Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (96 page)

ever, chiefly from old age and from the loss of her mental faculties which had never been over-brilliant); even in the past, she had been a nonsensical creature. Her rank as a general’s wife had made her even stupider and more arrogant. When she was in a bad humour the house became a perfect hell. She had two ways of displaying her ill humour. The first was a silent method, when the old lady would not open her lips for days together, but maintained an obstinate silence and pushed away or even sometimes flung on the floor everything that was put before her. The other method was the exact opposite — garrulous. This would begin, as a rule, by my grandmother’s — for she was my grandmother, of course — being plunged into a state of extreme despondency, and expecting the end of the world and the failure of all her undertakings, foreseeing poverty and every possible trouble in the future, being carried away bv her own presentiments, reckoning on her fingers the calamities that were coming, and reaching a climax of enthusiasm and intense excitement over the enumeration. It always appeared, of course, that she had foreseen all this long before, and had said nothing only because she was forced to be silent “in this house”. But if only she had been treated with respect, if only they had cared to listen to her earlier, then, etc. etc. In all this, the flock of lady companions and Miss Perepelitsyn promptly followed suit, and finally it was solemnly ratified by Foma Fomitch. At the minute when I was presented to her she was in a horrible rage, and apparently it was taking the silent form, the most terrible. Everyone was watching her with apprehension. Only Tatyana Ivanovna, who was completely unconscious of it all, was in the best of spirits. My uncle purposely with a certain solemnity led me up to my grandmother; but the latter, making a wry face, pushed away her cup ill-humouredly.

“Is this that volti-geur?” she drawled through her teeth, addressing Miss Perepelitsyn.

This foolish question completely disconcerted me. I don’t understand why she called me a voliigcur. But such questions were easy enough to her. Miss Perepelitsyn bent down and whispered something in her ear, but the old lady waved her off angrily. I remained standing with my mouth open and looked inquiringly at my uncle. They all looked at one another and Obnoskin even grinned, which I did not like at all.

“She sometimes talks at random, my boy,” my uncle, a little disconcerted himself, whispered in my ear; “but it means nothing, it’s just her goodness of heart. The heart is what one must look at.”

“Yes, the heart, the heart,” Tatyana Ivanovna’s bell-like voice rang out. She had not taken her eyes off me all this time, and seemed as though she could not sit still in her chair. I suppose the word “heart”, uttered in a whisper, had reached her ear.

But she did not go on, though she was evidently longing to express herself. Whether she was overcome with confusion or some other feeling, she suddenly subsided into silence, flushed extremely red, turned quickly to the governess and whispered something in her ear, and suddenly putting her handkerchief before her mouth and sinking back in her chair, began giggling as though she were in hysterics. I looked at them all in extreme amazement; but to my surprise, everyone was particularly grave and looked as though nothing exceptional had happened. I realised, of course, the kind of person Tatyana Ivanovna was. At last I was handed tea, and I recovered myself a little. I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt that it was my duty to begin a polite conversation with the ladies.

“It was true what you told me, uncle,” I began, “when you warned me that I might be a little abashed. I openly confess — why conceal it?” I went on, addressing Madame Obnoskin with a deprecating smile, “that I have hitherto had hardly any experience of ladies’ society. And just now when I made my entry so unsuccessfully, it seemed to me that my position in the middle of the room was very ridiculous and made me look rather a simpleton, didn’t it? Have you read The Simpleton?” I added, feeling more and more lost, blushing at my ingratiating candour, and glaring at Monsieur Obnoskin, who was still looking me up and down with a grin on his iace.

“Ju^t so, just so, just so!” my uncle cried suddenly with extreme animation, genuinely delighted that the conversation had been set going somehow and that I had recovered myself. “That’s no great matter, my boy, your talking of the likelihood of your being abashed. Well, you have been, and that’s the end of it. But when I first made my debut, I actually told a lie, my boy, would you believe that? Yes, really, Anfisa Petrovna, I assure you, it’s worth hearing. Just after I had become a Junker, I went to Moscow, and presented myself to a very important lady with a letter of introduction;

