Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (107 page)

“Gone away?” I asked with curiosity.

“Just after tea, damn them! but they will turn up again to-morrow, you will see. Well, how is it to be, then? Do you agree?”

“I must own,” I answered, shrugging, “I really don’t know what to say. It’s a delicate matter. ... Of course I will keep it all secret, I am not Obnoskin; but ... I think it’s no use your building hopes on me.”

“I see,” said Mizintchikov, getting up from his chair, “that you are not yet sick of Foma Fomitch and your grandmother; and though you do care for your kind and generous uncle, you have not yet sufficiently realised how he is being tormented. You are new to the place. . . . But patience! You will be here to-morrow, look about you, and by evening you’ll consent. Your uncle is lost if you don’t, do you understand? They will certainly force him to marry her. Don’t forget that to-morrow he may perhaps make her an offer. It will be too late, we must settle things to-day.”

“Really, I wish you every success, but as for helping you . . . I don’t know in what way.”

“We know! But let us wait till to-morrow,” said Mizintchikov, smiling ironically. “La mat porte conseil. Good-bye for the present. I will come to you early in the morning, and you think things over. ...”

He turned and went out whistling.

I almost followed him out, to get a breath of fresh air. The moon had not yet risen; it was a dark night, warm and stifling. The leaves on the trees did not stir. In spite of being terribly tired I wanted to walk to distract my mind, collect my thoughts; but I had not gone above ten paces when I suddenly heard my uncle’s voice. He was mounting the steps of the lodge in company with someone, and speaking with great animation. I turned back and called to him. My uncle was with Vidoplyasov.

CHAPTER XI

THE EXTREME OF PERPLEXITY

“T TNCLE,” I said, “at last I have got you.”

vJ “My dear boy, I was rushing to you myself. Here, I will just finish with Vidoplyasov, and then we can talk to our hearts’ content. I have a great deal to tell you.”

“What, Vidoplyasov now! Oh, get rid of him, uncle.”

“Only another five or ten minutes, Sergey, and I shall be entirely at your disposal. You see, it’s important.”

“Oh, no doubt, it is his foolishness,” I said, with vexation.

“What can I say to you, my dear? The man has certainly found a time to worry me with his nonsense! Yes, my good Grigory, couldn’t you find some other time for your complaints? Why, what can I do for you? You might have compassion even on me, my good boy. Why, I am, so to say, worn out by you all, devoured alive, body and soul! They are too much for me, Sergey!” And my uncle made a gesture of the profoundest misery with both hands.

“But what business can be so important that you can’t leave it? And, uncle, I do so want ...”

“Oh, my dear boy, as it is they keep crying out that I take no trouble over my servants’ morals! Very likely he will complain of me to-morrow that I wouldn’t listen to him, and then ..,” and my uncle waved his hand in despair again.

“Well, then, make haste and finish with him! Perhaps I can help you; let us go up the steps. What is it? What does he want?” I said as we went into the room.

“Well, you see, my dear, he doesn’t like his own surname, and asks leave to change it. What do you think of that?”

“His surname! What do you mean? . . . Well, uncle, before I hear what he has to say himself, allow me to remark that it is only in your household such queer things can happen,” I said, flinging up my hands in amazement.

“Oh, my dear boy, I might fling up my hands like you, but that’s no good,” my uncle said with vexation. “Come, talk to him yourself, you have a try. He has been worrying me for two months past. ...”

“It’s not a respectable surname,” Vidoplyasov observed.

“But why is it not respectable?” I asked him in surprise.

“Oh, because it suggests all sorts of abomination.”

“But why abomination? And how can you change it? Does anyone change his surname?”

“Well, really, sir, do other people have such surnames?”

“I agree that your surname is a somewhat strange one,” I went on, in complete bewilderment; “but there is no help for it now, you know. Your father had the same surname, I suj> pose, didn’t he?”

“That is precisely so that through my parent I have in that way had to suffer all my life, inasmuch as I am destined by my name to accept many jeers and to endure many sorrows,” answered Vidoplyasov.

“I bet, uncle, that Foma Fomitch has a hand in thisl” I cried with vexation.

“Oh, no, my boy; oh, no, you are mistaken. Foma certainly has befriended him. He has taken him to be his secretary, that’s the whole of his duty. Well, of course he has developed him, has filled him with noble sentiments, so that he is even in some ways cultivated. . . . You see, I will tell you all about it. ...”

