Poor Folk
me as out of a mist; and as it does so, well-known faces appear, which
seem actually to be present with me in this room! Most frequently of
all, I see my mother. Ah, the dreams that come to me! I feel that my
health is breaking, so weak am I. When this morning I arose, sickness
took me until I vomited and vomited. Yes, I feel, I know, that death is
approaching. Who will bury me when it has come? Who will visit my tomb?
Who will sorrow for me? And now it is in a strange place, in the house
of a stranger, that I may have to die! Yes, in a corner which I do not
know!... My God, how sad a thing is life!... Why do you send me comfits
to eat? Whence do you get the money to buy them? Ah, for God’s sake keep
the money, keep the money. Thedora has sold a carpet which I have made.
She got fifty roubles for it, which is very good--I had expected less.
Of the fifty roubles I shall give Thedora three, and with the remainder
make myself a plain, warm dress. Also, I am going to make you a
waistcoat--to make it myself, and out of good material.
Also, Thedora has brought me a book--“The Stories of Bielkin”--which I
will forward you, if you would care to read it. Only, do not soil it,
nor yet retain it, for it does not belong to me. It is by Pushkin. Two
years ago I read these stories with my mother, and it would hurt me
to read them again. If you yourself have any books, pray let me have
them--so long as they have not been obtained from Rataziaev. Probably he
will be giving you one of his own works when he has had one printed. How
is it that his compositions please you so much, Makar Alexievitch? I
think them SUCH rubbish!--Now goodbye. How I have been chattering on!
When feeling sad, I always like to talk of something, for it acts upon
me like medicine--I begin to feel easier as soon as I have uttered what
is preying upon my heart. Good bye, good-bye, my friend--Your own
B. D.
June 28th.
MY DEAREST BARBARA ALEXIEVNA--Away with melancholy! Really, beloved,
you ought to be ashamed of yourself! How can you allow such thoughts to
enter your head? Really and truly you are quite well; really and truly
you are, my darling. Why, you are blooming--simply blooming. True, I see
a certain touch of pallor in your face, but still you are blooming. A
fig for dreams and visions! Yes, for shame, dearest! Drive away those
fancies; try to despise them. Why do I sleep so well? Why am I never
ailing? Look at ME, beloved. I live well, I sleep peacefully, I retain
my health, I can ruffle it with my juniors. In fact, it is a pleasure
to see me. Come, come, then, sweetheart! Let us have no more of this.
I know that that little head of yours is capable of any fancy--that all
too easily you take to dreaming and repining; but for my sake, cease to
do so.
Are you to go to these people, you ask me? Never! No, no, again no! How
could you think of doing such a thing as taking a journey? I will not
allow it--I intend to combat your intention with all my might. I will
sell my frockcoat, and walk the streets in my shirt sleeves, rather than
let you be in want. But no, Barbara. I know you, I know you. This is
merely a trick, merely a trick. And probably Thedora alone is to
blame for it. She appears to be a foolish old woman, and to be able to
persuade you to do anything. Do not believe her, my dearest. I am sure
that you know what is what, as well as SHE does. Eh, sweetheart? She is
a stupid, quarrelsome, rubbish-talking old woman who brought her late
husband to the grave. Probably she has been plaguing you as much as she
did him. No, no, dearest; you must not take this step. What should I do
then? What would there be left for ME to do? Pray put the idea out
of your head. What is it you lack here? I cannot feel sufficiently
overjoyed to be near you, while, for your part, you love me well, and
can live your life here as quietly as you wish. Read or sew, whichever
you like--or read and do not sew. Only, do not desert me. Try, yourself,
to imagine how things would seem after you had gone. Here am I sending
you books, and later we will go for a walk. Come, come, then, my
Barbara! Summon to your aid your reason, and cease to babble of trifles.
As soon as I can I will come and see you, and then you shall tell me the
whole story. This will not do, sweetheart; this certainly will not do.
Of course, I know that I am not an educated man, and have received but a
sorry schooling, and have had no inclination for it, and think too much
of Rataziaev, if you will; but he is my friend, and therefore, I must
put in a word or two for him. Yes, he is a splendid writer. Again and
again I assert that he writes magnificently. I do not agree with
you about his works, and never shall. He writes too ornately, too
laconically, with too great a wealth of imagery and imagination. Perhaps
you have read him without insight, Barbara? Or perhaps you were out of
spirits at the time, or angry with Thedora about something, or worried
about some mischance? Ah, but you should read him sympathetically, and,
best of all, at a time when you are feeling happy and contented and
pleasantly disposed--for instance, when you have a bonbon or two in your
mouth. Yes, that is the way to read Rataziaev. I do not dispute (indeed,
who would do so?) that better writers than he exist--even far better;
but they are good, and he is good too--they write well, and he writes
well. It is chiefly for his own sake that he writes, and he is to be
approved for so doing.
Now goodbye, dearest. More I cannot write, for I must hurry away to
business. Be of good cheer, and the Lord God watch over you!--Your
faithful friend,
MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.
P.S--Thank you so much for the book, darling! I will read it through,
this volume of Pushkin, and tonight come to you.
