VIII
It was some time, however, before I consented to recognise that truth.Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, andimmediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I waspositively amazed at my last night's SENTIMENTALITY with Liza, at allthose "outcries of horror and pity." "To think of having such anattack of womanish hysteria, pah!" I concluded. And what did I thrustmy address upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; itdoesn't matter.... But OBVIOUSLY, that was not now the chief and themost important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save myreputation 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 Iactually forgot all about Liza.
First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day beforefrom Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteenroubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it hewas in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, onthe first asking. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the IOUwith a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before "I hadbeen keeping it up with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; we weregiving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend ofmy childhood, and you know--a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt--ofcourse, he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, abrilliant career; he is witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, youunderstand; 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 trulygentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact andgood-breeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, Iblamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, "if Ireally may be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterlyunaccustomed to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass,which I said, I had drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting forthem at the Hotel de Paris between five and six o'clock. I beggedSimonov's pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations toall the others, especially to Zverkov, whom "I seemed to remember asthough in a dream" I had insulted. I added that I would have calledupon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not theface to. I was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almostcarelessness (strictly within the bounds of politeness, however), whichwas apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gavethem at once to understand that I took rather an independent view of"all that unpleasantness last night"; that I was by no means so utterlycrushed as you, my friends, probably imagine; but on the contrary,looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should lookupon it. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast!"
"There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!" I thoughtadmiringly, as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am anintellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would nothave known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it andam as jolly as ever again, and all because I am 'a cultivated andeducated man of our day.' And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due tothe wine yesterday. H'm!" ... No, it was not the wine. I did notdrink 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'tashamed now.... Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was ridof it.
I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon totake it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in theletter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towardsevening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddyafter yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser,my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and moredifferent and confused. Something was not dead within me, in the depthsof my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself inacute depression. For the most part I jostled my way through the mostcrowded business streets, along Myeshtchansky Street, along SadovyStreet and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked particularly saunteringalong these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of workingpeople of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faceslooking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle,that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streetsirritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong withme, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continuallyin my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned homecompletely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on myconscience.
The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemedqueer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormentedme, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everythingelse I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed itall and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. Buton this point I was not satisfied at all. It was as though I wereworried only by Liza. "What if she comes," I thought incessantly,"well, it doesn't matter, let her come! H'm! it's horrid that sheshould see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I seemed such a heroto her, while now, h'm! It's horrid, though, that I have let myself goso, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to go out todinner in such a suit! And my American leather sofa with the stuffingsticking out. And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, suchtatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon. Thatbeast is certain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to berude to me. And I, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, I shallbegin bowing and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown roundme, I shall begin smiling, telling lies. Oh, the beastliness! And itisn't the beastliness of it that matters most! There is something moreimportant, more loathsome, viler! Yes, viler! And to put on thatdishonest 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 toexcite 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 comeback home, even after nine o'clock, when I calculated that Liza couldnot possibly come, still she haunted me, and what was worse, she cameback to my mind always in the same position. One moment out of allthat had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination; themoment when I struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with itslook of torture. And what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what adistorted smile she had at that moment! But I did not know then, thatfifteen years later I should still in my imagination see Liza, alwayswith the pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her faceat that minute.
Next day I was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due toover-excited nerves, and, above all, as EXAGGERATED. I was alwaysconscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid ofit. "I exaggerate everything, that is where I go wrong," I repeated tomyself every hour. But, however, "Liza will very likely come all thesame," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was souneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury: "She'll come, she is certainto come!" I cried, running about the room, "if not today, she will cometomorrow; she'll find me out! The damnable romanticism of these purehearts! Oh, the vileness--oh, the silliness--oh, the stupidity ofthese 'wretched sentimental souls!' Why, how fail to understand? Howcould 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; howlittle of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllictoo) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to mywill. That's virginity, to be sure! Freshness of soil!
At times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, "to tell her all," andbeg her not to come to me. But this
thought stirred such wrath in methat I believed I should have crushed that "damned" Liza if she hadchanced to be near me at the time. I should have insulted her, havespat at her, have turned her out, have struck her!
One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and Ibegan to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nineo'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: I, forinstance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to meand my talking to her.... I develop her, educate her. Finally, Inotice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not tounderstand (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 thatshe 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? Isaw 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 forceyourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse inyour heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that... because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, Ilaunch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties ala George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, youare 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. Infact, in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began putting outmy tongue at myself.
Besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy!" I thought. They don'tlet them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for somereason I fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clockprecisely). Though she did say she was not altogether a slave thereyet, and had certain rights; so, h'm! Damn it all, she will come, sheis sure to come!
