Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (103 page)

“A >f Y dear boy, it’s all over, it’s all settled,” he pronounced IVXin a tragic half-whisper.

“Uncle,” I said, “I heard shouts and uproar.”

“Yes, my boy, shouts there were; shouts of all sorts. Mamma is in a swoon, and everything is upside down now. But I have made up my mind, and shall insist on my own way. I am afraid of no one now, Seryozha. I want to show them that I, too, have a will of my own, and I will show them! And so I have sent for you on purpose that you may help me show them. . . . My heart is broken, Seryozha . . . but I ought, I am bound to act with severity. Justice is inexorable.”

“But whatever has happened, uncle?”

“I am parting with Foma,” my uncle pronounced in a resolute voice.

“Uncle,” I cried, delighted, “you could have thought of nothing better! And if I can assist in any way to carry out your decision . . . make use of me now and always.”

“Thank you, my boy, thank you! But now it is all settled. I am waiting for Foma, I have already sent for him. Either he or I.  We must part. Either Foma leaves this house to-morrow or I swear I’ll throw up everything and go into the Hussars again. They will take me and give me a division. Away with all this bobbery! A fresh start in every way now. What have you got that French exercise book for?” he cried furiously, addressing Gavrila. “Away with it! Burn it, stamp on it, tear it to pieces! I am your master, and I order you not to learn French. You can’t disobey me, you dare not, for I am your master, and not Foma Fomitch!”

“I thank Thee, 0 Lord!” Gavrila muttered to himself.

Evidently things had got beyond a joke.

“My dear,” my uncle went on, with deep feeling, “they are asking me the impossible. You shall decide; you stand between me and them now as an impartial judge. You don’t know what they have insisted on my doing, you don’t know, and at last they have formally demanded it, they have spoken out. But it’s repugnant to humanity, to decent feeling, to honour. . . . I will tell you all about it, but first ...”

“I know about it already, uncle!” I cried, interrupting him. “I can guess ... I have just been talking to Nastasya Yevgrafovna.”

“My dear, not a word, not a word of that now!” he interrupted me hurriedly, as though he were frightened. “I will explain about it later on, but meanwhile. . . . Well?” he cried to Vidoplyasov, who walked in. “Where is Foma Fomitch?”

Vidoplyasov entered with the information “that Foma Fomitch did not wish to come, and considered that the insistence on his doing so was rude to the point of impertinence, so that his honour, Foma Fomitch, was greatly offended by it.”

“Bring him! Drag him! Fetch him here! Drag him here by force!” cried my uncle, stamping.

Vidoplyasov, who had never seen his master in such a rage, retreated in alarm. I was surprised.

“Something very important must have happened,” I thought, “if a man of his character is capable of being moved to such wrath and such determination.”

For some moments my uncle walked up and down the room as though struggling with himself.

“Don’t tear up your exercise book though,” he said to Gavrila as last. “Wait a little and stay here. You may perhaps be wanted. My dear,” he went on, turning to me, “I think I was too noisy just now. Everything must be done with dignity and manliness, but without shouting and insulting people. Do you know what, Seryozha; wouldn’t it be better if you were to go out? It will be just the same to you. I will tell you all about it later on — eh? What do you think? Do that for my sake, please.”

“Are you frightened, uncle? Are you repenting?” I said, looking at him intently.

“No, no, my dear boy, I am not repenting,” cried my uncle, with redoubled earnestness. “I am afraid of nothing now. I have taken decisive steps, the most decisive! You don’t know, you can’t imagine what they have demanded of me! Ought I to consent? No, I will show them. I have made a stand against them and I will show them. I was bound to show them sooner or later! But you know, my dear boy, I am sorry I

sent for you; it will be very liard, perhaps, for Foma if you are here, so to say, the witness of his humiliation. You see, I want to turn him out of the house in a gentlemanly way, without humiliating him at all. Though, indeed, it is only a form of words to say, without humiliation. The position is such, my boy, that however honied one’s speech is it will still be insulting. I am coarse, uneducated perhaps, I may do something in my foolishness that I may regret later. Anyway he has done a great deal for me. ... Go away, my dear. . . . Here, they are bringing him! Seryozha, I entreat you, go away; I will tell you all about it afterwards. For Christ’s sake go away!”

