Poor Folk and Other Stories (10 page)

I write to you in haste, I am in a hurry, trying to finish some work on time. Look, this is what I have to tell you; it is possible for you to make an advantageous purchase. Fedora says that a man-friend of hers is selling a dress uniform, as good as new, some underwear, a waistcoat and a cap, and all for practically nothing, she says; so why don't you buy them? After all, you are not too badly off just now, you have some money; you yourself have told me so. Enough of your miserliness, now, please: I mean to say, these are all essential items. Just take a look at yourself, at the old clothes you are going about in. Shame on you! They are covered in patches. You have no new things; I know you have none, even though you assure me that you have. Heaven only knows what you have done with them. So please do as I say, and buy these clothes. Do it for me; if you love me, then buy them.

You have sent me a gift of some linen; but listen, Makar Alekseyevich, you are ruining yourself. I mean, it's no joke, what you have spent on me – a fearful amount of money! Oh, how you love to be extravagant! I don't need all those things; they were quite unnecessary. I know that you love me, I am convinced of it; truly, it is superfluous to remind me of it with gifts, gifts which it is painful for me to accept from you, since I know how much they cost you. Once and for all – desist, do you hear? I beg you, I implore you. Makar Alekseyevich, you ask me to send you the continuation of my notes;
you want me to finish them. I do not even know how I managed to write what I did! But I have not the strength now to talk about my past; I don't even want to think about it; I grow frightened by all those memories. Talking about my poor mother, who left her poor child in the clutches of those monsters is most painful of all to me. My heart bleeds at the mere recollection. All that is still so fresh in my memory; I have not had time to reflect, still less to compose myself, even though it all happened more than a year ago. But you know all about it.

I told you about the thoughts that are currently in Anna Fyodorovna's head; she is accusing me of ingratitude and will accept no blame for her association with Mr Bykov. She wants me to go and live in her house; she says that I am living on charity, that I am on the slippery slope. She says that if I return to her she will take it upon herself to sort out everything with Mr Bykov and compel him to make amends for all that he has done to me. She says that Mr Bykov wants to give me a dowry. Let them be! I am just as happy here with you, near my good Fedora, who with her devotion to me reminds me of my old dead nurse. Even though you are only a distant relative of mine, you protect me with your name. As for them, I don't know them; I shall put them out of my mind if I can. What more do they want of me? Fedora says that it is all just gossip, that they will eventually leave me alone. Pray God she is right!

I want to write to you, but don't know how to start. I mean, it's so strange that we are living so close to each other now. I say this because I have never before spent my days in such delight. My, it is as if the Lord had blessed me with a home and family! My child, my pretty little one! What is this you write about the four chemises I sent you? After all, you needed them – I discovered that from Fedora. Pleasing you is an especial happiness for me, little mother; that is my pleasure, and you must leave me to it, little mother; do not come near me and do not gainsay me. Never have I experienced anything like this, little mother. I have launched myself into society
now. For one thing, I am living at double intensity, because you are living so close to me and making me so happy; for another, I have been invited to tea today by one of the lodgers, my neighbour, Ratazyayev, the same clerk who holds the literary evenings. There is to be one of those today; we are going to read literature. So you see how I am now, little mother – you see! Well, goodbye. I've really just written this without any particular purpose and solely in order to let you know how well I am. My darling, you told Teresa to tell me that you needed some coloured silk for your embroidery; I shall buy it, little mother, I shall buy you the silk, too. Tomorrow I shall have the pleasure of being able to satisfy you. I even know where to buy it. But for the moment I remain

The fact is that, to tell you the truth, little mother, I have not read that unpleasant book. To be sure, I did glance at a bit of it, and saw that it was whimsical stuff, written solely for buffoonery's sake, in order to make people laugh; well, I thought, it must really be funny; perhaps Varenka will like it, too; and so I bought it and sent it to you.

