No More Learning

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.

To be two or three days behind with his wages, for instance, was
impossible. He would have made such a fuss, I should not have known
where to hide my head. But I was so exasperated with every one during
those days, that I made up my mind for some reason and with some object
to _punish_ Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages that
were owing him. I had for a long time--for the last two years--been
intending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himself
airs with me, and to show him that if I liked I could withhold his
wages. I purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposely
silent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be the
first to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles out of
a drawer, show him I have the money put aside on purpose, but that I
won't, I won't, I simply won't pay him his wages, I won't just because
that is "what I wish," because "I am master, and it is for me to
decide," because he has been disrespectful, because he has been rude;
but if he were to ask respectfully I might be softened and give it to
him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, a
whole month. . . .

But angry as I was, yet he got the better of me. I could not hold out
for four days. He began as he always did begin in such cases, for there
had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be
observed I knew all this beforehand, I knew his nasty tactics by heart).
He would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it
up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting me or seeing
me out of the house. If I held out and pretended not to notice these
stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to further tortures. All at
once, _à propos_ of nothing, he would walk softly and smoothly into my
room, when I was pacing up and down or reading, stand at the door, one
hand behind his back and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a
stare more than severe, utterly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him
what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me
persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his
lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and
deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out
again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had
happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but
simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring back at
him. So we stared at one another for two minutes; at last he turned with
deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours.

If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my
revolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long,
deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moral
degradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphing
completely: I raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what he
wanted.

This time the usual staring manoeuvres had scarcely begun when I lost
my temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond endurance
apart from him.

"Stay," I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning,
with one hand behind his back, to go to his room, "stay! Come back, come
back, I tell you! " and I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned
round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in
saying nothing, and that infuriated me.

"How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for?
Answer! "

After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round
again.

"Stay! " I roared, running up to him, "don't stir! There. Answer, now:
what did you come in to look at? "

"If you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he
answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp,
raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to
another, all this with exasperating composure.

"That's not what I am asking you about, you torturer! " I shouted,
turning crimson with anger. "I'll tell you why you came here myself: you
see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow
down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid
stares, to worry me and you have no sus. . . pic. . . ion how stupid it
is--stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! ". . .

He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.

"Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it is"
(I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roubles complete,
but you are not going to have it, you . . . are . . . not . . . going . . . to
. . . have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my
pardon. Do you hear? "

"That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

"It shall be so," I said, "I give you my word of honour, it shall be! "

"And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as
though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you
called me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at the police-station
at any time for insulting behaviour. "

"Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very
second! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer! "

But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls
to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking
round.

"If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I
decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind his
screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating
slowly and violently.

"Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, "go
at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer. "

He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and
taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw.

"At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will
happen. "

"You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising
his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle.
"Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? And as
for being frightened--you are upsetting yourself about nothing, for
nothing will come of it. "

"Go! " I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I should strike
him in a minute.

But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at
that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us
in perplexity. I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to
my room. There, clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned my head
against the wall and stood motionless in that position.

Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps. "There is some
woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity.
Then he stood aside and let in Liza. He would not go away, but stared at
us sarcastically.

"Go away, go away," I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock
began whirring and wheezing and struck seven.


IX

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

I stood before her crushed, crestfallen, revoltingly confused, and I
believe I smiled as I did my utmost to wrap myself in the skirts of my
ragged wadded dressing-gown--exactly as I had imagined the scene not
long before in a fit of depression. After standing over us for a couple
of minutes Apollon went away, but that did not make me more at ease.
What made it worse was that she, too, was overwhelmed with confusion,
more so, in fact, than I should have expected. At the sight of me, of
course.

"Sit down," I said mechanically, moving a chair up to the table, and I
sat down on the sofa. She obediently sat down at once and gazed at me
open-eyed, evidently expecting something from me at once. This naïveté
of expectation drove me to fury, but I restrained myself.

She ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as
usual, while instead of that, she . . . and I dimly felt that I should
make her pay dearly for _all this_.

"You have found me in a strange position, Liza," I began, stammering and
knowing that this was the wrong way to begin. "No, no, don't imagine
anything," I cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. "I am not
ashamed of my poverty. . . . On the contrary I look with pride on my
poverty. I am poor but honourable. . . . One can be poor and honourable," I
muttered. "However . . . would you like tea? ". . .

"No," she was beginning.

"Wait a minute. "

I leapt up and ran to Apollon. I had to get out of the room somehow.

"Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the
seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here
are your wages, you see I give them to you; but for that you must come
to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant. If you
won't go, you'll make me a miserable man! You don't know what this woman
is. . . . This is--everything! You may be imagining something. . . . But you
don't know what that woman is! ". . .

Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles
again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting
down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or
making any answer he went on busying himself with his needle, which he
had not yet threaded. I waited before him for three minutes with my arms
crossed _à la Napoléon_. My temples were moist with sweat. I was pale, I
felt it. But, thank God, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me.
Having threaded his needle he deliberately got up from his seat,
deliberately moved back his chair, deliberately took off his spectacles,
deliberately counted the money, and finally asking me over his shoulder:
"Shall I get a whole portion? " deliberately walked out of the room. As I
was going back to Liza, the thought occurred to me on the way: shouldn't
I run away just as I was in my dressing-gown, no matter where, and then
let happen what would.

I sat down again. She looked at me uneasily. For some minutes we were
silent.

"I will kill him," I shouted suddenly, striking the table with my fist
so that the ink spurted out of the inkstand.

"What are you saying! " she cried, starting.

"I will kill him! kill him! " I shrieked, suddenly striking the table in
absolute frenzy, and at the same time fully understanding how stupid it
was to be in such a frenzy. "You don't know, Liza, what that torturer is
to me. He is my torturer. . . . He has gone now to fetch some rusks;
he. . . . "

And suddenly I burst into tears. It was an hysterical attack. How
ashamed I felt in the midst of my sobs; but still I could not restrain
them.

She was frightened.

"What is the matter? What is wrong? " she cried, fussing about me.

"Water, give me water, over there! " I muttered in a faint voice, though
I was inwardly conscious that I could have got on very well without
water and without muttering in a faint voice. But I was, what is called,
_putting it on_, to save appearances, though the attack was a genuine
one.

She gave me water, looking at me in bewilderment. At that moment Apollon
brought in the tea. It suddenly seemed to me that this commonplace,
prosaic tea was horribly undignified and paltry after all that had
happened, and I blushed crimson. Liza looked at Apollon with positive
alarm. He went out without a glance at either of us.

"Liza, do you despise me? " I asked, looking at her fixedly, trembling
with impatience to know what she was thinking.

She was confused, and did not know what to answer.

"Drink your tea," I said to her angrily. I was angry with myself, but,
of course, it was she who would have to pay for it. A horrible spite
against her suddenly surged up in my heart; I believe I could have
killed her.