And uncle led me out on to the veranda at the very moment when Foma walked into the room. But I must confess I did not go away; I made up my mind to stay on the veranda, where it was very dark, and so it was difficult to see me from within. I made up my mind to play the eavesdropper! I do not justify my action, but I can boldly say that I consider I performed an heroic feat in standing that whole half-hour on the veranda without losing patience.

From my position I could not only hear well, but could even see well; the doors were of glass. I now beg the reader to imagine Foma Fomitch after he had been commanded to come, and threatened with force if he refused.

“Can my ears have heard that threat aright, Colonel? cried Foma, entering the room. “Was that your message?”

“Yes, Foma, yes; calm yourself,” my uncle answered valiantly. “Sit down; we must have a little serious friendly talk like brothers. Sit down, Foma.”

Foma Fomitch majestically sat down on a low chair. My uncle walked about the room with rapid and uneven steps, evidently puzzled how to begin.

“Like brothers, precisely,” he repeated. “You understand me, Foma; you are not a boy, I am not a boy either — in fact, we are both getting on. . . . H’m! You see, Foma, we don’t get on together on certain points . . . yes, on certain points, precisely, and so, Foma, would it not be better to part? I am convinced that you are a generous man, that you wish me well, and so . . . But why prolong the discussion? Foma, I am your friend now and always, and I swear that by all the saints! Here are fifteen thousand roubles in silver; it’s all I have to bless myself with. I have scraped together every farthing, I have robbed my own children. Take it boldly! I ought — it is my duty — to secure your future. It’s almost all in bank-notes and very little in cash. Take it boldly; you owe me nothing, for I shall never be able to repay you for all you have done for me. Yes, yes, precisely, I feel that, though now we are in disagreement over the most important point. Tomorrow or the day after, or when you like, let us part. Drive to our little town, Foma, it is not eight miles away; there behind the church in the first side-street there is a little house with green shutters, a charming little house belonging to the widow of a priest, that looks as though it had been built for you. She is selling it, and I will buy it for you in addition to this money. Settle there near us. Work at literature, study science, you will win fame. . . . The officials there are gentlemanly, agreeable, disinterested men; the head priest is learned. You shall come and stay with us for the holidays — and we shall all live as in paradise. Will you?”

“So these are the terms on which Foma is to be kicked out!” I thought. “Uncle did not say a word to me about money.”

For a long time a profound silence reigned. Foma sat in his easy-chair as though struck dumb, gazing fixedly at my uncle, who was evidently becoming uncomfortable from that silence and that stare.

“The money!” Foma articulated at last in an affectedly faint voice. “Where is it? Where is that money? Give it me, give it here at once!”

“Here it is, Foma, everything I have to the last farthing, just fifteen thousand. Here are notes and securities; you can see for yourself . . . here!”

“Gavrila, take that money,” Foma said mildly, “it may be of use to you, old man. But no!” he cried all at once, raising his voice to an extraordinary squeal and leaping up from his chair; “no, give me that money first, Gavnla! Give it me. Give it me. Give me those millions that I may trample them underfoot; give them to me that I may tear them to pieces, spit on them, fling them away, spurn them, scorn them! . . . They offer money to me — to me! They try to buy me to leave this house! Have I heard that? Have I lived to see this last ignominy? Here they are, here are your millions! Look! there, there, there, there. That is how Foma Opiskin behaves if you did not know it before, Colonel!”

And Foma threw the whole roll of notes about the room. It was noticeable that he did not tear or spit on one of the notes as he had boasted of doing; he only crumpled them a little, and even that rather carefully. Gavrila flew to pick up the notes from the floor, and later on, after Foma’s departure, he carefully restored them to his master.

Foma’s action produced an overwhelming impression upon my uncle. In his turn, he now stood facing him, immovably, senselessly, open-mouthed. Foma meanwhile had replaced himself in his arm-chair and was panting as though from unutterable agitation.

“You are a man of lofty feelings, Foma!” my uncle cried out at last, recovering himself. “You are the noblest of men!” * “I know it,” Foma answered in a faint voice, but with ineffable dignity.

“Foma, forgive me! I have been a mean wretch to you, Foma!”

“Yes, to me,” Foma assented.

