“Wear out my boots! He gave no orders to receive anyone, you know? Their turn’s in the morning.”
“Announce him. Your tongue won’t fall off.”
“So I’ll announce him: my tongue won’t fall off. But he gave no orders, I told you, he gave no orders. Come in, then.”
Mr. Goliadkin went into the first room; there was a clock on the table. He looked: it was half-past eight. His heart ached in his breast. He was about to retreat; but at that moment the lanky footman, standing on the threshold of the next room, loudly pronounced Mr. Goliadkin’s name. “What a gullet!” our hero thought in indescribable anguish…“Well, he might have said: sort of…say, thus and so, came most obediently and humbly to explain—sort of…be so good as to receive…But now the whole affair is ruined, and it’s all gone to the winds; however…ah, well—never mind…” There was no point in reasoning, however. The footman came back, said, “This way please,” and led Mr. Goliadkin into the study.
When our hero went in, he felt as if he had been blinded, for he could see decidedly nothing. Two or three figures, however, flashed before his eyes. “These must be the guests,” flashed through Mr. Goliadkin’s head. Finally, our hero began to make out clearly the star on his excellency’s black tailcoat, then, still as gradually, he passed on to the black tailcoat, and finally acquired the ability of full contemplation…
“What is it, sir?” the familiar voice spoke over Mr. Goliadkin.
“Titular Councillor Goliadkin, Your Excellency.”
“Well?”
“I’ve come to explain…”
“How?…What?…”
“Just that. Say, thus and so, I’ve come to explain, Your Excellency, sir…”
“But you…but who on earth are you?”
“M-m-mr. Goliadkin, Your Excellency, a titular councillor.”
“Well, what is it you want?”
“Say, thus and so, I take his excellency as a father; I withdraw from the affair, and protect me from my enemy—so there!”
“What is this?…”
“Everybody knows…”
“Knows what?”
Mr. Goliadkin was silent; his chin began to twitch slightly…
“Well?”
“I thought it was chivalrous, Your Excellency…That here, say, it was chivalrous, and I take my superior as a father…say, thus and so, protect me, I en…entreat you in te…tears, and that such sti…stirrings sho…should be en…en…encouraged…”
His excellency turned away. For a few moments our hero was unable to look at anything with his eyes. His chest was tight. His breath failed him. He did not know where he was standing…He felt somehow sad and ashamed. God knows what happened then…Having recovered, our hero noticed that his excellency was talking with his guests and seemed to be discussing something sharply and forcefully. One of the guests Mr. Goliadkin recognized at once. It was Andrei Filippovich. The other he did not; however, the face also seemed familiar—a tall, thickset figure, of a certain age, endowed with extremely bushy eyebrows and side-whiskers and a sharp, expressive gaze. There was a decoration hung on the stranger’s neck and a cigar in his mouth. The stranger was smoking and, without taking the cigar out of his mouth, nodded his head significantly, glancing now and then at Mr. Goliadkin. Mr. Goliadkin felt somehow awkward. He looked away and at once saw yet another extremely strange guest. In a doorway which till then our hero had been taking for a mirror, as had happened to him once before—he appeared—we all know who, an extremely close acquaintance and friend of Mr. Goliadkin’s. Mr. Goliadkin Jr. had in fact been in another little room up to then, hurriedly writing something; now he must have been needed—and he appeared, with papers under his arm, went over to his excellency, and quite deftly, expecting exclusive attention to his person, managed to worm his way into the conversation and concilium, taking his position slightly behind Andrei Filippovich and partly masked by the stranger smoking the cigar. Evidently Mr. Goliadkin Jr. took great interest in the conversation, to which he now listened in a noble manner, nodding his head, mincing his feet, smiling, glancing every moment at his excellency, his eyes as if pleading that he be allowed to put in his own half-word. “The scoundrel!” thought Mr. Goliadkin, and he involuntarily took a step forward. Just then his excellency turned and rather hesitantly approached Mr. Goliadkin himself.
“Well, all right, all right; go with God. I’ll look into your affair, and order that you be accompanied…” Here the general glanced at the stranger with the bushy side-whiskers. He nodded in agreement.
Mr. Goliadkin felt and understood clearly that he was being taken for something else, and not at all as he ought to have been. “One way or another, an explanation is called for,” he thought, “thus and so, say, Your Excellency.” Here, in his perplexity, he lowered his eyes to the ground and, to his extreme amazement, saw considerable white spots on his excellency’s boots. “Can they have split open?” thought Mr. Goliadkin. Soon, however, Mr. Goliadkin discovered that his excellency’s boots were not split open at all, but only had bright reflections—a phenomenon explained completely by the fact that the boots were of patent leather and shone brightly. “That’s called a highlight,” thought our hero. “The term is used especially in artists’ studios; elsewhere this reflection is called a bright gleam.” Here Mr. Goliadkin raised his eyes and saw that it was time to speak, otherwise the affair might take a bad turn…Our hero stepped forward.
