The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “And how nice your sister Katerina Fedoseevna is!” Velchaninov suddenly said to Nadya on the quiet.

  “Katya? Why, there couldn’t be a kinder soul than hers! She’s an angel for us all, I’m in love with her,” the girl replied rapturously.

  Finally, at five o’clock, dinner was served, and it was also very noticeable that the dinner had been prepared not in the usual way, but especially for the visitor. There were two or three dishes obviously in addition to what was usually served, rather sophisticated ones, and one of them something altogether unfamiliar, so that no one could even put a name to it. Besides the usual table wines, a bottle of Tokay also appeared, obviously thought up for the visitor; toward the end of dinner champagne was served for some reason. Old Zakhlebinin, having drunk one glass too many, was in the most sunny-minded mood and was ready to laugh at everything Velchaninov said. The end was that Pavel Pavlovich finally could not help himself: carried away by the competition, he also suddenly decided to utter some pun, and so he did: from the end of the table where he sat by Mme. Zakhlebinin, the loud laughter of overjoyed girls suddenly came.

  “Papa, Papa! Pavel Pavlovich has also made a pun,” two of the middle Zakhlebinin girls cried with one voice, “he says we’re ‘young misses one always misses …’ ”

  “Ah, so he’s punning, too? Well, what pun has he made?” the old man responded in a solemn voice, turning patronizingly to Pavel Pavlovich and smiling beforehand at the anticipated pun.

  “But that’s what he said, that we’re ‘young misses one always misses.’ ”

  “Y-yes! Well, so what?” the old man still did not understand and smiled still more good-naturedly in anticipation.

  “Oh, Papa, what’s the matter with you, you don’t understand! It’s misses and then misses; misses is the same as misses, misses one always misses…”

  “Ahhh!” the perplexed old man drew out. “Hm! Well, he’ll do better next time!” and the old man laughed gaily.

  “Pavel Pavlovich, one can’t have all perfections at once!” Marya Nikitishna taunted him loudly. “Ah, my God, he’s choking on a bone!” she exclaimed, jumping up from her chair.

  Turmoil even ensued, but that was just what Marya Nikitishna wanted. Pavel Pavlovich had only swallowed his wine the wrong way, after grabbing it to conceal his embarrassment, but Marya Nikitishna insisted and swore up and down that it was “a fishbone, that she’d seen it herself, and one can die from that.”

  “Thump him on the back!” someone shouted.

  “In fact, that’s the best thing!” Zakhlebinin loudly approved, but volunteers had already turned up: Marya Nikitishna, the redheaded girlfriend (also invited for dinner), and, finally, the terribly frightened mother of the family in person—they all wanted to thump Pavel Pavlovich on the back. Pavel Pavlovich jumped up from the table to evade them and spent a whole minute insisting that it was merely wine that had gone down the wrong way, and that the coughing would soon pass—before they finally figured out that it was all Marya Nikitishna’s pranks.

  “Well, aren’t you the little mischief, though!…” Mme. Zakhlebinin observed sternly to Marya Nikitishna—but was at once unable to help herself and burst into such laughter as rarely happened with her, which also produced an effect of a sort. After dinner they all went out to the balcony to have coffee.

  “Such fine days we’re having!” the old man benevolently praised nature, looking out at the garden with pleasure. “Only we could use a little rain… Well, I’ll go and rest. Have fun, have fun, God bless you! And you have fun, too!” He slapped Pavel Pavlovich on the shoulder as he went out.

  When everyone had gone down to the garden again, Pavel Pavlovich suddenly rushed over to Velchaninov and tugged him by the sleeve.

  “For one moment, sir,” he whispered impatiently.

  They walked to a solitary side path in the garden.

  “No, excuse me this time, sir, no, this time I won’t let you…” he whispered, spluttering fiercely and grabbing Velchaninov’s sleeve.

  “What? How’s that?” Velchaninov asked, making big eyes. Pavel Pavlovich stood silently gazing at him, moving his lips, and smiled fiercely.

  “Where have you gone? Where are you? Everything’s ready!” the girls’ calls and impatient voices were heard. Velchaninov shrugged and went back to the company. Pavel Pavlovich went running after him.

  “I bet he asked you for a handkerchief,” Marya Nikitishna said, “last time he also forgot it.”

  “He eternally forgets!” a middle Zakhlebinin girl picked up.

