Short Stories
Ilyitch lay on the floor absolutely unconscious. Pseldonimov clutched at
his hair and sat as though petrified in that position. The guests made
haste to depart, commenting each in his own way on the incident. It was
about three o'clock in the morning.
* * * * *
The worst of it was that Pseldonimov's circumstances were far worse than
could have been imagined, in spite of the unattractiveness of his present
surroundings. And while Ivan Ilyitch is lying on the floor and Pseldonimov
is standing over him tearing his hair in despair, we will break off the
thread of our story and say a few explanatory words about Porfiry
Petrovitch Pseldonimov.
Not more than a month before his wedding he was in a state of hopeless
destitution. He came from a province where his father had served in some
department and where he had died while awaiting his trial on some charge.
When five months before his wedding, Pseldonimov, who had been in hopeless
misery in Petersburg for a whole year before, got his berth at ten roubles
a month, he revived both physically and mentally, but he was soon crushed
by circumstances again. There were only two Pseldonimovs left in the world,
himself and his mother, who had left the province after her husband's
death. The mother and son barely existed in the freezing cold, and
sustained life on the most dubious substances. There were days when
Pseldonimov himself went with a jug to the Fontanka for water to drink.
When he got his place he succeeded in settling with his mother in a
"corner." She took in washing, while for four months he scraped together
every farthing to get himself boots and an overcoat. And what troubles he
had to endure at his office; his superiors approached him with the
question: "How long was it since he had had a bath?" There was a rumour
about him that under the collar of his uniform there were nests of bugs.
But Pseldonimov was a man of strong character. On the surface he was mild
and meek; he had the merest smattering of education, he was practically
never heard to talk of anything. I do not know for certain whether he
thought, made plans and theories, had dreams. But on the other hand there
was being formed within him an instinctive, furtive, unconscious
determination to fight his way out of his wretched circumstances. He had
the persistence of an ant. Destroy an ants' nest, and they will begin at
once re-erecting it; destroy it again, and they will begin again without
wearying. He was a constructive house-building animal. One could see from
his brow that he would make his way, would build his nest, and perhaps even
save for a rainy day. His mother was the only creature in the world who
loved him, and she loved him beyond everything. She was a woman of
resolute character, hard-working and indefatigable, and at the same time
good-natured. So perhaps they might have lived in their corner for five or
six years till their circumstances changed, if they had not come across the
retired titular councillor Mlekopitaev, who had been a clerk in the
treasury and had served at one time in the provinces, but had latterly
settled in Petersburg and had established himself there with his family. He
knew Pseldonimov, and had at one time been under some obligation to his
father. He had a little money, not a large sum, of course, but there it
was; how much it was no one knew, not his wife, nor his elder daughter, nor
his relations. He had two daughters, and as he was an awful bully, a
drunkard, a domestic tyrant, and in addition to that an invalid, he took it
into his head one day to marry one of his daughters to Pseldonimov: "I knew
his father," he would say, "he was a good fellow and his son will be a good
fellow." Mlekopitaev did exactly as he liked, his word was law. He was a
very queer bully. For the most part he spent his time sitting in an
arm-chair, having lost the use of his legs from some disease which did not,
however, prevent him from drinking vodka. For days together he would be
drinking and swearing. He was an ill-natured man. He always wanted to have
some one whom he could be continually tormenting. And for that purpose he
kept several distant relations: his sister, a sickly and peevish woman; two
of his wife's sisters, also ill-natured and very free with their tongues,
and his old aunt, who had through some accident a broken rib; he kept
another dependent also, a Russianised German, for the sake of her talent
for entertaining him with stories from the _Arabian Nights_. His sole
gratification consisted in jeering at all these unfortunate women and
abusing them every minute with all his energies; though the latter, not
excepting his wife, who had been born with toothache, dared not utter a
word in his presence. He set them at loggerheads at one another, inventing
and fostering spiteful backbiting and dissensions among them, and then
laughed and rejoiced seeing how they were ready to tear one another to
pieces. He was very much delighted when his elder daughter, who had lived
in great poverty for ten years with her husband, an officer of some sort,
and was at last left a widow, came to live with him with three little
sickly children. He could not endure her children, but as her arrival had
increased the material upon which he could work his daily experiments, the
old man was very much pleased. All these ill-natured women and sickly
children, together with their tormentor, were crowded together in a wooden
house on Petersburg Side, and did not get enough to eat because the old man
was stingy and gave out to them money a farthing at a time, though he did
not grudge himself vodka; they did not get enough sleep because the old man
suffered from sleeplessness and insisted on being amused. In short, they
all were in misery and cursed their fate. It was at that time that
Mlekopitaev's eye fell upon Pseldonimov. He was struck by his long nose and
submissive air. His weakly and unprepossessing younger daughter had just
reached the age of seventeen. Though she had at one time attended a German
school, she had acquired scarcely anything but the alphabet. Then she grew
up rickety and anæmic in fear of her crippled drunken father's crutch, in a
Bedlam of domestic backbiting, eavesdropping and scolding. She had never
had any friends or any brains. She had for a long time been eager to be
married. In company she sat mute, but at home with her mother and the women
of the household she was spiteful and cantankerous. She was particularly
fond of pinching and smacking her sister's children, telling tales of their
pilfering bread and sugar, and this led to endless and implacable strife
with her elder sister. Her old father himself offered her to Pseldonimov.
