à propos of the wet snow

when from dark error's subjugation

my words of passionate exhortation

had wrenched thy fainting spirit free;

and writhing prone in thine affliction

thou didst recall with malediction

the vice that had encompassed thee:

and when thy slumbering conscience, fretting

by recollection's torturing flame,

thou didst reveal the hideous setting

of thy life's current ere i came:

when suddenly i saw thee sicken,

and weeping, hide thine anguished face,

revolted, maddened, horror-stricken,

at memories of foul disgrace.

nekrassov (translated by juliet soskice).

i

at that time i was only twenty-four. my life was even then gloomy, ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. i made friends with no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and more in my hole. at work in the office i never looked at any one, and i was perfectly well aware that my companions looked upon me, not only as a queer fellow, but even looked upon me—i always fancied this—with a sort of loathing. i sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except me fancied that he was looked upon with aversion? one of the clerks had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked positively villainous. i believe i should not have dared to look at any one with such an unsightly countenance. another had such a very dirty old uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his proximity. yet not one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self-consciousness—either about their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way. neither of them ever imagined that they were looked at with repulsion; if they had imagined it they would not have minded—so long as their superiors did not look at them in that way. it is clear to me now that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard i set for myself, i often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so i inwardly attributed the same feeling to every one. i hated my face, for instance: i thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there was something base in my expression, and so every day when i turned up at the office i tried to behave as independently as possible, and to assume a lofty expression, so that i might not be suspected of being abject. "my face may be ugly," i thought, "but let it be lofty, expressive, and, above all, extremely intelligent." but i was positively and painfully certain that it was impossible for my countenance ever to express those qualities. and what was worst of all, i thought it actually stupid looking, and i would have been quite satisfied if i could have looked intelligent. in fact, i would even have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have been thought strikingly intelligent.

of course, i hated my fellow clerks one and all, and i despised them all, yet at the same time i was, as it were, afraid of them. in fact, it happened at times that i thought more highly of them than of myself. it somehow happened quite suddenly that i alternated between despising them and thinking them superior to myself. a cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments. but whether i despised them or thought them superior i dropped my eyes almost every time i met any one. i even made experiments whether i could face so and so's looking at me, and i was always the first to drop my eyes. this worried me to distraction. i had a sickly dread, too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for the conventional in everything external. i loved to fall into the common rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in myself. but how could i live up to it? i was morbidly sensitive, as a man of our age should be. they were all stupid, and as like one another as so many sheep. perhaps i was the only one in the office who fancied that i was a coward and a slave, and i fancied it just because i was more highly developed. but it was not only that i fancied it, it really was so. i was a coward and a slave. i say this without the slightest embarrassment. every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. that is his normal condition. of that i am firmly persuaded. he is made and constructed to that very end. and not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave. it is the law of nature for all decent people all over the earth. if any one of them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted nor carried away by that; he would show the white feather just the same before something else. that is how it invariably and inevitably ends. only donkeys and mules are valiant, and they only till they are pushed up to the wall. it is not worth while to pay attention to them for they really are of no consequence.

another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and i was unlike any one else. "i am alone and they are every one," i thought—and pondered.

from that it is evident that i was still a youngster.

the very opposite sometimes happened. it was loathsome sometimes to go to the office; things reached such a point that i often came home ill. but all at once, à propos of nothing, there would come a phase of scepticism and indifference (everything happened in phases to me), and i would laugh myself at my intolerance and fastidiousness, i would reproach myself with being romantic. at one time i was unwilling to speak to any one, while at other times i would not only talk, but go to the length of contemplating making friends with them. all my fastidiousness would suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, vanish. who knows, perhaps i never had really had it, and it had simply been affected, and got out of books. i have not decided that question even now. once i quite made friends with them, visited their homes, played preference, drank vodka, talked of promotions.... but here let me make a digression.

we russians, speaking generally, have never had those foolish transcendental "romantics"—german, and still more french—on whom nothing produces any effect; if there were an earthquake, if all france perished at the barricades, they would still be the same, they would not even have the decency to affect a change, but would still go on singing their transcendental songs to the hour of their death, because they are fools. we, in russia, have no fools; that is well known. that is what distinguishes us from foreign lands. consequently these transcendental natures are not found amongst us in their pure form. the idea that they are is due to our "realistic" journalists and critics of that day, always on the look out for kostanzhoglos and uncle pyotr ivanitchs and foolishly accepting them as our ideal; they have slandered our romantics, taking them for the same transcendental sort as in germany or france. on the contrary, the characteristics of our "romantics" are absolutely and directly opposed to the transcendental european type, and no european standard can be applied to them. (allow me to make use of this word "romantic"—an old-fashioned and much respected word which has done good service and is familiar to all). the characteristics of our romantic are to understand everything, to see everything and to see it often incomparably more clearly than our most realistic minds see it; to refuse to accept anyone or anything, but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield, from policy; never to lose sight of a useful practical object (such as rent-free quarters at the government expense, pensions, decorations), to keep their eye on that object through all the enthusiasms and volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve "the good and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of their death, and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious jewel wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of "the good and the beautiful." our "romantic" is a man of great breadth and the greatest rogue of all our rogues, i assure you.... i can assure you from experience, indeed. of course, that is, if he is intelligent. but what am i saying! the romantic is always intelligent, and i only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they degenerated into germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there—by preference in weimar or the black forest.

i, for instance, genuinely despised my official work and did not openly abuse it simply because i was in it myself and got a salary for it. anyway, take note, i did not openly abuse it. our romantic would rather go out of his mind—a thing, however, which very rarely happens—than take to open abuse, unless he had some other career in view; and he is never kicked out. at most, they would take him to the lunatic asylum as "the king of spain" if he should go very mad. but it is only the thin, fair people who go out of their minds in russia. innumerable "romantics" attain later in life to considerable rank in the service. their many-sidedness is remarkable! and what a faculty they have for the most contradictory sensations! i was comforted by this thought even in those days, and i am of the same opinion now. that is why there are so many "broad natures" among us who never lose their ideal even in the depths of degradation; and though they never stir a finger for their ideal, though they are arrant thieves and knaves, yet they tearfully cherish their first ideal and are extraordinarily honest at heart. yes, it is only among us that the most incorrigible rogue can be absolutely and loftily honest at heart without in the least ceasing to be a rogue. i repeat, our romantics, frequently, become such accomplished rascals (i use the term "rascals" affectionately), suddenly display such a sense of reality and practical knowledge that their bewildered superiors and the public generally can only ejaculate in amazement.

their many-sidedness is really amazing, and goodness knows what it may develop into later on, and what the future has in store for us. it is not a poor material! i do not say this from any foolish or boastful patriotism. but i feel sure that you are again imagining that i am joking. or perhaps it's just the contrary, and you are convinced that i really think so. anyway, gentlemen, i shall welcome both views as an honour and a special favour. and do forgive my digression.

i did not, of course, maintain friendly relations with my comrades and soon was at loggerheads with them, and in my youth and inexperience i even gave up bowing to them, as though i had cut off all relations. that, however, only happened to me once. as a rule, i was always alone.

in the first place i spent most of my time at home, reading. i tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. and the only external means i had was reading. reading, of course, was a great help—exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. but at times it bored me fearfully. one longed for movement in spite of everything, and i plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. my wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability. i had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. i had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which i could respect and which attracted me. i was overwhelmed with depression, too; i had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so i took to vice. i have not said all this to justify myself.... but, no! i am lying. i did want to justify myself. i make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. i don't want to lie. i vowed to myself i would not.

and so, furtively, timidly, in solitude, at night, i indulged in filthy vice, with a feeling of shame which never deserted me, even at the most loathsome moments, and which at such moments nearly made me curse. already even then i had my underground world in my soul. i was fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognized. i visited various obscure haunts.

one night as i was passing a tavern i saw through a lighted window some gentlemen fighting with billiard cues, and saw one of them thrown out of window. at other times i should have felt very much disgusted, but i was in such a mood at the time, that i actually envied the gentleman thrown out of window—and i envied him so much that i even went into the tavern and into the billiard-room. "perhaps," i thought, "i'll have a fight, too, and they'll throw me out of window."

i was not drunk—but what is one to do—depression will drive a man to such a pitch of hysteria? but nothing happened. it seemed that i was not even equal to being thrown out of window and i went away without having my fight.

an officer put me in my place from the first moment.

i was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up the way, and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without a word—without a warning or explanation—moved me from where i was standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me. i could have forgiven blows, but i could not forgive his having moved me without noticing me.

devil knows what i would have given for a real regular quarrel—a more decent, a more literary one, so to speak. i had been treated like a fly. this officer was over six foot, while i was a spindly little fellow. but the quarrel was in my hands. i had only to protest and i certainly would have been thrown out of the window. but i changed my mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat.

i went out of the tavern straight home, confused and troubled, and the next night i went out again with the same lewd intentions, still more furtively, abjectly and miserably than before, as it were, with tears in my eyes—but still i did go out again. don't imagine, though, it was cowardice made me slink away from the officer: i never have been a coward at heart, though i have always been a coward in action. don't be in a hurry to laugh—i assure you i can explain it all.

oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to fight a duel! but no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long extinct!) who preferred fighting with cues or, like gogol's lieutenant pirogov, appealing to the police. they did not fight duels and would have thought a duel with a civilian like me an utterly unseemly procedure in any case—and they looked upon the duel altogether as something impossible, something free-thinking and french. but they were quite ready to bully, especially when they were over six foot.

i did not slink away through cowardice, but through an unbounded vanity. i was afraid not of his six foot, not of getting a sound thrashing and being thrown out of the window; i should have had physical courage enough, i assure you; but i had not the moral courage. what i was afraid of was that every one present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when i began to protest and to address them in literary language. for of the point of honour—not of honour, but of the point of honour (point d'honneur)—one cannot speak among us except in literary language. you can't allude to the "point of honour" in ordinary language. i was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism!) that they would all simply split their sides with laughter, and that the officer would not simply beat me, that is, without insulting me, but would certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the billiard table, and only then perhaps have pity and drop me out of the window.

of course, this trivial incident could not with me end in that. i often met that officer afterwards in the street and noticed him very carefully. i am not quite sure whether he recognized me, i imagine not; i judge from certain signs. but i—i stared at him with spite and hatred and so it went on ... for several years! my resentment grew even deeper with years. at first i began making stealthy inquiries about this officer. it was difficult for me to do so, for i knew no one. but one day i heard some one shout his surname in the street as i was following him at a distance, as though i were tied to him—and so i learnt his surname. another time i followed him to his flat, and for ten kopecks learned from the porter where he lived, on which storey, whether he lived alone or with others, and so on—in fact, everything one could learn from a porter. one morning, though i had never tried my hand with the pen, it suddenly occurred to me to write a satire on this officer in the form of a novel which would unmask his villainy. i wrote the novel with relish. i did unmask his villainy, i even exaggerated it; at first i so altered his surname that it could easily be recognized, but on second thoughts i changed it, and sent the story to the otetchestvenniya zapiski. but at that time such attacks were not the fashion and my story was not printed. that was a great vexation to me.

sometimes i was positively choked with resentment. at last i determined to challenge my enemy to a duel. i composed a splendid, charming letter to him, imploring him to apologize to me, and hinting rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal. the letter was so composed that if the officer had had the least understanding of the good and the beautiful he would certainly have flung himself on my neck and have offered me his friendship. and how fine that would have been! how we should have got on together! "he could have shielded me with his higher rank, while i could have improved his mind with my culture, and, well ... my ideas, and all sorts of things might have happened." only fancy, this was two years after his insult to me, and my challenge would have been a ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all the ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the anachronism. but, thank god (to this day i thank the almighty with tears in my eyes) i did not send the letter to him. cold shivers run down my back when i think of what might have happened if i had sent it.

and all at once i revenged myself in the simplest way, by a stroke of genius! a brilliant thought suddenly dawned upon me. sometimes on holidays i used to stroll along the sunny side of the nevsky about four o'clock in the afternoon. though it was hardly a stroll so much as a series of innumerable miseries, humiliations and resentments; but no doubt that was just what i wanted. i used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. at such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and i used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. this was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant and direct sensation, that i was a mere fly in the eyes of all this world, a nasty, disgusting fly—more intelligent, more highly developed, more refined in feeling than any of them, of course—but a fly that was continually making way for every one, insulted and injured by every one. why i inflicted this torture upon myself, why i went to the nevsky, i don't know. i felt simply drawn there at every possible opportunity.

already then i began to experience a rush of the enjoyment of which i spoke in the first chapter. after my affair with the officer i felt even more drawn there than before: it was on the nevsky that i met him most frequently, there i could admire him. he, too, went there chiefly on holidays. he, too, turned out of his path for generals and persons of high rank, and he, too, wriggled between them like an eel; but people, like me, or even better dressed like me, he simply walked over; he made straight for them as though there was nothing but empty space before him, and never, under any circumstances, turned aside. i gloated over my resentment watching him and ... always resentfully made way for him. it exasperated me that even in the street i could not be on an even footing with him.

"why must you invariably be the first to move aside?" i kept asking myself in hysterical rage, waking up sometimes at three o'clock in the morning. "why is it you and not he? there's no regulation about it; there's no written law. let the making way be equal as it usually is when refined people meet: he moves half-way and you move half-way; you pass with mutual respect."

but that never happened, and i always moved aside, while he did not even notice my making way for him. and lo and behold a bright idea dawned upon me! "what," i thought, "if i meet him and don't move on one side? what if i don't move aside on purpose, even if i knock up against him? how would that be?" this audacious idea took such a hold on me that it gave me no peace. i was dreaming of it continually, horribly, and i purposely went more frequently to the nevsky in order to picture more vividly how i should do it when i did do it. i was delighted. this intention seemed to me more and more practical and possible.

"of course i shall not really push him," i thought, already more good-natured in my joy. "i will simply not turn aside, will run up against him, not very violently, but just shouldering each other—just as much as decency permits. i will push against him just as much as he pushes against me." at last i made up my mind completely. but my preparations took a great deal of time. to begin with, when i carried out my plan i should need to be looking rather more decent, and so i had to think of my get-up. "in case of emergency, if, for instance, there were any sort of public scandal (and the public there is of the most recherché: the countess walks there; prince d. walks there; all the literary world is there), i must be well dressed; that inspires respect and of itself puts us on an equal footing in the eyes of society."

with this object i asked for some of my salary in advance, and bought at tchurkin's a pair of black gloves and a decent hat. black gloves seemed to me both more dignified and bon ton than the lemon-coloured ones which i had contemplated at first. "the colour is too gaudy, it looks as though one were trying to be conspicuous," and i did not take the lemon-coloured ones. i had got ready long beforehand a good shirt, with white bone studs; my overcoat was the only thing that held me back. the coat in itself was a very good one, it kept me warm; but it was wadded and it had a raccoon collar which was the height of vulgarity. i had to change the collar at any sacrifice, and to have a beaver one like an officer's. for this purpose i began visiting the gostiny dvor and after several attempts i pitched upon a piece of cheap german beaver. though these german beavers soon grow shabby and look wretched, yet at first they look exceedingly well, and i only needed it for one occasion. i asked the price; even so, it was too expensive. after thinking it over thoroughly i decided to sell my raccoon collar. the rest of the money—a considerable sum for me, i decided to borrow from anton antonitch syetotchkin, my immediate superior, an unassuming person, though grave and judicious. he never lent money to any one, but i had, on entering the service, been specially recommended to him by an important personage who had got me my berth. i was horribly worried. to borrow from anton antonitch seemed to me monstrous and shameful. i did not sleep for two or three nights. indeed, i did not sleep well at that time, i was in a fever; i had a vague sinking at my heart or else a sudden throbbing, throbbing, throbbing! anton antonitch was surprised at first, then he frowned, then he reflected, and did after all lend me the money, receiving from me a written authorization to take from my salary a fortnight later the sum that he had lent me.

in this way everything was at last ready. the handsome beaver replaced the mean-looking raccoon, and i began by degrees to get to work. it would never have done to act off-hand, at random; the plan had to be carried out skilfully, by degrees. but i must confess that after many efforts i began to despair: we simply could not run into each other. i made every preparation, i was quite determined—it seemed as though we should run into one another directly—and before i knew what i was doing i had stepped aside for him again and he had passed without noticing me. i even prayed as i approached him that god would grant me determination. one time i had made up my mind thoroughly, but it ended in my stumbling and falling at his feet because at the very last instant when i was six inches from him my courage failed me. he very calmly stepped over me, while i flew on one side like a ball. that night i was ill again, feverish and delirious.

and suddenly it ended most happily. the night before i had made up my mind not to carry out my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with that object i went to the nevsky for the last time, just to see how i would abandon it all. suddenly, three paces from my enemy, i unexpectedly made up my mind—i closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to shoulder, against one another! i did not budge an inch and passed him on a perfectly equal footing! he did not even look round and pretended not to notice it; but he was only pretending, i am convinced of that. i am convinced of that to this day! of course, i got the worst of it—he was stronger, but that was not the point. the point was that i had attained my object, i had kept up my dignity, i had not yielded a step, and had put myself publicly on an equal social footing with him. i returned home feeling that i was fully avenged for everything. i was delighted. i was triumphant and sang italian arias. of course, i will not describe to you what happened to me three days later; if you have read my first chapter you can guess that for yourself. the officer was afterwards transferred; i have not seen him now for fourteen years. what is the dear fellow doing now? whom is he walking over?

ii

but the period of my dissipation would end and i always felt very sick afterwards. it was followed by remorse—i tried to drive it away: i felt too sick. by degrees, however, i grew used to that too. i grew used to everything, or rather i voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. but i had a means of escape that reconciled everything—that was to find refuge in "the good and the beautiful," in dreams, of course. i was a terrible dreamer, i would dream for three months on end, tucked away in my corner, and you may believe me that at those moments i had no resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation of his chicken heart, put a collar of german beaver on his great coat. i suddenly became a hero. i would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenant even if he had called on me. i could not even picture him before me then. what were my dreams and how i could satisfy myself with them—it is hard to say now, but at the time i was satisfied with them. though, indeed, even now, i am to some extent satisfied with them. dreams were particularly sweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation; they came with remorse and with tears, with curses and transports. there were moments of such positive intoxication, of such happiness, that there was not the faintest trace of irony within me, on my honour. i had faith, hope, love. i believed blindly at such times that by some miracle, by some external circumstance, all this would suddenly open out, expand; that suddenly a vista of suitable activity—beneficent, good, and, above all, ready made (what sort of activity i had no idea, but the great thing was that it should be all ready for me)—would rise up before me—and i should come out into the light of day, almost riding a white horse and crowned with laurel. anything but the foremost place i could not conceive for myself, and for that very reason i quite contentedly occupied the lowest in reality. either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud—there was nothing between. that was my ruin, for when i was in the mud i comforted myself with the thought that at other times i was a hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. it is worth noting that these attacks of the "good and the beautiful" visited me even during the period of dissipation and just at the times when i was touching the bottom. they came in separate spurts, as though reminding me of themselves, but did not banish the dissipation by their appearance. on the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only sufficiently present to serve as an appetizing sauce. that sauce was made up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonizing inward analysis and all these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a significance to my dissipation—in fact, completely answered the purpose of an appetizing sauce. there was a certain depth of meaning in it. and i could hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct debauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it. what could have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into the street? no, i had a lofty way of getting out of it all.

and what loving-kindness, oh lord, what loving-kindness i felt at times in those dreams of mine! in those "flights into the good and the beautiful;" though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied to anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that one did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality; that would have been superfluous. everything, however, passed satisfactorily by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere of art, that is, into the beautiful forms of life, lying ready, largely stolen from the poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needs and uses. i, for instance, was triumphant over every one; every one, of course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to recognize my superiority, and i forgave them all. i was a poet and a grand gentleman, i fell in love; i came in for countless millions and immediately devoted them to humanity, and at the same time i confessed before all the people my shameful deeds, which, of course, were not merely shameful, but had in them much that was "good and beautiful," something in the manfred style. every one would kiss me and weep (what idiots they would be if they did not), while i should go barefoot and hungry preaching new ideas and fighting a victorious austerlitz against the obscurantists. then the band would play a march, an amnesty would be declared, the pope would agree to retire from rome to brazil; then there would be a ball for the whole of italy at the villa borghese on the shores of the lake of como, the lake of como being for that purpose transferred to the neighbourhood of rome; then would come a scene in the bushes, and so on, and so on—as though you did not know all about it? you will say that it is vulgar and contemptible to drag all this into public after all the tears and transports which i have myself confessed. but why is it contemptible? can you imagine that i am ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your life, gentlemen? and i can assure you that some of these fancies were by no means badly composed.... it did not all happen on the shores of lake como. and yet you are right—it really is vulgar and contemptible. and most contemptible of all it is that now i am attempting to justify myself to you. and even more contemptible than that is my making this remark now. but that's enough, or there will be no end to it: each step will be more contemptible than the last....

i could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. to plunge into society meant to visit my superior at the office, anton antonitch syetotchkin. he was the only permanent acquaintance i have had in my life, and wonder at the fact myself now. but i only went to see him when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of bliss that it became essential at once to embrace my fellows and all mankind; and for that purpose i needed, at least, one human being, actually existing. i had to call on anton antonitch, however, on tuesday—his at-home day; so i had always to time my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a tuesday.

this anton antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in five corners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of a particularly frugal and sallow appearance. he had two daughters and their aunt, who used to pour out the tea. of the daughters one was thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and i was awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling together. the master of the house usually sat in his study on a leather couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman, usually a colleague from our office or some other department. i never saw more than two or three visitors there, always the same. they talked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about promotions, about his excellency, and the best means of pleasing him, and so on. i had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for four hours at a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say to them or venturing to say a word. i became stupified, several times i felt myself perspiring, i was overcome by a sort of paralysis; but this was pleasant and good for me. on returning home i deferred for a time my desire to embrace all mankind.

i had however one other acquaintance of a sort, simonov, who was an old schoolfellow. i had a number of schoolfellows indeed in petersburg, but i did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to them in the street. i believe i had transferred into the department i was in simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with my hateful childhood. curses on that school and all those terrible years of penal servitude! in short, i parted from my schoolfellows as soon as i got out into the world. there were two or three left to whom i nodded in the street. one of them was simonov, who had been in no way distinguished at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but i discovered in him a certain independence of character and even honesty. i don't even suppose that he was particularly stupid. i had at one time spent some rather soulful moments with him, but these had not lasted long and had somehow been suddenly clouded over. he was evidently uncomfortable at these reminiscences, and was, i fancy, always afraid that i might take up the same tone again. i suspected that he had an aversion for me, but still i went on going to see him, not being quite certain of it.

and so on one occasion, unable to endure my solitude and knowing that as it was thursday anton antonitch's door would be closed, i thought of simonov. climbing up to his fourth storey i was thinking that the man disliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him. but as it always happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely, to put myself into a false position, i went in. it was almost a year since i had last seen simonov.

iii

i found two of my old schoolfellows with him. they seemed to be discussing an important matter. all of them took scarcely any notice of my entrance, which was strange, for i had not met them for years. evidently they looked upon me as something on the level of a common fly. i had not been treated like that even at school, though they all hated me. i knew, of course, that they must despise me now for my lack of success in the service, and for my having let myself sink so low, going about badly dressed and so on—which seemed to them a sign of my incapacity and insignificance. but i had not expected such contempt. simonov was positively surprised at my turning up. even in old days he had always seemed surprised at my coming. all this disconcerted me: i sat down, feeling rather miserable, and began listening to what they were saying.

they were engaged in warm and earnest conversation about a farewell dinner which they wanted to arrange for the next day to a comrade of theirs called zverkov, an officer in the army, who was going away to a distant province. this zverkov had been all the time at school with me too. i had begun to hate him particularly in the upper forms. in the lower forms he had simply been a pretty, playful boy whom everybody liked. i had hated him, however, even in the lower forms, just because he was a pretty and playful boy. he was always bad at his lessons and got worse and worse as he went on; however, he left with a good certificate, as he had powerful interest. during his last year at school he came in for an estate of two hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he took up a swaggering tone among us. he was vulgar in the extreme, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even in his swaggering. in spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled before zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. and it was not from any interested motive that they grovelled, but simply because he had been favoured by the gifts of nature. moreover, it was, as it were, an accepted idea among us that zverkov was a specialist in regard to tact and the social graces. this last fact particularly infuriated me. i hated the abrupt self-confident tone of his voice, his admiration of his own witticisms, which were often frightfully stupid, though he was bold in his language; i hated his handsome, but stupid face (for which i would, however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent one), and the free-and-easy military manners in fashion in the "'forties." i hated the way in which he used to talk of his future conquests of women (he did not venture to begin his attack upon women until he had the epaulettes of an officer, and was looking forward to them with impatience), and boasted of the duels he would constantly be fighting. i remember how i, invariably so taciturn, suddenly fastened upon zverkov, when one day talking at a leisure moment with his schoolfellows of his future relations with the fair sex, and growing as sportive as a puppy in the sun, he all at once declared that he would not leave a single village girl on his estate unnoticed, that that was his droit de seigneur, and that if the peasants dared to protest he would have them all flogged and double the tax on them, the bearded rascals. our servile rabble applauded, but i attacked him, not from compassion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they were applauding such an insect. i got the better of him on that occasion, but though zverkov was stupid he was lively and impudent, and so laughed it off, and in such a way that my victory was not really complete: the laugh was on his side. he got the better of me on several occasions afterwards, but without malice, jestingly, casually. i remained angrily and contemptuously silent and would not answer him. when we left school he made advances to me; i did not rebuff them, for i was flattered, but we soon parted and quite naturally. afterwards i heard of his barrack-room success as a lieutenant, and of the fast life he was leading. then there came other rumours—of his successes in the service. by then he had taken to cutting me in the street, and i suspected that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a personage as insignificant as me. i saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of boxes. by then he was wearing shoulder-straps. he was twisting and twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient general. in three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still rather handsome and adroit. one could see that by the time he was thirty he would be corpulent. so it was to this zverkov that my schoolfellows were going to give a dinner on his departure. they had kept up with him for those three years, though privately they did not consider themselves on an equal footing with him, i am convinced of that.

of simonov's two visitors, one was ferfitchkin, a russianized german—a little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always deriding every one, a very bitter enemy of mine from our days in the lower forms—a vulgar, impudent, swaggering fellow, who affected a most sensitive feeling of personal honour, though, of course, he was a wretched little coward at heart. he was one of those worshippers of zverkov who made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money from him. simonov's other visitor, trudolyubov, was a person in no way remarkable—a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable of thinking of promotion. he was some sort of distant relation of zverkov's, and this, foolish as it seems, gave him a certain importance among us. he always thought me of no consequence whatever; his behaviour to me, though not quite courteous, was tolerable.

