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Short Stories By Fyodor Dostoevsky www.Stuff2Share.com

SHORT STORIES

By FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

THE WORLD'S

POPULAR CLASSICS

BOOKS, INC.

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK BOSTON

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CONTENTS

PAGE

AN HONEST THIEF 4

A NOVEL IN NINE LETTERS 16

AN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENT 25

ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE 59

THE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREE 91

THE PEASANT MAREY 94

THE CROCODILE 98

BOBOK 121

THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN 133

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AN HONEST THIEF

One morning, just as I was about to set off to my office, Agrafena, my cook, washerwoman
and housekeeper, came in to me and, to my surprise, entered into conversation.
She had always been such a silent, simple creature that, except her daily inquiry about dinner,
she had not uttered a word for the last six years. I, at least, had heard nothing else from her.
"Here I have come in to have a word with you, sir," she began abruptly; "you really ought to
let the little room."
"Which little room?"
"Why, the one next the kitchen, to be sure."
"What for?"
"What for? Why because folks do take in lodgers, to be sure."
"But who would take it?"
"Who would take it? Why, a lodger would take it, to be sure."
"But, my good woman, one could not put a bedstead in it; there wouldn't be room to move!
Who could live in it?"
"Who wants to live there! As long as he has a place to sleep in. Why, he would live in the
window."
"In what window?"
"In what window! As though you didn't know! The one in the passage, to be sure. He would
sit there, sewing or doing anything else. Maybe he would sit on a chair, too. He's got a chair;
and he has a table, too; he's got everything."
"Who is 'he' then?"
"Oh, a good man, a man of experience. I will cook for him. And I'll ask him three roubles a
month for his board and lodging."
After prolonged efforts I succeeded at last in learning from Agrafena that an elderly man had
somehow managed to persuade her to admit him into the kitchen as a lodger and boarder.
Any notion Agrafena took into her head had to be carried out; if not, I knew she would give
me no peace. When anything was not to her liking, she at once began to brood, and sank into
a deep dejection that would last for a fortnight or three weeks. During that period my dinners
were spoiled, my linen was mislaid, my floors went unscrubbed; in short, I had a great deal to
put up with. I had observed long ago that this inarticulate woman was incapable of
conceiving a project, of originating an idea of her own. But if anything like a notion or a
project was by some means put into her feeble brain, to prevent its being carried out meant,
for a time, her moral assassination. And so, as I cared more for my peace of mind than for
anything else, I consented forthwith.
"Has he a passport anyway, or something of the sort?"

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"To be sure, he has. He is a good man, a man of experience; three roubles he's promised to
pay."
The very next day the new lodger made his appearance in my modest bachelor quarters; but I
was not put out by this, indeed I was inwardly pleased. I lead as a rule a very lonely hermit's
existence. I have scarcely any friends; I hardly ever go anywhere. As I had spent ten years
never coming out of my shell, I had, of course, grown used to solitude. But another ten or
fifteen years or more of the same solitary existence, with the same Agrafena, in the same
bachelor quarters, was in truth a somewhat cheerless prospect. And therefore a new inmate, if
well-behaved, was a heaven-sent blessing.
Agrafena had spoken truly: my lodger was certainly a man of experience. From his passport it
appeared that he was an old soldier, a fact which I should have known indeed from his face.
An old soldier is easily recognised. Astafy Ivanovitch was a favourable specimen of his class.
We got on very well together. What was best of all, Astafy Ivanovitch would sometimes tell a
story, describing some incident in his own life. In the perpetual boredom of my existence
such a story-teller was a veritable treasure. One day he told me one of these stories. It made
an impression on me. The following event was what led to it.
I was left alone in the flat; both Astafy and Agrafena were out on business of their own. All
of a sudden I heard from the inner room somebody—I fancied a stranger—come in; I went
out; there actually was a stranger in the passage, a short fellow wearing no overcoat in spite
of the cold autumn weather.
"What do you want?"
"Does a clerk called Alexandrov live here?"
"Nobody of that name here, brother. Good-bye."
"Why, the dvornik told me it was here," said my visitor, cautiously retiring towards the door.
"Be off, be off, brother, get along."
Next day after dinner, while Astafy Ivanovitch was fitting on a coat which he was altering for
me, again some one came into the passage. I half opened the door.
Before my very eyes my yesterday's visitor, with perfect composure, took my wadded
greatcoat from the peg and, stuffing it under his arm, darted out of the flat. Agrafena stood all
the time staring at him, agape with astonishment and doing nothing for the protection of my
property. Astafy Ivanovitch flew in pursuit of the thief and ten minutes later came back out of
breath and empty-handed. He had vanished completely.
"Well, there's a piece of luck, Astafy Ivanovitch!"
"It's a good job your cloak is left! Or he would have put you in a plight, the thief!"
But the whole incident had so impressed Astafy Ivanovitch that I forgot the theft as I looked
at him. He could not get over it. Every minute or two he would drop the work upon which he
was engaged, and would describe over again how it had all happened, how he had been
standing, how the greatcoat had been taken down before his very eyes, not a yard away, and
how it had come to pass that he could not catch the thief. Then he would sit down to his work
again, then leave it once more, and at last I saw him go down to the dvornik to tell him all
about it, and to upbraid him for letting such a thing happen in his domain. Then he came back
and began scolding Agrafena. Then he sat down to his work again, and long afterwards he

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was still muttering to himself how it had all happened, how he stood there and I was here,
how before our eyes, not a yard away, the thief took the coat off the peg, and so on. In short,
though Astafy Ivanovitch understood his business, he was a terrible slow-coach and busy-
body.
"He's made fools of us, Astafy Ivanovitch," I said to him in the evening, as I gave him a glass
of tea. I wanted to while away the time by recalling the story of the lost greatcoat, the
frequent repetition of which, together with the great earnestness of the speaker, was
beginning to become very amusing.
"Fools, indeed, sir! Even though it is no business of mine, I am put out. It makes me angry
though it is not my coat that was lost. To my thinking there is no vermin in the world worse
than a thief. Another takes what you can spare, but a thief steals the work of your hands, the
sweat of your brow, your time ... Ugh, it's nasty! One can't speak of it! it's too vexing. How is
it you don't feel the loss of your property, sir?"
"Yes, you are right, Astafy Ivanovitch, better if the thing had been burnt; it's annoying to let
the thief have it, it's disagreeable."
"Disagreeable! I should think so! Yet, to be sure, there are thieves and thieves. And I have
happened, sir, to come across an honest thief."
"An honest thief? But how can a thief be honest, Astafy Ivanovitch?"
"There you are right indeed, sir. How can a thief be honest? There are none such. I only
meant to say that he was an honest man, sure enough, and yet he stole. I was simply sorry for
him."
"Why, how was that, Astafy Ivanovitch?"
"It was about two years ago, sir. I had been nearly a year out of a place, and just before I lost
my place I made the acquaintance of a poor lost creature. We got acquainted in a public-
house. He was a drunkard, a vagrant, a beggar, he had been in a situation of some sort, but
from his drinking habits he had lost his work. Such a ne'er-do-weel! God only knows what he
had on! Often you wouldn't be sure if he'd a shirt under his coat; everything he could lay his
hands upon he would drink away. But he was not one to quarrel; he was a quiet fellow. A
soft, good-natured chap. And he'd never ask, he was ashamed; but you could see for yourself
the poor fellow wanted a drink, and you would stand it him. And so we got friendly, that's to
say, he stuck to me.... It was all one to me. And what a man he was, to be sure! Like a little
dog he would follow me; wherever I went there he would be; and all that after our first
meeting, and he as thin as a thread-paper! At first it was 'let me stay the night'; well, I let him
stay.
"I looked at his passport, too; the man was all right.
"Well, the next day it was the same story, and then the third day he came again and sat all day
in the window and stayed the night. Well, thinks I, he is sticking to me; give him food and
drink and shelter at night, too—here am I, a poor man, and a hanger-on to keep as well! And
before he came to me, he used to go in the same way to a government clerk's; he attached
himself to him; they were always drinking together; but he, through trouble of some sort,
drank himself into the grave. My man was called Emelyan Ilyitch. I pondered and pondered
what I was to do with him. To drive him away I was ashamed. I was sorry for him; such a
pitiful, God-forsaken creature I never did set eyes on. And not a word said either; he does not

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ask, but just sits there and looks into your eyes like a dog. To think what drinking will bring a
man down to!
"I keep asking myself how am I to say to him: 'You must be moving, Emelyanoushka, there's
nothing for you here, you've come to the wrong place; I shall soon not have a bite for myself,
how am I to keep you too?'
"I sat and wondered what he'd do when I said that to him. And I seemed to see how he'd stare
at me, if he were to hear me say that, how long he would sit and not understand a word of it.
And when it did get home to him at last, how he would get up from the window, would take
up his bundle—I can see it now, the red-check handkerchief full of holes, with God knows
what wrapped up in it, which he had always with him, and then how he would set his shabby
old coat to rights, so that it would look decent and keep him warm, so that no holes would be
seen—he was a man of delicate feelings! And how he'd open the door and go out with tears
in his eyes. Well, there's no letting a man go to ruin like that.... One's sorry for him.
"And then again, I think, how am I off myself? Wait a bit, Emelyanoushka, says I to myself,
you've not long to feast with me: I shall soon be going away and then you will not find me.
"Well, sir, our family made a move; and Alexandr Filimonovitch, my master (now deceased,
God rest his soul), said, 'I am thoroughly satisfied with you, Astafy Ivanovitch; when we
come back from the country we will take you on again.' I had been butler with them; a nice
gentleman he was, but he died that same year. Well, after seeing him off, I took my
belongings, what little money I had, and I thought I'd have a rest for a time, so I went to an
old woman I knew, and I took a corner in her room. There was only one corner free in it. She
had been a nurse, so now she had a pension and a room of her own. Well, now good-bye,
Emelyanoushka, thinks I, you won't find me now, my boy.
"And what do you think, sir? I had gone out to see a man I knew, and when I came back in
the evening, the first thing I saw was Emelyanoushka! There he was, sitting on my box and
his check bundle beside him; he was sitting in his ragged old coat, waiting for me. And to
while away the time he had borrowed a church book from the old lady, and was holding it
wrong side upwards. He'd scented me out! My heart sank. Well, thinks I, there's no help for
it—why didn't I turn him out at first? So I asked him straight off: Have you brought your
passport, Emelyanoushka?'
"I sat down on the spot, sir, and began to ponder: will a vagabond like that be very much
trouble to me? And on thinking it over it seemed he would not be much trouble. He must be
fed, I thought. Well, a bit of bread in the morning, and to make it go down better I'll buy him
an onion. At midday I should have to give him another bit of bread and an onion; and in the
evening, onion again with kvass, with some more bread if he wanted it. And if some cabbage
soup were to come our way, then we should both have had our fill. I am no great eater
myself, and a drinking man, as we all know, never eats; all he wants is herb-brandy or green
vodka. He'll ruin me with his drinking, I thought, but then another idea came into my head,
sir, and took great hold on me. So much so that if Emelyanoushka had gone away I should
have felt that I had nothing to live for, I do believe.... I determined on the spot to be a father
and guardian to him. I'll keep him from ruin, I thought, I'll wean him from the glass! You
wait a bit, thought I; very well, Emelyanoushka, you may stay, only you must behave
yourself; you must obey orders.
"Well, thinks I to myself, I'll begin by training him to work of some sort, but not all at once;
let him enjoy himself a little first, and I'll look round and find something you are fit for,
Emelyanoushka. For every sort of work a man needs a special ability, you know, sir. And I
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began to watch him on the quiet; I soon saw Emelyanoushka was a desperate character. I
began, sir, with a word of advice: I said this and that to him. 'Emelyanoushka,' said I, 'you
ought to take a thought and mend your ways. Have done with drinking! Just look what rags
you go about in: that old coat of yours, if I may make bold to say so, is fit for nothing but a
sieve. A pretty state of things! It's time to draw the line, sure enough.' Emelyanoushka sat and
listened to me with his head hanging down. Would you believe it, sir? It had come to such a
pass with him, he'd lost his tongue through drink and could not speak a word of sense. Talk to
him of cucumbers and he'd answer back about beans! He would listen and listen to me and
then heave such a sigh. 'What are you sighing for, Emelyan Ilyitch?' I asked him.
"'Oh, nothing; don't you mind me, Astafy Ivanovitch. Do you know there were two women
fighting in the street to-day, Astafy Ivanovitch? One upset the other woman's basket of
cranberries by accident.'
"'Well, what of that?'
"'And the second one upset the other's cranberries on purpose and trampled them under foot,
too.'
"'Well, and what of it, Emelyan Ilyitch?'
"'Why, nothing, Astafy Ivanovitch, I just mentioned it.'
"'"Nothing, I just mentioned it!" Emelyanoushka, my boy, I thought, you've squandered and
drunk away your brains!'
"'And do you know, a gentleman dropped a money-note on the pavement in Gorohovy Street,
no, it was Sadovy Street. And a peasant saw it and said, "That's my luck"; and at the same
time another man saw it and said, "No, it's my bit of luck. I saw it before you did."'
"'Well, Emelyan Ilyitch?'
"'And the fellows had a fight over it, Astafy Ivanovitch. But a policeman came up, took away
the note, gave it back to the gentleman and threatened to take up both the men.'
"'Well, but what of that? What is there edifying about it, Emelyanoushka?'
"'Why, nothing, to be sure. Folks laughed, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'Ach, Emelyanoushka! What do the folks matter? You've sold your soul for a brass farthing!
But do you know what I have to tell you, Emelyan Ilyitch?'
"'What, Astafy Ivanovitch?'
"'Take a job of some sort, that's what you must do. For the hundredth time I say to you, set to
work, have some mercy on yourself!'
"'What could I set to, Astafy Ivanovitch? I don't know what job I could set to, and there is no
one who will take me on, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'That's how you came to be turned off, Emelyanoushka, you drinking man!'
"'And do you know Vlass, the waiter, was sent for to the office to-day, Astafy Ivanovitch?'
"'Why did they send for him, Emelyanoushka?' I asked.

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"'I could not say why, Astafy Ivanovitch. I suppose they wanted him there, and that's why
they sent for him.'
"A-ach, thought I, we are in a bad way, poor Emelyanoushka! The Lord is chastising us for
our sins. Well, sir, what is one to do with such a man?
"But a cunning fellow he was, and no mistake. He'd listen and listen to me, but at last I
suppose he got sick of it. As[10] soon as he sees I am beginning to get angry, he'd pick up his
old coat and out he'd slip and leave no trace. He'd wander about all day and come back at
night drunk. Where he got the money from, the Lord only knows; I had no hand in that.
"'No,' said I, 'Emelyan Ilyitch, you'll come to a bad end. Give over drinking, mind what I say
now, give it up! Next time you come home in liquor, you can spend the night on the stairs. I
won't let you in!'
"After hearing that threat, Emelyanoushka sat at home that day and the next; but on the third
he slipped off again. I waited and waited; he didn't come back. Well, at least I don't mind
owning, I was in a fright, and I felt for the man too. What have I done to him? I thought. I've
scared him away. Where's the poor fellow gone to now? He'll get lost maybe. Lord have
mercy upon us!
"Night came on, he did not come. In the morning I went out into the porch; I looked, and if he
hadn't gone to sleep in the porch! There he was with his head on the step, and chilled to the
marrow of his bones.
"'What next, Emelyanoushka, God have mercy on you! Where will you get to next!'
"'Why, you were—sort of—angry with me, Astafy Ivanovitch, the other day, you were vexed
and promised to put me to sleep in the porch, so I didn't—sort of—venture to come in, Astafy
Ivanovitch, and so I lay down here....'
"I did feel angry and sorry too.
"'Surely you might undertake some other duty, Emelyanoushka, instead of lying here
guarding the steps,' I said.
"'Why, what other duty, Astafy Ivanovitch?'
"'You lost soul'—I was in such a rage, I called him that—'if you could but learn tailoring
work! Look at your old rag of a coat! It's not enough to have it in tatters, here you are
sweeping the steps with it! You might take a needle and boggle up your rags, as decency
demands. Ah, you drunken man!'
"What do you think, sir? He actually did take a needle. Of course I said it in jest, but he was
so scared he set to work. He took off his coat and began threading the needle. I watched him;
as you may well guess, his eyes were all red and bleary, and his hands were all of a shake. He
kept shoving and shoving the thread and could not get it through the eye of the needle; he
kept screwing his eyes up and wetting the thread and twisting it in his fingers—it was no
good! He gave it up and looked at me.
"'Well,' said I, 'this is a nice way to treat me! If there had been folks by to see, I don't know
what I should have done! Why, you simple fellow, I said it you in joke, as a reproach. Give
over your nonsense, God bless you! Sit quiet and don't put me to shame, don't sleep on my
stairs and make a laughing-stock of me.'

