No More Learning

And whatever quarrels there
may be between them they ought not to call in their own mother to judge
between them and tell tales of one another. They are their own judges.
Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes,
whatever happens. That makes it holier and better. They respect one
another more, and much is built on respect. And if once there has been
love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away?
Surely one can keep it! It is rare that one cannot keep it. And if the
husband is kind and straightforward, why should not love last? The
first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will
come a love that is better still. Then there will be the union of
souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets
between them. And once they have children, the most difficult times
will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even
toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and
even that will be a joy, They will love you for it afterwards; so you
are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that
you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your
children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have
received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness.
So you see this is a great duty. How can it fail to draw the father and
mother nearer? People say it's a trial to have children. Who says
that? It is heavenly happiness! Are you fond of little children,
Liza? I am awfully fond of them. You know--a little rosy baby boy at
your bosom, and what husband's heart is not touched, seeing his wife
nursing his child! A plump little rosy baby, sprawling and snuggling,
chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it
makes one laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand
everything. And while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its
little hand, plays. When its father comes up, the child tears itself
away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs,
as though it were fearfully funny, and falls to sucking again. Or it
will bite its mother's breast when its little teeth are coming, while
it looks sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, 'Look,
I am biting! ' Is not all that happiness when they are the three
together, husband, wife and child? One can forgive a great deal for
the sake of such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live
oneself before one blames others! "

"It's by pictures, pictures like that one must get at you," I thought
to myself, though I did speak with real feeling, and all at once I
flushed crimson. "What if she were suddenly to burst out laughing,
what should I do then? " That idea drove me to fury. Towards the end of
my speech I really was excited, and now my vanity was somehow wounded.
The silence continued. I almost nudged her.

"Why are you--" she began and stopped. But I understood: there was a
quiver of something different in her voice, not abrupt, harsh and
unyielding as before, but something soft and shamefaced, so shamefaced
that I suddenly felt ashamed and guilty.

"What? " I asked, with tender curiosity.

"Why, you. . . "

"What? "

"Why, you . . . speak somehow like a book," she said, and again there was
a note of irony in her voice.

That remark sent a pang to my heart. It was not what I was expecting.

I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that
this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when
the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that
their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and
shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. I ought to
have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly
approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with
an effort. But I did not guess, and an evil feeling took possession of
me.

"Wait a bit! " I thought.