"well, with seven roubles each," said trudolyubov, "twenty-one roubles between the three of us, we ought to be able to get a good dinner. zverkov, of course, won't pay."

"of course not, since we are inviting him," simonov decided.

"can you imagine," ferfitchkin interrupted hotly and conceitedly, like some insolent flunkey boasting of his master the general's decorations, "can you imagine that zverkov will let us pay alone? he will accept from delicacy, but he will order half a dozen bottles of champagne."

"do we want half a dozen for the four of us?" observed trudolyubov, taking notice only of the half dozen.

"so the three of us, with zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles, at the h?tel de paris at five o'clock to-morrow," simonov, who had been asked to make the arrangements, concluded finally.

"how twenty-one roubles?" i asked in some agitation, with a show of being offended; "if you count me it will not be twenty-one, but twenty-eight roubles."

it seemed to me that to invite myself so suddenly and unexpectedly would be positively graceful, and that they would all be conquered at once and would look at me with respect.

"do you want to join, too?" simonov observed, with no appearance of pleasure, seeming to avoid looking at me. he knew me through and through.

it infuriated me that he knew me so thoroughly.

"why not? i am an old schoolfellow of his, too, i believe, and i must own i feel hurt that you have left me out," i said, boiling over again.

"and where were we to find you?" ferfitchkin put in roughly.

"you never were on good terms with zverkov," trudolyubov added, frowning.

but i had already clutched at the idea and would not give it up.

"it seems to me that no one has a right to form an opinion upon that," i retorted in a shaking voice, as though something tremendous had happened. "perhaps that is just my reason for wishing it now, that i have not always been on good terms with him."

"oh, there's no making you out ... with these refinements," trudolyubov jeered.

"we'll put your name down," simonov decided, addressing me. "to-morrow at five o'clock at the h?tel de paris."

"what about the money?" ferfitchkin began in an undertone, indicating me to simonov, but he broke off, for even simonov was embarrassed.

"that will do," said trudolyubov, getting up. "if he wants to come so much, let him."

"but it's a private thing, between us friends," ferfitchkin said crossly, as he, too, picked up his hat. "it's not an official gathering."

"we do not want at all, perhaps...."

they went away. ferfitchkin did not greet me in any way as he went out, trudolyubov barely nodded. simonov, with whom i was left tête-à-tête, was in a state of vexation and perplexity, and looked at me queerly. he did not sit down and did not ask me to.

"h'm ... yes ... to-morrow, then. will you pay your subscription now? i just ask so as to know," he muttered in embarrassment.

i flushed crimson, and as i did so i remembered that i had owed simonov fifteen roubles for ages—which i had, indeed, never forgotten, though i had not paid it.

"you will understand, simonov, that i could have no idea when i came here.... i am very much vexed that i have forgotten...."

"all right, all right, that doesn't matter. you can pay to-morrow after the dinner. i simply wanted to know.... please don't...."

he broke off and began pacing the room still more vexed. as he walked he began to stamp with his heels.

"am i keeping you?" i asked, after two minutes of silence.

"oh!" he said, starting, "that is—to be truthful—yes. i have to go and see some one ... not far from here," he added in an apologetic voice, somewhat abashed.

"my goodness, why didn't you say so?" i cried, seizing my cap, with an astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing i should have expected of myself.

"it's close by ... not two paces away," simonov repeated, accompanying me to the front door with a fussy air which did not suit him at all. "so five o'clock, punctually, to-morrow," he called down the stairs after me. he was very glad to get rid of me. i was in a fury.

"what possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?" i wondered, grinding my teeth as i strode along the street, "for a scoundrel, a pig like that zverkov! of course, i had better not go; of course, i must just snap my fingers at them. i am not bound in any way. i'll send simonov a note by to-morrow's post...."

but what made me furious was that i knew for certain that i should go, that i should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly i would go.

and there was a positive obstacle to my going: i had no money. all i had was nine roubles, i had to give seven of that to my servant, apollon, for his monthly wages. that was all i paid him—he had to keep himself.

not to pay him was impossible, considering his character. but i will talk about that fellow, about that plague of mine, another time.

however, i knew i should go and should not pay him his wages.

that night i had the most hideous dreams. no wonder; all the evening i had been oppressed by memories of my miserable days at school, and i could not shake them off. i was sent to the school by distant relations, upon whom i was dependent and of whom i have heard nothing since—they sent me there a forlorn, silent boy, already crushed by their reproaches, already troubled by doubt, and looking with savage distrust at every one. my schoolfellows met me with spiteful and merciless jibes because i was not like any of them. but i could not endure their taunts; i could not give in to them with the ignoble readiness with which they gave in to one another. i hated them from the first, and shut myself away from every one in timid, wounded and disproportionate pride. their coarseness revolted me. they laughed cynically at my face, at my clumsy figure; and yet what stupid faces they had themselves. in our school the boys' faces seemed in a special way to degenerate and grow stupider. how many fine-looking boys came to us! in a few years they became repulsive. even at sixteen i wondered at them morosely; even then i was struck by the pettiness of their thoughts, the stupidity of their pursuits, their games, their conversations. they had no understanding of such essential things, they took no interest in such striking, impressive subjects, that i could not help considering them inferior to myself. it was not wounded vanity that drove me to it, and for god's sake do not thrust upon me your hackneyed remarks, repeated to nausea, that "i was only a dreamer," while they even then had an understanding of life. they understood nothing, they had no idea of real life, and i swear that that was what made me most indignant with them. on the contrary, the most obvious, striking reality they accepted with fantastic stupidity and even at that time were accustomed to respect success. everything that was just, but oppressed and looked down upon, they laughed at heartlessly and shamefully. they took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about a snug berth. of course, a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the bad examples with which they had always been surrounded in their childhood and boyhood. they were monstrously depraved. of course a great deal of that, too, was superficial and an assumption of cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth and freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive, and showed itself in a certain rakishness. i hated them horribly, though perhaps i was worse than any of them. they repaid me in the same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. but by then i did not desire their affection: on the contrary i continually longed for their humiliation. to escape from their derision i purposely began to make all the progress i could with my studies and forced my way to the very top. this impressed them. moreover, they all began by degrees to grasp that i had already read books none of them could read, and understood things (not forming part of our school curriculum) of which they had not even heard. they took a savage and sarcastic view of it, but were morally impressed, especially as the teachers began to notice me on those grounds. the mockery ceased, but the hostility remained, and cold and strained relations became permanent between us. in the end i could not put up with it: with years a craving for society, for friends, developed in me. i attempted to get on friendly terms with some of my schoolfellows; but somehow or other my intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended of itself. once, indeed, i did have a friend. but i was already a tyrant at heart; i wanted to exercise unbounded sway over him; i tried to instil into him a contempt for his surroundings; i required of him a disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. i frightened him with my passionate affection; i reduced him to tears, to hysterics. he was a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely i began to hate him immediately and repulsed him—as though all i needed him for was to win a victory over him, to subjugate him and nothing else. but i could not subjugate all of them; my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception. the first thing i did on leaving school was to give up the special job for which i had been destined so as to break all ties, to curse my past and shake the dust from off my feet.... and goodness knows why, after all that, i should go trudging off to simonov's!

early next morning i roused myself and jumped out of bed with excitement, as though it were all about to happen at once. but i believed that some radical change in my life was coming, and would inevitably come that day. owing to its rarity, perhaps, any external event, however trivial, always made me feel as though some radical change in my life were at hand. i went to the office, however, as usual, but sneaked away home two hours earlier to get ready. the great thing, i thought, is not to be the first to arrive, or they will think i am overjoyed at coming. but there were thousands of such great points to consider, and they all agitated and overwhelmed me. i polished my boots a second time with my own hands; nothing in the world would have induced apollon to clean them twice a day, as he considered that it was more than his duties required of him. i stole the brushes to clean them from the passage, being careful he should not detect it, for fear of his contempt. then i minutely examined my clothes and thought that everything looked old, worn and threadbare. i had let myself get too slovenly. my uniform, perhaps, was tidy, but i could not go out to dinner in my uniform. the worst of it was that on the knee of my trousers was a big yellow stain. i had a foreboding that that stain would deprive me of nine-tenths of my personal dignity. i knew, too, that it was very poor to think so. "but this is no time for thinking: now i am in for the real thing," i thought, and my heart sank. i knew, too, perfectly well even then, that i was monstrously exaggerating the facts. but how could i help it? i could not control myself and was already shaking with fever. with despair i pictured to myself how coldly and disdainfully that "scoundrel" zverkov would meet me; with what dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead trudolyubov would look at me; with what impudent rudeness the insect ferfitchkin would snigger at me in order to curry favour with zverkov; how completely simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of my vanity and lack of spirit—and, worst of all, how paltry, unliterary, commonplace it would all be. of course, the best thing would be not to go at all. but that was most impossible of all: if i feel impelled to do anything, i seem to be pitchforked into it. i should have jeered at myself ever afterwards: "so you funked it, you funked it, you funked the real thing!" on the contrary, i passionately longed to show all that "rabble" that i was by no means such a spiritless creature as i seemed to myself. what is more, even in the acutest paroxysm of this cowardly fever, i dreamed of getting the upper hand, of dominating them, carrying them away, making them like me—if only for my "elevation of thought and unmistakable wit." they would abandon zverkov, he would sit on one side, silent and ashamed, while i should crush him. then, perhaps, we would be reconciled and drink to our everlasting friendship; but what was most bitter and most humiliating for me was that i knew even then, knew fully and for certain, that i needed nothing of all this really, that i did not really want to crush, to subdue, to attract them, and that i did not care a straw really for the result, even if i did achieve it. oh, how i prayed for the day to pass quickly! in unutterable anguish i went to the window, opened the movable pane and looked out into the troubled darkness of the thickly falling wet snow. at last my wretched little clock hissed out five. i seized my hat and trying not to look at apollon, who had been all day expecting his month's wages, but in his foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, i slipt between him and the door and jumping into a high-class sledge, on which i spent my last half rouble, i drove up in grand style to the h?tel de paris.

iv

i had been certain the day before that i should be the first to arrive. but it was not a question of being the first to arrive. not only were they not there, but i had difficulty in finding our room. the table was not laid even. what did it mean? after a good many questions i elicited from the waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for five, but for six o'clock. this was confirmed at the buffet too. i felt really ashamed to go on questioning them. it was only twenty-five minutes past five. if they changed the dinner hour they ought at least to have let me know—that is what the post is for, and not to have put me in an absurd position in my own eyes and ... and even before the waiters. i sat down; the servant began laying the table; i felt even more humiliated when he was present. towards six o'clock they brought in candles, though there were lamps burning in the room. it had not occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them in at once when i arrived. in the next room two gloomy, angry-looking persons were eating their dinners in silence at two different tables. there was a great deal of noise, even shouting, in a room further away; one could hear the laughter of a crowd of people, and nasty little shrieks in french: there were ladies at the dinner. it was sickening, in fact. i rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did arrive all together punctually at six i was overjoyed to see them, as though they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent upon me to show resentment.

zverkov walked in at the head of them; evidently he was the leading spirit. he and all of them were laughing; but, seeing me, zverkov drew himself up a little, walked up to me deliberately with a slight, rather jaunty bend from the waist. he shook hands with me in a friendly, but not over-friendly, fashion, with a sort of circumspect courtesy like that of a general, as though in giving me his hand he were warding off something. i had imagined, on the contrary, that on coming in he would at once break into his habitual thin, shrill laugh and fall to making his insipid jokes and witticisms. i had been preparing for them ever since the previous day, but i had not expected such condescension, such high-official courtesy. so, then, he felt himself ineffably superior to me in every respect! if he only meant to insult me by that high-official tone, it would not matter, i thought—i could pay him back for it one way or another. but what if, in reality, without the least desire to be offensive, that sheepshead had a notion in earnest that he was superior to me and could only look at me in a patronizing way? the very supposition made me gasp.

"i was surprised to hear of your desire to join us," he began, lisping and drawling, which was something new. "you and i seem to have seen nothing of one another. you fight shy of us. you shouldn't. we are not such terrible people as you think. well, anyway, i am glad to renew our acquaintance."

and he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window.

"have you been waiting long?" trudolyubov inquired.

"i arrived at five o'clock as you told me yesterday," i answered aloud, with an irritability that threatened an explosion.

"didn't you let him know that we had changed the hour?" said trudolyubov to simonov.

"no, i didn't. i forgot," the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and without even apologizing to me he went off to order the hors d'?uvres.

"so you've been here a whole hour? oh, poor fellow!" zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. that rascal ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. my position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing.

"it isn't funny at all!" i cried to ferfitchkin, more and more irritated. "it wasn't my fault, but other people's. they neglected to let me know. it was ... it was ... it was simply absurd."

"it's not only absurd, but something else as well," muttered trudolyubov, na?vely taking my part. "you are not hard enough upon it. it was simply rudeness—unintentional, of course. and how could simonov ... h'm!"

"if a trick like that had been played on me," observed ferfitchkin, "i should...."

"but you should have ordered something for yourself," zverkov interrupted, "or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us."

"you will allow that i might have done that without your permission," i rapped out. "if i waited, it was...."

"let us sit down, gentlemen," cried simonov, coming in. "everything is ready; i can answer for the champagne; it is capitally frozen.... you see, i did not know your address, where was i to look for you?" he suddenly turned to me, but again he seemed to avoid looking at me. evidently he had something against me. it must have been what happened yesterday.

all sat down; i did the same. it was a round table. trudolyubov was on my left, simonov on my right. zverkov was sitting opposite, ferfitchkin next to him, between him and trudolyubov.

"tell me, are you ... in a government office?" zverkov went on attending to me. seeing that i was embarrassed he seriously thought that he ought to be friendly to me, and, so to speak, cheer me up.

"does he want me to throw a bottle at his head?" i thought, in a fury. in my novel surroundings i was unnaturally ready to be irritated.

"in the n—— office," i answered jerkily, with my eyes on my plate.

"and ha-ave you a go-od berth? i say, what ma-a-de you leave your original job?"

"what ma-a-de me was that i wanted to leave my original job," i drawled more than he, hardly able to control myself. ferfitchkin went off into a guffaw. simonov looked at me ironically. trudolyubov left off eating and began looking at me with curiosity.

zverkov winced, but he tried not to notice it.

"and the remuneration?"

"what remuneration?"

"i mean, your sa-a-lary?"

"why are you cross-examining me?" however, i told him at once what my salary was. i turned horribly red.

"it is not very handsome," zverkov observed majestically.

"yes, you can't afford to dine at cafés on that," ferfitchkin added insolently.

"to my thinking it's very poor," trudolyubov observed gravely.

"and how thin you have grown! how you have changed!" added zverkov, with a shade of venom in his voice, scanning me and my attire with a sort of insolent compassion.

"oh, spare his blushes," cried ferfitchkin, sniggering.

"my dear sir, allow me to tell you i am not blushing," i broke out at last; "do you hear? i am dining here, at this café, at my own expense, not at other people's—note that, mr. ferfitchkin."

"wha-at? isn't every one here dining at his own expense? you would seem to be...." ferfitchkin flew out at me, turning as red as a lobster, and looking me in the face with fury.

"tha-at," i answered, feeling i had gone too far, "and i imagine it would be better to talk of something more intelligent."

"you intend to show off your intelligence, i suppose?"

"don't disturb yourself, that would be quite out of place here."

"why are you clacking away like that, my good sir, eh? have you gone out of your wits in your office?"

"enough, gentlemen, enough!" zverkov cried, authoritatively.

"how stupid it is!" muttered simonov.

"it really is stupid. we have met here, a company of friends, for a farewell dinner to a comrade and you carry on an altercation," said trudolyubov, rudely addressing himself to me alone. "you invited yourself to join us, so don't disturb the general harmony."

"enough, enough!" cried zverkov. "give over, gentlemen, it's out of place. better let me tell you how i nearly got married the day before yesterday...."

and then followed a burlesque narrative of how this gentleman had almost been married two days before. there was not a word about the marriage, however, but the story was adorned with generals, colonels and kammer-junkers, while zverkov almost took the lead among them. it was greeted with approving laughter; ferfitchkin positively squealed.

no one paid any attention to me, and i sat crushed and humiliated.

"good heavens, these are not the people for me!" i thought. "and what a fool i have made of myself before them! i let ferfitchkin go too far, though. the brutes imagine they are doing me an honour in letting me sit down with them. they don't understand that it's an honour to them and not to me! i've grown thinner! my clothes! oh, damn my trousers! zverkov noticed the yellow stain on the knee as soon as he came in.... but what's the use! i must get up at once, this very minute, take my hat and simply go without a word ... with contempt! and to-morrow i can send a challenge. the scoundrels! as though i cared about the seven roubles. they may think.... damn it! i don't care about the seven roubles. i'll go this minute!"

of course i remained. i drank sherry and lafitte by the glassful in my discomfiture. being unaccustomed to it, i was quickly affected. my annoyance increased as the wine went to my head. i longed all at once to insult them all in a most flagrant manner and then go away. to seize the moment and show what i could do, so that they would say, "he's clever, though he is absurd," and ... and ... in fact, damn them all!

i scanned them all insolently with my drowsy eyes. but they seemed to have forgotten me altogether. they were noisy, vociferous, cheerful. zverkov was talking all the time. i began listening. zverkov was talking of some exuberant lady whom he had at last led on to declaring her love (of course, he was lying like a horse), and how he had been helped in this affair by an intimate friend of his, a prince kolya, an officer in the hussars, who had three thousand serfs.

"and yet this kolya, who has three thousand serfs, has not put in an appearance here to-night to see you off," i cut in suddenly.

for a minute every one was silent. "you are drunk already." trudolyubov deigned to notice me at last, glancing contemptuously in my direction. zverkov, without a word, examined me as though i were an insect. i dropped my eyes. simonov made haste to fill up the glasses with champagne.

trudolyubov raised his glass, as did every one else but me.

"your health and good luck on the journey!" he cried to zverkov. "to old times, to our future, hurrah!"

they all tossed off their glasses, and crowded round zverkov to kiss him. i did not move; my full glass stood untouched before me.

"why, aren't you going to drink it?" roared trudolyubov, losing patience and turning menacingly to me.

"i want to make a speech separately, on my own account ... and then i'll drink it, mr. trudolyubov."

"spiteful brute!" muttered simonov. i drew myself up in my chair and feverishly seized my glass, prepared for something extraordinary, though i did not know myself precisely what i was going to say.

"silence!" cried ferfitchkin. "now for a display of wit!"

zverkov waited very gravely, knowing what was coming.

"mr. lieutenant zverkov," i began, "let me tell you that i hate phrases, phrasemongers and men in corsets ... that's the first point, and there is a second one to follow it."

there was a general stir.

"the second point is: i hate ribaldry and ribald talkers. especially ribald talkers! the third point: i love justice, truth and honesty." i went on almost mechanically, for i was beginning to shiver with horror myself and had no idea how i came to be talking like this. "i love thought, monsieur zverkov; i love true comradeship, on an equal footing and not.... h'm ... i love.... but, however, why not? i will drink your health, too, mr. zverkov. seduce the circassian girls, shoot the enemies of the fatherland and ... and ... to your health, monsieur zverkov!"

zverkov got up from his seat, bowed to me and said:

"i am very much obliged to you." he was frightfully offended and turned pale.

"damn the fellow!" roared trudolyubov, bringing his fist down on the table.

"well, he wants a punch in the face for that," squealed ferfitchkin.

"we ought to turn him out," muttered simonov.

"not a word, gentlemen, not a movement!" cried zverkov solemnly, checking the general indignation. "i thank you all, but i can show him for myself how much value i attach to his words."

"mr. ferfitchkin, you will give me satisfaction to-morrow for your words just now!" i said aloud, turning with dignity to ferfitchkin.

"a duel, you mean? certainly," he answered. but probably i was so ridiculous as i challenged him and it was so out of keeping with my appearance that everyone, including ferfitchkin, was prostrate with laughter.

"yes, let him alone, of course! he is quite drunk," trudolyubov said with disgust.

"i shall never forgive myself for letting him join us," simonov muttered again.

