The thing is that he now finds himself in a quite strange, to say the least, position. He, ladies and gentlemen, is also here, that is, not at the ball, but almost at the ball; never mind him, ladies and gentlemen; he is his own man, but at this moment he is standing on a path that is not entirely straight; he is now standing—it is even strange to say it—he is now standing in the hallway to the back stairs of Olsufy Ivanovich’s apartment. But never mind that he is standing there; he is all right. He is standing, ladies and gentlemen, in a little corner, huddled in a place not so much warm as dark, hidden partly by an enormous wardrobe and some old screens, among all sorts of litter, trash, and junk, hiding for a time and meanwhile only observing the general course of events in the capacity of an external onlooker. He, ladies and gentlemen, is only observing now; he may also go in, ladies and gentlemen…why not go in? He has only to take a step, and he will go in, and go in rather adroitly. Only just now—while standing, incidentally, for the third hour in the cold, between the wardrobe and the screens, amidst all sorts of trash, litter, and junk—he quoted, in his own justification, a phrase from the French minister Villèle,{14} of blessed memory, that “everything will come in its turn, if you have the gumption to wait.” This phrase Mr. Goliadkin had read once in a completely unrelated book, but now he called it up quite opportunely in his memory. First, the phrase suited his present situation very well, and second, what will not occur to a man who has been waiting for the happy outcome of his circumstances for almost a whole three hours in a hallway, in the dark and cold? Having quite opportunely quoted the phrase of the former French minister Villèle, as has been said, Mr. Goliadkin at once, no one knows why, also recalled the former Turkish vizier Marzimiris, as well as the beautiful Margravine Louise, whose story he had also read once in a book.{15} Then it came to his memory that the Jesuits even made it a rule to consider all means appropriate, so long as the end is achieved. Having encouraged himself somewhat with this historical point, Mr. Goliadkin said to himself, well, so what about the Jesuits? The Jesuits, all to a man, were the greatest fools, that he himself would go them one better, that if only the pantry (that is, the room whose door gave directly onto the hallway and the back stairs, where Mr. Goliadkin now was) stayed empty at least for a moment, then, in spite of all Jesuits, he would up and go straight from the pantry to the morning room, then to the room where they were now playing cards, and then straight into the ballroom where they were now dancing the polka. And he would go in, he would go in without fail, he would go in despite all, he would slip in, just that, and no one would notice; and once there, he would know what to do. That is the position, ladies and gentlemen, in which we now find the hero of our perfectly truthful story, though, incidentally, it is hard to explain precisely what was happening to him at that moment. The thing was that he had managed to get as far as the hallway and the stairs for the simple reason that, say, why should he not get there, anybody could get there; but he did not dare to penetrate further, did not dare to do it openly…not because he lacked daring, but just so, because he did not want to, because he would have preferred to do it on the quiet. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, waiting now for this quiet, and he has been waiting exactly two and a half hours for it. Why should he not wait? Villèle himself waited. “What has Villèle got to do with it?” thought Mr. Goliadkin. “Why Villèle? What if I now sort of…up and penetrate?…Eh, you bit player!” said Mr. Goliadkin, pinching his frozen cheek with his frozen hand. “What a little fool, what a Goliadka—that’s what your name is!…”{16} However, this endearment towards his own person at the present moment was just by the way, in passing, with no visible purpose. He now made as if to set out and move forward; the moment had come; the pantry was empty, and there was no one in it; Mr. Goliadkin saw all this through a little window; two steps brought him to the door, and he was already opening it. “To go or not? Well, to go or not? I’ll go…why shouldn’t I go? The brave man makes his way everywhere!” Having encouraged himself in this way, our hero suddenly and quite unexpectedly retreated behind the screens. “No,” he thought, “what if somebody comes in? There, somebody has; why was I gaping when nobody was there? I should have upped and penetrated!…No, there’s no penetrating, when a man has such a character! What a mean tendency! I got frightened like a chicken. Getting frightened is what we do, so there! Mucking things up is what we always do: don’t even ask us about it. So I stand here like a block of wood, and that’s that! At home I’d be having a nice cup of tea now…How pleasant it would be to have a nice cup. If I get home late, Petrushka may grumble. Why don’t I go home? Devil take it all! I’m going, and that’s that!” Having thus resolved his situation, Mr. Goliadkin quickly moved forward, as if someone had touched a spring inside him; in two steps he was in the pantry, he threw off his overcoat, removed his hat, hastily shoved it all into a corner, straightened and smoothed himself out; then…then he moved to the morning room, from there he flitted to yet another room, slipping almost unnoticed among the passionately engrossed gamblers; then…then…here Mr. Goliadkin forgot everything that was going on around him and directly, like a bolt from the blue, appeared in the ballroom.
