Poor Folk and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  MAKAR DEVUSHKIN

  August 4

  Dear Makar Alekseyevich,

  Please, for the love of God, try to borrow some money as soon as you possibly can; I would do anything rather than ask you for help in your present circumstances, but if you only knew the position in which I find myself! It is out of the question for us to remain in this apartment. A most horribly unpleasant thing has happened to me, and you have no idea how upset and agitated I am! Imagine, my friend: this morning we received a visit from a stranger, advanced in years, an old man, practically, wearing medal-ribbons. I was totally bewildered, and could not think what he wanted with us. Fedora had gone out shopping at the time. This man started to ask me questions: how was I, what was I doing, and, without waiting for a reply, he informed me that he was the uncle of that officer, and that he was very angry with his nephew for his bad behaviour and for having spread our name all over the house; he said that his nephew was a puerile, superficial fellow, and that he himself wished to offer me his protection; he advised me not to listen to young men, and added that he sympathized with me as a father, that he had fatherly feelings for me and wanted to help me in any way he could. I turned quite red, not knowing what to think, but was in no hurry to accept his offer. He took hold of my hand by force, patted me on the cheek, said that I was very pretty and that he was particularly pleased to note I had dimples (God knows what things he said!), and finally tried to kiss me, saying that he was just a harmless old man (what a vile character he was!). At that point Fedora came in. Put off his mark by this slightly, he once again said that he felt respect for me because of my modesty and my correct behaviour, and that he very much hoped I would not be put off by him. Then he took Fedora aside and tried to give her a certain sum of money on some strange pretext. Fedora naturally refused to take it. At last he got ready to leave, repeated his assurances, and said he would come and see me again and bring me earrings (I think he was very embarrassed); he advised me to move to another apartment and told me about a very nice one he knew of which he could get me for nothing; he said he had taken a real liking to me as I was an honest, sensible girl, counselled me to be on my guard against dissipated young men, ended by informing me that he knew Anna Fyodorovna and that Anna Fyodorovna had instructed him to tell me that she was going to pay me a visit. At that point it all became clear to me. I don’t know what happened to me; it was the first time in my life that I had ever experienced such a situation; I was beside myself with rage; I put him utterly to shame. Fedora helped me, and together we more or less kicked him out of the apartment. We decided it must all have been Anna Fyodorovna is doing: otherwise how could he have known about us?

  So now I turn to you, Makar Alekseyevich, and beseech you for help. For the love of God, do not leave me in a situation like this! Please try to borrow at least something, we don’t have enough money to change apartments, and it’s impossible for us to remain here any longer: that is what Fedora says, too. We need at least twenty-five rubles; I’ll pay you the money back; I shall earn it. Fedora will get me some more work in a few days’ time, so don’t be put off if they demand a high rate of interest – agree to anything. I’ll pay it all back, only for the love of God don’t withhold your help. It distresses me greatly to have to trouble you now, when you are in such dire straits yourself, but you are the only hope I have! Goodbye, Makar Alekseyevich, think of me, and may God grant you success!

  V. D.

  August 4

  Varvara Alekseyevna, my little dove!