"now is the time to throw a bottle at their heads," i thought to myself. i picked up the bottle ... and filled my glass.... "no, i'd better sit on to the end," i went on thinking; "you would be pleased, my friends if i went away. nothing will induce me to go. i'll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that i don't think you of the slightest consequence. i will go on sitting and drinking, because this is a public-house and i paid my entrance money. i'll sit here and drink, for i look upon you as so many pawns, as inanimate pawns. i'll sit here and drink ... and sing if i want to, yes, sing, for i have the right to ... to sing.... h'm!"

but i did not sing. i simply tried not to look at any of them. i assumed most unconcerned attitudes and waited with impatience for them to speak first. but alas, they did not address me! and oh, how i wished, how i wished at that moment to be reconciled to them! it struck eight, at last nine. they moved from the table to the sofa. zverkov stretched himself on a lounge and put one foot on a round table. wine was brought there. he did, as a fact, order three bottles on his own account. i, of course, was not invited to join them. they all sat round him on the sofa. they listened to him, almost with reverence. it was evident that they were fond of him. "what for? what for?" i wondered. from time to time they were moved to drunken enthusiasm and kissed each other. they talked of the caucasus, of the nature of true passion, of snug berths in the service, of the income of an hussar called podharzhevsky, whom none of them knew personally, and rejoiced in the largeness of it, of the extraordinary grace and beauty of a princess d., whom none of them had ever seen; then it came to shakespeare's being immortal.

i smiled contemptuously and walked up and down the other side of the room, opposite the sofa, from the table to the stove and back again. i tried my very utmost to show them that i could do without them, and yet i purposely made a noise with my boots, thumping with my heels. but it was all in vain. they paid no attention. i had the patience to walk up and down in front of them from eight o'clock till eleven, in the same place, from the table to the stove and back again. "i walk up and down to please myself and no one can prevent me." the waiter who came into the room stopped, from time to time, to look at me. i was somewhat giddy from turning round so often; at moments it seemed to me that i was in delirium. during those three hours i was three times soaked with sweat and dry again. at times, with an intense, acute pang i was stabbed to the heart by the thought that ten years, twenty years, forty years would pass, and that even in forty years i would remember with loathing and humiliation those filthiest, most ludicrous, and most awful moments of my life. no one could have gone out of his way to degrade himself more shamelessly, and i fully realized it, fully, and yet i went on pacing up and down from the table to the stove. "oh, if you only knew what thoughts and feelings i am capable of, how cultured i am!" i thought at moments, mentally addressing the sofa on which my enemies were sitting. but my enemies behaved as though i were not in the room. once—only once—they turned towards me, just when zverkov was talking about shakespeare, and i suddenly gave a contemptuous laugh. i laughed in such an affected and disgusting way that they all at once broke off their conversation, and silently and gravely for two minutes watched me walking up and down from the table to the stove, taking no notice of them. but nothing came of it: they said nothing, and two minutes later they ceased to notice me again. it struck eleven.

"friends," cried zverkov getting up from the sofa, "let us all be off now, there!"

"of course, of course," the others assented. i turned sharply to zverkov. i was so harassed, so exhausted, that i would have cut my throat to put an end to it. i was in a fever; my hair, soaked with perspiration, stuck to my forehead and temples.

"zverkov, i beg your pardon," i said abruptly and resolutely. "ferfitchkin, yours too, and every one's, every one's: i have insulted you all!"

"aha! a duel is not in your line, old man," ferfitchkin hissed venomously.

it sent a sharp pang to my heart.

"no, it's not the duel i am afraid of, ferfitchkin! i am ready to fight you to-morrow, after we are reconciled. i insist upon it, in fact, and you cannot refuse. i want to show you that i am not afraid of a duel. you shall fire first and i shall fire into the air."

"he is comforting himself," said simonov.

"he's simply raving," said trudolyubov.

"but let us pass. why are you barring our way? what do you want?" zverkov answered disdainfully.

they were all flushed; their eyes were bright: they had been drinking heavily.

"i ask for your friendship, zverkov; i insulted you, but...."

"insulted? you insulted me? understand, sir, that you never, under any circumstances, could possibly insult me."

"and that's enough for you. out of the way!" concluded trudolyubov.

"olympia is mine, friends, that's agreed!" cried zverkov.

"we won't dispute your right, we won't dispute your right," the others answered, laughing.

i stood as though spat upon. the party went noisily out of the room. trudolyubov struck up some stupid song. simonov remained behind for a moment to tip the waiters. i suddenly went up to him.

"simonov! give me six roubles!" i said, with desperate resolution.

he looked at me in extreme amazement, with vacant eyes. he, too, was drunk.

"you don't mean you are coming with us?"

"yes."

"i've no money," he snapped out, and with a scornful laugh he went out of the room.

i clutched at his overcoat. it was a nightmare.

"simonov, i saw you had money. why do you refuse me? am i a scoundrel? beware of refusing me: if you knew, if you knew why i am asking! my whole future, my whole plans depend upon it!"

simonov pulled out the money and almost flung it at me.

"take it, if you have no sense of shame!" he pronounced pitilessly, and ran to overtake them.

i was left for a moment alone. disorder, the remains of dinner, a broken wine-glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, fumes of drink and delirium in my brain, an agonizing misery in my heart and finally the waiter, who had seen and heard all and was looking inquisitively into my face.

"i am going there!" i cried. "either they shall all go down on their knees to beg for my friendship, or i will give zverkov a slap in the face!"

v

"so this is it, this is it at last—contact with real life," i muttered as i ran headlong downstairs. "this is very different from the pope's leaving rome and going to brazil, very different from the ball on lake como!"

"you are a scoundrel," a thought flashed through my mind, "if you laugh at this now."

"no matter!" i cried, answering myself. "now everything is lost!"

there was no trace to be seen of them, but that made no difference—i knew where they had gone.

at the steps was standing a solitary night sledge-driver in a rough peasant coat, powdered over with the still falling, wet, and as it were warm, snow. it was hot and steamy. the little shaggy piebald horse was also covered with snow and coughing, i remember that very well. i made a rush for the roughly made sledge; but as soon as i raised my foot to get into it, the recollection of how simonov had just given me six roubles seemed to double me up and i tumbled into the sledge like a sack.

"no, i must do a great deal to make up for all that," i cried. "but i will make up for it or perish on the spot this very night. start!"

we set off. there was a perfect whirl in my head.

"they won't go down on their knees to beg for my friendship. that is a mirage, cheap mirage, revolting, romantic and fantastical—that's another ball on lake como. and so i am bound to slap zverkov's face! it is my duty to. and so it is settled; i am flying to give him a slap in the face. hurry up!"

the driver tugged at the reins.

"as soon as i go in i'll give it him. ought i before giving him the slap to say a few words by way of preface? no. i'll simply go in and give it him. they will all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with olympia on the sofa. that damned olympia! she laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. i'll pull olympia's hair, pull zverkov's ears! no, better one ear, and pull him by it round the room. maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. that's most likely, indeed. no matter! anyway, i shall first slap him; the initiative will be mine; and by the laws of honour that is everything: he will be branded and cannot wipe off the slap by any blows, by nothing but a duel. he will be forced to fight. and let them beat me now. let them, the ungrateful wretches! trudolyubov will beat me hardest, he is so strong; ferfitchkin will be sure to catch hold sideways and tug at my hair. but no matter, no matter! that's what i am going for. the blockheads will be forced at last to see the tragedy of it all! when they drag me to the door i shall call out to them that in reality they are not worth my little finger. get on, driver, get on!" i cried to the driver. he started and flicked his whip, i shouted so savagely.

"we shall fight at daybreak, that's a settled thing. i've done with the office. ferfitchkin made a joke about it just now. but where can i get pistols? nonsense! i'll get my salary in advance and buy them. and powder, and bullets? that's the second's business. and how can it all be done by daybreak? and where am i to get a second? i have no friends. nonsense!" i cried, lashing myself up more and more. "it's of no consequence! the first person i meet in the street is bound to be my second, just as he would be bound to pull a drowning man out of water. the most eccentric things may happen. even if i were to ask the director himself to be my second to-morrow, he would be bound to consent, if only from a feeling of chivalry, and to keep the secret! anton antonitch...."

the fact is, that at that very minute the disgusting absurdity of my plan and the other side of the question was clearer and more vivid to my imagination than it could be to any one on earth. but....

"get on, driver, get on, you rascal, get on!"

"ugh, sir!" said the son of toil.

cold shivers suddenly ran down me. wouldn't it be better ... to go straight home? my god, my god! why did i invite myself to this dinner yesterday? but no, it's impossible. and my walking up and down for three hours from the table to the stove? no, they, they and no one else must pay for my walking up and down! they must wipe out this dishonour! drive on!

and what if they give me into custody? they won't dare! they'll be afraid of the scandal. and what if zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel? he is sure to; but in that case i'll show them ... i will turn up at the posting station when he is setting off to-morrow, i'll catch him by the leg, i'll pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. i'll get my teeth into his hand, i'll bite him. "see what lengths you can drive a desperate man to!" he may hit me on the head and they may belabour me from behind. i will shout to the assembled multitude: "look at this young puppy who is driving off to captivate the circassian girls after letting me spit in his face!"

of course, after that everything will be over! the office will have vanished off the face of the earth. i shall be arrested, i shall be tried, i shall be dismissed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to siberia. never mind! in fifteen years when they let me out of prison i will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. i shall find him in some provincial town. he will be married and happy. he will have a grown-up daughter.... i shall say to him: "look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags! i've lost everything—my career, my happiness, art, science, the woman i loved, and all through you. here are pistols. i have come to discharge my pistol and ... and i ... forgive you. then i shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me...."

i was actually on the point of tears, though i knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of pushkin's silvio and lermontov's masquerade. and all at once i felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that i stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. the driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished.

what was i to do? i could not go on there—it was evidently stupid, and i could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though.... heavens, how could i leave things! and after such insults! "no!" i cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. "it is ordained! it is fate! drive on, drive on!"

and in my impatience i punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck.

"what are you up to? what are you hitting me for?" the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking.

the wet snow was falling in big flakes; i unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. i forgot everything else, for i had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen now, at once, and that no force could stop it. the deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. the snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. i did not wrap myself up—all was lost, anyway.

at last we arrived. i jumped out, almost unconscious, ran up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. i felt fearfully weak, particularly in my legs and my knees. the door was opened quickly as though they knew i was coming. as a fact, simonov had warned them that perhaps another gentleman would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to observe certain precautions. it was one of those "millinery establishments" which were abolished by the police a good time ago. by day it really was a shop; but at night, if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes.

i walked rapidly through the dark shop into the familiar drawing-room, where there was only one candle burning, and stood still in amazement: there was no one there. "where are they?" i asked somebody. but by now, of course, they had separated. before me was standing a person with a stupid smile, the "madam" herself, who had seen me before. a minute later a door opened and another person came in.

taking no notice of anything i strode about the room, and, i believe, i talked to myself. i felt as though i had been saved from death and was conscious of this, joyfully, all over: i should have given that slap, i should certainly, certainly have given it! but now they were not here and ... everything had vanished and changed! i looked round. i could not realize my condition yet. i looked mechanically at the girl who had come in: and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather pale face, with straight, dark eyebrows, and with grave, as it were wondering, eyes that attracted me at once; i should have hated her if she had been smiling. i began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. i had not fully collected my thoughts. there was something simple and good-natured in her face, but something strangely grave. i am sure that this stood in her way here, and no one of those fools had noticed her. she could not, however, have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built. she was very simply dressed. something loathsome stirred within me. i went straight up to her.

i chanced to look into the glass. my harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair. "no matter, i am glad of it," i thought; "i am glad that i shall seem repulsive to her; i like that."

vi

... somewhere behind a screen a clock began wheezing, as though oppressed by something, as though some one were strangling it. after an unnaturally prolonged wheezing there followed a shrill, nasty, and as it were unexpectedly rapid, chime—as though some one were suddenly jumping forward. it struck two. i woke up, though i had indeed not been asleep but lying half conscious.

it was almost completely dark in the narrow, cramped, low-pitched room, cumbered up with an enormous wardrobe and piles of cardboard boxes and all sorts of frippery and litter. the candle end that had been burning on the table was going out and gave a faint flicker from time to time. in a few minutes there would be complete darkness.

i was not long in coming to myself; everything came back to my mind at once, without an effort, as though it had been in ambush to pounce upon me again. and, indeed, even while i was unconscious a point seemed continually to remain in my memory unforgotten, and round it my dreams moved drearily. but strange to say, everything that had happened to me in that day seemed to me now, on waking, to be in the far, far away past, as though i had long, long ago lived all that down.

my head was full of fumes. something seemed to be hovering over me, rousing me, exciting me, and making me restless. misery and spite seemed surging up in me again and seeking an outlet. suddenly i saw beside me two wide open eyes scrutinizing me curiously and persistently. the look in those eyes was coldly detached, sullen, as it were utterly remote; it weighed upon me.

a grim idea came into my brain and passed all over my body, as a horrible sensation, such as one feels when one goes into a damp and mouldy cellar. there was something unnatural in those two eyes, beginning to look at me only now. i recalled, too, that during those two hours i had not said a single word to this creature, and had, in fact, considered it utterly superfluous; in fact, the silence had for some reason gratified me. now i suddenly realized vividly the hideous idea—revolting as a spider—of vice, which, without love, grossly and shamelessly begins with that in which true love finds its consummation. for a long time we gazed at each other like that, but she did not drop her eyes before mine and her expression did not change, so that at last i felt uncomfortable.

"what is your name?" i asked abruptly, to put an end to it.

"liza," she answered almost in a whisper, but somehow far from graciously, and she turned her eyes away.

i was silent.

"what weather! the snow ... it's disgusting!" i said, almost to myself, putting my arm under my head despondently, and gazing at the ceiling.

she made no answer. this was horrible.

"have you always lived in petersburg?" i asked a minute later, almost angrily, turning my head slightly towards her.

"no."

"where do you come from?"

"from riga," she answered reluctantly.

"are you a german?"

"no, russian."

"have you been here long?"

"where?"

"in this house?"

"a fortnight."

she spoke more and more jerkily. the candle went out; i could no longer distinguish her face.

"have you a father and mother?"

"yes ... no ... i have."

"where are they?"

"there ... in riga."

"what are they?"

"oh, nothing."

"nothing? why, what class are they?"

"tradespeople."

"have you always lived with them?"

"yes."

"how old are you?"

"twenty."

"why did you leave them?"

"oh, for no reason."

that answer meant "let me alone; i feel sick, sad."

we were silent.

god knows why i did not go away. i felt myself more and more sick and dreary. the images of the previous day began of themselves, apart from my will, flitting through my memory in confusion. i suddenly recalled something i had seen that morning when, full of anxious thoughts, i was hurrying to the office.

"i saw them carrying a coffin out yesterday and they nearly dropped it," i suddenly said aloud, not that i desired to open the conversation, but as it were by accident.

"a coffin?"

"yes, in the haymarket; they were bringing it up out of a cellar."

"from a cellar?"

"not from a cellar, but from a basement. oh, you know ... down below ... from a house of ill-fame. it was filthy all round.... egg-shells, litter ... a stench. it was loathsome."

silence.

"a nasty day to be buried," i began, simply to avoid being silent.

"nasty, in what way?"

"the snow, the wet." (i yawned.)

"it makes no difference," she said suddenly, after a brief silence.

"no, it's horrid." (i yawned again.) "the gravediggers must have sworn at getting drenched by the snow. and there must have been water in the grave."

"why water in the grave?" she asked, with a sort of curiosity, but speaking even more harshly and abruptly than before.

i suddenly began to feel provoked.

"why, there must have been water at the bottom a foot deep. you can't dig a dry grave in volkovo cemetery."

"why?"

"why? why, the place is waterlogged. it's a regular marsh. so they bury them in water. i've seen it myself ... many times."

(i had never seen it once, indeed i had never been in volkovo, and had only heard stories of it.)

"do you mean to say, you don't mind how you die?"

"but why should i die?" she answered, as though defending herself.

"why, some day you will die, and you will die just the same as that dead woman. she was ... a girl like you. she died of consumption."

"a wench would have died in hospital...." (she knows all about it already: she said "wench," not "girl.")

"she was in debt to her madam," i retorted, more and more provoked by the discussion; "and went on earning money for her up to the end, though she was in consumption. some sledge-drivers standing by were talking about her to some soldiers and telling them so. no doubt they knew her. they were laughing. they were going to meet in a pot-house to drink to her memory."

a great deal of this was my invention. silence followed, profound silence. she did not stir.

"and is it better to die in a hospital?"

"isn't it just the same? besides, why should i die?" she added irritably.

"if not now, a little later."

"why a little later?"

"why, indeed? now you are young, pretty, fresh, you fetch a high price. but after another year of this life you will be very different—you will go off."

"in a year?"

"anyway, in a year you will be worth less," i continued malignantly. "you will go from here to something lower, another house; a year later—to a third, lower and lower, and in seven years you will come to a basement in the haymarket. that will be if you were lucky. but it would be much worse if you got some disease, consumption, say ... and caught a chill, or something or other. it's not easy to get over an illness in your way of life. if you catch anything you may not get rid of it. and so you would die."

"oh, well, then i shall die," she answered, quite vindictively, and she made a quick movement.

"but one is sorry."

"sorry for whom?"

"sorry for life."

silence.

"have you been engaged to be married? eh?"

"what's that to you?"

"oh, i am not cross-examining you. it's nothing to me. why are you so cross? of course you may have had your own troubles. what is it to me? it's simply that i felt sorry."

"sorry for whom?"

"sorry for you."

"no need," she whispered hardly audibly, and again made a faint movement.

that incensed me at once. what! i was so gentle with her, and she....

"why, do you think that you are on the right path?"

"i don't think anything."

"that's what's wrong, that you don't think. realize it while there is still time. there still is time. you are still young, good-looking; you might love, be married, be happy...."

"not all married women are happy," she snapped out in the rude abrupt tone she had used at first.

"not all, of course, but anyway it is much better than the life here. infinitely better. besides, with love one can live even without happiness. even in sorrow life is sweet; life is sweet, however one lives. but here what is there but ... foulness. phew!"

i turned away with disgust; i was no longer reasoning coldly. i began to feel myself what i was saying and warmed to the subject. i was already longing to expound the cherished ideas i had brooded over in my corner. something suddenly flared up in me. an object had appeared before me.

"never mind my being here, i am not an example for you. i am, perhaps, worse than you are. i was drunk when i came here, though," i hastened, however, to say in self-defence. "besides, a man is no example for a woman. it's a different thing. i may degrade and defile myself, but i am not any one's slave. i come and go, and that's an end of it. i shake it off, and i am a different man. but you are a slave from the start. yes, a slave! you give up everything, your whole freedom. if you want to break your chains afterwards, you won't be able to: you will be more and more fast in the snares. it is an accursed bondage. i know it. i won't speak of anything else, maybe you won't understand, but tell me: no doubt you are in debt to your madam? there, you see," i added, though she made no answer, but only listened in silence, entirely absorbed, "that's a bondage for you! you will never buy your freedom. they will see to that. it's like selling your soul to the devil.... and besides ... perhaps i, too, am just as unlucky—how do you know—and wallow in the mud on purpose, out of misery? you know, men take to drink from grief; well, maybe i am here from grief. come, tell me, what is there good here? here you and i ... came together ... just now and did not say one word to one another all the time, and it was only afterwards you began staring at me like a wild creature, and i at you. is that loving? is that how one human being should meet another? it's hideous, that's what it is!"

"yes!" she assented sharply and hurriedly.

i was positively astounded by the promptitude of this "yes." so the same thought may have been straying through her mind when she was staring at me just before. so she, too, was capable of certain thoughts? "damn it all, this was interesting, this was a point of likeness!" i thought, almost rubbing my hands. and indeed it's easy to turn a young soul like that!

it was the exercise of my power that attracted me most.

she turned her head nearer to me, and it seemed to me in the darkness that she propped herself on her arm. perhaps she was scrutinizing me. how i regretted that i could not see her eyes. i heard her deep breathing.

"why have you come here?" i asked her, with a note of authority already in my voice.

"oh, i don't know."

"but how nice it would be to be living in your father's house! it's warm and free; you have a home of your own."

"but what if it's worse than this?"

"i must take the right tone," flashed through my mind. "i may not get far with sentimentality." but it was only a momentary thought. i swear she really did interest me. besides, i was exhausted and moody. and cunning so easily goes hand-in-hand with feeling.

"who denies it!" i hastened to answer. "anything may happen. i am convinced that some one has wronged you, and that you are more sinned against than sinning. of course, i know nothing of your story, but it's not likely a girl like you has come here of her own inclination...."

"a girl like me?" she whispered, hardly audibly; but i heard it.

damn it all, i was flattering her. that was horrid. but perhaps it was a good thing.... she was silent.

"see, liza, i will tell you about myself. if i had had a home from childhood, i shouldn't be what i am now. i often think that. however bad it may be at home, anyway they are your father and mother, and not enemies, strangers. once a year at least, they'll show their love of you. anyway, you know you are at home. i grew up without a home; and perhaps that's why i've turned so ... unfeeling."

i waited again. "perhaps she doesn't understand," i thought, "and, indeed, it is absurd—it's moralizing."

"if i were a father and had a daughter, i believe i should love my daughter more than my sons, really," i began indirectly, as though talking of something else, to distract her attention. i must confess i blushed.

"why so?" she asked.

ah! so she was listening!

"i don't know, liza. i knew a father who was a stern, austere man, but used to go down on his knees to his daughter, used to kiss her hands, her feet, he couldn't make enough of her, really. when she danced at parties he used to stand for five hours at a stretch, gazing at her. he was mad over her: i understand that! she would fall asleep tired at night, and he would wake to kiss her in her sleep and make the sign of the cross over her. he would go about in a dirty old coat, he was stingy to every one else, but would spend his last penny for her, giving her expensive presents, and it was his greatest delight when she was pleased with what he gave her. fathers always love their daughters more than the mothers do. some girls live happily at home! and i believe i should never let my daughters marry."

"what next?" she said, with a faint smile.

"i should be jealous, i really should. to think that she should kiss any one else! that she should love a stranger more than her father! it's painful to imagine it. of course, that's all nonsense, of course every father would be reasonable at last. but i believe before i should let her marry, i should worry myself to death; i should find fault with all her suitors. but i should end by letting her marry whom she herself loved. the one whom the daughter loves always seems the worst to the father, you know. that is always so. so many family troubles come from that."

"some are glad to sell their daughters, rather than marrying them honourably."

ah, so that was it!

"such a thing, liza, happens in those accursed families in which there is neither love nor god," i retorted warmly, "and where there is no love, there is no sense either. there are such families, it's true, but i am not speaking of them. you must have seen wickedness in your own family, if you talk like that. truly, you must have been unlucky. h'm! ... that sort of thing mostly comes about through poverty."

"and is it any better with the gentry? even among the poor, honest people live happily."

