Poor Folk
o’clock before I reached the office. Arriving, I tried to clean myself
up a little, but Sniegirev, the porter, said that it was impossible for
me to do so, and that I should only spoil the brush, which belonged to
the Government. Thus, my darling, do such fellows rate me lower than
the mat on which they wipe their boots! What is it that will most
surely break me? It is not the want of money, but the LITTLE worries
of life--these whisperings and nods and jeers. Any day his Excellency
himself may round upon me. Ah, dearest, my golden days are gone. Today I
have spent in reading your letters through; and the reading of them has
made me sad. Goodbye, my own, and may the Lord watch over you!
M. DIEVUSHKIN.
P.S.--To conceal my sorrow I would have written this letter half
jestingly; but, the faculty of jesting has not been given me. My one
desire, however, is to afford you pleasure. Soon I will come and see
you, dearest. Without fail I will come and see you.
August 11th.
O Barbara Alexievna, I am undone--we are both of us undone! Both of
us are lost beyond recall! Everything is ruined--my reputation, my
self-respect, all that I have in the world! And you as much as I. Never
shall we retrieve what we have lost. I--I have brought you to this pass,
for I have become an outcast, my darling. Everywhere I am laughed at
and despised. Even my landlady has taken to abusing me. Today she
overwhelmed me with shrill reproaches, and abased me to the level of a
hearth-brush. And last night, when I was in Rataziaev’s rooms, one of
his friends began to read a scribbled note which I had written to
you, and then inadvertently pulled out of my pocket. Oh beloved, what
laughter there arose at the recital! How those scoundrels mocked and
derided you and myself! I walked up to them and accused Rataziaev of
breaking faith. I said that he had played the traitor. But he only
replied that I had been the betrayer in the case, by indulging in
various amours. “You have kept them very dark though, Mr. Lovelace!”
said he--and now I am known everywhere by this name of “Lovelace.” They
know EVERYTHING about us, my darling, EVERYTHING--both about you and
your affairs and about myself; and when today I was for sending Phaldoni
to the bakeshop for something or other, he refused to go, saying that
it was not his business. “But you MUST go,” said I. “I will not,” he
replied. “You have not paid my mistress what you owe her, so I am not
bound to run your errands.” At such an insult from a raw peasant I lost
my temper, and called him a fool; to which he retorted in a similar
vein. Upon this I thought that he must be drunk, and told him so;
whereupon he replied: “WHAT say you that I am? Suppose you yourself go
and sober up, for I know that the other day you went to visit a woman,
and that you got drunk with her on two grivenniks.” To such a pass have
things come! I feel ashamed to be seen alive. I am, as it were, a man
proclaimed; I am in a worse plight even than a tramp who has lost his
passport. How misfortunes are heaping themselves upon me! I am lost--I
am lost for ever!
M. D.
August 13th.
MY BELOVED MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH,--It is true that misfortune is following
upon misfortune. I myself scarcely know what to do. Yet, no matter how
you may be fairing, you must not look for help from me, for only today I
burned my left hand with the iron! At one and the same moment I dropped
the iron, made a mistake in my work, and burned myself! So now I can no
longer work. Also, these three days past, Thedora has been ailing.
My anxiety is becoming positively torturous. Nevertheless, I send you
thirty kopecks--almost the last coins that I have left to me, much as I
should have liked to have helped you more when you are so much in need.
I feel vexed to the point of weeping. Goodbye, dear friend of mine. You
will bring me much comfort if only you will come and see me today.
B. D.
August 14th.
What is the matter with you, Makar Alexievitch? Surely you cannot
fear the Lord God as you ought to do? You are not only driving me to
distraction but also ruining yourself with this eternal solicitude for
your reputation. You are a man of honour, nobility of character, and
self-respect, as everyone knows; yet, at any moment, you are ready to
die with shame! Surely you should have more consideration for your grey
hairs. No, the fear of God has departed from you. Thedora has told you
that it is out of my power to render you anymore help. See, therefore,
to what a pass you have brought me! Probably you think it is nothing to
me that you should behave so badly; probably you do not realise what you
have made me suffer. I dare not set foot on the staircase here, for if
I do so I am stared at, and pointed at, and spoken about in the most
horrible manner. Yes, it is even said of me that I am “united to a
drunkard.” What a thing to hear! And whenever you are brought home drunk
folk say, “They are carrying in that tchinovnik.” THAT is not the proper
way to make me help you. I swear that I MUST leave this place, and go
and get work as a cook or a laundress. It is impossible for me to stay
here. Long ago I wrote and asked you to come and see me, yet you have
not come. Truly my tears and prayers must mean NOTHING to you, Makar
Alexievitch! Whence, too, did you get the money for your debauchery? For
the love of God be more careful of yourself, or you will be ruined. How
shameful, how abominable of you! So the landlady would not admit you
last night, and you spent the night on the doorstep? Oh, I know all
about it. Yet if only you could have seen my agony when I heard the
news!... Come and see me, Makar Alexievitch, and we will once more be
happy together. Yes, we will read together, and talk of old times, and
Thedora shall tell you of her pilgrimages in former days. For God’s sake
beloved, do not ruin both yourself and me. I live for you alone; it
is for your sake alone that I am still here. Be your better self once
more--the self which still can remain firm in the face of misfortune.
