III
I found two of my old schoolfellows with him. They seemed to be discussing an important matter. All of them took scarcely any notice of my entrance, which was strange, for I had not met them for years. Evidently they looked upon me as something on the level of a common fly. I had not been treated like that even at school, though they all hated me. I knew, of course, that they must despise me now for my lack of success in the service, and for my having let myself sink so low, going about badly dressed and so on which seemed to them a sign of my incapacity and insignificance. But I had not expected such contempt. Simonov was positively surprised at my turning up. Even in old days he had always seemed surprised at my coming. All this disconcerted me: I sat down, feeling rather miserable, and began listening to what they were saying.
They were engaged in warm and earnest conversation about a farewell dinner which they wanted to arrange for the next day to a comrade of theirs called Zverkov, an officer in the army, who was going away to a distant province. This Zverkov had been all the time at school with me too. I had begun to hate him particularly in the upper forms. In the lower forms he had simply been a pretty, playful boy whom everybody liked. I had hated him, however, even in the lower forms, just because he was a pretty and playful boy. He was always bad at his lessons and got worse and worse as he went on; however, he left with a good certificate, as he had powerful interests. During his last year at school he came in for an estate of two hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he took up a swaggering tone among us. He was vulgar in the extreme, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even in his swaggering. In spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled before Zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. And it was not from any interested motive that they grovelled, but simply because he had been favoured by the gifts of nature. Moreover, it was, as it were, an accepted idea among us that Zverkov was a specialist in regard to tact and the social graces. This last fact particularly infuriated me. I hated the abrupt self-confident tone of his voice, his admiration of his own witticisms, which were often frightfully stupid, though he was bold in his language; I hated his handsome, but stupid face (for which I would, however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent one), and the free-and-easy military manners in fashion in the “’forties.” I hated the way in which he used to talk of his future conquests of women (he did not venture to begin his attack upon women until he had the epaulettes of an officer, and was looking forward to them with impatience), and boasted of the duels he would constantly be fighting. I remember how I, invariably so taciturn, suddenly fastened upon Zverkov, when one day talking at a leisure moment with his schoolfellows of his future relations with the fair sex, and growing as sportive as a puppy in the sun, he all at once declared that he would not leave a single village girl on his estate unnoticed, that that was his droit de seigneur, and that if the peasants dared to protest he would have them all flogged and double the tax on them, the bearded rascals. Our servile rabble applauded, but I attacked him, not from compassion for the girls and their fathers, but simply because they were applauding such an insect. I got the better of him on that occasion, but though Zverkov was stupid he was lively and impudent, and so laughed it off, and in such a way that my victory was not really complete; the laugh was on his side. He got the better of me on several occasions afterwards, but without malice, jestingly, casually. I remained angrily and contemptuously silent and would not answer him. When we left school he made advances to me; I did not rebuff them, for I was flattered, but we soon parted and quite naturally. Afterwards I heard of his barrack-room success as a lieutenant, and of the fast life he was leading. Then there came other rumours of his successes in the service. By then he had taken to cutting me in the street, and I suspected that he was afraid of compromising himself by greeting a personage as insignificant as me. I saw him once in the theatre, in the third tier of boxes. By then he was wearing shoulder-straps. He was twisting and twirling about, ingratiating himself with the daughters of an ancient General. In three years he had gone off considerably, though he was still rather handsome and adroit. One could see that by the time he was thirty he would be corpulent. So it was to this Zverkov that my schoolfellows were going to give a dinner on his departure. They had kept up with him for those three years, though privately they did not consider themselves on an equal footing with him, I am convinced of that.
Of Simonov’s two visitors, one was Ferfitchkin, a Russianised German a little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always deriding everyone, a very bitter enemy of mine from our days in the lower forms a vulgar, impudent, swaggering fellow, who affected a most sensitive feeling of personal honour, though, of course, he was a wretched little coward at heart. He was one of those worshippers of Zverkov who made up to the latter from interested motives, and often borrowed money from him. Simonov’s other visitor, Trudolyubov, was a person in no way remarkable a tall young fellow, in the army, with a cold face, fairly honest, though he worshipped success of every sort, and was only capable of thinking of promotion. He was some sort of distant relation of Zverkov’s, and this, foolish as it seems, gave him a certain importance among us. He always thought me of no consequence whatever; his behaviour to me, though not quite courteous, was tolerable.
“Well, with seven roubles each,” said Trudolyubov, “twenty-one roubles between the three of us, we ought to be able to get a good dinner. Zverkov, of course, won’t pay.”
“Of course not, since we are inviting him,” Simonov decided.
“Can you imagine,” Ferfitchkin interrupted hotly and conceitedly, like some insolent flunkey boasting of his master the General’s decorations, “can you imagine that Zverkov will let us pay alone? He will accept from delicacy, but he will order half a dozen bottles of champagne.”