"h'm ... yes. perhaps. another thing, liza, man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys. if he counted them up as he ought, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. and what if all goes well with the family, if the blessing of god is upon it, if the husband is a good one, loves you, cherishes you, never leaves you! there is happiness in such a family! even sometimes there is happiness in the midst of sorrow; and indeed sorrow is everywhere. if you marry you will find out for yourself. but think of the first years of married life with one you love: what happiness, what happiness there sometimes is in it! and indeed it's the ordinary thing. in those early days even quarrels with one's husband end happily. some women get up quarrels with their husbands just because they love them. indeed, i knew a woman like that: she seemed to say that because she loved him, she would torment him and make him feel it. you know that you may torment a man on purpose through love. women are particularly given to that, thinking to themselves 'i will love him so, i will make so much of him afterwards, that it's no sin to torment him a little now.' and all in the house rejoice in the sight of you, and you are happy and gay and peaceful and honourable.... then there are some women who are jealous. if he went off anywhere—i knew one such woman, she couldn't restrain herself, but would jump up at night and run off on the sly to find out where he was, whether he was with some other woman. that's a pity. and the woman knows herself it's wrong, and her heart fails her and she suffers, but she loves—it's all through love. and how sweet it is to make it up after quarrels, to own herself in the wrong or to forgive him! and they are both so happy all at once—as though they had met anew, been married over again; as though their love had begun afresh. and no one, no one should know what passes between husband and wife if they love one another. and whatever quarrels there may be between them they ought not to call in their own mother to judge between them and tell tales of one another. they are their own judges. love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. that makes it holier and better. they respect one another more, and much is built on respect. and if once there has been love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away? surely one can keep it! it is rare that one cannot keep it. and if the husband is kind and straightforward, why should not love last? the first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still. then there will be the union of souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets between them. and once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy. they will love you for it afterwards; so you are laying by for your future. as the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. so you see this is a great duty. how can it fail to draw the father and mother nearer? people say it's a trial to have children. who says that? it is heavenly happiness! are you fond of little children, liza? i am awfully fond of them. you know—a little rosy baby boy at your bosom, and what husband's heart is not touched, seeing his wife nursing his child! a plump little rosy baby, sprawling and snuggling, chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it makes one laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand everything. and while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand, plays. when its father comes up, the child tears itself away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs, as though it were fearfully funny and falls to sucking again. or it will bite its mother's breast when its little teeth are coming, while it looks sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, 'look, i am biting!' is not all that happiness when they are the three together, husband, wife and child? one can forgive a great deal for the sake of such moments. yes, liza, one must first learn to live oneself before one blames others!"

"it's by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you," i thought to myself, though i did speak with real feeling, and all at once i flushed crimson. "what if she were suddenly to burst out laughing, what should i do then?" that idea drove me to fury. towards the end of my speech i really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded. the silence continued. i almost nudged her.

"why are you——" she began and stopped. but i understood: there was a quiver of something different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and unyielding as before, but something soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced that i suddenly felt ashamed and guilty.

"what?" i asked, with tender curiosity.

"why, you...."

"what?"

"why, you ... speak somehow like a book," she said, and again there was a note of irony in her voice.

that remark sent a pang to my heart. it was not what i was expecting.

i did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. i ought to have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with an effort. but i did not guess, and an evil feeling took possession of me.

"wait a bit!" i thought.

vii

"oh, hush, liza! how can you talk about being like a book, when it makes even me, an outsider, feel sick? though i don't look at it as an outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart.... is it possible, is it possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself? evidently habit does wonders! god knows what habit can do with any one. can you seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will always be good-looking, and that they will keep you here for ever and ever? i say nothing of the loathsomeness of the life here.... though let me tell you this about it—about your present life, i mean; here though you are young now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet you know as soon as i came to myself just now i felt at once sick at being here with you! one can only come here when one is drunk. but if you were anywhere else, living as good people live, i should perhaps be more than attracted by you, should fall in love with you, should be glad of a look from you, let alone a word; i should hang about your door, should go down on my knees to you, should look upon you as my betrothed and think it an honour to be allowed to. i should not dare to have an impure thought about you. but here, you see, i know that i have only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it or not. i don't consult your wishes, but you mine. the lowest labourer hires himself as a workman but he doesn't make a slave of himself altogether; besides, he knows that he will be free again presently. but when are you free? only think what you are giving up here? what is it you are making a slave of? it is your soul, together with your body; you are selling your soul which you have no right to dispose of! you give your love to be outraged by every drunkard! love! but that's everything, you know, it's a priceless diamond, it's a maiden's treasure, love—why, a man would be ready to give his soul, to face death to gain that love. but how much is your love worth now? you are sold, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need to strive for love when you can have everything without love. and you know there is no greater insult to a girl than that, do you understand? to be sure, i have heard that they comfort you, poor fools, they let you have lovers of your own here. but you know that's simply a farce, that's simply a sham, it's just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it! why, do you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours? i don't believe it. how can he love you when he knows you may be called away from him any minute? he would be a low fellow if he did! will he have a grain of respect for you? what have you in common with him? he laughs at you and robs you—that is all his love amounts to! you are lucky if he does not beat you. very likely he does beat you, too. ask him, if you have got one, whether he will marry you. he will laugh in your face, if he doesn't spit in it or give you a blow—though maybe he is not worth a bad halfpenny himself. and for what have you ruined your life, if you come to think of it? for the coffee they give you to drink and the plentiful meals? but with what object are they feeding you up? an honest girl couldn't swallow the food, for she would know what she was being fed for. you are in debt here, and, of course, you will always be in debt, and you will go on in debt to the end, till the visitors here begin to scorn you. and that will soon happen, don't rely upon your youth—all that flies by express train here, you know. you will be kicked out. and not simply kicked out; long before that she'll begin nagging at you, scolding you, abusing you, as though you had not sacrificed your health for her, had not thrown away your youth and your soul for her benefit, but as though you had ruined her, beggared her, robbed her. and don't expect any one to take your part: the others, your companions, will attack you, too, to win her favour, for all are in slavery here, and have lost all conscience and pity here long ago. they have become utterly vile, and nothing on earth is viler, more loathsome, and more insulting than their abuse. and you are laying down everything here, unconditionally, youth and health and beauty and hope, and at twenty-two you will look like a woman of five-and-thirty, and you will be lucky if you are not diseased, pray to god for that! no doubt you are thinking now that you have a gay time and no work to do! yet there is no work harder or more dreadful in the world or ever has been. one would think that the heart alone would be worn out with tears. and you won't dare to say a word, not half a word when they drive you away from here; you will go away as though you were to blame. you will change to another house, then to a third, then somewhere else, till you come down at last to the haymarket. there you will be beaten at every turn; that is good manners there, the visitors don't know how to be friendly without beating you. you don't believe that it is so hateful there? go and look for yourself some time, you can see with your own eyes. once, one new year's day, i saw a woman at a door. they had turned her out as a joke, to give her a taste of the frost because she had been crying so much, and they shut the door behind her. at nine o'clock in the morning she was already quite drunk, dishevelled, half-naked, covered with bruises, her face was powdered, but she had a black eye, blood was trickling from her nose and her teeth; some cabman had just given her a drubbing. she was sitting on the stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand; she was crying, wailing something about her luck and beating with the fish on the steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the doorway taunting her. you don't believe that you will ever be like that? i should be sorry to believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe ten years, eight years ago that very woman with the salt fish came here fresh as a cherub, innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. perhaps she was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others; perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew what happiness was in store for the man who should love her and whom she should love. do you see how it ended? and what if at that very minute when she was beating on the filthy steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled—what if at that very minute she recalled the pure early days in her father's house, when she used to go to school and the neighbour's son watched for her on the way, declaring that he would love her as long as he lived, that he would devote his life to her, and when they vowed to love one another for ever and be married as soon as they were grown up! no, liza, it would be happy for you if you were to die soon of consumption in some corner, in some cellar like that woman just now. in the hospital, do you say? you will be lucky if they take you, but what if you are still of use to the madam here? consumption is a queer disease, it is not like fever. the patient goes on hoping till the last minute and says he is all right. he deludes himself. and that just suits your madam. don't doubt it, that's how it is; you have sold your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you daren't say a word. but when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. what's more, they will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over dying. however you beg you won't get a drink of water without abuse: 'whenever are you going off, you nasty hussy, you won't let us sleep with your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick.' that's true, i have heard such things said myself. they will thrust you dying into the filthiest corner in the cellar—in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts be, lying there alone? when you die, strange hands will lay you out, with grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may be; they will buy a coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor woman to-day, and celebrate your memory at the tavern. in the grave sleet, filth, wet snow—no need to put themselves out for you—'let her down, vanuha; it's just like her luck—even here, she is head-foremost, the hussy. shorten the cord, you rascal.' 'it's all right as it is.' 'all right, is it? why, she's on her side! she was a fellow-creature, after all! but, never mind, throw the earth on her.' and they won't care to waste much time quarrelling over you. they will scatter the wet blue clay as quick as they can and go off to the tavern ... and there your memory on earth will end; other women have children to go to their graves, fathers, husbands. while for you neither tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance; no one in the whole world will ever come to you, your name will vanish from the face of the earth—as though you had never existed, never been born at all! nothing but filth and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead arise, however you cry: 'let me out, kind people, to live in the light of day! my life was no life at all; my life has been thrown away like a dish-clout; it was drunk away in the tavern at the haymarket; let me out, kind people, to live in the world again.'"

and i worked myself up to such a pitch that i began to have a lump in my throat myself, and ... and all at once i stopped, sat up in dismay, and bending over apprehensively, began to listen with a beating heart. i had reason to be troubled.

i had felt for some time that i was turning her soul upside down and rending her heart, and—and the more i was convinced of it, the more eagerly i desired to gain my object as quickly and as effectually as possible. it was the exercise of my skill that carried me away; yet it was not merely sport....

i knew i was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in fact, i could not speak except "like a book." but that did not trouble me: i knew, i felt that i should be understood and that this very bookishness might be an assistance. but now, having attained my effect, i was suddenly panic-stricken. never before had i witnessed such despair! she was lying on her face, thrusting her face into the pillow and clutching it in both hands. her heart was being torn. her youthful body was shuddering all over as though in convulsions. suppressed sobs rent her bosom and suddenly burst out in weeping and wailing, then she pressed closer into the pillow: she did not want any one here, not a living soul, to know of her anguish and her tears. she bit the pillow, bit her hand till it bled (i saw that afterwards), or, thrusting her fingers into her dishevelled hair seemed rigid with the effort of restraint, holding her breath and clenching her teeth. i began saying something, begging her to calm herself, but felt that i did not dare; and all at once, in a sort of cold shiver, almost in terror, began fumbling in the dark, trying hurriedly to get dressed to go. it was dark: though i tried my best i could not finish dressing quickly. suddenly i felt a box of matches and a candlestick with a whole candle in it. as soon as the room was lighted up, liza sprang up, sat up in bed, and with a contorted face, with a half insane smile, looked at me almost senselessly. i sat down beside her and took her hands; she came to herself, made an impulsive movement towards me, would have caught hold of me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her head before me.

"liza, my dear, i was wrong ... forgive me, my dear," i began, but she squeezed my hand in her fingers so tightly that i felt i was saying the wrong thing and stopped.

"this is my address, liza, come to me."

"i will come," she answered resolutely, her head still bowed.

"but now i am going, good-bye ... till we meet again."

i got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, gave a shudder, snatched up a shawl that was lying on a chair and muffled herself in it to her chin. as she did this she gave another sickly smile, blushed and looked at me strangely. i felt wretched; i was in haste to get away—to disappear.

"wait a minute," she said suddenly, in the passage just at the doorway, stopping me with her hand on my overcoat. she put down the candle in hot haste and ran off; evidently she had thought of something or wanted to show me something. as she ran away she flushed, her eyes shone, and there was a smile on her lips—what was the meaning of it? against my will i waited: she came back a minute later with an expression that seemed to ask forgiveness for something. in fact, it was not the same face, not the same look as the evening before: sullen, mistrustful and obstinate. her eyes now were imploring, soft, and at the same time trustful, caressing, timid. the expression with which children look at people they are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour. her eyes were a light hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, and capable of expressing love as well as sullen hatred.

making no explanation, as though i, as a sort of higher being, must understand everything without explanations, she held out a piece of paper to me. her whole face was positively beaming at that instant with na?ve, almost childish, triumph. i unfolded it. it was a letter to her from a medical student or some one of that sort—a very high-flown and flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. i don't recall the words now, but i remember well that through the high-flown phrases there was apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned. when i had finished reading it i met her glowing, questioning, and childishly impatient eyes fixed upon me. she fastened her eyes upon my face and waited impatiently for what i should say. in a few words, hurriedly, but with a sort of joy and pride, she explained to me that she had been to a dance somewhere in a private house, a family of "very nice people, who knew nothing, absolutely nothing, for she had only come here so lately and it had all happened ... and she hadn't made up her mind to stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid her debt ... and at that party there had been the student who had danced with her all the evening. he had talked to her, and it turned out that he had known her in old days at riga when he was a child, they had played together, but a very long time ago—and he knew her parents, but about this he knew nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion! and the day after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that letter through the friend with whom she had gone to the party ... and ... well, that was all."

she dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she finished.

the poor girl was keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. no doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. but none the less, i am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with na?ve pride to raise herself in my eyes that i might see, that i, too, might think well of her. i said nothing, pressed her hand and went out. i so longed to get away.... i walked all the way home, in spite of the fact that the melting snow was still falling in heavy flakes. i was exhausted, shattered, in bewilderment. but behind the bewilderment the truth was already gleaming. the loathsome truth.

viii

it was some time, however, before i consented to recognize that truth. waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and immediately realizing all that had happened on the previous day, i was positively amazed at my last night's sentimentality with liza, at all those "outcries of horror and pity." "to think of having such an attack of womanish hysteria, pah!" i concluded. and what did i thrust my address upon her for? what if she comes? let her come, though; it doesn't matter.... but obviously, that was not now the chief and the most important matter: i had to make haste and at all costs save my reputation in the eyes of zverkov and simonov as quickly as possible; that was the chief business. and i was so taken up that morning that i actually forgot all about liza.

first of all i had at once to repay what i had borrowed the day before from simonov. i resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteen roubles straight off from anton antonitch. as luck would have it he was in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on the first asking. i was so delighted at this that, as i signed the i o u with a swaggering air, i told him casually that the night before "i had been keeping it up with some friends at the h?tel de paris; we were giving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, i might say a friend of my childhood, and you know—a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt—of course, he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant career; he is witty, charming, a regular lovelace, you understand; we drank an extra 'half-dozen' and...."

and it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily, unconstrainedly and complacently.

on reaching home i promptly wrote to simonov.

to this hour i am lost in admiration when i recall the truly gentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. with tact and good-breeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, i blamed myself for all that had happened. i defended myself, "if i really may be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly unaccustomed to wine, i had been intoxicated with the first glass, which i said, i had drunk before they arrived, while i was waiting for them at the h?tel de paris between five and six o'clock. i begged simonov's pardon especially; i asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially to zverkov, whom "i seemed to remember as though in a dream" i had insulted. i added that i would have called upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides i had not the face to. i was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almost carelessness (strictly within the bounds of politeness, however), which was apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gave them at once to understand that i took rather an independent view of "all that unpleasantness last night;" that i was by no means so utterly crushed as you, my friends, probably imagine; but on the contrary, looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look upon it. "on a young hero's past no censure is cast!"

"there is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!" i thought admiringly, as i read over the letter. and it's all because i am an intellectual and cultivated man! another man in my place would not have known how to extricate himself, but here i have got out of it and am as jolly as ever again, and all because i am "a cultivated and educated man of our day." and, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to the wine yesterday. h'm! ... no, it was not the wine. i did not drink anything at all between five and six when i was waiting for them. i had lied to simonov; i had lied shamelessly; and indeed i wasn't ashamed now.... hang it all though, the great thing was that i was rid of it.

i put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked apollon to take it to simonov. when he learned that there was money in the letter, apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. towards evening i went out for a walk. my head was still aching and giddy after yesterday. but as evening came on and the twilight grew denser, my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more different and confused. something was not dead within me, in the depths of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in acute depression. for the most part i jostled my way through the most crowded business streets, along myeshtchansky street, along sadovy street and in yusupov garden. i always liked particularly sauntering along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working people of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faces looking cross with anxiety. what i liked was just that cheap bustle, that bare prose. on this occasion the jostling of the streets irritated me more than ever. i could not make out what was wrong with me, i could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. i returned home completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my conscience.

the thought that liza was coming worried me continually. it seemed queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. everything else i had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; i dismissed it all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to simonov. but on this point i was not satisfied at all. it was as though i were worried only by liza. "what if she comes," i thought incessantly, "well, it doesn't matter, let her come! h'm! it's horrid that she should see, for instance, how i live. yesterday i seemed such a hero to her, while now, h'm! it's horrid, though, that i have let myself go so, the room looks like a beggar's. and i brought myself to go out to dinner in such a suit! and my american leather sofa with the stuffing sticking out. and my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, such tatters, and she will see all this and she will see apollon. that beast is certain to insult her. he will fasten upon her in order to be rude to me. and i, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, i shall begin bowing and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown round me, i shall begin smiling, telling lies. oh, the beastliness! and it isn't the beastliness of it that matters most! there is something more important, more loathsome, viler! yes, viler! and to put on that dishonest lying mask again!"...

when i reached that thought i fired up all at once.

"why dishonest? how dishonest? i was speaking sincerely last night. i remember there was real feeling in me, too. what i wanted was to excite an honourable feeling in her.... her crying was a good thing, it will have a good effect."

yet i could not feel at ease. all that evening, even when i had come back home, even after nine o'clock, when i calculated that liza could not possibly come, she still haunted me, and what was worse, she came back to my mind always in the same position. one moment out of all that had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination; the moment when i struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its look of torture. and what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what a distorted smile she had at that moment! but i did not know then, that fifteen years later i should still in my imagination see liza, always with the pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her face at that minute.

next day i was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to over-excited nerves, and, above all, as exaggerated. i was always conscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid of it. "i exaggerate everything, that is where i go wrong," i repeated to myself every hour. but, however, "liza will very likely come all the same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. i was so uneasy that i sometimes flew into a fury: "she'll come, she is certain to come!" i cried, running about the room, "if not to-day, she will come to-morrow; she'll find me out! the damnable romanticism of these pure hearts! oh, the vileness—oh, the silliness—oh, the stupidity of these 'wretched sentimental souls!' why, how fail to understand? how could one fail to understand?..."

but at this point i stopped short, and in great confusion, indeed.

and how few, how few words, i thought, in passing, were needed; how little of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic too) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to my will. that's virginity, to be sure! freshness of soil!

at times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, "to tell her all," and beg her not to come to me. but this thought stirred such wrath in me that i believed i should have crushed that "damned" liza if she had chanced to be near me at the time. i should have insulted her, have spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her!

one day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and i began to grow calmer. i felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine o'clock, i even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: i, for instance, became the salvation of liza, simply through her coming to me and my talking to her.... i develop her, educate her. finally, i notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. i pretend not to understand (i don't know, however, why i pretend, just for effect, perhaps). at last all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing, she flings herself at my feet and says that i am her saviour, and that she loves me better than anything in the world. i am amazed, but.... "liza," i say, "can you imagine that i have not noticed your love, i saw it all, i divined it, but i did not dare to approach you first, because i had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and i did not wish that ... because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, i launch off at that point into european, inexplicably lofty subtleties à la george sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are good, you are my noble wife.

'into my house come bold and free,

its rightful mistress there to be.'"

then we begin living together, go abroad and so on, and so on. in fact, in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and i began putting out my tongue at myself.

besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy!" i thought. they don't let them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for some reason i fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clock precisely). though she did say she was not altogether a slave there yet, and had certain rights; so, h'm! damn it all, she will come, she is sure to come!

it was a good thing, in fact, that apollon distracted my attention at that time by his rudeness. he drove me beyond all patience! he was the bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by providence. we had been squabbling continually for years, and i hated him. my god, how i hated him! i believe i had never hated any one in my life as i hated him, especially at some moments. he was an elderly, dignified man, who worked part of his time as a tailor. but for some unknown reason he despised me beyond all measure, and looked down upon me insufferably. though, indeed, he looked down upon every one. simply to glance at that flaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he combed up on his forehead and oiled with sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth, compressed into the shape of the letter v, made one feel one was confronting a man who never doubted of himself. he was a pedant, to the most extreme point, the greatest pedant i had met on earth, and with that had a vanity only befitting alexander of macedon. he was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers—absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! in his behaviour to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me, and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically self-confident and invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes to fury. he did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour. though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider himself bound to do anything. there could be no doubt that he looked upon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that "he did not get rid of me" was simply that he could get wages from me every month. he consented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. many sins should be forgiven me for what i suffered from him. my hatred reached such a point that sometimes his very step almost threw me into convulsions. what i loathed particularly was his lisp. his tongue must have been a little too long or something of that sort, for he continually lisped, and seemed to be very proud of it, imagining that it greatly added to his dignity. he spoke in a slow, measured tone, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the ground. he maddened me particularly when he read aloud the psalms to himself behind his partition. many a battle i waged over that reading! but he was awfully fond of reading aloud in the evenings, in a slow, even, sing-song voice, as though over the dead. it is interesting that that is how he has ended: he hires himself out to read the psalms over the dead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes blacking. but at that time i could not get rid of him, it was as though he were chemically combined with my existence. besides, nothing would have induced him to consent to leave me. i could not live in furnished lodgings: my lodging was my private solitude, my shell, my cave, in which i concealed myself from all mankind, and apollon seemed to me, for some reason, an integral part of that flat, and for seven years i could not turn him away.

to be two or three days behind with his wages, for instance, was impossible. he would have made such a fuss, i should not have known where to hide my head. but i was so exasperated with every one during those days, that i made up my mind for some reason and with some object to punish apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages that were owing him. i had for a long time—for the last two years—been intending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himself airs with me, and to show him that if i liked i could withhold his wages. i purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposely silent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be the first to speak of his wages. then i would take the seven roubles out of a drawer, show him i have the money put aside on purpose, but that i won't, i won't, i simply won't pay him his wages, i won't just because that is "what i wish," because "i am master, and it is for me to decide," because he has been disrespectful, because he has been rude; but if he were to ask respectfully i might be softened and give it to him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, a whole month....

but angry as i was, yet he got the better of me. i could not hold out for four days. he began as he always did begin in such cases, for there had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be observed i knew all this beforehand, i knew his nasty tactics by heart). he would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting me or seeing me out of the house. if i held out and pretended not to notice these stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to further tortures. all at once, à propos of nothing, he would walk softly and smoothly into my room, when i was pacing up and down or reading, stand at the door, one hand behind his back and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a stare more than severe, utterly contemptuous. if i suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and deliberately go back to his room. two hours later he would come out again and again present himself before me in the same way. it had happened that in my fury i did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring back at him. so we stared at one another for two minutes; at last he turned with deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours.

if i were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my revolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long, deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moral degradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphing completely: i raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what he wanted.

this time the usual staring man?uvres had scarcely begun when i lost my temper and flew at him in a fury. i was irritated beyond endurance apart from him.

"stay," i cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning, with one hand behind his back, to go to his room, "stay! come back, come back, i tell you!" and i must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned round and even looked at me with some wonder. however, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated me.

"how dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for? answer!"

after looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round again.

"stay!" i roared, running up to him, "don't stir! there. answer, now: what did you come in to look at?"

"if you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp, raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another, all this with exasperating composure.

"that's not what i am asking you about, you torturer!" i shouted, turning crimson with anger. "i'll tell you why you came here myself: you see, i don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus...pic...ion how stupid it is—stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"...

he would have turned round again without a word, but i seized him.

"listen," i shouted to him. "here's the money, do you see, here it is" (i took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roubles complete, but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ... going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. do you hear?"

"that cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

"it shall be so," i said, "i give you my word of honour, it shall be!"

"and there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "why, besides, you called me a 'torturer,' for which i can summon you at the police-station at any time for insulting behaviour."

"go, summon me," i roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very second! you are a torturer all the same! a torturer!"

but he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking round.

"if it had not been for liza nothing of this would have happened," i decided inwardly. then, after waiting a minute, i went myself behind his screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating slowly and violently.

"apollon," i said quietly and emphatically, though i was breathless, "go at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer."

he had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and taken up some sewing. but, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw.

"at once, go this minute! go on, or else you can't imagine what will happen."

"you are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle. "whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? and as for being frightened—you are upsetting yourself about nothing, for nothing will come of it."

