The Bet, and other stories
with apple sauce, and bream with _kasha._ They robbed me as well of my
maid servant Agasha, a funny, talkative old woman, instead of whom I
am now waited on by Yegor, a stupid, conceited fellow who always has
a white glove in his right hand. The intervals between the courses are
short, but they seem terribly long. There is nothing to fill them. We
don’t have any more of the old good-humour, the familiar conversations,
the jokes and the laughter; no more mutual endearments, or the gaiety
that used to animate my children, my wife, and myself when we met at
the dinner table. For a busy man like me dinner was a time to rest and
meet my friends, and a feast for my wife and children, not a very long
feast, to be sure, but a gay and happy one, for they knew that for half
an hour I did not belong to science and my students, but solely to
them and to no one else. No more chance of getting tipsy on a single
glass of wine, no more Agasha, no more bream with _kasha,_ no more the
old uproar to welcome our little _contretemps_ at dinner, when the cat
fought the dog under the table, or Katy’s head-band fell down her cheek
into her soup.
Our dinner nowadays is as nasty to describe as to eat. On my wife’s
face there is pompousness, an assumed gravity, and the usual anxiety.
She eyes our plates nervously: “I see you don’t like the meat?...
Honestly, don’t you like it?” And I must answer, “Don’t worry, my dear.
The meat is very good.” She: “You’re always taking my part, Nicolai
Stiepanich. You never tell the truth. Why has Alexander Adolphovich
eaten so little?” and the same sort of conversation for the whole of
dinner. Liza laughs staccato and screws up her eyes. I look at both of
them, and at this moment at dinner here I can see quite clearly that
their inner lives have slipped out of my observation long ago. I feel
as though once upon a time I lived at home with a real family, but now
I am dining as a guest with an unreal wife and looking at an unreal
Liza. There has been an utter change in both of them, while I have lost
sight of the long process that led up to the change. No wonder I don’t
understand anything. What was the reason of the change? I don’t know.
Perhaps the only trouble is that God did not give my wife and daughter
the strength He gave me. From my childhood I have been accustomed to
resist outside influences and have been hardened enough. Such earthly
catastrophes as fame, being made General, the change from comfort to
living above my means, acquaintance with high society, have scarcely
touched me. I have survived safe and sound. But it all fell down like
an avalanche on my weak, unhardened wife and Liza, and crushed them.
Gnekker and the girls talk of fugues and counter-fugues; singers
and pianists, Bach and Brahms, and my wife, frightened of being
suspected of musical ignorance, smiles sympathetically and murmurs:
“Wonderful.... Is it possible?... Why?...” Gnekker eats steadily,
jokes gravely, and listens condescendingly to the ladies’ remarks. Now
and then he has the desire to talk bad French, and then he finds it
necessary for some unknown reason to address me magnificently, “Votre
Excellence.”
And I am morose. Apparently I embarrass them all and they embarrass me.
I never had any intimate acquaintance with class antagonism before,
but now something of the kind torments me indeed. I try to find only
bad traits in Gnekker. It does not take long and then I am tormented
because one of my friends has not taken his place as bridegroom. In
another way too his presence has a bad effect upon me. Usually, when
I am left alone with myself or when I am in the company of people I
love, I never think of my merits; and if I begin to think about them
they seem as trivial as though I had become a scholar only yesterday.
But in the presence of a man like Gnekker my merits appear to me like
an extremely high mountain, whose summit is lost in the clouds, while
Gnekkers move about the foot, so small as hardly to be seen.
After dinner I go up to my study and light my little pipe, the only one
during the whole day, the sole survivor of my old habit of smoking from
morning to night. My wife comes into me while I am smoking and sits
down to speak to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what the
conversation will be.
“We ought to talk seriously, Nicolai Stiepanovich,” she begins. “I mean
about Liza. Why won’t you attend?”
“Attend to what?”
“You pretend you don’t notice anything. It’s not right: It’s not right
to be unconcerned. Gnekker has intentions about Liza. What do you say
to that?”
“I can’t say he’s a bad man, because I don’t know him; but I’ve told
you a thousand times already that I don’t like him.”
“But that’s impossible ... impossible....” She rises and walks about in
agitation.
“It’s impossible to have such an attitude to a serious matter,”
she says. “When our daughter’s happiness is concerned, we must put
everything personal aside. I know you don’t like him.... Very well....
But if we refuse him now and upset everything, how can you guarantee
that Liza won’t have a grievance against us for the rest of her life?
Heaven knows there aren’t many young men nowadays. It’s quite likely
there won’t be another chance. He loves Liza very much and she likes
him, evidently. Of course he hasn’t a settled position. But what is
there to do? Please God, he’ll get a position in time. He comes of a
good family, and he’s rich.”
“How did you find that out?”
“He said so himself. His father has a big house in Kharkov and an
estate outside. You must certainly go to Kharkov.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out there. You have acquaintances among the professors
there. I’d go myself. But I’m a woman. I can’t.”