As luck would have it, there was no dancing at that moment. The ladies were strolling about the ballroom in picturesque groups. The men clustered in little circles or darted about the room engaging the ladies. Mr. Goliadkin did not notice any of it. He saw only Klara Olsufyevna; beside her Andrei Filippovich, then Vladimir Semyonovich, and another two or three officers, and another two or three young men, also quite interesting, giving or having already realized, as could be judged at first glance, certain hopes…He saw some others. Or no, he no longer saw anyone, no longer looked at anyone…but, moved by the same spring that had caused him to pop uninvited into someone else’s ball, he stepped forward, then further forward, and further forward; ran into some councillor in passing, trod on his foot; incidentally stepped on one venerable old lady’s dress and tore it slightly, shoved a man with a tray, shoved somebody else, and, not noticing any of it, or rather, noticing it, but just so, in passing, without looking at anyone, making his way further and further forward, he suddenly ended up in front of Klara Olsufyevna herself. Doubtless, without batting an eye, he would have sunk through the earth at that moment with the greatest pleasure; but what’s done cannot be undone…cannot possibly be undone. What was he to do? “If I don’t succeed, I keep quiet; if I do succeed, I keep trying.” Mr. Goliadkin, to be sure, “was not an intriguer and was no master at polishing the parquet with his boots…” It just happened that way. Besides, the Jesuits somehow got mixed up in it all…However, Mr. Goliadkin could not be bothered with them! Everything that walked, noised, talked, laughed, suddenly, as if by some sign, became hushed and gradually crowded around Mr. Goliadkin. Mr. Goliadkin, however, seemed to hear nothing, to see nothing, he could not look…not for anything would he look; he lowered his eyes to the ground and just stood like that, having given himself in passing, however, his word of honor to shoot himself somehow that same night. Having given himself this word of honor, Mr. Goliadkin said to himself mentally: “Here goes!” and, to his own greatest amazement, quite unexpectedly began suddenly to speak.
Mr. Goliadkin began with congratulations and appropriate wishes. The congratulations went well; but our hero faltered at the wishes. He had the feeling that if he faltered, everything would go to the devil at once. And so it happened—he faltered and got stuck…got stuck and blushed; blushed and became flustered; became flustered and raised his eyes; raised his eyes and looked around; looked around and—and went dead…Everything stood, everything was silent, everything waited; a little further away there was whispering, a little closer—laughter. Mr. Goliadkin cast a humble, lost glance at Andrei Filippovich. Andrei Filippovich responded to Mr. Goliadkin with such a look that, if our hero had not already been fully, completely destroyed, he would certainly have been destroyed a second time—if only that were possible. The silence continued.
“This has more to do
with my domestic circumstances and my private life, Andrei Filippovich,” the half-dead Mr. Goliadkin said in a barely audible voice, “this is not an official event, Andrei Filippovich…”
“Shame on you, sir, shame on you!” Andrei Filippovich spoke in a half-whisper, with a look of inexpressible indignation—spoke, took Klara Olsufyevna by the arm, and turned away from Mr. Goliadkin.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, Andrei Filippovich,” replied Mr. Goliadkin in the same half-whisper, looking around with his unhappy glance, at a loss, and trying on account of it to find some middle ground in the perplexed crowd, and his own social position.