“I say, thus and so, Your Excellency,” he said, “but imposture doesn’t get anywhere in our age.”
The general did not reply, but tugged strongly on the bell-pull. Our hero took another step forward.
“He’s a mean and depraved man, Your Excellency,” said our hero, forgetting himself, sinking with fear, and, for all that, pointing boldly and resolutely at his unworthy twin, who at that moment was mincing around his excellency, “thus and so, say, but I’m alluding to a certain person.”
Mr. Goliadkin’s words were followed by a general stir. Andrei Filippovich and the unknown figure nodded their heads; his excellency was impatiently tugging at the bell-pull with all his might, summoning people. Here Mr. Goliadkin Jr. stepped forward in his turn.
“Your Excellency,” he said, “I humbly ask your permission to speak.” There was something extremely resolute in Mr. Goliadkin Jr.’s voice; everything about him showed that he felt himself completely within his rights.
“Permit me to ask you,” he began, in his zeal forestalling his excellency’s reply and this time addressing Mr. Goliadkin, “permit me to ask you, in whose presence are you making such comments? before whom are you standing? whose study are you in?…” Mr. Goliadkin Jr. was all in extraordinary agitation, all red and flushed with indignation and wrath; tears even showed in his eyes.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bassavriukov!”{29} a footman bellowed at the top of his lungs, appearing in the doorway of the study. “A good noble family, of Little Russian extraction,” thought Mr. Goliadkin, and just then he felt someone lay a hand on his back in a highly friendly manner; then another hand was laid on his back; Mr. Goliadkin’s mean twin was bustling ahead of them, showing the way, and our hero saw clearly that he was being steered towards the big doors of the study. “Just as at Olsufy Ivanovich’s,” he thought, and found himself in the front hall. Looking around, he saw his excellency’s two footmen and one twin.
“Overcoat, overcoat, overcoat, my friend’s overcoat! my best friend’s overcoat!” the depraved man chirped, tearing the overcoat from one of the men’s hands and flinging it, in mean and unpleasant mockery, right over Mr. Goliadkin’s head. Struggling out from under his overcoat, Mr. Goliadkin Sr. clearly heard the laughter of the two footmen. But, not listening or paying attention to anything extraneous, he was already leaving the front hall and found himself on the lighted stairway. Mr. Goliadkin Jr. followed him out.
“Good-bye, Your Excellency!” he called after Mr. Goliadkin Sr.
“Scoundrel!” said our hero, beside himself.
“Well, yes
, a scoundrel…”
“Depraved man!”
“Well, yes, a depraved man…” Thus the unworthy adversary responded to the worthy Mr. Goliadkin and, with a meanness all his own, looked from the top of the stairs, directly and without batting an eye, into the eyes of Mr. Goliadkin, as if asking him to go on. Our hero spat in indignation and ran out to the porch; he was so crushed that he simply did not remember by whom and how he was put into the carriage. Coming to his senses, he saw that he was being driven along the Fontanka. “So we’re going to the Izmailovsky Bridge?” thought Mr. Goliadkin…Here Mr. Goliadkin wanted to think of something else as well, but it was impossible; it was something so terrible that there was no way to explain it…“Well, never mind!” our hero concluded and drove to the Izmailovsky Bridge.
