The Eternal Husband

  And at the word "Thersites" he jabbed his finger at his own breast.

  "You swine, why don't you explain yourself quicker, I don't like hints," Velchaninov thought to himself. Anger seethed in him, for a long time he had barely contained himself.

  "Tell me this," he began vexedly, "if you accuse Stepan Mikhailovich so directly" (now he no longer called him simply Bagautov), "then it seems you should rejoice that your offender is dead; so why are you angry?"

  "Why rejoice, sir? What's there to rejoice at?"

  "I'm judging by your feelings."

  "Heh, heh, you're mistaken about my feelings on that account, sir, as in the wise man's saying: 'A dead enemy is good, but a live one is even better,' hee, hee!"

  "But you saw him alive every day for five years, I think, didn't you have enough of looking?" Velchaninov observed spitefully and impudently.

  "But did I . . . did I know it then, sir?" Pavel Pavlovich suddenly heaved himself up, again as if pouncing from around a corner, even as if with a certain glee at having finally been asked a long-awaited question. "What do you take me for, Alexei Ivanovich?"

  And some completely new and unexpected look suddenly flashed in his eyes, which as if completely transformed his spiteful and until then only vilely grimacing face.

  "So you really knew nothing!" Velchaninov, perplexed, said with the most sudden amazement.

  "So you think I knew, sir? You think I knew! Oh, what a breed—our Jupiters! With you a man is the same as a dog, and you judge everyone by your own paltry nature! There's for you, sir! Swallow that!" And he banged his fist on the table in rage, but at once got scared at his own banging and looked up timorously.

  Velchaninov assumed a dignified air.

  "Listen, Pavel Pavlovich, it decidedly makes no difference to me, you must agree, whether you knew or not. If you didn't know, it does you honor in any case, though . . . anyhow, I don't even understand why you've chosen me as your confidant...”

  "I didn't mean you . . . don't be angry, I didn't mean you...” Pavel Pavlovich muttered, dropping his eyes.

  Mavra came in with the champagne.

  "Here it is!" Pavel Pavlovich cried, obviously glad of a way out, "and the glasses, dearie, the glasses—wonderful! Nothing more is required of you, my sweet. Already opened? Honor and glory to you, dear creature! Well, off you go!"

  And, cheered up again, he once more looked boldly at Velchaninov.

  "And confess," he suddenly tittered, "that you're terribly curious about all this, sir, and it by no means 'decidedly makes no difference,' as you were pleased to declare, so that you'd even be upset if I got up and left this very moment, sir, without explaining anything."

  "Actually, I wouldn't be."

  "Oh, you liar!" Pavel Pavlovich's smile said.

  "Well, sir, let's begin!" and he poured wine in the glasses.

  "Let's drink a toast," he pronounced, raising his glass, "to the health of our friend, the resting-in-peace Stepan Mikhailovich!"

  He raised his glass and drank.

  "I won't drink such a toast," Velchaninov put his glass down.

  "Why's that? A nice little toast!"

  "Listen here: when you came now, you weren't drunk?"

  "I'd had a little. What of it, sir?"

  "Nothing special, but I had the impression that yesterday, and especially this morning, you sincerely regretted the late Natalia Vassilievna."

  "And who told you that I don't sincerely regret her now as well?" Pavel Pavlovich again pounced, as if he had again been jerked by a spring.

  "That's not what I mean; but you must agree that you could be mistaken about Stepan Mikhailovich, and it's a serious matter."

  Pavel Pavlovich smiled slyly and winked.

  "And you'd like so much to find out how I myself found out about Stepan Mikhailovich!"

  Velchaninov turned red:

  "I repeat to you again that it makes no difference to me." And in rage he thought, "Why don't I throw him out right now, along with his bottle?" and turned redder still.

  "Never mind, sir!" Pavel Pavlovich said, as if encouraging him, and poured himself another glass.

  "I'll explain to you presently how I found out 'everything,' sir, and thereby satisfy your fiery wishes . . . for you're a fiery man, Alexei Ivanovich, a terribly fiery man, sir! heh, heh! only give me a little cigarette, because since the month of March I...”

  "Here's your cigarette."