  “Forgot his handkerchief! Pavel Pavlovich forgot his handkerchief! Maman, Pavel Pavlovich forgot his handkerchief again, Maman, Pavel Pavlovich has caught cold again!” voices came.

  “Why doesn’t he say so? Pavel Pavlovich, you are so fastidious!” Mme. Zakhlebinin drawled in a singsong voice. “It’s dangerous to joke with a cold; I’ll send you a handkerchief right away. And why is it he’s always catching cold!” she added as she left, glad of an occasion to go back to the house.

  “I have two handkerchiefs, and no cold, ma’am,” Pavel Pavlovich called after her, but she must not have understood, and a minute later, as Pavel Pavlovich was trotting after everyone, trying to keep closer to Velchaninov and Nadya, a maid came puffing up to him and indeed brought him a handkerchief.

  “Let’s play, let’s play, let’s play proverbs!” shouts came from all sides, as if they expected God knows what from their “proverbs.”

  They chose a place and sat down on benches; it fell to Marya Nikitishna to guess; they demanded that she go as far away as possible and not eavesdrop; in her absence a proverb was chosen and the words were distributed. Marya Nikitishna came back and guessed it at once. The proverb was: “Dreadful the dream, but God is merciful.”

  Marya Nikitishna was followed by the ruffled young man in blue spectacles. Of him still greater precautions were demanded—that he stand by the gazebo and turn his face fully toward the fence. The gloomy young man did his duty with disdain and even seemed to feel a certain moral humiliation. When he was called back, he could not guess anything, went around to each person, listening twice to what they told him, spent a long time gloomily reflecting, but nothing came of it. He was put to shame. The proverb was: “Prayer to God and service to the tsar are never in vain.”

  “Besides, it’s a disgusting proverb!” the wounded youth grumbled indignantly, retreating to his place.

  “Ah, how boring!” voices were heard.

  Velchaninov went; he was hidden farther away than the others; he also failed to guess.

  “Ah, how boring!” still more voices were heard.

  “Well, now I’ll go,” said Nadya.

  “No, no, now Pavel Pavlovich will go, it’s Pavel Pavlovich’s turn,” they all shouted and livened up a bit.

  Pavel Pavlovich was taken right to the fence, to the corner, and placed facing it, and to keep him from turning around, the little redhead was set to watch him. Pavel Pavlovich, already cheered up and almost merry again, piously intended to do his duty and stood like a stump staring at the fence, not daring to turn around. The little redhead kept watch some twenty paces behind him, closer to the company, by the gazebo, exchanging excited winks with the other girls; one could see that they were all expecting something, even with a certain anxiousness; something was being prepared. Suddenly the little redhead waved her arms from behind the gazebo. That instant they all jumped up and rushed off somewhere at breakneck speed.

  “You run, too!” ten voices whispered to Velchaninov, all but horrified that he was not running.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” he kept asking, hurrying after them all.

  “Quiet, don’t shout! Let him stand there and stare at the fence while we all run away. Here’s Nastya running, too!”

  The little redhead (Nastya) was running headlong as if God knows what had happened, and waving her arms. They all came finally, beyond the pond, to a completely different end of the garden. When Velchaninov got there, he sa
w that Katerina Fedoseevna was having a big argument with all the girls and especially with Nadya and Marya Nikitishna.

  “Katya, darling, don’t be angry!” Nadya was kissing her.

  “All right, I won’t tell Mama, but I shall leave myself, because this is not nice at all. What must the poor man be feeling there by the fence?”

  She left out of pity, but all the rest remained as implacable and pitiless as before. It was sternly demanded of Velchaninov that, when Pavel Pavlovich came back, he also pay no attention to him, as if nothing had happened. “And let’s all play fox and hounds!” the little redhead cried out rapturously.

  Pavel Pavlovich rejoined the company only after at least a quarter of an hour. He must have spent two thirds of that time standing at the fence. Fox and hounds was in full swing and succeeded excellently—everyone shouted and had fun. Mad with rage, Pavel Pavlovich sprang straight up to Velchaninov and again grabbed him by the sleeve.

  “For one little moment, sir!”

  “Oh, Lord, what’s with him and his little moments!”

  “Asking for a handkerchief again,” the cry came after them.

  “Well, this time it’s you, sir; here it’s you now, sir, you are the cause of it!” Pavel Pavlovich’s teeth even chattered as he articulated this.

