The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  But, despite his rapture, he fell to pondering more and more.

  “He’ll torment me with Liza—that’s clear! And he’ll torment Liza. It’s over this that he’ll finally do me in, for everything. Hm… no question, I can’t allow yesterday’s escapades on his part,” he suddenly blushed, “and… and look, anyhow, he’s not here yet, and it’s already past eleven!”

  He waited a long time, until half past twelve, and his anguish grew more and more. Pavel Pavlovich did not come. At last the long-stirring thought that he would not come on purpose, solely in order to perform yet another escapade like yesterday’s, made him thoroughly vexed: “He knows I’m counting on him. And what will happen now with Liza! And how can I come to her without him!”

  Finally, he could not stand it and at exactly one in the afternoon he himself went galloping to the Pokrov. In the rooms he was told that Pavel Pavlovich had not slept at home and had come only after eight in the morning, stayed for a brief quarter of an hour, and left again. Velchaninov was standing by the door of Pavel Pavlovich’s room, listening to the maid talking to him, and mechanically turning the handle of the locked door, tugging it back and forth. Recollecting himself, he spat, let go of the latch, and asked to be taken to Marya Sysoevna. But she, when she heard him, willingly came out herself.

  She was a kind woman, “a woman of noble feelings,” as Velchaninov referred to her later when telling Klavdia Petrovna about his conversation with her. After asking briefly how his trip yesterday with the “missy” had gone, Marya Sysoevna at once got to telling about Pavel Pavlovich. In her words, “only except for the little child, she’d have got rid of him long ago. The hotel already got rid of him because he was far too outrageous. Well, isn’t it a sin to bring a wench at night when there’s a little child there who already understands! He shouts: ‘She’ll be your mother, if I want her to be!’ And, would you believe it, wench as she was, even she spat in his mug. He shouts: ‘You’re not my daughter—you’re a whore’s spawn.’ ”

  “What are you saying!” Velchaninov was frightened.

  “I heard it myself. Though he’s a drunk man, like as if unconscious, still it’s no good in front of a little child; youngling as she is, she’ll still get it in her mind! The missy cries, I could see she’s all tormented. And the other day here in the yard we had a real sin happen: a commissary or whatever, so people said, took a room in the hotel in the evening and by morning he hanged himself. They said he’d squandered money. People come running, Pavel Pavlovich isn’t home, and the child goes around unattended, so there I see her in the corridor among the people, peeking from behind, and staring so strangely at the hanging man. I quickly brought her here. And what do you think—she’s trembling all over, got all black, and the moment I brought her here she just fell into a fit. She thrashed and thrashed, and wouldn’t come out of it. Convulsions or whatever, only from that time on she got sick. He came, found out about it, and pinched her all over, because he doesn’t really hit, it’s more like pinches, then he got soused with wine, came and started scaring her, saying: ‘I’ll hang myself, too, on account of you; from this very cord,’ he says, ‘I’ll hang myself from the curtain cord,’ and he makes a noose right in front of her. And the girl’s beside herself—she cries, puts her little arms around him: ‘I won’t,’ she cries, ‘I won’t ever.’ Such a pity!”

  Though Velchaninov had expected something very strange, these stories struck him so much that he did not even believe them. Marya Sysoevna told him much more: there was, for instance, one occasion when, if it had not been for Marya Sysoevna, Liza might have thrown herself out the window. He left the rooms as if drunk himself. “I’ll kill him with a stick, like a dog, on the head!” he kept imagining. And for a long time he kept repeating it to himself.

  He hired a carriage and set off for the Pogoreltsevs’. Still within the city, the carriage was forced to stop at an intersection, by a bridge across the canal, across which a big funeral procession was making its way. On both sides of the bridge a number of vehicles crowded, waiting; people also stopped. The funeral was a wealthy one and the train of coaches following it was very long, and then in one of these following coaches Pavel Pavlovich’s face suddenly flashed before Velchaninov. He would not have believed it, if Pavel Pavlovich had not thrust himself out the window and nodded to him, smiling. Apparently he was terribly glad to have recognized Velchaninov: he even began making signs from the coach with his hand. Velchaninov jumped out of his carriage and, in spite of the crowd and the policemen and the fact that Pavel Pavlovich’s coach was already driving onto the bridge, ran right up to the window. Pavel Pavlovich was alone.