“Do we want half a dozen for the four of us?” observed Trudolyubov, taking notice only of the half dozen.
“So the three of us, with Zverkov for the fourth, twenty-one roubles, at the Hôtel de Paris at five o’clock tomorrow,” Simonov, who had been asked to make the arrangements, concluded finally.
“How twenty-one roubles?” I asked in some agitation, with a show of being offended; “if you count me it will not be twenty-one, but twenty-eight roubles.”
It seemed to me that to invite myself so suddenly and unexpectedly would be positively graceful, and that they would all be conquered at once and would look at me with respect.
“Do you want to join, too?” Simonov observed, with no appearance of pleasure, seeming to avoid looking at me. He knew me through and through.
It infuriated me that he knew me so thoroughly.
“Why not? I am an old schoolfellow of his, too, I believe, and I must own I feel hurt that you have left me out,” I said, boiling over again.
“And where were we to find you?” Ferfitchkin put in roughly.
“You never were on good terms with Zverkov,” Trudolyubov added, frowning.
But I had already clutched at the idea and would not give it up.
“It seems to me that no one has a right to form an opinion upon that,” I retorted in a shaking voice, as though something tremendous had happened. “Perhaps that is just my reason for wishing it now, that I have not always been on good terms with him.”
“Oh, there’s no making you out ... with these refinements,” Trudolyubov jeered.
“We’ll put your name down,” Simonov decided, addressing me. “Tomorrow at five-o’clock at the Hôtel de Paris.”
“What about the money?” Ferfitchkin began in an undertone, indicating me to Simonov, but he broke off, for even Simonov was embarrassed.
“That will do,” said Trudolyubov, getting up. “If he wants to come so much, let him.”
“But it’s a private thing, between us friends,” Ferfitchkin said crossly, as he, too, picked up his hat. “It’s not an official gathering.”
“We do not want at all, perhaps ...”
They went away. Ferfitchkin did not greet me in any way as he went out, Trudolyubov barely nodded. Simonov, with whom I was left tête-à-tête, was in a state of vexation and perplexity, and looked at me queerly. He did not sit down and did not ask me to.
“H’m ... yes ... tomorrow, then. Will you pay your subscription now? I just ask so as to know,” he muttered in embarrassment.
I flushed crimson, as I did so I remembered that I had owed Simonov fifteen roubles for ages which I had, indeed, never forgotten, though I had not paid it.
“You will understand, Simonov, that I could have no idea when I came here.... I am very much vexed that I have forgotten....”
“All right, all right, that doesn’t matter. You can pay tomorrow after the dinner. I simply wanted to know.... Please don’t...”
He broke off and began pacing the room still more vexed. As he walked he began to stamp with his heels.
“Am I keeping you?” I asked, after two minutes of silence.
“Oh!” he said, starting, “that is to be truthful yes. I have to go and see someone ... not far from here,” he added in an apologetic voice, somewhat abashed.
“My goodness, why didn’t you say so?” I cried, seizing my cap, with an astonishingly free-and-easy air, which was the last thing I should have expected of myself.
“It’s close by ... not two paces away,” Simonov repeated, accompanying me to the front door with a fussy air which did not suit him at all. “So five o’clock, punctually, tomorrow,” he called down the stairs after me. He was very glad to get rid of me. I was in a fury.
“What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?” I wondered, grinding my teeth as I strode along the street, “for a scoundrel, a pig like that Zverkov! Of course I had better not go; of course, I must just snap my fingers at them. I am not bound in any way. I’ll send Simonov a note by tomorrow’s post....”
But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go.
And there was a positive obstacle to my going: I had no money. All I had was nine roubles, I had to give seven of that to my servant, Apollon, for his monthly wages. That was all I paid him he had to keep himself.
Not to pay him was impossible, considering his character. But I will talk about that fellow, about that plague of mine, another time.
However, I knew I should go and should not pay him his wages.
