The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  ‘Come now, my dear sir, wash yourself, you can’t go without washing …’

  And at that instant Ivan Ilyich realized that if there was one being in this whole world, with whom he could now be without shame or fear, it was precisely this old woman. He washed. And for a long time afterwards, at difficult moments in his life, he would remember, among other pangs of conscience, all the particulars of this awakening: the earthenware basin and the faience jug, filled with cold water in which little bits of ice still floated, and the soap in the pink wrapper, oval shaped and stamped with some letters, which cost fifteen kopecks and was obviously bought for the newlyweds, but which Ivan Ilyich now would be the first to use; and the old woman with the damask towel over her left shoulder. The cold water refreshed him; he dried himself and, without saying a word, without even thanking his sister of mercy, he grabbed his hat, threw over his shoulders the fur coat that was held out to him by Mrs Pseldonimov, and through the hallway, through the kitchen, in which the cat was meowing and where the cook, raising herself up on her bedding, followed him with her eyes with greedy curiosity, as he ran out into the courtyard, to the street and rushed to catch a passing cab. The morning was frosty; frozen yellow fog still hid from view the houses and all objects. Ivan Ilyich turned up his collar. He thought that everybody was looking at him, that they all knew him, that they would all find out …

  For eight days he did not leave the house nor did he report to the office. He was ill, agonizingly ill, but more morally than physically. During these eight days he had lived through a whole hell, and it most likely was taken into account for him in the other world. There were moments when he would start thinking about becoming a monk. There really were. Then his imagination would ramble far and wide. He pictured quiet subterranean singing, an open coffin, living in an isolated cell, the forests and caves; but after coming to his senses, he would almost immediately acknowledge that this was all the most horrible nonsense and exaggeration and he would be ashamed of it. Then began the moral attacks concerning his existence manquée. Then shame once again would flare up in his heart, taking possession of it all at once and burning and aggravating everything. He would shudder, when he imagined various scenes. What would they say about him, what would they think when he walked into the office, what whispering would haunt him for a whole year, ten years, his whole life? The story about him would be handed down to posterity. He even sank at times into such faintheartedness that he was ready to go at once to Semyon Ivanych and ask for his forgiveness and friendship. He didn’t even try to justify himself, he blamed himself completely: he could find no excuse and was ashamed even to look for one.

  He also thought about immediately submitting his resignation and thus, simply, in solitude devote himself to the happiness of mankind. In any event, it was absolutely necessary to change all his acquaintances and in such a way as to eradicate all memory of him. Then he would think that this was nonsense as well and that increased sternness with his subordinates might still set the matter right. Then he began to have hope and cheer up. Finally, after eight whole days of doubts and torments, he felt that he could no longer bear the uncertainty, and un beau matin47 he made up his mind to go to the office.

  Before, when he was still staying home in anguish, he had pictured to himself a thousand times how he would enter his office. With horror he had convinced himself that he would be certain to hear ambiguous whispering behind his back, see ambiguous faces, reap a harvest of the most malignant smiles. What was his amazement when in fact none of this took place. He was greeted respectfully; they bowed; everybody was serious; everybody was busy. His heart was filled with joy as he made his way to his own room.

  He at once and very seriously got down to work, heard several reports and clarifications and proposed solutions. He felt that he had never before reasoned and come to a decision so intelligently, so efficiently as that morning. He saw that they were pleased with him, that they esteemed him, that they regarded him with respect. The most acute sense of suspicion would have been unable to detect anything. Things were going splendidly.

  Finally, Akim Petrovich appeared with some papers. Upon his appearance something stabbed Ivan Ilyich right in the heart, as it were, but only for a moment. He attended to Akim Petrovich, expounded gravely, showed him how it should be done and explained it. He noticed only that he seemed to be avoiding looking at Akim Petrovich for too long, or rather that Akim Petrovich was afraid of looking at him. But now Akim Petrovich had finished and began to gather up his papers.

  ‘And there’s one more request,’ he began as drily as possible, ‘from the clerk Pseldonimov about his transfer to the department … His Excellency Semyon Ivanovich Shipulenko has promised him a position. He requests your gracious assistance, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Ah, so he’s getting a transfer,’ Ivan Ilyich said and he felt that an enormous weight had been lifted from his heart. He cast a glance at Akim Petrovich and at that moment their eyes met.

  ‘All right, for my part … I will use,’ Ivan Ilyich replied. ‘I am prepared to help.’

  Akim Petrovich clearly wanted to slip away as quickly as possible. But Ivan Ilyich suddenly, in a burst of nobility, made up his mind to have his say once and for all. Evidently he was once again visited by inspiration.