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"'Why, what am I to do, Astafy Ivanovitch? I know very well I am a drunkard and good for
nothing! I can do nothing but vex you, my bene—bene—factor....'
"And at that his blue lips began all of a sudden to quiver, and a tear ran down his white cheek
and trembled on his stubbly chin, and then poor Emelyanoushka burst into a regular flood of
tears. Mercy on us! I felt as though a knife were thrust into my heart! The sensitive creature!
I'd never have expected it. Who could have guessed it? No, Emelyanoushka, thought I, I shall
give you up altogether. You can go your way like the rubbish you are.
"Well, sir, why make a long story of it? And the whole affair is so trifling; it's not worth
wasting words upon. Why, you, for instance, sir, would not have given a thought to it, but I
would have given a great deal—if I had a great deal to give—that it never should have
happened at all.
"I had a pair of riding breeches by me, sir, deuce take them, fine, first-rate riding breeches
they were too, blue with a check on it. They'd been ordered by a gentleman from the country,
but he would not have them after all; said they were not full enough, so they were left on my
hands. It struck me they were worth something. At the second-hand dealer's I ought to get
five silver roubles for them, or if not I could turn them into two pairs of trousers for
Petersburg gentlemen and have a piece over for a waistcoat for myself. Of course for poor
people like us everything comes in. And it happened just then that Emelyanoushka was
having a sad time of it. There he sat day after day: he did not drink, not a drop passed his lips,
but he sat and moped like an owl. It was sad to see him—he just sat and brooded. Well,
thought I, either you've not got a copper to spend, my lad, or else you're turning over a new
leaf of yourself, you've given it up, you've listened to reason. Well, sir, that's how it was with
us; and just then came a holiday. I went to vespers; when I came home I found
Emelyanoushka sitting in the window, drunk and rocking to and fro.
"Ah! so that's what you've been up to, my lad! And I went to get something out of my chest.
And when I looked in, the breeches were not there.... I rummaged here and there; they'd
vanished. When I'd ransacked everywhere and saw they were not there, something seemed to
stab me to the heart. I ran first to the old dame and began accusing her; of Emelyanoushka I'd
not the faintest suspicion, though there was cause for it in his sitting there drunk.
"'No,' said the old body, 'God be with you, my fine gentleman, what good are riding breeches
to me? Am I going to wear such things? Why, a skirt I had I lost the other day through a
fellow of your sort ... I know nothing; I can tell you nothing about it,' she said.
"'Who has been here, who has been in?' I asked.
"'Why, nobody has been, my good sir,' says she; 'I've been here all the while; Emelyan Ilyitch
went out and came back again; there he sits, ask him.'
"'Emelyanoushka,' said I, 'have you taken those new riding breeches for anything; you
remember the pair I made for that gentleman from the country?'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch,' said he; 'I've not—sort of—touched them.'
"I was in a state! I hunted high and low for them—they were nowhere to be found. And
Emelyanoushka sits there rocking himself to and fro. I was squatting on my heels facing him
and bending over the chest, and all at once I stole a glance at him.... Alack, I thought; my
heart suddenly grew hot within me and I felt myself flushing up too. And suddenly
Emelyanoushka looked at me.

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"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch,' said he, 'those riding breeches of yours, maybe, you are thinking,
maybe, I took them, but I never touched them.'
"'But what can have become of them, Emelyan Ilyitch?'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch,' said he, 'I've never seen them.'
"'Why, Emelyan Ilyitch, I suppose they've run off of themselves, eh?'
"'Maybe they have, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"When I heard him say that, I got up at once, went up to him, lighted the lamp and sat down
to work to my sewing. I was altering a waistcoat for a clerk who lived below us. And wasn't
there a burning pain and ache in my breast! I shouldn't have minded so much if I had put all
the clothes I had in the fire. Emelyanoushka seemed to have an inkling of what a rage I was
in. When a man is guilty, you know, sir, he scents trouble far off, like the birds of the air
before a storm.
"'Do you know what, Astafy Ivanovitch,' Emelyanoushka began, and his poor old voice was
shaking as he said the words, 'Antip Prohoritch, the apothecary, married the coachman's wife
this morning, who died the other day——'
"I did give him a look, sir, a nasty look it was; Emelyanoushka understood it too. I saw him
get up, go to the bed, and begin to rummage there for something. I waited—he was busy there
a long time and kept muttering all the while, 'No, not there, where can the blessed things have
got to!' I waited to see what he'd do; I saw him creep under the bed on all fours. I couldn't
bear it any longer. 'What are you crawling about under the bed for, Emelyan Ilyitch?' said I.
"'Looking for the breeches, Astafy Ivanovitch. Maybe they've dropped down there
somewhere.'
"'Why should you try to help a poor simple man like me,' said I, 'crawling on your knees for
nothing, sir?'—I called him that in my vexation.
"'Oh, never mind, Astafy Ivanovitch, I'll just look. They'll turn up, maybe, somewhere.'
"'H'm,' said I, 'look here, Emelyan Ilyitch!'
"'What is it, Astafy Ivanovitch?' said he.
"'Haven't you simply stolen them from me like a thief and a robber, in return for the bread
and salt you've eaten here?' said I.
"I felt so angry, sir, at seeing him fooling about on his knees before me.
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"And he stayed lying as he was on his face under the bed. A long time he lay there and then
at last crept out. I looked at him and the man was as white as a sheet. He stood up, and sat
down near me in the window and sat so for some ten minutes.
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch,' he said, and all at once he stood up and came towards me, and I can
see him now; he looked dreadful. 'No, Astafy Ivanovitch,' said he, 'I never—sort of—touched
your breeches.'

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"He was all of a shake, poking himself in the chest with a trembling finger, and his poor old
voice shook so that I was frightened, sir, and sat as though I was rooted to the window-seat.
"'Well, Emelyan Ilyitch,' said I, 'as you will, forgive me if I, in my foolishness, have accused
you unjustly. As for the breeches, let them go hang; we can live without them. We've still our
hands, thank God; we need not go thieving or begging from some other poor man; we'll earn
our bread.'
"Emelyanoushka heard me out and went on standing there before me. I looked up, and he had
sat down. And there he sat all the evening without stirring. At last I lay down to sleep.
Emelyanoushka went on sitting in the same place. When I looked out in the morning, he was
lying curled up in his old coat on the bare floor; he felt too crushed even to come to bed.
Well, sir, I felt no more liking for the fellow from that day, in fact for the first few days I
hated him. I felt as one may say as though my own son had robbed me, and done me a deadly
hurt. Ach, thought I, Emelyanoushka, Emelyanoushka! And Emelyanoushka, sir, went on
drinking for a whole fortnight without stopping. He was drunk all the time, and regularly
besotted. He went out in the morning and came back late at night, and for a whole fortnight I
didn't get a word out of him. It was as though grief was gnawing at his heart, or as though he
wanted to do for himself completely. At last he stopped; he must have come to the end of all
he'd got, and then he sat in the window again. I remember he sat there without speaking for
three days and three nights; all of a sudden I saw that he was crying. He was just sitting there,
sir, and crying like anything; a perfect stream, as though he didn't know how his tears were
flowing. And it's a sad thing, sir, to see a grown-up man and an old man, too, crying from
woe and grief.
"'What's the matter, Emelyanoushka?' said I.
"He began to tremble so that he shook all over. I spoke to him for the first time since that
evening.
"'Nothing, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'God be with you, Emelyanoushka, what's lost is lost. Why are you moping about like this?' I
felt sorry for him.
"'Oh, nothing, Astafy Ivanovitch, it's no matter. I want to find some work to do, Astafy
Ivanovitch.'
"'And what sort of work, pray, Emelyanoushka?'
"'Why, any sort; perhaps I could find a situation such as I used to have. I've been already to
ask Fedosay Ivanitch. I don't like to be a burden on you, Astafy Ivanovitch. If I can find a
situation, Astafy Ivanovitch, then I'll pay it you all back, and make you a return for all your
hospitality.'
"'Enough, Emelyanoushka, enough; let bygones be bygones—and no more to be said about it.
Let us go on as we used to do before.'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch, you, maybe, think—but I never touched your riding breeches.'
"'Well, have it your own way; God be with you, Emelyanoushka.'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch, I can't go on living with you, that's clear. You must excuse me,
Astafy Ivanovitch.'

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"'Why, God bless you, Emelyan Ilyitch, who's offending you and driving you out of the
place—am I doing it?'
"'No, it's not the proper thing for me to live with you like this, Astafy Ivanovitch. I'd better be
going.'
"He was so hurt, it seemed, he stuck to his point. I looked at him, and sure enough, up he got
and pulled his old coat over his shoulders.
"'But where are you going, Emelyan Ilyitch? Listen to reason: what are you about? Where are
you off to?'
"'No, good-bye, Astafy Ivanovitch, don't keep me now'—and he was blubbering again—'I'd
better be going. You're not the same now.'
"'Not the same as what? I am the same. But you'll be lost by yourself like a poor helpless
babe, Emelyan Ilyitch.'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch, when you go out now, you lock up your chest and it makes me cry
to see it, Astafy Ivanovitch. You'd better let me go, Astafy Ivanovitch, and forgive me all the
trouble I've given you while I've been living with you.'
"Well, sir, the man went away. I waited for a day; I expected he'd be back in the evening—
no. Next day no sign of him, nor the third day either. I began to get frightened; I was so
worried, I couldn't drink, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. The fellow had quite disarmed me.
On the fourth day I went out to look for him; I peeped into all the taverns, to inquire for
him—but no, Emelyanoushka was lost. 'Have you managed to keep yourself alive,
Emelyanoushka?' I wondered. 'Perhaps he is lying dead under some hedge, poor drunkard,
like a sodden log.' I went home more dead than alive. Next day I went out to look for him
again. And I kept cursing myself that I'd been such a fool as to let the man go off by himself.
On the fifth day it was a holiday—in the early morning I heard the door creak. I looked up
and there was my Emelyanoushka coming in. His face was blue and his hair was covered
with dirt as though he'd been sleeping in the street; he was as thin as a match. He took off his
old coat, sat down on the chest and looked at me. I was delighted to see him, but I felt more
upset about him than ever. For you see, sir, if I'd been overtaken in some sin, as true as I am
here, sir, I'd have died like a dog before I'd have come back. But Emelyanoushka did come
back. And a sad thing it was, sure enough, to see a man sunk so low. I began to look after
him, to talk kindly to him, to comfort him.
"'Well, Emelyanoushka,' said I, 'I am glad you've come back. Had you been away much
longer I should have gone to look for you in the taverns again to-day. Are you hungry?'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'Come, now, aren't you really? Here, brother, is some cabbage soup left over from yesterday;
there was meat in it; it is good stuff. And here is some bread and onion. Come, eat it, it'll do
you no harm.'
"I made him eat it, and I saw at once that the man had not tasted food for maybe three days—
he was as hungry as a wolf. So it was hunger that had driven him to me. My heart was melted
looking at the poor dear. 'Let me run to the tavern,' thought I, 'I'll get something to ease his
heart, and then we'll make an end of it. I've no more anger in my heart against you,
Emelyanoushka!' I brought him some vodka. 'Here, Emelyan Ilyitch, let us have a drink for
the holiday. Like a drink? And it will do you good.' He held out his hand, held it out greedily;

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he was just taking it, and then he stopped himself. But a minute after I saw him take it, and
lift it to his mouth, spilling it on his sleeve. But though he got it to his lips he set it down on
the table again.
"'What is it, Emelyanoushka?'
"'Nothing, Astafy Ivanovitch, I—sort of——'
"'Won't you drink it?'
"'Well, Astafy Ivanovitch, I'm not—sort of—going to drink any more, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'Do you mean you've given it up altogether, Emelyanoushka, or are you only not going to
drink to-day?'
"He did not answer. A minute later I saw him rest his head on his hand.
"'What's the matter, Emelyanoushka, are you ill?'
"'Why, yes, Astafy Ivanovitch, I don't feel well.'
"I took him and laid him down on the bed. I saw that he really was ill: his head was burning
hot and he was shivering with fever. I sat by him all day; towards night he was worse. I
mixed him some oil and onion and kvass and bread broken up.
"'Come, eat some of this,' said I, 'and perhaps you'll be better.' He shook his head. 'No,' said
he, 'I won't have any dinner to-day, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"I made some tea for him, I quite flustered our old woman—he was no better. Well, thinks I,
it's a bad look-out! The third morning I went for a medical gentleman. There was one I knew
living close by, Kostopravov by name. I'd made his acquaintance when I was in service with
the Bosomyagins; he'd attended me. The doctor come and looked at him. 'He's in a bad way,'
said he, 'it was no use sending for me. But if you like I can give him a powder.' Well, I didn't
give him a powder, I thought that's just the doctor's little game; and then the fifth day came.
"He lay, sir, dying before my eyes. I sat in the window with my work in my hands. The old
woman was heating the stove. We were all silent. My heart was simply breaking over him,
the good-for-nothing fellow; I felt as if it were a son of my own I was losing. I knew that
Emelyanoushka was looking at me. I'd seen the man all the day long making up his mind to
say something and not daring to.
"At last I looked up at him; I saw such misery in the poor fellow's eyes. He had kept them
fixed on me, but when he saw that I was looking at him, he looked down at once.
"'Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'What is it, Emelyanoushka?'
"'If you were to take my old coat to a second-hand dealer's, how much do you think they'd
give you for it, Astafy Ivanovitch?'
"'There's no knowing how much they'd give. Maybe they would give me a rouble for it,
Emelyan Ilyitch.'

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"But if I had taken it they wouldn't have given a farthing for it, but would have laughed in my
face for bringing such a trumpery thing. I simply said that to comfort the poor fellow,
knowing the simpleton he was.
"'But I was thinking, Astafy Ivanovitch, they might give you three roubles for it; it's made of
cloth, Astafy Ivanovitch. How could they only give one rouble for a cloth coat?'
"'I don't know, Emelyan Ilyitch,' said I, 'if you are thinking of taking it you should certainly
ask three roubles to begin with.'
"Emelyanoushka was silent for a time, and then he addressed me again—
"'Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'What is it, Emelyanoushka?' I asked.
"'Sell my coat when I die, and don't bury me in it. I can lie as well without it; and it's a thing
of some value—it might come in useful.'
"I can't tell you how it made my heart ache to hear him. I saw that the death agony was
coming on him. We were silent again for a bit. So an hour passed by. I looked at him again:
he was still staring at me, and when he met my eyes he looked down again.
"'Do you want some water to drink, Emelyan Ilyitch?' I asked.
"'Give me some, God bless you, Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"I gave him a drink.
"'Thank you, Astafy Ivanovitch,' said he.
"'Is there anything else you would like, Emelyanoushka?'
"'No, Astafy Ivanovitch, there's nothing I want, but I—sort of——'
"'What?'
"'I only——'
"'What is it, Emelyanoushka?'
"'Those riding breeches——it was——sort of——I who took them——Astafy Ivanovitch.'
"'Well, God forgive you, Emelyanoushka,' said I, 'you poor, sorrowful creature. Depart in
peace.'
"And I was choking myself, sir, and the tears were in my eyes. I turned aside for a moment.
"'Astafy Ivanovitch——'
"I saw Emelyanoushka wanted to tell me something; he was trying to sit up, trying to speak,
and mumbling something. He flushed red all over suddenly, looked at me ... then I saw him
turn white again, whiter and whiter, and he seemed to sink away all in a minute. His head fell
back, he drew one breath and gave up his soul to God."

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A NOVEL IN NINE LETTERS

(FROM PYOTR IVANITCH TO IVAN PETROVITCH)

DEAR SIR AND MOST PRECIOUS FRIEND, IVAN PETROVITCH,
For the last two days I have been, I may say, in pursuit of you, my friend, having to talk over
most urgent business with you, and I cannot come across you anywhere. Yesterday, while we
were at Semyon Alexeyitch's, my wife made a very good joke about you, saying that Tatyana
Petrovna and you were a pair of birds always on the wing. You have not been married three
months and you already neglect your domestic hearth. We all laughed heartily—from our
genuine kindly feeling for you, of course—but, joking apart, my precious friend, you have
given me a lot of trouble. Semyon Alexeyitch said to me that you might be going to the ball
at the Social Union's club! Leaving my wife with Semyon Alexeyitch's good lady, I flew off
to the Social Union. It was funny and tragic! Fancy my position! Me at the ball—and alone,
without my wife! Ivan Andreyitch meeting me in the porter's lodge and seeing me alone, at
once concluded (the rascal!) that I had a passion for dances, and taking me by the arm,
wanted to drag me off by force to a dancing class, saying that it was too crowded at the Social
Union, that an ardent spirit had not room to turn, and that his head ached from the patchouli
and mignonette. I found neither you, nor Tatyana Petrovna. Ivan Andreyitch vowed and
declared that you would be at Woe from Wit, at the Alexandrinsky theatre.
I flew off to the Alexandrinsky theatre: you were not there either. This morning I expected to
find you at Tchistoganov's—no sign of you there. Tchistoganov sent to the Perepalkins'—the
same thing there. In fact, I am quite worn out; you can judge how much trouble I have taken!
Now I am writing to you (there is nothing else I can do). My business is by no means a
literary one (you understand me?); it would be better to meet face to face, it is extremely
necessary to discuss something with you and as quickly as possible, and so I beg you to come
to us to-day with Tatyana Petrovna to tea and for a chat in the evening. My Anna Mihalovna
will be extremely pleased to see you. You will truly, as they say, oblige me to my dying day.
By the way, my precious friend—since I have taken up my pen I'll go into all I have against
you—I have a slight complaint I must make; in fact, I must reproach you, my worthy friend,
for an apparently very innocent little trick which you have played at my expense.... You are a
rascal, a man without conscience. About the middle of last month, you brought into my house
an acquaintance of yours, Yevgeny Nikolaitch; you vouched for him by your friendly and, for
me, of course, sacred recommendation; I rejoiced at the opportunity of receiving the young
man with open arms, and when I did so I put my head in a noose. A noose it hardly is, but it
has turned out a pretty business. I have not time now to explain, and indeed it is an awkward
thing to do in writing, only a very humble request to you, my malicious friend: could you not
somehow very delicately, in passing, drop a hint into the young man's ear that there are a
great many houses in the metropolis besides ours? It's more than I can stand, my dear fellow!
We fall at your feet, as our friend Semyonovitch says. I will tell you all about it when we
meet. I don't mean to say that the young man has sinned against good manners, or is lacking
in spiritual qualities, or is not up to the mark in some other way. On the contrary, he is an
amiable and pleasant fellow; but wait, we shall meet; meanwhile if you see him, for
goodness' sake whisper a hint to him, my good friend. I would do it myself, but you know

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what I am, I simply can't, and that's all about it. You introduced him. But I will explain
myself more fully this evening, anyway. Now good-bye. I remain, etc.
P.S.—My little boy has been ailing for the last week, and gets worse and worse every day; he
is cutting his poor little teeth. My wife is nursing him all the time, and is depressed, poor
thing. Be sure to come, you will give us real pleasure, my precious friend.