"go!" i shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. i felt i should strike him in a minute.

but i did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us in perplexity. i glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to my room. there, clutching at my hair with both hands, i leaned my head against the wall and stood motionless in that position.

two minutes later i heard apollon's deliberate footsteps. "there is some woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity. then he stood aside and let in liza. he would not go away, but stared at us sarcastically.

"go away, go away," i commanded in desperation. at that moment my clock began whirring and wheezing and struck seven.

ix

"into my house come bold and free,

its rightful mistress there to be."

i stood before her crushed, crestfallen, revoltingly confused, and i believe i smiled as i did my utmost to wrap myself in the skirts of my ragged wadded dressing-gown—exactly as i had imagined the scene not long before in a fit of depression. after standing over us for a couple of minutes apollon went away, but that did not make me more at ease. what made it worse was that she, too, was overwhelmed with confusion, more so, in fact, than i should have expected. at the sight of me, of course.

"sit down," i said mechanically, moving a chair up to the table, and i sat down on the sofa. she obediently sat down at once and gazed at me open-eyed, evidently expecting something from me at once. this na?veté of expectation drove me to fury, but i restrained myself.

she ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as usual, while instead of that, she ... and i dimly felt that i should make her pay dearly for all this.

"you have found me in a strange position, liza," i began, stammering and knowing that this was the wrong way to begin. "no, no, don't imagine anything," i cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. "i am not ashamed of my poverty.... on the contrary i look with pride on my poverty. i am poor but honourable.... one can be poor and honourable," i muttered. "however ... would you like tea?"...

"no," she was beginning.

"wait a minute."

i leapt up and ran to apollon. i had to get out of the room somehow.

"apollon," i whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here are your wages, you see i give them to you; but for that you must come to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant. if you won't go, you'll make me a miserable man! you don't know what this woman is.... this is—everything! you may be imagining something.... but you don't know what that woman is!"...

apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or making any answer he went on busying himself with his needle, which he had not yet threaded. i waited before him for three minutes with my arms crossed à la napoléon. my temples were moist with sweat. i was pale, i felt it. but, thank god, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me. having threaded his needle he deliberately got up from his seat, deliberately moved back his chair, deliberately took off his spectacles, deliberately counted the money, and finally asking me over his shoulder: "shall i get a whole portion?" deliberately walked out of the room. as i was going back to liza, the thought occurred to me on the way: shouldn't i run away just as i was in my dressing-gown, no matter where, and then let happen what would.

i sat down again. she looked at me uneasily. for some minutes we were silent.

"i will kill him," i shouted suddenly, striking the table with my fist so that the ink spurted out of the inkstand.

"what are you saying!" she cried, starting.

"i will kill him! kill him!" i shrieked, suddenly striking the table in absolute frenzy, and at the same time fully understanding how stupid it was to be in such a frenzy. "you don't know, liza, what that torturer is to me. he is my torturer.... he has gone now to fetch some rusks; he...."

and suddenly i burst into tears. it was an hysterical attack. how ashamed i felt in the midst of my sobs; but still i could not restrain them.

she was frightened.

"what is the matter? what is wrong?" she cried, fussing about me.

"water, give me water, over there!" i muttered in a faint voice, though i was inwardly conscious that i could have got on very well without water and without muttering in a faint voice. but i was, what is called, putting it on, to save appearances, though the attack was a genuine one.

she gave me water, looking at me in bewilderment. at that moment apollon brought in the tea. it suddenly seemed to me that this commonplace, prosaic tea was horribly undignified and paltry after all that had happened, and i blushed crimson. liza looked at apollon with positive alarm. he went out without a glance at either of us.

"liza, do you despise me?" i asked, looking at her fixedly, trembling with impatience to know what she was thinking.

she was confused, and did not know what to answer.

"drink your tea," i said to her angrily. i was angry with myself, but, of course, it was she who would have to pay for it. a horrible spite against her suddenly surged up in my heart; i believe i could have killed her. to revenge myself on her i swore inwardly not to say a word to her all the time. "she is the cause of it all," i thought.

our silence lasted for five minutes. the tea stood on the table; we did not touch it. i had got to the point of purposely refraining from beginning in order to embarrass her further; it was awkward for her to begin alone. several times she glanced at me with mournful perplexity. i was obstinately silent. i was, of course, myself the chief sufferer, because i was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful stupidity, and yet at the same time i could not restrain myself.

"i want to ... get away ... from there altogether," she began, to break the silence in some way, but, poor girl, that was just what she ought not to have spoken about at such a stupid moment to a man so stupid as i was. my heart positively ached with pity for her tactless and unnecessary straightforwardness. but something hideous at once stifled all compassion in me; it even provoked me to greater venom. i did not care what happened. another five minutes passed.

"perhaps i am in your way," she began timidly, hardly audibly, and was getting up.

but as soon as i saw this first impulse of wounded dignity i positively trembled with spite, and at once burst out.

"why have you come to me, tell me that, please?" i began, gasping for breath and regardless of logical connection in my words. i longed to have it all out at once, at one burst; i did not even trouble how to begin. "why have you come? answer, answer," i cried, hardly knowing what i was doing. "i'll tell you, my good girl, why you have come. you've come because i talked sentimental stuff to you then. so now you are soft as butter and longing for fine sentiments again. so you may as well know that i was laughing at you then. and i am laughing at you now. why are you shuddering? yes, i was laughing at you! i had been insulted just before, at dinner, by the fellows who came that evening before me. i came to you, meaning to thrash one of them, an officer; but i didn't succeed, i didn't find him; i had to avenge the insult on some one to get back my own again; you turned up, i vented my spleen on you and laughed at you. i had been humiliated, so i wanted to humiliate; i had been treated like a rag, so i wanted to show my power.... that's what it was, and you imagined i had come there on purpose to save you. yes? you imagined that? you imagined that?"

i knew that she would perhaps be muddled and not take it all in exactly, but i knew, too, that she would grasp the gist of it, very well indeed. and so, indeed, she did. she turned white as a handkerchief, tried to say something, and her lips worked painfully; but she sank on a chair as though she had been felled by an axe. and all the time afterwards she listened to me with her lips parted and her eyes wide open, shuddering with awful terror. the cynicism, the cynicism of my words overwhelmed her....

"save you!" i went on, jumping up from my chair and running up and down the room before her. "save you from what? but perhaps i am worse than you myself. why didn't you throw it in my teeth when i was giving you that sermon: 'but what did you come here yourself for? was it to read us a sermon?' power, power was what i wanted then, sport was what i wanted, i wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation, your hysteria—that was what i wanted then! of course, i couldn't keep it up then, because i am a wretched creature, i was frightened, and, the devil knows why, gave you my address in my folly. afterwards, before i got home, i was cursing and swearing at you because of that address, i hated you already because of the lies i had told you. because i only like playing with words, only dreaming, but, do you know, what i really want is that you should all go to hell. that is what i want. i want peace; yes, i'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as i was left in peace. is the world to go to pot, or am i to go without my tea? i say that the world may go to pot for me so long as i always get my tea. did you know that, or not? well, anyway, i know that i am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard. here i have been shuddering for the last three days at the thought of your coming. and do you know what has worried me particularly for these three days? that i posed as such a hero to you, and now you would see me in a wretched torn dressing-gown, beggarly, loathsome. i told you just now that i was not ashamed of my poverty; so you may as well know that i am ashamed of it; i am more ashamed of it than of anything, more afraid of it than of being found out if i were a thief, because i am as vain as though i had been skinned and the very air blowing on me hurt. surely by now you must realize that i shall never forgive you for having found me in this wretched dressing-gown, just as i was flying at apollon like a spiteful cur. the saviour, the former hero, was flying like a mangy, unkempt sheep-dog at his lackey, and the lackey was jeering at him! and i shall never forgive you for the tears i could not help shedding before you just now, like some silly woman put to shame! and for what i am confessing to you now, i shall never forgive you either! yes—you must answer for it all because you turned up like this, because i am a blackguard, because i am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most envious of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than i am, but, the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while i shall always be insulted by every louse, that is my doom! and what is it to me that you don't understand a word of this! and what do i care, what do i care about you, and whether you go to ruin there or not? do you understand? how i shall hate you now after saying this, for having been here and listening. why, it's not once in a lifetime a man speaks out like this, and then it is in hysterics!... what more do you want? why do you still stand confronting me, after all this? why are you worrying me? why don't you go?"

but at this point a strange thing happened. i was so accustomed to think and imagine everything from books, and to picture everything in the world to myself just as i had made it up in my dreams beforehand, that i could not all at once take in this strange circumstance. what happened was this: liza, insulted and crushed by me, understood a great deal more than i imagined. she understood from all this what a woman understands first of all, if she feels genuine love, that is, that i was myself unhappy.

the frightened and wounded expression on her face was followed first by a look of sorrowful perplexity. when i began calling myself a scoundrel and a blackguard and my tears flowed (the tirade was accompanied throughout by tears) her whole face worked convulsively. she was on the point of getting up and stopping me; when i finished she took no notice of my shouting: "why are you here, why don't you go away?" but realized only that it must have been very bitter to me to say all this. besides, she was so crushed, poor girl; she considered herself infinitely beneath me; how could she feel anger or resentment? she suddenly leapt up from her chair with an irresistible impulse and held out her hands, yearning towards me, though still timid and not daring to stir.... at this point there was a revulsion in my heart, too. then she suddenly rushed to me, threw her arms round me and burst into tears. i, too, could not restrain myself, and sobbed as i never had before.

"they won't let me.... i can't be good!" i managed to articulate; then i went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. she came close to me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position. but the trouble was that the hysterics could not go on for ever, and (i am writing the loathsome truth) lying face downwards on the sofa with my face thrust into my nasty leather pillow, i began by degrees to be aware of a far-away, involuntary but irresistible feeling that it would be awkward now for me to raise my head and look liza straight in the face. why was i ashamed? i don't know, but i was ashamed. the thought, too, came into my overwrought brain that our parts now were completely changed, that she was now the heroine, while i was just such a crushed and humiliated creature as she had been before me that night—four days before.... and all this came into my mind during the minutes i was lying on my face on the sofa.

my god! surely i was not envious of her then.

i don't know, to this day i cannot decide, and at the time, of course, i was still less able to understand what i was feeling than now. i cannot get on without domineering and tyrannizing over some one, but ... there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.

i conquered myself, however, and raised my head; i had to do so sooner or later ... and i am convinced to this day that it was just because i was ashamed to look at her that another feeling was suddenly kindled and flamed up in my heart ... a feeling of mastery and possession. my eyes gleamed with passion, and i gripped her hands tightly. how i hated her and how i was drawn to her at that minute! the one feeling intensified the other. it was almost like an act of vengeance. at first there was a look of amazement, even of terror on her face, but only for one instant. she warmly and rapturously embraced me.

x

a quarter of an hour later i was rushing up and down the room in frenzied impatience, from minute to minute i went up to the screen and peeped through the crack at liza. she was sitting on the ground with her head leaning against the bed, and must have been crying. but she did not go away, and that irritated me. this time she understood it all. i had insulted her finally, but ... there's no need to describe it. she realized that my outburst of passion had been simply revenge, a fresh humiliation, and that to my earlier, almost causeless hatred was added now a personal hatred, born of envy.... though i do not maintain positively that she understood all this distinctly; but she certainly did fully understand that i was a despicable man, and what was worse, incapable of loving her.

i know i shall be told that this is incredible—but it is incredible to be as spiteful and stupid as i was; it may be added that it was strange i should not love her, or at any rate, appreciate her love. why is it strange? in the first place, by then i was incapable of love, for i repeat, with me loving meant tyrannizing and showing my moral superiority. i have never in my life been able to imagine any other sort of love, and have nowadays come to the point of sometimes thinking that love really consists in the right—freely given by the beloved object—to tyrannize over her.

even in my underground dreams i did not imagine love except as a struggle. i began it always with hatred and ended it with moral subjugation, and afterwards i never knew what to do with the subjugated object. and what is there to wonder at in that, since i had succeeded in so corrupting myself, since i was so out of touch with "real life," as to have actually thought of reproaching her, and putting her to shame for having come to me to hear "fine sentiments"; and did not even guess that she had come not to hear fine sentiments, but to love me, because to a woman all reformation, all salvation from any sort of ruin, and all moral renewal is included in love and can only show itself in that form.

i did not hate her so much, however, when i was running about the room and peeping through the crack in the screen. i was only insufferably oppressed by her being here. i wanted her to disappear. i wanted "peace," to be left alone in my underground world. real life oppressed me with its novelty so much that i could hardly breathe.

but several minutes passed and she still remained, without stirring, as though she were unconscious. i had the shamelessness to tap softly at the screen as though to remind her.... she started, sprang up, and flew to seek her kerchief, her hat, her coat, as though making her escape from me.... two minutes later she came from behind the screen and looked with heavy eyes at me. i gave a spiteful grin, which was forced, however, to keep up appearances, and i turned away from her eyes.

"good-bye," she said, going towards the door.

i ran up to her, seized her hand, opened it, thrust something in it and closed it again. then i turned at once and dashed away in haste to the other corner of the room to avoid seeing, anyway....

i did mean a moment since to tell a lie—to write that i did this accidentally, not knowing what i was doing through foolishness, through losing my head. but i don't want to lie, and so i will say straight out that i opened her hand and put the money in it ... from spite. it came into my head to do this while i was running up and down the room and she was sitting behind the screen. but this i can say for certain: though i did that cruel thing purposely, it was not an impulse from the heart, but came from my evil brain. this cruelty was so affected, so purposely made up, so completely a product of the brain, of books, that i could not even keep it up a minute—first i dashed away to avoid seeing her, and then in shame and despair rushed after liza. i opened the door in the passage and began listening.

"liza! liza!" i cried on the stairs, but in a low voice, not boldly.

there was no answer, but i fancied i heard her footsteps, lower down on the stairs.

"liza!" i cried, more loudly.

no answer. but at that minute i heard the stiff outer glass door open heavily with a creak and slam violently, the sound echoed up the stairs.

she had gone. i went back to my room in hesitation. i felt horribly oppressed.

i stood still at the table, beside the chair on which she had sat and looked aimlessly before me. a minute passed, suddenly i started; straight before me on the table i saw.... in short, i saw a crumpled blue five-rouble note, the one i had thrust into her hand a minute before. it was the same note; it could be no other, there was no other in the flat. so she had managed to fling it from her hand on the table at the moment when i had dashed into the further corner.

well! i might have expected that she would do that. might i have expected it? no, i was such an egoist, i was so lacking in respect for my fellow-creatures that i could not even imagine she would do so. i could not endure it. a minute later i flew like a madman to dress, flinging on what i could at random and ran headlong after her. she could not have got two hundred paces away when i ran out into the street.

it was a still night and the snow was coming down in masses and falling almost perpendicularly, covering the pavement and the empty street as though with a pillow. there was no one in the street, no sound was to be heard. the street lamps gave a disconsolate and useless glimmer. i ran two hundred paces to the cross-roads and stopped short.

where had she gone? and why was i running after her?

why? to fall down before her, to sob with remorse, to kiss her feet, to entreat her forgiveness! i longed for that, my whole breast was being rent to pieces, and never, never shall i recall that minute with indifference. but—what for? i thought. should i not begin to hate her, perhaps, even to-morrow, just because i had kissed her feet to-day? should i give her happiness? had i not recognized that day, for the hundredth time, what i was worth? should i not torture her?

i stood in the snow, gazing into the troubled darkness and pondered this.

"and will it not be better?" i mused fantastically, afterwards at home, stifling the living pang of my heart with fantastic dreams. "will it not be better that she should keep the resentment of the insult for ever? resentment—why, it is purification; it is a most stinging and painful consciousness! to-morrow i should have defiled her soul and have exhausted her heart, while now the feeling of insult will never die in her heart, and however loathsome the filth awaiting her—the feeling of insult will elevate and purify her ... by hatred ... h'm! ... perhaps, too, by forgiveness.... will all that make things easier for her though?..."

and, indeed, i will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? well, which is better?

so i dreamed as i sat at home that evening, almost dead with the pain in my soul. never had i endured such suffering and remorse, yet could there have been the faintest doubt when i ran out from my lodging that i should turn back half-way? i never met liza again and i have heard nothing of her. i will add, too, that i remained for a long time afterwards pleased with the phrase about the benefit from resentment and hatred in spite of the fact that i almost fell ill from misery.

* * * * *

even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. i have many evil memories now, but ... hadn't i better end my "notes" here? i believe i made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway i have felt ashamed all the time i've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. why, to tell long stories, showing how i have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. we are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. and why do we fuss and fume sometimes? why are we perverse and ask for something else? we don't know what ourselves. it would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, i assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. i know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us—excuse me, gentlemen, i am not justifying myself with that "all of us." as for what concerns me in particular i have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry half-way, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. so that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. look into it more carefully! why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. we shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. we are oppressed at being men—men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. we are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. we are developing a taste for it. soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. but enough; i don't want to write more from "underground."

[the notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. he could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here.]

a faint heart

a story

under the same roof in the same flat on the same fourth storey lived two young men, colleagues in the service, arkady ivanovitch nefedevitch and vasya shumkov.... the author of course, feels the necessity of explaining to the reader why one is given his full title, while the other's name is abbreviated, if only that such a mode of expression may not be regarded as unseemly and rather familiar. but, to do so, it would first be necessary to explain and describe the rank and years and calling and duty in the service, and even, indeed, the characters of the persons concerned; and since there are so many writers who begin in that way, the author of the proposed story, solely in order to be unlike them (that is, some people will perhaps say, entirely on account of his boundless vanity), decides to begin straightaway with action. having completed this introduction, he begins.

towards six o'clock on new year's eve shumkov returned home. arkady ivanovitch, who was lying on the bed, woke up and looked at his friend with half-closed eyes. he saw that vasya had on his very best trousers and a very clean shirt front. that, of course, struck him. "where had vasya to go like that? and he had not dined at home either!" meanwhile, shumkov had lighted a candle, and arkady ivanovitch guessed immediately that his friend was intending to wake him accidentally. vasya did, in fact, clear his throat twice, walked twice up and down the room, and at last, quite accidentally, let the pipe, which he had begun filling in the corner by the stove, slip out of his hands. arkady ivanovitch laughed to himself.

"vasya, give over pretending!" he said.

"arkasha, you are not asleep?"

"i really cannot say for certain; it seems to me i am not."

"oh, arkasha! how are you, dear boy? well, brother! well, brother!... you don't know what i have to tell you!"

"i certainly don't know; come here."

as though expecting this, vasya went up to him at once, not at all anticipating, however, treachery from arkady ivanovitch. the other seized him very adroitly by the arms, turned him over, held him down, and began, as it is called, "strangling" his victim, and apparently this proceeding afforded the lighthearted arkady ivanovitch great satisfaction.

"caught!" he cried. "caught!"

"arkasha, arkasha, what are you about? let me go. for goodness sake, let me go, i shall crumple my dress coat!"

"as though that mattered! what do you want with a dress coat? why were you so confiding as to put yourself in my hands? tell me, where have you been? where have you dined?"

"arkasha, for goodness sake, let me go!"

"where have you dined?"

"why, it's about that i want to tell you."

"tell away, then."

"but first let me go."

"not a bit of it, i won't let you go till you tell me!"

"arkasha! arkasha! but do you understand, i can't—it is utterly impossible!" cried vasya, helplessly wriggling out of his friend's powerful clutches, "you know there are subjects!"

"how—subjects?"...

"why, subjects that you can't talk about in such a position without losing your dignity; it's utterly impossible; it would make it ridiculous, and this is not a ridiculous matter, it is important."

"here, he's going in for being important! that's a new idea! you tell me so as to make me laugh, that's how you must tell me; i don't want anything important; or else you are no true friend of mine. do you call yourself a friend? eh?"

"arkasha, i really can't!"

"well, i don't want to hear...."

"well, arkasha!" began vasya, lying across the bed and doing his utmost to put all the dignity possible into his words. "arkasha! if you like, i will tell you; only...."

"well, what?..."

"well, i am engaged to be married!"

without uttering another word arkady ivanovitch took vasya up in his arms like a baby, though the latter was by no means short, but rather long and thin, and began dexterously carrying him up and down the room, pretending that he was hushing him to sleep.

"i'll put you in your swaddling clothes, master bridegroom," he kept saying. but seeing that vasya lay in his arms, not stirring or uttering a word, he thought better of it at once, and reflecting that the joke had gone too far, set him down in the middle of the room and kissed him on the cheek in the most genuine and friendly way.

"vasya, you are not angry?"

"arkasha, listen...."

"come, it's new year's eve."

"oh, i'm all right; but why are you such a madman, such a scatterbrain? how many times i have told you: arkasha, it's really not funny, not funny at all!"

"oh, well, you are not angry?"

"oh, i'm all right; am i ever angry with any one! but you have wounded me, do you understand?"

"but how have i wounded you? in what way?"

"i come to you as to a friend, with a full heart, to pour out my soul to you, to tell you of my happiness...."

"what happiness? why don't you speak?..."

"oh, well, i am going to get married!" vasya answered with vexation, for he really was a little exasperated.

"you! you are going to get married! so you really mean it?" arkasha cried at the top of his voice. "no, no ... but what's this? he talks like this and his tears are flowing.... vasya, my little vasya, don't, my little son! is it true, really?" and arkady ivanovitch flew to hug him again.

"well, do you see, how it is now?" said vasya. "you are kind, of course, you are a friend, i know that. i come to you with such joy, such rapture, and all of a sudden i have to disclose all the joy of my heart, all my rapture struggling across the bed, in an undignified way.... you understand, arkasha," vasya went on, half laughing. "you see, it made it seem comic: and in a sense i did not belong to myself at that minute. i could not let this be slighted.... what's more, if you had asked me her name, i swear, i would sooner you killed me than have answered you."

"but, vasya, why did you not speak! you should have told me all about it sooner and i would not have played the fool!" cried arkady ivanovitch in genuine despair.

"come, that's enough, that's enough! of course, that's how it is.... you know what it all comes from—from my having a good heart. what vexes me is, that i could not tell you as i wanted to, making you glad and happy, telling you nicely and initiating you into my secret properly.... really, arkasha, i love you so much that i believe if it were not for you i shouldn't be getting married, and, in fact, i shouldn't be living in this world at all!"

arkady ivanovitch, who was excessively sentimental, cried and laughed at once as he listened to vasya. vasya did the same. both flew to embrace one another again and forgot the past.

"how is it—how is it? tell me all about it, vasya! i am astonished, excuse me, brother, but i am utterly astonished; it's a perfect thunderbolt, by jove! nonsense, nonsense, brother, you have made it up, you've really made it up, you are telling fibs!" cried arkady ivanovitch, and he actually looked into vasya's face with genuine uncertainty, but seeing in it the radiant confirmation of a positive intention of being married as soon as possible, threw himself on the bed and began rolling from side to side in ecstasy till the walls shook.

"vasya, sit here," he said at last, sitting down on the bed.

"i really don't know, brother, where to begin!"

they looked at one another in joyful excitement.

"who is she, vasya?"

"the artemyevs!..." vasya pronounced, in a voice weak with emotion.

"no?"

