Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (283 page)

Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously. However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that “he was not the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know much about his own work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance, when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to the establishment of the new “commune,” or to abstain from christening his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were attributed to him.

Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some five-per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between them.

He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation of a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that theme. He had something progressive to say on the subject which might console his worthy friend and “could not fail” to promote his development.

“There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage.

“Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were talking to her yesterday...”

“I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the conversation. “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!”

“I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov.

“I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well hesitate, he-he!”

“Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing.

“Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so yesterday... so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman question, too, wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as though comforted, went back to clicking his beads.

“It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it was quite different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled out all my whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope, to defend himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on principle, for it’s an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply pushed her back.”

“He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.

“You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that if women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise, for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society fighting is unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is fighting... there won’t be later, but at present there is... confound it! How muddled one gets with you! It’s not on that account that I am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part in the revolting convention of memorial dinners, that’s why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won’t be any priests at it. I should certainly go if there were.”

“Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and those who invited you. Eh?”

“Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them? They might be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done them a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to her father and mother that she wouldn’t go on living conventionally and was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh, that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of softness; on the contrary, what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a letter: ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there is another organisation of society by means of the communities. I have only lately learned it from a great-hearted man to whom I have given myself and with whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’ That’s how letters like that ought to be written!”

“Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?”

“No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what if it were the fifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I would have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!”

“To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t it?”

“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean,
distinguons
. In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!”

“I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.”

Lebeziatnikov was enraged.

“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!”

“Have you asked her to join your community?”

“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you. You don’t understand! There is no such rôle in a community. The community is established that there should be no such rôles. In a community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”

“And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!”

“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”

“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!”

“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!”

“And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her that all that modesty is nonsense?”

“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly — excuse me saying so — you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how... crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!”

“You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never thought of that.”

“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in protesting — which she has already shown once — she has little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question of coming into the room in the future society.”

“And what’s that, pray?”

“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any time... and we decided that he has!”

“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”

Lebeziatnikov was really angry.

“You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more useful.”

“And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!”

“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,”nobler’ — all those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is
of use
to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word:
useful
! You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”

Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The “cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his young friend.

“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence” and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years.