“That is true,” Vidoplyasov interrupted, “that Foma Fomitch is my true benefactor, and being a true benefactor to me, he has brought me to understand my insignificance, what a worm I am upon the earth, so that through his honour I have for the first time learned to comprehend my destiny.”

“There you see, Seryozha, there you see what it all means,” my uncle went on, growing flustered as he always did. “He lived at first in Moscow, almost from childhood, in the service of a teacher of calligraphy. You should see how he has learned to write from him, and he illuminates in colours and gold with cupids round, you know — in fact he is an artist, you know. Ilyusha has lessons from him; I pay him a rouble and a half a lesson. Foma himself fixed on a rouble and a half. He goes to three gentlemen’s houses in the neighbourhood; they pay him too. You see how he is dressed! What’s more, he writes poetry.”

“Poetry! That’s the last straw!”

“Poetry, my dear boy, poetry. And don’t imagine I am joking; real poetry, so to say, versifications, and so well composed, you know, on all sorts of subjects. He’ll describe any subject you like in a poem. It’s a real talent! On mamma’s nameday he concocted such a harangue that we listened with our mouths open; there was something from mythology in it, and the Muses flying about, so that indeed, you know, one could see the . . . what do you call it? . . . polish of form — in fact it was perfectly in rhyme. Foma corrected it. Well, I have nothing against that, and indeed I am quite pleased. Let him compose, as long as he doesn’t get into mischief. You see, Grigory, my boy, I speak to you like a father. Foma heard of it, looked at his poetry, encouraged him, and chose him as his reader and copyist — in fact he has educated him. It is true, as he says, that Foma has been a benefactor to him. Well, and so, you know, he has begun to have gentlemanly and romantic sentiments, and a feeling of independence — Foma explained it all to me, but I have really forgotten; only I must own that I wanted, apart from Foma, to give him his freedom. I feel somehow ashamed, you know! . . . but Foma opposes that and says that he finds him useful, that he likes him; and what’s more he says: ‘It’s a great honour to me, as his master, to have poets among my own servants; that that’s how some barons somewhere used to live, and that it is living en grand.’ Well, en grand so be it, then! I have begun to respect him, my boy — you understand. . . . Only goodness knows how he is behaving! The worst of it is that since he has taken to poetry he has become so stuck-up with the rest of the servants that he won’t speak to them. Don’t you take offence, Grigory, I am speaking to you like a father. Last winter, he promised to marry a serf girl here, Matryona, and a very nice girl she is, honest, hard-working and merry. But now it is ‘No, I won’t’. That’s all about it, he has given her up. Whether it is that he has grown conceited, or has planned first to make a name and then to seek a match in some other place.”

“More through the advice of Foma Fomitch,” observed Vidoplyasov, “seeing that his honour is my true well-wisher.”

“Oh, of course Foma Fomitch has a hand in everything,” I could not help exclaiming.

“Ough, my dear boy, that’s not it!” my uncle interrupted me hurriedly. “Only, you see, now he has no peace. She’s a bold, quarrelsome girl, she has set them all against him, they mimic him, bait him, even the serf boys look upon him as a buffoon. . . .”

“It’s chiefly owing to Matryona,” observed Vidoplyasov; “for Matryona’s a real fool, and being a real fool, she’s a woman of unbridled character. Through her I have come in this manner to endure such prolonged sufferings.”

“Ough, Grigory, my boy, I have talked to you already/’ my uncle went on, looking reproachfully at Vidoplyasov. “You see, Sergey, they have made up some horrid rhyme on his surname. He comes to me and complains, asks whether he cannot somehow change his surname, says that he has long been upset at its ugly sound. ...”

“It’s an undignified name,” Vidoplyasov put in.

“Come, you be quiet, Grigory! Foma approved of it too . . . that is, he did not approve exactly, but, you see, this was his idea: that in case he were to publish his poems — and Foma has a project of his doing so — such a surname perhaps might be a drawback, mightn’t it?”

“So he wants to publish his verses, uncle?”

“Yes, my boy. It’s settled already — at my expense, and on the title-page will be put, ‘the serf of so-and-so’, and in the preface, the author’s thanks to Foma for his education. It’s dedicated to Foma. Foma is writing the prelace himself. Well, so just fancy if on the title-page there stands, ‘The Poems of Vidoplyasov’.”

“The Plaints of Vidoplyasov,” Vidoplyasov corrected.

