No More Learning

"

The panic-stricken boy in his desperation tried creeping under the
table. Then his persecutor, in a fury, took out his large batiste
handkerchief and began flicking it under the table at the child, who
kept perfectly quiet. It must be observed that Yulian Mastakovitch was a
little inclined to be fat. He was a sleek, red-faced, solidly built man,
paunchy, with thick legs; what is called a fine figure of a man, round
as a nut. He was perspiring, breathless, and fearfully flushed. At last
he was almost rigid, so great was his indignation and perhaps--who
knows? --his jealousy. I burst into loud laughter. Yulian Mastakovitch
turned round and, in spite of all his consequence, was overcome with
confusion. At that moment from the opposite door our host came in. The
boy crept out from under the table and wiped his elbows and his knees.
Yulian Mastakovitch hastened to put to his nose the handkerchief which
he was holding in his hand by one end.

Our host looked at the three of us in some perplexity; but as a man who
knew something of life, and looked at it from a serious point of view,
he at once availed himself of the chance of catching his visitor by
himself.

"Here, this is the boy," he said, pointing to the red-haired boy, "for
whom I had the honour to solicit your influence. "

"Ah! " said Yulian Mastakovitch, who had hardly quite recovered himself.

"The son of my children's governess," said our host, in a tone of a
petitioner, "a poor woman, the widow of an honest civil servant; and
therefore . . . and therefore, Yulian Mastakovitch, if it were possible
. . . "

"Oh, no, no! " Yulian Mastakovitch made haste to answer; "no, excuse me,
Filip Alexyevitch, it's quite impossible. I've made inquiries; there's
no vacancy, and if there were, there are twenty applicants who have far
more claim than he. . . . I am very sorry, very sorry. . . . "

"What a pity," said our host. "He is a quiet, well-behaved boy. "

"A great rascal, as I notice," answered Yulian Mastakovitch, with a
nervous twist of his lip. "Get along, boy; why are you standing there?
Go to your playmates," he said, addressing the child.

At that point he could not contain himself, and glanced at me out of one
eye. I, too, could not contain myself, and laughed straight in his face.
Yulian Mastakovitch turned away at once, and in a voice calculated to
reach my ear, asked who was that strange young man? They whispered
together and walked out of the room. I saw Yulian Mastakovitch
afterwards shaking his head incredulously as our host talked to him.

After laughing to my heart's content I returned to the drawing-room.
There the great man, surrounded by fathers and mothers of families,
including the host and hostess, was saying something very warmly to a
lady to whom he had just been introduced. The lady was holding by the
hand the little girl with whom Yulian Mastakovitch had had the scene in
the parlour a little while before. Now he was launching into praises and
raptures over the beauty, the talents, the grace and the charming
manners of the charming child. He was unmistakably making up to the
mamma. The mother listened to him almost with tears of delight. The
father's lips were smiling. Our host was delighted at the general
satisfaction. All the guests, in fact, were sympathetically gratified;
even the children's games were checked that they might not hinder the
conversation: the whole atmosphere was saturated with reverence. I heard
afterwards the mamma of the interesting child, deeply touched, beg
Yulian Mastakovitch, in carefully chosen phrases, to do her the special
honour of bestowing upon them the precious gift of his acquaintance, and
heard with what unaffected delight Yulian Mastakovitch accepted the
invitation, and how afterwards the guests, dispersing in different
directions, moving away with the greatest propriety, poured out to one
another the most touchingly flattering comments upon the contractor, his
wife, his little girl, and, above all, upon Yulian Mastakovitch.

"Is that gentleman married? " I asked, almost aloud, of one of my
acquaintances, who was standing nearest to Yulian Mastakovitch. Yulian
Mastakovitch flung a searching and vindictive glance at me.

"No! " answered my acquaintance, chagrined to the bottom of his heart by
the awkwardness of which I had intentionally been guilty. . . .

