Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (597 page)

The only person I hated in those days was the doctor.  He was a young man with a conceited air, who talked abruptly and even rudely, as though all these scientific people had only yesterday discovered something special, when in reality nothing special had happened; but the “mediocrity,” the man in the street, is always like that.  I restrained myself for a long time, but at last I suddenly broke out and informed him before every one that he was hanging about unnecessarily, that I should get better just as well without him; that, though he looked like a scientific man, he was filled with nothing but conventional ideas and did not even understand that medicine had never cured anyone; that, in fact, he was in all probability grossly ill-educated, “like all the specialists who had become so high and mighty among us of late years.”  The doctor was very much offended (showing by that very fact that he was that sort of person); however, he still came as before.  I told Versilov at last that if the doctor did not give up coming, that I should say something to him ten times as disagreeable. Versilov only observed that it was impossible to say anything even twice as disagreeable as I had said, let alone ten times.  I was pleased at his saying that.

He was a man, though!  I am speaking of Versilov.  He, he was the sole cause of it all, and, strange to say, he was the only one towards whom I did not feel resentful.  It was not only his manner to me that won me over.  I imagine that we felt at that time that we owed each other many explanations . . . and for that very reason it would be our best course never to explain.  It’s extremely pleasant in such situations to have to do with a man of intelligence: I have mentioned already, in the second part of my story, that he told me briefly and clearly of Prince Sergay’s letter to me about Zerstchikov, about what he, Prince Sergay, had said to the latter, and so on.  As I had made up my mind to keep quiet, I only asked him two or three brief questions; he answered them clearly and exactly but entirely without superfluous words and, what was best of all, without feeling.  I was afraid of superfluous feeling at that time.

I said nothing about Lambert, but the reader will readily understand that I thought a great deal about him.  In my delirium I spoke more than once about Lambert; but, recovering from my delirium and looking about me, I quickly reflected that everything about Lambert remained a secret, and that every one, even Versilov, knew nothing about him.  Then I was relieved and my fears passed away; but I was mistaken, as I found out later to my astonishment.  He had come to the house during my illness, but Versilov said nothing to me about it, and I concluded that Lambert had lost all trace of me for ever.  Nevertheless, I often thought of him; what is more, I thought of him not only without repulsion, not only with curiosity, but even with sympathy, as though foreseeing from him something new, some means of escape in harmony with my new feelings and plans.  In short, I made up my mind to think over Lambert as soon as I should be ready to think over anything.  I will note one strange fact: I had entirely forgotten where he lived and in what street it had all happened.  The room, Alphonsine, the lap-dog, the corridor, all I remembered, so that I could have sketched them at once; but where it had all happened — that is, in what street and in what house — I had utterly forgotten.  And, what is strangest of all, I only realized this three or four days after I had regained complete consciousness, when I had been occupied with the thought of Lambert for a long time.

These, then, were my first sensations on my resurrection.  I have noted only what was most on the surface, and most probably I was not able to detect what was most important.  In reality, perhaps, what was really most important was even then taking shape and becoming defined in my heart; I was not, of course, always vexed and resentful simply at my broth’s not being brought me.  Oh, I remember how sad I was then and how depressed, especially at moments when I had remained a long while alone.  As ill-luck would have it, they soon saw that I was dreary with them and that their sympathy irritated me, and they began more and more often to leave me alone — a superfluous delicacy of perception on their part.

2

On the fourth day of consciousness I was lying in my bed at three o’clock in the afternoon, and there was no one with me.  It was a bright day, and I knew that at four o’clock, when the sun would set, its slanting red rays would fall on the corner of my wall, and throw a patch of glaring light upon it.  I knew that from the days before, and that that would certainly happen in an hour’s time, and above all, that I knew of this beforehand, as certainly as twice two make four, exasperated me to fury.  I turned round impulsively and suddenly, in the midst of the profound stillness, I clearly distinguished the words:  “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us.”  The words were pronounced in a half-whisper, and were followed by a deep-drawn sigh, and then everything was still again.  I raised my head quickly.