VII

"Oh, hush, Liza! How can you talk about being like a book, when it
makes even me, an outsider, feel sick? Though I don't look at it as an
outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart. . . . Is it possible,
is it possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself?
Evidently habit does wonders! God knows what habit can do with anyone.
Can you seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will
always be good-looking, and that they will keep you here for ever and
ever? I say nothing of the loathsomeness of the life here. . . . Though
let me tell you this about it--about your present life, I mean; here
though you are young now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet
you know as soon as I came to myself just now I felt at once sick at
being here with you! One can only come here when one is drunk. But if
you were anywhere else, living as good people live, I should perhaps be
more than attracted by you, should fall in love with you, should be
glad of a look from you, let alone a word; I should hang about your
door, should go down on my knees to you, should look upon you as my
betrothed and think it an honour to be allowed to. I should not dare
to have an impure thought about you. But here, you see, I know that I
have only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it
or not. I don't consult your wishes, but you mine. The lowest
labourer hires himself as a workman, but he doesn't make a slave of
himself altogether; besides, he knows that he will be free again
presently. But when are you free? Only think what you are giving up
here? What is it you are making a slave of? It is your soul, together
with your body; you are selling your soul which you have no right to
dispose of! You give your love to be outraged by every drunkard!
Love! But that's everything, you know, it's a priceless diamond, it's
a maiden's treasure, love--why, a man would be ready to give his soul,
to face death to gain that love. But how much is your love worth now?
You are sold, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need to strive
for love when you can have everything without love. And you know there
is no greater insult to a girl than that, do you understand? To be
sure, I have heard that they comfort you, poor fools, they let you have
lovers of your own here. But you know that's simply a farce, that's
simply a sham, it's just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it!
Why, do you suppose he really loves you, that lover of yours? I don't
believe it. How can he love you when he knows you may be called away
from him any minute? He would be a low fellow if he did! Will he have
a grain of respect for you? What have you in common with him? He
laughs at you and robs you--that is all his love amounts to! You are
lucky if he does not beat you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask
him, if you have got one, whether he will marry you. He will laugh in
your face, if he doesn't spit in it or give you a blow--though maybe he
is not worth a bad halfpenny himself. And for what have you ruined
your life, if you come to think of it? For the coffee they give you to
drink and the plentiful meals? But with what object are they feeding
you up? An honest girl couldn't swallow the food, for she would know
what she was being fed for. You are in debt here, and, of course, you
will always be in debt, and you will go on in debt to the end, till the
visitors here begin to scorn you. And that will soon happen, don't
rely upon your youth--all that flies by express train here, you know.
You will be kicked out. And not simply kicked out; long before that
she'll begin nagging at you, scolding you, abusing you, as though you
had not sacrificed your health for her, had not thrown away your youth
and your soul for her benefit, but as though you had ruined her,
beggared her, robbed her. And don't expect anyone to take your part:
the others, your companions, will attack you, too, win her favour, for
all are in slavery here, and have lost all conscience and pity here
long ago. They have become utterly vile, and nothing on earth is
viler, more loathsome, and more insulting than their abuse. And you
are laying down everything here, unconditionally, youth and health and
beauty and hope, and at twenty-two you will look like a woman of
five-and-thirty, and you will be lucky if you are not diseased, pray to
God for that! No doubt you are thinking now that you have a gay time
and no work to do! Yet there is no work harder or more dreadful in the
world or ever has been. One would think that the heart alone would be
worn out with tears. And you won't dare to say a word, not half a word
when they drive you away from here; you will go away as though you were
to blame. You will change to another house, then to a third, then
somewhere else, till you come down at last to the Haymarket. There you
will be beaten at every turn; that is good manners there, the visitors
don't know how to be friendly without beating you. You don't believe
that it is so hateful there? Go and look for yourself some time, you
can see with your own eyes. Once, one New Year's Day, I saw a woman at
a door. They had turned her out as a joke, to give her a taste of the
frost because she had been crying so much, and they shut the door
behind her. At nine o'clock in the morning she was already quite
drunk, dishevelled, half-naked, covered with bruises, her face was
powdered, but she had a black-eye, blood was trickling from her nose
and her teeth; some cabman had just given her a drubbing. She was
sitting on the stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand;
she was crying, wailing something about her luck and beating with the
fish on the steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the
doorway taunting her. You don't believe that you will ever be like
that? I should be sorry to believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe
ten years, eight years ago that very woman with the salt fish came here
fresh as a cherub, innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every
word. Perhaps she was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like
the others; perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew what happiness
was in store for the man who should love her and whom she should love.
Do you see how it ended? And what if at that very minute when she was
beating on the filthy steps with that fish, drunken and
dishevelled--what if at that very minute she recalled the pure early
days in her father's house, when she used to go to school and the
neighbour's son watched for her on the way, declaring that he would
love her as long as he lived, that he would devote his life to her, and
when they vowed to love one another for ever and be married as soon as
they were grown up! No, Liza, it would be happy for you if you were to
die soon of consumption in some corner, in some cellar like that woman
just now. In the hospital, do you say? You will be lucky if they take
you, but what if you are still of use to the madam here? Consumption is
a queer disease, it is not like fever. The patient goes on hoping till
the last minute and says he is all right. He deludes himself And that
just suits your madam. Don't doubt it, that's how it is; you have sold
your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you daren't say a word.
But when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away from
you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more, they
will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over
dying. However you beg you won't get a drink of water without abuse:
'Whenever are you going off, you nasty hussy, you won't let us sleep
with your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick. ' That's true, I have
heard such things said myself. They will thrust you dying into the
filthiest corner in the cellar--in the damp and darkness; what will
your thoughts be, lying there alone? When you die, strange hands will
lay you out, with grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no
one will sigh for you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may
be; they will buy a coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor
woman today, and celebrate your memory at the tavern. In the grave,
sleet, filth, wet snow--no need to put themselves out for you--'Let her
down, Vanuha; it's just like her luck--even here, she is head-foremost,
the hussy. Shorten the cord, you rascal. ' 'It's all right as it is. '
'All right, is it? Why, she's on her side! She was a fellow-creature,
after all! But, never mind, throw the earth on her. ' And they won't
care to waste much time quarrelling over you. They will scatter the
wet blue clay as quick as they can and go off to the tavern . . . and
there your memory on earth will end; other women have children to go to
their graves, fathers, husbands. While for you neither tear, nor sigh,
nor remembrance; no one in the whole world will ever come to you, your
name will vanish from the face of the earth--as though you had never
existed, never been born at all! Nothing but filth and mud, however
you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead arise, however you
cry: 'Let me out, kind people, to live in the light of day! My life
was no life at all; my life has been thrown away like a dish-clout; it
was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind people,
to live in the world again. '"

