“Platon Nikolaevitch is our home-grown philosopher, scientist and Master of Arts. He has brought out several philosophical works, but for the last three months he has been getting quite drowsy, and there is no stirring him up now. Once a week he mutters something utterly irrelevant.”
“To the point, to the point!”
“He explains all this by the simplest fact, namely, that when we were living on the surface we mistakenly thought that death there was death. The body revives, as it were, here, the remains of life are concentrated, but only in consciousness. I don’t know how to express it, but life goes on, as it were, by inertia. In his opinion everything is concentrated somewhere in consciousness and goes on for two or three months ... sometimes even for half a year.... There is one here, for instance, who is almost completely decomposed, but once every six weeks he suddenly utters one word, quite senseless of course, about some bobok, ‘Bobok, bobok,’ but you see that an imperceptible speck of life is still warm within him.”
i. e. small bean.
“It’s rather stupid. Well, and how is it I have no sense of smell and yet I feel there’s a stench?”
“That ... he-he.... Well, on that point our philosopher is a bit foggy. It’s apropos of smell, he said, that the stench one perceives here is, so to speak, moral — he-he! It’s the stench of the soul, he says, that in these two or three months it may have time to recover itself ... and this is, so to speak, the last mercy.... Only, I think, baron, that these are mystic ravings very excusable in his position....”
“Enough; all the rest of it, I am sure, is nonsense. The great thing is that we have two or three months more of life and then — bobok! I propose to spend these two months as agreeably as possible, and so to arrange everything on a new basis. Gentlemen! I propose to cast aside all shame.”
“Ah, let us cast aside all shame, let us!” many voices could be heard saying; and strange to say, several new voices were audible, which must have belonged to others newly awakened. The engineer, now fully awake, boomed out his agreement with peculiar delight. The girl Katiche giggled gleefully.
“Oh, how I long to cast off all shame!” Avdotya Ignatyevna exclaimed rapturously.
“I say, if Avdotya Ignatyevna wants to cast off all shame....”
“No, no, no, Klinevitch, I was ashamed up there all the same, but here I should like to cast off shame, I should like it awfully.”
“I understand, Klinevitch,” boomed the engineer, “that you want to rearrange life here on new and rational principles.”
“Oh, I don’t care a hang about that! For that we’ll wait for Kudeyarov who was brought here yesterday. When he wakes he’ll tell you all about it. He is such a personality, such a titanic personality! To-morrow they’ll bring along another natural scientist, I believe, an officer for certain, and three or four days later a journalist, and, I believe, his editor with him. But deuce take them all, there will be a little group of us anyway, and things will arrange themselves. Though meanwhile I don’t want us to be telling lies. That’s all I care about, for that is one thing that matters. One cannot exist on the surface without lying, for life and lying are synonymous, but here we will amuse ourselves by not lying. Hang it all, the grave has some value after all! We’ll all tell our stories aloud, and we won’t be ashamed of anything. First of all I’ll tell you about myself. I am one of the predatory kind, you know. All that was bound and held in check by rotten cords up there on the surface. Away with cords and let us spend these two months in shameless truthfulness! Let us strip and be naked!”
“Let us be naked, let us be naked!” cried all the voices.
“I long to be naked, I long to be,” Avdotya Ignatyevna shrilled.
“Ah ... ah, I see we shall have fun here; I don’t want Ecke after all.”
“No, I tell you. Give me a taste of life!”
“He-he-he!” giggled Katiche.
“The great thing is that no one can interfere with us, and though I see Pervoyedov is in a temper, he can’t reach me with his hand. Grand-père, do you agree?”
“I fully agree, fully, and with the utmost satisfaction, but on condition that Katiche is the first to give us her biography.”
“I protest! I protest with all my heart!” General Pervoyedov brought out firmly.
“Your Excellency!” the scoundrel Lebeziatnikov persuaded him in a murmur of fussy excitement, “your Excellency, it will be to our advantage to agree. Here, you see, there’s this girl’s ... and all their little affairs.”