  Velchaninov interrupted him and peaceably advised him to be more cheerful, or else he would be teased to death: “They tease you because you’re angry while everyone else is having fun.” To his amazement, Pavel Pavlovich was terribly struck by his words and advice; he at once became quiet, even to the point of returning to the company like a guilty man and obediently taking part in the general games; for some time afterward they did not bother him and played with him like anyone else—and before half an hour had gone by, he was almost cheerful again. In all the games, he engaged himself as a partner, when need be, predominantly with the treacherous little redhead or one of the Zakhlebinin sisters. But Velchaninov noticed, to his still greater amazement, that Pavel Pavlovich hardly dared even once to address Nadya, though he ceaselessly fussed around her or near her; at least he accepted the position of one unnoticed and scorned by her as if it were proper, natural. But in the end a prank was again played on him even so.

  The game was hide-and-seek. The person hiding, incidentally, had the right to change his place within the whole area in which he was allowed to hide. Pavel Pavlovich, who had managed to hide by getting himself into a thick bush, suddenly decided to change his place and run into the house. There was shouting, he was seen; he hastily sneaked upstairs, having in mind a little place behind a chest of drawers where he wanted to hide. But the little redhead flew up after him, tiptoed stealthily to the door, and snapped the lock. As before, everyone at once stopped playing and again ran beyond the pond to the other end of the garden. About ten minutes later, Pavel Pavlovich, sensing that no one was looking for him, peeked out the window. No one was there. He did not dare shout lest he awaken the parents; the maid and the serving girl had been given strict orders not to come or respond to Pavel Pavlovich’s call. Katerina Fedoseevna could have opened the door for him, but she, having returned to her room, sat down in reverie and unexpectedly fell asleep herself. He sat like that for about an hour. At last, girls began to appear in twos and threes, passing by as if inadvertently.

  “Pavel Pavlovich, why don’t you join us? Ah, it’s such fun there! We’re playing theater. Alexei Ivanovich had the role of the ‘young man.’ ”

  “Pavel Pavlovich, why don’t you join us, it’s you one always misses!” other young misses observed, passing by.

  “Who is it, again, that one always misses?” suddenly came the voice of Mme. Zakhlebinin, who had just woken up and decided finally to take a stroll in the garden and watch the “children’s” games while waiting for tea.

  “It’s Pavel Pavlovich there.” She was shown the window through which peeked, with a distorted smile, pale with anger, the face of Pavel Pavlovich.

  “The man would just rather sit there alone, while others are having such fun!” the mother of the family shook her head.

  Meanwhile Velchaninov had the honor, finally, of receiving from Nadya an explanation of her words earlier about being “glad he had come owing to a certain circumstance.” The explanation took place in a solitary alley. Marya Nikitishna purposely summoned Velchaninov, who had participated in some of the games and was already beginning to languish greatly, and brought him to this alley, where she left him alone with Nadya.

  “I’m perfectly convinced,” she rattled out in a bold and quick patter, “that you are not at all such a friend of Pavel Pavlovich’s as he boasted you were. I calculate that you alone can render me an extremely important service; here is today’s nasty bracelet,” she took the case from her pocket, “I humbly beg you to return it to him immediately, because I myself will not speak to him ever or for anything for the rest of my life. Anyhow, you may tell him so on my behalf and add that henceforth he dare not thrust his presents at me. The rest I’ll let him know through others. Will you kindly give me the pleasure of fulfilling my wish?”

  “Ah, no, spare me, for God’s sake!” Velchaninov all but cried out, waving his hands.

  “What! Spare me?” Nadya was unbelievably astonished by his refusal and stared wide-eyed at him. All her prepared tone broke down in an instant, and she was nearly in tears. Velchaninov laughed.

  “It’s not that I… I’d be very glad… but I’ve got my own accounts with him…”

  “I knew you weren’t his friend and that he was lying!” Nadya interrupted him fervently and quickly. “I’ll never marry him, you should know that! Never! I don’t even understand how he dared… Only you must return his vile bracelet to him even so, otherwise what am I to do? I absolutely, absolutely want him to get it back today, the same day—and lump it. And if he peaches to Papa, he’ll be in real trouble.”

  Suddenly and quite unexpectedly the ruffled young man in blue spectacles popped from behind a bush.