"well, i did buzz into your ears about them at first, and then i shut up, and you noticed nothing. ah, arkasha, if you knew how hard it was to keep it from you; but i was afraid, afraid to speak! i thought it would all go wrong, and you know i was in love, arkasha! my god! my god! you see this was the trouble," he began, pausing continually from agitation, "she had a suitor a year ago, but he was suddenly ordered somewhere; i knew him—he was a fellow, bless him! well, he did not write at all, he simply vanished. they waited and waited, wondering what it meant.... four months ago he suddenly came back married, and has never set foot within their doors! it was coarse—shabby! and they had no one to stand up for them. she cried and cried, poor girl, and i fell in love with her ... indeed, i had been in love with her long before, all the time! i began comforting her, and was always going there.... well, and i really don't know how it has all come about, only she came to love me; a week ago i could not restrain myself, i cried, i sobbed, and told her everything—well, that i love her—everything, in fact!... 'i am ready to love you, too, vassily petrovitch, only i am a poor girl, don't make a mock of me; i don't dare to love any one.' well, brother, you understand! you understand?... on that we got engaged on the spot. i kept thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, i said to her, 'how are we to tell your mother?' she said, 'it will be hard, wait a little; she's afraid, and now maybe she would not let you have me; she keeps crying, too.' without telling her i blurted it out to her mother to-day. lizanka fell on her knees before her, i did the same ... well, she gave us her blessing. arkasha, arkasha! my dear fellow! we will live together. no, i won't part from you for anything."

"vasya, look at you as i may, i can't believe it. i don't believe it, i swear. i keep feeling as though.... listen, how can you be engaged to be married?... how is it i didn't know, eh? do you know, vasya, i will confess it to you now. i was thinking of getting married myself; but now since you are going to be married, it is just as good! be happy, be happy!..."

"brother, i feel so lighthearted now, there is such sweetness in my soul ..." said vasya, getting up and pacing about the room excitedly. "don't you feel the same? we shall be poor, of course, but we shall be happy; and you know it is not a wild fancy; our happiness is not a fairy tale; we shall be happy in reality!..."

"vasya, vasya, listen!"

"what?" said vasya, standing before arkady ivanovitch.

"the idea occurs to me; i am really afraid to say it to you.... forgive me, and settle my doubts. what are you going to live on? you know i am delighted that you are going to be married, of course, i am delighted, and i don't know what to do with myself, but—what are you going to live on? eh?"

"oh, good heavens! what a fellow you are, arkasha!" said vasya, looking at nefedevitch in profound astonishment. "what do you mean? even her old mother, even she did not think of that for two minutes when i put it all clearly before her. you had better ask what they are living on! they have five hundred roubles a year between the three of them: the pension, which is all they have, since the father died. she and her old mother and her little brother, whose schooling is paid for out of that income too—that is how they live! it's you and i are the capitalists! some good years it works out to as much as seven hundred for me."

"i say, vasya, excuse me; i really ... you know i ... i am only thinking how to prevent things going wrong. how do you mean, seven hundred? it's only three hundred...."

"three hundred!... and yulian mastakovitch? have you forgotten him?"

"yulian mastakovitch? but you know that's uncertain, brother; that's not the same thing as three hundred roubles of secure salary, where every rouble is a friend you can trust. yulian mastakovitch, of course, he's a great man, in fact, i respect him, i understand him, though he is so far above us; and, by jove, i love him, because he likes you and gives you something for your work, though he might not pay you, but simply order a clerk to work for him—but you will agree, vasya.... let me tell you, too, i am not talking nonsense. i admit in all petersburg you won't find a handwriting like your handwriting, i am ready to allow that to you," nefedevitch concluded, not without enthusiasm. "but, god forbid! you may displease him all at once, you may not satisfy him, your work with him may stop, he may take another clerk—all sorts of things may happen, in fact! you know, yulian mastakovitch may be here to-day and gone to-morrow...."

"well, arkasha, the ceiling might fall on our heads this minute."

"oh, of course, of course, i mean nothing."

"but listen, hear what i have got to say—you know, i don't see how he can part with me.... no, hear what i have to say! hear what i have to say! you see, i perform all my duties punctually; you know how kind he is, you know, arkasha, he gave me fifty roubles in silver to-day!"

"did he really, vasya? a bonus for you?"

"bonus, indeed, it was out of his own pocket. he said: 'why, you have had no money for five months, brother, take some if you want it; thank you, i am satisfied with you.'... yes, really! 'yes, you don't work for me for nothing,' said he. he did, indeed, that's what he said. it brought tears into my eyes, arkasha. good heavens, yes!"

"i say, vasya, have you finished copying those papers?..."

"no.... i haven't finished them yet."

"vas...ya! my angel! what have you been doing?"

"listen, arkasha, it doesn't matter, they are not wanted for another two days, i have time enough...."

"how is it you have not done them?"

"that's all right, that's all right. you look so horror-stricken that you turn me inside out and make my heart ache! you are always going on at me like this! he's for ever crying out: oh, oh, oh!!! only consider, what does it matter? why, i shall finish it, of course i shall finish it...."

"what if you don't finish it?" cried arkady, jumping up, "and he has made you a present to-day! and you going to be married.... tut, tut, tut!..."

"it's all right, it's all right," cried shumkov, "i shall sit down directly, i shall sit down this minute."

"how did you come to leave it, vasya?"

"oh, arkasha! how could i sit down to work! have i been in a fit state? why, even at the office i could scarcely sit still, i could scarcely bear the beating of my heart.... oh! oh! now i shall work all night, and i shall work all to-morrow night, and the night after, too—and i shall finish it."

"is there a great deal left?"

"don't hinder me, for goodness' sake, don't hinder me; hold your tongue."

arkady ivanovitch went on tip-toe to the bed and sat down, then suddenly wanted to get up, but was obliged to sit down again, remembering that he might interrupt him, though he could not sit still for excitement: it was evident that the news had thoroughly upset him, and the first thrill of delight had not yet passed off. he glanced at shumkov; the latter glanced at him, smiled, and shook his finger at him, then, frowning severely (as though all his energy and the success of his work depended upon it), fixed his eyes on the papers.

it seemed that he, too, could not yet master his emotion; he kept changing his pen, fidgeting in his chair, re-arranging things, and setting to work again, but his hand trembled and refused to move.

"arkasha, i've talked to them about you," he cried suddenly, as though he had just remembered it.

"yes," cried arkasha, "i was just wanting to ask you that. well?"

"well, i'll tell you everything afterwards. of course, it is my own fault, but it quite went out of my head that i didn't mean to say anything till i had written four pages, but i thought of you and of them. i really can't write, brother, i keep thinking about you...."

vasya smiled.

a silence followed.

"phew! what a horrid pen," cried shumkov, flinging it on the table in vexation. he took another.

"vasya! listen! one word...."

"well, make haste, and for the last time."

"have you a great deal left to do?"

"ah, brother!" vasya frowned, as though there could be nothing more terrible and murderous in the whole world than such a question. "a lot, a fearful lot."

"do you know, i have an idea——"

"what?"

"oh, never mind, never mind; go on writing."

"why, what? what?"

"it's past six, vasya."

here nefedevitch smiled and winked slyly at vasya, though with a certain timidity, not knowing how vasya would take it.

"well, what is it?" said vasya, throwing down his pen, looking him straight in the face and actually turning pale with excitement.

"do you know what?"

"for goodness sake, what is it?"

"i tell you what, you are excited, you won't get much done.... stop, stop, stop! i have it, i have it—listen," said nefedevitch, jumping up from the bed in delight, preventing vasya from speaking and doing his utmost to ward off all objections; "first of all you must get calm, you must pull yourself together, mustn't you?"

"arkasha, arkasha!" cried vasya, jumping up from his chair, "i will work all night, i will, really."

"of course, of course, you won't go to bed till morning."

"i won't go to bed, i won't go to bed at all."

"no, that won't do, that won't do: you must sleep, go to bed at five. i will call you at eight. to-morrow is a holiday; you can sit and scribble away all day long.... then the night and—but have you a great deal left to do?"

"yes, look, look!"

vasya, quivering with excitement and suspense, showed the manuscript: "look!"

"i say, brother, that's not much."

"my dear fellow, there's some more of it," said vasya, looking very timidly at nefedevitch, as though the decision whether he was to go or not depended upon the latter.

"how much?"

"two signatures."

"well, what's that? come, i tell you what. we shall have time to finish it, by jove, we shall!"

"arkasha!"

"vasya, listen! to-night, on new year's eve, every one is at home with his family. you and i are the only ones without a home or relations.... oh, vasya!"

nefedevitch clutched vasya and hugged him in his leonine arms.

"arkasha, it's settled."

"vasya, boy, i only wanted to say this. you see, vasya—listen, bandy-legs, listen!..."

arkady stopped, with his mouth open, because he could not speak for delight. vasya held him by the shoulders, gazed into his face and moved his lips, as though he wanted to speak for him.

"well," he brought out at last.

"introduce me to them to-day."

"arkady, let us go to tea there. i tell you what, i tell you what. we won't even stay to see in the new year, we'll come away earlier," cried vasya, with genuine inspiration.

"that is, we'll go for two hours, neither more nor less...."

"and then separation till i have finished...."

"vasya, boy!"

"arkady!"

three minutes later arkady was dressed in his best. vasya did nothing but brush himself, because he had been in such haste to work that he had not changed his trousers.

they hurried out into the street, each more pleased than the other. their way lay from the petersburg side to kolomna. arkady ivanovitch stepped out boldly and vigorously, so that from his walk alone one could see how glad he was at the good fortune of his friend, who was more and more radiant with happiness. vasya trotted along with shorter steps, though his deportment was none the less dignified. arkady ivanovitch, in fact, had never seen him before to such advantage. at that moment he actually felt more respect for him, and vasya's physical defect, of which the reader is not yet aware (vasya was slightly deformed), which always called forth a feeling of loving sympathy in arkady ivanovitch's kind heart, contributed to the deep tenderness the latter felt for him at this moment, a tenderness of which vasya was in every way worthy. arkady ivanovitch felt ready to weep with happiness, but he restrained himself.

"where are you going, where are you going, vasya? it is nearer this way," he cried, seeing that vasya was making in the direction of voznesenky.

"hold your tongue, arkasha."

"it really is nearer, vasya."

"do you know what, arkasha?" vasya began mysteriously, in a voice quivering with joy, "i tell you what, i want to take lizanka a little present."

"what sort of present?"

"at the corner here, brother, is madame leroux's, a wonderful shop."

"well."

"a cap, my dear, a cap; i saw such a charming little cap to-day. i inquired, i was told it was the fa?on manon lescaut—a delightful thing. cherry-coloured ribbons, and if it is not dear ... arkasha, even if it is dear...."

"i think you are superior to any of the poets, vasya. come along."

they ran along, and two minutes later went into the shop. they were met by a black-eyed frenchwoman with curls, who, from the first glance at her customers, became as joyous and happy as they, even happier, if one may say so. vasya was ready to kiss madame leroux in his delight....

"arkasha," he said in an undertone, casting a casual glance at all the grand and beautiful things on little wooden stands on the huge table, "lovely things! what's that? what's this? this one, for instance, this little sweet, do you see?" vasya whispered, pointing to a charming cap further away, which was not the one he meant to buy, because he had already from afar descried and fixed his eyes upon the real, famous one, standing at the other end. he looked at it in such a way that one might have supposed some one was going to steal it, or as though the cap itself might take wings and fly into the air just to prevent vasya from obtaining it.

"look," said arkady ivanovitch, pointing to one, "i think that's better."

"well, arkasha, that does you credit; i begin to respect you for your taste," said vasya, resorting to cunning with arkasha in the tenderness of his heart, "your cap is charming, but come this way."

"where is there a better one, brother?"

"look; this way."

"that," said arkady, doubtfully.

but when vasya, incapable of restraining himself any longer, took it from the stand from which it seemed to fly spontaneously, as though delighted at falling at last into the hands of so good a customer, and they heard the rustle of its ribbons, ruches and lace, an unexpected cry of delight broke from the powerful chest of arkady ivanovitch. even madame leroux, while maintaining her incontestable dignity and pre-eminence in matters of taste, and remaining mute from condescension, rewarded vasya with a smile of complete approbation, everything in her glance, gesture and smile saying at once: "yes, you have chosen rightly, and are worthy of the happiness which awaits you."

"it has been dangling its charms in coy seclusion," cried vasya, transferring his tender feelings to the charming cap. "you have been hiding on purpose, you sly little pet!" and he kissed it, that is the air surrounding it, for he was afraid to touch his treasure.

"retiring as true worth and virtue," arkady added enthusiastically, quoting humorously from a comic paper he had read that morning. "well, vasya?"

"hurrah, arkasha! you are witty to-day. i predict you will make a sensation, as women say. madame leroux, madame leroux!"

"what is your pleasure?"

"dear madame leroux."

madame leroux looked at arkady ivanovitch and smiled condescendingly.

"you wouldn't believe how i adore you at this moment.... allow me to give you a kiss...." and vasya kissed the shopkeeper.

she certainly at that moment needed all her dignity to maintain her position with such a madcap. but i contend that the innate, spontaneous courtesy and grace with which madame leroux received vasya's enthusiasm, was equally befitting. she forgave him, and how tactfully, how graciously, she knew how to behave in the circumstances. how could she have been angry with vasya?

"madame leroux, how much?"

"five roubles in silver," she answered, straightening herself with a new smile.

"and this one, madame leroux?" said arkady ivanovitch, pointing to his choice.

"that one is eight roubles."

"there, you see—there, you see! come, madame leroux, tell me which is nicer, more graceful, more charming, which of them suits you best?"

"the second is richer, but your choice c'est plus coquet."

"then we will take it."

madame leroux took a sheet of very delicate paper, pinned it up, and the paper with the cap wrapped in it seemed even lighter than the paper alone. vasya took it carefully, almost holding his breath, bowed to madame leroux, said something else very polite to her and left the shop.

"i am a lady's man, i was born to be a lady's man," said vasya, laughing a little noiseless, nervous laugh and dodging the passers-by, whom he suspected of designs for crushing his precious cap.

"listen, arkady, brother," he began a minute later, and there was a note of triumph, of infinite affection in his voice. "arkady, i am so happy, i am so happy!"

"vasya! how glad i am, dear boy!"

"no, arkasha, no. i know that there is no limit to your affection for me; but you cannot be feeling one-hundredth part of what i am feeling at this moment. my heart is so full, so full! arkasha, i am not worthy of such happiness. i feel that, i am conscious of it. why has it come to me?" he said, his voice full of stifled sobs. "what have i done to deserve it? tell me. look what lots of people, what lots of tears, what sorrow, what work-a-day life without a holiday, while i, i am loved by a girl like that, i.... but you will see her yourself immediately, you will appreciate her noble heart. i was born in a humble station, now i have a grade in the service and an independent income—my salary. i was born with a physical defect, i am a little deformed. see, she loves me as i am. yulian mastakovitch was so kind, so attentive, so gracious to-day; he does not often talk to me; he came up to me: 'well, how goes it, vasya' (yes, really, he called me vasya), 'are you going to have a good time for the holiday, eh?' he laughed.

"'well, the fact is, your excellency, i have work to do,' but then i plucked up courage and said: 'and maybe i shall have a good time, too, your excellency.' i really said it. he gave me the money, on the spot, then he said a couple of words more to me. tears came into my eyes, brother, i actually cried, and he, too, seemed touched, he patted me on the shoulder, and said: 'feel always, vasya, as you feel this now.'"

vasya paused for an instant. arkady ivanovitch turned away, and he, too, wiped away a tear with his fist.

"and, and ..." vasya went on, "i have never spoken to you of this, arkady.... arkady, you make me so happy with your affection, without you i could not live,—no, no, don't say anything, arkady, let me squeeze your hand, let me ... tha...ank ... you...." again vasya could not finish.

arkady ivanovitch longed to throw himself on vasya's neck, but as they were crossing the road and heard almost in their ears a shrill: "hi! there!" they ran frightened and excited to the pavement.

arkady ivanovitch was positively relieved. he set down vasya's outburst of gratitude to the exceptional circumstances of the moment. he was vexed. he felt that he had done so little for vasya hitherto. he felt actually ashamed of himself when vasya began thanking him for so little. but they had all their lives before them, and arkady ivanovitch breathed more freely.

the artemyevs had quite given up expecting them. the proof of it was that they had already sat down to tea! and the old, it seems, are sometimes more clear-sighted than the young, even when the young are so exceptional. lizanka had very earnestly maintained, "he isn't coming, he isn't coming, mamma; i feel in my heart he is not coming;" while her mother on the contrary declared "that she had a feeling that he would certainly come, that he would not stay away, that he would run round, that he could have no office work now, on new year's eve." even as lizanka opened the door she did not in the least expect to see them, and greeted them breathlessly, with her heart throbbing like a captured bird's, flushing and turning as red as a cherry, a fruit which she wonderfully resembled. good heavens, what a surprise it was! what a joyful "oh!" broke from her lips. "deceiver! my darling!" she cried, throwing her arms round vasya's neck. but imagine her amazement, her sudden confusion: just behind vasya, as though trying to hide behind his back, stood arkady ivanovitch, a trifle out of countenance. it must be admitted that he was awkward in the company of women, very awkward indeed, in fact on one occasion something occurred ... but of that later. you must put yourself in his place, however. there was nothing to laugh at; he was standing in the entry, in his goloshes and overcoat, and in a cap with flaps over the ears, which he would have hastened to pull off, but he had, all twisted round in a hideous way, a yellow knitted scarf, which, to make things worse, was knotted at the back. he had to disentangle all this, to take it off as quickly as possible, to show himself to more advantage, for there is no one who does not prefer to show himself to advantage. and then vasya, vexatious insufferable vasya, of course always the same dear kind vasya, but now insufferable, ruthless vasya. "here," he shouted, "lizanka, i have brought you my arkady? what do you think of him? he is my best friend, embrace him, kiss him, lizanka, give him a kiss in advance; afterwards—you will know him better—you can take it back again."

well, what, i ask you, was arkady ivanovitch to do? and he had only untwisted half of the scarf so far. i really am sometimes ashamed of vasya's excess of enthusiasm; it is, of course, the sign of a good heart, but ... it's awkward, not nice!

at last both went in.... the mother was unutterably delighted to make arkady ivanovitch's acquaintance, "she had heard so much about him, she had...." but she did not finish. a joyful "oh!" ringing musically through the room interrupted her in the middle of a sentence. good heavens! lizanka was standing before the cap which had suddenly been unfolded before her gaze; she clasped her hands with the utmost simplicity, smiling such a smile.... oh, heavens! why had not madame leroux an even lovelier cap?

oh, heavens! but where could you find a lovelier cap? it was quite first-rate. where could you get a better one? i mean it seriously. this ingratitude on the part of lovers moves me, in fact, to indignation and even wounds me a little. why, look at it for yourself, reader, look, what could be more beautiful than this little love of a cap? come, look at it.... but, no, no, my strictures are uncalled for; they had by now all agreed with me; it had been a momentary aberration; the blindness, the delirium of feeling; i am ready to forgive them.... but then you must look.... you must excuse me, kind reader, i am still talking about the cap: made of tulle, light as a feather, a broad cherry-coloured ribbon covered with lace passing between the tulle and the ruche, and at the back two wide long ribbons—they would fall down a little below the nape of the neck.... all that the cap needed was to be tilted a little to the back of the head; come, look at it; i ask you, after that ... but i see you are not looking ... you think it does not matter. you are looking in a different direction.... you are looking at two big tears, big as pearls, that rose in two jet black eyes, quivered for one instant on the eyelashes, and then dropped on the ethereal tulle of which madame leroux's artistic masterpiece was composed.... and again i feel vexed, those two tears were scarcely a tribute to the cap.... no, to my mind, such a gift should be given in cool blood, as only then can its full worth be appreciated. i am, i confess, dear reader, entirely on the side of the cap.

they sat down—vasya with lizanka and the old mother with arkady ivanovitch; they began to talk, and arkady ivanovitch did himself credit, i am glad to say that for him. one would hardly, indeed, have expected it of him. after a couple of words about vasya he most successfully turned the conversation to yulian mastakovitch, his patron. and he talked so cleverly, so cleverly that the subject was not exhausted for an hour. you ought to have seen with what dexterity, what tact, arkady ivanovitch touched upon certain peculiarities of yulian mastakovitch which directly or indirectly affected vasya. the mother was fascinated, genuinely fascinated; she admitted it herself; she purposely called vasya aside, and said to him that his friend was a most excellent and charming young man, and, what was of most account, such a serious, steady young man. vasya almost laughed aloud with delight. he remembered how the serious arkady had tumbled him on his bed for a quarter of an hour. then the mother signed to vasya to follow her quietly and cautiously into the next room. it must be admitted that she treated lizanka rather unfairly: she behaved treacherously to her daughter, in the fullness of her heart, of course, and showed vasya on the sly the present lizanka was preparing to give him for the new year. it was a paper-case, embroidered in beads and gold in a very choice design: on one side was depicted a stag, absolutely lifelike, running swiftly, and so well done! on the other side was the portrait of a celebrated general, also an excellent likeness. i cannot describe vasya's raptures. meanwhile, time was not being wasted in the parlour. lizanka went straight up to arkady ivanovitch. she took his hand, she thanked him for something, and arkady ivanovitch gathered that she was referring to her precious vasya. lizanka was, indeed, deeply touched: she had heard that arkady ivanovitch was such a true friend of her betrothed, so loved him, so watched over him, guiding him at every step with helpful advice, that she, lizanka, could hardly help thanking him, could not refrain from feeling grateful, and hoping that arkady ivanovitch might like her, if only half as well as vasya. then she began questioning him as to whether vasya was careful of his health, expressed some apprehensions in regard to his marked impulsiveness of character, and his lack of knowledge of men and practical life; she said that she would in time watch over him religiously, that she would take care of and cherish his lot, and finally, she hoped that arkady ivanovitch would not leave them, but would live with them.

"we three shall live like one," she cried, with extremely na?ve enthusiasm.

but it was time to go. they tried, of course, to keep them, but vasya answered point blank that it was impossible. arkady ivanovitch said the same. the reason was, of course, inquired into, and it came out at once that there was work to be done entrusted to vasya by yulian mastakovitch, urgent, necessary, dreadful work, which must be handed in on the morning of the next day but one, and that it was not only unfinished, but had been completely laid aside. the mamma sighed when she heard of this, while lizanka was positively scared, and hurried vasya off in alarm. the last kiss lost nothing from this haste; though brief and hurried it was only the more warm and ardent. at last they parted and the two friends set off home.

both began at once confiding to each other their impressions as soon as they found themselves in the street. and could they help it? indeed, arkady ivanovitch was in love, desperately in love, with lizanka. and to whom could he better confide his feelings than to vasya, the happy man himself. and so he did; he was not bashful, but confessed everything at once to vasya. vasya laughed heartily and was immensely delighted, and even observed that this was all that was needed to make them greater friends than ever. "you have guessed my feelings, vasya," said arkady ivanovitch. "yes, i love her as i love you; she will be my good angel as well as yours, for the radiance of your happiness will be shed on me, too, and i can bask in its warmth. she will keep house for me too, vasya; my happiness will be in her hands. let her keep house for me as she will for you. yes, friendship for you is friendship for her; you are not separable for me now, only i shall have two beings like you instead of one...." arkady paused in the fullness of his feelings, while vasya was shaken to the depths of his being by his friend's words. the fact is, he had never expected anything of the sort from arkady. arkady ivanovitch was not very great at talking as a rule, he was not fond of dreaming, either; now he gave way to the liveliest, freshest, rainbow-tinted day-dreams. "how i will protect and cherish you both," he began again. "to begin with, vasya, i will be godfather to all your children, every one of them; and secondly, vasya, we must bestir ourselves about the future. we must buy furniture, and take a lodging so that you and she and i can each have a little room to ourselves. do you know, vasya, i'll run about to-morrow and look at the notices, on the gates! three ... no, two rooms, we should not need more. i really believe, vasya, i talked nonsense this morning, there will be money enough; why, as soon as i glanced into her eyes i calculated at once that there would be enough to live on. it will all be for her. oh, how we will work! now, vasya, we might venture up to twenty-five roubles for rent. a lodging is everything, brother. nice rooms ... and at once a man is cheerful, and his dreams are of the brightest hues. and, besides, lizanka will keep the purse for both of us: not a farthing will be wasted. do you suppose i would go to a restaurant? what do you take me for? not on any account. and then we shall get a bonus and reward, for we shall be zealous in the service—oh! how we shall work, like oxen toiling in the fields.... only fancy," and arkady ivanovitch's voice was faint with pleasure, "all at once and quite unexpected, twenty-five or thirty roubles.... whenever there's an extra, there'll be a cap or a scarf or a pair of little stockings. she must knit me a scarf; look what a horrid one i've got, the nasty yellow thing, it did me a bad turn to-day! and you wore a nice one, vasya, to introduce me while i had my head in a halter.... though never mind that now. and look here, i undertake all the silver. i am bound to give you some little present,—that will be an honour, that will flatter my vanity.... my bonuses won't fail me, surely; you don't suppose they would give them to skorohodov? no fear, they won't be landed in that person's pocket. i'll buy you silver spoons, brother, good knives—not silver knives, but thoroughly good ones; and a waistcoat, that is a waistcoat for myself. i shall be best man, of course. only now, brother, you must keep at it, you must keep at it. i shall stand over you with a stick, brother, to-day and to-morrow and all night; i shall worry you to work. finish, make haste and finish, brother. and then again to spend the evening, and then again both of us happy; we will go in for loto. we will spend the evening there—oh, it's jolly! oh, the devil! how, vexing it is i can't help you. i should like to take it and write it all for you.... why is it our handwriting is not alike?"