“There’s the girl, it’s true, but....”
“It’s to our advantage, your Excellency, upon my word it is! If only as an experiment, let us try it....”
“Even in the grave they won’t let us rest in peace.”
“In the first place, General, you were playing preference in the grave, and in the second we don’t care a hang about you,” drawled Klinevitch.
“Sir, I beg you not to forget yourself.”
“What? Why, you can’t get at me, and I can tease you from here as though you were Julie’s lapdog. And another thing, gentlemen, how is he a general here? He was a general there, but here is mere refuse.”
“No, not mere refuse.... Even here....”
“Here you will rot in the grave and six brass buttons will be all that will be left of you.”
“Bravo, Klinevitch, ha-ha-ha!” roared voices.
“I have served my sovereign.... I have the sword....”
“Your sword is only fit to prick mice, and you never drew it even for that.”
“That makes no difference; I formed a part of the whole.”
“There are all sorts of parts in a whole.”
“Bravo, Klinevitch, bravo! Ha-ha-ha!”
“I don’t understand what the sword stands for,” boomed the engineer.
“We shall run away from the Prussians like mice, they’ll crush us to powder!” cried a voice in the distance that was unfamiliar to me, that was positively spluttering with glee.
“The sword, sir, is an honour,” the general cried, but only I heard him. There arose a prolonged and furious roar, clamour, and hubbub, and only the hysterically impatient squeals of Avdotya Ignatyevna were audible.
“But do let us make haste! Ah, when are we going to begin to cast off all shame!”
“Oh-ho-ho!... The soul does in truth pass through torments!” exclaimed the voice of the plebeian, “and ...”
And here I suddenly sneezed. It happened suddenly and unintentionally, but the effect was striking: all became as silent as one expects it to be in a churchyard, it all vanished like a dream. A real silence of the tomb set in. I don’t believe they were ashamed on account of my presence: they had made up their minds to cast off all shame! I waited five minutes — not a word, not a sound. It cannot be supposed that they were afraid of my informing the police; for what could the police do to them? I must conclude that they had some secret unknown to the living, which they carefully concealed from every mortal.
“Well, my dears,” I thought, “I shall visit you again.” And with those words, I left the cemetery.
No, that I cannot admit; no, I really cannot! The bobok case does not trouble me (so that is what that bobok signified!)
Depravity in such a place, depravity of the last aspirations, depravity of sodden and rotten corpses — and not even sparing the last moments of consciousness! Those moments have been granted, vouchsafed to them, and ... and, worst of all, in such a place! No, that I cannot admit.
I shall go to other tombs, I shall listen everywhere. Certainly one ought to listen everywhere and not merely at one spot in order to form an idea. Perhaps one may come across something reassuring.
But I shall certainly go back to those. They promised their biographies and anecdotes of all sorts. Tfoo! But I shall go, I shall certainly go; it is a question of conscience!
I shall take it to the Citizen; the editor there has had his portrait exhibited too. Maybe he will print it.
A GENTLE SPIRIT
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br /> CONTENTS
Part I
Chapter I. Who I was and who she was
Chapter II. The offer of marriage
Chapter III. The Noblest Of Men, Though I don’t believe it myself
Chapter IV. Plans and Plans
Chapter V. A Gentle Spirit in Revolt
Chapter VI. A Terrible Reminiscence
Part II
Chapter I. The Dream of Pride
Chapter II. The Veil Suddenly Falls
Chapter III. I Understand Too Well
Chapter IV. I Was Only Five Minutes Too Late
Part I
Chapter I. Who I was and who she was
Oh, while she is still here, it is still all right; I go up and look at her every minute; but tomorrow they will take her away - and how shall I be left alone? Now she is on the table in the drawing-room, they put two card tables together, the coffin will be here tomorrow - white, pure white “gros de Naples” - but that’s not it . . .