It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my attention atthat time by his rudeness. He drove me beyond all patience! He wasthe bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by Providence. We had beensquabbling continually for years, and I hated him. My God, how I hatedhim! I believe I had never hated anyone in my life as I hated him,especially at some moments. He was an elderly, dignified man, whoworked part of his time as a tailor. But for some unknown reason hedespised me beyond all measure, and looked down upon me insufferably.Though, indeed, he looked down upon everyone. Simply to glance at thatflaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he combed up on hisforehead and oiled with sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth,compressed into the shape of the letter V, made one feel one wasconfronting a man who never doubted of himself. He was a pedant, tothe most extreme point, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, andwith that had a vanity only befitting Alexander of Macedon. He was inlove with every button on his coat, every nail on hisfingers--absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In hisbehaviour 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, majesticallyself-confident and invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes tofury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour,though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, considerhimself bound to do anything. There could be no doubt that he lookedupon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that "he did not get rid ofme" was simply that he could get wages from me every month. Heconsented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. Many sinsshould be forgiven me for what I suffered from him. My hatred reachedsuch a point that sometimes his very step almost threw me intoconvulsions. What I loathed particularly was his lisp. His tonguemust have been a little too long or something of that sort, for hecontinually lisped, and seemed to be very proud of it, imagining thatit 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. Hemaddened me particularly when he read aloud the psalms to himselfbehind his partition. Many a battle I waged over that reading! But hewas awfully fond of reading aloud in the evenings, in a slow, even,sing-song voice, as though over the dead. It is interesting that thatis how he has ended: he hires himself out to read the psalms over thedead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes blacking. But atthat time I could not get rid of him, it was as though he werechemically combined with my existence. Besides, nothing would haveinduced him to consent to leave me. I could not live in furnishedlodgings: my lodging was my private solitude, my shell, my cave, inwhich I concealed myself from all mankind, and Apollon seemed to me,for some reason, an integral part of that flat, and for seven years Icould not turn him away.
To be two or three days behind with his wages, for instance, wasimpossible. He would have made such a fuss, I should not have knownwhere to hide my head. But I was so exasperated with everyone duringthose days, that I made up my mind for some reason and with some objectto PUNISH Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages thatwere owing him. I had for a long time--for the last two years--beenintending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himselfairs with me, and to show him that if I liked I could withhold hiswages. I purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposelysilent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be thefirst to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles outof a drawer, show him I have the money put aside on purpose, but that Iwon't, I won't, I simply won't pay him his wages, I won't just becausethat is "what I wish," because "I am master, and it is for me todecide," because he has been disrespectful, because he has been rude;but if he were to ask respectfully I might be softened and give it tohim, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, awhole month....
But angry as I was, yet he got the better of me. I could not hold outfor four days. He began as he always did begin in such cases, forthere had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it maybe observed I knew all this beforehand, I knew his nasty tactics byheart). He would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare,keeping it up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting meor seeing me out of the house. If I held out and pretended not tonotice these stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to furthertortures. All at once, A PROPOS of nothing, he would walk softly andsmoothly into my room, when I was pacing up and down or reading, standat 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 Isuddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, butcontinue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with apeculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air,deliberately turn round and deliberately go back to his room. Twohours later he would come out again and again present himself before mein the same way. It had happened that in my fury I did not even askhim what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiouslyand began staring back at him. So we stared at one another for twominutes; at last he turned with deliberation and dignity and went backagain for two hours.
If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in myrevolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long,deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moraldegradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphingcompletely: I raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what hewanted.
This time the usual staring manoeuvres had scarcely begun when I lostmy temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond enduranceapart 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 heturned round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, hepersisted 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 roundagain.
"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," heanswered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp,raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side toanother, 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 wantto bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with yourstupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus-pic-ion how stupid itis--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 itis," (I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roublescomplete, but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ...going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head tobeg 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, asthough he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, youcalled me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at thepolice-station at any time for insulting behaviour."
"Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this verysecond! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer!"
But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loudcalls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and withoutlooking round.
"If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," Idecided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behindhis screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beatingslowly 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 spectaclesand taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into aguffaw.
"At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what willhappen."
"You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raisinghis head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle."Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? And asfor being frightened--you are upsetting yourself about nothing, fornothing will come of it."
"Go!" I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I shouldstrike him in a minute.
But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly openat that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring atus in perplexity I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed backto my room. There, clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned myhead against the wall and stood motionless in that position.
Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps. "There issome woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiarseverity. 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 myclock began whirring and wheezing and struck seven.