But here, Ratazyayev has promised to lend me some real literary stuff to read, so now you, too, shall have some books, little mother. Ratazyayev knows his onions, he's a connoisseur; he writes himself. O, how he writes! He has a bold pen and oceans of style; in his each
and every word, I mean – each one of them – in the most trivial, the most ordinary, vile word of the sort I might sometimes say to Faldoni or Teresa, he has style. I attend the evenings he holds in his room, too. We smoke tobacco, and he reads to us, reads for nearly five hours at a stretch and we listen all the time. It's not literature at all, it's a feast! It's so lovely: like flowers, just like flowers; one can gather a bouquet from every page! He's such a pleasant fellow, so kind and affectionate. Well, what am I compared to him, eh? Nothing. he is a man with a reputation, and what am I? Compared to him, I simply don't exist; yet even for me he has a kind word. I'm doing some copying for him. Now, Varenka, don't go thinking that there's some sort of trick here, that he's only kind to me because I'm doing his copying for him. Don't believe gossip, little mother, don't believe wicked gossip! No, I'm doing it of my own free will, because I want to please him, and if he is kind to me, then that is because he wants to please me. I understand the delicate nature of an action, little mother. he is a good-hearted, a very good-hearted man, and a peerless writer.

Oh, literature is a wonderful thing, Varenka, a very wonderful thing; I discovered that from being with those people the day before yesterday. It is a profound thing! It strengthens people is hearts and instructs them, and – there are various other things about it all in a little book they have. It's marvellously written! Literature is a picture, or rather in a certain sense both a picture and a mirror; it is an expression of emotion, a subtle form of criticism, a didactic lesson and a document. All that I gleaned from being with them. I will tell you quite honestly, little mother, that as I sit among them listening (I even smoke a pipe as they do, what do you think of that?), and they begin to contend and argue with one another about various matters, I simply have to declare my insufficiency – that is all that you or I, little mother, could possibly do in this setting. In this setting I am simply a dunce, an ignoramus; I am ashamed of myself, and I spend the entire evening trying to think of some little contribution to make to the general discussion, yet am unable to do even that! And then, Varenka, I feel sorry for myself, sorry that I am not as they are; that, according to the proverb, I've ‘grown in size but not in mind'. For what do I do in my free time now? I sleep, fool that I am. Yet instead of indulging in sleep I don't need, I might be doing something agreeable; like sitting down and writing something. An activity useful to myself and pleasing to others. Goodness, little mother, you should just see how much money they get for it, may
the Lord forgive them! Look at Ratazyayev, even – what a lot he earns! What effort does it cost him to write a printer's sheet of prose? Indeed, some days he writes five, and he says he gets three hundred rubles a sheet. He'll produce some little anecdote or other, or an account of some curious event, and for that it'll cost you five hundred, which you'd better fork out, even if it bankrupts you, because if you don't, it's a thousand we'll be putting away in our pocket next time! What do you think of that, Varvara Alekseyevna? I mean, he has a little exercise-book of poems – they're not very long poems – and he's asking seven thousand for them, little mother, seven thousand, just imagine. I mean, that is real estate, it's a capital-investment property! He says they're offering him five thousand, but he won't take it. I've tried to reason with him, take their five thousand, man, I tell him, and spit in their faces – after all, five thousand is money, isn't it? No, he says, let them give me seven, the swindlers. He really is a clever chap!

You know, little mother, since we're on the subject, I think I shall copy out a little extract from
Italian Passions
for you. That's the title of one of his books. Here, read this passage, Varenka, and be your own judge:

Well, little mother, having read that, what do you think? It's a little on the free-and-easy side, that is certain, but it's good none the less. And what's good is good, you can't say it isn't. And now, if you will permit me, I shall copy out for you another little extract, this time from his novella
Yermak and Suleika.

The gist of the story, little mother, is that the Cossack Yermak, the fierce and terrible conqueror of Siberia, has fallen in love with Suleika, who is the daughter of the Siberian Tsar Kuchum, and who has been taken captive by him. An event straight from the times of Ivan the Terrible, as you will be aware. Here is the dialogue of Yermak and Suleika: