“Ever since March I have been a depraved man, sir, and this is how it all came about. Listen. Consumption, as you know, my dear friend” (Pavel Pavlovitch was growing more and more familiar!), “is an interesting malady. One sees a man dying of consumption without a suspicion that to-morrow is to be his last day. Well, I told you how Natalia Vasilievna, up to five hours before her death, talked about going to visit her aunt, who lived thirty miles or so away, and starting in a fortnight. You know how some ladies — and gentlemen, too, I daresay — have the bad habit of keeping a lot of old rubbish by them, in the way of love-letters and so on. It would be much safer to stick them all into the fire, wouldn’t it? But no, they must keep every little scrap of paper in drawers and desks, and endorse it and classify it, and tie it up in bundles, for each year and month and class! I don’t know whether they find this consoling to their feelings afterwards, or what. Well, since she was arranging a visit to her aunt just five hours before her death, Natalia Vasilievna naturally did not expect to die so soon; in fact, she was expecting old Doctor Koch down till the last; and so, when Natalia Vasilievna did die, she left behind her a beautiful little black desk all inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and bound with silver, in her bureau; oh, a lovely little box, an heirloom left her by her grandmother, with a lock and key all complete. Well, sir, in this box everything — I mean everything, you know, for every day and hour for the last twenty years — was disclosed; and since Mr. Bagantoff had a decided taste for literature (indeed, he had published a passionate novel once, I am told, in a newspaper!) — consequently there were about a hundred examples of his genius in the desk, ranging over a period of five years. Some of these talented effusions were covered with pencilled remarks by Natalia Vasilievna herself! Pleasant, that, for a fond husband’s feelings, sir, eh?”
Velchaninoff quickly cast his thoughts back over the past, and remembered that he had never written a single letter or a single note to Natalia Vasilievna.
He had written a couple of letters from St. Petersburg, but, according to a previous arrangement, he had addressed them to both Mr. and Mrs. Trusotsky together. He had not answered Natalia Vasilievna’s last letter — which had contained his dismissal — at all.
Having ended his speech, Pavel Pavlovitch relapsed into silence, and sat smiling repulsively for a whole minute or so.
“Why don’t you answer my question, my friend?” he asked, at length, evidently disturbed by Velchaninoff’s silence.
“What question?”
“As to the pleasure I must have felt as a fond husband, upon opening the desk.”
“Your feelings are no business of mine!” said the other bitterly, rising and commencing to stride up and down the room.
“I wouldn’t mind betting that you are thinking at this very moment: ‘What a pig of a fellow he is to parade his shame like this!’ Ha-ha! dear me, what a squeamish gentleman you are to be sure!”
“Not at all. I was thinking nothing of the sort; on the contrary, I consider that you are — besides being more or less intoxicated — so put out by the death of the man who has injured you that you are not yourself. There’s nothing surprising in it at all! I quite understand why you wish Bagantoff were still alive, and am ready to respect your annoyance, but — —”
“And pray why do you suppose that I wish Bagantoff were alive?”
“Oh, that’s your affair!”
“I’ll take my oath you are thinking of a duel!”
“Devil take it, sir!” cried Velchaninoff, obliged to hold himself tighter than ever. “I was thinking that you, like every respectable person in similar circumstances, would act openly and candidly and straightforwardly, and not humiliate yourself with comical antics and silly grimaces, and ridiculous complaints and detestable innuendoes, which only heap greater shame upon you. I say I was thinking you would act like a respectable person.”
“Ha-ha-ha! — but perhaps I am not a respectable person!”
“Oh, well, that’s your own affair again and yet, if so, what in the devil’s name could you want with Bagantoff alive?”
“Oh, my dear sir, I should have liked just to have a nice peep at a dear old friend, that’s all. We should have got hold of a bottle of wine, and drunk it together!”
“He wouldn’t have drunk with you!”
“Why not? Noblesse oblige? Why, you are drinking with me. Wherein is he better than you?”
“I have not drunk with you.”
“Wherefore this sudden pride, sir?”
Velchaninoff suddenly burst into a fit of nervous, irritable laughter.