  All these unexpected blows are dumbfounding me! Such terrible disasters are breaking my spirit! What is more, this devil is brood of lickspittles and worthless old greybeards is trying to bring you to your sickbed, my little angel – not only that, these very same lickspitles are trying to wear me out. And they will succeed, I swear it, they will succeed! You know, I would sooner die than fail to bring you the help you need! If I fail to help you, Varenka, that will be the end of me, pure and simple; yet if I do help you, you will fly away from me, like a bird from the nest which these owls, these birds of prey, have been trying to peck to death. That is what is tormenting me, little mother. Oh, Varenka, you are cruel, too! Why are you like that? You are subjected to torture and insult, my little bird, you suffer, and what is more you grieve because you have to trouble me, and then you promise to work off the debt – which really means that in your frail state of health you will kill yourself in order to get me the money on time. I mean, Varenka, just think what you are saying! Why should you have to sew, why should you have to work, tormenting your poor little head, ruining your pretty little eyes and destroying your heakh? Oh, Varenka, Varenka! Look, my little dove, I am fit for nothing – I know I am fit for nothing, but I shall do things in such a way as to make myself fit for something! I shall overcome all difficulties. I’ll get work on the side, I’ll copy things for literary men, I’ll go to them, I’ll go to them myself and force them to give me work; because they’re looking for good copyists, I know that they are, and I won’t let you wear yourself out; I won’t allow you to carry out such a ruinous intention. I shall surely borrow the money, my little angel, I’d rather die than not borrow it. And you write, my dove, that I shouldn’t be frightened off by a high rate of interest –well, I won’t, little mother, I won’t be frightened off, nothing can frighten me now. I’ll ask for forty paper rubles, little mother; that is not too much, is it, Varenka – what do you think? Do you think I can get forty rubles’ worth of credit first time off? In other words, what I mean is, do you think I’m capable of inspiring trust and confidence at first sight? Do you think it is possible that they’ll judge me favourably at the first sight of my physiognomy? You remember me, my little angel, do you think I’m capable of inspiring confidence? What is your own personal opinion? You know I feel so terribly afraid – it’s unhealthy, really unhealthy! Out of the forty rubles I shall set aside twenty for you, Varenka; the landlady will get two silver rubles, and the rest will be earmarked for my own personal expenditure. Now you see, I ought to give the landlady a bit more, it is even necessary, but you figure it out for yourself, little mother, take into account all my needs and you will see that it is impossible for me to give her more, so consequently there is no point in even talking about it, and we might as well forget about it. I shall spend one silver ruble on a pair of boots; I don’t really think I can go to the office tomorrow wearing my old ones. A new tie would also be a good idea, as I’ve had my old one for more than a year now; but since you have promised to make me, out of your old apron, not only a tie but also a shirtfront, I shan’t give any more thought to a new tie. So there, I have boots and a tie. Now we come to the subject of buttons, my little friend! After all, my little one, I think you will agree that one cannot do without buttons; and almost half of mine have fallen off! I tremble when I think that His Excellency may notice this disorderly state of affairs and say – oh, what would he say? At any rate, little mother, I wouldn’t hear what he said; for I’d die, I’d die, I’d the on the spot, I should simply the of shame, from the very thought! Oh, little mother! Well, after all those necessities I’ll have three rubles left; that will go on living expenses and half a pound of tobacco; because, my little angel, I can’t live without tobacco, and it’s nine days now since I had a pipeful. I would, to tell you the truth, buy it and say nothing about it to you, but I’d feel guilty. There you are in misery, you’re doing without the most essential things, and here I am enjoying all sorts of gratification; so that is why I’m telling you all this, so as not to suffer the torments of my conscience. I will frankly confess to you, Varenka, that I am now in a thoroughly disastrous situation – indeed, nothing remotely similar to this has ever happened to me before. The landlady treats me with contempt, and I get no respect from anyone; I’m terribly short of money, I have debts; and as for my life at the office, where even previously my fellow clerks weren’t exactly in the habit of putting out the red carpet for me – well, little mother, now it doesn’t bear speaking about. I hide
my feelings, I scrupulously hide my feelings from them all, and I hide myself, and when I come into the office I do it stealthily, and I keep away from everyone else. I mean, you’re the only person with whom I can summon up the strength of mind to confess it… And what if he won’t lend me the money? No, Varenka, it is better not to think about that and not have one is spirit broken in advance by such ideas. Another reason I am writing to you is to warn you not to think about that and not to torment yourself with evil imaginings. Oh, my God, what will become of you then? It is true, however, that you won’t be able to move out of that apartment, and I’ll be with you – but no, I wouldn’t come back. I’d just disappear somewhere, go missing. Here I am covering sheets with writing to you, and I ought to be getting shaved; it looks better, and looks are important. Well, may God be with us! I shall say a prayer, and then be off.

  M. DEVUSHKIN

  August 5

  Dearest Makar Alekseyevich!

  Please don’t give in to despair! There is enough trouble already as it is. I am sending you thirty copecks in silver; more than that I cannot manage. Buy yourself the things you need most, so that at least you can survive until tomorrow. We ourselves have practically nothing left, and I do not know what will happen tomorrow. It is so sad, Makar Alekseyevich! But don’t you be sad; if you haven’t succeeded, there is nothing to be done about it. Fedora says that it is not a complete disaster, that we can stay on in this apartment for a while yet, that even if we moved we wouldn’t gain that much by it, and that if they really put their minds to it they can find us wherever we are. It is just that I don’t feel very good about staying on here now. If I didn’t feel so sad I would write to you about a few things.