CHAPTER XIII
…IT SEEMED THAT the weather wanted to change for the better. Indeed, the wet snow that had been pouring down till then in great heaps gradually began to thin out, thin out, and finally ceased almost entirely. The sky became visible, and little stars sparkled on it here and there. Only it was wet, dirty, damp, and suffocating, especially for Mr. Goliadkin, who even without that could barely catch his breath. From his wet and heavy overcoat some unpleasantly warm dampness penetrated all his limbs, and its weight bent his legs, which were badly weakened without that. Some feverish trembling went through his whole body with sharp and biting prickles; weariness made him break into a cold, sickly sweat, so that Mr. Goliadkin forgot to make use of this good opportunity to repeat, with his characteristic firmness and resolution, his favorite phrase, that perhaps all of this might somehow, certainly and unfailingly, work out and be settled for the best. “However, so far it’s all not so bad,” our sturdy and undaunted hero added, wiping from his face the drops of cold water that ran in all directions from the brim of his round hat, which was so sodden that it no longer repelled any water. Adding that it was all nothing, our hero tried to seat himself on a rather thick block of wood that lay near the pile of firewood in Olsufy Ivanovich’s courtyard. Of course, there was no point in thinking about Spanish serenades and silk ladders; but he did have to think about a cosy nook, maybe not very warm, but at least comfortable and concealed. He was strongly tempted, be it said in passing, by that same nook on the landing of Olsufy Ivanovich’s apartment where previously, almost at the beginning of this truthful story, our hero had stood through his two hours between the wardrobe and the old screens, among all sorts of useless household trash, litter, and junk. The thing was that now, too, Mr. Goliadkin had already been standing and waiting for a whole two hours in Olsufy Ivanovich’s courtyard. But with regard to that former cosy and comfortable nook there now existed certain inconveniences which had not existed previously. The first inconvenience was that this place had probably been spotted and certain preventive measures taken about it since the time of the incident at Olsufy Ivanovich’s last ball; and second, he had to wait for the prearranged signal from Klara Olsufyevna, because there certainly must have existed some such prearranged signal. It was always done that way, and “we’re not the first and we won’t be the last.” Just then Mr. Goliadkin incidentally had a fleeting recollection of some novel he had read long ago, in which the heroine gave a prearranged signal to Alfred in exactly the same circumstances by tying a pink ribbon to the window. But a pink ribbon now, at night, and in the St. Petersburg climate, known for its dampness and unreliability, could not enter the picture and, in short, was quite impossible. “No, it won’t come to silk ladders,” thought our hero. “I’d better stand here, just so, cosily and quietly…I’d better stand here, for instance,” and he chose a place in the courtyard, across from the windows, by the pile of stacked firewood. Of course, there were many other people walking about the courtyard, postilions, coachmen; besides, there was the rattling of wheels and the snorting of horses, and so on; but even so, the place was convenient; whether they noticed him or not, for the time being there was this advantage, that the thing was going on in the shadows, and nobody could see Mr. Goliadkin, while he himself could see decidedly everything. The windows were brightly lit; there was some solemn gathering at Olsufy Ivanovich’s. However, there was no music to be heard yet. “So it’s not a ball, and they’ve just gathered on some other occasion,” our hero thought with a partly sinking heart. “Was it today, though?” raced through his head. “Did I get the date wrong? It’s possible, anything’s possible…That’s just it, that anything’s possible…It’s possible that the letter was written yesterday and didn’t reach me, and it didn’t reach me because that rogue Petrushka got mixed up in it! Or it was written tomorrow, meaning that I…that it was all to be done tomorrow, that is, the waiting with the carriage…” Here our hero turned definitively cold and went to his pocket for the letter, so as to check. But, to his surprise, the letter was not in his pocket. “How’s that?” whispered the half-dead Mr. Goliadkin. “Where did I leave it? So I’ve lost it? Just what I needed!” he finally moaned in conclusion. “And what if it now falls into unfriendly hands? (And maybe it already has!) Lord! what will come of it! It will be something that…Ah, my detestable fate!” Here Mr. Goliadkin trembled like a leaf at the thought that maybe his indecent twin, as he threw the overcoat over his head, had precisely the aim of stealing the letter, which he had somehow gotten wind of from Mr. Goliadkin’s enemies. “What’s more, he intercepted it,” thought our hero, “and the evidence…but who cares about the evidence!…” After the first fit and stupefaction of terror, the blood rushed to Mr. Goliadkin’s head. With a moan and a gnashing of teeth, he clutched his hot head, sank onto his chunk of wood, and began thinking about something…But the thoughts somehow did not connect in his head. Some faces flashed in his memory, now vaguely, now sharply, some long-forgotten events, the melodies of some stupid songs kept coming into his head…Anguish, there was an unnatural anguish! “My God! My God!” our hero thought, somewhat recovered, stifling a muffled sobbing in his breast, “grant me firmness of spirit in the inexhaustible depths of my calamities! That I’ve perished, vanished completely—of that there’s no doubt, and it’s all in the order of things, for it couldn’t be any other way…First, I’ve lost my job, I’ve certainly lost it, there’s no way I could not have lost it…Well, let’s suppose that will get settled somehow. The bit of money I have, let’s suppose, will be enough to start with; I’ll rent some other apartment, a bit of furniture’s also needed…Petrushka won’t be with me. I can do without the rogue…rent a room; well, that’s good! I can come and go when I please, and Petrushka won’t grumble about my coming late—so there; that’s what’s good about renting a room…Well, suppose it’s all good; only why am I talking about something that’s not it, not it at all?” Here the thought of his present situation again lit up in Mr. Goliadkin’s memory. He looked around. “Oh, Lord God! Lord God! what am I talking about now?” he thought, totally at a loss and clutching his hot head…
“Might you be leaving soon, if you please, sir?” a voice spoke over Mr. Goliadkin. Mr. Goliadkin gave a start; but before him stood his cabby, also soaked and chilled to the bone, who, in his impatience and having nothing to do, had decided to visit Mr. Goliadkin behind the woodpile.