  “What’s the matter with you,” Velchaninov cried, “why didn’t you come? what are you doing here?”

  “My duty, sir—don’t shout, don’t shout—I’m doing my duty,” Pavel Pavlovich tittered, squinting merrily. “I’m accompanying the mortal remains of my true friend Stepan Mikhailovich.”

  “That’s all absurd, you drunken, crazy man!” Velchaninov, puzzled for a moment, cried still louder. “Get out right now and come with me—right now!”

  “I can’t, sir, it’s a duty, sir…”

  “I’ll drag you out,” Velchaninov screamed.

  “And I’ll raise a cry, sir! I’ll raise a cry!” Pavel Pavlovich went on with the same merry titter—just as if it were all a game—hiding, however, in the far corner of the coach.

  “Watch out, watch out, you’ll get run over!” a policeman shouted. Indeed, some extraneous carriage had broken through the train at the descent from the bridge and was causing alarm. Velchaninov was forced to jump down; other vehicles and people pushed him farther back. He spat and made his way to his carriage.

  “In any case, I can’t take him there the way he is!” he thought with continuing anxious amazement.

  When he had related Marya Sysoevna’s story and the strange encounter at the funeral to Klavdia Petrovna, she fell to thinking hard: “I’m afraid for you,” she said to him, “you must break all relations with him, and the sooner the better.”

  “He’s a drunken buffoon and nothing more!” Velchaninov cried out vehemently. “Why should I be afraid of him! And how can I break relations when Liza’s here? Remember about Liza!”

  Meanwhile Liza was lying sick in bed; since last evening she had been in a fever, and they were awaiting a well-known doctor from the city, for whom a messenger had been sent at daybreak. All this definitively upset Velchaninov. Klavdia Petrovna took him to the sick girl.

  “Yesterday I watched her very closely,” she observed, stopping outside Liza’s room. “She’s a proud and gloomy child; she’s ashamed that she’s with us and that her father abandoned her like that; that’s the whole of her illness, in my opinion.”

  “How, abandoned her? Why do you think he’s abandoned her?”

  “From the fact alone that he let her come here to a completely strange house, and with a man… also almost a stranger, or in such relations…”

  “But I took her myself, by force, I don’t find…”

  “Ah, my God, even a child like Liza could find it! In my opinion, he’ll simply never come.”

  Seeing Velchaninov alone, Liza was not surprised, she only smiled sorrowfully and turned her feverish little head to the wall. She did not respond at all to Velchaninov’s timid consolations and ardent promises to bring her father to her the next day without fail. Coming out of her room, he suddenly wept.

  The doctor came only toward evening. Having examined the sick girl, he frightened everyone from the first word by observing that he ought to have been sent for sooner. When told that the girl had become sick only the evening before, he did not believe it at first. “Everything depends on how this night goes,” he finally decided, and, giving his orders, he left, promising to come the next day as early as possible. Velchaninov wanted absolutely to stay overnight, but Klavdia Petrovna herself convinced him to try once more “to bring that monster here.”

  “Once more?” Velchaninov
repeated in frenzy. “Why, I’ll tie him up now and bring him here with my own hands!”

  The thought of tying Pavel Pavlovich up and bringing him with his own hands suddenly took possession of him to the point of extreme impatience. “Now I don’t feel guilty before him for anything, not for anything!” he said to Klavdia Petrovna as he was taking leave of her. “I renounce all the base, tearful words I said here yesterday!” he added indignantly.

  Liza was lying with her eyes closed, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninov bent down carefully to her little head, to kiss at least the edge of her dress in farewell—she suddenly opened her eyes as if she had been waiting for him, and whispered: “Take me away.”

  It was a quiet, sorrowful request, without any shadow of yesterday’s irritation, but at the same time one could hear something in it, as if she herself were completely certain that her request would not be granted for anything. As soon as Velchaninov, quite in despair, began assuring her that it was impossible, she silently closed her eyes and did not say a word more, as if she did not hear or see him.

