Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (113 page)

“Nine long years Don Pedro Gomez Has besieged the fort of Pamba, On a diet of milk supported. And Don Pedro’s gallant warriors, Brave Castilians, full nine thousand, All to keep the vow they’ve taken Taste no bread nor other victuals, Milk they drink and milk alone.”

“What? What’s that about milk?” cried my uncle, looking at me in perplexity.

“Go on reciting, Ilyusha!” cried Sashenka.

“Every day Don Pedro Gomez, In his Spanish cloak enveloped, Bitterly his lot bewails. Lo, the tenth year is approaching; Still the fierce Moors are triumphant; And of all Don Pedro’s army Only nineteen men are left. ...”

“Why, it’s a regular string of nonsense!” cried my uncle uneasily. “Come, that’s impossible. Only nineteen men left out of a whole army, when there was a very considerable corps before? What is the meaning of it, my boy?”

But at that point Sasha could not contain herself, and went off into the most open and childish laughter; and though there was nothing very funny, it was impossible not to laugh too as one looked at her.

“They are funny verses, papa,” she cried, highly delighted with her childish prank. “The author made them like that on purpose to amuse everybody.”

“Oh! Funny!” cried my uncle, with a beaming face. “Comic, you mean! That’s just what I thought. . . . Just so, just so, funny! And very amusing, extremely amusing: he starved all his army on milk owing to some vow. What possessed them to take such a vow? Very witty, isn’t it, Foma? You see, mamma, these are jesting verses, such as authors sometimes do write, don’t they, Sergey? Extremely amusing. Well, well, Ilyusha, what next?”

“Only nineteen men are left! Them Don Pedro doth assemble And says to them: ‘Noble Nineteen! Let us raise aloft our standards! Let us blow on our loud trumpets! And with clashing of our cymbals Let us from Pamba retreat! Though the fort we have not taken, Yet with honour still untarnished We can swear on faith and conscience That our vow we have not broken; Nine long years we have not eaten, Not a morsel have we eaten, Milk we’ve drunk and milk alone!’”

“What a noodle! What comfort was it for him that he had drunk milk for nine years?” my uncle broke in again. “What is there virtuous in it? He would have done better to have eaten a whole sheep, and not have been the death of people I Excellent! capital! I see, I see now: it’s a satire on . . . what do they call it? an allegory, isn’t it? And perhaps aimed at some foreign general,” my uncle added, addressing me, knitting hia brows significantly and screwing up his eyes, “eh? What do you think? But of course a harmless, good, refined satire that injures nobody! Excellent! excellent, and what matters most, it is refined. Well, Ilyusha, go on. Ah, you rogues, you rogues!” he added with feeling, looking at Sasha and stealthily also at Nastenka, who blushed and smiled.

“And emboldened by that saying, Those nineteen Castilian warriors, Each one swaying in his saddle, Feebly shouted all together: ‘Sant’ Iago Compostello! Fame and glory to Don Pedro I Glory to the Lion of Castile!’ And his chaplain, one Diego, Through his teeth was heard to mutter: ‘But if I had been commander, I’d have vowed to eat meat only, Drinking good red wine alone.’”

“There! Didn’t I tell you so?” cried my uncle, extremely delighted. “Only one sensible man was found in the whole army, and he was some sort of a chaplain. And what is that, Sergey: a captain among them, or what?”

“A monk, an ecclesiastical person, uncle.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Chaplain! I know, I remember. I have read of it in Radcliffe’s novels. They have all sorts of orders, don’t they. . . . Benedictines, I believe? . . . There are Benedictines, aren’t there?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“H’m! ... I thought so. Well, Ilyusha, what next? Excellent! capital!”

“And Don Pedro overhearing, With loud laughter gave the order: ‘Fetch a sheep and give it to him! He has jested gallantly!’”

‘What a time to laugh! What a fool! Even he saw it was funny at last! A sheep! So they had sheep; why did he not eat some himself! Well, Ilyusha, go on. Excellent! capital! Extraordinarily cutting!”

“But that’s the end, papa!”

“Oh, the end. Indeed there wasn’t much left to be done — was there, Sergey? Capital, Ilyusha! Wonderfully nice. Kiss me, darling. Ah, my precious! Who was it thought of it: you, Sasha?”

“No, it was Nastenka. We read it the other day. She read it and said: ‘What ridiculous verses! It will soon be Ilyusha’s nameday, let us make him learn them and recite them. It will make them laugh!”