I had before, that is the previous day, and even the day before that, noticed something special in our three rooms downstairs.  In the little room beyond the dining-room where mother and Liza were accustomed to sleep, there was evidently now some one else.  I had more than once heard sounds, both by day and by night, but only for brief moments, and complete stillness followed immediately and lasted for several hours, so that I took no notice of the sounds.  The thought had occurred to me the evening before that Versilov was in there, especially as he soon afterwards came in to me, though I knew for a fact from their conversation that during my illness Versilov had been sleeping out in another lodging.  I had known for some time past that mother and Liza had moved into my former “coffin” upstairs (to make it quieter for me, I imagined) and I had even once wondered how the two of them could have possibly fitted themselves into it.  And now it suddenly appeared that there was some person living in their old room, and that that person was not Versilov.  With an ease which I had not the least expected (for I had till then imagined I was quite helpless) I dropped my feet over the bed, slipped them into slippers, threw on a grey astrachan dressing-gown which lay close at hand (Versilov had sacrificed it for my benefit), and made my way through the parlour to what had been mother’s bedroom.  What I saw there completely astounded me; I had never expected anything of the kind, and I stood still in the doorway petrified.  There was sitting there a very grey-headed old man, with a big and very white beard, and it was clear that he had been sitting there for a long time.  He was not sitting on the bed but on mother’s little bench, resting his back against the bed.  He held himself so upright, however, that he hardly seemed to need a support for his back, though he was evidently ill.  He had over his shirt a short jacket lined with fur.  His knees were covered with mother’s plaid, and on his feet were slippers.  He was, it could be discerned, tall, broad-shouldered, and of a hale appearance, in spite of his invalid state, though he was somewhat thin and looked ill.  He had rather a long face and thick but not very long hair; he looked about seventy.  On a little table, within reach, lay three or four books and a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles.  Though I had not the slightest idea of meeting him, I guessed instantly who he was, though I was still unable to imagine how he could have been sitting all those days, almost beside me, so quietly that till that time I had heard nothing of him.

He did not stir on seeing me, he looked intently at me in silence, just as I did at him, the only difference being that I stared at him with the greatest astonishment, and he looked at me without the slightest.  Scrutinizing me, on the contrary, from head to foot during those five or ten seconds of silence, he suddenly smiled and even laughed a gentle noiseless laugh, and though the laugh was soon over, traces of its serene gaiety remained upon his face and above all in his eyes, which were very blue, luminous and large, though they were surrounded by innumerable wrinkles, and the eyelids were swollen and drooping.  This laugh of his was what had most effect on me.

I consider that in the majority of cases people are revolting to look at when they are laughing.  As a rule something vulgar, something as it were degrading, comes to the surface when a man laughs, though he is almost unconscious of the impression he is making in his mirth, as little in fact as anyone knows what he looks like when he is asleep.  One person’s face will look intelligent asleep, while another man, intelligent in waking life, will look stupid and ridiculous when he is sleeping.  I don’t know what this is due to: I only mean to say that people laughing, like people asleep, have no idea what they look like.  The vast majority of people don’t know how to laugh at all.  It is not a matter of knowing how, though: it’s a gift and it cannot be cultivated.  One can only cultivate it, perhaps, by training oneself to be different, by developing and improving and by struggling against the evil instincts of one’s character: then a man’s laugh might very likely change for the better.  A man will sometimes give himself away completely by his laugh, and you suddenly know him through and through.  Even an unmistakably intelligent laugh will sometimes be repulsive.  What is most essential in laughter is sincerity, and where is one to find sincerity?  A good laugh must be free from malice, and people are constantly laughing maliciously.  A sincere laugh free from malice is gaiety, and where does one find gaiety nowadays?  People don’t know how to be gay (Versilov made this observation about gaiety and I remember it).  A man’s gaiety is what most betrays the whole man from head to foot.  Sometimes one will be for a long time unable to read a character, but if the man begins to laugh his whole character will suddenly lie open before you.  It is only the loftiest and happiest natures whose gaiety is infectious, that is, good-hearted and irresistible.  I am not talking of intellectual development, but of character, of the whole man.  And so if you want to see into a man and to understand his soul, don’t concentrate your attention on the way he talks or is silent, on his tears, or the emotion he displays over exalted ideas; you will see through him better when he laughs.  If a man has a good laugh, it means that he is a good man.  Take note of every shade; a man’s laugh must never, for instance, strike you as stupid, however gay and good-humoured be may be.  If you notice the slightest trace of stupidity in his laughter, you may be sure that that man is of limited intelligence, though he is continually dropping ideas wherever he goes.  Even if his laugh is not stupid, but the man himself strikes you as being ever so little ridiculous when he laughs, you may be sure that the man is deficient in personal dignity, to some extent anyway.  Or if the laughter though infectious, strikes you for some reason as vulgar, you may be sure that that man’s nature is vulgar, and all the generous and lofty qualities you have observed in him before are either intentionally assumed or unconsciously borrowed and that the man is certain to deteriorate, to go in for the profitable, and to cast off his noble ideas without regret as the errors and enthusiasm of youth.