That night I had the most hideous dreams. No wonder; all the evening I had been oppressed by memories of my miserable days at school, and I could not shake them off. I was sent to the school by distant relations, upon whom I was dependent and of whom I have heard nothing since they sent me there a forlorn, silent boy, already crushed by their reproaches, already troubled by doubt, and looking with savage distrust at everyone. My schoolfellows met me with spiteful and merciless jibes because I was not like any of them. But I could not endure their taunts; I could not give in to them with the ignoble readiness with which they gave in to one another. I hated them from the first, and shut myself away from everyone in timid, wounded and disproportionate pride. Their coarseness revolted me. They laughed cynically at my face, at my clumsy figure; and yet what stupid faces they had themselves. In our school the boys’ faces seemed in a special way to degenerate and grow stupider. How many fine-looking boys came to us! In a few years they became repulsive. Even at sixteen I wondered at them morosely; even then I was struck by the pettiness of their thoughts, the stupidity of their pursuits, their games, their conversations. They had no understanding of such essential things, they took no interest in such striking, impressive subjects, that I could not help considering them inferior to myself. It was not wounded vanity that drove me to it, and for God’s sake do not thrust upon me your hackneyed remarks, repeated to nausea, that “I was only a dreamer,” while they even then had an understanding of life. They understood nothing, they had no idea of real life, and I swear that that was what made me most indignant with them. On the contrary, the most obvious, striking reality they accepted with fantastic stupidity and even at that time were accustomed to respect success. Everything that was just, but oppressed and looked down upon, they laughed at heartlessly and shamefully. They took rank for intelligence; even at sixteen they were already talking about a snug berth. Of course, a great deal of it was due to their stupidity, to the bad examples with which they had always been surrounded in their childhood and boyhood. They were monstrously depraved. Of course a great deal of that, too, was superficial and an assumption of cynicism; of course there were glimpses of youth and freshness even in their depravity; but even that freshness was not attractive, and showed itself in a certain rakishness. I hated them horribly, though perhaps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in the same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not desire their affection: on the contrary, I continually longed for their humiliation. To escape from their derision I purposely began to make all the progress I could with my studies and forced my way to the very top. This impressed them. Moreover, they all began by degrees to grasp that I had already read books none of them could read, and understood things (not forming part of our school curriculum) of which they had not even heard. They took a savage and sarcastic view of it, but were morally impressed, especially as the teachers began to notice me on those grounds. The mockery ceased, but the hostility remained, and cold and strained relations became permanent between us. In the end I could not put up with it: with years a craving for society, for friends, developed in me. I attempted to get on friendly terms with some of my schoolfellows; but somehow or other my intimacy with them was always strained and soon ended of itself. Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at heart; I wanted to exercise unbounded sway over him; I tried to instil into him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hysterics. He was a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I began to hate him immediately and repulsed him as though all I needed him for was to win a victory over him, to subjugate him and nothing else. But I could not subjugate all of them; my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception. The first thing I did on leaving school was to give up the special job for which I had been destined so as to break all ties, to curse my past and shake the dust from off my feet.... And goodness knows why, after all that, I should go trudging off to Simonov’s!
Early next morning I roused myself and jumped out of bed with excitement, as though it were all about to happen at once. But I believed that some radical change in my life was coming, and would inevitably come that day. Owing to its rarity, perhaps, any external event, however trivial, always made me feel as though some radical change in my life were at hand. I went to the office, however, as usual, but sneaked away home two hours earlier to get ready. The great thing, I thought, is not to be the first to arrive, or they will think I am overjoyed at coming. But there were thousands of such great points to consider, and they all agitated and overwhelmed me. I polished my boots a second time with my own hands; nothing in the world would have induced Apollon to clean them twice a day, as he considered that it was more than his duties required of him. I stole the brushes to clean them from the passage, being careful he should not detect it, for fear of his contempt. Then I minutely examined my clothes and thought that everything looked old, worn and threadbare. I had let myself get too slovenly. My uniform, perhaps, was tidy, but I could not go out to dinner in my uniform. The worst of it was that on the knee of my trousers was a big yellow stain. I had a foreboding that that stain would deprive me of nine-tenths of my personal dignity. I knew, too, that it was very poor to think so. “But this is no time for thinking: now I am in for the real thing,” I thought, and my heart sank. I knew, too, perfectly well even then, that I was monstrously exaggerating the facts. But how could I help it? I could not control myself and was already shaking with fever. With despair I pictured to myself how coldly and disdainfully that “scoundrel” Zverkov would meet me; with what dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead Trudolyubov would look at me; with what impudent rudeness the insect Ferfitchkin would snigger at me in order to curry favour with Zverkov; how completely Simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of my vanity and lack of spirit and, worst of all, how paltry, unliterary, commonplace it would all be. Of course, the best thing would be not to go at all. But that was most impossible of all: if I feel impelled to do anything, I seem to be pitchforked into it. I should have jeered at myself ever afterwards: “So you funked it, you funked it, you funked the real thing!” On the contrary, I passionately longed to show all that “rabble” that I was by no means such a spiritless creature as I seemed to myself. What is more, even in the acutest paroxysm of this cowardly fever, I dreamed of getting the upper hand, of dominating them, carrying them away, making them like me if only for my “elevation of thought and unmistakable wit.” They would abandon Zverkov, he would sit on one side, silent and ashamed, while I should crush him. Then, perhaps, we would be reconciled and drink to our everlasting friendship; but what was most bitter and humiliating for me was that I knew even then, knew fully and for certain, that I needed nothing of all this really, that I did not really want to crush, to subdue, to attract them, and that I did not care a straw really for the result, even if I did achieve it. Oh, how I prayed for the day to pass quickly! In unutterable anguish I went to the window, opened the movable pane and looked out into the troubled darkness of the thickly falling wet snow. At last my wretched little clock hissed out five. I seized my hat and, trying not to look at Apollon, who had been all day expecting his month’s wages, but in his foolishness was unwilling to be the first to speak about it, I slipped between him and the door and, jumping into a high-class sledge, on which I spent my last half rouble, I drove up in grand style to the Hôtel de Paris.