  "I've become dissolute since the month of March, Alexei Ivanovich, and this is how it happened, sir, lend me your ear. Consumption, as you know yourself, my dearest friend," he was getting more and more familiar, "is a curious disease, sir. Quite often a consumptive person dies almost without suspecting he might die the next day, sir. I tell you that just five hours before, Natalia Vassilievna was planning to go in two weeks to visit her aunt thirty miles away. Besides, you're probably familiar with the habit, or, better to say, the trait common to many ladies, and perhaps gentlemen as well, sir, of preserving their old trash, such as love correspondence, sir. The surest thing would be the stove, right, sir? No, every scrap of paper is carefully preserved in their little boxes and holdalls; it's even numbered by years, by dates and categories. Whether it's very comforting or something—I don't know, sir; but it must be for the sake of pleasant memories. Since she was planning, five hours before the end, to go to her aunt's for the celebration, Natalia Vassilievna naturally had no thought of death, even to the very last hour, sir, and kept waiting for Koch. And so it happened, sir, that Natalia Vassilievna died, and a little ebony box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver was left in her desk. Such a pretty little box, with a key, sir, an heirloom, handed down from her grandmother. Well, sir—it was in this box that everything was revealed—that is, everything, sir, without any exception, by days and years, over two whole decades. And since Stepan Mikhailovich had a decided inclination for literature, having once even sent a passionate story to a magazine, there turned out to be nearly a hundred numbers of his works in the little chest—true, it was for five years, sir. Some numbers were even marked in Natalia Vas-silievna's own hand. A pleasure for a husband, wouldn't you think, sir?"

  Velchaninov quickly reflected and remembered that he had never written even one letter, even one note, to Natalia Vassilievna. And though he had written two letters from Petersburg, they had been addressed to both spouses, as had been arranged. And to Natalia Vassilievna's last letter, informing him of his dismissal, he had never replied.

  After finishing his story, Pavel Pavlovich was silent for a whole minute, smiling importunately and expectantly.

  "Why do you answer nothing to my little question, sir?" he spoke finally with obvious suffering.

  "What little question?"

  "About the pleasant feelings of a husband, sir, on opening the little chest."

  "Eh, what business is that of mine!" Velchaninov waved his hand biliously, got up, and started pacing the room.

  "And I bet you're now thinking: 'What a swine you are, to have pointed to your own horns,' heh, heh! A most squeamish man . . . you, sir!"

  "I'm thinking nothing of the sort. On the contrary, you are much too annoyed by your offender's death, and you've drunk a lot of wine besides. I see nothing extraordinary in any of it; I understand too well why you needed a live Bagautov, and I'm prepared to respect your vexation, but...”

  "And what did I need Bagautov for, in your opinion, sir?"

  "That's your business."

  "I'll bet you had in mind a duel, sir?"

  "Devil take it!" Velchaninov restrained himself less and less, "I thought that, like any decent man ... in such cases—one doesn't stoop to comical babble, to stupid clowning, to ridiculous complaints and vile hints, with which he besmirches himself still more, but acts clearly, directly, openly, like a decent man!

  "Heh, heh, yes, but maybe I'm not a decent man, sir?"

  "That, again, is your business . . . and, anyhow, what the devil did you need a live Bagautov for?"

  "Wh
y, only so as to have a look at a nice friend, sir. We'd have taken a little bottle and had a drink together."

  "He'd never have drunk with you."

  "Why? Noblesse oblige? You drink with me, sir; is he any better than you?"

  "I didn't drink with you."

  "Why such pride all of a sudden, sir?"

  Velchaninov suddenly burst into nervous and irritated laughter.

  "Pah, the devil! but you're decidedly some sort of 'predatory type'! I thought you were just an 'eternal husband' and nothing more!"

  "How's that? an 'eternal husband'? What does it mean?" Pavel Pavlovich suddenly pricked up his ears.

  "Just so, one type of husband . . . it's too long a story. You'd better just clear out, your time is up; I'm sick of you!"

  "And what's this about predatory? You said predatory?"

  "I said you're a 'predatory type'—I said it to mock you."

  "What sort of 'predatory type,' sir? Tell me, please, Alexei Ivanovich, for God's sake, or for Christ's sake."

  "Well, that's enough, enough!" Velchaninov cried suddenly, again getting terribly angry. "Your time is up, clear out!"

  "No, it's not enough, sir!" Pavel Pavlovich, too, jumped up. "Even though you're sick of me, it's still not enough, because first you and I must have a drink and clink glasses! We'll have a drink, and then I'll go, but now it's not enough!"

  "Pavel Pavlovich, can you clear the hell out of here today or not?"