* * * * *

I passed lately by a certain church; I was struck by the crowd of people
in carriages. I heard people talking of the wedding. It was a cloudy
day, it was beginning to sleet. I made my way through the crowd at the
door and saw the bridegroom. He was a sleek, well-fed, round, paunchy
man, very gorgeously dressed up. He was running fussily about, giving
orders. At last the news passed through the crowd that the bride was
coming. I squeezed my way through the crowd and saw a marvellous beauty,
who could scarcely have reached her first season. But the beauty was
pale and melancholy. She looked preoccupied; I even fancied that her
eyes were red with recent weeping. The classic severity of every feature
of her face gave a certain dignity and seriousness to her beauty. But
through that sternness and dignity, through that melancholy, could be
seen the look of childish innocence; something indescribably naïve,
fluid, youthful, which seemed mutely begging for mercy.

People were saying that she was only just sixteen. Glancing attentively
at the bridegroom, I suddenly recognized him as Yulian Mastakovitch,
whom I had not seen for five years. I looked at her. My God! I began to
squeeze my way as quickly as I could out of the church. I heard people
saying in the crowd that the bride was an heiress, that she had a dowry
of five hundred thousand . . . and a trousseau worth ever so much.

"It was a good stroke of business, though! " I thought as I made my way
into the street.




POLZUNKOV

A STORY


I began to scrutinize the man closely. Even in his exterior there was
something so peculiar that it compelled one, however far away one's
thoughts might be, to fix one's eyes upon him and go off into the most
irrepressible roar of laughter. That is what happened to me. I must
observe that the little man's eyes were so mobile, or perhaps he was so
sensitive to the magnetism of every eye fixed upon him, that he almost
by instinct guessed that he was being observed, turned at once to the
observer and anxiously analysed his expression. His continual mobility,
his turning and twisting, made him look strikingly like a dancing doll.
It was strange! He seemed afraid of jeers, in spite of the fact that he
was almost getting his living by being a buffoon for all the world, and
exposed himself to every buffet in a moral sense and even in a physical
one, judging from the company he was in. Voluntary buffoons are not even
to be pitied. But I noticed at once that this strange creature, this
ridiculous man, was by no means a buffoon by profession. There was still
something gentlemanly in him. His very uneasiness, his continual
apprehensiveness about himself, were actually a testimony in his favour.
It seemed to me that his desire to be obliging was due more to kindness
of heart than to mercenary considerations. He readily allowed them to
laugh their loudest at him and in the most unseemly way, to his face,
but at the same time--and I am ready to take my oath on it--his heart
ached and was sore at the thought that his listeners were so caddishly
brutal as to be capable of laughing, not at anything said or done, but
at him, at his whole being, at his heart, at his head, at his
appearance, at his whole body, flesh and blood. I am convinced that he
felt at that moment all the foolishness of his position; but the protest
died away in his heart at once, though it invariably sprang up again in
the most heroic way. I am convinced that all this was due to nothing
else but a kind heart, and not to fear of the inconvenience of being
kicked out and being unable to borrow money from some one. This
gentleman was for ever borrowing money, that is, he asked for alms in
that form, when after playing the fool and entertaining them at his
expense he felt in a certain sense entitled to borrow money from them.
But, good heavens! what a business the borrowing was! And with what a
countenance he asked for the loan! I could not have imagined that on
such a small space as the wrinkled, angular face of that little man room
could be found, at one and the same time, for so many different
grimaces, for such strange, variously characteristic shades of feeling,
such absolutely killing expressions. Everything was there--shame and an
assumption of insolence, and vexation at the sudden flushing of his
face, and anger and fear of failure, and entreaty to be forgiven for
having dared to pester, and a sense of his own dignity, and a still
greater sense of his own abjectness--all this passed over his face like
lightning. For six whole years he had struggled along in God's world in
this way, and so far had been unable to take up a fitting attitude at
the interesting moment of borrowing money! I need not say that he never
could grow callous and completely abject. His heart was too sensitive,
too passionate! I will say more, indeed: in my opinion, he was one of
the most honest and honourable men in the world, but with a little
weakness: of being ready to do anything abject at any one's bidding,
good-naturedly and disinterestedly, simply to oblige a fellow-creature.
In short, he was what is called "a rag" in the fullest sense of the
word. The most absurd thing was, that he was dressed like any one else,
neither worse nor better, tidily, even with a certain elaborateness, and
actually had pretentions to respectability and personal dignity. This
external equality and internal inequality, his uneasiness about himself
and at the same time his continual self-depreciation--all this was
strikingly incongruous and provocative of laughter and pity. If he had
been convinced in his heart (and in spite of his experience it did
happen to him at moments to believe this) that his audience were the
most good-natured people in the world, who were simply laughing at
something amusing, and not at the sacrifice of his personal dignity, he
would most readily have taken off his coat, put it on wrong side
outwards, and have walked about the streets in that attire for the
diversion of others and his own gratification. But equality he could
never anyhow attain. Another trait: the queer fellow was proud, and
even, by fits and starts, when it was not too risky, generous. It was
worth seeing and hearing how he could sometimes, not sparing himself,
consequently with pluck, almost with heroism, dispose of one of his
patrons who had infuriated him to madness. But that was at moments. . . .
In short, he was a martyr in the fullest sense of the word, but the most
useless and consequently the most comic martyr.