IV
I had been certain the day before that I should be the first to arrive. But it was not a question of being the first to arrive. Not only were they not there, but I had difficulty in finding our room. The table was not laid even. What did it mean? After a good many questions I elicited from the waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for five, but for six o’clock. This was confirmed at the buffet too. I felt really ashamed to go on questioning them. It was only twenty-five minutes past five. If they changed the dinner hour they ought at least to have let me know that is what the post is for, and not to have put me in an absurd position in my own eyes and ... and even before the waiters. I sat down; the servant began laying the table; I felt even more humiliated when he was present. Towards six o’clock they brought in candles, though there were lamps burning in the room. It had not occurred to the waiter, however, to bring them in at once when I arrived. In the next room two gloomy, angry-looking persons were eating their dinners in silence at two different tables. There was a great deal of noise, even shouting, in a room further away; one could hear the laughter of a crowd of people, and nasty little shrieks in French: there were ladies at the dinner. It was sickening, in fact. I rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did arrive all together punctually at six I was overjoyed to see them, as though they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent upon me to show resentment.
Zverkov walked in at the head of them; evidently he was the leading spirit. He and all of them were laughing; but, seeing me, Zverkov drew himself up a little, walked up to me deliberately with a slight, rather jaunty bend from the waist. He shook hands with me in a friendly, but not over-friendly, fashion, with a sort of circumspect courtesy like that of a General, as though in giving me his hand he were warding off something. I had imagined, on the contrary, that on coming in he would at once break into his habitual thin, shrill laugh and fall to making his insipid jokes and witticisms. I had been preparing for them ever since the previous day, but I had not expected such condescension, such high-official courtesy. So, then, he felt himself ineffably superior to me in every respect! If he only meant to insult me by that high-official tone, it would not matter, I thought I could pay him back for it one way or another. But what if, in reality, without the least desire to be offensive, that sheepshead had a notion in earnest that he was superior to me and could only look at me in a patronising way? The very supposition made me gasp.
“I was surprised to hear of your desire to join us,” he began, lisping and drawling, which was something new. “You and I seem to have seen nothing of one another. You fight shy of us. You shouldn’t. We are not such terrible people as you think. Well, anyway, I am glad to renew our acquaintance.”
And he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window.
“Have you been waiting long?” Trudolyubov inquired.
“I arrived at five o’clock as you told me yesterday,” I answered aloud, with an irritability that threatened an explosion.
“Didn’t you let him know that we had changed the hour?” said Trudolyubov to Simonov.
“No, I didn’t. I forgot,” the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and without even apologising to me he went off to order the hors d’œuvres.
“So you’ve been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!” Zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. That rascal Ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing.
“It isn’t funny at all!” I cried to Ferfitchkin, more and more irritated. “It wasn’t my fault, but other people’s. They neglected to let me know. It was ... it was ... it was simply absurd.”
“It’s not only absurd, but something else as well,” muttered Trudolyubov, naively taking my part. “You are not hard enough upon it. It was simply rudeness unintentional, of course. And how could Simonov ... h’m!”
“If a trick like that had been played on me,” observed Ferfitchkin, “I should ...”
“But you should have ordered something for yourself,” Zverkov interrupted, “or simply asked for dinner without waiting for us.”
“You will allow that I might have done that without your permission,” I rapped out. “If I waited, it was ...”
“Let us sit down, gentlemen,” cried Simonov, coming in. “Everything is ready; I can answer for the champagne; it is capitally frozen.... You see, I did not know your address, where was I to look for you?” he suddenly turned to me, but again he seemed to avoid looking at me. Evidently he had something against me. It must have been what happened yesterday.
All sat down; I did the same. It was a round table. Trudolyubov was on my left, Simonov on my right, Zverkov was sitting opposite, Ferfitchkin next to him, between him and Trudolyubov.
“Tell me, are you ... in a government office?” Zverkov went on attending to me. Seeing that I was embarrassed he seriously thought that he ought to be friendly to me, and, so to speak, cheer me up.
“Does he want me to throw a bottle at his head?” I thought, in a fury. In my novel surroundings I was unnaturally ready to be irritated.
“In the N office,” I answered jerkily, with my eyes on my plate.
“And ha-ave you a go-od berth? I say, what ma-a-de you leave your original job?”
“What ma-a-de me was that I wanted to leave my original job,” I drawled more than he, hardly able to control myself. Ferfitchkin went off into a guffaw. Simonov looked at me ironically. Trudolyubov left off eating and began looking at me with curiosity.
Zverkov winced, but he tried not to notice it.
“And the remuneration?”
“What remuneration?”
“I mean, your sa-a-lary?”
“Why are you cross-examining me?” However, I told him at once what my salary was. I turned horribly red.
“It is not very handsome,” Zverkov observed majestically.
“Yes, you can’t afford to dine at cafés on that,” Ferfitchkin added insolently.
“To my thinking it’s very poor,” Trudolyubov observed gravely.
“And how thin you have grown! How you have changed!” added Zverkov, with a shade of venom in his voice, scanning me and my attire with a sort of insolent compassion.
“Oh, spare his blushes,” cried Ferfitchkin, sniggering.
“My dear sir, allow me to tell you I am not blushing,” I broke out at last; “do you hear? I am dining here, at this cafe, at my own expense, not at other people’s note that, Mr. Ferfitchkin.”
“Wha-at? Isn’t every one here dining at his own expense? You would seem to be ...” Ferfitchkin flew out at me, turning as red as a lobster, and looking me in the face with fury.
“Tha-at,” I answered, feeling I had gone too far, “and I imagine it would be better to talk of something more intelligent.”
“You intend to show off your intelligence, I suppose?”
“Don’t disturb yourself, that would be quite out of place here.”
“Why are you clacking away like that, my good sir, eh? Have you gone out of your wits in your office?”
“Enough, gentlemen, enough!” Zverkov cried, authoritatively.
“How stupid it is!” muttered Simonov.
“It really is stupid. We have met here, a company of friends, for a farewell dinner to a comrade and you carry on an altercation,” said Trudolyubov, rudely addressing himself to me alone. “You invited yourself to join us, so don’t disturb the general harmony.”
“Enough, enough!” cried Zverkov. “Give over, gentlemen, it’s out of place. Better let me tell you how I nearly got married the day before yesterday....”
And then followed a burlesque narrative of how this gentleman had almost been married two days before. There was not a word about the marriage, however, but the story was adorned with generals, colonels and kammer-junkers, while Zverkov almost took the lead among them. It was greeted with approving laughter; Ferfitchkin positively squealed.
No one paid any attention to me, and I sat crushed and humiliated.
“Good Heavens, these are not the people for me!” I thought. “And what a fool I have made of myself before them! I let Ferfitchkin go too far, though. The brutes imagine they are doing me an honour in letting me sit down with them. They don’t understand that it’s an honour to them and not to me! I’ve grown thinner! My clothes! Oh, damn my trousers! Zverkov noticed the yellow stain on the knee as soon as he came in.... But what’s the use! I must get up at once, this very minute, take my hat and simply go without a word ... with contempt! And tomorrow I can send a challenge. The scoundrels! As though I cared about the seven roubles. They may think.... Damn it! I don’t care about the seven roubles. I’ll go this minute!”
Of course I remained. I drank sherry and Lafitte by the glassful in my discomfiture. Being unaccustomed to it, I was quickly affected. My annoyance increased as the wine went to my head. I longed all at once to insult them all in a most flagrant manner and then go away. To seize the moment and show what I could do, so that they would say, “He’s clever, though he is absurd,” and ... and ... in fact, damn them all!
I scanned them all insolently with my drowsy eyes. But they seemed to have forgotten me altogether. They were noisy, vociferous, cheerful. Zverkov was talking all the time. I began listening. Zverkov was talking of some exuberant lady whom he had at last led on to declaring her love (of course, he was lying like a horse), and how he had been helped in this affair by an intimate friend of his, a Prince Kolya, an officer in the hussars, who had three thousand serfs.
“And yet this Kolya, who has three thousand serfs, has not put in an appearance here tonight to see you off,” I cut in suddenly.
For one minute every one was silent. “You are drunk already.” Trudolyubov deigned to notice me at last, glancing contemptuously in my direction. Zverkov, without a word, examined me as though I were an insect. I dropped my eyes. Simonov made haste to fill up the glasses with champagne.
Trudolyubov raised his glass, as did everyone else but me.
“Your health and good luck on the journey!” he cried to Zverkov. “To old times, to our future, hurrah!”
They all tossed off their glasses, and crowded round Zverkov to kiss him. I did not move; my full glass stood untouched before me.
“Why, aren’t you going to drink it?” roared Trudolyubov, losing patience and turning menacingly to me.
“I want to make a speech separately, on my own account ... and then I’ll drink it, Mr. Trudolyubov.”
“Spiteful brute!” muttered Simonov. I drew myself up in my chair and feverishly seized my glass, prepared for something extraordinary, though I did not know myself precisely what I was going to say.
“Silence!” cried Ferfitchkin. “Now for a display of wit!”
Zverkov waited very gravely, knowing what was coming.
“Mr. Lieutenant Zverkov,” I began, “let me tell you that I hate phrases, phrasemongers and men in corsets ... that’s the first point, and there is a second one to follow it.”
There was a general stir.
“The second point is: I hate ribaldry and ribald talkers. Especially ribald talkers! The third point: I love justice, truth and honesty.” I went on almost mechanically, for I was beginning to shiver with horror myself and had no idea how I came to be talking like this. “I love thought, Monsieur Zverkov; I love true comradeship, on an equal footing and not ... H’m ... I love ... But, however, why not? I will drink your health, too, Mr. Zverkov. Seduce the Circassian girls, shoot the enemies of the fatherland and ... and ... to your health, Monsieur Zverkov!”
Zverkov got up from his seat, bowed to me and said:
“I am very much obliged to you.” He was frightfully offended and turned pale.
“Damn the fellow!” roared Trudolyubov, bringing his fist down on the table.
“Well, he wants a punch in the face for that,” squealed Ferfitchkin.
“We ought to turn him out,” muttered Simonov.
“Not a word, gentlemen, not a movement!” cried Zverkov solemnly, checking the general indignation. “I thank you all, but I can show him for myself how much value I attach to his words.”
“Mr. Ferfitchkin, you will give me satisfaction tomorrow for your words just now!” I said aloud, turning with dignity to Ferfitchkin.
“A duel, you mean? Certainly,” he answered. But probably I was so ridiculous as I challenged him and it was so out of keeping with my appearance that everyone including Ferfitchkin was prostrate with laughter.
“Yes, let him alone, of course! He is quite drunk,” Trudolyubov said with disgust.
“I shall never forgive myself for letting him join us,” Simonov muttered again.
“Now is the time to throw a bottle at their heads,” I thought to myself. I picked up the bottle ... and filled my glass.... “No, I’d better sit on to the end,” I went on thinking; “you would be pleased, my friends, if I went away. Nothing will induce me to go. I’ll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don’t think you of the slightest consequence. I will go on sitting and drinking, because this is a public-house and I paid my entrance money. I’ll sit here and drink, for I look upon you as so many pawns, as inanimate pawns. I’ll sit here and drink ... and sing if I want to, yes, sing, for I have the right to ... to sing ... H’m!”
But I did not sing. I simply tried not to look at any of them. I assumed most unconcerned attitudes and waited with impatience for them to speak first. But alas, they did not address me! And oh, how I wished, how I wished at that moment to be reconciled to them! It struck eight, at last nine. They moved from the table to the sofa. Zverkov stretched himself on a lounge and put one foot on a round table. Wine was brought there. He did, as a fact, order three bottles on his own account. I, of course, was not invited to join them. They all sat round him on the sofa. They listened to him, almost with reverence. It was evident that they were fond of him. “What for? What for?” I wondered. From time to time they were moved to drunken enthusiasm and kissed each other. They talked of the Caucasus, of the nature of true passion, of snug berths in the service, of the income of an hussar called Podharzhevsky, whom none of them knew personally, and rejoiced in the largeness of it, of the extraordinary grace and beauty of a Princess D., whom none of them had ever seen; then it came to Shakespeare’s being immortal.
I smiled contemptuously and walked up and down the other side of the room, opposite the sofa, from the table to the stove and back again. I tried my very utmost to show them that I could do without them, and yet I purposely made a noise with my boots, thumping with my heels. But it was all in vain. They paid no attention. I had the patience to walk up and down in front of them from eight o’clock till eleven, in the same place, from the table to the stove and back again. “I walk up and down to please myself and no one can prevent me.” The waiter who came into the room stopped, from time to time, to look at me. I was somewhat giddy from turning round so often; at moments it seemed to me that I was in delirium. During those three hours I was three times soaked with sweat and dry again. At times, with an intense, acute pang I was stabbed to the heart by the thought that ten years, twenty years, forty years would pass, and that even in forty years I would remember with loathing and humiliation those filthiest, most ludicrous, and most awful moments of my life. No one could have gone out of his way to degrade himself more shamelessly, and I fully realised it, fully, and yet I went on pacing up and down from the table to the stove. “Oh, if you only knew what thoughts and feelings I am capable of, how cultured I am!” I thought at moments, mentally addressing the sofa on which my enemies were sitting. But my enemies behaved as though I were not in the room. Once only once they turned towards me, just when Zverkov was talking about Shakespeare, and I suddenly gave a contemptuous laugh. I laughed in such an affected and disgusting way that they all at once broke off their conversation, and silently and gravely for two minutes watched me walking up and down from the table to the stove, taking no notice of them. But nothing came of it: they said nothing, and two minutes later they ceased to notice me again. It struck eleven.