  "I can clear the hell out of here, sir, but first we'll drink! You said you don't want to drink precisely with me; well, but I want that you drink precisely with me!"

  He was no longer clowning, no longer tittering. Everything in him was again as if transformed suddenly and was now so opposite to the whole figure and tone of the just-now Pavel Pavlovich that Velchaninov was decidedly taken aback.

  "Eh, let's drink, Alexei Ivanovich, eh, don't refuse!" Pavel Pavlovich went on, gripping him firmly by the arm and looking strangely into his face. Obviously, this was not just a matter of drinking.

  "Yes, perhaps," the man muttered, "and where's . . . this is swill...”

  "Exactly two glasses left, pure swill, sir, but we'll drink and clink glasses, sir! Here, sir, kindly take your glass."

  They clinked and drank.

  "Well, and if so, if so . . . ah!" Pavel Pavlovich suddenly seized his forehead with his hand and for a few moments remained in that position. Velchaninov imagined that he was now going to up and speak out the very last word. But Pavel Pavlovich did not speak anything out for him; he only looked at him and quietly stretched his mouth again into the same sly and winking smile.

  "What do you want from me, you drunk man! You're fooling with me!" Velchaninov cried frenziedly, stamping his feet.

  "Don't shout, don't shout, why shout?" Pavel Pavlovich hastily waved his hand. "I'm not fooling with you, I'm not! Do you know what you've—this is what you've become for me now!"

  And he suddenly seized his hand and kissed it. Velchaninov had no time to recover himself.

  "This is what you are for me now, sir! And now—to all the devils with me!"

  "Wait, stop!" the recovered Velchaninov cried, "I forgot to tell you ..."

  Pavel Pavlovich turned around at the door.

  "You see," Velchaninov began to mutter extremely quickly, blushing and averting his eyes completely, "you should be at the Pogoreltsevs' tomorrow without fail ... to get acquainted and to thank them—without fail...”

  "Without fail, without fail, how could I not understand, sir!" Pavel Pavlovich picked up with extreme readiness, quickly waving his hand as a sign that there was no need to remind him.

  "Besides, Liza is also waiting for you very much. I promised...”

  "Liza," Pavel Pavlovich suddenly came back again, "Liza? Do you know, sir, what Liza was for me, was and is, sir? Was and is!" he suddenly cried almost in frenzy. "But . . . Heh! That's for later, sir; that's all for later . . . and now—it's no longer enough for me that you and I drank together, Alexei Ivanovich, it's another satisfaction that's needed, sir!...”

  He put his hat on the chair and, as earlier, slightly breathless, gazed at him.

  "Kiss me, Alexei Ivanovich," he suddenly offered.

  "Are you drunk?" the man cried, and drew back.

  "I am, sir, but kiss me anyway, Alexei Ivanovich, eh, kiss me! I did kiss your hand just now!"

  Alexei Ivanovich was silent for a few moments, as if hit on the head with a club. But suddenly he bent down to Pavel Pavlovich, who came up to his shoulder, and kissed him on the lips, which smelled very strongly of wine. He was not entirely sure, incidentally, that he had kissed him.

  "Well, and now, now...” Pavel Pavlovich shouted again in a drunken frenzy, flashing his drunken eyes, "now here's what, sir: I had thought then—'not this one, too? if even this one,' I thought, 'if even this one, too, then who can one believe after that!' "

  Pavel Pavlovich suddenly dissolved in tears.

  "So do you understand what kind of friend you've remained for me now?!"

  And he ran out of the room with his hat. Velchaninov again stood for several minutes in the same spot, as after Pavel Pavlovich's first visit.

  "Eh, a drunken buffoon and nothing more!" he waved his hand.

  "Decidedly nothing more!" he confirmed energetically when he was already undressed and lying in bed.

  VIII: Liza Is Sick

  The next morning while waiting for Pavel Pavlovich, who had promised not to be late for going to the Pogoreltsevs', Velchaninov paced the room sipping his coffee, smoking, and being conscious every moment that he was like a man who wakes up in the morning and remembers every instant that he had been slapped the day before. "Hm ... he understands only too well what the point is, and will take revenge on me with Liza!" he thought in fear.

