A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 4

"Let me go, or I shall commit a crime,--set the house on fire or cut some one's throat."--Misha suddenly fell to shaking.--"Order them to restore my garments, and give me a cart to carry me to the highway, and give me a trifling sum of money!"

"But art thou dissatisfied with anything?" I began.

"I cannot live thus!" he roared at the top of his voice.--"I cannot live in your lordly, thrice-d.a.m.ned house! I hate, I am ashamed to live so tranquilly!... How do _you_ manage to endure it?!"

"In other words," I interposed, "thou wishest to say that thou canst not live without liquor...."

"Well, yes! well, yes!" he yelled again.--"Only let me go to my brethren, to my friends, to the beggars!... Away from your n.o.ble, decorous, repulsive race!"

I wanted to remind him of his promise on oath, but the criminal expression of Misha's face, his unrestrained voice, the convulsive trembling of all his limbs--all this was so frightful that I made haste to get rid of him. I informed him that he should receive his clothing at once, that a cart should be harnessed for him; and taking from a casket a twenty-ruble bank-note, I laid it on the table. Misha was already beginning to advance threateningly upon me, but now he suddenly stopped short, his face instantaneously became distorted, and flushed up; he smote his breast, tears gushed from his eyes, and he stammered, --"Uncle!--Angel! I am a lost man, you see!---Thanks! Thanks!"--He seized the bank-note and rushed out of the room.

An hour later he was already seated in a cart, again clad in his Circa.s.sian coat, again rosy and jolly; and when the horses started off he uttered a yell, tore off his tall kazak cap, and waving it above his head, he made bow after bow. Immediately before his departure he embraced me long and warmly, stammering:--"Benefactor, benefactor!... It was impossible to save me!" He even ran in to see the ladies, and kissed their hands over and over again, went down on his knees, appealed to G.o.d, and begged forgiveness! I found Katya in tears later on.

But the coachman who had driven Misha reported to me, on his return, that he had taken him to the first drinking establishment on the highway, and that there he "had got stranded," had begun to stand treat to every one without distinction, and had soon arrived at a state of inebriation.

Since that time I have never met Misha, but I learned his final fate in the following manner.

VIII

Three years later I again found myself in the country; suddenly a servant entered and announced that Madame Polteff was inquiring for me.

I knew no Madame Polteff, and the servant who made the announcement was grinning in a sarcastic sort of way, for some reason or other. In reply to my questioning glance he said that the lady who was asking for me was young, poorly clad, and had arrived in a peasant-cart drawn by one horse which she was driving herself! I ordered that Madame Polteff should be requested to do me the favour to step into my study.

I beheld a woman of five-and-twenty,--belonging to the petty burgher cla.s.s, to judge from her attire,--with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, rather round in contour, not devoid of agreeability; her gaze was downcast and rather melancholy, her movements were embarra.s.sed.

"Are you Madame Polteff?" I asked, inviting her to be seated.

"Just so, sir," she answered, in a low voice, and without sitting down.--"I am the widow of your nephew, Mikhail Andreevitch Polteff."

"Is Mikhail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long?--But sit down, I beg of you."

She dropped down on a chair.

"This is the second month since he died."

"And were you married to him long ago?"

"I lived with him one year in all."

"And whence come you now?"

"I come from the vicinity of Tula.... There is a village there called Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you deign to know it. I am the daughter of the s.e.xton there. Mikhail Andreitch and I lived there.... He settled down with my father. We lived together a year in all." The young woman's lips twitched slightly, and she raised her hand to them. She seemed to be getting ready to cry, but conquered herself, and cleared her throat.

"The late Mikhail Andreitch, before his death," she went on, "bade me go to you. 'Be sure to go,' he said. And he told me that I was to thank you for all your goodness, and transmit to you ... this ... trifle" (she drew from her pocket a small package), "which he always carried on his person.... And Mikhail Andreitch said, Wouldn't you be so kind as to accept it in memory--that you must not scorn it.... 'I have nothing else to give him,' ... meaning you ... he said...."

In the packet was a small silver cup with the monogram of Mikhail's mother. This tiny cup I had often seen in Mikhail's hands; and once he had even said to me, in speaking of a pauper, that he must be stripped bare, since he had neither cup nor bowl, "while I have this here," he said.

I thanked her, took the cup and inquired, "Of what malady did Mikhail Andreitch die?--Probably...."