Miserable as the latter's position was, he yet asked for a little time to
consider. His mother and he hesitated for a long time. But with the young
lady there was to come as dowry a house, and though it was a nasty little
wooden house of one storey, yet it was property of a kind. Moreover, they
would give with her four hundred roubles, and how long it would take him to
save it up himself! "What am I taking the man into my house for?" shouted
the drunken bully. "In the first place because you are all females, and I
am sick of female society. I want Pseldonimov, too, to dance to my piping.
For I am his benefactor. And in the second place I am doing it because you
are all cross and don't want it, so I'll do it to spite you. What I have
said, I have said! And you beat her, Porfiry, when she is your wife; she
has been possessed of seven devils ever since she was born. You beat them
out of her, and I'll get the stick ready."
Pseldonimov made no answer, but he was already decided. Before the wedding
his mother and he were taken into the house, washed, clothed, provided with
boots and money for the wedding. The old man took them under his protection
possibly just because the whole family was prejudiced against them. He
positively liked Pseldonimov's mother, so that he actually restrained
himself and did not jeer at her. On the other hand, he made Pseldonimov
dance the Cossack dance a week before the wedding.
"Well, that's enough. I only wanted to see whether you remembered your
position before me or not," he said at the end of the dance. He allowed
just enough money for the wedding, with nothing to spare, and invited all
his relations and acquaintances. On Pseldonimov's side there was no one but
the young man who wrote for the _Firebrand_, and Akim Petrovitch, the guest
of honour. Pseldonimov was perfectly aware that his bride cherished an
aversion for him, and that she was set upon marrying the officer instead of
him. But he put up with everything, he had made a compact with his mother
to do so. The old father had been drunk and abusive and foul-tongued the
whole of the wedding day and during the party in the evening. The whole
family took refuge in the back rooms and were crowded there to suffocation.
The front rooms were devoted to the dance and the supper. At last when the
old man fell asleep dead drunk at eleven o'clock, the bride's mother, who
had been particularly displeased with Pseldonimov's mother that day, made
up her mind to lay aside her wrath, become gracious and join the company.
Ivan Ilyitch's arrival had turned everything upside down. Madame
Mlekopitaev was overcome with embarrassment, and began grumbling that she
had not been told that the general had been invited. She was assured that
he had come uninvited, but was so stupid as to refuse to believe it.
Champagne had to be got. Pseldonimov's mother had only one rouble, while
Pseldonimov himself had not one farthing. He had to grovel before his
ill-natured mother-in-law, to beg for the money for one bottle and then for
another. They pleaded for the sake of his future position in the service,
for his career, they tried to persuade her. She did at last give from her
own purse, but she forced Pseldonimov to swallow such a cupful of gall and
bitterness that more than once he ran into the room where the nuptial couch
had been prepared, and madly clutching at his hair and trembling all over
with impotent rage, he buried his head in the bed destined for the joys of
paradise. No, indeed, Ivan Ilyitch had no notion of the price paid for the
two bottles of Jackson he had drunk that evening. What was the horror, the
misery and even the despair of Pseldonimov when Ivan Ilyitch's visit ended
in this unexpected way. He had a prospect again of no end of misery, and
perhaps a night of tears and outcries from his peevish bride, and
upbraidings from her unreasonable relations. Even apart from this his head
ached already, and there was dizziness and mist before his eyes. And here
Ivan Ilyitch needed looking after, at three o'clock at night he had to
hunt for a doctor or a carriage to take him home, and a carriage it must
be, for it would be impossible to let an ordinary cabby take him home in
that condition. And where could he get the money even for a carriage?
Madame Mlekopitaev, furious that the general had not addressed two words to
her, and had not even looked at her at supper, declared that she had not a
farthing. Possibly she really had not a farthing. Where could he get it?
What was he to do? Yes, indeed, he had good cause to tear his hair.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Ivan Ilyitch was moved to a little leather sofa that stood in the
dining-room. While they were clearing the tables and putting them away,
Pseldonimov was rushing all over the place to borrow money, he even tried
to get it from the servants, but it appeared that nobody had any. He even
ventured to trouble Akim Petrovitch who had stayed after the other guests.
But good-natured as he was, the latter was reduced to such bewilderment and