But, anyway, enough of this topic: I’m really just writing all this for fun, my little angel, in order to entertain you. Goodbye, my little dove! If I’ve scribbled you a lot it’s because I’m in such a happy frame of mind today. We all ate dinner together in Ratazyayev is room and they started passing round a Romany wine* such as you’ve never tasted in your life (they’re such frolicsome fellows, little mother!)… But why should I write to you about that? Now don’t go getting the wrong idea about me, Varenka. I just tell you all these things for fun. I shall send you the books, I promise I shall… There’s a novel by Paul de Kock* going the rounds among us here, but I shall not send you Paul de Kock, little mother… No, no! Paul de Kock isn’t good enough for you. They say about him, little mother, that he provokes all the St Petersburg critics to righteous indignation. I enclose a pound ofsweets – Ibought them especially for you. Eat them, my darling, and remember me each time you put one in your mouth. Only mind and suck the boiled sweets, and not crunch them, or else you will get toothache. Perhaps you like candied fruit? Do write and tell me. Well, goodbye, then, goodbye. May Christ be with you, my little dove. And I shall remain forever
Your most faithful friend,
MAKAR DEVUSHKIN
June 27
Makar Alekseyevich, Sir,
Fedora says that if I am willing, there are certain people who will be pleased to take an active interest in my position, and will obtain for me a very good post as governess in a certain house. What do you think, my friend – should I accept or not? Of course, I should not then be a burden on you any longer, and the post does seem to be an advantageous one; on the other hand, though, I do not feel good about entering a house of people whom I do not know. They are some kind of country landowners. If they start trying to find out about me, asking me questions, probing me – what shall I say? Then again, I’m so shy and unsociable; I like to go on living for a long time in the same familiar corner. It’s somehow better living in the place one’s used to: even though one’s miserable half the time, it’s still better. The place is in the country, what’s more; and heaven only knows what sort of duties I will have; perhaps they’ll just make me look after the children. And they’re such people, too: they’ve had three governesses in two years. For the love of God, tell me what you think, Makar Alekseyevich, should I accept or not? And why do you never visit me? It’s so seldom that you show your face. We hardly ever see each other except in church on Sundays. What an unsociable fellow you are! You’re just like I am. I’m nearly a relation of yours, you know. You don’t love me, Makar Alekseyevich, and I sometimes get very sad on my own. At times, especially when it’s getting dark, I find myself sitting alone as alone can be. Fedora will have gone off somewhere. I sit and think andthink – I remember all the old times, the joyful ones and the sad ones, and they all pass before my eyes, flickering as through a mist. Familiar faces appear (I almost begin to see them for real), and it is Mother whom I see most frequently… And what dreams I have! I have a feeling that my health is not as good as it should be; I am so weak; this morning, for example, when I got out of bed, I started to feel peculiar; on top of that I have such a bad cough! I feel – indeed I know – that I shall die soon. Will anyone give me a funeral? Will anyone walk behind my coffin? Will anyone miss me?… And now, perhaps, I shall have to the in a strange place, in an alien corner of someone else’s house… O my God, how sad life is, Makar Alekseyevich! Why do you keep stuffing me with sweets, my friend? I really don’t know where you get all the money from. Oh, my friend, look after your money, for God’s sake look after it. Fedora is selling the rug I have made; she can get fifty paper rubles for it. That’s very good; I had thought it would be less. I shall give Fedora three silver rubles and make myself a new dress – a simple, warm one. I shall make you a waistcoat, I shall make it myself, and shall choose a good material for it.
Fedora has brought me a book – Tales of Belkin* – which I shall send you if you would like to read it. Only please don’t get marks on it, or delay in returning it, as it belongs to somebody else. It’s a work by Pushkin. Two years ago Mother and I read the stories in it together, and I felt so sad reading them over again now. If you have any books, please send them to me – only not if they are ones you have got from Ratazyayev. He will probably lend you his own books, if he has had anything published. How can you like his stuff, Makar Alekseyevich? It’s such rubbish… Well, goodbye! How I have prattled on! When I’m sad I like to prattle about nothing in particular. It’s a kind of medicine: I at once feel better, especially if I am able to talk about everything that is in my heart. Goodbye, goodbye, my friend!
