Short Stories
of that letter of yours addressed to me, in which you laid down yourself,
though rather vaguely and incoherently, the terms of our agreement in
regard to a circumstance of which I need not remind you. You are afraid of
documents, you destroy them, and you try to make a fool of me. But I won't
allow myself to be made a fool of, for no one has ever considered me one
hitherto, and every one has thought well of me in that respect. I am
opening my eyes. You try and put me off, confuse me with talk of Yevgeny
Nikolaitch, and when with your letter of the seventh of this month, which I
am still at a loss to understand, I seek a personal explanation from you,
you make humbugging appointments, while you keep out of the way. Surely you
do not suppose, sir, that I am not equal to noticing all this? You promised
to reward me for my services, of which you are very well aware, in the way
of introducing various persons, and at the same time, and I don't know how
you do it, you contrive to borrow money from me in considerable sums
without giving a receipt, as happened no longer ago than last week. Now,
having got the money, you keep out of the way, and what's more, you
repudiate the service I have done you in regard to Yevgeny Nikolaitch. You
are probably reckoning on my speedy departure to Simbirsk, and hoping I may
not have time to settle your business. But I assure you solemnly and
testify on my word of honour that if it comes to that, I am prepared to
spend two more months in Petersburg expressly to carry through my business,
to attain my objects, and to get hold of you. For I, too, on occasion know
how to get the better of people. In conclusion, I beg to inform you that if
you do not give me a satisfactory explanation to-day, first in writing, and
then personally face to face, and do not make a fresh statement in your
letter of the chief points of the agreement existing between us, and do not
explain fully your views in regard to Yevgeny Nikolaitch, I shall be
compelled to have recourse to measures that will be highly unpleasant to
you, and indeed repugnant to me also.
Allow me to remain, etc.
V
(FROM PYOTR IVANITCH TO IVAN PETROVITCH)
_November 11._
MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND, IVAN PETROVITCH!
I was cut to the heart by your letter. I wonder you were not ashamed, my
dear but unjust friend, to behave like this to one of your most devoted
friends. Why be in such a hurry, and without explaining things fully, wound
me with such insulting suspicions? But I hasten to reply to your charges.
You did not find me yesterday, Ivan Petrovitch, because I was suddenly and
quite unexpectedly called away to a death-bed. My aunt, Yefimya Nikolaevna,
passed away yesterday evening at eleven o'clock in the night. By the
general consent of the relatives I was selected to make the arrangements
for the sad and sorrowful ceremony. I had so much to do that I had not time
to see you this morning, nor even to send you a line. I am grieved to the
heart at the misunderstanding which has arisen between us. My words about
Yevgeny Nikolaitch uttered casually and in jest you have taken in quite a
wrong sense, and have ascribed to them a meaning deeply offensive to me.
You refer to money and express your anxiety about it. But without wasting
words I am ready to satisfy all your claims and demands, though I must
remind you that the three hundred and fifty roubles I had from you last
week were in accordance with a certain agreement and not by way of a loan.
In the latter case there would certainly have been a receipt. I will not
condescend to discuss the other points mentioned in your letter. I see that
it is a misunderstanding. I see it is your habitual hastiness, hot temper
and obstinacy. I know that your goodheartedness and open character will not
allow doubts to persist in your heart, and that you will be, in fact, the
first to hold out your hand to me. You are mistaken, Ivan Petrovitch, you
are greatly mistaken!
Although your letter has deeply wounded me, I should be prepared even
to-day to come to you and apologise, but I have been since yesterday in
such a rush and flurry that I am utterly exhausted and can scarcely stand
on my feet. To complete my troubles, my wife is laid up; I am afraid she is
seriously ill. Our little boy, thank God, is better; but I must lay down my
pen, I have a mass of things to do and they are urgent. Allow me, my dear
friend, to remain, etc.
VI
(FROM IVAN PETROVITCH TO PYOTR IVANITCH)
_November 14._
DEAR SIR, PYOTR IVANITCH!
I have been waiting for three days, I tried to make a profitable use of
them--meanwhile I feel that politeness and good manners are the greatest of
ornaments for every one. Since my last letter of the tenth of this month, I
have neither by word nor deed reminded you of my existence, partly in order
to allow you undisturbed to perform the duty of a Christian in regard to
your aunt, partly because I needed the time for certain considerations and
investigations in regard to a business you know of. Now I hasten to explain
myself to you in the most thoroughgoing and decisive manner.
