No More Learning

"

But that never happened, and I always moved aside, while he did not even
notice my making way for him. And lo and behold a bright idea dawned
upon me! "What," I thought, "if I meet him and don't move on one side?
What if I don't move aside on purpose, even if I knock up against him?
How would that be? " This audacious idea took such a hold on me that it
gave me no peace. I was dreaming of it continually, horribly, and I
purposely went more frequently to the Nevsky in order to picture more
vividly how I should do it when I did do it. I was delighted. This
intention seemed to me more and more practical and possible.

"Of course I shall not really push him," I thought, already more
good-natured in my joy. "I will simply not turn aside, will run up
against him, not very violently, but just shouldering each other--just
as much as decency permits. I will push against him just as much as he
pushes against me. " At last I made up my mind completely. But my
preparations took a great deal of time. To begin with, when I carried
out my plan I should need to be looking rather more decent, and so I had
to think of my get-up. "In case of emergency, if, for instance, there
were any sort of public scandal (and the public there is of the most
_recherché_: the Countess walks there; Prince D. walks there; all the
literary world is there), I must be well dressed; that inspires respect
and of itself puts us on an equal footing in the eyes of society. "

With this object I asked for some of my salary in advance, and bought at
Tchurkin's a pair of black gloves and a decent hat. Black gloves seemed
to me both more dignified and _bon ton_ than the lemon-coloured ones
which I had contemplated at first. "The colour is too gaudy, it looks as
though one were trying to be conspicuous," and I did not take the
lemon-coloured ones. I had got ready long beforehand a good shirt, with
white bone studs; my overcoat was the only thing that held me back. The
coat in itself was a very good one, it kept me warm; but it was wadded
and it had a raccoon collar which was the height of vulgarity. I had to
change the collar at any sacrifice, and to have a beaver one like an
officer's. For this purpose I began visiting the Gostiny Dvor and after
several attempts I pitched upon a piece of cheap German beaver. Though
these German beavers soon grow shabby and look wretched, yet at first
they look exceedingly well, and I only needed it for one occasion. I
asked the price; even so, it was too expensive. After thinking it over
thoroughly I decided to sell my raccoon collar. The rest of the money--a
considerable sum for me, I decided to borrow from Anton Antonitch
Syetotchkin, my immediate superior, an unassuming person, though grave
and judicious. He never lent money to any one, but I had, on entering
the service, been specially recommended to him by an important personage
who had got me my berth. I was horribly worried. To borrow from Anton
Antonitch seemed to me monstrous and shameful. I did not sleep for two
or three nights. Indeed, I did not sleep well at that time, I was in a
fever; I had a vague sinking at my heart or else a sudden throbbing,
throbbing, throbbing! Anton Antonitch was surprised at first, then he
frowned, then he reflected, and did after all lend me the money,
receiving from me a written authorization to take from my salary a
fortnight later the sum that he had lent me.

In this way everything was at last ready. The handsome beaver replaced
the mean-looking raccoon, and I began by degrees to get to work. It
would never have done to act off-hand, at random; the plan had to be
carried out skilfully, by degrees. But I must confess that after many
efforts I began to despair: we simply could not run into each other. I
made every preparation, I was quite determined--it seemed as though we
should run into one another directly--and before I knew what I was doing
I had stepped aside for him again and he had passed without noticing me.
I even prayed as I approached him that God would grant me determination.
One time I had made up my mind thoroughly, but it ended in my stumbling
and falling at his feet because at the very last instant when I was six
inches from him my courage failed me. He very calmly stepped over me,
while I flew on one side like a ball. That night I was ill again,
feverish and delirious.