MY DEAR MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH--No, no, my friend, I must not go on living
near you. I have been thinking the matter over, and come to the
conclusion that I should be doing very wrong to refuse so good a post. I
should at least have an assured crust of bread; I might at least set to
work to earn my employers’ favour, and even try to change my character
if required to do so. Of course it is a sad and sorry thing to have to
live among strangers, and to be forced to seek their patronage, and to
conceal and constrain one’s own personality--but God will help me. I
must not remain forever a recluse, for similar chances have come my way
before. I remember how, when a little girl at school, I used to go home
on Sundays and spend the time in frisking and dancing about. Sometimes
my mother would chide me for so doing, but I did not care, for my heart
was too joyous, and my spirits too buoyant, for that. Yet as the evening
of Sunday came on, a sadness as of death would overtake me, for at nine
o’clock I had to return to school, where everything was cold and strange
and severe--where the governesses, on Mondays, lost their tempers, and
nipped my ears, and made me cry. On such occasions I would retire to a
corner and weep alone; concealing my tears lest I should be called lazy.
Yet it was not because I had to study that I used to weep, and in time I
grew more used to things, and, after my schooldays were over, shed tears
only when I was parting with friends... It is not right for me to live
in dependence upon you. The thought tortures me. I tell you this
frankly, for the reason that frankness with you has become a habit.
Cannot I see that daily, at earliest dawn, Thedora rises to do washing
and scrubbing, and remains working at it until late at night, even
though her poor old bones must be aching for want of rest? Cannot I also
see that YOU are ruining yourself for me, and hoarding your last kopeck
that you may spend it on my behalf? You ought not so to act, my friend,
even though you write that you would rather sell your all than let me
want for anything. I believe in you, my friend--I entirely believe in
your good heart; but, you say that to me now (when, perhaps, you have
received some unexpected sum or gratuity) and there is still the future
to be thought of. You yourself know that I am always ailing--that I
cannot work as you do, glad though I should be of any work if I could
get it; so what else is there for me to do? To sit and repine as I watch
you and Thedora? But how would that be of any use to you? AM I necessary
to you, comrade of mine? HAVE I ever done you any good? Though I am
bound to you with my whole soul, and love you dearly and strongly and
wholeheartedly, a bitter fate has ordained that that love should be all
that I have to give--that I should be unable, by creating for you
subsistence, to repay you for all your kindness. Do not, therefore,
detain me longer, but think the matter out, and give me your opinion on
it. In expectation of which I remain your sweetheart,
B. D.
July 1st.
Rubbish, rubbish, Barbara!--What you say is sheer rubbish. Stay here,
rather, and put such thoughts out of your head. None of what you suppose
is true. I can see for myself that it is not. Whatsoever you lack here,
you have but to ask me for it. Here you love and are loved, and we might
easily be happy and contented together. What could you want more? What
have you to do with strangers? You cannot possibly know what strangers
are like. I know it, though, and could have told you if you had asked
me. There is a stranger whom I know, and whose bread I have eaten. He
is a cruel man, Barbara--a man so bad that he would be unworthy of your
little heart, and would soon tear it to pieces with his railings and
reproaches and black looks. On the other hand, you are safe and well
here--you are as safe as though you were sheltered in a nest. Besides,
you would, as it were, leave me with my head gone. For what should I
have to do when you were gone? What could I, an old man, find to do? Are
you not necessary to me? Are you not useful to me? Eh? Surely you do not
think that you are not useful? You are of great use to me, Barbara, for
you exercise a beneficial influence upon my life. Even at this moment,
as I think of you, I feel cheered, for always I can write letters to
you, and put into them what I am feeling, and receive from you detailed
answers.... I have bought you a wardrobe, and also procured you a
bonnet; so you see that you have only to give me a commission for it to
be executed.... No--in what way are you not useful? What should I do
if I were deserted in my old age? What would become of me? Perhaps you
never thought of that, Barbara--perhaps you never said to yourself, “How
could HE get on without me?” You see, I have grown so accustomed to you.
What else would it end in, if you were to go away? Why, in my hiking to
the Neva’s bank and doing away with myself. Ah, Barbara, darling, I
can see that you want me to be taken away to the Volkovo Cemetery in
a broken-down old hearse, with some poor outcast of the streets to
accompany my coffin as chief mourner, and the gravediggers to heap my
body with clay, and depart and leave me there. How wrong of you, how
wrong of you, my beloved! Yes, by heavens, how wrong of you! I am
returning you your book, little friend; and, if you were to ask of me
my opinion of it, I should say that never before in my life had I read
a book so splendid. I keep wondering how I have hitherto contrived to
remain such an owl. For what have I ever done? From what wilds did
I spring into existence? I KNOW nothing--I know simply NOTHING. My
ignorance is complete. Frankly, I am not an educated man, for until now
I have read scarcely a single book--only “A Portrait of Man” (a clever
enough work in its way), “The Boy Who Could Play Many Tunes Upon Bells”,
and “Ivik’s Storks”. That is all. But now I have also read “The Station
Overseer” in your little volume; and it is wonderful to think that one