And I worked myself up to such a pitch that I began to have a lump in
my throat myself, and . . . and all at once I stopped, sat up in dismay
and, bending over apprehensively, began to listen with a beating heart.
I had reason to be troubled.

I had felt for some time that I was turning her soul upside down and
rending her heart, and--and the more I was convinced of it, the more
eagerly I desired to gain my object as quickly and as effectually as
possible. It was the exercise of my skill that carried me away; yet it
was not merely sport. . . .

I knew I was speaking stiffly, artificially, even bookishly, in fact, I
could not speak except "like a book. " But that did not trouble me: I
knew, I felt that I should be understood and that this very bookishness
might be an assistance. But now, having attained my effect, I was
suddenly panic-stricken. Never before had I witnessed such despair!
She was lying on her face, thrusting her face into the pillow and
clutching it in both hands. Her heart was being torn. Her youthful
body was shuddering all over as though in convulsions. Suppressed sobs
rent her bosom and suddenly burst out in weeping and wailing, then she
pressed closer into the pillow: she did not want anyone here, not a
living soul, to know of her anguish and her tears. She bit the pillow,
bit her hand till it bled (I saw that afterwards), or, thrusting her
fingers into her dishevelled hair, seemed rigid with the effort of
restraint, holding her breath and clenching her teeth. I began saying
something, begging her to calm herself, but felt that I did not dare;
and all at once, in a sort of cold shiver, almost in terror, began
fumbling in the dark, trying hurriedly to get dressed to go. It was
dark; though I tried my best I could not finish dressing quickly.
Suddenly I felt a box of matches and a candlestick with a whole candle
in it. As soon as the room was lighted up, Liza sprang up, sat up in
bed, and with a contorted face, with a half insane smile, looked at me
almost senselessly. I sat down beside her and took her hands; she came
to herself, made an impulsive movement towards me, would have caught
hold of me, but did not dare, and slowly bowed her head before me.

"Liza, my dear, I was wrong . . . forgive me, my dear," I began, but she
squeezed my hand in her fingers so tightly that I felt I was saying the
wrong thing and stopped.

"This is my address, Liza, come to me. "

"I will come," she answered resolutely, her head still bowed.

"But now I am going, good-bye . . . till we meet again. "

I got up; she, too, stood up and suddenly flushed all over, gave a
shudder, snatched up a shawl that was lying on a chair and muffled
herself in it to her chin. As she did this she gave another sickly
smile, blushed and looked at me strangely. I felt wretched; I was in
haste to get away--to disappear.

"Wait a minute," she said suddenly, in the passage just at the doorway,
stopping me with her hand on my overcoat. She put down the candle in
hot haste and ran off; evidently she had thought of something or wanted
to show me something. As she ran away she flushed, her eyes shone, and
there was a smile on her lips--what was the meaning of it? Against my
will I waited: she came back a minute later with an expression that
seemed to ask forgiveness for something. In fact, it was not the same
face, not the same look as the evening before: sullen, mistrustful and
obstinate. Her eyes now were imploring, soft, and at the same time
trustful, caressing, timid. The expression with which children look at
people they are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour. Her
eyes were a light hazel, they were lovely eyes, full of life, and
capable of expressing love as well as sullen hatred.

