Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (569 page)

“Do you mean his being chilly, or the thought about the blood? Besides, it’s a well-known fact that very many people who are capable of contemplating their approaching death, whether it’s by their own hand or not, frequently show a tendency to worry themselves about leaving their body in a presentable condition.  It was from that point of view that Kraft was anxious about the blood.”

“I don’t know whether that is a well-known fact . . . or whether that is so,” I muttered; “but I am surprised that you consider all that natural, and yet it’s not long since Kraft was speaking, feeling, sitting among us.  Surely you must feel sorry for him?”

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry, and that’s quite a different thing; but, in any case, Kraft himself conceived of his death as a logical deduction.  It turns out that all that was said about him yesterday at Dergatchev’s was true.  He left behind him a manuscript book full of abtruse theories, proving by phrenology, by craniology, and even by mathematics, that the Russians are a second-rate race, and that therefore, since he was a Russian, life was not worth living for him.  What is more striking about it, if you like, is that it shows one can make any logical deduction one pleases; but to shoot oneself in consequence of a deduction does not always follow.”

“At least one must do credit to his strength of will.”

“Possibly not that only,” Vassin observed evasively; it was clear that he assumed stupidity or weakness of intellect.  All this irritated me.

“You talked of feeling yourself yesterday, Vassin.”

“I don’t gainsay it now; but what has happened betrays something in him so crudely mistaken that, if one looks at it critically, it checks one’s compassion in spite of oneself.”

“Do you know that I guessed yesterday from your eyes that you would disapprove of Kraft, and I resolved not to ask your opinion, that I might not hear evil of him; but you have given it of yourself, and I am forced to agree with you in spite of myself; and yet I am annoyed with you!  I am sorry for Kraft.”

“Do you know we are going rather far. . . .”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “but it’s a comfort, anyway, that in such cases those who are left alive, the critics of the dead, can say of themselves:  ‘Though a man has shot himself who was worthy of all compassion and indulgence, we are left, at any rate, and so there’s no great need to grieve.’”

“Yes, of course, from that point of view. . . .  Oh, but I believe you are joking, and very cleverly!  I always drink tea at this time, and am just going to ask for it: you will join me, perhaps.”

And he went out, with a glance at my trunk and bag.

I had wanted to say something rather spiteful, to retaliate for his judgment of Kraft, and I had succeeded in saying it, but it was curious that he had taken my consoling reflection that “such as we are left” as meant seriously.  But, be that as it may, he was, anyway, more right than I was in everything, even in his feelings.  I recognized this without the slightest dissatisfaction, but I felt distinctly that I did not like him.

When they had brought in the tea I announced that I was going to ask for his hospitality for one night only, and if this were impossible I hoped he would say so, and I would go to an hotel.  Then I briefly explained my reasons, simply and frankly stating that I had finally quarrelled with Versilov, without, however, going into details.  Vassin listened attentively but without the slightest excitement.  As a rule he only spoke in reply to questions, though he always answered with ready courtesy and sufficient detail.  I said nothing at all about the letter concerning which I had come to ask his advice in the morning, and I explained that I had looked in then simply to call on him.  Having given Versilov my word that no one else should know of the letter, I considered I had no right to speak of it to anyone.  I felt it for some reason peculiarly repugnant to speak of certain things to Vassin — of some things and not of others; I succeeded, for instance, in interesting him in my description of the scenes that had taken place that morning in the passage, in the next room, and finally at Versilov’s.  He listened with extreme attention, especially to what I told him of Stebelkov.  When I told him how Stebelkov asked about Dergatchev he made me repeat the question again, and seemed to ponder gravely over it, though he did laugh in the end.  It suddenly occurred to me at that moment that nothing could ever have disconcerted Vassin; I remember, however, that this idea presented itself at first in a form most complimentary to him.

“In fact, I could not gather much from what M. Stebelkov said,” I added finally; “he talks in a sort of muddle . . . and there is something, as it were, feather-headed about him. . . .”

Vassin at once assumed a serious air.