"yes," answered vasya. "yes, i must make haste. i think it must be eleven o'clock; we must make haste.... to work!" and saying this, vasya, who had been all the time alternately smiling and trying to interrupt with some enthusiastic rejoinder the flow of his friend's feelings, and had, in short, been showing the most cordial response, suddenly subsided, sank into silence, and almost ran along the street. it seemed as though some burdensome idea had suddenly chilled his feverish head; he seemed all at once dispirited.

arkady ivanovitch felt quite uneasy; he scarcely got an answer to his hurried questions from vasya, who confined himself to a word or two, sometimes an irrelevant exclamation.

"why, what is the matter with you, vasya?" he cried at last, hardly able to keep up with him. "can you really be so uneasy?"

"oh, brother, that's enough chatter!" vasya answered, with vexation.

"don't be depressed, vasya—come, come," arkady interposed. "why, i have known you write much more in a shorter time! what's the matter? you've simply a talent for it! you can write quickly in an emergency; they are not going to lithograph your copy. you've plenty of time!... the only thing is that you are excited now, and preoccupied, and the work won't go so easily."

vasya made no reply, or muttered something to himself, and they both ran home in genuine anxiety.

vasya sat down to the papers at once. arkady ivanovitch was quiet and silent; he noiselessly undressed and went to bed, keeping his eyes fixed on vasya.... a sort of panic came over him.... "what is the matter with him?" he thought to himself, looking at vasya's face that grew whiter and whiter, at his feverish eyes, at the anxiety that was betrayed in every movement he made, "why, his hand is shaking ... what a stupid! why did i not advise him to sleep for a couple of hours, till he had slept off his nervous excitement, any way." vasya had just finished a page, he raised his eyes, glanced casually at arkady and at once, looking down, took up his pen again.

"listen, vasya," arkady ivanovitch began suddenly, "wouldn't it be best to sleep a little now? look, you are in a regular fever."

vasya glanced at arkady with vexation, almost with anger, and made no answer.

"listen, vasya, you'll make yourself ill."

vasya at once changed his mind. "how would it be to have tea, arkady?" he said.

"how so? why?"

"it will do me good. i am not sleepy, i'm not going to bed! i am going on writing. but now i should like to rest and have a cup of tea, and the worst moment will be over."

"first-rate, brother vasya, delightful! just so. i was wanting to propose it myself. and i can't think why it did not occur to me to do so. but i say, mavra won't get up, she won't wake for anything...."

"true."

"that's no matter, though," cried arkady ivanovitch, leaping out of bed. "i will set the samovar myself. it won't be the first time...."

arkady ivanovitch ran to the kitchen and set to work to get the samovar; vasya meanwhile went on writing. arkady ivanovitch, moreover, dressed and ran out to the baker's, so that vasya might have something to sustain him for the night. a quarter of an hour later the samovar was on the table. they began drinking tea, but conversation flagged. vasya still seemed preoccupied.

"to-morrow," he said at last, as though he had just thought of it, "i shall have to take my congratulations for the new year...."

"you need not go at all."

"oh yes, brother, i must," said vasya.

"why, i will sign the visitors' book for you everywhere.... how can you? you work to-morrow. you must work to-night, till five o'clock in the morning, as i said, and then get to bed. or else you will be good for nothing to-morrow. i'll wake you at eight o'clock, punctually."

"but will it be all right, your signing for me?" said vasya, half assenting.

"why, what could be better? everyone does it."

"i am really afraid."

"why, why?"

"it's all right, you know, with other people, but yulian mastakovitch ... he has been so kind to me, you know, arkasha, and when he notices it's not my own signature——"

"notices! why, what a fellow you are, really, vasya! how could he notice?... come, you know i can imitate your signature awfully well, and make just the same flourish to it, upon my word i can. what nonsense! who would notice?"

vasya, made no reply, but emptied his glass hurriedly.... then he shook his head doubtfully.

"vasya, dear boy! ah, if only we succeed! vasya, what's the matter with you, you quite frighten me! do you know, vasya, i am not going to bed now, i am not going to sleep! show me, have you a great deal left?"

vasya gave arkady such a look that his heart sank, and his tongue failed him.

"vasya, what is the matter? what are you thinking? why do you look like that?"

"arkady, i really must go to-morrow to wish yulian mastakovitch a happy new year."

"well, go then!" said arkady, gazing at him open-eyed, in uneasy expectation. "i say, vasya, do write faster; i am advising you for your good, i really am! how often yulian mastakovitch himself has said that what he likes particularly about your writing is its legibility. why, it is all that skoroplehin cares for, that writing should be good and distinct like a copy, so as afterwards to pocket the paper and take it home for his children to copy; he can't buy copybooks, the blockhead! yulian mastakovitch is always saying, always insisting: 'legible, legible, legible!'... what is the matter? vasya, i really don't know how to talk to you ... it quite frightens me ... you crush me with your depression."

"it's all right, it's all right," said vasya, and he fell back in his chair as though fainting. arkady was alarmed.

"will you have some water? vasya! vasya!"

"don't, don't," said vasya, pressing his hand. "i am all right, i only feel sad, i can't tell why. better talk of something else; let me forget it."

"calm yourself, for goodness' sake, calm yourself, vasya. you will finish it all right, on my honour, you will. and even if you don't finish, what will it matter? you talk as though it were a crime!"

"arkady," said vasya, looking at his friend with such meaning that arkady was quite frightened, for vasya had never been so agitated before.... "if i were alone, as i used to be.... no! i don't mean that. i keep wanting to tell you as a friend, to confide in you.... but why worry you, though?... you see, arkady, to some much is given, others do a little thing as i do. well, if gratitude, appreciation, is expected of you ... and you can't give it?"

"vasya, i don't understand you in the least."

"i have never been ungrateful," vasya went on softly, as though speaking to himself, "but if i am incapable of expressing all i feel, it seems as though ... it seems, arkady, as though i am really ungrateful, and that's killing me."

"what next, what next! as though gratitude meant nothing more than your finishing that copy in time? just think what you are saying, vasya? is that the whole expression of gratitude?"

vasya sank into silence at once, and looked open-eyed at arkady, as though his unexpected argument had settled all his doubts. he even smiled, but the same melancholy expression came back to his face at once. arkady, taking this smile as a sign that all his uneasiness was over, and the look that succeeded it as an indication that he was determined to do better, was greatly relieved.

"well, brother arkasha, you will wake up," said vasya, "keep an eye on me; if i fall asleep it will be dreadful. i'll set to work now.... arkasha?"

"what?"

"oh, it's nothing, i only ... i meant...."

vasya settled himself, and said no more, arkady got into bed. neither of them said one word about their friends, the artemyevs. perhaps both of them felt that they had been a little to blame, and that they ought not to have gone for their jaunt when they did. arkady soon fell asleep, still worried about vasya. to his own surprise he woke up exactly at eight o'clock in the morning. vasya was asleep in his chair with the pen in his hand, pale and exhausted; the candle had burnt out. mavra was busy getting the samovar ready in the kitchen.

"vasya, vasya!" arkady cried in alarm, "when did you fall asleep?"

vasya opened his eyes and jumped up from his chair.

"oh!" he cried, "i must have fallen asleep...."

he flew to the papers—everything was right; all were in order; there was not a blot of ink, nor spot of grease from the candle on them.

"i think i must have fallen asleep about six o'clock," said vasya. "how cold it is in the night! let us have tea, and i will go on again...."

"do you feel better?"

"yes, yes, i'm all right, i'm all right now."

"a happy new year to you, brother vasya."

"and to you too, brother, the same to you, dear boy."

they embraced each other. vasya's chin was quivering and his eyes were moist. arkady ivanovitch was silent, he felt sad. they drank their tea hastily.

"arkady, i've made up my mind, i am going myself to yulian mastakovitch."

"why, he wouldn't notice——"

"but my conscience feels ill at ease, brother."

"but you know it's for his sake you are sitting here; it's for his sake you are wearing yourself out."

"enough!"

"do you know what, brother, i'll go round and see...."

"whom?" asked vasya.

"the artemyevs. i'll take them your good wishes for the new year as well as mine."

"my dear fellow! well, i'll stay here; and i see it's a good idea of yours; i shall be working here, i shan't waste my time. wait one minute, i'll write a note."

"yes, do brother, do, there's plenty of time. i've still to wash and shave and to brush my best coat. well, vasya, we are going to be contented and happy. embrace me, vasya."

"ah, if only we may, brother...."

"does mr. shumkov live here?" they heard a child's voice on the stairs.

"yes, my dear, yes," said mavra, showing the visitor in.

"what's that? what is it?" cried vasya, leaping up from the table and rushing to the entry, "petinka, you?"

"good morning, i have the honour to wish you a happy new year, vassily petrovitch," said a pretty boy of ten years old with curly black hair. "sister sends you her love, and so does mamma, and sister told me to give you a kiss for her."

vasya caught the messenger up in the air and printed a long, enthusiastic kiss on his lips, which were very much like lizanka's.

"kiss him, arkady," he said handing petya to him, and without touching the ground the boy was transferred to arkady ivanovitch's powerful and eager arms.

"will you have some breakfast, dear?"

"thank-you, very much. we have had it already, we got up early to-day, the others have gone to church. sister was two hours curling my hair, and pomading it, washing me and mending my trousers, for i tore them yesterday, playing with sashka in the street, we were snowballing."

"well, well, well!"

"so she dressed me up to come and see you, and then pomaded my head and then gave me a regular kissing. she said: 'go to vasya, wish him a happy new year, and ask whether they are happy, whether they had a good night, and ...' to ask something else,—oh yes! whether you had finished the work you spoke of yesterday ... when you were there. oh, i've got it all written down," said the boy, reading from a slip of paper which he took out of his pocket. "yes, they were uneasy."

"it will be finished! it will be! tell her that it will be. i shall finish it, on my word of honour!"

"and something else.... oh yes, i forgot. sister sent a little note and a present, and i was forgetting it!..."

"my goodness! oh, you little darling! where is it? where is it? that's it, oh! look, brother, see what she writes. the dar—ling, the precious! you know i saw there yesterday a paper-case for me; it's not finished, so she says, 'i am sending you a lock of my hair, and the other will come later.' look, brother, look!"

and overwhelmed with rapture he showed arkady ivanovitch a curl of luxuriant, jet-black hair; then he kissed it fervently and put it in his breast pocket, nearest his heart.

"vasya, i shall get you a locket for that curl," arkady ivanovitch said resolutely at last.

"and we are going to have hot veal, and to-morrow brains. mamma wants to make cakes ... but we are not going to have millet porridge," said the boy, after a moment's thought, to wind up his budget of interesting items.

"oh! what a pretty boy," cried arkady ivanovitch. "vasya, you are the happiest of mortals."

the boy finished his tea, took from vasya a note, a thousand kisses, and went out happy and frolicsome as before.

"well, brother," began arkady ivanovitch, highly delighted, "you see how splendid it all is; you see. everything is going well, don't be downcast, don't be uneasy. go ahead! get it done, vasya, get it done. i'll be home at two o'clock. i'll go round to them, and then to yulian mastakovitch."

"well, good-bye, brother; good-bye.... oh! if only.... very good, you go, very good," said vasya, "then i really won't go to yulian mastakovitch."

"good-bye."

"stay, brother, stay, tell them ... well, whatever you think fit. kiss her ... and give me a full account of everything afterwards."

"come, come—of course, i know all about it. this happiness has upset you. the suddenness of it all; you've not been yourself since yesterday. you have not got over the excitement of yesterday. well, it's settled. now try and get over it, vasya. good-bye, good-bye!"

at last the friends parted. all the morning arkady ivanovitch was preoccupied, and could think of nothing but vasya. he knew his weak, highly nervous character. "yes, this happiness has upset him, i was right there," he said to himself. "upon my word, he has made me quite depressed, too, that man will make a tragedy of anything! what a feverish creature! oh, i must save him! i must save him!" said arkady, not noticing that he himself was exaggerating into something serious a slight trouble, in reality quite trivial. only at eleven o'clock he reached the porter's lodge of yulian mastakovitch's house, to add his modest name to the long list of illustrious persons who had written their names on a sheet of blotted and scribbled paper in the porter's lodge. what was his surprise when he saw just above his own the signature of vasya shumkov! it amazed him. "what's the matter with him?" he thought. arkady ivanovitch, who had just been so buoyant with hope, came out feeling upset. there was certainly going to be trouble, but how? and in what form?

he reached the artemyevs with gloomy forebodings; he seemed absent-minded from the first, and after talking a little with lizanka went away with tears in his eyes; he was really anxious about vasya. he went home running, and on the neva came full tilt upon vasya himself. the latter, too, was uneasy.

"where are you going?" cried arkady ivanovitch.

vasya stopped as though he had been caught in a crime.

"oh, it's nothing, brother, i wanted to go for a walk."

"you could not stand it, and have been to the artemyevs? oh, vasya, vasya! why did you go to yulian mastakovitch?"

vasya did not answer, but then with a wave of his hand, he said: "arkady, i don't know what is the matter with me. i...."

"come, come, vasya. i know what it is. calm yourself. you've been excited, and overwrought ever since yesterday. only think, it's not much to bear. everybody's fond of you, everybody's ready to do anything for you; your work is getting on all right; you will get it done, you will certainly get it done. i know that you have been imagining something, you have had apprehensions about something...."

"no, it's all right, it's all right...."

"do you remember, vasya, do you remember it was the same with you once before; do you remember, when you got your promotion, in your joy and thankfulness you were so zealous that you spoilt all your work for a week? it is just the same with you now."

"yes, yes, arkady; but now it is different, it is not that at all."

"how is it different? and very likely the work is not urgent at all, while you are killing yourself...."

"it's nothing, it's nothing. i am all right, it's nothing. well, come along!"

"why, are you going home, and not to them?"

"yes, brother, how could i have the face to turn up there?... i have changed my mind. it was only that i could not stay on alone without you; now you are coming back with me i'll sit down to write again. let us go!"

they walked along and for some time were silent. vasya was in haste.

"why don't you ask me about them?" said arkady ivanovitch.

"oh, yes! well, arkasha, what about them?"

"vasya, you are not like yourself."

"oh, i am all right, i am all right. tell me everything, arkasha," said vasya, in an imploring voice, as though to avoid further explanations. arkady ivanovitch sighed. he felt utterly at a loss, looking at vasya.

his account of their friends roused vasya. he even grew talkative. they had dinner together. lizanka's mother had filled arkady ivanovitch's pockets with little cakes, and eating them the friends grew more cheerful. after dinner vasya promised to take a nap, so as to sit up all night. he did, in fact, lie down. in the morning, some one whom it was impossible to refuse had invited arkady ivanovitch to tea. the friends parted. arkady promised to come back as soon as he could, by eight o'clock if possible. the three hours of separation seemed to him like three years. at last he got away and rushed back to vasya. when he went into the room, he found it in darkness. vasya was not at home. he asked mavra. mavra said that he had been writing all the time, and had not slept at all, then he had paced up and down the room, and after that, an hour before, he had run out, saying he would be back in half-an-hour; "and when, says he, arkady ivanovitch comes in, tell him, old woman, says he," mavra told him in conclusion, "that i have gone out for a walk," and he repeated the order three or four times.

"he is at the artemyevs," thought arkady ivanovitch, and he shook his head.

a minute later he jumped up with renewed hope.

"he has simply finished," he thought, "that's all it is; he couldn't wait, but ran off there. but, no! he would have waited for me.... let's have a peep what he has there."

he lighted a candle, and ran to vasya's writing-table: the work had made progress and it looked as though there were not much left to do. arkady ivanovitch was about to investigate further, when vasya himself walked in....

"oh, you are here?" he cried, with a start of dismay.

arkady ivanovitch was silent. he was afraid to question vasya. the latter dropped his eyes and remained silent too, as he began sorting the papers. at last their eyes met. the look in vasya's was so beseeching, imploring, and broken, that arkady shuddered when he saw it. his heart quivered and was full.

"vasya, my dear boy, what is it? what's wrong?" he cried, rushing to him and squeezing him in his arms. "explain to me, i don't understand you, and your depression. what is the matter with you, my poor, tormented boy? what is it? tell me all about it, without hiding anything. it can't be only this——"

vasya held him tight and could say nothing. he could scarcely breathe.

"don't, vasya, don't! well, if you don't finish it, what then? i don't understand you; tell me your trouble. you see it is for your sake i.... oh dear! oh dear!" he said, walking up and down the room and clutching at everything he came across, as though seeking at once some remedy for vasya. "i will go to yulian mastakovitch instead of you to-morrow. i will ask him—entreat him—to let you have another day. i will explain it all to him, anything, if it worries you so...."

"god forbid!" cried vasya, and turned as white as the wall. he could scarcely stand on his feet.

"vasya! vasya!"

vasya pulled himself together. his lips were quivering; he tried to say something, but could only convulsively squeeze arkady's hand in silence. his hand was cold. arkady stood facing him, full of anxious and miserable suspense. vasya raised his eyes again.

"vasya, god bless you, vasya! you wring my heart, my dear boy, my friend."

tears gushed from vasya's eyes; he flung himself on arkady's bosom.

"i have deceived you, arkady," he said. "i have deceived you. forgive me, forgive me! i have been faithless to your friendship...."

"what is it, vasya? what is the matter?" asked arkady, in real alarm.

"look!"

and with a gesture of despair vasya tossed out of the drawer on to the table six thick manuscripts, similar to the one he had copied.

"what's this?"

"what i have to get through by the day after to-morrow. i haven't done a quarter! don't ask me, don't ask me how it has happened," vasya went on, speaking at once of what was distressing him so terribly. "arkady, dear friend, i don't know myself what came over me. i feel as though i were coming out of a dream. i have wasted three weeks doing nothing. i kept ... i ... kept going to see her.... my heart was aching, i was tormented by ... the uncertainty ... i could not write. i did not even think about it. only now, when happiness is at hand for me, i have come to my senses."

"vasya," began arkady ivanovitch resolutely, "vasya, i will save you. i understand it all. it's a serious matter; i will save you. listen! listen to me: i will go to yulian mastakovitch to-morrow.... don't shake your head; no, listen! i will tell him exactly how it has all been; let me do that ... i will explain to him.... i will go into everything. i will tell him how crushed you are, how you are worrying yourself."

"do you know that you are killing me now?" vasya brought out, turning cold with horror.

arkady ivanovitch turned pale, but at once controlling himself, laughed.

"is that all? is that all?" he said. "upon my word, vasya, upon my word! aren't you ashamed? come, listen! i see that i am grieving you. you see i understand you; i know what is passing in your heart. why, we have been living together for five years, thank god! you are such a kind, soft-hearted fellow, but weak, unpardonably weak. why, even lizaveta mikalovna has noticed it. and you are a dreamer, and that's a bad thing, too; you may go from bad to worse, brother. i tell you, i know what you want! you would like yulian mastakovitch, for instance, to be beside himself and, maybe, to give a ball, too, from joy, because you are going to get married.... stop, stop! you are frowning. you see that at one word from me you are offended on yulian mastakovitch's account. i'll let him alone. you know i respect him just as much as you do. but argue as you may, you can't prevent my thinking that you would like there to be no one unhappy in the whole world when you are getting married.... yes, brother, you must admit that you would like me, for instance, your best friend, to come in for a fortune of a hundred thousand all of a sudden, you would like all the enemies in the world to be suddenly, for no rhyme or reason, reconciled, so that in their joy they might all embrace one another in the middle of the street, and then, perhaps, come here to call on you. vasya, my dear boy, i am not laughing; it is true; you've said as much to me long ago, in different ways. because you are happy, you want every one, absolutely every one, to become happy at once. it hurts you and troubles you to be happy alone. and so you want at once to do your utmost to be worthy of that happiness, and maybe to do some great deed to satisfy your conscience. oh! i understand how ready you are to distress yourself for having suddenly been remiss just where you ought to have shown your zeal, your capacity ... well, maybe your gratitude, as you say. it is very bitter for you to think that yulian mastakovitch may frown and even be angry when he sees that you have not justified the expectations he had of you. it hurts you to think that you may hear reproaches from the man you look upon as your benefactor—and at such a moment! when your heart is full of joy and you don't know on whom to lavish your gratitude.... isn't that true? it is, isn't it?"

arkady ivanovitch, whose voice was trembling, paused, and drew a deep breath.

vasya looked affectionately at his friend. a smile passed over his lips. his face even lighted up, as though with a gleam of hope.

"well, listen, then," arkady ivanovitch began again, growing more hopeful, "there's no necessity that you should forfeit yulian mastakovitch's favour.... is there, dear boy? is there any question of it? and since it is so," said arkady, jumping up, "i shall sacrifice myself for you. i am going to-morrow to yulian mastakovitch, and don't oppose me. you magnify your failure to a crime, vasya. yulian mastakovitch is magnanimous and merciful, and, what is more, he is not like you. he will listen to you and me, and get us out of our trouble, brother vasya. well, are you calmer?"

vasya pressed his friend's hands with tears in his eyes.

"hush, hush, arkady," he said, "the thing is settled. i haven't finished, so very well; if i haven't finished, i haven't finished, and there's no need for you to go. i will tell him all about it, i will go myself. i am calmer now, i am perfectly calm; only you mustn't go.... but listen...."

"vasya, my dear boy," arkady ivanovitch cried joyfully, "i judged from what you said. i am glad that you have thought better of things and have recovered yourself. but whatever may befall you, whatever happens, i am with you, remember that. i see that it worries you to think of my speaking to yulian mastakovitch—and i won't say a word, not a word, you shall tell him yourself. you see, you shall go to-morrow.... oh no, you had better not go, you'll go on writing here, you see, and i'll find out about this work, whether it is very urgent or not, whether it must be done by the time or not, and if you don't finish it in time what will come of it. then i will run back to you. do you see, do you see! there is still hope; suppose the work is not urgent—it may be all right. yulian mastakovitch may not remember, then all is saved."

vasya shook his head doubtfully. but his grateful eyes never left his friend's face.

