The Bet, and other stories
talent would not be preferred before the stupid and untalented.
“I persisted and continued to argue that a conviction is stronger than
any talent, though, speaking frankly, I myself could not define what
exactly is a conviction and what is a talent. Probably I talked only
for the sake of talking.
“‘Take even your own case’ ... said the barrister. ‘You are convinced
that your _fiancée_ is an angel and that there’s not a man in all the
town happier than you. I tell you, ten or twenty minutes would be quite
enough for me to make you sit down at this very table and write to
break off the engagement.’
“I began to laugh.
“‘Don’t laugh. I’m talking seriously,’ said my friend. ‘If I only had
the desire, in twenty minutes you would be happy in the thought that
you have been saved from marriage. My talent is not great, but neither
are you strong?’
“‘Well, try, please,’ I said.
“‘No, why should I? I only said it in passing. You’re a good boy. It
would be a pity to expose you to such an experiment. Besides, I’m not
in the mood, to-day.’
“We sat down to supper. The wine and thoughts of Natasha and my love
utterly filled me with a sense of youth and happiness. My happiness was
so infinitely great that the green-eyed barrister opposite me seemed so
unhappy, so little, so grey!”
“‘But do try,’ I pressed him. ‘I beg you.’
“The barrister shook his head and knit his brows. Evidently I had begun
to bore him.
“‘I know,’ he said, ‘that when the experiment is over you will thank
me and call me saviour, but one must think of your sweetheart too. She
loves you, and your refusal would make her suffer. But what a beauty
she is! I envy you.’
“The barrister sighed, swallowed some wine, and began to speak of
what a wonderful creature my Natasha was. He had an uncommon gift for
description. He could pour out a whole heap of words about a woman’s
eyelashes or her little finger. I listened to him with delight.
“‘I’ve seen many women in my life-time;’ he said, ‘but I give you my
word of honour, I tell you as a friend, your Natasha Andreevna is a
gem, a rare girl! Of course, there are defects, even a good many, I
grant you, but still she is charming.’
“And the barrister began to speak of the defects of my sweetheart.
Now I quite understand it was a general conversation about women,
one about their weak points in general; but it appeared to me then
as though he was speaking only of Natasha. He went into raptures
about her snub-nose, her excited voice, her shrill laugh, her
affectation--indeed, about everything I particularly disliked in
her. All this was in his opinion infinitely amiable, gracious and
feminine. Imperceptibly he changed from enthusiasm first to paternal
edification, then to a light, sneering tone.... There was no Chairman
of the Bench with us to stop the barrister riding the high horse. I
hadn’t a chance of opening my mouth--and what could I have said? My
friend said nothing new, his truths were long familiar. The poison was
not at all in what he said, but altogether in the devilish form in
which he said it. A form of Satan’s own invention! As I listened to him
I was convinced that one and the same word had a thousand meanings and
nuances according to the way it is pronounced and the turn given to the
sentence. I certainly cannot reproduce the tone or the form. I can only
say that as I listened to my friend and paced from corner to corner
of my room, I was revolted, exasperated, contemptuous according as he
felt. I even believed him when, with tears in his eyes, he declared to
me that I was a great man, deserving a better fate, and destined in the
future to accomplish some remarkable exploit, from which I might be
prevented by my marriage.
“‘My dear friend,’ he exclaimed, firmly grasping my hand, ‘I implore
you, I command you: stop before it is too late. Stop! God save you from
this strange and terrible mistake! My friend, don’t ruin your youth.’
“Believe me or not as you will, but finally I sat down at the table
and wrote to my sweetheart breaking off the engagement. I wrote and
rejoiced that there was still time to repair my mistake. When the
envelope was sealed I hurried into the street to put it in a pillar
box. The barrister came with me.
“‘Splendid! Superb!’ he praised me when my letter to Natasha
disappeared into the darkness of the pillar-box. ‘I congratulate you
with all my heart. I’m delighted for your sake.’
“After we had gone about ten steps together, the barrister continued:
“‘Of course, marriage has its bright side too. I, for instance, belong
to the kind of men for whom marriage and family life are everything.’
“He was already describing his life: all the ugliness of a lonely
bachelor existence appeared before me.
“He spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, of the pleasures of an
ordinary family life, and his transports were so beautiful and sincere
that I was in absolute despair by the time we reached his door.
“‘What are you doing with me, you damnable man?’ I said panting.
‘You’ve ruined me! Why did you make me write that cursed letter? I love
her! I love her!’
“And I swore that I was in love. I was terrified of my action. It
already seemed wild and absurd to me. Gentlemen, it is quite impossible
to imagine a more overwhelming sensation than mine at that moment! If a
kind man had happened to slip a revolver into my hand I would have put
a bullet through my head gladly.
“‘Well, that’s enough, enough!’ the advocate said, patting my shoulder
and beginning to laugh. ‘Stop crying! The letter won’t reach your
sweetheart. It was I, not you, wrote the address on the envelope, and I
muddled it up so that they won’t be able to make anything of it at the
post-office. But let this be a lesson to you. Don’t discuss things you
don’t understand.’”