“Why, deuce take it all!” he cried, “you are quite a different type to what I believed. I thought you were nothing but a ‘permanent husband,’ but I find you are a sort of bird of prey.”
“What! ‘permanent husband?’ What is a ‘permanent husband?’ ” asked Pavel Pavlovitch, pricking up his ears.
“Oh — just one type of husbands — that’s all, it’s too long to explain. Come, you’d better get out now; it’s quite time you went. I’m sick of you!”
“And bird of prey, sir; what did that mean?”
“I said you were a bird of prey for a joke.”
“Yes; but — bird of prey — tell me what you mean, Alexey Ivanovitch, for goodness sake!”
“Come, come, that’s quite enough!” shouted Velchaninoff, suddenly flaring up and speaking at the top of his voice. “It’s time you went; get out of this, will you?”
“No, sir, it’s not enough!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, jumping up, too. “Even if you are sick of me, sir, it’s not enough; for you must first drink and clink glasses with me. I won’t go before you do! No, no; oh dear no! drink first; it’s not enough yet.”
“Pavel Pavlovitch, will you go to the devil or will you not?”
“With pleasure, sir. I’ll go to the devil with pleasure; but first we must drink. You say you don’t wish to drink with me; but I wish you to drink with me — actually with me.”
Pavel Pavlovitch was grimacing and giggling no longer. He seemed to be suddenly transfigured again, and was as different from the Pavel Pavlovitch of but a few moments since as he could possibly be, both in appearance and in the tone of his voice; so much so that Velchaninoff was absolutely confounded.
“Come, Alexey Ivanovitch, let’s drink! — don’t refuse me!” continued Pavel Pavlovitch, seizing the other tightly by the hand and gazing into his face with an extraordinary expression.
It was clear there was more in this matter than the mere question of drinking a glass of wine.
“Well,” muttered Velchaninoff, “but that’s nothing but dregs!”
“No, there’s just a couple of glasses left — it’s quite clear. Now then, clink glasses and drink. There, I’ll take your glass and you take mine.” They touched glasses and drank.
“Oh, Alexey Ivanovitch! now that we’ve drunk together — oh!” Pavel Pavlovitch suddenly raised his hand to his forehead and sat still for a few moments.
Velchaninoff trembled with excitement. He thought Pavel Pavlovitch was about to disclose all; but Pavel Pavlovitch said nothing whatever. He only looked at him, and quietly smiled his detestable cunning smile in the other’s face.
“What do you want with me, you drunken wretch?” cried Velchaninoff, furious, and stamping his foot upon the floor; “you are making a fool of me!”
“Don’t shout so — don’t shout! Why make such a noise?” cried Pavel Pavlovitch. “I’m not making a fool of you! Do you know what you are to me now?” and he suddenly seized Velchaninoff’s hand, and kissed it before Velchaninoff could recollect himself.
“There, that’s what you are to me now; and now I’ll go to the devil.”
“Wait a bit — stop!” cried Velchaninoff, recollecting himself; “there’s something I wished to say to you.”
Pavel Pavlovitch turned back from the door.
“You see,” began Velchaninoff, blushing and keeping his eye well away from the other, “you ought to go with me to the Pogoryel
tseffs to-morrow — just to thank them, you know, and make their acquaintance.”
“Of course, of course; quite so!” said Pavel Pavlovitch readily, and making a gesture of the hand to imply that he knew his duty, and there was no need to remind him of it.
“Besides Liza expects you anxiously — I promised her.”
“Liza?” Pavel Pavlovitch turned quickly once more upon him. “Liza? Do you know, sir, what this Liza has been to me — has been and is?” he cried passionately and almost beside himself; “but — no! — afterwards — that shall be afterwards! Meanwhile it’s not enough for me, Alexey Ivanovitch, that we have drunk together; there’s another satisfaction I must have, sir!” He placed his hat on a chair, and, panting with excitement, gazed at his companion with much the same expression as before.
“Kiss me, Alexey Ivanovitch!”
“Are you drunk?” cried the other, drawing back.
“Yes, I am — but kiss me all the same, Alexey Ivanovitch — oh, do! I kissed your hand just now, you know.”