I keep walking about, trying to explain it to myself. I have been trying for the last six hours to get it clear, but still I can’t think of it all as a whole.
The fact is I walk to and fro, and to and fro.
This is how it was. I will simply tell it in order. (Order!)
Gentlemen, I am far from being a literary man and you will see that; but no matter, I’ll tell it as I understand it myself. The horror of it for me is that I understand it all!
It was, if you care to know, that is to take it from the beginning, that she used to come to me simply to pawn things, to pay for advertising in the VOICE to the effect that a governess was quite willing to travel, to give lessons at home, and so on, and so on. That was at the very beginning, and I, of course, made no difference between her and the others: “She comes,” I thought, “like any one else,” and so on.
But afterwards I began to see a difference. She was such a slender, fair little thing, rather tall, always a little awkward with me, as though embarrassed (I fancy she was the same with all strangers, and in her eyes, of course, I was exactly like anybody else - that is, not as a pawnbroker but as a man).
As soon as she received the money she would turn round at once and go away. And always in silence. Other women argue so, entreat, haggle for me to give them more; this one did not ask for more. . . .
I believe I am muddling it up.
Yes; I was struck first of all by the things she brought: poor little silver gilt earrings, a trashy little locket, things not worth sixpence. She knew herself that they were worth next to nothing, but I could see from her face that they were treasures to her, and I found out afterwards as a fact that they were all that was left her belonging to her father and mother.
Only once I allowed myself to scoff at her things. You see I never allow myself to behave like that. I keep up a gentlemanly tone with my clients: few words, politeness and severity. “Severity, severity!”
But once she ventured to bring her last rag, that is, literally the remains of an old hareskin jacket, and I could not resist saying something by way of a joke. My goodness! how she flared up! Her eyes were large, blue and dreamy but - how they blazed. But she did not drop one word; picking up her “rags” she walked out.
It was then for the first time I noticed her particularly, and thought something of the kind about her - that it, something of a particular kind. Yes, I remember another impression - that is, if you will have it, perhaps the chief impression, that summed up everything. It was that she was terribly young, so young that she looked just fourteen. And yet she was within three months of sixteen. I didn’t mean that, though, that wasn’t what summed it all up. Next day she came again. I found out later that she had been to Dobranravov’s and to Mozer’s with that jacket, but they take nothing but gold and would have nothing to say to it. I once took some stones from her (rubbishy little ones) and, thinking it over afterwards, I wondered: I, too, only lend on gold and silver, yet from her I accepted stones. That was my second thought about her then; that I remember. That time, that is when she came from Mozer’s, she brought an amber cigar-holder. It was a connoisseur’s article, not bad, but again, of no value to us, because we only deal in gold. As it was the day after her “mutiny”, I received her sternly. Sternness with me takes the form of dryness. As I gave her two roubles, however, I could not resist saying, with a certain irritation, “I only do it for you, of course; Mozer wouldn’t take such a thing.”
The word “for you” I emphasised particularly, and with a particular implication.
I was spiteful. She flushed up again when she heard that “for you”, but she did not say a word, she did not refuse the money, she took it - that is poverty! But how hotly she flushed! I saw I had stung her. And when she had gone out, I suddenly asked myself whether my triumph over her was worth two roubles. He! He!! He!!! I remember I put that question to myself twice over, “was is worth it? was it worth it?”
And, laughing, I inwardly answered it in the affirmative. And I felt very much elated. But that was not an evil feeling; I said it with design, with a motive; I wanted to test her, because certain ideas with regard to her had suddenly come into my mind. That was the third thing I thought particularly about her. . . . Well, it was from that time it all began. Of course, I tried at once to find out all her circumstances indirectly, and awaited her coming with a special impatience. I had a presentiment that she would come soon. When she came, I entered into affable conversation with her, speaking with unusual politeness. I have not been badly brought up and have manners. H’m. It was then I guessed that she was soft-hearted and gentle.
