaning of things? And we can always go to Mr. Pogoreltsev's, sir ..."

  Velchaninov caught himself and held back a little.

  "You're drunk, and therefore I don't understand in what sense you're speaking," he remarked severely. "I am always ready to have a talk with you; the sooner the better, even . . . I came so as . . . But before all you must know that I'm taking measures: you must spend the night here! Tomorrow morning I take you and off we go. I won't let you out!" he screamed again. "I'll tie you up and bring you with my own hands! . . . Does this sofa suit you?" Breathless, he pointed to the wide and soft sofa that stood opposite the sofa on which he himself slept, against the other wall.

  "Good heavens, sir, but for me, anywhere...”

  "Not anywhere, but on this sofa! Here's a sheet for you, a blanket, a pillow, take them" (Velchaninov took it all out of a wardrobe and hurriedly threw it to Pavel Pavlovich, who obediently held out his arm). "Make your bed immediately, im-med-iate-ly!"

  The loaded-down Pavel Pavlovich stood in the middle of the room, as if undecided, with a long, drunken smile on his drunken face; but at Velchaninov's repeated menacing cr
y, he suddenly started bustling about as fast as he could, moved the table aside, and, puffing, began to spread and smooth out the sheet. Velchaninov came over to help him; he was partly pleased with his guest's obedience and fright.

  "Finish your glass and lie down," he commanded again; he felt he could not help but command. "Was it you who ordered wine sent for?"

  "Myself, sir, for wine ... I knew, Alexei Ivanovich, that you wouldn't send for more, sir."

  "It's good that you knew that, but you need to learn still more. I tell you once again that I've taken measures now: I'll no longer suffer your clowning, nor yesterday's drunken kisses!"

  "I myself understand, Alexei Ivanovich, that it was possible only once, sir," Pavel Pavlovich grinned.

  Hearing this answer, Velchaninov, who was pacing the room, suddenly stopped almost solemnly in front of Pavel Pavlovich:

  "Pavel Pavlovich, speak directly! You're intelligent, I acknowledge it again, but I assure you that you are on a false path! Speak directly, act directly, and, I give you my word of honor—I will answer to anything you like!"

  Pavel Pavlovich again grinned his long smile, which alone was enough to enrage Velchaninov.

  "Wait!" he cried again, "don't pretend, I can see through you! I repeat: I give you my word of honor that I am ready to answer to everything, and you will receive every possible satisfaction, that is, every, even the impossible! Oh, how I wish you would understand me! ..."

  "If you're so good, sir," Pavel Pavlovich cautiously moved closer to him, "then, sir, I'm very interested in what you mentioned yesterday about the predatory type, sir!...”

  Velchaninov spat and again began pacing the room, still quicker than before.

  "No, Alexei Ivanovich, sir, don't you spit, because I'm very interested and came precisely to verify . . . My tongue doesn't quite obey me, but forgive me, sir. Because about this 'predatory' type and the 'placid' one, sir, I myself read something in a magazine, in the criticism section—I remembered it this morning ... I'd simply forgotten it, sir, and, to tell the truth, I didn't understand it then, either. I precisely wished to clarify: the late Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov, sir— was he 'predatory' or 'placid'? How to reckon him, sir?"

  [The terms appeared in an article by the critic N. N. Strakhov on Tolstoy's War and Peace, in which he supported the opinion of the poet Apollon Grigoriev that ". . . our literature represents an incessant struggle between these two types . . . the predatory and the placid" (Zarya, Feb. 1869).]

  Velchaninov still kept silent, without ceasing to pace.

  "The predatory type is the one," he suddenly stopped in fury, "is the man who would rather poison Bagautov in a glass, while 'drinking champagne' with him in the name of a pleasant encounter with him, as you drank with me yesterday—and would not go accompanying his coffin to the cemetery, as you did today, devil knows out of which of your hidden, underground, nasty strivings and clownings which besmirch only you yourself! You yourself!"

  "Exactly right, he wouldn't go, sir," Pavel Pavlovich confirmed, "only why is it me, sir, that you're so...”

  "It's not the man," Velchaninov, excited, was shouting without listening, "not the man who imagines God knows what to himself, sums up all justice and law, learns his offense by rote, whines, clowns, minces, hangs on people's necks, and—lo and behold—all his time gets spent on it! Is it true that you wanted to hang yourself? Is it?"

  "Maybe I blurted something out when I was drunk—I don't remember, sir. It's somehow indecent, Alexei Ivanovich, for us to go pouring poison into glasses. Besides being an official in good standing—I'm not without capital, and I may want to get married again, sir."

  "And you'd be sent to hard labor."