  On reaching the city, he gave orders to drive straight to the Pokrov. It was already ten o’clock; Pavel Pavlovich was not in his rooms. Velchaninov waited for him for a whole half hour, pacing the corridor in morbid impatience. Marya Sysoevna finally convinced him that Pavel Pavlovich would come back perhaps only toward morning, at daybreak. “Well, then I, too, will come at daybreak,” Velchaninov resolved, and, beside himself, went home.

  But what was his amazement when, even before entering his place, he heard from Mavra that yesterday’s visitor had been waiting for him since before ten.

  “And he had his tea here, and sent for wine again, and gave me a fiver for the purpose.”

  IX

  A PHANTOM

  Pavel Pavlovich had made himself extremely comfortable. He was sitting in yesterday’s chair, smoking cigarettes, and had just poured himself the fourth and last glass from the bottle. A teapot and a glass of unfinished tea stood near him on the table. His flushed face radiated good humor. He had even taken his tailcoat off, summer-fashion, and was sitting in his waistcoat.

  “Excuse me, my most faithful friend!” he cried out, seeing Velchaninov and leaping up from his place to put his tailcoat on. “I took it off for the greater enjoyment of the moment…”

  Velchaninov approached him menacingly.

  “You’re not completely drunk yet? Can I still talk with you?”

  Pavel Pavlovich was somewhat taken aback.

  “No, not completely… I commemorated the deceased, but—not completely, sir…”

  “Can you understand me?”

  “That’s what I came for, to understand you, sir.”

  “Well, then I’ll begin directly with the fact that you are a blackguard!” Velchaninov shouted in a breaking voice.

  “If you begin with that, sir, what will you end with?” Pavel Pavlovich, obviously much frightened, made a slight attempt to protest, but Velchaninov was shouting without listening:

  “Your daughter is dying, she’s sick; have you abandoned her or not?”

  “Dying is she, sir?”

  “She’s sick, sick, extremely dangerously sick!”

  “Maybe it’s some little fits, sir…”

  “Don’t talk nonsense! She’s ex-treme-ly sick! You ought to have gone, if only so as to…”

  “To express my thanks, sir, my thanks for their hospitality! I understand only too well, sir! Alexei Ivanovich, my dear, my perfect one,” he suddenly seized his hand in both of his own, and, with the drunken emotion, almost in tears, as if asking forgiveness, proceeded to shout: “Alexei Ivanovich, don’t shout, don’t shout! If I die, if I fall, drunk, into the Neva now—what of it, sir, considering the true meaning of things? And we can always go to Mr. Pogoreltsev’s, sir…”

  Velchaninov caught himself and held back a little.

  “You’re drunk, and therefore I don’t understand in what sense you’re speaking,” he remarked severely. “I am always ready to have a talk with you; the sooner the better, even… I came so as… But before all you must know that I’m taking measures: you must spend the night here! Tomorrow morning I take you and off we go. I won’t let you out!” he screamed again. “I’ll tie you up and bring you with my own hands!… Does this sofa suit you?” Breathless, he pointed to the wide and soft sofa that stood opposite the sofa on which he himself slept, against the other wall.

  “Good heavens, sir, but for me, anywhere…”

  “Not anywhere, but on this sofa! Here’s a sheet for you, a blanket, a pillow, take them” (Velchaninov took it all out of a wardrobe and hurriedly threw it to Pavel Pavlovich, who obediently held out his arms). “Make your bed immediately, im-med-iate-ly!”

  The loaded-down Pavel Pavlovich stood in the middle of the room, as if undecided, with a long, drunken smile on his drunken face; but at Velchaninov’s repeated menacing cry, he suddenly started bustling about as fast as he could, moved the table aside, and, puffing, began to spread and smooth out the sheet. Velchaninov came over to help him; he was partly pleased with his guest’s obedience and fright.

  “Finish your glass and lie down,” he commanded again; he felt he could not help but command. “Was it you who ordered wine sent for?”

  “Myself, sir, for wine… I knew, Alexei Ivanovich, that you wouldn’t send for more, sir.”

  “It’s good that you knew that, but you need to learn still more. I tell you once again that I’ve taken measures now: I’ll no longer suffer your clowning, nor yesterday’s drunken kisses!”