And suddenly it ended most happily. The night before I had made up my
mind not to carry out my fatal plan and to abandon it all, and with that
object I went to the Nevsky for the last time, just to see how I would
abandon it all. Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made
up my mind--I closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to
shoulder, against one another! I did not budge an inch and passed him on
a perfectly equal footing! He did not even look round and pretended not
to notice it; but he was only pretending, I am convinced of that. I am
convinced of that to this day! Of course, I got the worst of it--he was
stronger, but that was not the point. The point was that I had attained
my object, I had kept up my dignity, I had not yielded a step, and had
put myself publicly on an equal social footing with him. I returned home
feeling that I was fully avenged for everything. I was delighted. I was
triumphant and sang Italian arias. Of course, I will not describe to you
what happened to me three days later; if you have read my first chapter
you can guess that for yourself. The officer was afterwards transferred;
I have not seen him now for fourteen years. What is the dear fellow
doing now? Whom is he walking over?


II

But the period of my dissipation would end and I always felt very sick
afterwards. It was followed by remorse--I tried to drive it away: I felt
too sick. By degrees, however, I grew used to that too. I grew used to
everything, or rather I voluntarily resigned myself to enduring it. But
I had a means of escape that reconciled everything--that was to find
refuge in "the good and the beautiful," in dreams, of course. I was a
terrible dreamer, I would dream for three months on end, tucked away in
my corner, and you may believe me that at those moments I had no
resemblance to the gentleman who, in the perturbation of his chicken
heart, put a collar of German beaver on his great coat. I suddenly
became a hero. I would not have admitted my six-foot lieutenant even if
he had called on me. I could not even picture him before me then. What
were my dreams and how I could satisfy myself with them--it is hard to
say now, but at the time I was satisfied with them. Though, indeed, even
now, I am to some extent satisfied with them. Dreams were particularly
sweet and vivid after a spell of dissipation; they came with remorse and
with tears, with curses and transports. There were moments of such
positive intoxication, of such happiness, that there was not the
faintest trace of irony within me, on my honour. I had faith, hope,
love. I believed blindly at such times that by some miracle, by some
external circumstance, all this would suddenly open out, expand; that
suddenly a vista of suitable activity--beneficent, good, and, above all,
_ready made_ (what sort of activity I had no idea, but the great thing
was that it should be all ready for me)--would rise up before me--and I
should come out into the light of day, almost riding a white horse and
crowned with laurel. Anything but the foremost place I could not
conceive for myself, and for that very reason I quite contentedly
occupied the lowest in reality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the
mud--there was nothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the
mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a
hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was
shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly
defiled, and so he might defile himself. It is worth noting that these
attacks of the "good and the beautiful" visited me even during the
period of dissipation and just at the times when I was touching the
bottom. They came in separate spurts, as though reminding me of
themselves, but did not banish the dissipation by their appearance. On
the contrary, they seemed to add a zest to it by contrast, and were only
sufficiently present to serve as an appetizing sauce. That sauce was
made up of contradictions and sufferings, of agonizing inward analysis
and all these pangs and pin-pricks gave a certain piquancy, even a
significance to my dissipation--in fact, completely answered the purpose
of an appetizing sauce. There was a certain depth of meaning in it. And
I could hardly have resigned myself to the simple, vulgar, direct
debauchery of a clerk and have endured all the filthiness of it. What
could have allured me about it then and have drawn me at night into the
street? No, I had a lofty way of getting out of it all.

And what loving-kindness, oh Lord, what loving-kindness I felt at times
in those dreams of mine! in those "flights into the good and the
beautiful;" though it was fantastic love, though it was never applied to
anything human in reality, yet there was so much of this love that one
did not feel afterwards even the impulse to apply it in reality; that
would have been superfluous. Everything, however, passed satisfactorily
by a lazy and fascinating transition into the sphere of art, that is,
into the beautiful forms of life, lying ready, largely stolen from the
poets and novelists and adapted to all sorts of needs and uses. I, for
instance, was triumphant over every one; every one, of course, was in
dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to recognize my
superiority, and I forgave them all. I was a poet and a grand gentleman,
I fell in love; I came in for countless millions and immediately devoted
them to humanity, and at the same time I confessed before all the people
my shameful deeds, which, of course, were not merely shameful, but had
in them much that was "good and beautiful," something in the Manfred
style. Every one would kiss me and weep (what idiots they would be if
they did not), while I should go barefoot and hungry preaching new ideas
and fighting a victorious Austerlitz against the obscurantists. Then the
band would play a march, an amnesty would be declared, the Pope would
agree to retire from Rome to Brazil; then there would be a ball for the
whole of Italy at the Villa Borghese on the shores of the Lake of Como,
the Lake of Como being for that purpose transferred to the neighbourhood
of Rome; then would come a scene in the bushes, and so on, and so on--as
though you did not know all about it? You will say that it is vulgar and
contemptible to drag all this into public after all the tears and
transports which I have myself confessed. But why is it contemptible?
Can you imagine that I am ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider
than anything in your life, gentlemen? And I can assure you that some of
these fancies were by no means badly composed. . . . It did not all happen
on the shores of Lake Como. And yet you are right--it really is vulgar
and contemptible. And most contemptible of all it is that now I am
attempting to justify myself to you. And even more contemptible than
that is my making this remark now. But that's enough, or there will be
no end to it: each step will be more contemptible than the last. . . .