  "Well, yes, there's also that unpleasantness, sir, though in the courts nowadays they introduce lots of mitigating circumstances. But I wanted to tell you a killingly funny little anecdote, Alexei Ivanovich, I remembered it in the coach earlier, sir. You just said: 'Hangs on people's necks.' Maybe you remember Semyon Petrovich Livtsov, sir, he visited us in T— while you were there; well, he had a younger brother, also considered a Petersburg young man, served in the governor's office in V— and also shone with various qualities. He once had an argument with Golubenko, a colonel, at a gathering, in the presence of ladies, including the lady of his heart, and reckoned himself insulted, but he swallowed his offense and concealed it; and Golubenko meanwhile won over the lady of his heart and offered her his hand. And what do you think? This Livtsov—he even sincerely started a friendship with Golubenko, was reconciled with him completely, and moreover, sir—got himself invited to be best man, held the crown, [In the Orthodox marriage service, crowns are held above the heads of the bride and groom.] and once they came back from church, went up to congratulate and kiss Golubenko, and in front of the whole noble company, in front of the governor, in a tailcoat and curled hair himself, sir—he up and stabbed him in the gut with a knife—Golubenko went sprawling! His own best man, it's such a shame, sir! But that's not all! The main thing was that after stabbing him with the knife, he turned around: 'Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I've done!'—tears flow, he shakes, throws himself on all their necks, even the ladies', sir: 'Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I've done now!' heh, heh, heh! it's killing, sir. Only it was too bad about Golubenko; but he recovered from it, sir."

  "I don't see why you've told this to me," Velchaninov frowned severely.

  "But it's all on account of that, sir, that he did stab him with a knife, sir," Pavel Pavlovich tittered. "You can even see he's not the type, that he's a sop of a man, if he forgot decency itself out of fear and threw himself on ladies' necks in the presence of the governor—and yet he did stab him, sir, he got his own! It's only for that, sir."

  "Get the hell out of here," Velchaninov suddenly screamed in a voice not his own, just as if something had come unhinged in him, "get out of here with your underground trash, you're underground trash yourself—thinks he can scare me— child-tormentor—mean man—scoundrel, scoundrel, scoundrel!" he shouted, forgetting himself and choking on every word.

  Pavel Pavlovich cringed all over, the drunkenness even fell from him; his lips trembled.

  "Is it me, Alexei Ivanovich, that you're calling a scoundrel—you calling me, sir?"

  But Velchaninov had already recovered himself.

  "I'm ready to apologize," he answered, after pausing briefly in gloomy reflection, "but only in the case that you yourself wish to be direct, and that at once."

  "And in your place I'd apologize anyway, Alexei Ivanovich."

  "Very well, so be it," Velchaninov again paused briefly, "I apologize to you; but you must agree, Pavel Pavlovich, that after all this I no longer reckon myself as owing to you, that is, I'm speaking with regard to the whole matter, and not only the present case."

  "Never mind, sir, what is there to reckon?" Pavel Pavlovich grinned, looking down, however.

  "And if so, all the better, all the better! Finish your wine and lie down, because I'm not letting you go even so...”

  "What of the wine, sir...” Pavel Pavlovich, as if a bit embarrassed, nevertheless went up to the table and began to finish his already long filled last glass. Perhaps he had drunk a lot before then, so that his hand shook now and he splashed some of the wine on the floor, on his shirt, and on his waistcoat, but he drank it to the bottom even so, just as if he were unable to leave it undrunk, and, having respectfully placed the empty glass on the table, obediently went over to his bed to undress.

  "Wouldn't it be better . . . not to spend the night?" he said suddenly, for some reason or other, having taken one boot off already and holding it in his hands.

  "No, not better!" Velchaninov replied irately, pacing the room tirelessly, without glancing at him.

  The man undressed and lay down. A quarter of an hour later, Velchaninov also lay down and put out the candle.

  He had trouble falling asleep. Something new, confusing the matter still more, appearing suddenly from somewhere, alarmed him now, and at
the same time he felt that, for some reason, he was ashamed of this alarm. He was dozing off, but some sort of rustling suddenly awakened him. He turned at once to look at Pavel Pavlovich's bed. The room was dark (the curtains were fully drawn), but it seemed to him that Pavel Pavlovich was not lying down but had gotten up and was sitting on the bed.

  "What's with you?" Velchaninov called.

  "A shade, sir," Pavel Pavlovich uttered, barely audibly, after waiting a little.

  "What's that? What kind of shade?"

  "There, in that room, through the doorway, I saw as if a shade, sir."

  "Whose shade?" Velchaninov asked, after a brief pause.

  "Natalia Vassilievna's, sir."

  Velchaninov stood on the rug and himself peeked through the hall into the other room, the door to which was always left open. There were no curtains on the windows there, only blinds, and so it was much brighter.

  "There's nothing in that room, and you are drunk—lie down!" Velchaninov said, lay down, and wrapped himself in the blanket. Pavel Pavlovich did not say a word and lay down as well.

  "And have you ever seen a shade before?" Velchaninov suddenly asked, some ten minutes later.

  "I think I did once, sir," Pavel Pavlovich responded weakly and also after a while. Then silence fell again.