There was a general discussion going on among the guests. All at once I
saw our queer friend jump upon his chair, and call out at the top of his
voice, anxious for the exclusive attention of the company.

"Listen," the master of the house whispered to me. "He sometimes tells
the most curious stories. . . . Does he interest you? "

I nodded and squeezed myself into the group. The sight of a well-dressed
gentleman jumping upon his chair and shouting at the top of his voice
did, in fact, draw the attention of all. Many who did not know the queer
fellow looked at one another in perplexity, the others roared with
laughter.

"I knew Fedosey Nikolaitch. I ought to know Fedosey Nikolaitch better
than any one! " cried the queer fellow from his elevation. "Gentlemen,
allow me to tell you something. I can tell you a good story about
Fedosey Nikolaitch! I know a story--exquisite! "

"Tell it, Osip Mihalitch, tell it. "

"Tell it. "

"Listen. "

"Listen, listen. "

"I begin; but, gentlemen, this is a peculiar story. . . . "

"Very good, very good. "

"It's a comic story. "

"Very good, excellent, splendid. Get on! "

"It is an episode in the private life of your humble. . . . "

"But why do you trouble yourself to announce that it's comic? "

"And even somewhat tragic! "

"Eh? ? ? ! "

"In short, the story which it will afford you all pleasure to hear me
now relate, gentlemen--the story, in consequence of which I have come
into company so interesting and profitable. . . . "

"No puns! "

"This story. "

"In short the story--make haste and finish the introduction. The story,
which has its value," a fair-haired young man with moustaches pronounced
in a husky voice, dropping his hand into his coat pocket and, as though
by chance, pulling out a purse instead of his handkerchief.

"The story, my dear sirs, after which I should like to see many of you
in my place. And, finally, the story, in consequence of which I have not
married. "

"Married! A wife! Polzunkov tried to get married! ! "

"I confess I should like to see Madame Polzunkov. "

"Allow me to inquire the name of the would-be Madame Polzunkov," piped a
youth, making his way up to the storyteller.

"And so for the first chapter, gentlemen. It was just six years ago, in
spring, the thirty-first of March--note the date, gentlemen--on the
eve. . . . "

"Of the first of April! " cried a young man with ringlets.

"You are extraordinarily quick at guessing. It was evening. Twilight was
gathering over the district town of N. , the moon was about to float out
. . . everything in proper style, in fact. And so in the very late
twilight I, too, floated out of my poor lodging on the sly--after taking
leave of my restricted granny, now dead. Excuse me, gentlemen, for
making use of such a fashionable expression, which I heard for the last
time from Nikolay Nikolaitch. But my granny was indeed restricted: she
was blind, dumb, deaf, stupid--everything you please. . . . I confess I was
in a tremor, I was prepared for great deeds; my heart was beating like a
kitten's when some bony hand clutches it by the scruff of the neck. "

"Excuse me, Monsieur Polzunkov. "

"What do you want? "

"Tell it more simply; don't over-exert yourself, please! "

"All right," said Osip Mihalitch, a little taken aback.
"I went into the
house of Fedosey Nikolaitch (the house that he had bought). Fedosey
Nikolaitch, as you know, is not a mere colleague, but the full-blown
head of a department. I was announced, and was at once shown into the
study. I can see it now; the room was dark, almost dark, but candles
were not brought. Behold, Fedosey Nikolaitch walks in. There he and I
were left in the darkness. . . . "

"Whatever happened to you? " asked an officer.