II

(FROM IVAN PETROVITCH TO PYOTR IVANITCH)

DEAR SIR, PYOTR IVANITCH!
I got your letter yesterday, I read it and was perplexed. You looked for me, goodness knows
where, and I was simply at home. Till ten o'clock I was expecting Ivan Ivanitch Tolokonov.
At once on getting your letter I set out with my wife, I went to the expense of taking a cab,
and reached your house about half-past six. You were not at home, but we were met by your
wife. I waited to see you till half-past ten, I could not stay later. I set off with my wife, went
to the expense of a cab again, saw her home, and went on myself to the Perepalkins', thinking
I might meet you there, but again I was out in my reckoning. When I get home I did not sleep
all night, I felt uneasy; in the morning I drove round to you three times, at nine, at ten and at
eleven; three times I went to the expense of a cab, and again you left me in the lurch.
I read your letter and was amazed. You write about Yevgeny Nikolaitch, beg me to whisper
some hint, and do not tell me what about. I commend your caution, but all letters are not
alike, and I don't give documents of importance to my wife for curl-papers. I am puzzled, in
fact, to know with what motive you wrote all this to me. However, if it comes to that, why
should I meddle in the matter? I don't poke my nose into other people's business. You can be
not at home to him; I only see that I must have a brief and decisive explanation with you, and,
moreover, time is passing. And I am in straits and don't know what to do if you are going to
neglect the terms of our agreement. A journey for nothing; a journey costs something, too,
and my wife's whining for me to get her a velvet mantle of the latest fashion. About Yevgeny
Nikolaitch I hasten to mention that when I was at Pavel Semyonovitch Perepalkin's yesterday
I made inquiries without loss of time. He has five hundred serfs in the province of Yaroslav,
and he has expectations from his grandmother of an estate of three hundred serfs near
Moscow. How much money he has I cannot tell; I think you ought to know that better. I beg
you once for all to appoint a place where I can meet you. You met Ivan Andreyitch yesterday,
and you write that he told you that I was at the Alexandrinsky theatre with my wife. I write,
that he is a liar, and it shows how little he is to be trusted in such cases, that only the day
before yesterday he did his grandmother out of eight hundred roubles. I have the honour to
remain, etc.
P.S.—My wife is going to have a baby; she is nervous about it and feels depressed at times.
At the theatre they sometimes have fire-arms going off and sham thunderstorms. And so for
fear of a shock to my wife's nerves I do not take her to the theatre. I have no great partiality
for the theatre myself.

III

(FROM PYOTR IVANITCH TO IVAN PETROVITCH)

MY PRECIOUS FRIEND, IVAN PETROVITCH,

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I am to blame, to blame, a thousand times to blame, but I hasten to defend myself. Between
five and six yesterday, just as we were talking of you with the warmest affection, a messenger
from Uncle Stepan Alexeyitch galloped up with the news that my aunt was very bad. Being
afraid of alarming my wife, I did not say a word of this to her, but on the pretext of other
urgent business I drove off to my aunt's house. I found her almost dying. Just at five o'clock
she had had a stroke, the third she has had in the last two years. Karl Fyodoritch, their family
doctor, told us that she might not live through the night. You can judge of my position,
dearest friend. We were on our legs all night in grief and anxiety. It was not till morning that,
utterly exhausted and overcome by moral and physical weakness, I lay down on the sofa; I
forgot to tell them to wake me, and only woke at half-past eleven. My aunt was better. I
drove home to my wife. She, poor thing, was quite worn out expecting me. I snatched a bite
of something, embraced my little boy, reassured my wife and set off to call on you. You were
not at home. At your flat I found Yevgeny Nikolaitch. When I got home I took up a pen, and
here I am writing to you. Don't grumble and be cross to me, my true friend. Beat me, chop
my guilty head off my shoulders, but don't deprive me of your affection. From your wife I
learned that you will be at the Slavyanovs' this evening. I will certainly be there. I look
forward with the greatest impatience to seeing you.

P.S.—We are in perfect despair about our little boy. Karl Fyodoritch prescribes rhubarb. He
moans. Yesterday he did not know any one. This morning he did know us, and began lisping
papa, mamma, boo.... My wife was in tears the whole morning.

IV

(FROM IVAN PETROVITCH TO PYOTR IVANITCH)

MY DEAR SIR, PYOTR IVANITCH!
I am writing to you, in your room, at your bureau; and before taking up my pen, I have been
waiting for more than two and a half hours for you. Now allow me to tell you straight out,
Pyotr Ivanitch, my frank opinion about this shabby incident. From your last letter I gathered
that you were expected at the Slavyanovs', that you were inviting me to go there; I turned up,
I stayed for five hours and there was no sign of you. Why, am I to be made a laughing-stock
to people, do you suppose? Excuse me, my dear sir ... I came to you this morning, I hoped to
find you, not imitating certain deceitful persons who look for people, God knows where,

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when they can be found at home at any suitably chosen time. There is no sign of you at home.
I don't know what restrains me from telling you now the whole harsh truth. I will only say
that I see you seem to be going back on your bargain regarding our agreement. And only now
reflecting on the whole affair, I cannot but confess that I am absolutely astounded at the artful
workings of your mind. I see clearly now that you have been cherishing your unfriendly
design for a long time. This supposition of mine is confirmed by the fact that last week in an
almost unpardonable way you took possession 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.

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(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

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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

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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 fool as not to guess at once what your designs are aiming at and what your friendly
relations really mean. I should say that they mean deceit, treachery, forgetfulness of human
duties and proprieties, contrary to the law of God and vicious in every way. I take myself as a
proof and example. In what way have I offended you and why have you treated me in this
godless fashion?
I will end my letter. I have explained myself. Now in conclusion. If, sir, you do not in the
shortest possible time after receiving this letter return me in full, first, the three hundred and
fifty roubles I gave you, and, secondly, all the sums that should come to me according to your
promise, I will have recourse to every possible means to compel you to return it, even to open
force, secondly to the protection of the laws, and finally I beg to inform you that I am in
possession of facts, which, if they remain in the hands of your humble servant, may ruin and
disgrace your name in the eyes of all the world. Allow me to remain, etc.

VII

(FROM PYOTR IVANITCH TO IVAN PETROVITCH)

November 15.
IVAN PETROVITCH!
When I received your vulgar and at the same time queer letter, my impulse for the first
minute was to tear it into shreds, but I have preserved it as a curiosity. I do, however,

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sincerely regret our misunderstandings and unpleasant relations. I did not mean to answer
you. But I am compelled by necessity. I must in these lines inform you that it would be very
unpleasant for me to see you in my house at any time; my wife feels the same: she is in
delicate health and the smell of tar upsets her. My wife sends your wife the book, Don
Quixote de la Mancha, with her sincere thanks. As for the galoshes you say you left behind
here on your last visit, I must regretfully inform you that they are nowhere to be found. They
are still being looked for; but if they do not turn up, then I will buy you a new pair.
I have the honour to remain your sincere friend,

VIII

On the sixteenth of November, Pyotr Ivanitch received by post two letters addressed to him.
Opening the first envelope, he took out a carefully folded note on pale pink paper. The
handwriting was his wife's. It was addressed to Yevgeny Nikolaitch and dated November the
second. There was nothing else in the envelope. Pyotr Ivanitch read:
DEAR EUGÈNE,
Yesterday was utterly impossible. My husband was at home the whole evening. Be sure to
come to-morrow punctually at eleven. At half-past ten my husband is going to Tsarskoe and
not coming back till evening. I was in a rage all night. Thank you for sending me the
information and the correspondence. What a lot of paper. Did she really write all that? She
has style though; many thanks, dear; I see that you love me. Don't be angry, but, for goodness
sake, come to-morrow.
A.
Pyotr Ivanitch tore open the other letter:
PYOTR IVANITCH,
I should never have set foot again in your house anyway; you need not have troubled to soil
paper about it.
Next week I am going to Simbirsk. Yevgany Nikolaitch remains your precious and beloved
friend. I wish you luck, and don't trouble about the galoshes.

IX

On the seventeenth of November Ivan Petrovitch received by post two letters addressed to
him. Opening the first letter, he took out a hasty and carelessly written note. The handwriting
was his wife's; it was addressed to Yevgeny Nikolaitch, and dated August the fourth. There
was nothing else in the envelope. Ivan Petrovitch read:

Good-bye, good-bye, Yevgeny Nikolaitch! The Lord reward you for this too. May you be
happy, but my lot is bitter, terribly bitter! It is your choice. If it had not been for my aunt I
should not have put such trust in you. Do not laugh at me nor at my aunt. To-morrow is our
wedding. Aunt is relieved that a good man has been found, and that he will take me without a

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dowry. I took a good look at him for the first time to-day. He seems good-natured. They are
hurrying me. Farewell, farewell.... My darling!! Think of me sometimes; I shall never forget
you. Farewell! I sign this last like my first letter, do you remember?
TATYANA.
The second letter was as follows:
IVAN PETROVITCH,
To-morrow you will receive a new pair of galoshes. It is not my habit to filch from other
men's pockets, and I am not fond of picking up all sorts of rubbish in the streets.
Yevgeny Nikolaitch is going to Simbirsk in a day or two on his grandfather's business, and he
has asked me to find a travelling companion for him; wouldn't you like to take him with you?

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AN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENT

This unpleasant business occurred at the epoch when the regeneration of our beloved
fatherland and the struggle of her valiant sons towards new hopes and destinies was
beginning with irresistible force and with a touchingly naïve impetuosity. One winter evening
in that period, between eleven and twelve o'clock, three highly respectable gentlemen were
sitting in a comfortable and even luxuriously furnished room in a handsome house of two
storeys on the Petersburg Side, and were engaged in a staid and edifying conversation on a
very interesting subject. These three gentlemen were all of generals' rank. They were sitting
round a little table, each in a soft and handsome arm-chair, and as they talked, they quietly
and luxuriously sipped champagne. The bottle stood on the table on a silver stand with ice
round it. The fact was that the host, a privy councillor called Stepan Nikiforovitch Nikiforov,
an old bachelor of sixty-five, was celebrating his removal into a house he had just bought,
and as it happened, also his birthday, which he had never kept before. The festivity, however,
was not on a very grand scale; as we have seen already, there were only two guests, both of
them former colleagues and former subordinates of Mr. Nikiforov; that is, an actual civil
councillor called Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko, and another actual civil councillor, Ivan
Ilyitch Pralinsky. They had arrived to tea at nine o'clock, then had begun upon the wine, and
knew that at exactly half-past eleven they would have to set off home. Their host had all his
life been fond of regularity. A few words about him.
He had begun his career as a petty clerk with nothing to back him, had quietly plodded on for
forty-five years, knew very well what to work towards, had no ambition to draw the stars
down from heaven, though he had two stars already, and particularly disliked expressing his
own opinion on any subject. He was honest, too, that is, it had not happened to him to do
anything particularly dishonest; he was a bachelor because he was an egoist; he had plenty of
brains, but he could not bear showing his intelligence; he particularly disliked slovenliness
and enthusiasm, regarding it as moral slovenliness; and towards the end of his life had
become completely absorbed in a voluptuous, indolent comfort and systematic solitude.
Though he sometimes visited people of a rather higher rank than his own, yet from his youth
up he could never endure entertaining visitors himself; and of late he had, if he did not play a
game of patience, been satisfied with the society of his dining-room clock, and would spend
the whole evening dozing in his arm-chair, listening placidly to its ticking under its glass case
on the chimney-piece. In appearance he was closely shaven and extremely proper-looking, he
was well-preserved, looking younger than his age; he promised to go on living many years
longer, and closely followed the rules of the highest good breeding. His post was a fairly
comfortable one: he had to preside somewhere and to sign something. In short, he was
regarded as a first-rate man. He had only one passion, or more accurately, one keen desire:
that was, to have his own house, and a house built like a gentleman's residence, not a
commercial investment. His desire was at last realised: he looked out and bought a house on
the Petersburg Side, a good way off, it is true, but it had a garden and was an elegant house.
The new owner decided that it was better for being a good way off: he did not like
entertaining at home, and for driving to see any one or to the office he had a handsome
carriage of a chocolate hue, a coachman, Mihey, and two little but strong and handsome
horses. All this was honourably acquired by the careful frugality of forty years, so that his
heart rejoiced over it.

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This was how it was that Stepan Nikiforovitch felt such pleasure in his placid heart that he
actually invited two friends to see him on his birthday, which he had hitherto carefully
concealed from his most intimate acquaintances. He had special designs on one of these
visitors. He lived in the upper storey of his new house, and he wanted a tenant for the lower
half, which was built and arranged in exactly the same way. Stepan Nikiforovitch was
reckoning upon Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko, and had twice that evening broached the
subject in the course of conversation. But Semyon Ivanovitch made no response. The latter,
too, was a man who had doggedly made a way for himself in the course of long years. He had
black hair and whiskers, and a face that always had a shade of jaundice. He was a married
man of morose disposition who liked to stay at home; he ruled his household with a rod of
iron; in his official duties he had the greatest self-confidence. He, too, knew perfectly well
what goal he was making for, and better still, what he never would reach. He was in a good
position, and he was sitting tight there. Though he looked upon the new reforms with a
certain distaste, he was not particularly agitated about them: he was extremely self-confident,
and listened with a shade of ironical malice to Ivan Ilyitch Pralinsky expatiating on new
themes. All of them had been drinking rather freely, however, so that Stepan Nikiforovitch
himself condescended to take part in a slight discussion with Mr. Pralinsky concerning the
latest reforms. But we must say a few words about his Excellency, Mr. Pralinsky, especially
as he is the chief hero of the present story.
The actual civil councillor Ivan Ilyitch Pralinsky had only been "his Excellency" for four
months; in short, he was a young general. He was young in years, too—only forty-three, no
more—and he looked and liked to look even younger. He was a tall, handsome man, he was
smart in his dress, and prided himself on its solid, dignified character; with great aplomb he
displayed an order of some consequence on his breast. From his earliest childhood he had
known how to acquire the airs and graces of aristocratic society, and being a bachelor,
dreamed of a wealthy and even aristocratic bride. He dreamed of many other things, though
he was far from being stupid. At times he was a great talker, and even liked to assume a
parliamentary pose. He came of a good family. He was the son of a general, and brought up
in the lap of luxury; in his tender childhood he had been dressed in velvet and fine linen, had
been educated at an aristocratic school, and though he acquired very little learning there he
was successful in the service, and had worked his way up to being a general. The authorities
looked upon him as a capable man, and even expected great things from him in the future.
Stepan Nikiforovitch, under whom Ivan Ilyitch had begun his career in the service, and under
whom he had remained until he was made a general, had never considered him a good
business man and had no expectations of him whatever. What he liked in him was that he
belonged to a good family, had property—that is, a big block of buildings, let out in flats, in
charge of an overseer—was connected with persons of consequence, and what was more, had
a majestic bearing. Stepan Nikiforovitch blamed him inwardly for excess of imagination and
instability. Ivan Ilyitch himself felt at times that he had too much amour-propre and even
sensitiveness. Strange to say, he had attacks from time to time of morbid tenderness of
conscience and even a kind of faint remorse. With bitterness and a secret soreness of heart he
recognised now and again that he did not fly so high as he imagined. At such moments he
sank into despondency, especially when he was suffering from hæmorrhoids, called his
life une existence manquée, and ceased—privately, of course—to believe even in his
parliamentary capacities, calling himself a talker, a maker of phrases; and though all that, of
course, did him great credit, it did not in the least prevent him from raising his head again
half an hour later, and growing even more obstinately, even more conceitedly self-confident,
and assuring himself that he would yet succeed in making his mark, and that he would be not
only a great official, but a statesman whom Russia would long remember. He actually

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dreamed at times of monuments. From this it will be seen that Ivan Ilyitch aimed high,
though he hid his vague hopes and dreams deep in his heart, even with a certain trepidation.
In short, he was a good-natured man and a poet at heart. Of late years these morbid moments
of disillusionment had begun to be more frequent. He had become peculiarly irritable, ready
to take offence, and was apt to take any contradiction as an affront. But reformed Russia gave
him great hopes. His promotion to general was the finishing touch. He was roused; he held
his head up. He suddenly began talking freely and eloquently. He talked about the new ideas,
which he very quickly and unexpectedly made his own and professed with vehemence. He
sought opportunities for speaking, drove about the town, and in many places succeeded in
gaining the reputation of a desperate Liberal, which flattered him greatly. That evening, after
drinking four glasses, he was particularly exuberant. He wanted on every point to confute
Stepan Nikiforovitch, whom he had not seen for some time past, and whom he had hitherto
always respected and even obeyed. He considered him for some reason reactionary, and fell
upon him with exceptional heat. Stepan Nikiforovitch hardly answered him, but only listened
slyly, though the subject interested him. Ivan Ilyitch got hot, and in the heat of the discussion
sipped his glass more often than he ought to have done. Then Stepan Nikiforovitch took the
bottle and at once filled his glass again, which for some reason seemed to offend Ivan Ilyitch,
especially as Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko, whom he particularly despised and indeed
feared on account of his cynicism and ill-nature, preserved a treacherous silence and smiled
more frequently than was necessary. "They seem to take me for a schoolboy," flashed across
Ivan Ilyitch's mind.
"No, it was time, high time," he went on hotly. "We have put it off too long, and to my
thinking humanity is the first consideration, humanity with our inferiors, remembering that
they, too, are men. Humanity will save everything and bring out all that is...."
"He-he-he-he!" was heard from the direction of Semyon Ivanovitch.
"But why are you giving us such a talking to?" Stepan Nikiforovitch protested at last, with an
affable smile. "I must own, Ivan Ilyitch, I have not been able to make out, so far, what you
are maintaining. You advocate humanity. That is love of your fellow-creatures, isn't it?"
"Yes, if you like. I...."
"Allow me! As far as I can see, that's not the only thing. Love of one's fellow-creatures has
always been fitting. The reform movement is not confined to that. All sorts of questions have
arisen relating to the peasantry, the law courts, economics, government contracts, morals and
... and ... and those questions are endless, and all together may give rise to great upheavals, so
to say. That is what we have been anxious about, and not simply humanity...."
"Yes, the thing is a bit deeper than that," observed Semyon Ivanovitch.
"I quite understand, and allow me to observe, Semyon Ivanovitch, that I can't agree to being
inferior to you in depth of understanding," Ivan Ilyitch observed sarcastically and with
excessive sharpness. "However, I will make so bold as to assert, Stepan Nikiforovitch, that
you have not understood me either...."
"No, I haven't."
"And yet I maintain and everywhere advance the idea that humanity and nothing else with
one's subordinates, from the official in one's department down to the copying clerk, from the
copying clerk down to the house serf, from the servant down to the peasant—humanity, I say,
may serve, so to speak, as the corner-stone of the coming reforms and the reformation of