Alexey Ivanovitch was silent for a few moments, as though stunned by the blow of a cudgel. Then he quickly bent down to Pavel Pavlovitch (who was about the height of his shoulder), and kissed his lips, from which proceeded a disagreeably powerful odour of wine. He performed the action as though not quite certain of what he was doing.
“Well! now, now!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, with drunken enthusiasm, and with his eyes flashing fiercely; “now — look here — I’ll tell you what! I thought at that time: ‘Surely not he, too! If this man,’ I thought, ‘if this man is guilty too — then whom am I ever to trust again!’ ”
Pavel Pavlovitch suddenly burst into tears.
“So now you must understand how dear a friend you are to me henceforth.” With these words he took his hat and rushed out of the room.
Velchaninoff stood for several minutes in one spot, just as he had done after Pavel Pavlovitch’s first visit.
“It’s merely a drunken sally — nothing more!” he muttered. “Absolutely nothing further!” he repeated, when he was undressed and settled down in his bed.
CHAPTER VIII.
Next morning, while waiting for Pavel Pavlovitch, who had promised to be in good time in order to drive down to the Pogoryeltseffs with him, Velchaninoff walked up and down the room, sipped his coffee, and every other minute reflected upon one and the same idea; namely, that he felt like a man who had awaked from sleep with the deep impression of having received a box on the ear the last thing at night.
“Hm!” he thought, anxiously, “he understands the state of the case only too well; he’ll take it out of me by means of Liza!” The dear image of the poor little girl danced before his eyes. His heart beat quicker when he reflected that to-day — in a couple of hours — he would see his own Liza once more. “Yes — there’s no question about it,” he said to himself; “my whole end and aim in life is there now! What do I care about all these ‘memories’ and boxes on the ear; and what have I lived for up to now? — for sorrow and discomfort — that’s all! but now, now — it’s all different!”
But in spite of his ecstatic feelings he grew more and more thoughtful.
“He is worrying me for Liza, that’s plain; and he bullies Liza — he is going to take it out of me that way — for all! Hm! at all events I cannot possibly allow such sallies as his of last night,” and Velchaninoff blushed hotly “and here’s half-past eleven and he hasn’t come yet.” He waited long — till half-past twelve, and his anguish of impatience grew more and more keen. Pavel Pavlovitch did not appear. At length the idea began to take shape that Pavel Pavlovitch naturally would not come again for the sole purpose of another scene like that of last night. The thought filled Velchaninoff with despair. “The brute knows I am depending upon him — and what on earth am I to do now about Liza? How can I make my appearance without him?”
At last he could bear it no longer and set off to the Pokrofsky at one o’clock to look for Pavel Pavlovitch.
At the lodging, Velchaninoff was informed that Pavel Pavlovitch had not been at home all night, and had only called in at nine o’clock, stayed a quarter of an hour, and had gone out again.
Velchaninoff stood at the door listening to the servants’ report, mechanically tried the handle, recollected himself, and asked to see Maria Sisevna.
The latter obeyed his summons at once.
She was a kind-hearted old creature, of generous feelings, as Velchaninoff described her afterwards to Claudia Petrovna. Having first enquired as to his journey yesterday with Liza, Maria launched into anecdotes of Pavel Pavlovitch. She declared that she would long ago have turned her lodger out neck and crop, but for the child. Pavel Pavlovitch had been turned out of the hotel for generally disreputable behaviour. “Oh, he does dreadful things!” she continued. “Fancy his telling the poor child, in anger, that she wasn’t his daughter, but — —”
“Oh no, no! impossible!” cried Velchaninoff in alarm.
