The Bet, and other stories
“Ah, let me alone!” Byelyaev waved his hand. “This is something more
important than any words of honour. The hypocrisy revolts me, the lie!”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Olga Ivanovna, and tears began to
glimmer in her eyes. “Tell me, Lyolka,”--she turned to her son, “Do you
see your father?”
Alyosha did not hear and looked with horror at Byelyaev.
“It’s impossible,” said the mother. “I’ll go and ask Pelagueia.”
Olga Ivanovna went out.
“But, but you gave me your word of honour,” Alyosha said trembling all
over.
Byelyaev waved his hand at him and went on walking up and down. He
was absorbed in his insult, and now, as before, he did not notice the
presence of the boy. He, a big serious man, had nothing to do with
boys. And Alyosha sat down in a corner and in terror told Sonya how he
had been deceived. He trembled, stammered, wept. This was the first
time in his life that he had been set, roughly, face to face with a
lie. He had never known before that in this world besides sweet pears
and cakes and expensive watches, there exist many other things which
have no name in children’s language.
A GENTLEMAN FRIEND
When she came out of the hospital the charming Vanda, or, according to
her passport, “the honourable lady-citizen Nastasya Kanavkina,” found
herself in a position in which she had never been before: without a
roof and without a son. What was to be done?
First of all, she went to a pawnshop to pledge her turquoise ring,
her only jewellery. They gave her a rouble for the ring ... but what
can you buy for a rouble? For that you can’t get a short jacket _à
la mode_, or an elaborate hat, or a pair of brown shoes; yet without
these things she felt naked. She felt as though, not only the people,
but even the horses and dogs were staring at her and laughing at the
plainness of her clothes. And her only thought was for her clothes; she
did not care at all what she ate or where she slept.
“If only I were to meet a gentleman friend....” she thought. “I could
get some money ... Nobody would say ‘No,’ because....”
But she came across no gentleman friends. It’s easy to find them of
nights in the _Renaissance,_ but they wouldn’t let her go into the
_Renaissance_ in that plain dress and without a hat. What’s to be done?
After a long time of anguish, vexed and weary with walking, sitting,
and thinking, Vanda made up her mind to play her last card: to go
straight to the rooms of some gentleman friend and ask him for money.
“But who shall I go to?” she pondered. “I can’t possibly go to
Misha ... he’s got a family.... The ginger-headed old man is at his
office....”
Vanda recollected Finkel, the dentist, the converted Jew, who gave her
a bracelet three months ago. Once she poured a glass of beer on his
head at the German club. She was awfully glad that she had thought of
Finkel.
“He’ll be certain to give me some, if only I find him in...” she
thought, on her way to him. “And if he won’t, then I’ll break every
single thing there.”
She had her plan already prepared. She approached the dentist’s door.
She would run up the stairs, with a laugh, fly into his private room
and ask for twenty-five roubles.... But when she took hold of the
bell-pull, the plan went clean out of her head. Vanda suddenly began to
be afraid and agitated, a thing which had never happened to her before.
She was never anything but bold and independent in drunken company;
but now, dressed in common clothes, and just like any ordinary person
begging a favour, she felt timid and humble.
“Perhaps he has forgotten me...” she thought, not daring to pull the
bell. “And how can I go up to him in a dress like this? As if I were a
pauper, or a dowdy respectable...”
She rang the bell irresolutely.
There were steps behind the door. It was the porter.
“Is the doctor at home?” she asked.
She would have been very pleased now if the porter had said “No,”
but instead of answering he showed her into the hall, and took her
jacket. The stairs seemed to her luxurious and magnificent, but what
she noticed first of all in all the luxury was a large mirror in
which she saw a ragged creature without an elaborate hat, without a
modish jacket, and without a pair of brown shoes. And Vanda found it
strange that, now that she was poorly dressed and looking more like a
seamstress or a washerwoman, for the first time she felt ashamed, and
had no more assurance or boldness left. In her thoughts she began to
call herself Nastya Kanavkina, instead of Vanda as she used.
“This way, please!” said the maid-servant, leading her to the private
room. “The doctor will be here immediately.... Please, take a seat.”
Vanda dropped into an easy chair.
“I’ll say: ‘Lend me ...’” she thought. “That’s the right thing, because
we are acquainted. But the maid must go out of the room.... It’s
awkward in front of the maid.... What is she standing there for?”
In five minutes the door opened and Finkel entered--a tall, swarthy,
convert Jew, with fat cheeks and goggle-eyes. His cheeks, eyes,
belly, fleshy hips--were all so full, repulsive, and coarse! At the
_Renaissance_ and the German club he used always to be a little drunk,
to spend a lot of money on women, patiently put up with all their
tricks--for instance, when Vanda poured the beer on his head, he only
smiled and shook his finger at her--but now he looked dull and sleepy;
he had the pompous, chilly expression of a superior, and he was chewing
something.
“What is the matter?” he asked, without looking at Vanda. Vanda glanced
at the maid’s serious face, at the blown-out figure of Finkel, who
obviously did not recognise her, and she blushed.
“What’s the matter?” the dentist repeated, irritated.
“To ... oth ache....” whispered Vanda.