  “I myself understand, Alexei Ivanovich, that it was possible only once, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich grinned.

  Hearing this answer, Velchaninov, who was pacing the room, suddenly stopped almost solemnly in front of Pavel Pavlovich:

  “Pavel Pavlovich, speak directly! You’re intelligent, I acknowledge it again, but I assure you that you are on a false path! Speak directly, act directly, and, I give you my word of honor—I will answer to anything you like!”

  Pavel Pavlovich again grinned his long smile, which alone was enough to enrage Velchaninov.

  “Wait!” he cried again, “don’t pretend, I can see through you! I repeat: I give you my word of honor that I am ready to answer to everything, and you will receive every possible satisfaction, that is, every, even the impossible! Oh, how I wish you would understand me!…”

  “If you’re so good, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich cautiously moved closer to him, “then, sir, I’m very interested in what you mentioned yesterday about the predatory type, sir!…”

  Velchaninov spat and again began pacing the room, still quicker than before.

  “No, Alexei Ivanovich, sir, don’t you spit, because I’m very interested and came precisely to verify… My tongue doesn’t quite obey me, but forgive me, sir. Because about this ‘predatory’ type and the ‘placid’ one, sir, I myself read something in a magazine, in the criticism section7—I remembered it this morning… I’d simply forgotten it, sir, and, to tell the truth, I didn’t understand it then, either. I precisely wished to clarify: the late Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov, sir—was he ‘predatory’ or ‘placid’? How to reckon him, sir?”

  Velchaninov still kept silent, without ceasing to pace.

  “The predatory type is the one,” he suddenly stopped in fury, “is the man who would rather poison Bagautov in a glass, while ‘drinking champagne’ with him in the name of a pleasant encounter with him, as you drank with me yesterday—and would not go accompanying his coffin to the cemetery, as you did today, devil knows out of which of your hidden, underground, nasty strivings and clowning which besmirch only you yourself! You yourself!”

  “Exactly right, he wouldn’t go, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich confirmed, “only why is it me, sir, that you’re so…”

  “It’s not the man,” Velchaninov, excited, was shouting without listening, “not the man who imagines God knows what to himself, sums up all justice and law, learns his offense by rote, whines,
clowns, minces, hangs on people’s necks, and—lo and behold—all his time gets spent on it! Is it true that you wanted to hang yourself? Is it?”

  “Maybe I blurted something out when I was drunk—I don’t remember, sir. It’s somehow indecent, Alexei Ivanovich, for us to go pouring poison into glasses. Besides being an official in good standing—I’m not without capital, and I may want to get married again, sir.”

  “And you’d be sent to hard labor.”

  “Well, yes, there’s also that unpleasantness, sir, though in the courts nowadays they introduce lots of mitigating circumstances. But I wanted to tell you a killingly funny little anecdote, Alexei Ivanovich, I remembered it in the coach earlier, sir. You just said: ‘Hangs on people’s necks.’ Maybe you remember Semyon Petrovich Livtsov, sir, he visited us in T———while you were there; well, he had a younger brother, also considered a Petersburg young man, served in the governor’s office in V——— and also shone with various qualities. He once had an argument with Golubenko, a colonel, at a gathering, in the presence of ladies, including the lady of his heart, and reckoned himself insulted, but he swallowed his offense and concealed it; and Golubenko meanwhile won over the lady of his heart and offered her his hand. And what do you think? This Livtsov—he even sincerely started a friendship with Golubenko, was reconciled with him completely, and moreover, sir—got himself invited to be best man, held the crown,8 and once they came back from church, went up to congratulate and kiss Golubenko, and in front of the whole noble company, in front of the governor, in a tailcoat and curled hair himself, sir—he up and stabbed him in the gut with a knife—Golubenko went sprawling! His own best man, it’s such a shame, sir! But that’s not all! The main thing was that after stabbing him with the knife, he turned around: ‘Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I’ve done!’—tears flow, he shakes, throws himself on all their necks, even the ladies’, sir: ‘Ah, what have I done! Ah, what is it I’ve done now!’ heh, heh, heh! it’s killing, sir. Only it was too bad about Golubenko; but he recovered from it, sir.”