I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without
feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge into
society meant to visit my superior at the office, Anton Antonitch
Syetotchkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my
life, and wonder at the fact myself now. But I only went to see him when
that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of
bliss that it became essential at once to embrace my fellows and all
mankind; and for that purpose I needed, at least, one human being,
actually existing. I had to call on Anton Antonitch, however, on
Tuesday--his at-home day; so I had always to time my passionate desire
to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday.

This Anton Antonitch lived on the fourth storey in a house in Five
Corners, in four low-pitched rooms, one smaller than the other, of a
particularly frugal and sallow appearance. He had two daughters and
their aunt, who used to pour out the tea. Of the daughters one was
thirteen and another fourteen, they both had snub noses, and I was
awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling
together. The master of the house usually sat in his study on a leather
couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman, usually a
colleague from our office or some other department. I never saw more
than two or three visitors there, always the same. They talked about the
excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about
promotions, about His Excellency, and the best means of pleasing him,
and so on. I had the patience to sit like a fool beside these people for
four hours at a stretch, listening to them without knowing what to say
to them or venturing to say a word. I became stupified, several times I
felt myself perspiring, I was overcome by a sort of paralysis; but this
was pleasant and good for me. On returning home I deferred for a time my
desire to embrace all mankind.

I had however one other acquaintance of a sort, Simonov, who was an old
schoolfellow. I had a number of schoolfellows indeed in Petersburg, but
I did not associate with them and had even given up nodding to them in
the street. I believe I had transferred into the department I was in
simply to avoid their company and to cut off all connection with my
hateful childhood. Curses on that school and all those terrible years of
penal servitude! In short, I parted from my schoolfellows as soon as I
got out into the world. There were two or three left to whom I nodded in
the street. One of them was Simonov, who had been in no way
distinguished at school, was of a quiet and equable disposition; but I
discovered in him a certain independence of character and even honesty.
I don't even suppose that he was particularly stupid. I had at one time
spent some rather soulful moments with him, but these had not lasted
long and had somehow been suddenly clouded over. He was evidently
uncomfortable at these reminiscences, and was, I fancy, always afraid
that I might take up the same tone again. I suspected that he had an
aversion for me, but still I went on going to see him, not being quite
certain of it.

And so on one occasion, unable to endure my solitude and knowing that as
it was Thursday Anton Antonitch's door would be closed, I thought of
Simonov. Climbing up to his fourth storey I was thinking that the man
disliked me and that it was a mistake to go and see him. But as it
always happened that such reflections impelled me, as though purposely,
to put myself into a false position, I went in. It was almost a year
since I had last seen Simonov.


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 interest. 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 Russianized German--a
little fellow with the face of a monkey, a blockhead who was always
deriding every one, 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 to-morrow," 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. "To-morrow
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 . . . to-morrow, then. Will you pay your subscription now? I
just ask so as to know," he muttered in embarrassment.

I flushed crimson, and 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 to-morrow 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 some one . . . 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, to-morrow," 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 to-morrow'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 every one. 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 every one 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 most 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 slipt
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 patronizing 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 apologizing to me he went off to order the _hors
d'oeuvres_.

"So you've been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!