  What a strange character you are, Makar Alekseyevich! You take everything too much to heart; because of that, you will always be a most unhappy man. I always read your letters very closely, and I see that in each one of them you show a worry and concern about me such as you have never shown about yourself. People will, of course, say that you have a good heart, but to that I will reply that it is too good. Let me give you a piece of friendly advice, Makar Alekseyevich. I am grateful to you, very grateful for all that you have done for me, I am deeply appreciative of it; so imagine what I feel like when I see that even now, after all the calamities which have befallen you, and of which I have been the involuntary cause, you are still living exclusively through me: my joys, my griefs, my emotions! If you take someone else is experiences so much to heart and have such a strong degree of sympathy with them all, you will end up a most unhappy man. Today when you came into my room after you had returned from the office I felt afraid. You were so pale, so frightened, so despairing: you looked awful – and all because you were afraid to tell me that you had failed, afraid of upsetting me or alarming me. And when you saw that I was almost on the point of laughing, your spirits lifted at once. Makar Alekseyevich! Don’t be so miserable, don’t give in to despair, be more sensible – I beg you, I implore you. Look at it this way: everything will be all right, everything will work out for the best; otherwise it will be so hard for you to go on living, forever downcast and tormented by other people is suffering. Goodbye, my friend; I beg you not to worry so much about me.

  V. D.

  August 5

  Varenka, my little dove!

  Well, that is fine, my little angel, that’s fine! You have decided that it is not a complete disaster, my failure to get the money. Well, that’s fine, my mind is at rest, I am happy on your account. I am even glad that you are not going to abandon me, old man that I am, and that you will remain in your present apartment. In fact, to tell you the truth, my heart overflowed with joy when I read all the nice things you said about me in your letter and saw how you rendered my feelings the praise that was due. I say this not out of pride, but because I can see how you must love me, if you are so worried about my feelings. Well, that’s fine; what is there to be said about feelings, in any case? Feelings do as they will; but then, little mother, you also tell me not to be faint-hearted. Yes, my little angel, indeed, I am the first to admit that it is no good being faint-hearted; yet for all that, see for yourself, little mother, what manner of boots I must wear to the office tomorrow! There’s the rub, little mother; but I mean, a thought like that can crush a man, crush him totally. But the main thing, my darling, is that it is not myself I am grieving for, not myself for whose sake I am suffering; it is all the same to me, I’ll go around without an overcoat in the biting frost and manage without boots, I’ll suffer it and put up with it, I don’t mind; I’m an ordinary man, a little man – but what will people say? My enemies, all these evil tongues, what will they say if I go around with no overcoat on? After all, one wears an overcoat for the sake of other people, and the same is true of boots. I need boots, little mother, my darling, in order to maintain my honour and my good name; if my boots have holes in them, I can say goodbye to both the one and the other – believe me, little mother, and trust in my many years of experience; listen to me, an old man who knows the world and its inhabitants, listen to me, and not to scribblers and scrawlers.