Here I bit my tongue, but the young woman understood my unspoken thought.... She darted a swift glance at me, then dropped her eyes, smiled sadly, and immediately said, "Akh, no! He had abandoned that entirely from the time he made my acquaintance.... Only, what health had he?!... It was utterly ruined. As soon as he gave up drinking, his malady immediately manifested itself. He became so steady, he was always wanting to help my father, either in the household affairs, or in the vegetable garden ... or whatever other work happened to be on hand ...

in spite of the fact that he was of n.o.ble birth. Only, where was he to get the strength?... And he would have liked to busy himself in the department of writing also,--he knew how to do that beautifully, as you are aware; but his hands shook so, and he could not hold the pen properly.... He was always reproaching himself: 'I'm an idle dog,' he said. 'I have done no one any good, I have helped no one, I have not toiled!' He was very much afflicted over that same.... He used to say, 'Our people toil, but what are we doing?...' Akh, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a fine man--and he loved me ... and I.... Akh, forgive me...."

Here the young woman actually burst into tears. I would have liked to comfort her, but I did not know how.

"Have you a baby?" I asked at last.

She sighed.--"No, I have not.... How could I have?"--And here tears streamed worse than before.

So this was the end of Misha's wanderings through tribulations [old P.

concluded his story].--You will agree with me, gentlemen, as a matter of course, that I had a right to call him reckless; but you will probably also agree with me that he did not resemble the reckless fellows of the present day, although we must suppose that any philosopher would find traits of similarity between him and them. In both cases there is the thirst for self-annihilation, melancholy, dissatisfaction.... And what that springs from I will permit precisely that philosopher to decide.

THE DREAM

(1876)

I

I was living with my mother at the time, in a small seaport town. I was just turned seventeen, and my mother was only thirty-five; she had married very young. When my father died I was only seven years old; but I remembered him well. My mother was a short, fair-haired woman, with a charming, but permanently-sad face, a quiet, languid voice, and timid movements. In her youth she had borne the reputation of a beauty, and as long as she lived she remained attractive and pretty. I have never beheld more profound, tender, and melancholy eyes. I adored her, and she loved me.... But our life was not cheerful; it seemed as though some mysterious, incurable and undeserved sorrow were constantly sapping the root of her existence. This sorrow could not be explained by grief for my father alone, great as that was, pa.s.sionately as my mother had loved him, sacredly as she cherished his memory.... No! there was something else hidden there which I did not understand, but which I felt,--felt confusedly and strongly as soon as I looked at those quiet, impa.s.sive eyes, at those very beautiful but also impa.s.sive lips, which were not bitterly compressed, but seemed to have congealed for good and all.

I have said that my mother loved me; but there were moments when she spurned me, when my presence was burdensome, intolerable to her. At such times she felt, as it were, an involuntary aversion for me--and was terrified afterward, reproaching herself with tears and clasping me to her heart. I attributed these momentary fits of hostility to her shattered health, to her unhappiness.... These hostile sentiments might have been evoked, it is true, in a certain measure, by some strange outbursts, which were incomprehensible even to me myself, of wicked and criminal feelings which occasionally arose in me....

But these outbursts did not coincide with the moments of repulsion.--My mother constantly wore black, as though she were in mourning. We lived on a rather grand scale, although we a.s.sociated with no one.

II

My mother concentrated upon me all her thoughts and cares. Her life was merged in my life. Such relations between parents and children are not always good for the children ... they are more apt to be injurious.

Moreover I was my mother's only child ... and only children generally develop irregularly. In rearing them the parents do not think of themselves so much as they do of them.... That is not practical. I did not get spoiled, and did not grow obstinate (both these things happen with only children), but my nerves were unstrung before their time; in addition to which I was of rather feeble health--I took after my mother, to whom I also bore a great facial resemblance. I shunned the society of lads of my own age; in general, I was shy of people; I even talked very little with my mother. I was fonder of reading than of anything else, and of walking alone--and dreaming, dreaming! What my dreams were about it would be difficult to say. It sometimes seemed to me as though I were standing before a half-open door behind which were concealed hidden secrets,--standing and waiting, and swooning with longing--yet not crossing the threshold; and always meditating as to what there was yonder ahead of me--and always waiting and longing ... or falling into slumber. If the poetic vein had throbbed in me I should, in all probability, have taken to writing verses; if I had felt an inclination to religious devoutness I might have become a monk; but there was nothing of the sort about me, and I continued to dream--and to wait.