  ‘Tell him,’ he began, directing on Akim Petrovich a look that was clear and full of deep significance, ‘tell Pseldonimov that I don’t wish him ill; no, I don’t! … That, on the contrary, I am prepared to even forget everything that took place, to forget everything, everything …’

  But suddenly Ivan Ilyich stopped short, as he looked on in amazement at the strange behaviour of Akim Petrovich, who, for reasons unknown, instead of being a sensible man, suddenly turned out to be the most terrible fool. Instead of listening, and listening to the end, he suddenly turned an utterly foolish red, began somehow hurriedly and even indecently making some sort of little bows and at the same time backing away towards the door. His whole look expressed a desire to disappear, or rather to get back to his desk as quickly as possible. Left alone, Ivan Ilyich rose from his chair in confusion. He looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize his own face.

  ‘No, sternness, only sternness, nothing but sternness!’48 he whispered almost unconsciously to himself, and suddenly his whole face turned bright red. He suddenly felt so ashamed, so miserable, more than he had been during the most unbearable moments of his eight-day illness. ‘I couldn’t bear it!’ he said to himself and, overcome by weakness, sank into his chair.

  1862

  THE GAMBLER

  A Novel

  (From the Notes of a Young Man)

  CHAPTER 1

  I’ve finally returned from my fortnight absence. Our party has already been in Roulettenburg1 for three days. I thought that they would be waiting for me God only knows how eagerly; however, I was mistaken. The general had a confident air about him, spoke to me condescendingly and sent me to see his sister. It was clear that they had borrowed money from somewhere. I even thought that the general was a bit ashamed to look at me. Marya Filippovna was extremely busy and hardly spoke to me; however, she took the money, counted it and listened to my whole report. Mezentsov, the little Frenchman and some Englishman were expected for dinner: as usual, as soon as there’s money, there’s a Moscow-style dinner party. Upon seeing me, Polina Alexandrovna asked me why I had been away so long, and without waiting for my reply, walked off somewhere. It goes without saying, she did this on purpose. However, we need to have a talk. A lot of things have built up.

  I’ve been given a small room on the fourth floor of the hotel. They know here that I belong to the General’s suite, which one can see has managed, somehow, to make an impression. Everybody here thinks that the general is a very wealthy Russian grandee. Even before dinner he found time, along with other commissions, to give me two thousand-franc notes to be changed. I changed them in the hotel bureau. Now they’ll think we’re millionaires, for a whole week at the very least. I wanted to take M
isha and Nadya out for a walk, but on the stairs I was summoned to the general; he had thought it fit to enquire where I was taking them. This man absolutely cannot look me straight in the eyes; he would like to, but every time I answer him with such an intent – that is, disrespectful – look that he becomes embarrassed, as it were. In a highly bombastic speech, in which he piled up phrase upon phrase until finally he became thoroughly muddled, I was given to understand that I should walk with the children somewhere in the park, as far away as possible from the casino. In the end, he became thoroughly angry and added sharply:

  ‘Otherwise, you might take them to the casino, to the roulette tables. You must excuse me,’ he added, ‘but I know that you are still rather frivolous and are capable, perhaps, of gambling. In any event, although I am not your mentor and do not wish to take on such a role, at the very least I have the right to desire that you, so to speak, do not compromise me …’

  ‘But I don’t even have any money,’ I answered calmly, ‘you need to have some money in order to lose it.’

  ‘You’ll have some immediately,’ the General answered, flushing a bit, he rooted around in his bureau, consulted his accounts book, and it turned out that he owed me approximately 120 roubles.

  ‘How shall we go about figuring the amount?’ he began, ‘it has to be converted to thalers.2 Here, take a hundred thalers, a round sum – the rest, of course, won’t go missing.’

  I took the money in silence.

  ‘Please, don’t you be offended by my words, you’re so quick to take offence … If I made an observation, it was only, so to speak, to warn you, and I do, of course, have a certain right to do so …’

  As the children and I were returning home before dinner, I met a whole cavalcade. Our party had gone to have a look at some ruins. Two splendid carriages, magnificent horses! Mlle Blanche in one carriage with Marya Filippovna and Polina; the little Frenchman, the Englishman and our general were on horseback. The passers-by stopped and stared; they made an impression, but it does not bode well for the general. I figure that with the 4,000 francs that I brought, plus whatever they evidently had managed to borrow, that they now had seven or eight thousand francs; that’s much too little for Mlle Blanche.