“Oh, it was Nastenka? Well, thank you, thank you,” my uncle muttered, suddenly flushing like a child. “Kiss me again, Ilyusha. You kiss me too, you rogue,” he said, embracing Sashenka and looking into her face with feeling. “You wait a bit, Sashenka, it will be your nameday soon,” he added, as though he did not know what to say to express his pleasure.

I turned to Nastenka and asked whose verses they were.

“Yes, yes, whose are the versed “ my uncle hurriedly chimed in. “It must have been a clever poet who wrote them, mustn’t it, Foma?”

“H’m . . .” Foma grunted to himself.

A biting sarcastic smile had not lett his face during the whole time of the recitation of the verses.

“I have really forgotten,” said Nastenka, looking timidly at Foma Fomitch.

“It’s Mr. Kuzma Prutkov wrote it, papa; it was published in the Contemporary/’ Sashenka broke in.

“Ku/ma Prutkov! I don’t know his name,” said my uncle. “Pushkin I know! . . . But one ran see he a gifted poet — isn’t he, Sergey? And what’s more, a man ot refined qualities, that’s as clear as twice two! Perhaps, indeed, he is an officer. ... I approve of him. And the Contemporary is a first-rate magazine. We certainly must take it in if poets like that are among the contributors. ... I like poets! They are fine fellows! They picture everything in vcr^e Do you know, Sergey, I met a literary man at your rooms in Petersburg. He had rather a peculiar nose, too . . . really! . . . What did you say, Foma?”

Foma Fomitch, who was getting more and more worked up, gave a loud snigger.

“No, I said nothing . . ,” he said, as though hardly able to suppress his laughter. “Co on, Yegor Ilyitch, go on! I will say my word later. . . . Stepan Alexycvitch is delighted to hear how you made the acquaintance of literary men in Petersburg.”

Stepan Alexyevitch, who had been sitting apart all the time lost in thought, suddenly raised his head, reddened, and turned in his chair with exasperation.

“Don’t you provoke me, Foma, but leave me in peace,” he said, looking wrathfully at Foma, with his little bloodshot eyes. “What is your literature to me? May God only give me good health,” he muttered to himself, “and plague take them all. . . and their authors too. . . . Voltairians, that’s what they are!”

“Authors are Voltairians?” said Yezhevikin immediately at his side. “Perfectly true what you have been pleased to remark, Stepan Alexyevitch. Valentin Ignatyitch was pleased to express the same sentiments the other day. He actually called me a Voltairian, upon my soul he did! And yet, as you all know, I have written very little so far. ... If a bowl of milk goes sour — it’s all Voltaire’s fault! That’s how it is with everything here.”

“Well, no,” observed my uncle with dignity, “that’s an error, you know! Voltaire was nothing but a witty writer; he laughed at superstitions; and he never was a Voltairian! It was his enemies spread that rumour about him. Why were they all against him, really, poor fellow? ...”

Again the malignant snigger of Foma Fomitch was audible. My uncle looked at him uneasily and was perceptibly embarrassed.

“Yes, Foma, I am thinking about the magazine, you see,” he said in confusion, trying to put himself right somehow. “You were perfectly right, my dear Foma, when you said the other day that we ought to subscribe to one. I think we ought to, myself. H’m . . . after all, they do assist in the diffusion of enlightenment; one would be a very poor patriot if one did not support them. Wouldn’t one, Sergey. H’m . . . Yes . . . The Contemporary, for instance. But, do you know, Seryozha, the most instruction, to my thinking, is to be found in that thick magazine — what’s its name? — in a yellow cover . . .”

“Notes of the Fatherland, papa.”

“Oh, yes, Notes of the Fatherland, and a capital title, Sergey, isn’t it? It is, so to say, the whole Fatherland sitting writing notes. ... A very fine object. A most edifying magazine. And what a thick one! What a job to publish such an omnibus! And the information in it almost makes one’s eyes start out of one’s head. I came in the other day, the volume was lying here, I took it up and from curiosity opened it and reeled off three pages at a go. It made me simply gape, my dear! And, you know, there is information about everything; what is meant, for instance, by a broom, a spade, a ladle, an ovenrake. To my thinking, a broom is a broom and an ovenrake an ovenrake!

No, my boy, wait a bit. According to the learned, an ovenrako turns out not an ovenrake, but an emblem or something mythological; I don’t remember exactly, but something of the sort. . . . So that’s how it is! They have gone into everything!”

I don’t know what precisely Foma was preparing to do after this fresh outburst from my uncle, but at that moment Gavrila appeared and stood with bowed head in the doorway.