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things in general. Why? Because. Take a syllogism. I am human, consequently I am loved. I

am loved, so confidence is felt in me. There is a feeling of confidence, and so there is trust.
There is trust, and so there is love ... that is, no, I mean to say that if they trust me they will
believe in the reforms, they will understand, so to speak, the essential nature of them, will, so
to speak, embrace each other in a moral sense, and will settle the whole business in a friendly
way, fundamentally. What are you laughing at, Semyon Ivanovitch? Can't you understand?"
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows without speaking; he was surprised.
"I fancy I have drunk a little too much," said Semyon Ivanovitch sarcastically, "and so I am a
little slow of comprehension. Not quite all my wits about me."
Ivan Ilyitch winced.
"We should break down," Stepan Nikiforovitch pronounced suddenly, after a slight pause of
hesitation.
"How do you mean we should break down?" asked Ivan Ilyitch, surprised at Stepan
Nikiforovitch's abrupt remark.
"Why, we should break under the strain." Stepan Nikiforovitch evidently did not care to
explain further.
"I suppose you are thinking of new wine in old bottles?" Ivan Ilyitch replied, not without
irony. "Well, I can answer for myself, anyway."
At that moment the clock struck half-past eleven.
"One sits on and on, but one must go at last," said Semyon Ivanovitch, getting up. But Ivan
Ilyitch was before him; he got up from the table and took his sable cap from the chimney-
piece. He looked as though he had been insulted.
"So how is it to be, Semyon Ivanovitch? Will you think it over?" said Stepan Nikiforovitch,
as he saw the visitors out.
"About the flat, you mean? I'll think it over, I'll think it over."
"Well, when you have made up your mind, let me know as soon as possible."
"Still on business?" Mr. Pralinsky observed affably, in a slightly ingratiating tone, playing
with his hat. It seemed to him as though they were forgetting him.
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows and remained mute, as a sign that he would not
detain his visitors. Semyon Ivanovitch made haste to bow himself out.
"Well ... after that what is one to expect ... if you don't understand the simple rules of good
manners...." Mr. Pralinsky reflected to himself, and held out his hand to Stepan Nikiforovitch
in a particularly offhand way.
In the hall Ivan Ilyitch wrapped himself up in his light, expensive fur coat; he tried for some
reason not to notice Semyon Ivanovitch's shabby raccoon, and they both began descending
the stairs.
"The old man seemed offended," said Ivan Ilyitch to the silent Semyon Ivanovitch.
"No, why?" answered the latter with cool composure.

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"Servile flunkey," Ivan Ilyitch thought to himself.

They went out at the front door. Semyon Ivanovitch's sledge with a grey ugly horse drove up.
"What the devil! What has Trifon done with my carriage?" cried Ivan Ilyitch, not seeing his
carriage.
The carriage was nowhere to be seen. Stepan Nikiforovitch's servant knew nothing about it.
They appealed to Varlam, Semyon Ivanovitch's coachman, and received the answer that he
had been standing there all the time and that the carriage had been there, but now there was
no sign of it.
"An unpleasant predicament," Mr. Shipulenko pronounced. "Shall I take you home?"
"Scoundrelly people!" Mr. Pralinsky cried with fury. "He asked me, the rascal, to let him go
to a wedding close here in the Petersburg Side; some crony of his was getting married, deuce
take her! I sternly forbade him to absent himself, and now I'll bet he has gone off there."
"He certainly has gone there, sir," observed Varlam; "but he promised to be back in a minute,
to be here in time, that is."
"Well, there it is! I had a presentiment that this would happen! I'll give it to him!"
"You'd better give him a good flogging once or twice at the police station, then he will do
what you tell him," said Semyon Ivanovitch, as he wrapped the rug round him.
"Please don't you trouble, Semyon Ivanovitch!"
"Well, won't you let me take you along?"
"Merci, bon voyage."
Semyon Ivanovitch drove off, while Ivan Ilyitch set off on foot along the wooden pavement,
conscious of a rather acute irritation.

"Yes, indeed I'll give it to you now, you rogue! I am going on foot on purpose to make you
feel it, to frighten you! He will come back and hear that his master has gone off on foot ... the
blackguard!"
Ivan Ilyitch had never abused any one like this, but he was greatly angered, and besides, there
was a buzzing in his head. He was not given to drink, so five or six glasses soon affected him.
But the night was enchanting. There was a frost, but it was remarkably still and there was no
wind. There was a clear, starry sky. The full moon was bathing the earth in soft silver light. It
was so lovely that after walking some fifty paces Ivan Ilyitch almost forgot his troubles. He
felt particularly pleased. People quickly change from one mood to another when they are a
little drunk. He was even pleased with the ugly little wooden houses of the deserted street.
"It's really a capital thing that I am walking," he thought; "it's a lesson to Trifon and a
pleasure to me. I really ought to walk oftener. And I shall soon pick up a sledge on the Great
Prospect. It's a glorious night. What little houses they all are! I suppose small fry live here,
clerks, tradesmen, perhaps.... That Stepan Nikiforovitch! What reactionaries they all are,

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those old fogies! Fogies, yes, c'est le mot. He is a sensible man, though; he has that bon sens,
sober, practical understanding of things. But they are old, old. There is a lack of ... what is it?
There is a lack of something.... 'We shall break down.' What did he mean by that? He actually
pondered when he said it. He didn't understand me a bit. And yet how could he help
understanding? It was more difficult not to understand it than to understand it. The chief thing
is that I am convinced, convinced in my soul. Humanity ... the love of one's kind. Restore a
man to himself, revive his personal dignity, and then ... when the ground is prepared, get to
work. I believe that's clear? Yes! Allow me, your Excellency; take a syllogism, for instance:
we meet, for instance, a clerk, a poor, downtrodden clerk. 'Well ... who are you?' Answer: 'A
clerk.' Very good, a clerk; further: 'What sort of clerk are you?' Answer: 'I am such and such a
clerk,' he says. 'Are you in the service?' 'I am.' 'Do you want to be happy?' 'I do.' 'What do you
need for happiness?' 'This and that.' 'Why?' 'Because....' and there the man understands me
with a couple of words, the man's mine, the man is caught, so to speak, in a net, and I can do
what I like with him, that is, for his good. Horrid man that Semyon Ivanovitch! And what a
nasty phiz he has!... 'Flog him in the police station,' he said that on purpose. No, you are
talking rubbish; you can flog, but I'm not going to; I shall punish Trifon with words, I shall
punish him with reproaches, he will feel it. As for flogging, h'm! ... it is an open question,
h'm!... What about going to Emerance? Oh, damnation take it, the cursed pavement!" he cried
out, suddenly tripping up. "And this is the capital. Enlightenment! One might break one's leg.
H'm! I detest that Semyon Ivanovitch; a most revolting phiz. He was chuckling at me just
now when I said they would embrace each other in a moral sense. Well, and they will
embrace each other, and what's that to do with you? I am not going to embrace you; I'd rather
embrace a peasant.... If I meet a peasant, I shall talk to him. I was drunk, though, and perhaps
did not express myself properly. Possibly I am not expressing myself rightly now.... H'm! I
shall never touch wine again. In the evening you babble, and next morning you are sorry for
it. After all, I am walking quite steadily.... But they are all scoundrels, anyhow!"
So Ivan Ilyitch meditated incoherently and by snatches, as he went on striding along the
pavement. The fresh air began to affect him, set his mind working. Five minutes later he
would have felt soothed and sleepy. But all at once, scarcely two paces from the Great
Prospect, he heard music. He looked round. On the other side of the street, in a very tumble-
down-looking long wooden house of one storey, there was a great fête, there was the scraping
of violins, and the droning of a double bass, and the squeaky tooting of a flute playing a very
gay quadrille tune. Under the windows stood an audience, mainly of women in wadded
pelisses with kerchiefs on their heads; they were straining every effort to see something
through a crack in the shutters. Evidently there was a gay party within. The sound of the thud
of dancing feet reached the other side of the street. Ivan Ilyitch saw a policeman standing not
far off, and went up to him.
"Whose house is that, brother?" he asked, flinging his expensive fur coat open, just far
enough to allow the policeman to see the imposing decoration on his breast.
"It belongs to the registration clerk Pseldonimov," answered the policeman, drawing himself
up instantly, discerning the decoration.
"Pseldonimov? Bah! Pseldonimov! What is he up to? Getting married?"
"Yes, your Honour, to a daughter of a titular councillor, Mlekopitaev, a titular councillor ...
used to serve in the municipal department. That house goes with the bride."
"So that now the house is Pseldonimov's and not Mlekopitaev's?"
"Yes, Pseldonimov's, your Honour. It was Mlekopitaev's, but now it is Pseldonimov's."
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"H'm! I am asking you, my man, because I am his chief. I am a general in the same office in
which Pseldonimov serves."
"Just so, your Excellency."
The policeman drew himself up more stiffly than ever, while Ivan Ilyitch seemed to ponder.
He stood still and meditated....
Yes, Pseldonimov really was in his department and in his own office; he remembered that.
He was a little clerk with a salary of ten roubles a month. As Mr. Pralinsky had received his
department very lately he might not have remembered precisely all his subordinates, but
Pseldonimov he remembered just because of his surname. It had caught his eye from the very
first, so that at the time he had had the curiosity to look with special attention at the possessor
of such a surname. He remembered now a very young man with a long hooked nose, with
tufts of flaxen hair, lean and ill-nourished, in an impossible uniform, and with
unmentionables so impossible as to be actually unseemly; he remembered how the thought
had flashed through his mind at the time: shouldn't he give the poor fellow ten roubles for
Christmas, to spend on his wardrobe? But as the poor fellow's face was too austere, and his
expression extremely unprepossessing, even exciting repulsion, the good-natured idea
somehow faded away of itself, so Pseldonimov did not get his tip. He had been the more
surprised when this same Pseldonimov had not more than a week before asked for leave to be
married. Ivan Ilyitch remembered that he had somehow not had time to go into the matter, so
that the matter of the marriage had been settled offhand, in haste. But yet he did remember
exactly that Pseldonimov was receiving a wooden house and four hundred roubles in cash as
dowry with his bride. The circumstance had surprised him at the time; he remembered that he
had made a slight jest over the juxtaposition of the names Pseldonimov and Mlekopitaev. He
remembered all that clearly.
He recalled it, and grew more and more pensive. It is well known that whole trains of thought
sometimes pass through our brains instantaneously as though they were sensations without
being translated into human speech, still less into literary language. But we will try to
translate these sensations of our hero's, and present to the reader at least the kernel of them,
so to say, what was most essential and nearest to reality in them. For many of our sensations
when translated into ordinary language seem absolutely unreal. That is why they never find
expression, though every one has them. Of course Ivan Ilyitch's sensations and thoughts were
a little incoherent. But you know the reason.
"Why," flashed through his mind, "here we all talk and talk, but when it comes to action—it
all ends in nothing. Here, for instance, take this Pseldonimov: he has just come from his
wedding full of hope and excitement, looking forward to his wedding feast.... This is one of
the most blissful days of his life.... Now he is busy with his guests, is giving a banquet, a
modest one, poor, but gay and full of genuine gladness.... What if he knew that at this very
moment I, I, his superior, his chief, am standing by his house listening to the music? Yes,
really how would he feel? No, what would he feel if I suddenly walked in? H'm!... Of course
at first he would be frightened, he would be dumb with embarrassment.... I should be in his
way, and perhaps should upset everything. Yes, that would be so if any other general went in,
but not I.... That's a fact, any one else, but not I....
"Yes, Stepan Nikiforovitch! You did not understand me just now, but here is an example
ready for you.
"Yes, we all make an outcry about acting humanely, but we are not capable of heroism, of
fine actions.
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"What sort of heroism? This sort. Consider: in the existing relations of the various members
of society, for me, for me, after midnight to go in to the wedding of my subordinate, a
registration clerk, at ten roubles the month—why, it would mean embarrassment, a
revolution, the last days of Pompeii, a nonsensical folly. No one would understand it. Stepan
Nikiforovitch would die before he understood it. Why, he said we should break down. Yes,
but that's you old people, inert, paralytic people; but I shan't break down, I will transform the
last day of Pompeii to a day of the utmost sweetness for my subordinate, and a wild action to
an action normal, patriarchal, lofty and moral. How? Like this. Kindly listen....
"Here ... I go in, suppose; they are amazed, leave off dancing, look wildly at me, draw back.
Quite so, but at once I speak out: I go straight up to the frightened Pseldonimov, and with a
most cordial, affable smile, in the simplest words, I say: 'This is how it is, I have been at his
Excellency Stepan Nikiforovitch's. I expect you know, close here in the neighbourhood....'
Well, then, lightly, in a laughing way, I shall tell him of my adventure with Trifon. From
Trifon I shall pass on to saying how I walked here on foot.... 'Well, I heard music, I inquired
of a policeman, and learned, brother, that it was your wedding. Let me go in, I thought, to my
subordinate's; let me see how my clerks enjoy themselves and ... celebrate their wedding. I
suppose you won't turn me out?' Turn me out! What a word for a subordinate! How the devil
could he dream of turning me out! I fancy that he would be half crazy, that he would rush
headlong to seat me in an arm-chair, would be trembling with delight, would hardly know
what he was doing for the first minute!
"Why, what can be simpler, more elegant than such an action? Why did I go in? That's
another question! That is, so to say, the moral aspect of the question. That's the pith.
"H'm, what was I thinking about, yes!
"Well, of course they will make me sit down with the most important guest, some titular
councillor or a relation who's a retired captain with a red nose. Gogol describes these
eccentrics so capitally. Well, I shall make acquaintance, of course, with the bride, I shall
compliment her, I shall encourage the guests. I shall beg them not to stand on ceremony. To
enjoy themselves, to go on dancing. I shall make jokes, I shall laugh; in fact, I shall be affable
and charming. I am always affable and charming when I am pleased with myself.... H'm ...
the point is that I believe I am still a little, well, not drunk exactly, but ...
"Of course, as a gentleman I shall be quite on an equality with them, and shall not expect any
especial marks of.... But morally, morally, it is a different matter; they will understand and
appreciate it.... My actions will evoke their nobler feelings.... Well, I shall stay for half an
hour ... even for an hour; I shall leave, of course, before supper; but they will be bustling
about, baking and roasting, they will be making low bows, but I will only drink a glass,
congratulate them and refuse supper. I shall say—'business.' And as soon as I pronounce the
word 'business,' all of them will at once have sternly respectful faces. By that I shall
delicately remind them that there is a difference between them and me. The earth and the sky.
It is not that I want to impress that on them, but it must be done ... it's even essential in a
moral sense, when all is said and done. I shall smile at once, however, I shall even laugh, and
then they will all pluck up courage again.... I shall jest a little again with the bride; h'm!... I
may even hint that I shall come again in just nine months to stand godfather, he-he! And she
will be sure to be brought to bed by then. They multiply, you know, like rabbits. And they
will all roar with laughter and the bride will blush; I shall kiss her feelingly on the forehead,
even give her my blessing ... and next day my exploit will be known at the office. Next day I
shall be stern again, next day I shall be exacting again, even implacable, but they will all
know what I am like. They will know my heart, they will know my essential nature: 'He is

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stern as chief, but as a man he is an angel!' And I shall have conquered them; I shall have
captured them by one little act which would never have entered your head; they would be
mine; I should be their father, they would be my children.... Come now, your Excellency
Stepan Nikiforovitch, go and do likewise....
"But do you know, do you understand, that Pseldonimov will tell his children how the
General himself feasted and even drank at his wedding! Why you know those children would
tell their children, and those would tell their grandchildren as a most sacred story that a grand
gentleman, a statesman (and I shall be all that by then) did them the honour, and so on, and so
on. Why, I am morally elevating the humiliated, I restore him to himself.... Why, he gets a
salary of ten roubles a month!... If I repeat this five or ten times, or something of the sort, I
shall gain popularity all over the place.... My name will be printed on the hearts of all, and the
devil only knows what will come of that popularity!..."
These, or something like these, were Ivan Ilyitch's reflections, (a man says all sorts of things
sometimes to himself, gentlemen, especially when he is in rather an eccentric condition). All
these meditations passed through his mind in something like half a minute, and of course he
might have confined himself to these dreams and, after mentally putting Stepan Nikiforovitch
to shame, have gone very peacefully home and to bed. And he would have done well. But the
trouble of it was that the moment was an eccentric one.
As ill-luck would have it, at that very instant the self-satisfied faces of Stepan Nikiforovitch
and Semyon Ivanovitch suddenly rose before his heated imagination.
"We shall break down!" repeated Stepan Nikiforovitch, smiling disdainfully.
"He-he-he," Semyon Ivanovitch seconded him with his nastiest smile.
"Well, we'll see whether we do break down!" Ivan Ilyitch said resolutely, with a rush of heat
to his face.
He stepped down from the pavement and with resolute steps went straight across the street
towards the house of his registration clerk Pseldonimov.