“Ah ... which tooth ... where?”
Vanda remembered she had a tooth with a hole.
“At the bottom ... to the right,” she said.
“H’m ... open your mouth.”
Finkel frowned, held his breath, and began to work the aching tooth
loose.
“Do you feel any pain?” he asked, picking at her tooth with some
instrument.
“Yes, I do....” Vanda lied. “Shall I remind him?” she thought, “he’ll
be sure to remember.... But ... the maid ... what is she standing
there for?”
Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine straight into her mouth,
and said:
“I don’t advise you to have a stopping.... Anyhow the tooth is quite
useless.”
Again he picked at the tooth for a little, and soiled Vanda’s lips and
gums with his tobacco-stained fingers. Again he held his breath and
dived into her mouth with something cold....
Vanda suddenly felt a terrible pain, shrieked and seized Finkel’s
hand....
“Never mind....” he murmured. “Don’t be frightened.... This tooth isn’t
any use.”
And his tobacco-stained fingers, covered with blood, held up the
extracted tooth before her eyes. The maid came forward and put a bowl
to her lips.
“Rinse your mouth with cold water at home,” said Finkel. “That will
make the blood stop.”
He stood before her in the attitude of a man impatient to be left alone
at last.
“Good-bye ...” she said, turning to the door.
“H’m! And who’s to pay me for the work?” Finkel asked laughingly.
“Ah ... yes!” Vanda recollected, blushed and gave the dentist the
rouble she had got for the turquoise ring.
When she came into the street she felt still more ashamed than before,
but she was not ashamed of her poverty any more. Nor did she notice any
more that she hadn’t an elaborate hat or a modish jacket. She walked
along the street spitting blood and each red spittle told her about
her life, a bad, hard life; about the insults she had suffered and had
still to suffer--to-morrow, a week, a year hence--her whole life, till
death....
“Oh, how terrible it is!” she whispered. “My God, how terrible!”
But the next day she was at the _Renaissance_ and she danced there. She
wore a new, immense red hat, a new jacket _à la mode_ and a pair of
brown shoes. She was treated to supper by a young merchant from Kazan.
OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS
This happened not so very long ago in the Moscow Circuit Court. The
jurymen, left in court for the night, before going to bed, began a
conversation about overwhelming sensations. It was occasioned by
someone’s recollection of a witness who became a stammerer and turned
grey, owing, as he said, to one dreadful moment. The jurymen decided
before going to bed that each one of them should dig into his memories
and tell a story. Life is short; but still there is not a single man
who can boast that he had not had some dreadful moments in his past.
One juryman related how he was nearly drowned. A second told how one
night he poisoned his own child, in a place where there was neither
doctor nor chemist, by giving the child white copperas in mistake for
soda. The child did not die, but the father nearly went mad. A third,
not an old man, but sickly, described his two attempts to commit
suicide. Once he shot himself; the second time he threw himself in
front of a train.
The fourth, a short, stout man, smartly dressed, told the following
story:
“I was no more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, when I fell
head over heels in love with my present wife and proposed to her. Now,
I would gladly give myself a thrashing for that early marriage; but
then--well, I don’t know what would have happened to me if Natasha
had refused. My love was most ardent, the kind described in novels as
mad, passionate, and so on. My happiness choked me, and I did not know
how to escape from it. I bored my father, my friends, the servants
by continually telling them how desperately I was in love. Happy
people are quite the most tiresome and boring. I used to be awfully
exasperating. Even now I’m ashamed.
“At the time I had a newly-called barrister among my friends. The
barrister is now known all over Russia, but then he was only at the
beginning of his popularity, and he was not rich or famous enough to
have the right not to recognise a friend when he met him or not to
raise his hat. I used to go and see him once or twice a week.
“When I came, we used both to stretch ourselves upon the sofas and
begin to philosophise.
“Once I lay on the sofa, harping on the theme that there is no more
ungrateful profession than a barrister’s. I tried to show that after
the witnesses have been heard the Court can easily dispense with
the Crown Prosecutor and the barrister, because they are equally
unnecessary and only hindrances. If an adult juryman, sound in spirit
and mind, is convinced that this ceiling is white, or that Ivanov
is guilty, no Demosthenes has the power to fight and overcome his
conviction. Who can convince me that my moustache is carroty when
I know it is black? When I listen to an orator I may perhaps get
sentimental and even shed a tear, but my rooted convictions, for the
most part based on the obvious and on facts, will not be changed an
atom. My friend the barrister contended that I was still young and
silly and was talking childish nonsense. In his opinion an obvious fact
when illumined by conscientious experts became still more obvious.
That was his first point. His second was that a talent is a force, an
elemental power, a hurricane, that is able to turn even stones to dust,
not to speak of such trifles as the convictions of householders and
small shopkeepers. It is as hard for human frailty to struggle against
a talent as it is to look at the sun without being blinded or to stop
the wind. By the power of the word one single mortal converts thousands
of convinced savages to Christianity. Ulysses was the most convinced
person in the world, but he was all submission before the Syrens, and
so on. All history is made up of such instances. In life we meet them
at every turn. And so it ought to be; otherwise a clever person of