  “You must give him back the bracelet,” he fell upon Velchaninov furiously, “if only in the name of women’s rights, assuming you yourself stand on the level of the question…”

  But he had no time to finish; Nadya pulled him by the sleeve with all her might and tore him away from Velchaninov.

  “Lord, how stupid you are, Predposylov!”12 she cried. “Go away! Go away, go away, and don’t you dare eavesdrop, I told you to stand far off!…” She stamped her little feet at him, and when he had slipped back into his bushes, she still went on pacing back and forth across the path, as if beside herself, flashing her eyes and clasping her hands in front of her.

  “You wouldn’t believe how stupid they are!” she suddenly stopped in front of Velchaninov. “To you it’s funny, but how is it for me!”

  “But it’s not him, not him?” Velchaninov was laughing.

  “Naturally it’s not him, how could you think such a thing!” Nadya smiled and turned red. “He’s only his friend. But what friends he chooses, I don’t understand it, they all say he’s a ‘future mover,’ but I don’t understand a thing… Alexei Ivanovich, I have no one to turn to; your final word, will you give it back or not?”

  “Well, all right, I’ll give it back, let me have it.”

  “Ah, you’re a dear, ah, you’re so kind!” she suddenly rejoiced, handing him the case. “For that I’ll sing for you the whole evening, because I sing wonderfully, you should know that, and I lied earlier about not liking music. Ah, if only you’d come again, just once, how glad I’d be, I’d tell you everything, everything, everything, and a lot more besides, because you’re so kind, so kind, like—like Katya!”

  And indeed, when they went back home for tea, she sang two romances for him in a voice not yet trained at all and only just beginning, but rather pleasant and strong. When they all came back from the garden, Pavel Pavlovich was sitting sedately with the parents at the tea table, on which a big family samovar was already boiling and heirloom Sèvres porcelain teacups were set out. Most l
ikely he and the old folks were discussing very serious things—because in two days he would be leaving for a whole nine months. He did not even glance at those who came in from the garden, least of all at Velchaninov; it was also obvious that he had not “peached” and that so far everything was quiet.

  But when Nadya started singing, he, too, appeared at once. Nadya purposely did not answer his one direct question, but Pavel Pavlovich was not embarrassed or shaken by that; he stood at the back of her chair and his whole bearing showed that this was his place and he would yield it to no one.

  “Alexei Ivanovich will sing, Maman, Alexei Ivanovich wants to sing!” nearly all the girls cried, crowding around the piano, at which Velchaninov was confidently sitting down, intending to accompany himself. The old folks came out along with Katerina Fedoseevna, who had been sitting with them and pouring tea.

  Velchaninov chose a certain romance by Glinka,13 which almost no one knows anymore:

  When you do ope your merry lips, my love

  And coo to me more sweetly than a dove…

  He sang it addressing Nadya alone, who stood right at his elbow and closest to him of all. He had long ago lost his voice, but from what remained, one could see that it had once been not bad. Velchaninov had managed to hear this romance for the first time some twenty years before, when he was still a student, from Glinka himself, in the house of one of the late composer’s friends, at a literary-artistic bachelor party. Glinka, carried away, had played and sung all his favorite things from his own works, including this romance. He also had no voice left by then, but Velchaninov remembered the extraordinary impression produced then precisely by this romance. No artistic salon singer could ever have achieved such an effect. In this romance, the intensity of the passion rises and grows with every line, every word; precisely because of this extraordinary intensity, the slightest falseness, the slightest exaggeration or untruth—which one gets away with so easily in opera—would here ruin and distort the whole meaning. To sing this small but remarkable thing, one had absolutely—yes, absolutely—to have a full, genuine inspiration, a genuine passion or its full poetic assimilation. Otherwise the romance would not only fail altogether, but might even appear outrageous and all but something shameless: it would be impossible to show such intensity of passionate feeling without provoking disgust, yet truth and simple-heartedness saved everything. Velchaninov remembered that he himself once used to succeed with this romance. He had almost assimilated Glinka’s manner of singing; but now, from the very first sound, from the first line, a genuine inspiration blazed up in his soul and trembled in his voice. With every word of the romance, the feeling broke through and bared itself more strongly and boldly, in the last lines cries of passion were heard, and when, turning his flashing eyes to Nadya, he finished singing the last words of the romance: