… Well, so from then on it all got started. Naturally, I at once made indirect efforts to find out all the circumstances and waited with particular impatience for her to come. I did have a feeling that she would come soon. When she came, I entered into friendly conversation with unusual politeness. I’m not badly brought up and have manners. Hm. It was then I guessed that she was kind and meek. The kind and meek ones don’t resist for long, and though they don’t really open up completely, still they can’t quite avoid conversing: they reply charily, but they do reply, and the more the further, only don’t get tired yourself if it’s something you need. Naturally, she didn’t explain anything to me herself that time. It was later that I found out about The Voice and everything. She was then spending her last strength to advertise, at first, naturally, with pride, something like: “Governess, willing to relocate, send letter stating conditions,” but then: “Willing to do anything, teach, be a companion, keep house, tend the sick, can sew,” etc., etc., the same old stuff! Naturally, all this was added to the advertisement gradually, and toward the end, when things got desperate, there was even “without salary, in exchange for board.” No, she didn’t find a situation! I ventured then to test her for a last time: I suddenly take today’s Voice and show her an advertisement: “Young person, orphan, seeks position as governess of small children, preferably with an older widower. Can help with housework.”
“There, you see, this woman placed an advertisement this morning, and by evening she’ll certainly have found work. That’s how one should advertise!”
Again she flushed, again her eyes lit up, she turned and left at once. I liked that very much. However, I was already sure of everything by then and had no fear: no one was going to take cigar holders from her. And she had already run out of cigar holders. So it was, on the third day she came, so pale, alarmed—I understood that something had happened with her at home, and in fact it had. I’ll explain presently what had happened, but now I just want to recall how I suddenly displayed my chic before her then and grew taller in her eyes. The intention suddenly appeared in me. The thing was that she brought this icon (got herself to bring it)… Ah, listen! listen! Here’s where it begins, and before I kept getting confused… The thing is that I want to recall it all now, each trifle, each little feature. I keep wanting to collect my thoughts to a point and—I can’t, and now these little features, these little features …
An icon of the Mother of God. The Mother of God with the Child, from home, from her family, an old one, in a gilt silver casing—worth—well, worth about six roubles. I can see the icon is dear to her, she wants to pawn the whole icon, without removing the casing. I tell her it’s better to remove the casing and keep the icon; because it’s still an icon after all.
“Is it forbidden for you?”
“No, not really forbidden, but just so, maybe, you yourself…”
“Well, remove it, then.”
“You know what, I won’t remove it, I’ll put it on the stand over there,” I said on reflection, “with the other icons, under the lamp” (ever since I opened my shop, I’ve always kept an icon lamp burning), “and you can quite simply take ten roubles.”
“I don’t want ten, give me five, I’ll certainly buy it back.”
“You don’t want ten? The icon’s worth it,” I added, noticing that her eyes flashed again. She held her peace. I brought her five roubles.
“Don’t despise anyone, I’ve felt the same pinch myself, and even worse, and if you now see me in this occupation, miss… after all I’ve endured it’s…”
“You’re taking revenge on society, is that it?” she interrupted me suddenly with rather caustic mockery, in which, however, there was a good deal of innocence (that is, of generality, because she decidedly did not distinguish me from others then, so that she said it almost inoffensively).“Aha!” thought I, “that’s how you are, the character’s coming out, of the new tendency.”
“You see,” I observed at once, half jokingly, half mysteriously, “I—I’m part of that part of the whole that wishes to do evil, but does good…”
She glanced at me quickly and with great curiosity, in which, however, there was a good deal of childishness:
“Wait… What is that thought? Where is it from? I’ve heard it somewhere…”
“Don’t rack your brain, Mephistopheles recommends himself to Faust in those terms. Have you read Faust ?”3
“Not… not attentively.”
“That is, you haven’t read it at all. You ought to read it. However, I see a mocking twist on your lips again. Please don’t suppose me to be of so little taste as to wish to paint over my role as a pawnbroker by recommending myself as a Mephistopheles. Once a pawnbroker, always a pawnbroker. We know that, miss.”
“You’re somehow strange… I didn’t want to say anything like that at all…”
She wanted to say: I didn’t expect you to be an educated man, but she didn’t say it, though I knew she was thinking it; I pleased her terribly.
“You see,” I observed, “one can do good in any occupation. I don’t mean myself, of course, I, let’s say, do nothing but bad, but…”
“Of course one can do good in any situation,” she said, glancing at me with a quick and meaning look. “Precisely in any situation,” she suddenly added. Oh, I remember, I remember all those moments! And I also want to add that these young people, these dear young people, when they want to say something intelligent and meaningful, suddenly show, with all too much sincerity and naivete on their faces, that “here I am saying something intelligent and meaningful to you”—and not out of vanity, like our sort, but you can see that she herself values all this terribly, and believes it, and respects it, and thinks that you, too, respect it the same way she does. Oh sincerity! This is how they win one over. And it was so lovely in her!
I remember, I haven’t forgotten anything! When she left, I made up my mind all at once. That same day I went to make my final search and found out all the rest of her then current innermost secrets; all the former innermost secrets I already knew from Lukerya, who was then their servant and whom I had bribed several days earlier. These innermost secrets were so horrible that I don’t even understand how she could have laughed as she did that day and been curious about Mephistopheles’ saying, being under such horror herself. But—youth! I thought precisely that about her then, with pride and with joy, because there was magnanimity in it: on the verge of ruin, yet Goethe’s great words still shine. Youth is always magnanimous, be it ever so slightly, even lopsidedly. That is, I mean her, her alone. And, above all, I already looked at her then as mine and had no doubt of my power. You know, it is a most voluptuous thought, when one no longer has any doubts.
But what’s the matter with me. If I do it this way, when will I collect it all into a point? Quickly, quickly… this is not it at all, oh, God!
II
A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL
The “innermost secrets” I found out about her can be explained in a word: her father and mother had died, already long ago, three years before, and she was left with some disorderly aunts. That is, it’s not enough to call them disorderly. One was a widow with a big family, six children, each smaller than the next; the other was a spinster, old and nasty. They were both nasty. Her father had been in the civil service, but as a scrivener, and of merely nonhereditary nobility—in short, it all played into my hands. I came as if from a higher world: a retired staff captain, after all, of a brilliant regiment, a hereditary nobleman, independent, and so on, and as for the pawnshop, the aunts could only look upon it with respect. She had slaved for the aunts for three years, but passed an examination somewhere all the same—struggled to pass it, managed to pass it, from under her merciless daily work—and that did mean something about her yearning toward the lofty and noble! After all, why did I want to get married? Spit on me, though, that’s for later… As if that was the point! She taught her aunt’s children, did sewing, and toward the end not just sewing but, with her bad ches
t, also scrubbed the floors. Quite simply, they even beat her, reproached her for every crumb. In the end they were intending to sell her. Pah! I omit the filth of the details. Later she told me everything in detail. For a whole year a fat neighboring shopkeeper had been observing it all, not a simple shopkeeper, but with two grocery stores. He had already given a sweet time to two wives and was looking for a third, and so he cast an eye on her: “Quiet,” he thought, “grew up in poverty, and I’m marrying for my orphans.” In fact, he did have orphans. He sent a matchmaker, began making arrangements with the aunts, what’s more—he was fifty years old; she was horrified. It was then that she began coming to me often, so as to place advertisements in The Voice. Finally, she started asking her aunts to give her a bit of time to think it over. They gave her this bit, but just one, no more, because, they carped: “We don’t know what we’ll grub up ourselves, even without an extra mouth.” I already knew it all, and after that morning I made my decision. In the evening the merchant came, bringing a pound of candy from his shop worth fifty kopecks; she was sitting with him, and I called Lukerya out from the kitchen and told her to go and whisper to her that I was at the gate and wished to tell her something most urgently. I remained pleased with myself. And generally all that day I had been awfully pleased.
There at the gate, in Lukerya’s presence, I explained to her, amazed as she already was by the fact of my calling her outside, that I would consider it a happiness and an honor… Second: not to be surprised at my manner and that it was at the gate: “I’m a direct man,” I said, “and I’ve looked into the circumstances of the matter.” And I wasn’t lying that I’m direct. Well, spit on it. I spoke not only decently, that is, showing a man of breeding, but also originally, and that’s the main thing. So what, is it a sin to confess it? I want to judge myself and so I do. I must speak pro and contra, and so I do. Later I also remembered it with delight, though that is stupid: I declared directly, without any embarrassment, first, that I was not especially talented, not especially intelligent, maybe not even especially kind, a rather cheap egoist (I remember that expression, I thought it up then, on my way there, and remained pleased), and that it was very, very possible that I contained in myself much that was also unpleasant in many other respects. All this was spoken with a special sort of pride—we all know how such things are said. Of course, I had taste enough, after nobly declaring my shortcomings, not to start declaring my merits, saying: “But, on the other hand, I have this, this, and that.” I could see that so far she was terribly afraid, but I didn’t soften anything, what’s more, seeing that she was afraid, I intensified it on purpose: I said directly that she would have enough to eat, but as for outfits, theaters, balls—there would be none of that, or not till later, when I’d reached my goal. This stern tone decidedly carried me away. I added, also as casually as possible, that if I’d taken such an occupation, that is, keeping this shop, it was that I had a certain goal, there was a certain circumstance… But I had the right to speak that way: I actually had such a goal and such a circumstance. Wait, gentlemen, all my life I’ve been the first to hate this pawnshop, but, as a matter of fact, though it’s ridiculous to speak in mysterious phrases to oneself, I was in fact “taking revenge on society,” really, really, really! So that her morning witticism about my “taking revenge” was unjust. That is, you see, if I had told her directly in so many words: “Yes, I’m taking revenge on society,” and she had burst out laughing, as she did that morning, it would in fact have come out ridiculous. Well, but by an indirect hint, by letting in a mysterious phrase, it turned out that one could bribe the imagination. Besides, I no longer feared anything then: I knew that the fat shopkeeper was in any case more disgusting to her and that I, standing there at the gate, was a deliverer. That I understood. Oh, man understands meanness especially well! But was it meanness? How can one judge a man here? Didn’t I already love her even then?
Wait: naturally, I didn’t say half a word to her then about being a benefactor; on the contrary, oh, on the contrary: “It’s you,” I might have said, “who are my benefactor, not I yours” So that I even put it into words, I couldn’t help myself, and it came out stupid, perhaps, because I noticed a fleeting wrinkle on her face. But on the whole I was decidedly the winner. Wait, if I’m to recall all this filth, I’ll also recall the ultimate swinishness: I was standing there, and it was stirring in my head: you’re tall, well built, well bred, and—and, finally, speaking without braggadocio, you’re not bad looking. That’s what was playing through my mind. Naturally, she said yes to me right there at the gate. But… but I must add: right there at the gate she thought for a long time before she said yes. She got so thoughtful, so thoughtful, that I already started asking: “Well, what is it?”—and even couldn’t help myself, asking with a certain chic: “Well, what is it, miss?”—adding a polite touch.
“Wait, I’m thinking.”
And her little face was so serious, so serious—that even then I might have read! And there I was feeling offended: “Can it be,” I thought, “that she’s choosing between me and the merchant?” Oh, I didn’t understand then! I didn’t understand anything, not anything! Until today I didn’t understand! I remember Lukerya ran out after me, as I was leaving, stopped me in the street, and said breathlessly: “God will reward you, sir, for taking our dear young lady, only don’t tell it to her, she’s proud.”
Proud, eh! I say I like the proud ones myself. The proud ones are especially good when… well, when one no longer doubts one’s power over them, eh? Oh, mean, clumsy man! Oh, how pleased I was! Do you know, she might, when she was standing at the gate then, thinking whether to say yes to me, and I got surprised, do you know, she might even have been thinking: “If it’s disaster either way, isn’t it better to choose the worst straight off, that is, the fat shopkeeper, let him get drunk and quickly beat me to death!” Eh? What do you think, could she have had such a thought?
And now, too, I don’t understand, now, too, I don’t understand anything! I only just said that she might have had this thought: to choose the worst of two disasters, that is, the merchant? But who was worse for her then—I or the merchant? The merchant or the pawnbroker quoting Goethe? That’s still a question! Why a question? And you don’t understand this: the answer’s lying on the table, and you say question! No, but spit on me! I’m not the point… And by the way, what is it to me now—whether I’m the point or not? That’s something I’m quite unable to decide. I’d better go to bed. I have a headache…
III
THE NOBLEST OF MEN, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IT MYSELF
Didn’t fall asleep. How could I, some pulse was throbbing in my head. I want to take it all in, all this filth. Oh, filth! Oh, what filth I dragged her out of then! She really ought to have understood it, to have appreciated my action! I also liked various thoughts, for instance, that I was forty-one and she had just turned sixteen. This captivated me, this feeling of inequality, very sweet it was, very sweet.
I, for instance, wanted to do the wedding à l’anglaise,4 that is, decidedly the two of us, with perhaps two witnesses, one of them Lukerya, and then straight to the train, say, for instance, to Moscow (I happened incidentally to have business there), to a hotel, for a couple of weeks. She protested, she wouldn’t allow it, and I was forced to go visiting her aunts, honoring them as relatives from whom I was taking her. I yielded, and the aunts were rendered their due. I even gave the creatures a hundred roubles each and promised more, naturally without telling her anything about it, so as not to upset her by the meanness of the situation. The aunts at once became like silk. There was also an argument about the dowry: she had nothing, almost literally, but she also wanted nothing. I, however, succeeded in proving to her that nothing at all was not possible, and I took care of the dowry, because who else would do anything for her? Well, but spit on talking about me. My various ideas, however, I did manage to tell her then, so that she’d at least know. Even too hastily, perhaps. The main thing is that from the very first, though
she tried to hold back, she threw herself to me with love, she would meet me with rapture when I came home in the evening, told me in her prattle (the charming prattle of innocence!) all about her childhood, her infancy, her parental home, her father and mother. But I immediately doused all this ecstasy at once with cold water. It was in this that my idea lay. To her raptures I responded with silence, benevolent, of course… but all the same she quickly saw that we were different, and that I was—a riddle. And I was, above all, aiming at a riddle! It was for the sake of posing a riddle, perhaps, that I did all this stupidity! First of all, sternness—so it was under sternness that I brought her into my house. In short, though I was very pleased, I set about creating a whole system then. Oh, it poured out by itself quite effortlessly. And it couldn’t have been otherwise, I had to create this system, owing to an irresistible circumstance—what am I doing, in fact, slandering myself! The system was a true one. No, listen, if you’re going to judge a man, you must know the case… Listen!
How shall I begin, because it’s very difficult. Once you start justifying yourself—it gets difficult. You see: young people, for instance, despise money—I right away emphasized money; I stressed money. And I emphasized it so much that she began to grow more and more silent. She’d open her big eyes, listen, look, and keep silent. You see: young people are magnanimous, that is, the good ones are, magnanimous and impulsive, but they have little tolerance, the moment something’s not right—there’s scorn. And I wanted breadth, I wanted to implant breadth right in her heart, implant it in her own heart’s view, isn’t that so? I’ll take a banal example: how, for instance, should I explain my pawnshop to such a character? Naturally, I didn’t speak of it directly, otherwise it would have come out that I was asking forgiveness for the pawnshop, but I acted, so to speak, through pride, I spoke almost silently. And I’m a master of speaking silently, I’ve spent my whole life speaking silently and have silently lived through whole tragedies with myself. Oh, but I was also unhappy! I had been discarded by everyone, discarded and forgotten, and no one, no one knows it! And suddenly this sixteen-year-old girl snatched all sorts of details from mean people afterward and thought she knew everything, but the secret meanwhile remained only in this man’s breast! I kept silent, and especially, especially kept silent with her, right up till yesterday—why did I keep silent? As a proud man. I wanted her to find out herself, without me, not from mean people’s talk now, but that she should guess herself about this man and comprehend him! Receiving her into my house, I wanted full respect. I wanted her to stand before me entreatingly for the sake of my suffering—and I was worth it. Oh, I was always proud, I always wanted all or nothing! That’s precisely why, because I’m no halfway man in happiness, but wanted all, that’s precisely why I was forced to act as I did then, as if to say: “Guess yourself, and appreciate it!” Because, you must agree, if I myself had begun explaining and prompting, shuffling and begging for respect—it would have been as if I were begging alms… But anyhow… but anyhow, why am I talking about that?
The Eternal Husband and Other Stories Page 28