  I have not yet given you a full account, little mother, of all that happened today, and of what I have been through. I suffered more mental agony in one morning than many men endure in the course of a year. This is what happened: in the first place, I set off at the crack of dawn, in order to catch him and then be in time for the office. What rain, what sleet there was this morning! I wrapped myself up in my overcoat, my dear, I trudged on and on, thinking to myself all the while: ‘Lord, forgive me my transgressions and grant the fulfilment of my desires!’ As I was passing St X’s. Church, I made the sign of the cross over myself, repented of all my sins and rediance that it was unworthy of me to try to do business with the Lord God. I was absorbed in myself, and had no wish to look at anything; thus I trudged on, not really noticing where I was going. The streets were deserted, and the few people I did run into looked worried and preoccupied, and no wonder: who would go out for a walk so early and in weather like that? I came upon a gang of dirty workmen; they shoved me, the peasants! I was attacked by a sense of fear, a sinking feeling came over me, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to think about the money – let chance decide! Just as I was about to cross Voskresensky Bridge the sole of one of my boots fell off, and I don’t really know how I managed to walk any further. At that point I saw Yermolayev, one of the clerks in our office, coming in my direction. He came to a halt, stiffened up and followed me with his gaze, as though he were begging for money to buy vodka; ‘Eh, old chap,’ I thought, ‘vodka? Where’ll you get vodka round here?’ I was horribly tired. I stopped, rested for a bit, and then plodded onwards. I searched about for something on which to fasten my thoughts, to provide myself with a diversion, to cheer myself up: but no – not one of my thoughts could find anything to adhere to, and moreover I got so muddy that I was ashamed of myself. At last in the distance I saw a yellow wooden house with an attic turret like a belvedere – ‘Well,’ I thought,’that’s it, that’s how Yemelyan Ivanovich described it – Markov is house.’ (This Markov is the man who lends money, little mother.) By that time I was in a bit of a daze; I mean, I knew it was Markov is house, but even so I asked the policeman who was on duty there: ‘Whose house is this, officer?’ The policeman was a rude fellow, spoke as though it was an effort to do so, as though he were angry at someone, through his teeth: ‘Whose house is it?’ he said. ‘It’s Markov is house, of course.’ These policemen are all such insensitive fellows – though what do I care about policemen? But from then on everything seemed all wrong and unpleasant, just one bad thing after another; it is as though one picked up in everything only those impressions that are concordant with one is state of mind, and it is always like that. I walked up and down outside the house three times, and the longer I walked, the worse I felt. ‘No,’ I thought, ‘he won’t lend me the money, never in a million years will he lend it to me. I’m a stranger to him, my request is a ticklish one, and I don’t look right.
Well,’ I thought, ‘let fate decide; as long as I don’t feel like kicking myself afterwards; he won’t eat me just for trying.’ And I quietly opened the gate. Then another misfortune befell me: I was set upon by a stupid, wretched watchdog; it was practically jumping out of its skin, barking as loudly as it could! Vile, trivial incidents like that that always infuriate a man, little mother, they take away his self-confidence and undermine all the determination he has summoned up beforehand; so I entered the house more dead than alive, and walked straight into yet another misfortune – unable to see in the darkness that surrounded the front entrance, I tripped and fell over some peasant woman who was straining milk from a pail into some jugs, and all the milk got spilt. The stupid woman began to shriek and chatter, saying ‘Where do you think you’re going, my fellow, what is it you want?’ Then she started wailing something about the evil one. I include this in my account, little mother, because this kind of thing always happens to me in this kind of situation; it seems to be written in my stars; I unfailingly get bogged down in something irrelevant. Hearing the noise, an old witch of a Finnish landlady stuck her head out of the door, and I went straight up to her: ‘Does Markov live here?’ I said. ‘No,’ she said; she stood there giving me a good look over. ‘What do you want with him?’ I told her this and that, saying that Yemelyan Ivanovich had – well, and all the rest of it – I said I’d come on business. The old woman called her daughter – a grown girl who was barefoot – ‘Go and get your father; he is upstairs with the lodgers,’ she said to her. To me she said, ‘Come in.’ I went inside. The room wasn’t too bad, there were pictures on the walls, all portraits of generals; there was a sofa, a round table, a spray of mignonette, some little pots of balsam – I had a good think, and wondered whether I oughtn’t to just clear off and make no bones about it. And I mean, oh, little mother, I really wanted to take flight!‘I’d do better to come back tomorrow,’ I thought;’the weather will be better then, why don’t I wait for a bit? Today the milk is been spilt, and those generals look a bit stroppy to me…’ I was already at the door when he came in – a grey-haired little fellow with furtive little eyes, dressed in a grease-stained dressing-gown tied at the waist with a piece of rope. He inquired the reason for my visit, and I said that Yemelyan Ivanovich had told me one thing and another, and that it was a question of forty rubles, but I couldn’t get to the end of it. I could see from his eyes that my cause was a lost one. ‘We can’t do business,’ he said, ‘I’ve no money; do you have any security?’ I started to explain that I hadn’t any security, but that Yemelyan Ivanovich – in short, I explained what I wanted. When he had heard everything, he said: ‘Never mind what Yemelyan Ivanovich told you – the fact is, I’ve no money.’ ‘Well,’ I thought,’that is it, then; I knew this was how it was going to be, I could sense it.’ Oh, Varenka, I wished the earth would swallow me up; I felt so cold, my legs were stiff with it, and the goosepimples ran up and down my spine. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I could see he was more or less saying: ‘All right, brother, now be off with you – there is nothing for you here.’ I mean, if the same thing had happened in different circumstances, I’d have felt utterly ashamed of myself. ‘What do you need the money for, anyway?’ he asked. (He actually asked that, little mother!) I opened my mouth, if only to avoid standing there to no purpose like that, but he cut in before I could speak. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve no money; if I had, I’d have lent you some with pleasure.’ Then I began to press my case, told him it was only a little money I needed, said I would pay it back on time, that he could name any percentage of interest he liked, and swore to God I would pay back the full amount. At that moment I mentioned you, little mother, I mentioned all your misfortunes and privations, I mentioned the fifty copecks you had sent me – ‘No,’ he said. ‘What good is interest? Now if you had some security! But in any case, I’ve no money, I swear to God and truly I haven’t; I’d have lent you some with pleasure.’ He took the Lord is name in vain, too, the scoundrel!