“He certainly has no gift for language, but he sometimes manages to make very acute observations at first sight, and in fact he belongs to the class of business men, men of practical affairs, rather than of theoretical ideas; one must judge them from that point of view. . . .”

It was exactly what I had imagined him saying that morning.  “He made an awful row next door, though, and goodness knows how it might have ended.”

Of the inmates of the next room, Vassin told me that they had been living there about three weeks and had come from somewhere in the provinces; that their room was very small, and that to all appearance they were very poor; that they stayed in and seemed to be expecting something.  He did not know the young woman had advertised for lessons, but he had heard that Versilov had been to see them; it had happened in his absence, but the landlady had told him of it.  The two ladies had held themselves aloof from every one, even from the landlady.  During the last few days he had indeed become aware that something was wrong with them, but there had been no other scenes like the one that morning.  I recall all that was said about the people next door because of what followed.  All this time there was a dead silence in the next room.  Vassin listened with marked interest when I told him that Stebelkov had said he must talk to the landlady about our neighbours and that he had twice repeated, “Ah! you will see! you will see!”

“And you will see,” added Vassin, “that that notion of his stands for something; he has an extraordinarily keen eye for such things.”

“Why, do you think the landlady ought to be advised to turn them out?”

“No, I did not mean that they should be turned out . . . simply that there might be a scandal . . . but all such cases end one way or another. . . .  Let’s drop the subject.”

As for Versilov’s visit next door, he absolutely refused to give any opinion.

“Anything is possible: a man feels that he has money in his pocket . . . but he may very likely have given the money from charity; that would perhaps be in accordance with his traditions and his inclinations.”

I told him that Stebelkov had chattered that morning about “a baby.”

“Stebelkov is absolutely mistaken about that,” Vassin brought out with peculiar emphasis and gravity (I remembered this particularly). “Stebelkov sometimes puts too much faith in his practical common sense, and so is in too great a hurry to draw conclusions to fit in with his logic, which is often very penetrating; and all the while the actual fact may be far more fantastic and surprising when one considers the character of the persons concerned in it.  So it has been in this case; having a partial knowledge of the affair, he concluded the child belonged to Versilov; and yet the child is not Versilov’s.”

I pressed him, and, to my great amazement, learned from him that the infant in question was the child of Prince Sergay Sokolsky.  Lidya Ahmakov, either owing to her illness or to some fantastic streak in her character, used at times to behave like a lunatic.  She had been fascinated by the prince before she met Versilov, “and he had not scrupled to accept her love,” to use Vassin’s expression.  The liaison had lasted but for a moment; they had quarrelled, as we know already, and Lidya had dismissed the prince, “at which the latter seems to have been relieved.”  “She was a very strange girl,” added Vassin; “it is quite possible that she was not always in her right mind.  But when he went away to Paris, Prince Sokolsky had no idea of the condition in which he had left his victim, he did not know until the end, until his return.  Versilov, who had become a friend of the young lady’s, offered her his hand, in view of her situation (of which it appears her parents had no suspicion up to the end).  The lovesick damsel was overjoyed, and saw in Versilov’s offer “something more than self-sacrifice,” though that too she appreciated.  “Of course, though, he knew how to carry it through,” Vassin added.  “The baby (a girl) was born a month or six weeks before the proper time; it was placed out somewhere in Germany but afterwards taken back by Versilov and is now somewhere in Russia — perhaps in Petersburg.”

“And the phosphorus matches?”

“I know nothing about that,” Vassin said in conclusion.  “Lidya Ahmakov died a fortnight after her confinement: what had happened I don’t know.  Prince Sokolsky, who had only just returned from Paris, learned there was a child, and seems not to have believed at first that it was his child. . . .  The whole affair has, in fact, been kept secret by all parties up till now.”

“But what a wretch this prince must be,” I cried indignantly.  “What a way to treat an invalid girl!”

“She was not so much of an invalid then. . . .  Besides, she sent him away herself. . . .  It is true, perhaps, that he was in too great a hurry to take advantage of his dismissal.”

“You justify a villain like that!”

“No, only I don’t call him a villain.  There is a great deal in it besides simple villainy.  In fact, it’s quite an ordinary thing.”