Your
V. D.
June 28
Varvara Alekseyevna, little mother,
Enough of this misery! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Enough, my little angel; how is it that such thoughts come into your head? You are not ill, my darling, you are not in the slightest ill; you are blossoming, positively blossoming; a little pale, perhaps, but blossoming all the same. And what are these dreams and visions of yours? Shame on you, my little dove – enough! You must spit in the face of those dreams, yes, spit in their face. Why do you suppose I sleep well? Why do you suppose that nothing bad happens to me? You ought to look at me, little mother. I take care of myself, sleep well, am in good health, a fine figure of a man, a pleasure to look at. Enough, little darling, enough – shame on you. You must mend your ways. After all, I know how that head of yours works, little mother – as soon as the slightest thing goes wrong you start dreaming and pining. Stop it for my sake, darling. Go into service? Never! No, no and no! What can you be thinking of, whatever has got into you? And in the country, too! Oh no, little mother, I shall not permit it. I shall exert every power at my disposal in order to oppose such a plan. I will sell my old jacket and go about the streets in my shirtsleeves rather than have you want for anything. No, Varenka, no; I know you! This is folly, pure folly! And if there is one thing that’s certain, it is that Fedora bears the sole responsibility: she is quite clearly a stupid peasant woman, and it is she who has put you up to all this. Don’t you believe a word she says, little mother. You don’t know much about her, do you, my darling?… She’s a stupid peasant woman, foolish and quarrelsome; she drove her husband into his grave. Or has she been making you lose your temper with her over there? No, no, little mother, not for anything in the world! What would happen to me if you went, what would be left for me? No, Varenka, darling, you must get this idea out of your little head. What do you lack with us? We dote upon you, you are fond ofus – sogo on living over there in your quiet way; sew or read, or, if you wish, don’t sew – it’s all the same, just as long as you go on living with us. Just think for yourself what life would be like here without you!… Look, I shall get some books for you, and then perhaps we’ll go and take another walk somewhere together. Only enough, enough, little mother: learn some sense and don’t be put off your balance by silly nonsense! I will come and visit you, and in a very short time, too; only in return you must accept my frank and honest opinion: you are wrong, my darling, you are very wrong! I, of course, am an uneducated man and know that I am uneducated, that I was brought up on a shoestring; but that is not what I am driving at, for it is not I who am at issue here, but Ratazyayev, whose side I shall take, say what you will. he is my friend, and so I take his part. He writes well, he writes very, very, very well. I do not agree with you, and there is no way in which I can agree with you. He writes floridly, in gusts, with figures of speech and all sorts of ideas; it’s very fine! I think, Varenka, you must have read it without feeling, or perhaps you weren’t in the right mood, you were angry with Fedora about something, or something unpleasant had happened over there. No, you read it again with feeling, preferably when you’re happy and content and in a good mood, as when, for example, you have a sweet in your mouth – that’s the time you should read it. I don’t deny (and who would?) that there are writers who are better, even much better than Ratazyayev, but they have the
ir good points, and so does Ratazyayev; they write well, and so does he. he is a law unto himself, he writes in his own way, and what he writes he writes very well. Well, goodbye; I can write no more; I must make haste, for duty calls. See to it now, little mother, beloved little darling, compose yourself, may the Lord be with you, and I remain
your faithful friend,
MAKAR DEVUSHKIN
PS Thank you for the book, my dear; we shall read Pushkin, too; and I promise to come and visit you this evening.
July 1
My dear Makar Alekseyevich,
No, my friend, no, this is no life for me, here among you. I have given the matter some thought and have decided that it would be very wrong of me to refuse such an advantageous post. There I shall at least have my daily bread assured to me; I shall make an effort, I shall earn the good graces of people who are strangers to me, I shall even endeavour to alter my character, if need be. It is, of course, hard and hurtful to live among strangers, to seek their mercy, to hide one is feelings and constrain oneself, but God will help me. I must not remain a stay-at-home all my life. Similar things have happened to me in the past. I remember the days when I was a little girl and used to go to boarding-school. All Sunday I would play around at home, jumping and skipping; from time to time Mother would scold me, but I didn’t care – my heart was so full of happiness, my soul was so radiant. Evening would draw near, and then a mortal sadness would descend on me: at nine o’ clock I should have to return to my boarding-school, and there everything was cold, alien and strict, the schoolmistresses were so short-tempered on Mondays – my soul would fairly ache, and I would want to cry. I would go into a corner and weep all on my own, concealing my tears, as people would say I was lazy; yet the reason for my crying had nothing to do with the necessity of study. Well, in any case, I grew accustomed to the school, and then I would cry again when I had to leave it and say goodbye to my companions.
I should be acting wrongly to go on being a burden to both of you. That thought is torture to me. I tell you all this frankly, because I am used to being frank with you. Do you think I don’t see the way Fedora gets up at the crack of dawn every morning to do her laundry and works until late at night? And old bones need rest, too. Do you think I don’t see the way you ruin yourself over me, spending your every last copeck on me? A man of your means, my friend! You write that you will sell the last of your belongings rather than leave me in hardship. I believe you, my friend, I believe in your good heart – but those are just words. Just now you have some money you did not expect to have, you have been paid a bonus; but what will happen later, what then? You know yourself that I am constantly ill; I cannot work as you do, even though I should be truly glad to – and then there is not always work to be found. What is left for me? To let my heart break from sorrow as I watch the two of you, kind souls that you are? How can I render you even the slightest service? And why am I so indispensable to you, my friend? What good have I ever done you? I am merely devoted to you with all my soul, I love you fiercely, strongly, with all my heart, but – O bitter fate!– am able only to love, and not to do good works, to pay you for your unselfishness. Do not try to hold me back any longer, think about what I have written and tell me your final opinion. I remain, in expectation,
