Short Stories
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SHORT STORIES
_By_ FIODOR DOSTOIEVSKI
THE WORLD'S
POPULAR CLASSICS
BOOKS, INC.
_PUBLISHERS_
NEW YORK BOSTON
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE
AN HONEST THIEF 1
A NOVEL IN NINE LETTERS 21
AN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENT 36
ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE 101
THE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREE 151
THE PEASANT MAREY 156
THE CROCODILE 163
BOBOK 205
THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN 225
* * * * *
AN HONEST THIEF
One morning, just as I was about to set off to my office, Agrafena, my
cook, washerwoman and housekeeper, came in to me and, to my surprise,
entered into conversation.
She had always been such a silent, simple creature that, except her daily
inquiry about dinner, she had not uttered a word for the last six years. I,
at least, had heard nothing else from her.
"Here I have come in to have a word with you, sir," she began abruptly;
"you really ought to let the little room."
"Which little room?"
"Why, the one next the kitchen, to be sure."
"What for?"
"What for? Why because folks do take in lodgers, to be sure."
"But who would take it?"
"Who would take it? Why, a lodger would take it, to be sure."
"But, my good woman, one could not put a bedstead in it; there wouldn't be
room to move! Who could live in it?"
"Who wants to live there! As long as he has a place to sleep in. Why, he
would live in the window."
"In what window?"
"In what window! As though you didn't know! The one in the passage, to be
sure. He would sit there, sewing or doing anything else. Maybe he would sit
on a chair, too. He's got a chair; and he has a table, too; he's got
everything."
"Who is 'he' then?"
"Oh, a good man, a man of experience. I will cook for him. And I'll ask
him three roubles a month for his board and lodging."
After prolonged efforts I succeeded at last in learning from Agrafena that
an elderly man had somehow managed to persuade her to admit him into the
kitchen as a lodger and boarder. Any notion Agrafena took into her head had
to be carried out; if not, I knew she would give me no peace. When anything
was not to her liking, she at once began to brood, and sank into a deep
dejection that would last for a fortnight or three weeks. During that
period my dinners were spoiled, my linen was mislaid, my floors went
unscrubbed; in short, I had a great deal to put up with. I had observed
long ago that this inarticulate woman was incapable of conceiving a
project, of originating an idea of her own. But if anything like a notion
or a project was by some means put into her feeble brain, to prevent its
being carried out meant, for a time, her moral assassination. And so, as I
cared more for my peace of mind than for anything else, I consented
forthwith.
"Has he a passport anyway, or something of the sort?"
"To be sure, he has. He is a good man, a man of experience; three roubles
he's promised to pay."
The very next day the new lodger made his appearance in my modest bachelor
quarters; but I was not put out by this, indeed I was inwardly pleased. I
lead as a rule a very lonely hermit's existence. I have scarcely any
friends; I hardly ever go anywhere. As I had spent ten years never coming
out of my shell, I had, of course, grown used to solitude. But another ten
or fifteen years or more of the same solitary existence, with the same
Agrafena, in the same bachelor quarters, was in truth a somewhat cheerless
prospect. And therefore a new inmate, if well-behaved, was a heaven-sent
blessing.
Agrafena had spoken truly: my lodger was certainly a man of experience.
From his passport it appeared that he was an old soldier, a fact which I
should have known indeed from his face. An old soldier is easily
recognised. Astafy Ivanovitch was a favourable specimen of his class. We
got on very well together. What was best of all, Astafy Ivanovitch would
sometimes tell a story, describing some incident in his own life. In the
perpetual boredom of my existence such a story-teller was a veritable
treasure. One day he told me one of these stories. It made an impression on
me. The following event was what led to it.
I was left alone in the flat; both Astafy and Agrafena were out on business
of their own. All of a sudden I heard from the inner room somebody--I
fancied a stranger--come in; I went out; there actually was a stranger in
the passage, a short fellow wearing no overcoat in spite of the cold autumn
weather.
"What do you want?"
"Does a clerk called Alexandrov live here?"
"Nobody of that name here, brother. Good-bye."
"Why, the dvornik told me it was here," said my visitor, cautiously
retiring towards the door.
"Be off, be off, brother, get along."
Next day after dinner, while Astafy Ivanovitch was fitting on a coat which
he was altering for me, again some one came into the passage. I half opened
the door.
Before my very eyes my yesterday's visitor, with perfect composure, took my
wadded greatcoat from the peg and, stuffing it under his arm, darted out of
the flat. Agrafena stood all the time staring at him, agape with
astonishment and doing nothing for the protection of my property. Astafy
Ivanovitch flew in pursuit of the thief and ten minutes later came back out
of breath and empty-handed. He had vanished completely.
"Well, there's a piece of luck, Astafy Ivanovitch!"
"It's a good job your cloak is left! Or he would have put you in a plight,
the thief!"