“Now, gentlemen, next, please.”
The fifth juryman had settled himself comfortably and already opened
his mouth to begin his story, when we heard the clock striking from
Spaisky Church-tower.
“Twelve....” one of the jurymen counted. “To which class, gentlemen,
would you assign the sensations which our prisoner at the bar is now
feeling? The murderer passes the night here in a prisoner’s cell,
either lying or sitting, certainly without sleeping and all through
the sleepless night listens to the striking of the hours. What does he
think of? What dreams visit him?”
And all the jurymen suddenly forgot about overwhelming sensations. The
experience of their friend, who once wrote the letter to his Natasha,
seemed unimportant, and not even amusing. Nobody told any more stories;
but they began to go to bed quietly, in silence.
EXPENSIVE LESSONS
It is a great bore for an educated person not to know foreign
languages. Vorotov felt it strongly, when on leaving the university
after he had got his degree he occupied himself with a little
scientific research.
“It’s awful!” he used to say, losing his breath (for although only
twenty-six he was stout, heavy, and short of breath). “It’s awful.
Without knowing languages I’m like a bird without wings. I’ll simply
have to chuck the work.”
So he decided, come what might, to conquer his natural laziness and to
study French and German, and he began to look out for a teacher.
One winter afternoon, as Vorotov sat working in his study, the servant
announced a lady to see him.
“Show her in,” said Vorotov.
And a young lady, exquisitely dressed in the latest fashion, entered
the study. She introduced herself as Alice Ossipovna Enquette, a
teacher of French, and said that a friend of Vorotov’s had sent her to
him.
“Very glad! Sit down!” said Vorotov, losing his breath, and clutching
at the collar of his night shirt. (He always worked in a night shirt
in order to breathe more easily.) “You were sent to me by Peter
Sergueyevich? Yes.... Yes ... I asked him.... Very glad!”
While he discussed the matter with Mademoiselle Enquette he glanced at
her shyly, with curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant,
and still quite young. From her pale and languid face, from her short,
curly hair and unnaturally small waist, you would not think her more
than eighteen, but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, her
charming back and severe eyes, Vorotov decided that she was certainly
not less than twenty-three, perhaps even twenty-five; but then again
it seemed to him that she was only eighteen. Her face had the cold,
business-like expression of one who had come to discuss a business
matter. Never once did she smile or frown, and only once a look of
perplexity flashed into her eyes, when she discovered that she was not
asked to teach children but a grown up, stout young man.
“So, Alice Ossipovna,” Vorotov said to her, “you will give me a lesson
daily from seven to eight o’clock in the evening. With regard to your
wish to receive a rouble a lesson, I have no objection at all. A
rouble--well, let it be a rouble....”
And he went on asking her if she wanted tea or coffee, if the weather
was fine, and, smiling good naturedly, stroking the tablecloth with
the palm of his hand, he asked her kindly who she was, where she had
completed her education, and how she earned her living.
In a cold, business-like tone Alice Ossipovna answered that she had
completed her education at a private school, and had then qualified
as a domestic teacher, that her father had died recently of scarlet
fever, her mother was alive and made artificial flowers, that she,
Mademoiselle Enquette, gave private lessons at a pension in the
morning, and from one o’clock right until the evening she taught in
respectable private houses.
She went, leaving a slight and almost imperceptible perfume of a
woman’s dress behind her. Vorotov did not work for a long time
afterwards but sat at the table stroking the green cloth and thinking.
“It’s very pleasant to see girls earning their own living,” he thought.
“On the other hand it is very unpleasant to realise that poverty does
not spare even such elegant and pretty girls as Alice Ossipovna; she,
too, must struggle for her existence. Rotten luck!...”
Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen he also thought that this
exquisitely dressed Alice Ossipovna, with her well-developed shoulders
and unnaturally small waist was in all probability, engaged in
something else besides teaching.
Next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven, Alice
Ossipovna arrived, rosy from the cold; she opened Margot (an elementary
text-book) and began without any preamble:
“The French grammar has twenty-six letters. The first is called A, the
second B....”
“Pardon,” interrupted Vorotov, smiling, “I must warn you, Mademoiselle,
that you will have to change your methods somewhat in my case. The
fact is that I know Russian, Latin and Greek very well. I have studied
comparative philology, and it seems to me that we may leave out Margot
and begin straight off to read some author.” And he explained to the
Frenchwoman how grown-up people study languages.
“A friend of mine,” said he, “who wished to know modern languages put
a French, German and Latin gospel in front of him and then minutely
analysed one word after another. The result--he achieved his purpose in
less than a year. Let us take some author and start reading.”
The Frenchwoman gave him a puzzled look. It was evident that Vorotov’s
proposal appeared to her naive and absurd. If he had not been grown up
she would certainly have got angry and stormed at him, but as he was a
very stout, adult man at whom she could not storm, she only shrugged
her shoulders half-perceptibly and said:
“Just as you please.”
Vorotov ransacked his bookshelves and produced a ragged French book.
“Will this do?” he asked.
“It’s all the same.”
“In that case let us begin. Let us start from the title, _Mémoires_.”