His star carried him away. He walked confidently in at the open gate and contemptuously
thrust aside with his foot the shaggy, husky little sheep-dog who flew at his legs with a hoarse
bark, more as a matter of form than with any real intention. Along a wooden plank he went to
the covered porch which led like a sentry box to the yard, and by three decaying wooden
steps he went up to the tiny entry. Here, though a tallow candle or something in the way of a
night-light was burning somewhere in a corner, it did not prevent Ivan Ilyitch from putting
his left foot just as it was, in its galosh, into a galantine which had been stood out there to
cool. Ivan Ilyitch bent down, and looking with curiosity, he saw that there were two other
dishes of some sort of jelly and also two shapes apparently of blancmange. The squashed
galantine embarrassed him, and for one brief instant the thought flashed through his mind,
whether he should not slink away at once. But he considered this too low. Reflecting that no
one would have seen him, and that they would never think he had done it, he hurriedly wiped
his galosh to conceal all traces, fumbled for the felt-covered door, opened it and found
himself in a very little ante-room. Half of it was literally piled up with greatcoats, wadded
jackets, cloaks, capes, scarves and galoshes. In the other half the musicians had been

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installed; two violins, a flute, and a double bass, a band of four, picked up, of course, in the
street. They were sitting at an unpainted wooden table, lighted by a single tallow candle, and
with the utmost vigour were sawing out the last figure of the quadrille. From the open door
into the drawing-room one could see the dancers in the midst of dust, tobacco smoke and
fumes. There was a frenzy of gaiety. There were sounds of laughter, shouts and shrieks from
the ladies. The gentlemen stamped like a squadron of horses. Above all the Bedlam there
rang out words of command from the leader of the dance, probably an extremely free and
easy, and even unbuttoned gentleman: "Gentlemen advance, ladies' chain, set to partners!"
and so on, and so on. Ivan Ilyitch in some excitement cast off his coat and galoshes, and with
his cap in his hand went into the room. He was no longer reflecting, however.
For the first minute nobody noticed him; all were absorbed in dancing the quadrille to the
end. Ivan Ilyitch stood as though entranced, and could make out nothing definite in the chaos.
He caught glimpses of ladies' dresses, of gentlemen with cigarettes between their teeth. He
caught a glimpse of a lady's pale blue scarf which flicked him on the nose. After the wearer a
medical student, with his hair blown in all directions on his head, pranced by in wild delight
and jostled violently against him on the way. He caught a glimpse, too, of an officer of some
description, who looked half a mile high. Some one in an unnaturally shrill voice shouted,
"O-o-oh, Pseldonimov!" as the speaker flew by stamping. It was sticky under Ivan Ilyitch's
feet; evidently the floor had been waxed. In the room, which was a very small one, there were
about thirty people.
But a minute later the quadrille was over, and almost at once the very thing Ivan Ilyitch had
pictured when he was dreaming on the pavement took place.
A stifled murmur, a strange whisper passed over the whole company, including the dancers,
who had not yet had time to take breath and wipe their perspiring faces. All eyes, all faces
began quickly turning towards the newly arrived guest. Then they all seemed to draw back a
little and beat a retreat. Those who had not noticed him were pulled by their coats or dresses
and informed. They looked round and at once beat a retreat with the others. Ivan Ilyitch was
still standing at the door without moving a step forward, and between him and the company
there stretched an ever widening empty space of floor strewn with countless sweet-meat
wrappings, bits of paper and cigarette ends. All at once a young man in a uniform, with a
shock of flaxen hair and a hooked nose, stepped timidly out into that empty space. He moved
forward, hunched up, and looked at the unexpected visitor exactly with the expression with
which a dog looks at its master when the latter has called him up and is going to kick him.
"Good evening, Pseldonimov, do you know me?" said Ivan Ilyitch, and felt at the same
minute that he had said this very awkwardly; he felt, too, that he was perhaps doing
something horribly stupid at that moment.
"You-our Ex-cel-len-cy!" muttered Pseldonimov.
"To be sure.... I have called in to see you quite by chance, my friend, as you can probably
imagine...."
But evidently Pseldonimov could imagine nothing. He stood with staring eyes in the utmost
perplexity.
"You won't turn me out, I suppose.... Pleased or not, you must make a visitor welcome...."
Ivan Ilyitch went on, feeling that he was confused to a point of unseemly feebleness; that he
was trying to smile and was utterly unable; that the humorous reference to Stepan
Nikiforovitch and Trifon was becoming more and more impossible. But as ill luck would

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have it, Pseldonimov did not recover from his stupefaction, and still gazed at him with a
perfectly idiotic air. Ivan Ilyitch winced, he felt that in another minute something incredibly
foolish would happen.
"I am not in the way, am I?... I'll go away," he faintly articulated, and there was a tremor at
the right corner of his mouth.
But Pseldonimov had recovered himself.
"Good heavens, your Excellency ... the honour...." he muttered, bowing hurriedly.
"Graciously sit down, your Excellency...." And recovering himself still further, he motioned
him with both hands to a sofa before which a table had been moved away to make room for
the dancing.
Ivan Ilyitch felt relieved and sank on the sofa; at once some one flew to move the table up to
him. He took a cursory look round and saw that he was the only person sitting down, all the
others were standing, even the ladies. A bad sign. But it was not yet time to reassure and
encourage them. The company still held back, while before him, bending double, stood
Pseldonimov, utterly alone, still completely at a loss and very far from smiling. It was horrid;
in short, our hero endured such misery at that moment that his Haroun al-Raschid-like
descent upon his subordinates for the sake of principle might well have been reckoned an
heroic action. But suddenly a little figure made its appearance beside Pseldonimov, and
began bowing. To his inexpressible pleasure and even happiness, Ivan Ilyitch at once
recognised him as the head clerk of his office, Akim Petrovitch Zubikov, and though, of
course, he was not acquainted with him, he knew him to be a businesslike and exemplary
clerk. He got up at once and held out his hand to Akim Petrovitch—his whole hand, not two
fingers. The latter took it in both of his with the deepest respect. The general was triumphant,
the situation was saved.
And now indeed Pseldonimov was no longer, so to say, the second person, but the third. It
was possible to address his remarks to the head clerk in his necessity, taking him for an
acquaintance and even an intimate one, and Pseldonimov meanwhile could only be silent and
be in a tremor of reverence. So that the proprieties were observed. And some explanation was
essential, Ivan Ilyitch felt that; he saw that all the guests were expecting something, that the
whole household was gathered together in the doorway, almost creeping, climbing over one
another in their anxiety to see and hear him. What was horrid was that the head clerk in his
foolishness remained standing.
"Why are you standing?" said Ivan Ilyitch, awkwardly motioning him to a seat on the sofa
beside him.
"Oh, don't trouble.... I'll sit here." And Akim Petrovitch hurriedly sat down on a chair, almost
as it was being put for him by Pseldonimov, who remained obstinately standing.
"Can you imagine what happened," addressing himself exclusively to Akim Petrovitch in a
rather quavering, though free and easy voice. He even drawled out his words, with special
emphasis on some syllables, pronounced the vowel ah like eh; in short, felt and was
conscious that he was being affected but could not control himself: some external force was
at work. He was painfully conscious of many things at that moment.
"Can you imagine, I have only just come from Stepan Nikiforovitch Nikiforov's, you have
heard of him perhaps, the privy councillor. You know ... on that special committee...."

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Akim Petrovitch bent his whole person forward respectfully: as much as to say, "Of course
we have heard of him."
"He is your neighbor now," Ivan Ilyitch went on, for one instant for the sake of ease and good
manners addressing Pseldonimov, but he quickly turned away again, on seeing from the
latter's eyes that it made absolutely no difference to him.
"The old fellow, as you know, has been dreaming all his life of buying himself a house....
Well, and he has bought it. And a very pretty house too. Yes.... And to-day was his birthday
and he had never celebrated it before, he used even to keep it secret from us, he was too
stingy to keep it, he-he. But now he is so delighted over his new house, that he invited
Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko and me, you know."
Akim Petrovitch bent forward again. He bent forward zealously. Ivan Ilyitch felt somewhat
comforted. It had struck him, indeed, that the head clerk possibly was guessing that he was an
indispensable point d'appui for his Excellency at that moment. That would have been more
horrid than anything.
"So we sat together, the three of us, he gave us champagne, we talked about problems ... even
dis-pu-ted.... He-he!"
Akim Petrovitch raised his eyebrows respectfully.
"Only that is not the point. When I take leave of him at last—he is a punctual old fellow, goes
to bed early, you know, in his old age—I go out.... My Trifon is nowhere to be seen! I am
anxious, I make inquiries. 'What has Trifon done with the carriage?' It comes out that hoping
I should stay on, he had gone off to the wedding of some friend of his, or sister maybe....
Goodness only knows. Somewhere here on the Petersburg Side. And took the carriage with
him while he was about it."
Again for the sake of good manners the general glanced in the direction of Pseldonimov. The
latter promptly gave a wriggle, but not at all the sort of wriggle the general would have liked.
"He has no sympathy, no heart," flashed through his brain.
"You don't say so!" said Akim Petrovitch, greatly impressed. A faint murmur of surprise ran
through all the crowd.
"Can you fancy my position...." (Ivan Ilyitch glanced at them all.) "There was nothing for it, I
set off on foot, I thought I would trudge to the Great Prospect, and there find some cabby ...
he-he!"
"He-he-he!" Akim Petrovitch echoed. Again a murmur, but this time on a more cheerful note,
passed through the crowd. At that moment the chimney of a lamp on the wall broke with a
crash. Some one rushed zealously to see to it. Pseldonimov started and looked sternly at the
lamp, but the general took no notice of it, and all was serene again.
"I walked ... and the night was so lovely, so still. All at once I heard a band, stamping,
dancing. I inquired of a policeman; it is Pseldonimov's wedding. Why, you are giving a ball
to all Petersburg Side, my friend. Ha-ha." He turned to Pseldonimov again.
"He-he-he! To be sure," Akim Petrovitch responded. There was a stir among the guests again,
but what was most foolish was that Pseldonimov, though he bowed, did not even now smile,
but seemed as though he were made of wood. "Is he a fool or what?" thought Ivan Ilyitch.

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"He ought to have smiled at that point, the ass, and everything would have run easily." There
was a fury of impatience in his heart.
"I thought I would go in to see my clerk. He won't turn me out I expect ... pleased or not, one
must welcome a guest. You must please excuse me, my dear fellow. If I am in the way, I will
go ... I only came in to have a look...."
But little by little a general stir was beginning.
Akim Petrovitch looked at him with a mawkishly sweet expression as though to say, "How
could your Excellency be in the way?" all the guests stirred and began to display the first
symptoms of being at their ease. Almost all the ladies sat down. A good sign and a reassuring
one. The boldest spirits among them fanned themselves with their handkerchiefs. One of
them in a shabby velvet dress said something with intentional loudness. The officer addressed
by her would have liked to answer her as loudly, but seeing that they were the only ones
speaking aloud, he subsided. The men, for the most part government clerks, with two or three
students among them, looked at one another as though egging each other on to unbend,
cleared their throats, and began to move a few steps in different directions. No one, however,
was particularly timid, but they were all restive, and almost all of them looked with a hostile
expression at the personage who had burst in upon them, to destroy their gaiety. The officer,
ashamed of his cowardice, began to edge up to the table.
"But I say, my friend, allow me to ask you your name," Ivan Ilyitch asked Pseldonimov.
"Porfiry Petrovitch, your Excellency," answered the latter, with staring eyes as though on
parade.
"Introduce me, Porfiry Petrovitch, to your bride.... Take me to her ... I...."
And he showed signs of a desire to get up. But Pseldonimov ran full speed to the drawing-
room. The bride, however, was standing close by at the door, but as soon as she heard herself
mentioned, she hid. A minute later Pseldonimov led her up by the hand. The guests all moved
aside to make way for them. Ivan Ilyitch got up solemnly and addressed himself to her with a
most affable smile.
"Very, very much pleased to make your acquaintance," he pronounced with a most
aristocratic half-bow, "especially on such a day...."
He gave a meaning smile. There was an agreeable flutter among the ladies.
"Charmé," the lady in the velvet dress pronounced, almost aloud.
The bride was a match for Pseldonimov. She was a thin little lady not more than seventeen,
pale, with a very small face and a sharp little nose. Her quick, active little eyes were not at all
embarrassed; on the contrary, they looked at him steadily and even with a shade of
resentment. Evidently Pseldonimov was marrying her for her beauty. She was dressed in a
white muslin dress over a pink slip. Her neck was thin, and she had a figure like a chicken's
with the bones all sticking out. She was not equal to making any response to the general's
affability.
"But she is very pretty," he went on, in an undertone, as though addressing Pseldonimov
only, though intentionally speaking so that the bride could hear.
But on this occasion, too, Pseldonimov again answered absolutely nothing, and did not even
wriggle. Ivan Ilyitch fancied that there was something cold, suppressed in his eyes, as though

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he had something peculiarly malignant in his mind. And yet he had at all costs to wring some
sensibility out of him. Why, that was the object of his coming.
"They are a couple, though!" he thought.
And he turned again to the bride, who had seated herself beside him on the sofa, but in
answer to his two or three questions he got nothing but "yes" or "no," and hardly that.
"If only she had been overcome with confusion," he thought to himself, "then I should have
begun to banter her. But as it is, my position is impossible."
And as ill-luck would have it, Akim Petrovitch, too, was mute; though this was only due to
his foolishness, it was still unpardonable.
"My friends! Haven't I perhaps interfered with your enjoyment?" he said, addressing the
whole company.
He felt that the very palms of his hands were perspiring.
"No ... don't trouble, your Excellency; we are beginning directly, but now ... we are getting
cool," answered the officer.
The bride looked at him with pleasure; the officer was not old, and wore the uniform of some
branch of the service. Pseldonimov was still standing in the same place, bending forward, and
it seemed as though his hooked nose stood out further than ever. He looked and listened like a
footman standing with the greatcoat on his arm, waiting for the end of his master's farewell
conversation. Ivan Ilyitch made this comparison himself. He was losing his head; he felt that
he was in an awkward position, that the ground was giving way under his feet, that he had got
in somewhere and could not find his way out, as though he were in the dark.

Suddenly the guests all moved aside, and a short, thick-set, middle-aged woman made her
appearance, dressed plainly though she was in her best, with a big shawl on her shoulders,
pinned at her throat, and on her head a cap to which she was evidently unaccustomed. In her
hands she carried a small round tray on which stood a full but uncorked bottle of champagne
and two glasses, neither more nor less. Evidently the bottle was intended for only two guests.
The middle-aged lady approached the general.
"Don't look down on us, your Excellency," she said, bowing. "Since you have deigned to do
my son the honour of coming to his wedding, we beg you graciously to drink to the health of
the young people. Do not disdain us; do us the honour."
Ivan Ilyitch clutched at her as though she were his salvation. She was by no means an old
woman—forty-five or forty-six, not more; but she had such a good-natured, rosy-cheeked,
such a round and candid Russian face, she smiled so good-humouredly, bowed so simply,
that Ivan Ilyitch was almost comforted and began to hope again.
"So you are the mo-other of your so-on?" he said, getting up from the sofa.
"Yes, my mother, your Excellency," mumbled Pseldonimov, craning his long neck and
thrusting forward his long nose again.

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"Ah! I am delighted—de-ligh-ted to make your acquaintance."

"Do not refuse us, your Excellency."
"With the greatest pleasure."
The tray was put down. Pseldonimov dashed forward to pour out the wine. Ivan Ilyitch, still
standing, took the glass.
"I am particularly, particularly glad on this occasion, that I can ..." he began, "that I can ...
testify before all of you.... In short, as your chief ... I wish you, madam" (he turned to the
bride), "and you, friend Porfiry, I wish you the fullest, completest happiness for many long
years."
And he positively drained the glass with feeling, the seventh he had drunk that evening.
Pseldonimov looked at him gravely and even sullenly. The general was beginning to feel an
agonising hatred of him.
"And that scarecrow" (he looked at the officer) "keeps obtruding himself. He might at least
have shouted 'hurrah!' and it would have gone off, it would have gone off...."
"And you too, Akim Petrovitch, drink a glass to their health," added the mother, addressing
the head clerk. "You are his superior, he is under you. Look after my boy, I beg you as a
mother. And don't forget us in the future, our good, kind friend, Akim Petrovitch."
"How nice these old Russian women are," thought Ivan Ilyitch. "She has livened us all up. I
have always loved the democracy...."
At that moment another tray was brought to the table; it was brought in by a maid wearing a
crackling cotton dress that had never been washed, and a crinoline. She could hardly grasp
the tray in both hands, it was so big. On it there were numbers of plates of apples, sweets,
fruit meringues and fruit cheeses, walnuts and so on, and so on. The tray had been till then in
the drawing-room for the delectation of all the guests, and especially the ladies. But now it
was brought to the general alone.
"Do not disdain our humble fare, your Excellency. What we have we are pleased to offer,"
the old lady repeated, bowing.
"Delighted!" said Ivan Ilyitch, and with real pleasure took a walnut and cracked it between
his fingers. He had made up his mind to win popularity at all costs.
Meantime the bride suddenly giggled.
"What is it?" asked Ivan Ilyitch with a smile, encouraged by this sign of life.
"Ivan Kostenkinitch, here, makes me laugh," she answered, looking down.
The general distinguished, indeed, a flaxen-headed young man, exceedingly good-looking,
who was sitting on a chair at the other end of the sofa, whispering something to Madame
Pseldonimov. The young man stood up. He was apparently very young and very shy.
"I was telling the lady about a 'dream book,' your Excellency," he muttered as though
apologising.
"About what sort of 'dream book'?" asked Ivan Ilyitch condescendingly.