The gentle and soft-hearted do not resist long, and though they are by no means very ready to reveal themselves, they do not know how to escape from a conversation; they are niggardly in their answers, but they do answer, and the more readily the longer you go on. Only, on your side you must not flag, if you want them to talk. I need hardly say that she did not explain anything to me then. About the Voice and all that I found out afterwards. She was at that time spending her last farthing on advertising, haughtily at first, of course. “A governess prepared to travel and will send terms on application,” but, later on: “willing to do anything, to teach, to be a companion, to be a housekeeper, to wait on an invalid, plain sewing, and so on, and so on”, the usual thing! Of course, all this was added to the advertisement a bit at a time and finally, when she was reduced to despair, it came to: “without salary in return for board.” No, she could not find a situation. I made up my mind then to test her for the last time. I suddenly took up the Voice of the day and showed her an advertisement. “A young person, without friends and relations, seeks a situation as a governess to young children, preferably in the family of a middle-aged widower. Might be a comfort in the home.”
“Look here how this lady has advertised this morning, and by the evening she will certainly have found a situation. That’s the way to advertise.”
Again she flushed crimson and her eyes blazed, she turned round and went straight out. I was very much pleased, though by that time I felt sure of everything and had no apprehensions; nobody will take her cigar-holders, I thought. Besides, she has got rid of them all. And so it was, two days later, she came in again, such a pale little creature, all agitation - I saw that something had happened to her at home, and something really had. I will explain directly what had happened, but now I only want to recall how I did something chic, and rose in her opinion. I suddenly decided to do it. The fact is she was pawning the ikon (she had brought herself to pawn it!) . . Ah! listen! listen! This is the beginning now, I’ve been in a muddle. You see I want to recall all this, every detail, every little point. I want to bring them all together and look at them as a whole and - I cannot . . . It’s these little things, these little things. . . . It was an ikon of the Madonna. A Madonna with the Babe, and old-fashioned, homely one, and the setting was silver gilt, worth - well, six roubles perhaps. I could see the ikon was precious to her; she was pawning it whole, not taking it out of the settin
g. I said to her -
“You had better take it out of the setting, and take the ikon home; for it’s not the thing to pawn.”
“Why, are you forbidden to take them?”
“No, it’s not that we are forbidden, but you might, perhaps, yourself . . .”
“Well, take it out.”
“I tell you what. I will not take it out, but I’ll set it here in the shrine with the other ikons,” I said, on reflection. “Under the little lamp” (I always had the lamp burning as soon as the shop was opened), “and you simply take ten roubles.”
“Don’t give me ten roubles. I only want five; I shall certainly redeem it.”
“You don’t want ten? The ikon’s worth it,” I added noticing that her eyes flashed again.
She was silent. I brought out five roubles.
“Don’t despise any one; I’ve been in such straits myself; and worse too, and that you see me here in this business . . . is owing to what I’ve been through in the past. . . .”
“You’re revenging yourself on the world? Yes?” she interrupted suddenly with rather sarcastic mockery, which, however, was to a great extent innocent (that is, it was general, because certainly at that time she did not distinguish me from others, so that she said it almost without malice).
“Aha,” thought I; “so that’s what you’re like. You’ve got character; you belong to the new movement.”
“You see!” I remarked at once, half-jestingly, half-mysteriously, “I am part of that part of the Whole that seeks to do ill, but does good. . . .”
Quickly and with great curiosity, in which , however, there was something very childlike, she looked at me.
“Stay . . . what’s that idea? Where does it come from? I’ve heard it somewhere . . .”
“Don’t rack your brains. In those words Mephistopheles introduces himself to Faust. Have you read Faust?”
“Not . . . not attentively.”
“That is, you have not read it at all. You must read it. But I see an ironical look in your face again. Please don’t imagine that I’ve so little taste as to try to use Mephistopheles to commend myself to you and grace the role of pawnbroker. A pawnbroker will still be a pawnbroker. We know.”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 617