“I will not go to Kharkov,” I say morosely.
My wife gets frightened; a tormented expression comes over her face.
“For God’s sake, Nicolai Stiepanich,” she implores, sobbing, “For God’s
sake help me with this burden! It hurts me.”
It is painful to look at her.
“Very well, Varya,” I say kindly, “If you like--very well I’ll go to
Kharkov, and do everything you want.”
She puts her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to cry in her room. I am
left alone.
A little later they bring in the lamp. The familiar shadows that
have wearied me for years fall from the chairs and the lamp-shade on
to the walls and the floor. When I look at them it seems that it’s
night already, and the cursed insomnia has begun. I lie down on the
bed; then I get up and walk about the room then lie down again. My
nervous excitement generally reaches its highest after dinner, before
the evening. For no reason I begin to cry and hide my head in the
pillow. All the while I am afraid somebody may come in; I am afraid I
shall die suddenly; I am ashamed of my tears; altogether, something
intolerable is happening in my soul. I feel I cannot look at the lamp
or the books or the shadows on the floor, or listen to the voices in
the drawing-room any more. Some invisible, mysterious force pushes me
rudely out of my house. I jump up, dress hurriedly, and go cautiously
out into the street so that the household shall not notice me. Where
shall I go?
The answer to this question has long been there in my brain: “To Katy.”
III
As usual she is lying on the Turkish divan or the couch and reading
something. Seeing me she lifts her head languidly, sits down, and gives
me her hand.
“You are always lying down like that,” I say after a reposeful silence.
“It’s unhealthy. You’d far better be doing something.”
“Ah?”
“You’d far better be doing something, I say.”
“What?... A woman can be either a simple worker or an actress.”
“Well, then--if you can’t become a worker, be an actress.”
She is silent.
“You had better marry,” I say, half-joking.
“There’s no one to marry: and no use if I did.”
“You can’t go on living like this.”
“Without a husband? As if that mattered. There are as many men as you
like, if you only had the will.”
“This isn’t right, Katy.”
“What isn’t right?”
“What you said just now.”
Katy sees that I am chagrined, and desires to soften the bad impression.
“Come. Let’s come here. Here.”
She leads me into a small room, very cosy, and points to the writing
table.
“There. I made it for you. You’ll work here. Come every day and bring
your work with you. They only disturb you there at home.... Will you
work here? Would you like to?”
In order not to hurt her by refusing, I answer that I shall work with
her and that I like the room immensely. Then we both sit down in the
cosy room and begin to talk.
The warmth, the cosy surroundings, the presence of a sympathetic being,
rouses in me now not a feeling of pleasure as it used but a strong
desire to complain and grumble. Anyhow it seems to me that if I moan
and complain I shall feel better.
“It’s a bad business, my dear,” I begin with a sigh. “Very bad.”
“What is the matter?”
“I’ll tell you what is the matter. The best and most sacred right
of kings is the right to pardon. And I have always felt myself a
king so long as I used this right prodigally. I never judged, I was
compassionate, I pardoned everyone right and left. Where others
protested and revolted I only advised and persuaded. All my life
I’ve tried to make my society tolerable to the family of students,
friends and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know,
educated every one who came into contact with me. But now I am king no
more. There’s something going on in me which belongs only to slaves.
Day and night evil thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I
never knew before have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise;
I’m exasperated, disturbed, and afraid. I’ve become strict beyond
measure, exacting, unkind, and suspicious. Even the things which in the
past gave me the chance of making an extra pun, now bring me a feeling
of oppression. My logic has changed too. I used to despise money alone;
now I cherish evil feelings, not to money, but to the rich, as if they
were guilty. I used to hate violence and arbitrariness; now I hate the
people who employ violence, as if they alone are to blame and not all
of us, who cannot educate one another. What does it all mean? If my new
thoughts and feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could
the change have come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or
was I blind and indifferent before? But if the change is due to the
general decline of my physical and mental powers--I am sick and losing
weight every day--then I’m in a pitiable position. It means that my new
thoughts are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and
consider them valueless....”
“Sickness hasn’t anything to do with it,” Katy interrupts. “Your eyes
are opened--that’s all. You’ve begun to notice things you didn’t want
to notice before for some reason. My opinion is that you must break
with your family finally first of all and then go away.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“You don’t love them any more. Then, why do you behave unfairly? And is
it a family! Mere nobodies. If they died to-day, no one would notice
their absence to-morrow.”
Katy despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. It’s
scarcely possible nowadays to speak of the right of people to despise
one another. But if you accept Katy’s point of view and own that such a
right exists, you will notice that she has the same right to despise my
wife and Liza as they have to hate her.
“Mere nobodies!” she repeats. “Did you have any dinner to-day? It’s a
wonder they didn’t forget to tell you dinner was ready. I don’t know
how they still remember that you exist.”
“Katy!” I say sternly. “Please be quiet.”
“You don’t think it’s fun for me to talk about them, do you? I wish I