“Friends,” cried Zverkov getting up from the sofa, “let us all be off now, there!”
“Of course, of course,” the others assented. I turned sharply to Zverkov. I was so harassed, so exhausted, that I would have cut my throat to put an end to it. I was in a fever; my hair, soaked with perspiration, stuck to my forehead and temples.
“Zverkov, I beg your pardon,” I said abruptly and resolutely. “Ferfitchkin, yours too, and everyone’s, everyone’s: I have insulted you all!”
“Aha! A duel is not in your line, old man,” Ferfitchkin hissed venomously.
It sent a sharp pang to my heart.
“No, it’s not the duel I am afraid of, Ferfitchkin! I am ready to fight you tomorrow, after we are reconciled. I insist upon it, in fact, and you cannot refuse. I want to show you that I am not afraid of a duel. You shall fire first and I shall fire into the air.”
“He is comforting himself,” said Simonov.
“He’s simply raving,” said Trudolyubov.
“But let us pass. Why are you barring our way? What do you want?” Zverkov answered disdainfully.
They were all flushed, their eyes were bright: they had been drinking heavily.
“I ask for your friendship, Zverkov; I insulted you, but ...”
“Insulted? You insulted me? Understand, sir, that you never, under any circumstances, could possibly insult me.”
“And that’s enough for you. Out of the way!” concluded Trudolyubov.
“Olympia is mine, friends, that’s agreed!” cried Zverkov.
“We won’t dispute your right, we won’t dispute your right,” the others answered, laughing.
I stood as though spat upon. The party went noisily out of the room. Trudolyubov struck up some stupid song. Simonov remained behind for a moment to tip the waiters. I suddenly went up to him.
“Simonov! give me six roubles!” I said, with desperate resolution.
He looked at me in extreme amazement, with vacant eyes. He, too, was drunk.
“You don’t mean you are coming with us?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve no money,” he snapped out, and with a scornful laugh he went out of the room.
I clutched at his overcoat. It was a nightmare.
“Simonov, I saw you had money. Why do you refuse me? Am I a scoundrel? Beware of refusing me: if you knew, if you knew why I am asking! My whole future, my whole plans depend upon it!”
Simonov pulled out the money and almost flung it at me.
“Take it, if you have no sense of shame!” he pronounced pitilessly, and ran to overtake them.
I was left for a moment alone. Disorder, the remains of dinner, a broken wine-glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, fumes of drink and delirium in my brain, an agonising misery in my heart and finally the waiter, who had seen and heard all and was looking inquisitively into my face.
“I am going there!” I cried. “Either they shall all go down on their knees to beg for my friendship, or I will give Zverkov a slap in the face!”
V
“So this is it, this is it at last contact with real life,” I muttered as I ran headlong downstairs. “This is very different from the Pope’s leaving Rome and going to Brazil, very different from the ball on Lake Como!”
“You are a scoundrel,” a thought flashed through my mind, “if you laugh at this now.”
“No matter!” I cried, answering myself. “Now everything is lost!”
There was no trace to be seen of them, but that made no difference I knew where they had gone.
At the steps was standing a solitary night sledge-driver in a rough peasant coat, powdered over with the still falling, wet, and as it were warm, snow. It was hot and steamy. The little shaggy piebald horse was also covered with snow and coughing, I remember that very well. I made a rush for the roughly made sledge; but as soon as I raised my foot to get into it, the recollection of how Simonov had just given me six roubles seemed to double me up and I tumbled into the sledge like a sack.
“No, I must do a great deal to make up for all that,” I cried. “But I will make up for it or perish on the spot this very night. Start!”
We set off. There was a perfect whirl in my head.
“They won’t go down on their knees to beg for my friendship. That is a mirage, cheap mirage, revolting, romantic and fantastical that’s another ball on Lake Como. And so I am bound to slap Zverkov’s face! It is my duty to. And so it is settled; I am flying to give him a slap in the face. Hurry up!”
The driver tugged at the reins.