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"There is a new 'dream book,' a literary one. I was telling the lady that to dream of Mr.
Panaev means spilling coffee on one's shirt front."
"What innocence!" thought Ivan Ilyitch, with positive annoyance.
Though the young man flushed very red as he said it, he was incredibly delighted that he had
said this about Mr. Panaev.
"To be sure, I have heard of it...." responded his Excellency.
"No, there is something better than that," said a voice quite close to Ivan Ilyitch. "There is a
new encyclopædia being published, and they say Mr. Kraevsky will write articles... and
satirical literature."
This was said by a young man who was by no means embarrassed, but rather free and easy.
He was wearing gloves and a white waistcoat, and carried a hat in his hand. He did not dance,
and looked condescending, for he was on the staff of a satirical paper called The Firebrand,
and gave himself airs accordingly. He had come casually to the wedding, invited as an
honoured guest of the Pseldonimovs', with whom he was on intimate terms and with whom
only a year before he had lived in very poor lodgings, kept by a German woman. He drank
vodka, however, and for that purpose had more than once withdrawn to a snug little back
room to which all the guests knew their way. The general disliked him extremely.
"And the reason that's funny," broke in joyfully the flaxen-headed young man, who had
talked of the shirt front and at whom the young man on the comic paper looked with hatred in
consequence, "it's funny, your Excellency, because it is supposed by the writer that Mr.
Kraevsky does not know how to spell, and thinks that 'satirical' ought to be written with a 'y'
instead of an 'i.'"
But the poor young man scarcely finished his sentence; he could see from his eyes that the
general knew all this long ago, for the general himself looked embarrassed, and evidently
because he knew it. The young man seemed inconceivably ashamed. He succeeded in
effacing himself completely, and remained very melancholy all the rest of the evening.
But to make up for that the young man on the staff of the Firebrand came up nearer, and
seemed to be intending to sit down somewhere close by. Such free and easy manners struck
Ivan Ilyitch as rather shocking.
"Tell me, please, Porfiry," he began, in order to say something, "why—I have always wanted
to ask you about it in person—why you are called Pseldonimov instead of Pseudonimov?
Your name surely must be Pseudonimov."
"I cannot inform you exactly, your Excellency," said Pseldonimov.
"It must have been that when his father went into the service they made a mistake in his
papers, so that he has remained now Pseldonimov," put in Akim Petrovitch. "That does
happen."
"Un-doubted-ly," the general said with warmth, "un-doubted-ly; for only think, Pseudonimov
comes from the literary word pseudonym, while Pseldonimov means nothing."
"Due to foolishness," added Akim Petrovitch.
"You mean what is due to foolishness?"

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"The Russian common people in their foolishness often alter letters, and sometimes
pronounce them in their own way. For instance, they say nevalid instead of invalid."
"Oh, yes, nevalid, he-he-he...."
"Mumber, too, they say, your Excellency," boomed out the tall officer, who had long been
itching to distinguish himself in some way.
"What do you mean by mumber?"
"Mumber instead of number, your Excellency."
"Oh, yes, mumber ... instead of number.... To be sure, to be sure.... He-he-he!" Ivan Ilyitch
had to do a chuckle for the benefit of the officer too.
The officer straightened his tie.
"Another thing they say is nigh by," the young man on the comic paper put in. But his
Excellency tried not to hear this. His chuckles were not at everybody's disposal.
"Nigh by, instead of near," the young man on the comic paper persisted, in evident irritation.
Ivan Ilyitch looked at him sternly.
"Come, why persist?" Pseldonimov whispered to him.
"Why, I was talking. Mayn't one speak?" the latter protested in a whisper; but he said no
more and with secret fury walked out of the room.
He made his way straight to the attractive little back room where, for the benefit of the
dancing gentlemen, vodka of two sorts, salt fish, caviare into slices and a bottle of very strong
sherry of Russian make had been set early in the evening on a little table, covered with a
Yaroslav cloth. With anger in his heart he was pouring himself out a glass of vodka, when
suddenly the medical student with the dishevelled locks, the foremost dancer and cutter of
capers at Pseldonimov's ball, rushed in. He fell on the decanter with greedy haste.
"They are just going to begin!" he said rapidly, helping himself. "Come and look, I am going
to dance a solo on my head; after supper I shall risk the fish dance. It is just the thing for the
wedding. So to speak, a friendly hint to Pseldonimov. She's a jolly creature that Kleopatra
Semyonovna, you can venture on anything you like with her."
"He's a reactionary," said the young man on the comic paper gloomily, as he tossed off his
vodka.
"Who is a reactionary?"
"Why, the personage before whom they set those sweet-meats. He's a reactionary, I tell you."
"What nonsense!" muttered the student, and he rushed out of the room, hearing the opening
bars of the quadrille.
Left alone, the young man on the comic paper poured himself out another glass to give
himself more assurance and independence; he drank and ate a snack of something, and never
had the actual civil councillor Ivan Ilyitch made for himself a bitterer foe more implacably
bent on revenge than was the young man on the staff of the Firebrand whom he had so
slighted, especially after the latter had drunk two glasses of vodka. Alas! Ivan Ilyitch

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suspected nothing of the sort. He did not suspect another circumstance of prime importance
either, which had an influence on the mutual relations of the guests and his Excellency. The
fact was that though he had given a proper and even detailed explanation of his presence at
his clerk's wedding, this explanation did not really satisfy any one, and the visitors were still
embarrassed. But suddenly everything was transformed as though by magic, all were
reassured and ready to enjoy themselves, to laugh, to shriek; to dance, exactly as though the
unexpected visitor were not in the room. The cause of it was a rumour, a whisper, a report
which spread in some unknown way that the visitor was not quite ... it seemed—was, in fact,
"a little top-heavy." And though this seemed at first a horrible calumny, it began by degrees
to appear to be justified; suddenly everything became clear. What was more, they felt all at
once extraordinarily free. And it was just at this moment that the quadrille for which the
medical student was in such haste, the last before supper, began.
And just as Ivan Ilyitch meant to address the bride again, intending to provoke her with some
innuendo, the tall officer suddenly dashed up to her and with a flourish dropped on one knee
before her. She immediately jumped up from the sofa, and whisked off with him to take her
place in the quadrille. The officer did not even apologise, and she did not even glance at the
general as she went away; she seemed, in fact, relieved to escape.
"After all she has a right to be,' thought Ivan Ilyitch, 'and of course they don't know how to
behave.' "Hm! Don't you stand on ceremony, friend Porfiry," he said, addressing
Pseldonimov. "Perhaps you have ... arrangements to make ... or something ... please don't put
yourself out." 'Why does he keep guard over me?'" he thought to himself.
Pseldonimov, with his long neck and his eyes fixed intently upon him, began to be
insufferable. In fact, all this was not the thing, not the thing at all, but Ivan Ilyitch was still far
from admitting this.

The quadrille began.

"Will you allow me, your Excellency?" asked Akim Petrovitch, holding the bottle
respectfully in his hands and preparing to pour from it into his Excellency's glass.
"I ... I really don't know, whether...."
But Akim Petrovitch, with reverent and radiant face, was already filling the glass. After
filling the glass, he proceeded, writhing and wriggling, as it were stealthily, as it were
furtively, to pour himself out some, with this difference, that he did not fill his own glass to
within a finger length of the top, and this seemed somehow more respectful. He was like a
woman in travail as he sat beside his chief. What could he talk about, indeed? Yet to entertain
his Excellency was an absolute duty since he had the honour of keeping him company. The
champagne served as a resource, and his Excellency, too, was pleased that he had filled his
glass—not for the sake of the champagne, for it was warm and perfectly abominable, but just
morally pleased.
"The old chap would like to have a drink himself," thought Ivan Ilyitch, "but he doesn't
venture till I do. I mustn't prevent him. And indeed it would be absurd for the bottle to stand
between as untouched."

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He took a sip, anyway it seemed better than sitting doing nothing.

"I am here," he said, with pauses and emphasis, "I am here, you know, so to speak,
accidentally, and, of course, it may be ... that some people would consider ... it unseemly for
me to be at such ... a gathering."
Akim Petrovitch said nothing, but listened with timid curiosity.
"But I hope you will understand, with what object I have come.... I haven't really come
simply to drink wine ... he-he!"
Akim Petrovitch tried to chuckle, following the example of his Excellency, but again he
could not get it out, and again he made absolutely no consolatory answer.
"I am here ... in order, so to speak, to encourage ... to show, so to speak, a moral aim," Ivan
Ilyitch continued, feeling vexed at Akim Petrovitch's stupidity, but he suddenly subsided into
silence himself. He saw that poor Akim Petrovitch had dropped his eyes as though he were in
fault. The general in some confusion made haste to take another sip from his glass, and Akim
Petrovitch clutched at the bottle as though it were his only hope of salvation and filled the
glass again.
"You haven't many resources," thought Ivan Ilyitch, looking sternly at poor Akim Petrovitch.
The latter, feeling that stern general-like eye upon him, made up his mind to remain silent for
good and not to raise his eyes. So they sat beside each other for a couple of minutes—two
sickly minutes for Akim Petrovitch.
A couple of words about Akim Petrovitch. He was a man of the old school, as meek as a hen,
reared from infancy to obsequious servility, and at the same time a good-natured and even
honourable man. He was a Petersburg Russian; that is, his father and his father's father were
born, grew up and served in Petersburg and had never once left Petersburg. That is quite a
special type of Russian. They have hardly any idea of Russia, though that does not trouble
them at all. Their whole interest is confined to Petersburg and chiefly the place in which they
serve. All their thoughts are concentrated on preference for farthing points, on the shop, and
their month's salary. They don't know a single Russian custom, a single Russian song except
"Lutchinushka," and that only because it is played on the barrel organs. However, there are
two fundamental and invariable signs by which you can at once distinguish a Petersburg
Russian from a real Russian. The first sign is the fact that Petersburg Russians, all without
exception, speak of the newspaper as the Academic News and never call it the Petersburg
News. The second and equally trustworthy sign is that Petersburg Russians never make use of
the word "breakfast," but always call it "Frühstück" with especial emphasis on the first
syllable. By these radical and distinguishing signs you can tell them apart; in short, this is a
humble type which has been formed during the last thirty-five years. Akim Petrovitch,
however, was by no means a fool. If the general had asked him a question about anything in
his own province he would have answered and kept up a conversation; as it was, it was
unseemly for a subordinate even to answer such questions as these, though Akim Petrovitch
was dying from curiosity to know something more detailed about his Excellency's real
intentions.
And meanwhile Ivan Ilyitch sank more and more into meditation and a sort of whirl of ideas;
in his absorption he sipped his glass every half-minute. Akim Petrovitch at once zealously
filled it up. Both were silent. Ivan Ilyitch began looking at the dances, and immediately
something attracted his attention. One circumstance even surprised him....

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The dances were certainly lively. Here people danced in the simplicity of their hearts to
amuse themselves and even to romp wildly. Among the dancers few were really skilful, but
the unskilled stamped so vigorously that they might have been taken for agile ones. The
officer was among the foremost; he particularly liked the figures in which he was left alone,
to perform a solo. Then he performed the most marvellous capers. For instance, standing
upright as a post, he would suddenly bend over to one side, so that one expected him to fall
over; but with the next step he would suddenly bend over in the opposite direction at the
same acute angle to the floor. He kept the most serious face and danced in the full conviction
that every one was watching him. Another gentleman, who had had rather more than he could
carry before the quadrille, dropped asleep beside his partner so that his partner had to dance
alone. The young registration clerk, who had danced with the lady in the blue scarf through
all the figures and through all the five quadrilles which they had danced that evening, played
the same prank the whole time: that is, he dropped a little behind his partner, seized the end
of her scarf, and as they crossed over succeeded in imprinting some twenty kisses on the
scarf. His partner sailed along in front of him, as though she noticed nothing. The medical
student really did dance on his head, and excited frantic enthusiasm, stamping, and shrieks of
delight. In short, the absence of constraint was very marked. Ivan Ilyitch, whom the wine was
beginning to affect, began by smiling, but by degrees a bitter doubt began to steal into his
heart; of course he liked free and easy manners and unconventionality. He desired, he had
even inwardly prayed for free and easy manners, when they had all held back, but now that
unconventionality had gone beyond all limits. One lady, for instance, the one in the shabby
dark blue velvet dress, bought fourth-hand, in the sixth figure pinned her dress so as to turn it
into—something like trousers. This was the Kleopatra Semyonovna with whom one could
venture to do anything, as her partner, the medical student, had expressed it. The medical
student defied description: he was simply a Fokin. How was it? They had held back and now
they were so quickly emancipated! One might think it nothing, but this transformation was
somehow strange; it indicated something. It was as though they had forgotten Ivan Ilyitch's
existence. Of course he was the first to laugh, and even ventured to applaud. Akim Petrovitch
chuckled respectfully in unison, though, indeed, with evident pleasure and no suspicion that
his Excellency was beginning to nourish in his heart a new gnawing anxiety.
"You dance capitally, young man," Ivan Ilyitch was obliged to say to the medical student as
he walked past him.
The student turned sharply towards him, made a grimace, and bringing his face close into
unseemly proximity to the face of his Excellency, crowed like a cock at the top of his voice.
This was too much. Ivan Ilyitch got up from the table. In spite of that, a roar of inexpressible
laughter followed, for the crow was an extraordinarily good imitation, and the whole
performance was utterly unexpected. Ivan Ilyitch was still standing in bewilderment, when
suddenly Pseldonimov himself made his appearance, and with a bow, began begging him to
come to supper. His mother followed him.
"Your Excellency," she said, bowing, "do us the honour, do not disdain our humble fare."
"I ... I really don't know," Ivan Ilyitch was beginning. "I did not come with that idea ... I ...
meant to be going...."
He was, in fact, holding his hat in his hands. What is more, he had at that very moment taken
an inward vow at all costs to depart at once and on no account whatever to consent to remain,
and ... he remained. A minute later he led the procession to the table. Pseldonimov and his
mother walked in front, clearing the way for him. They made him sit down in the seat of
honour, and again a bottle of champagne, opened but not begun, was set beside his plate. By

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way of hors d'œuvres there were salt herrings and vodka. He put out his hand, poured out a
large glass of vodka and drank it off. He had never drunk vodka before. He felt as though he
were rolling down a hill, were flying, flying, flying, that he must stop himself, catch at
something, but there was no possibility of it.
His position was certainly becoming more and more eccentric. What is more, it seemed as
though fate were mocking at him. God knows what had happened to him in the course of an
hour or so. When he went in he had, so to say, opened his arms to embrace all humanity, all
his subordinates; and here not more than an hour had passed and in all his aching heart he felt
and knew that he hated Pseldonimov and was cursing him, his wife and his wedding. What
was more, he saw from his face, from his eyes alone, that Pseldonimov himself hated him,
that he was looking at him with eyes that almost said: "If only you would take yourself off,
curse you! Foisting yourself on us!" All this he had read for some time in his eyes.
Of course as he sat down to table, Ivan Ilyitch would sooner have had his hand cut off than
have owned, not only aloud, but even to himself, that this was really so. The moment had not
fully arrived yet. There was still a moral vacillation. But his heart, his heart ... it ached! It was
clamouring for freedom, for air, for rest. Ivan Ilyitch was really too good-natured.
He knew, of course, that he ought long before to have gone away, not merely to have gone
away but to have made his escape. That all this was not the same, but had turned out utterly
different from what he had dreamed of on the pavement.
"Why did I come? Did I come here to eat and drink?" he asked himself as he tasted the salt
herring. He even had attacks of scepticism. There was at moments a faint stir of irony in
regard to his own fine action at the bottom of his heart. He actually wondered at times why he
had come in.
But how could he go away? To go away like this without having finished the business
properly was impossible. What would people say? They would say that he was frequenting
low company. Indeed it really would amount to that if he did not end it properly. What would
Stepan Nikiforovitch, Semyon Ivanovitch say (for of course it would be all over the place by
to-morrow)? what would be said in the offices, at the Shembels', at the Shubins'? No, he must
take his departure in such a way that all should understand why he had come, he must make
clear his moral aim.... And meantime the dramatic moment would not present itself. "They
don't even respect me," he went on, thinking. "What are they laughing at? They are as free
and easy as though they had no feeling.... But I have long suspected that all the younger
generation are without feeling! I must remain at all costs! They have just been dancing, but
now at table they will all be gathered together.... I will talk about questions, about reforms,
about the greatness of Russia.... I can still win their enthusiasm! Yes! Perhaps nothing is yet
lost.... Perhaps it is always like this in reality. What should I begin upon with them to attract
them? What plan can I hit upon? I am lost, simply lost.... And what is it they want, what is it
they require?... I see they are laughing together there. Can it be at me, merciful heavens! But
what is it I want ... why is it I am here, why don't I go away, why do I go on persisting?"... He
thought this, and a sort of shame, a deep unbearable shame, rent his heart more and more
intensely.

But everything went on in the same way, one thing after another.

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Just two minutes after he had sat down to the table one terrible thought overwhelmed him
completely. He suddenly felt that he was horribly drunk, that is, not as he was before, but
hopelessly drunk. The cause of this was the glass of vodka which he had drunk after the
champagne, and which had immediately produced an effect. He was conscious, he felt in
every fibre of his being that he was growing hopelessly feeble. Of course his assurance was
greatly increased, but consciousness had not deserted him, and it kept crying out: "It is bad,
very bad and, in fact, utterly unseemly!" Of course his unstable drunken reflections could not
rest long on one subject; there began to be apparent and unmistakably so, even to himself,
two opposite sides. On one side there was swaggering assurance, a desire to conquer, a
disdain of obstacles and a desperate confidence that he would attain his object. The other side
showed itself in the aching of his heart, and a sort of gnawing in his soul. "What would they
say? How would it all end? What would happen to-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow?"...
He had felt vaguely before that he had enemies in the company. "No doubt that was because I
was drunk," he thought with agonising doubt. What was his horror when he actually, by
unmistakable signs, convinced himself now that he really had enemies at the table, and that it
was impossible to doubt of it.
"And why—why?" he wondered.
At the table there were all the thirty guests, of whom several were quite tipsy. Others were
behaving with a careless and sinister independence, shouting and talking at the top of their
voices, bawling out the toasts before the time, and pelting the ladies with pellets of bread.
One unprepossessing personage in a greasy coat had fallen off his chair as soon as he sat
down, and remained so till the end of supper. Another one made desperate efforts to stand on
the table, to propose a toast, and only the officer, who seized him by the tails of his coat,
moderated his premature ardour. The supper was a pell-mell affair, although they had hired a
cook who had been in the service of a general; there was the galantine, there was tongue and
potatoes, there were rissoles with green peas, there was, finally, a goose, and last of all
blancmange. Among the drinks were beer, vodka and sherry. The only bottle of champagne
was standing beside the general, which obliged him to pour it out for himself and also for
Akim Petrovitch, who did not venture at supper to officiate on his own initiative. The other
guests had to drink the toasts in Caucasian wine or anything else they could get. The table
was made up of several tables put together, among them even a card-table. It was covered
with many tablecloths, amongst them one coloured Yaroslav cloth; the gentlemen sat
alternately with the ladies. Pseldonimov's mother would not sit down to the table; she bustled
about and supervised. But another sinister female figure, who had not shown herself till then,
appeared on the scene, wearing a reddish silk dress, with a very high cap on her head and a
bandage round her face for toothache. It appeared that this was the bride's mother, who had at
last consented to emerge from a back room for supper. She had refused to appear till then
owing to her implacable hostility to Pseldonimov's mother, but to that we will refer later. This
lady looked spitefully, even sarcastically, at the general, and evidently did not wish to be
presented to him. To Ivan Ilyitch this figure appeared suspicious in the extreme. But apart
from her, several other persons were suspicious and inspired involuntary apprehension and
uneasiness. It even seemed that they were in some sort of plot together against Ivan Ilyitch.
At any rate it seemed so to him, and throughout the whole supper he became more and more
convinced of it. A gentleman with a beard, some sort of free artist, was particularly sinister;
he even looked at Ivan Ilyitch several times, and then turning to his neighbour, whispered
something. Another person present was unmistakably drunk, but yet, from certain signs, was
to be regarded with suspicion. The medical student, too, gave rise to unpleasant expectations.
Even the officer himself was not quite to be depended on. But the young man on the comic

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paper was blazing with hatred, he lolled in his chair, he looked so haughty and conceited, he
snorted so aggressively! And though the rest of the guests took absolutely no notice of the
young journalist, who had contributed only four wretched poems to the Firebrand, and had
consequently become a Liberal and evidently, indeed, disliked him, yet when a pellet of
bread aimed in his direction fell near Ivan Ilyitch, he was ready to stake his head that it
had been thrown by no other than the young man in question.
All this, of course, had a pitiable effect on him.
Another observation was particularly unpleasant. Ivan Ilyitch became aware that he was
beginning to articulate indistinctly and with difficulty, that he was longing to say a great deal,
but that his tongue refused to obey him. And then he suddenly seemed to forget himself, and
worst of all he would suddenly burst into a loud guffaw of laughter, à propos of nothing. This
inclination quickly passed off after a glass of champagne which Ivan Ilyitch had not meant to
drink, though he had poured it out and suddenly drunk it quite by accident. After that glass he
felt at once almost inclined to cry. He felt that he was sinking into a most peculiar state of
sentimentality; he began to be again filled with love, he loved every one, even Pseldonimov,
even the young man on the comic paper. He suddenly longed to embrace all of them, to
forget everything and to be reconciled. What is more, to tell them everything openly, all, all;
that is, to tell them what a good, nice man he was, with what wonderful talents. What services
he would do for his country, how good he was at entertaining the fair sex, and above all, how
progressive he was, how humanely ready he was to be indulgent to all, to the very lowest;
and finally in conclusion to tell them frankly all the motives that had impelled him to turn up
at Pseldonimov's uninvited, to drink two bottles of champagne and to make him happy with
his presence.
"The truth, the holy truth and candour before all things! I will capture them by candour. They
will believe me, I see it clearly; they actually look at me with hostility, but when I tell them
all I shall conquer them completely. They will fill their glasses and drink my health with
shouts. The officer will break his glass on his spur. Perhaps they will even shout hurrah! Even
if they want to toss me after the Hussar fashion I will not oppose them, and indeed it would
be very jolly! I will kiss the bride on her forehead; she is charming. Akim Petrovitch is a very
nice man, too. Pseldonimov will improve, of course, later on. He will acquire, so to speak, a
society polish.... And although, of course, the younger generation has not that delicacy of
feeling, yet ... yet I will talk to them about the contemporary significance of Russia among
the European States. I will refer to the peasant question, too; yes, and ... and they will all like
me and I shall leave with glory!..."
These dreams were, of course, extremely agreeable, but what was unpleasant was that in the
midst of these roseate anticipations, Ivan Ilyitch suddenly discovered in himself another
unexpected propensity, that was to spit. Anyway saliva began running from his mouth apart
from any will of his own. He observed this on Akim Petrovitch, whose cheek he spluttered
upon and who sat not daring to wipe it off from respectfulness. Ivan Ilyitch took his dinner
napkin and wiped it himself, but this immediately struck him himself as so incongruous, so
opposed to all common sense, that he sank into silence and began wondering. Though Akim
Petrovitch emptied his glass, yet he sat as though he were scalded. Ivan Ilyitch reflected now
that he had for almost a quarter of an hour been talking to him about some most interesting
subject, but that Akim Petrovitch had not only seemed embarrassed as he listened, but
positively frightened. Pseldonimov, who was sitting one chair away from him, also craned his
neck towards him, and bending his head sideways, listened to him with the most unpleasant
air. He actually seemed to be keeping a watch on him. Turning his eyes upon the rest of the

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company, he saw that many were looking straight at him and laughing. But what was
strangest of all was, that he was not in the least embarrassed by it; on the contrary, he sipped
his glass again and suddenly began speaking so that all could hear:
"I was saying just now," he began as loudly as possible, "I was saying just now, ladies and
gentlemen, to Akim Petrovitch, that Russia ... yes, Russia ... in short, you understand, that I
mean to s-s-say ... Russia is living, it is my profound conviction, through a period of hu-hu-
manity...."
"Hu-hu-manity ..." was heard at the other end of the table.
"Hu-hu...."
"Tu-tu!"
Ivan Ilyitch stopped. Pseldonimov got up from his chair and began trying to see who had
shouted. Akim Petrovitch stealthily shook his head, as though admonishing the guests. Ivan
Ilyitch saw this distinctly, but in his confusion said nothing.
"Humanity!" he continued obstinately; "and this evening ... and only this evening I said to
Stepan Niki-ki-foro-vitch ... yes ... that ... that the regeneration, so to speak, of things...."
"Your Excellency!" was heard a loud exclamation at the other end of the table.
"What is your pleasure?" answered Ivan Ilyitch, pulled up short and trying to distinguish who
had called to him.
"Nothing at all, your Excellency. I was carried away, continue! Con-ti-nue!" the voice was
heard again.
Ivan Ilyitch felt upset.
"The regeneration, so to speak, of those same things."
"Your Excellency!" the voice shouted again.
"What do you want?"
"How do you do!"
This time Ivan Ilyitch could not restrain himself. He broke off his speech and turned to the
assailant who had disturbed the general harmony. He was a very young lad, still at school,
who had taken more than a drop too much, and was an object of great suspicion to the
general. He had been shouting for a long time past, and had even broken a glass and two
plates, maintaining that this was the proper thing to do at a wedding. At the moment when
Ivan Ilyitch turned towards him, the officer was beginning to pitch into the noisy youngster.
"What are you about? Why are you yelling? We shall turn you out, that's what we shall do."
"I don't mean you, your Excellency, I don't mean you. Continue!" cried the hilarious
schoolboy, lolling back in his chair. "Continue, I am listening, and am very, ve-ry, ve-ry
much pleased with you! Praisewor-thy, praisewor-thy!"
"The wretched boy is drunk," said Pseldonimov in a whisper.
"I see that he is drunk, but...."

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"I was just telling a very amusing anecdote, your Excellency!" began the officer, "about a
lieutenant in our company who was talking just like that to his superior officers; so this young
man is imitating him now. To every word of his superior officers he said 'praiseworthy,
praiseworthy!' He was turned out of the army ten years ago on account of it."
"Wha-at lieutenant was that?"
"In our company, your Excellency, he went out of his mind over the word praiseworthy. At
first they tried gentle methods, then they put him under arrest.... His commanding officer
admonished him in the most fatherly way, and he answered, 'praiseworthy, praiseworthy!'
And strange to say, the officer was a fine-looking man, over six feet. They meant to court-
martial him, but then they perceived that he was mad."
"So ... a schoolboy. A schoolboy's prank need not be taken seriously. For my part I am ready
to overlook it...."
"They held a medical inquiry, your Excellency."
"Upon my word, but he was alive, wasn't he?"
"What! Did they dissect him?"
A loud and almost universal roar of laughter resounded among the guests, who had till then
behaved with decorum. Ivan Ilyitch was furious.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted, at first scarcely stammering, "I am fully capable of
apprehending that a man is not dissected alive. I imagined that in his derangement he had
ceased to be alive ... that is, that he had died ... that is, I mean to say ... that you don't like me
... and yet I like you all ... Yes, I like Por ... Porfiry ... I am lowering myself by speaking like
this...."
At that moment Ivan Ilyitch spluttered so that a great dab of saliva flew on to the tablecloth in
a most conspicuous place. Pseldonimov flew to wipe it off with a table-napkin. This last
disaster crushed him completely.
"My friends, this is too much," he cried in despair.
"The man is drunk, your Excellency," Pseldonimov prompted him again.
"Porfiry, I see that you ... all ... yes! I say that I hope ... yes, I call upon you all to tell me in
what way have I lowered myself?"
Ivan Ilyitch was almost crying.
"Your Excellency, good heavens!"
"Porfiry, I appeal to you.... Tell me, when I came ... yes ... yes, to your wedding, I had an
object. I was aiming at moral elevation.... I wanted it to be felt.... I appeal to all: am I greatly
lowered in your eyes or not?"
A deathlike silence. That was just it, a deathlike silence, and to such a downright question.
"They might at least shout at this minute!" flashed through his Excellency's head. But the
guests only looked at one another. Akim Petrovitch sat more dead than alive, while
Pseldonimov, numb with terror, was repeating to himself the awful question which had
occurred to him more than once already.

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"What shall I have to pay for all this to-morrow?"

At this point the young man on the comic paper, who was very drunk but who had hitherto
sat in morose silence, addressed Ivan Ilyitch directly, and with flashing eyes began answering
in the name of the whole company.
"Yes," he said in a loud voice, "yes, you have lowered yourself. Yes, you are a reactionary ...
re-ac-tion-ary!"
"Young man, you are forgetting yourself! To whom are you speaking, so to express it?" Ivan
Ilyitch cried furiously, jumping up from his seat again.
"To you; and secondly, I am not a young man.... You've come to give yourself airs and try to
win popularity."
"Pseldonimov, what does this mean?" cried Ivan Ilyitch.
But Pseldonimov was reduced to such horror that he stood still like a post and was utterly at a
loss what to do. The guests, too, sat mute in their seats. All but the artist and the schoolboy,
who applauded and shouted, "Bravo, bravo!"
The young man on the comic paper went on shouting with unrestrained violence:
"Yes, you came to show off your humanity! You've hindered the enjoyment of every one.
You've been drinking champagne without thinking that it is beyond the means of a clerk at
ten roubles a month. And I suspect that you are one of those high officials who are a little too
fond of the young wives of their clerks! What is more, I am convinced that you support State
monopolies.... Yes, yes, yes!"
"Pseldonimov, Pseldonimov," shouted Ivan Ilyitch, holding out his hands to him. He felt that
every word uttered by the comic young man was a fresh dagger at his heart.
"Directly, your Excellency; please do not disturb yourself!" Pseldonimov cried energetically,
rushing up to the comic young man, seizing him by the collar and dragging him away from
the table. Such physical strength could indeed not have been expected from the weakly
looking Pseldonimov. But the comic young man was very drunk, while Pseldonimov was
perfectly sober. Then he gave him two or three cuffs in the back, and thrust him out of the
door.
"You are all scoundrels!" roared the young man of the comic paper. "I will caricature you all
to-morrow in the Firebrand."
They all leapt up from their seats.
"Your Excellency, your Excellency!" cried Pseldonimov, his mother and several others,
crowding round the general; "your Excellency, do not be disturbed!"
"No, no," cried the general, "I am annihilated.... I came... I meant to bless you, so to speak.
And this is how I am paid, for everything, everything!..."
He sank on to a chair as though unconscious, laid both his arms on the table, and bowed his
head over them, straight into a plate of blancmange. There is no need to describe the general
horror. A minute later he got up, evidently meaning to go out, gave a lurch, stumbled against
the leg of a chair, fell full length on the floor and snored....

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This is what is apt to happen to men who don't drink when they accidentally take a glass too
much. They preserve their consciousness to the last point, to the last minute, and then fall to
the ground as though struck down. Ivan Ilyitch lay on the floor absolutely unconscious.
Pseldonimov clutched at his hair and sat as though petrified in that position. The guests made
haste to depart, commenting each in his own way on the incident. It was about three o'clock
in the morning.

The worst of it was that Pseldonimov's circumstances were far worse than could have been
imagined, in spite of the unattractiveness of his present surroundings. And while Ivan Ilyitch
is lying on the floor and Pseldonimov is standing over him tearing his hair in despair, we will
break off the thread of our story and say a few explanatory words about Porfiry Petrovitch
Pseldonimov.
Not more than a month before his wedding he was in a state of hopeless destitution. He came
from a province where his father had served in some department and where he had died while
awaiting his trial on some charge. When five months before his wedding, Pseldonimov, who
had been in hopeless misery in Petersburg for a whole year before, got his berth at ten roubles
a month, he revived both physically and mentally, but he was soon crushed by circumstances
again. There were only two Pseldonimovs left in the world, himself and his mother, who had
left the province after her husband's death. The mother and son barely existed in the freezing
cold, and sustained life on the most dubious substances. There were days when Pseldonimov
himself went with a jug to the Fontanka for water to drink. When he got his place he
succeeded in settling with his mother in a "corner." She took in washing, while for four
months he scraped together every farthing to get himself boots and an overcoat. And what
troubles he had to endure at his office; his superiors approached him with the question: "How
long was it since he had had a bath?" There was a rumour about him that under the collar of
his uniform there were nests of bugs. But Pseldonimov was a man of strong character. On the
surface he was mild and meek; he had the merest smattering of education, he was practically
never heard to talk of anything. I do not know for certain whether he thought, made plans and
theories, had dreams. But on the other hand there was being formed within him an instinctive,
furtive, unconscious determination to fight his way out of his wretched circumstances. He
had the persistence of an ant. Destroy an ants' nest, and they will begin at once re-erecting it;
destroy it again, and they will begin again without wearying. He was a constructive house-
building animal. One could see from his brow that he would make his way, would build his
nest, and perhaps even save for a rainy day. His mother was the only creature in the world
who loved him, and she loved him beyond everything. She was a woman of
resolute character, hard-working and indefatigable, and at the same time good-natured. So
perhaps they might have lived in their corner for five or six years till their circumstances
changed, if they had not come across the retired titular councillor Mlekopitaev, who had been
a clerk in the treasury and had served at one time in the provinces, but had latterly settled in
Petersburg and had established himself there with his family. He knew Pseldonimov, and had
at one time been under some obligation to his father. He had a little money, not a large sum,
of course, but there it was; how much it was no one knew, not his wife, nor his elder
daughter, nor his relations. He had two daughters, and as he was an awful bully, a drunkard, a
domestic tyrant, and in addition to that an invalid, he took it into his head one day to marry
one of his daughters to Pseldonimov: "I knew his father," he would say, "he was a good
fellow and his son will be a good fellow." Mlekopitaev did exactly as he liked, his word was

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law. He was a very queer bully. For the most part he spent his time sitting in an arm-chair,
having lost the use of his legs from some disease which did not, however, prevent him from
drinking vodka. For days together he would be drinking and swearing. He was an ill-natured
man. He always wanted to have some one whom he could be continually tormenting. And for
that purpose he kept several distant relations: his sister, a sickly and peevish woman; two of
his wife's sisters, also ill-natured and very free with their tongues, and his old aunt, who had
through some accident a broken rib; he kept another dependent also, a Russianised German,
for the sake of her talent for entertaining him with stories from the Arabian Nights. His sole
gratification consisted in jeering at all these unfortunate women and abusing them every
minute with all his energies; though the latter, not excepting his wife, who had been born
with toothache, dared not utter a word in his presence. He set them at loggerheads at
one another, inventing and fostering spiteful backbiting and dissensions among them, and
then laughed and rejoiced seeing how they were ready to tear one another to pieces. He was
very much delighted when his elder daughter, who had lived in great poverty for ten years
with her husband, an officer of some sort, and was at last left a widow, came to live with him
with three little sickly children. He could not endure her children, but as her arrival had
increased the material upon which he could work his daily experiments, the old man was very
much pleased. All these ill-natured women and sickly children, together with their tormentor,
were crowded together in a wooden house on Petersburg Side, and did not get enough to eat
because the old man was stingy and gave out to them money a farthing at a time, though he
did not grudge himself vodka; they did not get enough sleep because the old man suffered
from sleeplessness and insisted on being amused. In short, they all were in misery and cursed
their fate. It was at that time that Mlekopitaev's eye fell upon Pseldonimov. He was struck by
his long nose and submissive air. His weakly and unprepossessing younger daughter had just
reached the age of seventeen. Though she had at one time attended a German school, she had
acquired scarcely anything but the alphabet. Then she grew up rickety and anæmic in fear of
her crippled drunken father's crutch, in a Bedlam of domestic backbiting, eavesdropping and
scolding. She had never had any friends or any brains. She had for a long time been eager to
be married. In company she sat mute, but at home with her mother and the women of the
household she was spiteful and cantankerous. She was particularly fond of pinching and
smacking her sister's children, telling tales of their pilfering bread and sugar, and this led to
endless and implacable strife with her elder sister. Her old father himself offered her to
Pseldonimov. Miserable as the latter's position was, he yet asked for a little time to
consider. His mother and he hesitated for a long time. But with the young lady there was to
come as dowry a house, and though it was a nasty little wooden house of one storey, yet it
was property of a kind. Moreover, they would give with her four hundred roubles, and how
long it would take him to save it up himself! "What am I taking the man into my house for?"
shouted the drunken bully. "In the first place because you are all females, and I am sick of
female society. I want Pseldonimov, too, to dance to my piping. For I am his benefactor. And
in the second place I am doing it because you are all cross and don't want it, so I'll do it to
spite you. What I have said, I have said! And you beat her, Porfiry, when she is your wife;
she has been possessed of seven devils ever since she was born. You beat them out of her,
and I'll get the stick ready."
Pseldonimov made no answer, but he was already decided. Before the wedding his mother
and he were taken into the house, washed, clothed, provided with boots and money for the
wedding. The old man took them under his protection possibly just because the whole family
was prejudiced against them. He positively liked Pseldonimov's mother, so that he actually
restrained himself and did not jeer at her. On the other hand, he made Pseldonimov dance the
Cossack dance a week before the wedding.