“Tell me, Vassin, did you know him intimately?  I should particularly value your opinion, owing to a circumstance that touches me very nearly.”

But to this Vassin replied with excessive reserve.  He knew the prince, but he was, with obvious intention, reticent in regard to the circumstances under which he had made his acquaintance.  He added further that one had to make allowances for Prince Sokolsky’s character.  “He is impressionable and full of honourable impulses, but has neither good sense nor strength of will enough to control his desires.  He is not a well-educated man; many ideas and situations are beyond his power to deal with, and yet he rushes upon them.  He will, for example, persist in declaring, ‘I am a prince and descended from Rurik; but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be a shoemaker if I have to earn my living; I am not fit for any other calling.  Above the shop there shall be, “Prince So- and-so, Bootmaker” — it would really be a credit.’  He would say that and act upon it, too, that’s what matters,” added Vassin; “and yet it’s not the result of strong conviction, but only the most shallow impressionability.  Afterwards repentance invariably follows, and then he is always ready to rush to an opposite extreme; his whole life is passed like that.  Many people come to grief in that way nowadays,” Vassin ended, “just because they are born in this age.”

I could not help pondering on his words.

“Is it true that he was turned out of his regiment?” I asked.

“I don’t know whether he was turned out, but he certainly did leave the regiment through some unpleasant scandal.  I suppose you know that he spent two or three months last autumn at Luga.”

“I . . . I know that you were staying at Luga at that time.”

“Yes, I was there too for a time.  Prince Sokolsky knew Lizaveta Makarovna too.”

“Oh!  I didn’t know.  I must confess I’ve had so little talk with my sister. . . .  But surely he was not received in my mother’s house?” I cried.

“Oh, no; he was only slightly acquainted with them through other friends.”

“Ah, to be sure, what did my sister tell me about that child?  Was the baby at Luga?”

“For a while.”

“And where is it now.”

“No doubt in Petersburg.”

“I never will believe,” I cried in great emotion, “that my mother took any part whatever in this scandal with this Lidya!”

“Apart from these intrigues, of which I can’t undertake to give the details, there was nothing particularly reprehensible in Versilov’s part of the affair,” observed Vassin, with a condescending smile.  I fancy he began to feel it difficult to talk to me, but he tried not to betray it.

“I will never, never believe,” I cried again, “that a woman could give up her husband to another woman; that I won’t believe! . . .  I swear my mother had no hand in it!”

“It seems, though, she did not oppose it.”

“In her place, from pride I should not have opposed it.”

“For my part, I absolutely refuse to judge in such a matter,” was Vassin’s final comment.

Perhaps, for all his intelligence, Vassin really knew nothing about women, so that a whole cycle of ideas and phenomena remained unknown to him.  I sank into silence.  Vassin had a temporary berth in some company’s office, and I knew that he used to bring work home with him.  When I pressed him, he admitted that he had work to do now, accounts to make up, and I begged him warmly not to stand on ceremony with me.  I believe this pleased him; but before bringing out his papers he made up a bed for me on the sofa.  At first he offered me his bed, but when I refused it I think that too gratified him.  He got pillows and a quilt from the landlady.  Vassin was extremely polite and amiable, but it made me feel uncomfortable, seeing him take so much trouble on my account.  I had liked it better when, three weeks before, I had spent a night at Efim’s.  I remember how he concocted a bed for me, also on a sofa, and without the knowledge of his aunt, who would, he thought, for some reason, have been vexed if she had known he had a schoolfellow staying the night with him.  We laughed a great deal.  A shirt did duty for a sheet and an overcoat for a pillow.  I remember how Efim, when he had completed the work, patted the sofa tenderly and said to me:

“Vous dormirez comme un petit roi.”

And his foolish mirth and the French phrase, as incongruous in his mouth as a saddle on a cow, made me enjoy sleeping at that jocose youth’s.  As for Vassin, I felt greatly relieved when he sat down to work with his back to me.  I stretched myself on the sofa and, looking at his back, pondered deeply on many things.