“Well, never mind, well, never mind, ladies and gentlemen! Well, what is it? Well, it could happen to anyone,” whispered Mr. Goliadkin, moving slightly from his place and trying to get out of the crowd surrounding him. They made way for him. Our hero somehow passed between the two rows of curious and perplexed observers. He was driven by fate. Mr. Goliadkin felt it himself, that it was fate he was driven by. Of course, he would have paid dearly for the possibility of now being, without any breach of etiquette, at his former station in the hallway, by the back stairs; but since that was decidedly impossible, he began trying to slip away somewhere into a corner and stand there just like that—modestly, decently, separately, disturbing nobody, drawing no exceptional attention to himself, but at the same time gaining the good graces of the guests and the host. However, Mr. Goliadkin felt as if something was undermining him, as if he was tottering, falling. Finally he made his way to a little corner and stood in it like a stranger, a rather indifferent observer, leaning with his hands on the backs of two chairs, thus taking them into his full possession, and trying his best to glance cheerfully at Olsufy Ivanovich’s guests who were grouped near him. Closest to him stood some officer, a tall and handsome fellow, before whom Mr. Goliadkin felt himself a regular little bug.
“These two chairs, Lieutenant, are reserved: one for Klara Olsufyevna and the other for Princess Chevchekhanov, who is dancing here; I am now holding them for them, Lieutenant,” Mr. Goliadkin said breathlessly, turning an imploring gaze on the lieutenant. The lieutenant, silently and with a devastating smile, turned away. Having misfired in one place, our hero attempted to try his luck somewhere else and turned directly to an important councillor with a significant decoration on his neck. But the councillor measured him with such a cold gaze that Mr. Goliadkin felt clearly that he had suddenly been showered with a whole bucket of cold water. Mr. Goliadkin quieted down. He decided that it was better to keep silent, not to speak, to show that he was just so, that he was also like everyone else, and that his position, as it seemed to him, was also proper at the very least. To that end, he fixed his gaze on the cuffs of his uniform coat, then raised his eyes and rested them on a gentleman of highly respectable appearance. “This gentleman is wearing a wig,” thought Mr. Goliadkin, “and if he takes the wig off, there will be a bare head, as bare as the palm of my hand.” Having made such an important discovery, Mr. Goliadkin remembered, too, about the Arab emirs who, if they took from their head the green turban they wear as a token of their relation to the prophet Mohammed, would leave nothing but a bare, hairless head. Then, probably by a particular collision of ideas about the Turks in his head, Mr. Goliadkin went on to Turkish slippers, and here incidentally recalled that Andrei Filippovich wore shoes that were more like slippers than shoes. It was noticeable that Mr. Goliadkin now felt partly at home in his situation. “Now, if that chandelier,” flitted through Mr. Goliadkin’s head, “if that chandelier tore loose and fell on this company, I would rush at once to save Klara Olsufyevna. Having saved her, I would tell her: ‘Don’t worry, miss; it’s nothing, and I am your savior.’ Then…” Here Mr. Goliadkin turned his gaze to the side, looking for Klara Olsufyevna, and saw Gerasimych, Olsufy Ivanovich’s old valet. Gerasimych, with a most solicitous and officially solemn air, was making his way straight towards him. Mr. Goliadkin shuddered and winced from some unaccountable and at the same time most disagreeable feeling. He looked around mechanically; it occurred to him to slip away from trouble somehow, underhandedly, sideways, quietly, just to up and—efface himself, that is, to make as though he could not care less, as though it had nothing to do with him. However, before our hero managed to resolve on anything, Gerasimych was standing before him.
The Double Page 4
