No More Learning

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 any one. 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 any one to take your part: the others, your
companions, will attack you, too, to 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 to-day, 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 any one 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
naïve, almost childish, triumph. I unfolded it. It was a letter to her
from a medical student or some one 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 naïve 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 recognize that truth.
Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and
immediately realizing 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 I O U
with a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before "I had
been keeping it up with some friends at the Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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, she still 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 to-day, she will come
to-morrow; 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 à 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 any one 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 every one. 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. Besides, nothing would have induced him to consent to leave
me. I could not live in furnished lodgings: my lodging was my private
solitude, my shell, my cave, in which I concealed myself from all
mankind, and Apollon seemed to me, for some reason, an integral part of
that flat, and for seven years I could not turn him away.