“Foma, it is not your disinterestedness that I marvel at,” my uncle went on enthusiastically, “but that I could have been so coarse, blind and mean as to offer you money in such circumstances. But, Foma, you are mistaken about one thing; I was not bribing you, I was not paying you for leaving this house, but just simply I wanted you to have money that you might not be in straits when you leave me. I swear that! On my knees, on my knees I am ready to beg your forgiveness, Foma; and if you like, I am ready to go down on my knees before you this moment ... if you wish me to. . . .”

“I don’t want your kneeling, Colonel.”

“But, my God! Foma, consider: you know I was carried away, overwhelmed, I was not myself. . . . But do tell me, do say in what way I can, in what way I may be able to efface this insult! Instruct me, admonish me. . . .”

“In no way, in no way, Colonel! And rest assured that to-morrow morning I shall shake the dust from off my boots on the threshold of this house.”

And Foma began to get up from his chair. My uncle rushed in horror to make him sit down again.

“No, Foma, you will not go away, I assure you!” cried my uncle. “It is no use talking about dust and boots, Foma! You are not going away, or I will follow you to the utmost ends of the earth, and I will follow you till such time as you forgive me ... I swear it, Foma, and I will do it!”

“Forgive you? You are to blame?” said Foma. “But do you yet understand the wrong you have done me? Do you understand that even the fact that you have given me a piece of bread here has become a wrong to me now? Do you under-

stand that now in one minute you have poisoned every morsel I have tasted in your house? You reproached me just now with those morsels, with every mouthful of the bread I have eaten; you have shown me now that I have been living like a slave in your house, like a flunkey, like a rag to wipe your polished boots I And yet I, in the purity of my heart, imagined up to now that I was residing in your house as a friend and a brother! Did you not, did you not yourself in your snakelike speeches assure me a thousand times of that brotherly relation? Why did you mysteriously weave for me the snare in which I have been caught like a fool? Why have you dug in the darkness this wolt-pit into which you have yourself thrust me now? Why did you not strike me down with one blow before? Why did you not wring my neck at the very beginning like a cock, because he . . . well, for instance, simply because he doesn’t lay eggs? Yes, that’s just it! I stick to that comparison, Colonel, though it is taken from rustic life and recalls the trivial tone of modern literature; I stick to it, because one sees in it all the senselessness of your accusation; for I am as much in fault as this supposititious cock who displeases his frivolous owner by not laying eggs! Upon my word, Colonel! Does one pay a friend, a brother, with money — and what for? That’s the point, what for? ‘Here, my beloved brother, I am indebted to you; you have even saved my life; here are a few of Judas’s silver pieces for you, only get away out of my sight!’ How naive! How crudely you have behaved to me! You thought that I was thirsting for your gold, while I was cherishing only the heavenly feeling of securing your welfare. Oh, how you have broken my heart! You have played with my finest feelings like some wretched boy with a ninepin! Long, long ago, Colonel, I foresaw all this — that is why I have long choked over your bread, I have been suffocated by your bread! That is why your feather beds have stifled me, they have stifled me instead of lulling me to slumber! That is why your sugar, your sweetmeats have been cayenne pepper to me and not sweetmeats! No, Colonel! live alone, prosper alone, and let Foma go his sorrowful way with a wallet on his back. So it shall be, Colonel!”

“No, Foma, no! It shall not be so, it cannot be so!” moaned my uncle, utterly crushed.

“Yes, Colonel, yes! So it shall be, for so it must be. Tomorrow I shall depart from you. Scatter your millions, strew all my way, ail the high road to Moscow with your bank-

notes — and I will walk proudly and scornfully over your notes; this very foot, Colonel, will trample your notes into the mud and crush them; for Foma Opiskin the nobility of his own soul will be enough t I have said it and I have shown it! Farewell, Colonel, fa-re-we-ell!’’

And Foma began again getting up from his chair.

“Forgive me, forgive me, Foma; forget it! . . ,” repeated my uncle, in an imploring voice.

“Forgive you! Why, what use will my forgiveness be to you? Why, supposing I do forgive you: I am a Christian; I cannot refuse to forgive; I have almost forgiven you already. But consider yourself: is it in the least consistent with common sense and gentlemanly feeling for me to stay one minute longer in your house? Why, you have turned me out of it!”