  The dear image of the poor child flashed sadly before him. His heart beat faster at the thought that today, soon, in two hours, he would see his Liza again. "Eh, what is there to talk about!" he decided hotly. "My whole life and my whole purpose are now in that! What are all these slaps and remembrances! . . . And what have I even lived for so far? Disorder and sadness . . . but now—everything's different, everything's changed!"

  But, despite his rapture, he fell to pondering more and more.

  "He'll torment me with Liza—that's clear! And he'll torment Liza. It's over this that he'll finally do me in, for everything. Hm ... no question, I can't allow yesterday's escapades on his part," he suddenly blushed, "and . . . and look, anyhow, he's not here yet, and it's already past eleven!"

  He waited a long time, until half past twelve, and his anguish grew more and more. Pavel Pavlovich did not come. At last the long-stirring thought that he would not come on purpose, solely in order to perform yet another escapade like yesterday's, made him thoroughly vexed: "He knows I'm counting on him. And what will happen now with Liza! And how can I come to her without him!"

  Finally, he could not stand it and at exactly one in the afternoon he himself went galloping to the Pokrov. In the rooms he was told that Pavel Pavlovich had not slept at home and had come only after eight in the morning, stayed for a brief quarter of an hour, and left again. Velchaninov was standing by the door of Pavel Pavlovich's room, listening to the maid talking to him, and mechanically turning the handle of the locked door, tugging it back and forth. Recollecting himself, he spat, let go of the latch, and asked to be taken to Marya Sysoevna. But she, when she heard him, willingly came out herself.

  She was a kind woman, "a woman of noble feelings," as Velchaninov referred to her later when telling Klavdia Petrovna about his conversation with her. After asking briefly how his trip yesterday with the "missy" had gone, Marya Sysoevna at once got to telling about Pavel Pavlovich. In her words, "only except for the little child, she'd have got rid of him long ago. The hotel already got rid of him because he was far too outrageous. Well, isn't it a sin to bring a wench at night when there's a little child there who already understands! He shouts: 'She'll be your mother, if I
want her to be!' And, would you believe it, wench as she was, even she spat in his mug. He shouts: 'You're not my daughter—you're a whore's spawn.' "

  "What are you saying!" Velchaninov was frightened.

  "I heard it myself. Though he's a drunk man, like as if unconscious, still it's no good in front of a little child; youngling as she is, she'll still get it in her mind! The missy cries, I could see she's all tormented. And the other day here in the yard we had a real sin happen: a commissary or whatever, so people said, took a room in the hotel in the evening and by morning he hanged himself. They said he'd squandered money. People come running, Pavel Pavlovich isn't home, and the child goes around unattended, so there I see her in the corridor among the people, peeking from behind, and staring so strangely at the hanging man. I quickly brought her here. And what do you think—she's trembling all over, got all black, and the moment I brought her here she just fell into a fit. She thrashed and thrashed, and wouldn't come out of it. Convulsions or whatever, only from that time on she got sick. He came, found out about it, and pinched her all over, because he doesn't really hit, it's more like pinches, then he got soused with wine, came and started scaring her, saying: 'I'll hang myself, too, on account of you; from this very cord,' he says, 'I'll hang myself from the curtain cord,' and he makes a noose right in front of her. And the girl's beside herself—she cries, puts her little arms around him: 'I won't,' she cries, 'I won't ever.' Such a pity!"

  Though Velchaninov had expected something very strange, these stories struck him so much that he did not even believe them. Marya Sysoevna told him much more: there was, for instance, one occasion when, if it had not been for Marya Sysoevna, Liza might have thrown herself out the window. He left the rooms as if drunk himself. "I'll kill him with a stick, like a dog, on the head!" he kept imagining. And for a long time he kept repeating it to himself.

  He hired a carriage and set off for the Pogoreltsevs'. Still within the city, the carriage was forced to stop at an intersection, by a bridge across the canal, across which a big funeral procession was making its way. On both sides of the bridge a number of vehicles crowded, waiting; people also stopped. The funeral was a wealthy one and the train of coaches following it was very long, and then in one of these following coaches Pavel Pavlovich's face suddenly flashed before Velchaninov. He would not have believed it, if Pavel Pavlovich had not thrust himself out the window and nodded to him, smiling. Apparently he was terribly glad to have recognized Velchaninov: he even began making signs from the coach with his hand. Velchaninov jumped out of his carriage and, in spite of the crowd and the policemen and the fact that Pavel Pavlovich's coach was already driving onto the bridge, ran right up to the window. Pavel Pavlovich was alone.