“I, my friend, am all right…soon, my friend, very soon, just wait a little…”
The cabby left, muttering under his nose. “What’s he muttering about?” Mr. Goliadkin thought through his tears. “I hired him for the evening, I’m sort of…within my rights now…so there! I hired him for the evening, and that’s the end of the matter. Even if he just stands there, it’s all the same. It’s as I will. I’m free to go, and free not to go. And that I’m now standing behind the woodpile—that, too, is quite all right…and don’t you dare say anything; I say, the gentleman wants to stand behind the woodpile, so he stands behind the woodpile…and it’s no taint to anybody’s honor—so there! So there, lady mine, if you’d like to know. Thus and so, I say, but in our age, lady mine, nobody lives in a hut. So there! In our industrial age, lady mine, you can’t
get anywhere without good behavior, of which you yourself serve as a pernicious example…You say one must serve as a chief clerk and live in a hut on the seashore. First of all, lady mine, there are no chief clerks on the seashore, and second, you and I can’t possibly get to be a chief clerk. For, to take an example, suppose I apply, I show up—thus and so, as a chief clerk, say, sort of…and protect me from my enemy…and they’ll tell you, my lady, say, sort of…there are lots of chief clerks, and here you’re not at some émigrée Falbala’s, where you learned good behavior, of which you yourself serve as a pernicious example. Good behavior, my lady, means sitting at home, respecting your father, and not thinking of any little suitors before it’s time. Little suitors, my lady, will be found in due time! So there! Of course, one must indisputably have certain talents, to wit: playing the piano on occasion, speaking French, some history, geography, catechism, and arithmetic—so there!—but not more. Also cooking; cooking should unfailingly be part of every well-behaved young girl’s knowledge! But what do we have here? First of all, my beauty, my dearest madam, you won’t get away with it, you’ll be pursued, and then trumped into a convent. And then what, lady mine? Then what would you have me do? Would you have me follow some stupid novels, lady mine, and go to a neighboring hill, and dissolve in tears gazing at the cold walls of your confinement, and finally die, following the custom of certain bad German poets and novelists, is that it, my lady? Then, first of all, allow me to tell you in a friendly way that that is not how things are done, and, second, I’d have you and your parents soundly thrashed for giving you French books to read; for French books don’t teach anything good. There’s poison in them…noxious poison, lady mine! Or do you think, if I may be permitted to ask, do you think that, say, thus and so, we’ll run away with impunity, and sort of…there’ll be a cabin on the seashore for you and we’ll start cooing and discussing various feelings; and spend our whole life like that, in prosperity and happiness; and then there’ll be a youngling, so that we’ll sort of…say, thus and so, our parent and state councillor, Olsufy Ivanovich, here, say, a youngling has come along, so on this good occasion why don’t you lift your curse and bless the couple? No, my lady, again that’s not how things are done, and the first thing is that there’ll be no cooing, kindly don’t expect it. Nowadays, lady mine, a husband is the master, and a good and well-behaved wife must oblige him in everything. And gentilities, my lady, are not in favor nowadays, in our industrial age; say, the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau{30} is past. Nowadays a husband comes home from work hungry—isn’t there a bite to eat, darling, he says, a glass of vodka, some pickled herring? So you, my lady, have to have vodka and herring ready at once. The husband relishes his snack and doesn’t even glance at you, but says: off to the kitchen, my little kitten, and see to dinner—and he kisses you maybe once a week and even that indifferently…There’s how we do it, lady mine! and even that, say, indifferently!…That’s how it will be, if we start reasoning like this, if it’s already gone so far that you begin looking at things this way…And what has it to do with me? Why, my lady, have you mixed me up in your caprices? ‘A beneficent man, say, suffering for my sake, and in all ways dear to my heart, and so on.’ First of all, lady mine, I’m not right for you, you know that yourself, I’m no expert at paying compliments, I don’t like uttering all those perfumed trifles for ladies, I’m not in favor of philanderers, and, I confess, my looks are not very winning. You won’t find any false boasting or shame in us, and we are confessing to you now in all sincerity. Say, so there, what we have is a direct and open character and common sense; we don’t get involved in intrigues. I am not an intriguer, and I’m proud of it—so there!…I go among good people without a mask, and to tell you all…”
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