Poverty is no crime; always remember that. After all, why should we
despair? Our present difficulties will pass away, and God will right
us. Only be brave. I send you two grivenniks for the purchase of some
tobacco or anything else that you need; but, for the love of heaven, do
not spend the money foolishly. Come you and see me soon; come without
fail. Perhaps you may be ashamed to meet me, as you were before, but you
NEED not feel like that--such shame would be misplaced. Only do bring
with you sincere repentance and trust in God, who orders all things for
the best.
B. D.
August 19th.
MY DEAREST BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,-Yes, I AM ashamed to meet you, my
darling--I AM ashamed. At the same time, what is there in all this? Why
should we not be cheerful again? Why should I mind the soles of my feet
coming through my boots? The sole of one’s foot is a mere bagatelle--it
will never be anything but just a base, dirty sole. And shoes do not
matter, either. The Greek sages used to walk about without them, so why
should we coddle ourselves with such things? Yet why, also, should I
be insulted and despised because of them? Tell Thedora that she is a
rubbishy, tiresome, gabbling old woman, as well as an inexpressibly
foolish one. As for my grey hairs, you are quite wrong about them,
inasmuch as I am not such an old man as you think. Emelia sends you
his greeting. You write that you are in great distress, and have been
weeping. Well, I too am in great distress, and have been weeping. Nay,
nay. I wish you the best of health and happiness, even as I am well and
happy myself, so long as I may remain, my darling,--Your friend,
MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.
August 21st.
MY DEAR AND KIND BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,--I feel that I am guilty, I feel
that I have sinned against you. Yet also I feel, from what you say, that
it is no use for me so to feel. Even before I had sinned I felt as I do
now; but I gave way to despair, and the more so as recognised my fault.
Darling, I am not cruel or hardhearted. To rend your little soul would
be the act of a blood-thirsty tiger, whereas I have the heart of a
sheep. You yourself know that I am not addicted to bloodthirstiness,
and therefore that I cannot really be guilty of the fault in question,
seeing that neither my mind nor my heart have participated in it.
Nor can I understand wherein the guilt lies. To me it is all a mystery.
When you sent me those thirty kopecks, and thereafter those two
grivenniks, my heart sank within me as I looked at the poor little
money. To think that though you had burned your hand, and would soon be
hungry, you could write to me that I was to buy tobacco! What was I to
do? Remorselessly to rob you, an orphan, as any brigand might do? I
felt greatly depressed, dearest. That is to say, persuaded that I should
never do any good with my life, and that I was inferior even to the
sole of my own boot, I took it into my head that it was absurd for me to
aspire at all--rather, that I ought to account myself a disgrace and an
abomination. Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has decided to
abjure his better qualities and human dignity, he falls headlong, and
cannot choose but do so. It is decreed of fate, and therefore I am not
guilty in this respect. That evening I went out merely to get a breath
of fresh air, but one thing followed another--the weather was cold, all
nature was looking mournful, and I had fallen in with Emelia. This man
had spent everything that he possessed, and, at the time I met him, had
not for two days tasted a crust of bread. He had tried to raise money by
pawning, but what articles he had for the purpose had been refused by
the pawnbrokers. It was more from sympathy for a fellow-man than from
any liking for the individual that I yielded. That is how the fault
arose, dearest. He spoke of you, and I mingled my tears with his. Yes,
he is a man of kind, kind heart--a man of deep feeling. I often feel as
he did, dearest, and, in addition, I know how beholden to you I am. As
soon as ever I got to know you I began both to realise myself and to
love you; for until you came into my life I had been a lonely man--I had
been, as it were, asleep rather than alive. In former days my rascally
colleagues used to tell me that I was unfit even to be seen; in fact,
they so disliked me that at length I began to dislike myself, for, being
frequently told that I was stupid, I began to believe that I really was
so. But the instant that YOU came into my life, you lightened the dark
places in it, you lightened both my heart and my soul. Gradually, I
gained rest of spirit, until I had come to see that I was no worse than
other men, and that, though I had neither style nor brilliancy nor
polish, I was still a MAN as regards my thoughts and feelings. But now,
alas! pursued and scorned of fate, I have again allowed myself to abjure
my own dignity. Oppressed of misfortune, I have lost my courage. Here is
my confession to you, dearest. With tears I beseech you not to inquire
further into the matter, for my heart is breaking, and life has grown
indeed hard and bitter for me--Beloved, I offer you my respect, and
remain ever your faithful friend,
MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.
September 3rd.
The reason why I did not finish my last letter, Makar Alexievitch, was
that I found it so difficult to write. There are moments when I am glad
to be alone--to grieve and repine without any one to share my sorrow:
and those moments are beginning to come upon me with ever-increasing
frequency. Always in my reminiscences I find something which is
inexplicable, yet strongly attractive--so much so that for hours together
I remain insensible to my surroundings, oblivious of reality. Indeed,
in my present life there is not a single impression that I