that is, she was a very haughty woman, but in reality very good-natured, in spite of what they said. I went in — I was shown up. The drawing-room was full of people, chiefly swells. I made my bow and sat down. At the second word, she asked me: ‘Have you estates in the country?’ And I hadn’t got as much as a hen — what was I to answer? I felt crushed to the earth. Everyone was looking at me (I was only a young Junker!). Why not say: no, I have nothing; and that would have been the right thing because it was the truth. But I couldn’t face it! ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a hundred and seventeen serfs,’ And why did I stick on that seventeen? If one must tell a lie, it is better to tell it with a round number, isn’t it? A minute later, through my letter of introduction, it appeared that I was as poor as a church mouse, and I had told a lie into the bargain! . . . Well, there was no help for it. I took myself off as fast as I could, and never set foot in the place again. In those days I had nothing, you know. All I have got now is three hundred serfs from Uncle Afanasy Matveyitch, and two hundred serfs with Kapitonovko, which came to me earlier from my grandmother Akulina Panfilovna, a total of more than five hundred serfs. That’s capital! But from that day I gave up lying and don’t tell lies now.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have given it up, it I were you. There is no knowing what may happen,” observed Obnoskin, smiling ironically.

“To be sure, that’s true! Goodness knows what may happen,” my uncle assented good-naturedlv.

Obnoskin burst into loud laughter, throwing himself back in his chair; his mother smiled; Miss Perepelitsyn sniggered in a particularly disgusting way; Tatyana lvanovna giggled too, without knowing why, and even clapped her hands; in fact, I ^aw distinctly that my uncle counted for nothing in his own house. Sashenka’s eyes flashed angrily, and she looked steadily at Obnoskin. The governess flushed and looked down. My uncle was surprised.

“What is it? What’s happened?” he repeated, looking round at us all in perplexity.

All this time my cousin Mizintchikov was sitting a little way off, saying nothing and not even smiling when everyone laughed. He drank tea zealously, gazed philosophically at the whole company, and several times as though in an access of unbearable boredom broke into whistling, probably a habit of his, but pulled himself up in time. Obnoskin, who had jeered at my uncle and had attempted to attack me, seemed not to dare to glance at Mizintchikov; I noticed that. I noticed, too, that my silent cousin looked frequently at me and with evident curiosity, as though he was trying to make up his mind what sort of person I was.

“I am certain,” Madame Obnoskin minced suddenly, “I am perfectly certain Monsieur Serge — that is your name, I believe? — that at home, in Petersburg, you were not greatly devoted to the ladies. I know that there are many, a great many young men nowadays in Petersburg who shun the society of ladies altogether. But in my opinion they are all free-thinkers. Nothing would induce me to regard it as anything but unpardonable free-thinking. And I must say it surprises me, young man, it surprises me, simply surprises me! . . .”

“I have not been into society at all,” I answered with extraordinary animation. “But that ... I imagine at least . . . is of no consequence. I have lived, that is I have generally had lodgings . . . but that is no matter, I assure you. I shall be known one day; but hitherto I have always stayed at home. . . .”

“He is engaged in learned pursuits,” observed my uncle, drawing himself up with dignity.

“Oh, uncle, still talking of your learned pursuits! . . . Only fancy,” I went on with an extraordinary free and easy air, smirking affably, and again addressing Madame Obnoskin, “my beloved uncle is so devoted to learning that he has unearthed somewhere on the high road a marvellous practical philosopher, a Mr. Korovkin; and his first words to me after all these years of separation were that he was expecting this phenomenal prodigy with the most acute, one may say, impatience . . . from love of learning, of course. . . .”

And I sniggered, hoping to provoke a general laugh at my facetiousness.

“Who is that? Of whom is he talking?” Madame la Générale jerked out sharply, addressing Miss Perepelitsyn.

“Yegor Ilyitch has been inviting visitors, learned gentlemen; he drives along the high road collecting them,” the lady hissed out.

My uncle was completely dumbfounded.

“Oh, yes! I had forgotten,” he cried, turning upon me a glance that expressed reproach. “I am expecting Korovkin. A man of learning, a man who will survive his century. . . .”

He broke off and relapsed into silence, Madame la Générale waved her arm, and this time so successfully that she knocked over a cup, which flew off the table and was smashed. General excitement followed.

“She always does that when she is angry; she throws things on the floor,” my uncle whispered in confusion. “But she only does it when she is angry. . . . Don’t stare, my boy, don’t take any notice, look the other way. . . . What made you speak of Korovkin? ...”