Foma Fomitch glanced at him significantly.

“Ready, Gavrila?” he asked in a faint but resolute voice.

“Yes, sir,” Gavrila answered mournfully, and heaved a sigh.

“And have you put my bundle on the cart?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, I am ready too!” said Foma, and he deliLxr-ately go up from his easy-chair. My uncle looked at him in amazement. Madame la Générale jumped up from her seat ana looked about her uneasily.

“Allow me, Colonel,” Foma began with dignity, “to ask you to leave for a moment the interesting subject of literary oven-rakes; you can continue it after I am gone. As I am taking leave of you for ever, I should like to say a few last words to you ——

Every listener was spellbound with alarm and amazement.

“Foma! Foma! but what is the matter with you? Where are you going?” my uncle cried at last.

“I am about to leave your house, Colonel,” Foma brought out in a perfectly composed voice. “I have made up my mind to go where fortune takes me, and so I have hired at my own expense a humble peasant’s cart. My bundle is lying in it already, it is of no great dimensions’ a few favourite books, two changes of linen — that is all! I am a poor man, Yegor Ilyitch, but nothing in the world would induce me now to take your gold, which I refused even yesterday!”

“But for God’s sake, Foma, what is the meaning of it?” cried my uncle, turning as white as a sheet.

Madame la Générale uttered a shriek and looked in despair at Foma Fomitch, stretching out her hands to him. Miss Perepelitsyn flew to support her. The lady companions sat petrified in their chairs. Mr. Bahtcheyev got up heavily from his seat.

“Well, here’s a pretty to-do!” Mizintchikov whispered beside me.

At that moment a distant rumble of thunder was heard, a storm was coming on.

CHAPTER IV

THE EXPULSION

“YOU ask me, I believe, Colonel, what is the meaning of this?” Foma brought out with a solemn dignity, as though enjoying the general consternation. “I am surprised at the question I Will you on your side explain how it is you can bring yourself to look me in the face now? Explain to me this last psychological problem in human shamelessness, and then I shall depart, the richer for new knowledge of the depravity of the human race.”

But my uncle was not equal to answering him. With open mouth and staring eyes he gazed at Foma, alarmed and annihilated.

“Merciful heavens! What passions!’’ hissed Miss Perepelitsyn.

“Do you understand, Colonel,” Foma went on, “that you had better let me go now, simply without asking questions? In your house even I, a man of years and understanding, begin to feel the purity of my morals gravely endangered. Believe me, that your questions can lead to nothing but putting you to shame.”

“Foma! Foma!” cried my uncle, and a cold perspiration came out on his forehead.

“And so allow me without further explanation to say a few farewell words at parting, my last words in your house, Yegor Ilyitch. The thing is done and there is no undoing it! I hope that you understand to what I am referring. But I implore you on my knees: if one spark of moral feeling is left in your heart, curb your unbridled passions! And if the noxious poison has not yet caught the whole edifice, then, as far as possible, extinguish the fire!”

“Foma, I assure you that you are in error!” cried my uncle, recovering himself little by little and foreseeing with horror the climax.

“Moderate your passions,” Foma continued in the same solemn voice, as though he had not heard my uncle’s exclamation, “conquer yourself. ‘If thou would’st conquer all the world — conquer thyself.’ That is my invariable rule. You are a landowner; you ought to shine like a diamond in your estate, and what a vile example of unbridled passion you set your inferiors! I have been praying for you the whole night, and trembled as I sought for your happiness. I did not find it, for happiness lies in virtue. . .

“But this is impossible, Foma!” my uncle interrupted him again. “You have misunderstood and what you say is quite wrong.”

“And so remember you are a landowner,” Foma went on, still regaidless of my uncle’s exclamations. “Do not imagine that repose and sensuality are the destined vocation of the land-owning class. Fatal thought! Not repose, but zealous work, zealous towards God, towards your sovereign, and towards your country! Hard work, hard work is the duty of the landowner, he should work as hard as the poorest of his peasants!”

“What, am I to plough for the peasant, or what?” growled Bahtcheyev. “Why, I am a landowner, too. ...”

“I turn to you now, servants ot the house,” Foma went on, addres-mg Gavrila and Falaley, who had appeared in the doorway. “Love your master and and his family, and obey them humbly and meekly, and they will reward you with their love. And you, Colonel, be just and compassionate to them. A fellow-man — the image of God — like a child of tender years, so to say, is entrusted to you by your sovereign and your country. Great is the duty, but great also is the merit.”