Making no explanation, as though I, as a sort of higher being, must
understand everything without explanations, she held out a piece of
paper to me.
Her whole face was positively beaming at that instant
with naive, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter
to her from a medical student or someone of that sort--a very
high-flown and flowery, but extremely respectful, love-letter. I don't
recall the words now, but I remember well that through the high-flown
phrases there was apparent a genuine feeling, which cannot be feigned.
When I had finished reading it I met her glowing, questioning, and
childishly impatient eyes fixed upon me. She fastened her eyes upon my
face and waited impatiently for what I should say. In a few words,
hurriedly, but with a sort of joy and pride, she explained to me that
she had been to a dance somewhere in a private house, a family of "very
nice people, WHO KNEW NOTHING, absolutely nothing, for she had only
come here so lately and it had all happened . . . and she hadn't made up
her mind to stay and was certainly going away as soon as she had paid
her debt. . . " and at that party there had been the student who had
danced with her all the evening. He had talked to her, and it turned
out that he had known her in old days at Riga when he was a child, they
had played together, but a very long time ago--and he knew her parents,
but ABOUT THIS he knew nothing, nothing whatever, and had no suspicion!
And the day after the dance (three days ago) he had sent her that
letter through the friend with whom she had gone to the party . . . and
. . . well, that was all.

She dropped her shining eyes with a sort of bashfulness as she finished.

The poor girl was keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure,
and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me
to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely
loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter
was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less,
I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious
treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she
had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise
herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of
her. I said nothing, pressed her hand and went out. I so longed to
get away . . . I walked all the way home, in spite of the fact that the
melting snow was still falling in heavy flakes. I was exhausted,
shattered, in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the truth was
already gleaming. The loathsome truth.



VIII

It was some time, however, before I consented to recognise that truth.
Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and
immediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I was
positively amazed at my last night's SENTIMENTALITY with Liza, at all
those "outcries of horror and pity. " "To think of having such an
attack of womanish hysteria, pah! " I concluded. And what did I thrust
my address upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; it
doesn't matter. . . . But OBVIOUSLY, that was not now the chief and the
most important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save my
reputation in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible;
that was the chief business. And I was so taken up that morning that I
actually forgot all about Liza.

First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day before
from Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteen
roubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it he
was in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on
the first asking. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the IOU
with a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before "I had
been keeping it up with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; we were
giving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend of
my childhood, and you know--a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt--of
course, he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, a
brilliant career; he is witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, you
understand; we drank an extra 'half-dozen' and . . . "

And it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily,
unconstrainedly and complacently.

On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov.

To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly
gentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact and
good-breeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, I
blamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, "if I
really may be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly
unaccustomed to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass,
which I said, I had drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting for
them at the Hotel de Paris between five and six o'clock. I begged
Simonov's pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations to
all the others, especially to Zverkov, whom "I seemed to remember as
though in a dream" I had insulted. I added that I would have called
upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not the
face to. I was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almost
carelessness (strictly within the bounds of politeness, however), which
was apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gave
them at once to understand that I took rather an independent view of
"all that unpleasantness last night"; that I was by no means so utterly
crushed as you, my friends, probably imagine; but on the contrary,
looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look
upon it. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast! "

"There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it! " I thought
admiringly, as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am an
intellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would not
have known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it and
am as jolly as ever again, and all because I am 'a cultivated and
educated man of our day. ' And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to
the wine yesterday. H'm! " . . . No, it was not the wine. I did not
drink anything at all between five and six when I was waiting for them.
I had lied to Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn't
ashamed now. . . . Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid
of it.

I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to
take it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the
letter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards
evening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy
after yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser,
my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more
different and confused. Something was not dead within me, in the depths
of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in
acute depression. For the most part I jostled my way through the most
crowded business streets, along Myeshtchansky Street, along Sadovy
Street and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked particularly sauntering
along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working
people of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faces
looking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle,
that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets
irritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong with
me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually
in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home
completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my
conscience.

The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed
queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented
me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything
else I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed it
all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. But
on this point I was not satisfied at all. It was as though I were
worried only by Liza. "What if she comes," I thought incessantly,
"well, it doesn't matter, let her come! H'm! it's horrid that she
should see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I seemed such a hero
to her, while now, h'm! It's horrid, though, that I have let myself go
so, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to go out to
dinner in such a suit! And my American leather sofa with the stuffing
sticking out. And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, such
tatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon. That
beast is certain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to be
rude to me. And I, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, I shall
begin bowing and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown round
me, I shall begin smiling, telling lies. Oh, the beastliness! And it
isn't the beastliness of it that matters most! There is something more
important, more loathsome, viler! Yes, viler! And to put on that
dishonest lying mask again! . . . "

When I reached that thought I fired up all at once.

"Why dishonest? How dishonest? I was speaking sincerely last night.
I remember there was real feeling in me, too. What I wanted was to
excite an honourable feeling in her. . . . Her crying was a good thing,
it will have a good effect. "

Yet I could not feel at ease. All that evening, even when I had come
back home, even after nine o'clock, when I calculated that Liza could
not possibly come, still she haunted me, and what was worse, she came
back to my mind always in the same position. One moment out of all
that had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination; the
moment when I struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its
look of torture. And what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what a
distorted smile she had at that moment! But I did not know then, that
fifteen years later I should still in my imagination see Liza, always
with the pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her face
at that minute.

Next day I was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to
over-excited nerves, and, above all, as EXAGGERATED. I was always
conscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid of
it. "I exaggerate everything, that is where I go wrong," I repeated to
myself every hour. But, however, "Liza will very likely come all the
same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was so
uneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury: "She'll come, she is certain
to come! " I cried, running about the room, "if not today, she will come
tomorrow; she'll find me out! The damnable romanticism of these pure
hearts! Oh, the vileness--oh, the silliness--oh, the stupidity of
these 'wretched sentimental souls! ' Why, how fail to understand? How
could one fail to understand? . . . "

But at this point I stopped short, and in great confusion, indeed.

And how few, how few words, I thought, in passing, were needed; how
little of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic
too) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to my
will. That's virginity, to be sure! Freshness of soil!

At times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, "to tell her all," and
beg her not to come to me. But this thought stirred such wrath in me
that I believed I should have crushed that "damned" Liza if she had
chanced to be near me at the time. I should have insulted her, have
spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her!

One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and I
began to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine
o'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: I, for
instance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to me
and my talking to her. . . . I develop her, educate her. Finally, I
notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to
understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect,
perhaps). At last all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing,
she flings herself at my feet and says that I am her saviour, and that
she loves me better than anything in the world. I am amazed, but. . . .
"Liza," I say, "can you imagine that I have not noticed your love? I
saw it all, I divined it, but I did not dare to approach you first,
because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force
yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in
your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that
. . . because it would be tyranny . . . it would be indelicate (in short, I
launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties a
la George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you
are pure, you are good, you are my noble wife.

'Into my house come bold and free,
Its rightful mistress there to be'. "

Then we begin living together, go abroad and so on, and so on. In
fact, in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began putting out
my tongue at myself.

Besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy! " I thought. They don't
let them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for some
reason I fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clock
precisely). Though she did say she was not altogether a slave there
yet, and had certain rights; so, h'm! Damn it all, she will come, she
is sure to come!

It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my attention at
that time by his rudeness. He drove me beyond all patience! He was
the bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by Providence. We had been
squabbling continually for years, and I hated him. My God, how I hated
him! I believe I had never hated anyone in my life as I hated him,
especially at some moments. He was an elderly, dignified man, who
worked part of his time as a tailor. But for some unknown reason he
despised me beyond all measure, and looked down upon me insufferably.
Though, indeed, he looked down upon everyone. Simply to glance at that
flaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he combed up on his
forehead and oiled with sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth,
compressed into the shape of the letter V, made one feel one was
confronting a man who never doubted of himself. He was a pedant, to
the most extreme point, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, and
with that had a vanity only befitting Alexander of Macedon. He was in
love with every button on his coat, every nail on his
fingers--absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In his
behaviour to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me,
and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically
self-confident and invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes to
fury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour,
though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider
himself bound to do anything. There could be no doubt that he looked
upon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that "he did not get rid of
me" was simply that he could get wages from me every month. He
consented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. Many sins
should be forgiven me for what I suffered from him. My hatred reached
such a point that sometimes his very step almost threw me into
convulsions. What I loathed particularly was his lisp. His tongue
must have been a little too long or something of that sort, for he
continually lisped, and seemed to be very proud of it, imagining that
it greatly added to his dignity. He spoke in a slow, measured tone,
with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the ground. He
maddened me particularly when he read aloud the psalms to himself
behind his partition. Many a battle I waged over that reading! But he
was awfully fond of reading aloud in the evenings, in a slow, even,
sing-song voice, as though over the dead. It is interesting that that
is how he has ended: he hires himself out to read the psalms over the
dead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes blacking. But at
that time I could not get rid of him, it was as though he were
chemically combined with my existence.