“As soon as I go in I’ll give it him. Ought I before giving him the slap to say a few words by way of preface? No. I’ll simply go in and give it him. They will all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with Olympia on the sofa. That damned Olympia! She laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. I’ll pull Olympia’s hair, pull Zverkov’s ears! No, better one ear, and pull him by it round the room. Maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. That’s most likely, indeed. No matter! Anyway, I shall first slap him; the initiative will be mine; and by the laws of honour that is everything: he will be branded and cannot wipe off the slap by any blows, by nothing but a duel. He will be forced to fight. And let them beat me now. Let them, the ungrateful wretches! Trudolyubov will beat me hardest, he is so strong; Ferfitchkin will be sure to catch hold sideways and tug at my hair. But no matter, no matter! That’s what I am going for. The blockheads will be forced at last to see the tragedy of it all! When they drag me to the door I shall call out to them that in reality they are not worth my little finger. Get on, driver, get on!” I cried to the driver. He started and flicked his whip, I shouted so savagely.
“We shall fight at daybreak, that’s a settled thing. I’ve done with the office. Ferfitchkin made a joke about it just now. But where can I get pistols? Nonsense! I’ll get my salary in advance and buy them. And powder, and bullets? That’s the second’s business. And how can it all be done by daybreak? and where am I to get a second? I have no friends. Nonsense!” I cried, lashing myself up more and more. “It’s of no consequence! The first person I meet in the street is bound to be my second, just as he would be bound to pull a drowning man out of water. The most eccentric things may happen. Even if I were to ask the director himself to be my second tomorrow, he would be bound to consent, if only from a feeling of chivalry, and to keep the secret! Anton Antonitch....”
The fact is, that at that very minute the disgusting absurdity of my plan and the other side of the question was clearer and more vivid to my imagination than it could be to anyone on earth. But ....
“Get on, driver, get on, you rascal, get on!”
“Ugh, sir!” said the son of toil.
Cold shivers suddenly ran down me. Wouldn’t it be better ... to go straight home? My God, my God! Why did I invite myself to this dinner yesterday? But no, it’s impossible. And my walking up and down for three hours from the table to the stove? No, they, they and no one else must pay for my walking up and down! They must wipe out this dishonour! Drive on!
And what if they give me into custody? They won’t dare! They’ll be afraid of the scandal. And what if Zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel? He is sure to; but in that case I’ll show them ... I will turn up at the posting station when he’s setting off tomorrow, I’ll catch him by the leg, I’ll pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. I’ll get my teeth into his hand, I’ll bite him. “See what lengths you can drive a desperate man to!” He may hit me on the head and they may belabour me from behind. I will shout to the assembled multitude: “Look at this young puppy who is driving off to captivate the Circassian girls after letting me spit in his face!”
Of course, after that everything will be over! The office will have vanished off the face of the earth. I shall be arrested, I shall be tried, I shall be dismissed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to Siberia. Never mind! In fifteen years when they let me out of prison I will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some provincial town. He will be married and happy. He will have a grown-up daughter.... I shall say to him: “Look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags! I’ve lost everything my career, my happiness, art, science, the woman I loved, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and ... and I ... forgive you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me....”
I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin’s Silvio and Lermontov’s Masquerade. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished.
What was I to do? I could not go on there it was evidently stupid, and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though ... Heavens, how could I leave things! And after such insults! “No!” I cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. “It is ordained! It is fate! Drive on, drive on!”
And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck.
“What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?” the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking.
The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen now, at once, and that no force could stop it. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. I did not wrap myself up all was lost, anyway.
At last we arrived. I jumped out, almost unconscious, ran up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. I felt fearfully weak, particularly in my legs and knees. The door was opened quickly as though they knew I was coming. As a fact, Simonov had warned them that perhaps another gentleman would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to observe certain precautions. It was one of those “millinery establishments” which were abolished by the police a good time ago. By day it really was a shop; but at night, if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes.
I walked rapidly through the dark shop into the familiar drawing-room, where there was only one candle burning, and stood still in amazement: there was no one there. “Where are they?” I asked somebody. But by now, of course, they had separated. Before me was standing a person with a stupid smile, the “madam” herself, who had seen me before. A minute later a door opened and another person came in.
Taking no notice of anything I strode about the room, and, I believe, I talked to myself. I felt as though I had been saved from death and was conscious of this, joyfully, all over: I should have given that slap, I should certainly, certainly have given it! But now they were not here and ... everything had vanished and changed! I looked round. I could not realise my condition yet. I looked mechanically at the girl who had come in: and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather pale face, with straight, dark eyebrows, and with grave, as it were wondering, eyes that attracted me at once; I should have hated her if she had been smiling. I began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. I had not fully collected my thoughts. There was something simple and good-natured in her face, but something strangely grave. I am sure that this stood in her way here, and no one of those fools had noticed her. She could not, however, have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built. She was very simply dressed. Something loathsome stirred within me. I went straight up to her.
I chanced to look into the glass. My harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair. “No matter, I am glad of it,” I thought; “I am glad that I shall seem repulsive to her; I like that.”