"What do you suppose? " asked Polzunkov, turning promptly, with a
convulsively working face, to the young man with ringlets. "Well,
gentlemen, a strange circumstance occurred, though indeed there was
nothing strange in it: it was what is called an everyday affair--I
simply took out of my pocket a roll of paper . . . and he a roll of
paper. "

"Paper notes? "

"Paper notes; and we exchanged. "

"I don't mind betting that there's a flavour of bribery about it,"
observed a respectably dressed, closely cropped young gentleman.

"Bribery! " Polzunkov caught him up.

"'Oh, may I be a Liberal,
Such as many I have seen! '

If you, too, when it is your lot to serve in the provinces, do not warm
your hands at your country's hearth. . . . For as an author said: 'Even the
smoke of our native land is sweet to us. ' She is our Mother, gentlemen,
our Mother Russia; we are her babes, and so we suck her! "

There was a roar of laughter.

"Only would you believe it, gentlemen, I have never taken bribes? " said
Polzunkov, looking round at the whole company distrustfully.

A prolonged burst of Homeric laughter drowned Polzunkov's words in
guffaws.

"It really is so, gentlemen. . . . "

But here he stopped, still looking round at every one with a strange
expression of face; perhaps--who knows? --at that moment the thought came
into his mind that he was more honest than many of all that honourable
company. . . . Anyway, the serious expression of his face did not pass away
till the general merriment was quite over.

"And so," Polzunkov began again when all was still, "though I never did
take bribes, yet that time I transgressed; I put in my pocket a bribe
. . . from a bribe-taker . . . that is, there were certain papers in my
hands which, if I had cared to send to a certain person, it would have
gone ill with Fedosey Nikolaitch. "

"So then he bought them from you? "

"He did. "

"Did he give much? "

"He gave as much as many a man nowadays would sell his conscience for
complete, with all its variations . . . if only he could get anything for
it. But I felt as though I were scalded when I put the money in my
pocket. I really don't understand what always comes over me,
gentlemen--but I was more dead than alive, my lips twitched and my legs
trembled; well, I was to blame, to blame, entirely to blame. I was
utterly conscience-stricken; I was ready to beg Fedosey Nikolaitch's
forgiveness. "

"Well, what did he do--did he forgive you? "

"But I didn't ask his forgiveness. . . . I only mean that that is how I
felt. Then I have a sensitive heart, you know. I saw he was looking me
straight in the face. 'Have you no fear of God, Osip Mihailitch? ' said
he. Well, what could I do? From a feeling of propriety I put my head on
one side and I flung up my hands. 'In what way,' said I, 'have I no fear
of God, Fedosey Nikolaitch? ' But I just said that from a feeling of
propriety. . . . I was ready to sink into the earth. 'After being so long a
friend of our family, after being, I may say, like a son--and who knows
what Heaven had in store for us, Osip Mihailitch? --and all of a sudden
to inform against me--to think of that now! . . . What am I to think of
mankind after that, Osip Mihailitch? ' Yes, gentlemen, he did read me a
lecture! 'Come,' he said, 'you tell me what I am to think of mankind
after that, Osip Mihailitch. ' 'What is he to think? ' I thought; and do
you know, there was a lump in my throat, and my voice was quivering, and
knowing my hateful weakness, I snatched up my hat. 'Where are you off
to, Osip Mihailitch? Surely on the eve of such a day you cannot bear
malice against me? What wrong have I done you? . . . ' 'Fedosey Nikolaitch,'
I said, 'Fedosey Nikolaitch. . . . ' In fact, I melted, gentlemen, I melted
like a sugar-stick. And the roll of notes that was lying in my pocket,
that, too, seemed screaming out: 'You ungrateful brigand, you accursed
thief! ' It seemed to weigh a hundredweight . . . (if only it had weighed a
hundredweight! ). . . . 'I see,' says Fedosey Nikolaitch, 'I see your
penitence . . . you know to-morrow. . . . ' 'St. Mary of Egypt's day. . . . '
'Well, don't weep,' said Fedosey Nikolaitch, 'that's enough: you've
erred, and you are penitent! Come along! Maybe I may succeed in bringing
you back again into the true path,' says he . . . 'maybe, my modest
Penates' (yes,'Penates,' I remember he used that expression, the rascal)
'will warm,' says he, 'your harden . . . I will not say hardened, but
erring heart. . . . ' He took me by the arm, gentlemen, and led me to his
family circle. A cold shiver ran down my back; I shuddered! I thought
with what eyes shall I present myself--you must know, gentlemen . . . eh,
what shall I say? --a delicate position had arisen here. "

"Not Madame Polzunkov? "

"Marya Fedosyevna, only she was not destined, you know, to bear the name
you have given her; she did not attain that honour. Fedosey Nikolaitch
was right, you see, when he said that I was almost looked upon as a son
in the house; it had been so, indeed, six months before, when a certain
retired junker called Mihailo Maximitch Dvigailov, was still living. But
by God's will he died, and he put off settling his affairs till death
settled his business for him. "

"Ough! "

"Well, never mind, gentlemen, forgive me, it was a slip of the tongue.
It's a bad pun, but it doesn't matter it's being bad--what happened was
far worse, when I was left, so to say, with nothing in prospect but a
bullet through the brain, for that junker, though he would not admit me
into his house (he lived in grand style, for he had always known how to
feather his nest), yet perhaps correctly he believed me to be his son. "

"Aha! "

"Yes, that was how it was! So they began to cold-shoulder me at Fedosey
Nikolaitch's. I noticed things, I kept quiet; but all at once, unluckily
for me (or perhaps luckily! ), a cavalry officer galloped into our little
town like snow on our head. His business--buying horses for the
army--was light and active, in cavalry style, but he settled himself
solidly at Fedosey Nikolaitch's, as though he were laying siege to it! I
approached the subject in a roundabout way, as my nasty habit is; I said
one thing and another, asking him what I had done to be treated so,
saying that I was almost like a son to him, and when might I expect him
to behave more like a father. . . . Well, he began answering me. And when
he begins to speak you are in for a regular epic in twelve cantos, and
all you can do is to listen, lick your lips and throw up your hands in
delight. And not a ha'p'orth of sense, at least there's no making out
the sense. You stand puzzled like a fool--he puts you in a fog, he
twists about like an eel and wriggles away from you. It's a special
gift, a real gift--it's enough to frighten people even if it is no
concern of theirs. I tried one thing and another, and went hither and
thither. I took the lady songs and presented her with sweets and thought
of witty things to say to her. I tried sighing and groaning. 'My heart
aches,' I said, 'it aches from love. ' And I went in for tears and secret
explanations. Man is foolish, you know. . . . I never reminded myself that
I was thirty . . . not a bit of it! I tried all my arts. It was no go. It
was a failure, and I gained nothing but jeers and gibes. I was
indignant, I was choking with anger. I slunk off and would not set foot
in the house. I thought and thought and made up my mind to denounce him.
Well, of course, it was a shabby thing--I meant to give away a friend, I
confess. I had heaps of material and splendid material--a grand case. It
brought me fifteen hundred roubles when I changed it and my report on it
for bank notes! "

"Ah, so that was the bribe! "

"Yes, sir, that was the bribe--and it was a bribe-taker who had to pay
it--and I didn't do wrong, I can assure you! Well, now I will go on: he
drew me, if you will kindly remember, more dead than alive into the room
where they were having tea. They all met me, seeming as it were
offended, that is, not exactly offended, but hurt--so hurt that it was
simply. . . . They seemed shattered, absolutely shattered, and at the same
time there was a look of becoming dignity on their faces, a gravity in
their expression, something fatherly, parental . . . the prodigal son had
come back to them--that's what it had come to! They made me sit down to
tea, but there was no need to do that: I felt as though a samovar was
toiling in my bosom and my feet were like ice. I was humbled, I was
cowed. Marya Fominishna, his wife, addressed me familiarly from the
first word.

"'How is it you have grown so thin, my boy? '

"'I've not been very well, Marya Fominishna,' I said. My wretched voice
shook.

"And then quite suddenly--she must have been waiting for a chance to get
a dig at me, the old snake--she said--

"'I suppose your conscience felt ill at ease, Osip Mihalitch, my dear!