I am intentionally introducing here this long tirade on the subject of laughter and am sacrificing the continuity of my story for the sake of it, for I consider it one of the most valuable deductions I have drawn from life, and I particularly recommend it to the attention of girls who are ready to accept the man of their choice, but are still hesitating and watching him mistrustfully, unable to make their final decision: and don’t let them jeer at a wretched raw youth for obtruding his moral reflections on marriage, a subject which he knows nothing about.  But I only understand that laughter is the surest test of the heart.  Look at a baby — some children know how to laugh to perfection; a crying baby is disgusting to me, but a laughing, merry one is a sunbeam from paradise, it is a revelation from the future, when man will become at last as pure and simple-hearted as a child.  And, indeed, there was something childlike and incredibly attractive in the momentary laughter of this old man.  I went up to him at once.

3

“Sit down, sit down a bit, you can scarcely stand on your legs, I dare say,” he urged me, motioning me to a seat beside him, and still gazing into my face with the same luminous gaze.  I sat down beside him and said:

“I know you, you are Makar Ivanovitch.”

“Yes, darling.  It’s very good that you are up.  You are young, it is good for you.  The old monk looks towards the grave, but the young must live.”

“But are you ill?”

“Yes, dear, chiefly in my legs; my feet brought me as far as the door, and here I’ve sat down and they are swollen.  I’ve had it since last Friday when there were degrees” (i.e. when there was a frost) “I used to rub them with ointment you see; the year before last the doctor, Edmond Karlovitch, prescribed it me in Moscow, and the ointment did good, aye, it did good; but now it’s no use.  And my chest, too, is choked up.  And since yesterday my spine has been bad, as though dogs were gnawing it. . . .  I don’t sleep at nights.”

“How is it I haven’t heard you here at all?” I broke in.  He looked at me as though considering something.

“Only don’t wake your mother,” he added as though suddenly remembering something.  “She has been busy close at hand all night, and as quiet as a mouse; and now I know she is lying down.  Ach, it’s bad for a sick monk,” he sighed; “the soul hangs by a thread it seems, yet it still holds on, and still is glad of the light; and it seems, if all life were to begin over again the soul would not shrink even from that; though maybe such a thought is sinful.”

“Why sinful?”

“Such a thought is a dream, and the old monk should take leave with blissful resignation.  Again, if one goes to meet death with murmur or repining that is a great sin, but if from the gladness of the spirit one has grown to love life, I fancy God will forgive, even a monk.  It’s hard for a man to tell of every sin what is sinful and what is not; therein is mystery passing the mind of man.  A monk must be content at all times, and ought to die in the full light of his understanding, in holy peace and blessedness, filled full with days, yearning for his last hour, and rejoicing when he is gathered as the ear of wheat to the sheaf, and has fulfilled his mystery.”