“I heard it myself! She’s only a small child, of course, but that sort of thing doesn’t do before an intelligent child like her! She cried dreadfully — she was quite upset. We had a catastrophe in the house a short while since. Some commissionnaire or somebody took a room in the evening, and hung himself before morning. He had bolted with money, they say. Well, crowds of people came in to stare at him. Pavel Pavlovitch wasn’t at home, but the child had escaped and was wandering about; and she must needs go with the rest to see the sight. I saw her looking at the suicide with an extraordinary expression, and carried her off at once, of course; and fancy, I hardly managed to get home with her — trembling all over she was — when off she goes in a dead faint, and it was all I could do to bring her round at all. I don’t know whether she’s epileptic or what — and ever since that she has been ill. When her father heard, he came and pinched her all over — he doesn’t beat her; he always pinches her like that, — then he went out and got drunk somewhere, and came back and frightened her. ‘I’m going to hang myself too,’ he says, ‘because of you. I shall hang myself on that blind string there,’ he says, and he makes a loop in the string before her very eyes. The poor little thing went quite out of her mind with terror, and cried and clasped him round with her little arms. ‘I’ll be good — I’ll be good!’ she shrieks. It was a pitiful sight — it was, indeed!”
Velchaninoff, though prepared for strange revelations concerning Pavel Pavlovitch and his ways, was quite dumbfounded by these tales; he could scarcely believe his ears.
Maria Sisevna told him many more such little anecdotes. Among others, there was one occasion, when, if she (Maria) had not been by, Liza would have thrown herself out of the window.
Pavel Pavlovitch had come staggering out of the room muttering, “I shall smash her head in with a stick! I shall murder her like a dog!” and he had gone away, repeating this over and over again to himself.
Velchaninoff hired a carriage and set off towards the Pogoryeltseffs. Before he had left the town behind him, the carriage was delayed by a block at a cross road, just by a small bridge, over which was passing, at the moment, a long funeral procession. There were carriages waiting to move on on both sides of the bridge, and a considerable crowd of foot passengers besides.
The funeral was evidently of some person of considerable importance, for the train of private and hired vehicles was a very long one; and at the window of one of these carriages in the procession Velchaninoff suddenly beheld the face of Pavel Pavlovitch.
Velchaninoff would not have believed his eyes, but that Pavel Pavlovitch nodded his head and smiled to him. He seemed to be delighted to have recognised Velchaninoff; he even began to kiss his hand out of the window.
Velchaninoff jumped out of his own vehicle, and in spite of policemen, crowd, and everything else, elbowed his way to Pavel Pavlovitch’s carriage window. He found the latter sitting alone.
“What are you doing?” he cried. “Why didn’t you come to my house? Why are you here?”
“I’m paying a debt;
don’t shout so! I’m repaying a debt,” said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling and winking. “I’m escorting the mortal remains of my dear friend Stepan Michailovitch Bagantoff!”
“What absurdity, you drunken, insane creature,” cried Velchaninoff louder than ever, and beside himself with outraged feeling. “Get out and come with me. Quick! get out instantly!”
“I can’t. It’s a debt — —”
“I’ll pull you out, then!” shouted Velchaninoff.
“Then I’ll scream, sir, I’ll scream!” giggled Pavel Pavlovitch, as merrily as ever, just as though the whole thing was a joke. However, he retreated into the further corner of the carriage, all the same.
“Look out, sir, look out! You’ll be knocked down!” cried a policeman.
Sure enough, an outside carriage was making its way on to the bridge from the side, stopping the procession, and causing a commotion. Velchaninoff was obliged to spring aside, and the press of carriages and people immediately separated him from Pavel Pavlovitch. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own vehicle.
“It’s all the same. I couldn’t take such a fellow with me, anyhow,” he reflected, still all of a tremble with excitement and the rage of disgust. When he repeated Maria Sisevna’s story, and his meeting at the funeral, to Claudia Petrovna afterwards, the latter became buried in deep thought.
“I am anxious for you,” she said at last. “You must break off all relations with that man, and as soon as possible.”
“Oh, he’s nothing but a drunken fool!” cried Velchaninoff passionately; “as if I am to be afraid of him! And how can I break off relations with him? Remember Liza!”
Meanwhile Liza was lying ill; fever had set in last night, and an eminent doctor was momentarily expected from town! He had been sent for early this morning.
These news quite upset Velchaninoff. Claudia Petrovna took him in to see the patient.
“I observed her very carefully yesterday,” she said, stopping at the door of Liza’s room before entering it. “She is a proud and morose child. She is ashamed of being with us, and of having been thrown over by her father. In my opinion that is the whole secret of her illness.”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 347