“There, you see, plaints too! Well, Vidoplyasov is no use for a surname, it positively revolts the delicacy of one’s feelings, so Foma says. And all these critics, they say, are such fellows for picking holes and jeering; Brambeus, for instance. . . . They don’t stick at anything, you know! They will make a laughing-stock of him for his surname alone; they’ll tickle your sides for you till you can do nothing but scratch them, won’t they? What I say is, put any surname you like on your poems — a pseudonym it’s called, isn’t it? I don’t remember; some word ending in nym. ‘But no,’ he says; ‘give the order to the whole servants’ hall to call me by a new name hereafter, for ever, so that I may have a genteel surname to suit my talent.’”

“I bet that you consented, uncle. ...”

“I did, Seryozha, my boy, to avoid quarrelling with them; let them do as they like. You see, at that time there was a misunderstanding between Foma and me. So since then it has come to a new surname every week, and he keeps choosing such dainty ones as Oleandrov, Tulipov. . . . Only think, Grigory, at first you asked to be called ‘Vyerny’ (i.e. true, faithful)—’Grigory Vyerny’; afterwards you didn’t like the name yourself because some simpleton found a rhyme to it, ‘skverny’ (i.e. nasty, horrid). You complained, and the fellow was punished. You were a fortnight thinking of a new name — what a selection you had! — at last you made up your mind and came to be asked to be called ‘Ulanov’. Come, tell me, my boy, could anything be sillier than ‘Ulanov’? I agreed to that too, and gave instructions a second time about changing your surname to Ulanov. It was simply to get rid of him,” added my uncle, turning to me. “You spoilt all the walls, all the window-sills in the arbour scribbling ‘Ulanov’ in pencil, they have had to paint it since. You wasted a whole quire of good paper on signing your name ‘Ulanov’. At last that was a failure too, they found a rhyme for you: ‘Bolvanov’ (i.e. fool, blockhead). He didn’t want to be a blockhead, so the name must be changed again! What did you choose next? I have forgotten.”

“Tantsev,” answered Vidoplyasov. “If I am destined through my surname to be connected with dancing, it would be more dignified in the foreign form: ‘Tantsev’.”

“Oh, yes, ‘Tantsev’. I agreed to that too, Sergey. Only they found a rhyme to that which I don’t like to repeat. To-day he comes forward again, he has thought of something new. I bet he has got some new surname. Have you, Grigory? Confess!”

“I have truly been meaning for a long time to lay at your feet a new name, a genteel one.”

“What is it?”

“Essbouquetov.”

“Aren’t you ashamed, really ashamed, Grigory? A surname off a pomatum pot! And you call yourself a clever man. How many days he must have been thinking about it! Why, that’s what is written on scent-bottles.”

“Upon my word, uncle,” I said in a half-whisper, “why, he is simply a fool, a perfect fool.”

“It can’t be helped,” my uncle answered, also in a whisper. “They declare all round that he is clever, and that all this is due to the working of noble qualities. ...”

“But for goodness’ sake, get rid of him!”

“Listen, Grigory! I have really no time, my boy,” my uncle began in something of an imploring tone, as though he were afraid even of Vidoplyasov. “Come, judge for yourself, how can I attend to your complaints now? You say that they have insulted you in some way again. Come, I give you my word that to-morrow I will go into it all; and now go, and God be with you. . . . Stay! What is Foma Fomitch doing?”

“He has lain down to rest. He told me that if I was asked about him, I was to say that he is at prayer, that he intends to be praying a long time to-night.”

“H’m! Well, you can go, you can go, my boy! You see, Seryozha, he is always with Foma, so that I am actually afraid of him. And that’s why the servants don’t like him, because he is always telling tales to Foma. Now he has gone away, and very likely to-morrow he will have spun some fine yarn about something! I’ve made it all right, my boy, and feel at peace now. ... I was in haste to get to ycm. Now at last I am with you again,” he brought out with feeling, pressing my hand. “And you know I thought, my dear, that you were desperately angry with me, and would be sure to slip off. I sent them to keep an eye on you. But now, thank God I And this afternoon, Gavrila, what a to-do! and Falaley, and you, and one thing after another! Well, thank God! thank God! At last we can talk to our hearts’ content. I will open my heart to you. You mustn’t go away, Seryozha; you are all I have, you and Korovkin. ...”

“But excuse me, uncle, how have you put things right, and what have I to expect here after what has happened? I must own my head’s going round.”