I frankly confess that on reading your first two letters I seriously
supposed that you did not understand what I wanted; that was how it was
that I rather sought an interview with you and explanations face to face. I
was afraid of writing, and blamed myself for lack of clearness in the
expression of my thoughts on paper. You are aware that I have not the
advantages of education and good manners, and that I shun a hollow show of
gentility because I have learned from bitter experience how misleading
appearances often are, and that a snake sometimes lies hidden under
flowers. But you understood me; you did not answer me as you should have
done because, in the treachery of your heart, you had planned beforehand to
be faithless to your word of honour and to the friendly relations existing
between us. You have proved this absolutely by your abominable conduct
towards me of late, which is fatal to my interests, which I did not expect
and which I refused to believe till the present moment. From the very
beginning of our acquaintance you captivated me by your clever manners, by
the subtlety of your behaviour, your knowledge of affairs and the
advantages to be gained by association with you. I imagined that I had
found a true friend and well-wisher. Now I recognise clearly that there are
many people who under a flattering and brilliant exterior hide venom in
their hearts, who use their cleverness to weave snares for their neighbour
and for unpardonable deception, and so are afraid of pen and paper, and at
the same time use their fine language not for the benefit of their
neighbour and their country, but to drug and bewitch the reason of those
who have entered into business relations of any sort with them. Your
treachery to me, my dear sir, can be clearly seen from what follows.
In the first place, when, in the clear and distinct terms of my letter, I
described my position, sir, and at the same time asked you in my first
letter what you meant by certain expressions and intentions of yours,
principally in regard to Yevgeny Nikolaitch, you tried for the most part to
avoid answering, and confounding me by doubts and suspicions, you calmly
put the subject aside. Then after treating me in a way which cannot be
described by any seemly word, you began writing that you were wounded.
Pray, what am I to call that, sir? Then when every minute was precious to
me and when you had set me running after you all over the town, you wrote,
pretending personal friendship, letters in which, intentionally avoiding
all mention of business, you spoke of utterly irrelevant matters; to wit,
of the illnesses of your good lady for whom I have, in any case, every
respect, and of how your baby had been dosed with rhubarb and was cutting a
tooth. All this you alluded to in every letter with a disgusting regularity
that was insulting to me. Of course I am prepared to admit that a father's
heart may be torn by the sufferings of his babe, but why make mention of
this when something different, far more important and interesting, was
needed? I endured it in silence, but now when time has elapsed I think it
my duty to explain myself. Finally, treacherously deceiving me several
times by making humbugging appointments, you tried, it seems, to make me
play the part of a fool and a laughing-stock for you, which I never intend
to be. Then after first inviting me and thoroughly deceiving me, you
informed me that you were called away to your suffering aunt who had had a
stroke, precisely at five o'clock as you stated with shameful exactitude.
Luckily for me, sir, in the course of these three days I have succeeded in
making inquiries and have learnt from them that your aunt had a stroke on
the day before the seventh not long before midnight. From this fact I see
that you have made use of sacred family relations in order to deceive
persons in no way concerned with them. Finally, in your last letter you
mention the death of your relatives as though it had taken place precisely
at the time when I was to have visited you to consult about various
business matters. But here the vileness of your arts and calculations
exceeds all belief, for from trustworthy information which I was able by a
lucky chance to obtain just in the nick of time, I have found out that your
aunt died twenty-four hours later than the time you so impiously fixed for
her decease in your letter. I shall never have done if I enumerate all the
signs by which I have discovered your treachery in regard to me. It is
sufficient, indeed, for any impartial observer that in every letter you
style me, your true friend, and call me all sorts of polite names, which
you do, to the best of my belief, for no other object than to put my
conscience to sleep.
I have come now to your principal act of deceit and treachery in regard to
me, to wit, your continual silence of late in regard to everything
concerning our common interests, in regard to your wicked theft of the
letter in which you stated, though in language somewhat obscure and not
perfectly intelligible to me, our mutual agreements, your barbarous
forcible loan of three hundred and fifty roubles which you borrowed from me
as your partner without giving any receipt, and finally, your abominable
slanders of our common acquaintance, Yevgeny Nikolaitch. I see clearly now
that you meant to show me that he was, if you will allow me to say so, like
a billy-goat, good for neither milk nor wool, that he was neither one thing
nor the other, neither fish nor flesh, which you put down as a vice in him
in your letter of the sixth instant. I knew Yevgeny Nikolaitch as a modest
and well-behaved young man, whereby he may well attract, gain and deserve
respect in society. I know also that every evening for the last fortnight
you've put into your pocket dozens and sometimes even hundreds of roubles,
playing games of chance with Yevgeny Nikolaitch. Now you disavow all this,
and not only refuse to compensate me for what I have suffered, but have
even appropriated money belonging to me, tempting me by suggestions that I
should be partner in the affair, and luring me with various advantages
which were to accrue. After having appropriated, in a most illegal way,
money of mine and of Yevgeny Nikolaitch's, you decline to compensate me,
resorting for that object to calumny with which you have unjustifiably
blackened in my eyes a man whom I, by my efforts and exertions, introduced
into your house. While on the contrary, from what I hear from your friends,
you are still almost slobbering over him, and give out to the whole world
that he is your dearest friend, though there is no one in the world such a