"come, that's enough, i am so weak, so tired," he said, sighing. "i don't want to think about it. let us talk of something else. i won't write either now; do you know i'll only finish two short pages just to get to the end of a passage. listen ... i have long wanted to ask you, how is it you know me so well?"

tears dropped from vasya's eyes on arkady's hand.

"if you knew, vasya, how fond i am of you, you would not ask that—yes!"

"yes, yes, arkady, i don't know that, because i don't know why you are so fond of me. yes, arkady, do you know, even your love has been killing me? do you know, ever so many times, particularly when i am thinking of you in bed (for i always think of you when i am falling asleep), i shed tears, and my heart throbs at the thought ... at the thought.... well, at the thought that you are so fond of me, while i can do nothing to relieve my heart, can do nothing to repay you."

"you see, vasya, you see what a fellow you are! why, how upset you are now," said arkady, whose heart ached at that moment and who remembered the scene in the street the day before.

"nonsense, you want me to be calm, but i never have been so calm and happy! do you know.... listen, i want to tell you all about it, but i am afraid of wounding you.... you keep scolding me and being vexed; and i am afraid.... see how i am trembling now, i don't know why. you see, this is what i want to say. i feel as though i had never known myself before—yes! yes, i only began to understand other people too, yesterday. i did not feel or appreciate things fully, brother. my heart ... was hard.... listen how has it happened, that i have never done good to any one, any one in the world, because i couldn't—i am not even pleasant to look at.... but everybody does me good! you, to begin with: do you suppose i don't see that? only i said nothing; only i said nothing."

"hush, vasya!"

"oh, arkasha! ... it's all right," vasya interrupted, hardly able to articulate for tears. "i talked to you yesterday about yulian mastakovitch. and you know yourself how stern and severe he is, even you have come in for a reprimand from him; yet he deigned to jest with me yesterday, to show his affection, and kind-heartedness, which he prudently conceals from every one...."

"come, vasya, that only shows you deserve your good fortune."

"oh, arkasha! how i longed to finish all this.... no, i shall ruin my good luck! i feel that! oh no, not through that," vasya added, seeing that arkady glanced at the heap of urgent work lying on the table, "that's nothing, that's only paper covered with writing ... it's nonsense! that matter's settled.... i went to see them to-day, arkasha; i did not go in. i felt depressed and sad. i simply stood at the door. she was playing the piano, i listened. you see, arkady," he went on, dropping his voice, "i did not dare to go in."

"i say, vasya—what is the matter with you? you look at one so strangely."

"oh, it's nothing, i feel a little sick; my legs are trembling; it's because i sat up last night. yes! everything looks green before my eyes. it's here, here——"

he pointed to his heart. he fainted. when he came to himself arkady tried to take forcible measures. he tried to compel him to go to bed. nothing would induce vasya to consent. he shed tears, wrung his hands, wanted to write, was absolutely set on finishing his two pages. to avoid exciting him arkady let him sit down to the work.

"do you know," said vasya, as he settled himself in his place, "an idea has occurred to me? there is hope."

he smiled to arkady, and his pale face lighted up with a gleam of hope.

"i will take him what is done the day after to-morrow. about the rest i will tell a lie. i will say it has been burnt, that it has been sopped in water, that i have lost it.... that, in fact, i have not finished it; i cannot lie. i will explain, do you know, what? i'll explain to him all about it. i will tell him how it was that i could not. i'll tell him about my love; he has got married himself just lately, he'll understand me. i will do it all, of course, respectfully, quietly; he will see my tears and be touched by them...."

"yes, of course, you must go, you must go and explain to him.... but there's no need of tears! tears for what? really, vasya, you quite scare me."

"yes, i'll go, i'll go. but now let me write, let me write, arkasha. i am not interfering with any one, let me write!"

arkady flung himself on the bed. he had no confidence in vasya, no confidence at all. "vasya was capable of anything, but to ask forgiveness for what? how? that was not the point. the point was, that vasya had not carried out his obligations, that vasya felt guilty in his own eyes, felt that he was ungrateful to destiny, that vasya was crushed, overwhelmed by happiness and thought himself unworthy of it; that, in fact, he was simply trying to find an excuse to go off his head on that point, and that he had not recovered from the unexpectedness of what had happened the day before; that's what it is," thought arkady ivanovitch. "i must save him. i must reconcile him to himself. he will be his own ruin." he thought and thought, and resolved to go at once next day to yulian mastakovitch, and to tell him all about it.

vasya was sitting writing. arkady ivanovitch, worn out, lay down to think things over again, and only woke at daybreak.

"damnation! again!" he cried, looking at vasya; the latter was still sitting writing.

arkady rushed up to him, seized him and forcibly put him to bed. vasya was smiling: his eyes were closing with sleep. he could hardly speak.

"i wanted to go to bed," he said. "do you know, arkady, i have an idea; i shall finish. i made my pen go faster! i could not have sat at it any longer; wake me at eight o'clock."

without finishing his sentence, he dropped asleep and slept like the dead.

"mavra," said arkady ivanovitch to mavra, who came in with the tea, "he asked to be waked in an hour. don't wake him on any account! let him sleep ten hours, if he can. do you understand?"

"i understand, sir."

"don't get the dinner, don't bring in the wood, don't make a noise or it will be the worse for you. if he asks for me, tell him i have gone to the office—do you understand?"

"i understand, bless you, sir; let him sleep and welcome! i am glad my gentlemen should sleep well, and i take good care of their things. and about that cup that was broken, and you blamed me, your honour, it wasn't me, it was poor pussy broke it, i ought to have kept an eye on her. 's-sh, you confounded thing,' i said."

"hush, be quiet, be quiet!"

arkady ivanovitch followed mavra out into the kitchen, asked for the key and locked her up there. then he went to the office. on the way he considered how he could present himself before yulian mastakovitch, and whether it would be appropriate and not impertinent. he went into the office timidly, and timidly inquired whether his excellency were there; receiving the answer that he was not and would not be, arkady ivanovitch instantly thought of going to his flat, but reflected very prudently that if yulian mastakovitch had not come to the office he would certainly be busy at home. he remained. the hours seemed to him endless. indirectly he inquired about the work entrusted to shumkov, but no one knew anything about this. all that was known was that yulian mastakovitch did employ him on special jobs, but what they were—no one could say. at last it struck three o'clock, and arkady ivanovitch rushed out, eager to get home. in the vestibule he was met by a clerk, who told him that vassily petrovitch shumkov had come about one o'clock and asked, the clerk added, "whether you were here, and whether yulian mastakovitch had been here." hearing this arkady ivanovitch took a sledge and hastened home beside himself with alarm.

shumkov was at home. he was walking about the room in violent excitement. glancing at arkady ivanovitch, he immediately controlled himself, reflected, and hastened to conceal his emotion. he sat down to his papers without a word. he seemed to avoid his friend's questions, seemed to be bothered by them, to be pondering to himself on some plan, and deciding to conceal his decision, because he could not reckon further on his friend's affection. this struck arkady, and his heart ached with a poignant and oppressive pain. he sat on the bed and began turning over the leaves of some book, the only one he had in his possession, keeping his eye on poor vasya. but vasya remained obstinately silent, writing, and not raising his head. so passed several hours, and arkady's misery reached an extreme point. at last, at eleven o'clock, vasya lifted his head and looked with a fixed, vacant stare at arkady. arkady waited. two or three minutes passed; vasya did not speak.

"vasya!" cried arkady.

vasya made no answer.

"vasya!" he repeated, jumping up from the bed, "vasya, what is the matter with you? what is it?" he cried, running up to him.

vasya raised his eyes and again looked at him with the same vacant, fixed stare.

"he's in a trance!" thought arkady, trembling all over with fear. he seized a bottle of water, raised vasya, poured some water on his head, moistened his temples, rubbed his hands in his own—and vasya came to himself. "vasya, vasya!" cried arkady, unable to restrain his tears. "vasya, save yourself, rouse yourself, rouse yourself!..." he could say no more, but held him tight in his arms. a look as of some oppressive sensation passed over vasya's face; he rubbed his forehead and clutched at his head, as though he were afraid it would burst.

"i don't know what is the matter with me," he added, at last. "i feel torn to pieces. come, it's all right, it's all right! give over, arkady; don't grieve," he repeated, looking at him with sad, exhausted eyes. "why be so anxious? come!"

"you, you comforting me!" cried arkady, whose heart was torn. "vasya," he said at last, "lie down and have a little nap, won't you? don't wear yourself out for nothing! you'll set to work better afterwards."

"yes, yes," said vasya, "by all means, i'll lie down, very good. yes! you see i meant to finish, but now i've changed my mind, yes...."

and arkady led him to the bed.

"listen, vasya," he said firmly, "we must settle this matter finally. tell me what were you thinking about?"

"oh!" said vasya, with a flourish of his weak hand turning over on the other side.

"come, vasya, come, make up your mind. i don't want to hurt you. i can't be silent any longer. you won't sleep till you've made up your mind, i know."

"as you like, as you like," vasya repeated enigmatically.

"he will give in," thought arkady ivanovitch.

"attend to me, vasya," he said, "remember what i say, and i will save you to-morrow; to-morrow i will decide your fate! what am i saying, your fate? you have so frightened me, vasya, that i am using your own words. fate, indeed! it's simply nonsense, rubbish! you don't want to lose yulian mastakovitch's favour—affection, if you like. no! and you won't lose it, you will see. i——"

arkady ivanovitch would have said more, but vasya interrupted him. he sat up in bed, put both arms round arkady ivanovitch's neck and kissed him.

"enough," he said in a weak voice, "enough! say no more about that!"

and again he turned his face to the wall.

"my goodness!" thought arkady, "my goodness! what is the matter with him? he is utterly lost. what has he in his mind! he will be his own undoing."

arkady looked at him in despair.

"if he were to fall ill," thought arkady, "perhaps it would be better. his trouble would pass off with illness, and that might be the best way of settling the whole business. but what nonsense i am talking. oh, my god!"

meanwhile vasya seemed to be asleep. arkady ivanovitch was relieved. "a good sign," he thought. he made up his mind to sit beside him all night. but vasya was restless; he kept twitching and tossing about on the bed, and opening his eyes for an instant. at last exhaustion got the upper hand, he slept like the dead. it was about two o'clock in the morning, arkady ivanovitch began to doze in the chair with his elbow on the table!

he had a strange and agitated dream. he kept fancying that he was not asleep, and that vasya was still lying on the bed. but strange to say, he fancied that vasya was pretending, that he was deceiving him, that he was getting up, stealthily watching him out of the corner of his eye, and was stealing up to the writing table. arkady felt a scalding pain at his heart; he felt vexed and sad and oppressed to see vasya not trusting him, hiding and concealing himself from him. he tried to catch hold of him, to call out, to carry him to the bed. then vasya kept shrieking in his arms, and he laid on the bed a lifeless corpse. he opened his eyes and woke up; vasya was sitting before him at the table, writing.

hardly able to believe his senses, arkady glanced at the bed; vasya was not there. arkady jumped up in a panic, still under the influence of his dream. vasya did not stir; he went on writing. all at once arkady noticed with horror that vasya was moving a dry pen over the paper, was turning over perfectly blank pages, and hurrying, hurrying to fill up the paper as though he were doing his work in a most thorough and efficient way. "no, this is not a trance," thought arkady ivanovitch, and he trembled all over.

"vasya, vasya, speak to me," he cried, clutching him by the shoulder. but vasya did not speak; he went on as before, scribbling with a dry pen over the paper.

"at last i have made the pen go faster," he said, without looking up at arkady.

arkady seized his hand and snatched away the pen.

a moan broke from vasya. he dropped his hand and raised his eyes to arkady; then with an air of misery and exhaustion he passed his hand over his forehead as though he wanted to shake off some leaden weight that was pressing upon his whole being, and slowly, as though lost in thought, he let his head sink on his breast.

"vasya, vasya!" cried arkady in despair. "vasya!"

a minute later vasya looked at him, tears stood in his large blue eyes, and his pale, mild face wore a look of infinite suffering. he whispered something.

"what, what is it?" cried arkady, bending down to him.

"what for, why are they doing it to me?" whispered vasya. "what for? what have i done?"

"vasya, what is it? what are you afraid of? what is it?" cried arkady, wringing his hands in despair.

"why are they sending me for a soldier?" said vasya, looking his friend straight in the face. "why is it? what have i done?"

arkady's hair stood on end with horror; he refused to believe his ears. he stood over him, half dead.

a minute later he pulled himself together. "it's nothing, it's only for the minute," he said to himself, with pale face and blue, quivering lips, and he hastened to put on his outdoor things. he meant to run straight for a doctor. all at once vasya called to him. arkady rushed to him and clasped him in his arms like a mother whose child is being torn from her.

"arkady, arkady, don't tell any one! don't tell any one, do you hear? it is my trouble, i must bear it alone."

"what is it—what is it? rouse yourself, vasya, rouse yourself!"

vasya sighed, and slow tears trickled down his cheeks.

"why kill her? how is she to blame?" he muttered in an agonized, heartrending voice. "the sin is mine, the sin is mine!"

he was silent for a moment.

"farewell, my love! farewell, my love!" he whispered, shaking his luckless head. arkady started, pulled himself together and would have rushed for the doctor. "let us go, it is time," cried vasya, carried away by arkady's last movement. "let us go, brother, let us go; i am ready. you lead the way." he paused and looked at arkady with a downcast and mistrustful face.

"vasya, for goodness' sake, don't follow me! wait for me here. i will come back to you directly, directly," said arkady ivanovitch, losing his head and snatching up his cap to run for a doctor. vasya sat down at once, he was quiet and docile; but there was a gleam of some desperate resolution in his eye. arkady turned back, snatched up from the table an open penknife, looked at the poor fellow for the last time, and ran out of the flat.

it was eight o'clock. it had been broad daylight for some time in the room.

he found no one. he was running about for a full hour. all the doctors whose addresses he had got from the house porter when he inquired of the latter whether there were no doctor living in the building, had gone out, either to their work or on their private affairs. there was one who saw patients. this one questioned at length and in detail the servant who announced that nefedevitch had called, asking him who it was, from whom he came, what was the matter, and concluded by saying that he could not go, that he had a great deal to do, and that patients of that kind ought to be taken to a hospital.

then arkady, exhausted, agitated, and utterly taken aback by this turn of affairs, cursed all the doctors on earth, and rushed home in the utmost alarm about vasya. he ran into the flat. mavra, as though there were nothing the matter, went on scrubbing the floor, breaking up wood and preparing to light the stove. he went into the room; there was no trace of vasya, he had gone out.

"which way? where? where will the poor fellow be off to?" thought arkady, frozen with terror. he began questioning mavra. she knew nothing, had neither seen nor heard him go out, god bless him! nefedevitch rushed off to the artemyevs'.

it occurred to him for some reason that he must be there.

it was ten o'clock by the time he arrived. they did not expect him, knew nothing and had heard nothing. he stood before them frightened, distressed, and asked where was vasya? the mother's legs gave way under her; she sank back on the sofa. lizanka, trembling with alarm, began asking what had happened. what could he say? arkady ivanovitch got out of it as best he could, invented some tale which of course was not believed, and fled, leaving them distressed and anxious. he flew to his department that he might not be too late there, and he let them know that steps might be taken at once. on the way it occurred to him that vasya would be at yulian mastakovitch's. that was more likely than anything: arkady had thought of that first of all, even before the artemyevs'. as he drove by his excellency's door, he thought of stopping, but at once told the driver to go straight on. he made up his mind to try and find out whether anything had happened at the office, and if he were not there to go to his excellency, ostensibly to report on vasya. some one must be informed of it.

as soon as he got into the waiting-room he was surrounded by fellow-clerks, for the most part young men of his own standing in the service. with one voice they began asking him what had happened to vasya? at the same time they all told him that vasya had gone out of his mind, and thought that he was to be sent for a soldier as a punishment for having neglected his work. arkady ivanovitch, answering them in all directions, or rather avoiding giving a direct answer to any one, rushed into the inner room. on the way he learned that vasya was in yulian mastakovitch's private room, that every one had been there and that esper ivanovitch had gone in there too. he was stopped on the way. one of the senior clerks asked him who he was and what he wanted? without distinguishing the person he said something about vasya and went straight into the room. he heard yulian mastakovitch's voice from within. "where are you going?" some one asked him at the very door. arkady ivanovitch was almost in despair; he was on the point of turning back, but through the open door he saw his poor vasya. he pushed the door and squeezed his way into the room. every one seemed to be in confusion and perplexity, because yulian mastakovitch was apparently much chagrined. all the more important personages were standing about him talking, and coming to no decision. at a little distance stood vasya. arkady's heart sank when he looked at him. vasya was standing, pale, with his head up, stiffly erect, like a recruit before a new officer, with his feet together and his hands held rigidly at his sides. he was looking yulian mastakovitch straight in the face. arkady was noticed at once, and some one who knew that they lodged together mentioned the fact to his excellency. arkady was led up to him. he tried to make some answer to the questions put to him, glanced at yulian mastakovitch and seeing on his face a look of genuine compassion, began trembling and sobbing like a child. he even did more, he snatched his excellency's hand and held it to his eyes, wetting it with his tears, so that yulian mastakovitch was obliged to draw it hastily away, and waving it in the air, said, "come, my dear fellow, come! i see you have a good heart." arkady sobbed and turned an imploring look on every one. it seemed to him that they were all brothers of his dear vasya, that they were all worried and weeping about him. "how, how has it happened? how has it happened?" asked yulian mastakovitch. "what has sent him out of his mind?"

"gra—gra—gratitude!" was all arkady ivanovitch could articulate.

every one heard his answer with amazement, and it seemed strange and incredible to every one that a man could go out of his mind from gratitude. arkady explained as best he could.

"good heavens! what a pity!" said yulian mastakovitch at last. "and the work entrusted to him was not important, and not urgent in the least. it was not worth while for a man to kill himself over it! well, take him away!"... at this point yulian mastakovitch turned to arkady ivanovitch again, and began questioning him once more. "he begs," he said, pointing to vasya, "that some girl should not be told of this. who is she—his betrothed, i suppose?"

arkady began to explain. meanwhile vasya seemed to be thinking of something, as though he were straining his memory to the utmost to recall some important, necessary matter, which was particularly wanted at this moment. from time to time he looked round with a distressed face, as though hoping some one would remind him of what he had forgotten. he fastened his eyes on arkady. all of a sudden there was a gleam of hope in his eyes; he moved with the left leg forward, took three steps as smartly as he could, clicking with his right boot as soldiers do when they move forward at the call from their officer. every one was waiting to see what would happen.

"i have a physical defect and am small and weak, and i am not fit for military service, your excellency," he said abruptly.

at that every one in the room felt a pang at his heart, and firm as was yulian mastakovitch's character, tears trickled from his eyes.

"take him away," he said, with a wave of his hands.

"present!" said vasya in an undertone; he wheeled round to the left and marched out of the room. all who were interested in his fate followed him out. arkady pushed his way out behind the others. they made vasya sit down in the waiting-room till the carriage came which had been ordered to take him to the hospital. he sat down in silence and seemed in great anxiety. he nodded to any one he recognized as though saying good-bye. he looked round towards the door every minute, and prepared himself to set off when he should be told it was time. people crowded in a close circle round him; they were all shaking their heads and lamenting. many of them were much impressed by his story, which had suddenly become known. some discussed his illness, while others expressed their pity and high opinion of vasya, saying that he was such a quiet, modest young man, that he had been so promising; people described what efforts he had made to learn, how eager he was for knowledge, how he had worked to educate himself. "he had risen by his own efforts from a humble position," some one observed. they spoke with emotion of his excellency's affection for him. some of them fell to explaining why vasya was possessed by the idea that he was being sent for a soldier, because he had not finished his work. they said that the poor fellow had so lately belonged to the class liable for military service and had only received his first grade through the good offices of yulian mastakovitch, who had had the cleverness to discover his talent, his docility, and the rare mildness of his disposition. in fact, there was a great number of views and theories.

a very short fellow-clerk of vasya's was conspicuous as being particularly distressed. he was not very young, probably about thirty. he was pale as a sheet, trembling all over and smiling queerly, perhaps because any scandalous affair or terrible scene both frightens, and at the same time somewhat rejoices the outside spectator. he kept running round the circle that surrounded vasya, and as he was so short, stood on tiptoe and caught at the button of every one—that is, of those with whom he felt entitled to take such a liberty—and kept saying that he knew how it had all happened, that it was not so simple, but a very important matter, that it couldn't be left without further inquiry; then stood on tiptoe again, whispered in some one's ear, nodded his head again two or three times, and ran round again. at last everything was over. the porter made his appearance, and an attendant from the hospital went up to vasya and told him it was time to start. vasya jumped up in a flutter and went with them, looking about him. he was looking about for some one.

"vasya, vasya!" cried arkady ivanovitch, sobbing. vasya stopped, and arkady squeezed his way up to him. they flung themselves into each other's arms in a last bitter embrace. it was sad to see them. what monstrous calamity was wringing the tears from their eyes! what were they weeping for? what was their trouble? why did they not understand one another?

"here, here, take it! take care of it," said shumkov, thrusting a paper of some kind into arkady's hand. "they will take it away from me. bring it me later on; bring it ... take care of it...." vasya could not finish, they called to him. he ran hurriedly downstairs, nodding to every one, saying good-bye to every one. there was despair in his face. at last he was put in the carriage and taken away. arkady made haste to open the paper: it was liza's curl of black hair, from which vasya had never parted. hot tears gushed from arkady's eyes: oh, poor liza!

when office hours were over, he went to the artemyevs'. there is no need to describe what happened there! even petya, little petya, though he could not quite understand what had happened to dear vasya, went into a corner, hid his face in his little hands, and sobbed in the fullness of his childish heart. it was quite dusk when arkady returned home. when he reached the neva he stood still for a minute and turned a keen glance up the river into the smoky frozen thickness of the distance, which was suddenly flushed crimson with the last purple and blood-red glow of sunset, still smouldering on the misty horizon.... night lay over the city, and the wide plain of the neva, swollen with frozen snow, was shining in the last gleams of the sun with myriads of sparks of gleaming hoar frost. there was a frost of twenty degrees. a cloud of frozen steam hung about the overdriven horses and the hurrying people. the condensed atmosphere quivered at the slightest sound, and from all the roofs on both sides of the river, columns of smoke rose up like giants and floated across the cold sky, intertwining and untwining as they went, so that it seemed new buildings were rising up above the old, a new town was taking shape in the air.... it seemed as if all that world, with all its inhabitants, strong and weak, with all their habitations, the refuges of the poor, or the gilded palaces for the comfort of the powerful of this world was at that twilight hour like a fantastic vision of fairy-land, like a dream which in its turn would vanish and pass away like vapour into the dark blue sky. a strange thought came to poor vasya's forlorn friend. he started, and his heart seemed at that instant flooded with a hot rush of blood kindled by a powerful, overwhelming sensation he had never known before. he seemed only now to understand all the trouble, and to know why his poor vasya had gone out of his mind, unable to bear his happiness. his lips twitched, his eyes lighted up, he turned pale, and as it were had a clear vision into something new.

he became gloomy and depressed, and lost all his gaiety. his old lodging grew hateful to him—he took a new room. he did not care to visit the artemyevs, and indeed he could not. two years later he met lizanka in church. she was by then married; beside her walked a wet nurse with a tiny baby. they greeted each other, and for a long time avoided all mention of the past. liza said that, thank god, she was happy, that she was not badly off, that her husband was a kind man and that she was fond of him.... but suddenly in the middle of a sentence her eyes filled with tears, her voice failed, she turned away, and bowed down to the church pavement to hide her grief.