But I was looking away already; at that moment I met the eyes of the governess, and it seemed to me that in their expression there was something reproachful, even contemptuous; a flush of indignation glowed upon her pale cheeks. I understood the look in her face, and guessed that by my mean and disgusting desire to make my uncle ridiculous in order to make myself a little less so, I had not gained much in that young lady’s estimation. I cannot express how ashamed I felt!

“I must go on about Petersburg with you,” Anfisa Petrovna gushed again, when the commotion caused by the breaking of the cup had subsided. “I recall with such enjoyment, I may say, our life in that charming city. . . . We were very intimately acquainted with a family — do you remember, Pavel, General Polovitsin. . . . Oh, what a fascinating, fas-ci-na-ting creature his wife was! You know that aristocratic distinction, beau ntondc! . . . Tell me, you have most likely met her? ... I must own I have been looking forward to your being here with impatience; I have been hoping to hear a great deal, a very great deal about our friends in Petersburg. ...”

“I am very sorry that I cannot . . . excuse me. ... As I have said already, I have rarely been into society, and I don’t know General Polovitsin; I have never even heard of him,” I answered impatiently, my affability being suddenly succeeded by a mood of extreme annoyance and irritability.

“He is studying mineralogy,” my incorrigible uncle put in with pride. “Is that investigating all sorts of stones, mineralogy, my boy?”

“Yes, uncle, stones. . . .”

“H’m. . . . There are a great many sciences and they are all of use! And do you know, my boy, to tell you the truth, I did not know what mineralogy meant! It’s all Greek to me. In other things I am so-so, but at learned subjects I am stupid — I frankly confess it!”

“You frankly confess!” Obnoskin caught him up with a snigger.

“Papa!” cried Sashenka, looking reproachfully at her father.

“What is it, darling? Oh, dear, I keep interrupting you, Anfisa Petrovna,” my uncle caught himself up suddenly, not understanding Sashenka’s exclamation. “Please forgive me.”

“Oh, don’t distress yourself,” Anfisa Petrovna answered with a sour smile. “Though I have said everything already to your nephew, and will finish perhaps, Monsieur Serge — that is right, isn’t it? — by telling you that you really must reform. I believe that the sciences, the arts . . . sculpture, for instance ... all those lofty ideas, in fact, have their fas-cin-na-ting side, but they do not take the place of ladies! . . . Women, women would form you, young man, and so to do without them is impossible, young man, impossible, im-poss-ible!”

“Impossible, impossible,” Tatyana Ivanovna’s rather shrill voice rang out again. “Listen,” she began, speaking with a sort of childish haste and flushing crimson, of course, “listen, I want to ask you something. ...”

“Pray do,” I answered, looking at her attentively.

“I wanted to ask you whether you have come to stay long or not?”

“I really don’t know, that’s as my affairs ...”

“Affairs! What sort of affairs can he have? Oh, the mad fellow! . . .”

And Tatyana Ivanovna, blushing perfectly crimson and hiding behind her fan, bent down to the governess and at once began whispering something to her. Then she suddenly laughed and clapped her hands.

“Stay! stay!” she cried, breaking away from her confidante and again addressing me in a great hurry as though afraid I were going away. “Listen, do you know what I am going to tell you? You are awfully, awfully like a young man, a fas-ci-na-ting young man! Sashenka, Nastenka, do you remember? He is awfully like that madman — do you remember, Sashenka? We were out driving when we met him ... on horseback in a white waistcoat ... he put up his eyeglass at me, too, the shameless fellow! Do you remember, I hid myself in my veil, too, but I couldn’t resist putting my head out of the carriage window and shouting to him: ‘You shameless fellow!’ and then I threw my bunch of flowers on the road? ... Do you remember, Nastenka?”

And the lady, half crazy over eligible young men, hid her face in her hands, all excitement; then suddenly leaped up from her seat, darted to the window, snatched a rose from a bowl, threw it on the floor near me and ran out of the room. She was gone in a flash! This time a certain embarrassment was apparent, though Madame la Generate was again completely unmoved. Anfisa Petrovna, for instance, showed no surprise, but seemed suddenly a little troubled and looked with anxiety at her son; the young ladies blushed, while Pavel Obnoskin, with a look of vexation which at the time I did not understand, got up from his chair and went to the window. My uncle was beginning to make signs to me, but at that instant another person walked into the room and drew the attention of all.