  Mlle Blanche is also staying in our hotel, together with her mother; and our little Frenchman is somewhere here as well. The footmen call him ‘Monsieur le Comte’, and Mlle Blanche’s mother is called ‘Madame la Comtesse’; who knows, perhaps they really are comte et comtesse.3

  I just knew that Monsieur le Comte would ignore me when we gathered for dinner. The general, of course, would not even think of introducing us or even recommending me to him; and Monsieur le Comte has spent time in Russia and knows the insignificance of this thing called outchitel.4 He, however, knows me only too well. But I confess that I made my appearance at dinner uninvited; it seems the general forgot to make any arrangement; otherwise, he would certainly have sent me to dine at the table d’hôte.5 I came of my own accord, so the general looked at me with displeasure. Kind-hearted Marya Filippovna at once found me a seat; but it was my meeting with Mr Astley that came to my aid and willy-nilly I found myself a part of their party.

  I first met this strange Englishman in Prussia, in a railway car, in which we were seated opposite each other, when I was travelling to meet our party; then I ran into him as I was entering France, and finally in Switzerland; two times in the course of this fortnight, and now I suddenly meet him here in Roulettenburg. Never in my life have I encountered a person who is shyer than he; he’s shy to the point of seeming stupid, and he realizes this himself, because he’s not at all stupid. He is very nice and gentle, however. I managed to get him to talk at our first meeting in Prussia. He said that he had spent the summer at North Cape and that he very much wanted to go to the fair in Nizhny Novgorod.6 I don’t know how he became acquainted with the general, but he seems to be boundlessly in love with Polina. When she entered, he flushed crimson. He was very glad that I sat next to him at the table and seems to consider me his bosom friend.

  At the table the little Frenchman set a peculiar tone; he was offhand and pompous with everybody. But in Moscow, I recall, he would talk a lot of twaddle. He’d go on an awful lot about finance and Russian politics. The general would sometimes venture to contradict him, but modestly, only as much as was possible without doing real injury to his own self-importance.

  I was in a strange mood; it goes without saying that even before the dinner was half over I had managed to ask myself my usual and unchanging question: Why was I hanging around with this general, and why hadn’t I left them long, long ago? From time to time I would steal a glance at Polina Alexandrovna; she didn’t notice me at all. It ended with me getting angry and making up my mind to be rude.

  It all began with me suddenly, for no apparent reason, butting into their conversation loudly and without asking their leave. Most of all I wanted to pick a quarrel with the little Frenchman. I turned to the general and suddenly made the observation, rather loudly and distinctly, and I think, interrupting him as well, that it was almost utterly impossible for Russians to dine in hotels at table d’hôte this summer. The general directed a look of astonishment at me.

  ‘If you are a self-respecting man,’ I continued, ‘then you’ll certainly be inviting abuse and must endure the most extraordinary insults. In Paris and on the Rhine, even in Switzerland, there are so many wretched little Poles, and their little French sympathizers, at these tables d’hôte that it’s impossible to get a word in if you’re a mere Russian.’

  I said this in French.7 The general looked at me in bewilderment, not knowing whether he should get angry or merely be astonished that I had so forgotten myself.

  ‘So somebody somewhere gave you a good lesson,’ said the little Frenchman, carelessly and scornfully.

  ‘In Paris I first fell out with a certain Pole,’ I replied, ‘then with a certain French officer, who was defending the Pole. Then later a group of Frenchmen came over to my side, when I told them that I wanted to spit in the monseigneur’s coffee.’

  ‘Spit?’ the general asked with pompous bewilderment, and even looked around. The little Frenchman examined me mistrustfully.

  ‘Just so, sir,’ I replied. ‘Since I was convinced for two whole days that it might be necessary to make a short trip to Rome in connection with our business, I went to the office of the Embassy of the Holy Father in Paris in order to get a visa for my passport. There I was met by a little abbé, a dried-up man of about fifty with a frosty expression on his face, who after hearing me out respectfully but extremely coldly, asked me to wait. Although I was in a hurry, I of course sat down to wait, took out my Opinion nationale8 and began to read the most terrible diatribe about Russia. Meanwhile, I heard somebody pass through the adjacent room to see the monseigneur; I saw my abbé bow to him. I repeated my previous request to him; he even more coldly asked me again to wait. A bit later somebody else came in, also a stranger on business – some Austrian – he was given a hearing and immediately escorted upstairs. Then I became very annoyed; I got up, walked over to the abbé and told him in no uncertain terms that since the monseigneur was receiving, then he could deal with me as well. Suddenly the abbé drew away from me in extraordinary surprise. He found it simply incomprehensible that a lowly Russian could presume to put himself on the same level as the monseigneur’s guests. As if delighted that he might have the opportunity to insult me, he looked me up and down and shouted in the most impudent tone: “Surely you cannot suppose that the monseigneur will put aside his coffee on your account?” Then I, too, began to shout, but even more loudly: “You should know that I would spit in your monseigneur’s coffee! If you don’t finish with my passport this very minute, I’ll go see him myself.”