your loving
V. D.
July 1
Folly, folly, Varenka, the purest folly! Turn one is back on you for a moment and heaven alone knows what you get into that little head of yours. One thing is not right, and another thing is not right! But I can see now that it is just folly. I mean, what do you lack with us, little mother – just tell me that! We are fond of you, you are fond of us, we are all happy and content – what more could one wish? And in any case, what will you do among these strangers? I don’t believe you even know yet what a stranger is!… No, you would do better to ask me, I will tell you a thing or two about what a stranger is. I know him, little mother, I know him well; I have had occasion to eat his bread. he is mean, Varenka, mean, so mean that your little heart will not suffice you, so cruelly will he torment it with his reprimands, reproaches and dirty looks. Here with us you are warm, you are comfortable – you have found shelter as in a little nest. Why, we shall feel as though we had lost an arm or a leg if you leave. What will we do without you; what will I, old man that I am, do? Do you suppose we do not need you? Do you suppose that you are of no assistance to us? No assistance? How can you think such a thing? No, little mother, consider for yourself: how can you be of no assistance to us? You are of great assistance to me, Varenka. You have such a beneficial influence… See, I am thinking about you now, and it cheers me up… From time to time I write you a letter in which I set forth all my feelings, and receive back a detailed reply from you. I buy you some clothes, I make you a bonnet; sometimes you give me an errand, and I carry it out… No, how can you say you are of no assistance to me? What will I do alone in my old age, what will become of me? Perhaps you have not thought about that, Varenka; but you must think about it – you must say to yourself, what will become of him without me? I have grown accustomed to you, my dear. What will happen otherwise? I shall go down to the Neva, and that will be the end of it. Yes, truly, Varenka, that is what will happen; what else will there remain for me to do with you gone? Oh my darling Varenka! You evidently want the drayman to cart me to the cemetery at Volkovo, with only a mire-sodden old beggar-woman to accompany my coffin, and my grave to be filled in with sand, and my corpse left there alone. That is wrong of you, wrong of you, little mother! Truly, it is wrong of you, well and truly wrong! I am returning your book to you, Varenka, my little friend, and if, my little friend, you ask me my opinion of your book, I shall reply that never in all my life have I read such a wonderful book. And now I ask myself, little mother, how I could possibly have been content to be such a blockhead all my life, may the Lord forgive me. What have I been doing? From what backwoods have I emerged? I mean, I know nothing, little mother, I know nothing at all! I know absolutely nothing! I will tell you with an open heart, Varenka–I am an uneducated man; I have read little until now, very little, practically nothing: The Picture of Man,* a clever book; The Little Bell-ringer,* and The Cranes of lbicus* – that is all, I have never read any more than that. Now I have read The Stationmaster* in the book you have sent me here; let me tell you, little mother, it can happen that one spends one is life not realizing that right at one is side there is a book in which one is entire life is set forth as if on the ends of one is fingers. As one begins to read it, one gradually starts to remember and guess and unravel all that was hitherto obscure. And lastly, here is one other reason why I am fond of your book: there are some books which one reads and reads, yet try as one may one can’t make head nor tail of them. Take me, for example: I’m stupid, I’m stupid by nature, so I can’t read books that are too grand; yet when I read this one, it is as though I had written it myself, just as if, in a manner of speaking, I had taken my own heart, exactly as it is, and turned it inside out so that people could see what was in it, and described it all in detail – that is what it is like! And it is so simple, as God is my witness; but do you know, I really think I should have written it in the same way; why shouldn’t I have written it? After all, I have the same feelings, exactly the same ones as are described in the book, and I have sometimes found myself in situations like that of that poor unfortunate fellow Samson Vyrin, for example. How many Samson Vyrins there are going about in our midst, all of them the same poor hapless wretches! And how skilfully it is all described! The tears almost came to my eyes, little mother, when I read the bit where he drinks himself unconsious, the poor sinner, becomes a hopeless drunkard and sleeps all day under his sheepskin coat, staving off his grief with punch and weeping piteously, wiping his eyes with his dirty coat-hem as he remembers his poor lost lamb, his daughter Dunyasha! Oh, that is lifelike! Read it: it is lifelike, it is alive! I have seen it myself – it is what is all around me; Teresa, for example – but has one to look far? Look at our poor clerk �
� he might very well be Samson Vyrin under another name: Gorshkov. It is a matter of common concern, little mother, it might happen to you or to me. Even a count who lives on the Nevsky Prospekt or the Embankment, even he can experience the same thing, and it only appears to be different because they live in their own way, according to the laws of fashion, but even he can experience the same thing – anything can happen, and it can happen to me, too. That is how it is, little mother, and yet here you are wanting to leave us; don’t you see, Varenka, that sin may overtake me? You may ruin both yourself and me, my dear. Oh, my darling, for the love of God put all these capricious thoughts out of your little head and do not cause me unnecessary suffering. Where, my delicate little bird, as yet unfledged, where will you find the means to sustain yourself, to keep yourself from perdition, to defend yourself against villains? Enough, Varenka, you must come to your senses; don’t listen to foolish counsel, don’t listen to the wicked things they say about us – read your book again, read it carefully: you will derive benefit from that.
Poor Folk and Other Stories Page 9
