White nights, and other stories
intending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himself
airs with me, and to show him that if I liked I could withhold his
wages. I purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposely
silent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be the
first to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles out of
a drawer, show him I have the money put aside on purpose, but that I
won't, I won't, I simply won't pay him his wages, I won't just because
that is "what I wish," because "I am master, and it is for me to
decide," because he has been disrespectful, because he has been rude;
but if he were to ask respectfully I might be softened and give it to
him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, a
whole month....
But angry as I was, yet he got the better of me. I could not hold out
for four days. He began as he always did begin in such cases, for there
had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be
observed I knew all this beforehand, I knew his nasty tactics by heart).
He would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it
up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting me or seeing
me out of the house. If I held out and pretended not to notice these
stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to further tortures. All at
once, _à propos_ of nothing, he would walk softly and smoothly into my
room, when I was pacing up and down or reading, stand at the door, one
hand behind his back and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a
stare more than severe, utterly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him
what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me
persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his
lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and
deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out
again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had
happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but
simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring back at
him. So we stared at one another for two minutes; at last he turned with
deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours.
If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my
revolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long,
deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moral
degradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphing
completely: I raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what he
wanted.
This time the usual staring manoeuvres had scarcely begun when I lost
my temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond endurance
apart from him.
"Stay," I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning,
with one hand behind his back, to go to his room, "stay! Come back, come
back, I tell you!" and I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned
round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in
saying nothing, and that infuriated me.
"How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for?
Answer!"
After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round
again.
"Stay!" I roared, running up to him, "don't stir! There. Answer, now:
what did you come in to look at?"
"If you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he
answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp,
raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to
another, all this with exasperating composure.
"That's not what I am asking you about, you torturer!" I shouted,
turning crimson with anger. "I'll tell you why you came here myself: you
see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow
down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid
stares, to worry me and you have no sus...pic...ion how stupid it
is--stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"...
He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.
"Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it is"
(I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roubles complete,
but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ... going ... to
... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my
pardon. Do you hear?"
"That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.
"It shall be so," I said, "I give you my word of honour, it shall be!"
"And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as
though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you
called me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at the police-station
at any time for insulting behaviour."
"Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very
second! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer!"
But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls
to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking
round.
"If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I
decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind his
screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating
slowly and violently.
"Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, "go
at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer."
He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and
taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw.
"At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will
happen."
"You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising
his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle.
"Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? And as
for being frightened--you are upsetting yourself about nothing, for
nothing will come of it."
"Go!" I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I should strike
him in a minute.
But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at
that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us
in perplexity. I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to
my room. There, clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned my head
against the wall and stood motionless in that position.
Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps. "There is some
woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity.
Then he stood aside and let in Liza. He would not go away, but stared at
us sarcastically.
"Go away, go away," I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock
began whirring and wheezing and struck seven.
IX
"Into my house come bold and free,
Its rightful mistress there to be."
I stood before her crushed, crestfallen, revoltingly confused, and I
believe I smiled as I did my utmost to wrap myself in the skirts of my
ragged wadded dressing-gown--exactly as I had imagined the scene not
long before in a fit of depression. After standing over us for a couple
of minutes Apollon went away, but that did not make me more at ease.
What made it worse was that she, too, was overwhelmed with confusion,
more so, in fact, than I should have expected. At the sight of me, of
course.
"Sit down," I said mechanically, moving a chair up to the table, and I
sat down on the sofa. She obediently sat down at once and gazed at me
open-eyed, evidently expecting something from me at once. This naïveté
of expectation drove me to fury, but I restrained myself.
She ought to have tried not to notice, as though everything had been as
usual, while instead of that, she ... and I dimly felt that I should
make her pay dearly for _all this_.
"You have found me in a strange position, Liza," I began, stammering and
knowing that this was the wrong way to begin. "No, no, don't imagine
anything," I cried, seeing that she had suddenly flushed. "I am not
ashamed of my poverty.... On the contrary I look with pride on my
poverty. I am poor but honourable.... One can be poor and honourable," I
muttered. "However ... would you like tea?"...
"No," she was beginning.
"Wait a minute."
I leapt up and ran to Apollon. I had to get out of the room somehow.
"Apollon," I whispered in feverish haste, flinging down before him the
seven roubles which had remained all the time in my clenched fist, "here
are your wages, you see I give them to you; but for that you must come
to my rescue: bring me tea and a dozen rusks from the restaurant. If you
won't go, you'll make me a miserable man! You don't know what this woman
is.... This is--everything! You may be imagining something.... But you
don't know what that woman is!"...
Apollon, who had already sat down to his work and put on his spectacles
again, at first glanced askance at the money without speaking or putting
down his needle; then, without paying the slightest attention to me or
making any answer he went on busying himself with his needle, which he
had not yet threaded. I waited before him for three minutes with my arms
crossed _à la Napoléon_. My temples were moist with sweat. I was pale, I
felt it. But, thank God, he must have been moved to pity, looking at me.
Having threaded his needle he deliberately got up from his seat,
deliberately moved back his chair, deliberately took off his spectacles,
deliberately counted the money, and finally asking me over his shoulder:
"Shall I get a whole portion?" deliberately walked out of the room. As I
was going back to Liza, the thought occurred to me on the way: shouldn't
I run away just as I was in my dressing-gown, no matter where, and then
let happen what would.
I sat down again. She looked at me uneasily. For some minutes we were
silent.
"I will kill him," I shouted suddenly, striking the table with my fist
so that the ink spurted out of the inkstand.
"What are you saying!" she cried, starting.
"I will kill him! kill him!" I shrieked, suddenly striking the table in
absolute frenzy, and at the same time fully understanding how stupid it
was to be in such a frenzy. "You don't know, Liza, what that torturer is
to me. He is my torturer.... He has gone now to fetch some rusks;
he...."
And suddenly I burst into tears. It was an hysterical attack. How
ashamed I felt in the midst of my sobs; but still I could not restrain
them.
She was frightened.
"What is the matter? What is wrong?" she cried, fussing about me.
"Water, give me water, over there!" I muttered in a faint voice, though
I was inwardly conscious that I could have got on very well without
water and without muttering in a faint voice. But I was, what is called,
_putting it on_, to save appearances, though the attack was a genuine
one.
She gave me water, looking at me in bewilderment. At that moment Apollon
brought in the tea. It suddenly seemed to me that this commonplace,
prosaic tea was horribly undignified and paltry after all that had
happened, and I blushed crimson. Liza looked at Apollon with positive
alarm. He went out without a glance at either of us.
"Liza, do you despise me?" I asked, looking at her fixedly, trembling
with impatience to know what she was thinking.
She was confused, and did not know what to answer.
"Drink your tea," I said to her angrily. I was angry with myself, but,
of course, it was she who would have to pay for it. A horrible spite
against her suddenly surged up in my heart; I believe I could have
killed her. To revenge myself on her I swore inwardly not to say a word
to her all the time. "She is the cause of it all," I thought.
Our silence lasted for five minutes. The tea stood on the table; we did
not touch it. I had got to the point of purposely refraining from