But the whole incident had so impressed Astafy Ivanovitch that I forgot the
theft as I looked at him. He could not get over it. Every minute or two he
would drop the work upon which he was engaged, and would describe over
again how it had all happened, how he had been standing, how the greatcoat
had been taken down before his very eyes, not a yard away, and how it had
come to pass that he could not catch the thief. Then he would sit down to
his work again, then leave it once more, and at last I saw him go down to
the dvornik to tell him all about it, and to upbraid him for letting such a
thing happen in his domain. Then he came back and began scolding Agrafena.
Then he sat down to his work again, and long afterwards he was still
muttering to himself how it had all happened, how he stood there and I was
here, how before our eyes, not a yard away, the thief took the coat off the
peg, and so on. In short, though Astafy Ivanovitch understood his business,
he was a terrible slow-coach and busy-body.
"He's made fools of us, Astafy Ivanovitch," I said to him in the evening,
as I gave him a glass of tea. I wanted to while away the time by recalling
the story of the lost greatcoat, the frequent repetition of which, together
with the great earnestness of the speaker, was beginning to become very
amusing.
"Fools, indeed, sir! Even though it is no business of mine, I am put out.
It makes me angry though it is not my coat that was lost. To my thinking
there is no vermin in the world worse than a thief. Another takes what you
can spare, but a thief steals the work of your hands, the sweat of your
brow, your time ... Ugh, it's nasty! One can't speak of it! it's too
vexing. How is it you don't feel the loss of your property, sir?"
"Yes, you are right, Astafy Ivanovitch, better if the thing had been
burnt; it's annoying to let the thief have it, it's disagreeable."
"Disagreeable! I should think so! Yet, to be sure, there are thieves and
thieves. And I have happened, sir, to come across an honest thief."
"An honest thief? But how can a thief be honest, Astafy Ivanovitch?"
"There you are right indeed, sir. How can a thief be honest? There are none
such. I only meant to say that he was an honest man, sure enough, and yet
he stole. I was simply sorry for him."
"Why, how was that, Astafy Ivanovitch?"
"It was about two years ago, sir. I had been nearly a year out of a place,
and just before I lost my place I made the acquaintance of a poor lost
creature. We got acquainted in a public-house. He was a drunkard, a
vagrant, a beggar, he had been in a situation of some sort, but from his
drinking habits he had lost his work. Such a ne'er-do-weel! God only knows
what he had on! Often you wouldn't be sure if he'd a shirt under his coat;
everything he could lay his hands upon he would drink away. But he was not
one to quarrel; he was a quiet fellow. A soft, good-natured chap. And he'd
never ask, he was ashamed; but you could see for yourself the poor fellow
wanted a drink, and you would stand it him. And so we got friendly, that's
to say, he stuck to me.... It was all one to me. And what a man he was, to
be sure! Like a little dog he would follow me; wherever I went there he
would be; and all that after our first meeting, and he as thin as a
thread-paper! At first it was 'let me stay the night'; well, I let him
stay.
"I looked at his passport, too; the man was all right.
"Well, the next day it was the same story, and then the third day he came
again and sat all day in the window and stayed the night. Well, thinks I,
he is sticking to me; give him food and drink and shelter at night,
too--here am I, a poor man, and a hanger-on to keep as well! And before he
came to me, he used to go in the same way to a government clerk's; he
attached himself to him; they were always drinking together; but he,
through trouble of some sort, drank himself into the grave. My man was
called Emelyan Ilyitch. I pondered and pondered what I was to do with him.
To drive him away I was ashamed. I was sorry for him; such a pitiful,
God-forsaken creature I never did set eyes on. And not a word said either;
he does not ask, but just sits there and looks into your eyes like a dog.
To think what drinking will bring a man down to!
"I keep asking myself how am I to say to him: 'You must be moving,
Emelyanoushka, there's nothing for you here, you've come to the wrong
place; I shall soon not have a bite for myself, how am I to keep you too?'
"I sat and wondered what he'd do when I said that to him. And I seemed to
see how he'd stare at me, if he were to hear me say that, how long he would
sit and not understand a word of it. And when it did get home to him at
last, how he would get up from the window, would take up his bundle--I can
see it now, the red-check handkerchief full of holes, with God knows what
wrapped up in it, which he had always with him, and then how he would set
his shabby old coat to rights, so that it would look decent and keep him
warm, so that no holes would be seen--he was a man of delicate feelings!
And how he'd open the door and go out with tears in his eyes. Well, there's
no letting a man go to ruin like that.... One's sorry for him.
"And then again, I think, how am I off myself? Wait a bit, Emelyanoushka,
says I to myself, you've not long to feast with me: I shall soon be going
away and then you will not find me.
"Well, sir, our family made a move; and Alexandr Filimonovitch, my master
(now deceased, God rest his soul), said, 'I am thoroughly satisfied with
you, Astafy Ivanovitch; when we come back from the country we will take
you on again.' I had been butler with them; a nice gentleman he was, but he
died that same year. Well, after seeing him off, I took my belongings, what