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"Well, that's enough. I only wanted to see whether you remembered your position before me
or not," he said at the end of the dance. He allowed just enough money for the wedding, with
nothing to spare, and invited all his relations and acquaintances. On Pseldonimov's side there
was no one but the young man who wrote for the Firebrand, and Akim Petrovitch, the guest
of honour. Pseldonimov was perfectly aware that his bride cherished an aversion for him, and
that she was set upon marrying the officer instead of him. But he put up with everything, he
had made a compact with his mother to do so. The old father had been drunk and abusive and
foul-tongued the whole of the wedding day and during the party in the evening. The whole
family took refuge in the back rooms and were crowded there to suffocation. The front rooms
were devoted to the dance and the supper. At last when the old man fell asleep dead drunk at
eleven o'clock, the bride's mother, who had been particularly displeased with Pseldonimov's
mother that day, made up her mind to lay aside her wrath, become gracious and join the
company. Ivan Ilyitch's arrival had turned everything upside down. Madame Mlekopitaev
was overcome with embarrassment, and began grumbling that she had not been told that the
general had been invited. She was assured that he had come uninvited, but was so stupid as to
refuse to believe it. Champagne had to be got. Pseldonimov's mother had only one rouble,
while Pseldonimov himself had not one farthing. He had to grovel before his ill-natured
mother-in-law, to beg for the money for one bottle and then for another. They pleaded for the
sake of his future position in the service, for his career, they tried to persuade her. She did at
last give from her own purse, but she forced Pseldonimov to swallow such a cupful of gall
and bitterness that more than once he ran into the room where the nuptial couch had been
prepared, and madly clutching at his hair and trembling all over with impotent rage, he buried
his head in the bed destined for the joys of paradise. No, indeed, Ivan Ilyitch had no notion of
the price paid for the two bottles of Jackson he had drunk that evening. What was the horror,
the misery and even the despair of Pseldonimov when Ivan Ilyitch's visit ended in this
unexpected way. He had a prospect again of no end of misery, and perhaps a night of tears
and outcries from his peevish bride, and upbraidings from her unreasonable relations. Even
apart from this his head ached already, and there was dizziness and mist before his eyes. And
here Ivan Ilyitch needed looking after, at three o'clock at night he had to hunt for a doctor or a
carriage to take him home, and a carriage it must be, for it would be impossible to let an
ordinary cabby take him home in that condition. And where could he get the money even for
a carriage? Madame Mlekopitaev, furious that the general had not addressed two words to
her, and had not even looked at her at supper, declared that she had not a farthing. Possibly
she really had not a farthing. Where could he get it? What was he to do? Yes, indeed, he had
good cause to tear his hair.

Meanwhile Ivan Ilyitch was moved to a little leather sofa that stood in the dining-room.
While they were clearing the tables and putting them away, Pseldonimov was rushing all over
the place to borrow money, he even tried to get it from the servants, but it appeared that
nobody had any. He even ventured to trouble Akim Petrovitch who had stayed after the other
guests. But good-natured as he was, the latter was reduced to such bewilderment and even
alarm at the mention of money that he uttered the most unexpected and foolish phrases:
"Another time, with pleasure," he muttered, "but now ... you really must excuse me...."
And taking his cap, he ran as fast as he could out of the house. Only the good-natured youth
who had talked about the dream book was any use at all; and even that came to nothing. He,

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too, stayed after the others, showing genuine sympathy with Pseldonimov's misfortunes. At
last Pseldonimov, together with his mother and the young man, decided in consultation not to
send for a doctor, but rather to fetch a carriage and take the invalid home, and meantime to
try certain domestic remedies till the carriage arrived, such as moistening his temples and his
head with cold water, putting ice on his head, and so on. Pseldonimov's mother undertook
this task. The friendly youth flew off in search of a carriage. As there were not even ordinary
cabs to be found on the Petersburg Side at that hour, he went off to some livery stables at a
distance to wake up the coachmen. They began bargaining, and declared that five roubles
would be little to ask for a carriage at that time of night. They agreed to come, however, for
three. When at last, just before five o'clock, the young man arrived at Pseldonimov's with the
carriage, they had changed their minds. It appeared that Ivan Ilyitch, who was still
unconscious, had become so seriously unwell, was moaning and tossing so terribly, that to
move him and take him home in such a condition was impossible and actually unsafe. "What
will it lead to next?" said Pseldonimov, utterly disheartened. What was to be done? A new
problem arose: if the invalid remained in the house, where should he be moved and where
could they put him? There were only two bedsteads in the house: one large double bed in
which old Mlekopitaev and his wife slept, and another double bed of imitation walnut which
had just been purchased and was destined for the newly married couple. All the other
inhabitants of the house slept on the floor side by side on feather beds, for the most part in
bad condition and stuffy, anything but presentable in fact, and even of these the supply was
insufficient; there was not one to spare. Where could the invalid be put? A feather bed might
perhaps have been found—it might in the last resort have been pulled from under some one,
but where and on what could a bed have been made up? It seemed that the bed must be made
up in the drawing-room, for that room was the furthest from the bosom of the family and had
a door into the passage. But on what could the bed be made? Surely not upon chairs. We all
know that beds can only be made up on chairs for schoolboys when they come home for the
week end, and it would be terribly lacking in respect to make up a bed in that way for a
personage like Ivan Ilyitch. What would be said next morning when he found himself lying
on chairs? Pseldonimov would not hear of that. The only alternative was to put him on the
bridal couch. This bridal couch, as we have mentioned already, was in a little room that
opened out of the dining-room, on the bedstead was a double mattress actually newly bought
first-hand, clean sheets, four pillows in pink calico covered with frilled muslin cases. The
quilt was of pink satin, and it was quilted in patterns. Muslin curtains hung down from a
golden ring overhead, in fact it was all just as it should be, and the guests who had all visited
the bridal chamber had admired the decoration of it; though the bride could not endure
Pseldonimov, she had several times in the course of the evening run in to have a look at it on
the sly. What was her indignation, her wrath, when she learned that they meant to move an
invalid, suffering from something not unlike a mild attack of cholera, to her bridal couch!
The bride's mother took her part, broke into abuse and vowed she would complain to her
husband next day, but Pseldonimov asserted himself and insisted: Ivan Ilyitch was moved
into the bridal chamber, and a bed was made up on chairs for the young people. The bride
whimpered, would have liked to pinch him, but dared not disobey; her papa had a crutch with
which she was very familiar, and she knew that her papa would call her to account next day.
To console her they carried the pink satin quilt and the pillows in muslin cases into the
drawing-room. At that moment the youth arrived with the carriage, and was horribly alarmed
that the carriage was not wanted. He was left to pay for it himself, and he never had as much
as a ten-kopeck piece. Pseldonimov explained that he was utterly bankrupt. They tried to
parley with the driver. But he began to be noisy and even to batter on the shutters. How it
ended I don't know exactly. I believe the youth was carried off to Peski by way of a hostage
to Fourth Rozhdensky Street, where he hoped to rouse a student who was spending the night

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at a friend's, and to try whether he had any money. It was going on for six o'clock in the
morning when the young people were left alone and shut up in the drawing-room.
Pseldonimov's mother spent the whole night by the bedside of the sufferer. She installed
herself on a rug on the floor and covered herself with an old coat, but could not sleep because
she had to get up every minute: Ivan Ilyitch had a terrible attack of colic. Madame
Pseldonimov, a woman of courage and greatness of soul, undressed him with her own hands,
took off all his things, looked after him as if he were her own son, and spent the whole night
carrying basins, etc., from the bedroom across the passage and bringing them back again
empty. And yet the misfortunes of that night were not yet over.

Not more than ten minutes after the young people had been shut up alone in the drawing-
room, a piercing shriek was suddenly heard, not a cry of joy, but a shriek of the most sinister
kind. The screams were followed by a noise, a crash, as though of the falling of chairs, and
instantly there burst into the still dark room a perfect crowd of exclaiming and frightened
women, attired in every kind of déshabillé. These women were the bride's mother, her elder
sister, abandoning for the moment the sick children, and her three aunts, even the one with a
broken rib dragged herself in. Even the cook was there, and the German lady who told
stories, whose own feather bed, the best in the house, and her only property, had been
forcibly dragged from under her for the young couple, trailed in together with the others. All
these respectable and sharp-eyed ladies had, a quarter of an hour before, made their way on
tiptoe from the kitchen across the passage, and were listening in the ante-room, devoured by
unaccountable curiosity. Meanwhile some one lighted a candle, and a surprising spectacle
met the eyes of all. The chairs supporting the broad feather bed only at the sides had parted
under the weight, and the feather bed had fallen between them on the floor. The bride was
sobbing with anger, this time she was mortally offended. Pseldonimov, morally shattered,
stood like a criminal caught in a crime. He did not even attempt to defend himself. Shrieks
and exclamations sounded on all sides. Pseldonimov's mother ran up at the noise, but the
bride's mamma on this occasion got the upper hand. She began by showering strange and for
the most part quite undeserved reproaches, such as: "A nice husband you are, after this. What
are you good for after such a disgrace?" and so on; and at last carried her daughter away from
her husband, undertaking to bear the full responsibility for doing so with her ferocious
husband, who would demand an explanation. All the others followed her out exclaiming and
shaking their heads. No one remained with Pseldonimov except his mother, who tried to
comfort him. But he sent her away at once.
He was beyond consolation. He made his way to the sofa and sat down in the most gloomy
confusion of mind just as he was, barefooted and in nothing but his night attire. His thoughts
whirled in a tangled criss-cross in his mind. At times he mechanically looked about the room
where only a little while ago the dancers had been whirling madly, and in which the cigarette
smoke still lingered. Cigarette ends and sweet-meat papers still littered the slopped and dirty
floor. The wreck of the nuptial couch and the overturned chairs bore witness to the
transitoriness of the fondest and surest earthly hopes and dreams. He sat like this almost an
hour. The most oppressive thoughts kept coming into his mind, such as the doubt: What was
in store for him in the office now? He recognised with painful clearness that he would have,
at all costs, to exchange into another department; that he could not possibly remain where he
was after all that had happened that evening. He thought, too, of Mlekopitaev, who would
probably make him dance the Cossack dance next day to test his meekness. He reflected, too,

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that though Mlekopitaev had given fifty roubles for the wedding festivities, every farthing of
which had been spent, he had not thought of giving him the four hundred roubles yet, no
mention had been made of it, in fact. And, indeed, even the house had not been formally
made over to him. He thought, too, of his wife who had left him at the most critical moment
of his life, of the tall officer who had dropped on one knee before her. He had noticed that
already; he thought of the seven devils which according to the testimony of her own father
were in possession of his wife, and of the crutch in readiness to drive them out.... Of course
he felt equal to bearing a great deal, but destiny had let loose such surprises upon him that he
might well have doubts of his fortitude. So Pseldonimov mused dolefully. Meanwhile the
candle end was going out, its fading light, falling straight upon Pseldonimov's profile, threw a
colossal shadow of it on the wall, with a drawn-out neck, a hooked nose, and with two tufts
of hair sticking out on his forehead and the back of his head. At last, when the air was
growing cool with the chill of early morning, he got up, frozen and spiritually numb, crawled
to the feather bed that was lying between the chairs, and without rearranging anything,
without putting out the candle end, without even laying the pillow under his head, fell into a
leaden, deathlike sleep, such as the sleep of men condemned to flogging on the morrow must
be.

On the other hand, what could be compared with the agonising night spent by Ivan Ilyitch
Pralinsky on the bridal couch of the unlucky Pseldonimov! For some time, headache,
vomiting and other most unpleasant symptoms did not leave him for one second. He was in
the torments of hell. The faint glimpses of consciousness that visited his brain, lighted up
such an abyss of horrors, such gloomy and revolting pictures, that it would have been better
for him not to have returned to consciousness. Everything was still in a turmoil in his mind,
however. He recognised Pseldonimov's mother, for instance, heard her gentle admonitions,
such as: "Be patient, my dear; be patient, good sir, it won't be so bad presently." He
recognised her, but could give no logical explanation of her presence beside him. Revolting
phantoms haunted him, most frequently of all he was haunted by Semyon Ivanitch; but
looking more intently, he saw that it was not Semyon Ivanitch but Pseldonimov's nose. He
had visions, too, of the free-and-easy artist, and the officer and the old lady with her face tied
up. What interested him most of all was the gilt ring which hung over his head, through
which the curtains hung. He could distinguish it distinctly in the dim light of the candle end
which lighted up the room, and he kept wondering inwardly: What was the object of that ring,
why was it there, what did it mean? He questioned the old lady several times about it, but
apparently did not say what he meant; and she evidently did not understand it, however much
he struggled to explain. At last by morning the symptoms had ceased and he fell into a sleep,
a sound sleep without dreams. He slept about an hour, and when he woke he was almost
completely conscious, with an insufferable headache, and a disgusting taste in his mouth and
on his tongue, which seemed turned into a piece of cloth. He sat up in the bed, looked about
him, and pondered. The pale light of morning peeping through the cracks of the shutters in a
narrow streak, quivered on the wall. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. But when
Ivan Ilyitch suddenly grasped the position and recalled all that had happened to him since the
evening; when he remembered all his adventures at supper, the failure of his magnanimous
action, his speech at table; when he realised all at once with horrifying clearness all that
might come of this now, all that people would say and think of him; when he looked round
and saw to what a mournful and hideous condition he had reduced the peaceful bridal couch
of his clerk—oh, then such deadly shame, such agony overwhelmed him, that he uttered a

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shriek, hid his face in his hands and fell back on the pillow in despair. A minute later he
jumped out of bed, saw his clothes carefully folded and brushed on a chair beside him, and
seizing them, and as quickly as he could, in desperate haste began putting them on, looking
round and seeming terribly frightened at something. On another chair close by lay his
greatcoat and fur cap, and his yellow gloves were in his cap. He meant to steal away secretly.
But suddenly the door opened and the elder Madame Pseldonimov walked in with an
earthenware jug and basin. A towel was hanging over her shoulder. She set down the jug, and
without further conversation told him that he must wash.
"Come, my good sir, wash; you can't go without washing...."
And at that instant Ivan Ilyitch recognised that if there was one being in the whole world
whom he need not fear, and before whom he need not feel ashamed, it was that old lady. He
washed. And long afterwards, at painful moments of his life, he recalled among other pangs
of remorse all the circumstances of that waking, and that earthenware basin, and the china jug
filled with cold water in which there were still floating icicles, and the oval cake of soap at
fifteen kopecks, in pink paper with letters embossed on it, evidently bought for the bridal pair
though it fell to Ivan Ilyitch to use it, and the old lady with the linen towel over her left
shoulder. The cold water refreshed him, he dried his face, and without even thanking his
sister of mercy, he snatched up his hat, flung over his shoulders the coat handed to him by
Pseldonimov, and crossing the passage and the kitchen where the cat was already mewing,
and the cook sitting up in her bed staring after him with greedy curiosity, ran out into the
yard, into the street, and threw himself into the first sledge he came across. It was a frosty
morning. A chilly yellow fog still hid the house and everything. Ivan Ilyitch turned up his
collar. He thought that every one was looking at him, that they were all recognising him,
all....

For eight days he did not leave the house or show himself at the office. He was ill, wretchedly
ill, but more morally than physically. He lived through a perfect hell in those days, and they
must have been reckoned to his account in the other world. There were moments when he
thought of becoming a monk and entering a monastery. There really were. His imagination,
indeed, took special excursions during that period. He pictured subdued subterranean singing,
an open coffin, living in a solitary cell, forests and caves; but when he came to himself he
recognised almost at once that all this was dreadful nonsense and exaggeration, and was
ashamed of this nonsense. Then began attacks of moral agony on the theme of his existence
manquée. Then shame flamed up again in his soul, took complete possession of him at once,
consumed him like fire and re-opened his wounds. He shuddered as pictures of all sorts rose
before his mind. What would people say about him, what would they think when he walked
into his office? What a whisper would dog his steps for a whole year, ten years, his whole
life! His story would go down to posterity. He sometimes fell into such dejection that he was
ready to go straight off to Semyon Ivanovitch and ask for his forgiveness and friendship. He
did not even justify himself, there was no limit to his blame of himself. He could find no
extenuating circumstances, and was ashamed of trying to.
He had thoughts, too, of resigning his post at once and devoting himself to human happiness
as a simple citizen, in solitude. In any case he would have completely to change his whole
circle of acquaintances, and so thoroughly as to eradicate all memory of himself. Then the
thought occurred to him that this, too, was nonsense, and that if he adopted greater severity

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with his subordinates it might all be set right. Then he began to feel hope and courage again.
At last, at the expiration of eight days of hesitation and agonies, he felt that he could not
endure to be in uncertainty any longer, and un beau matin he made up his mind to go to the
office.
He had pictured a thousand times over his return to the office as he sat at home in misery.
With horror and conviction he told himself that he would certainly hear behind him an
ambiguous whisper, would see ambiguous faces, would intercept ominous smiles. What was
his surprise when nothing of the sort happened. He was greeted with respect; he was met with
bows; every one was grave; every one was busy. His heart was filled with joy as he made his
way to his own room.
He set to work at once with the utmost gravity, he listened to some reports and explanations,
settled doubtful points. He felt as though he had never explained knotty points and given his
decisions so intelligently, so judiciously as that morning. He saw that they were satisfied with
him, that they respected him, that he was treated with respect. The most thin-skinned
sensitiveness could not have discovered anything.
At last Akim Petrovitch made his appearance with some document. The sight of him sent a
stab to Ivan Ilyitch's heart, but only for an instant. He went into the business with Akim
Petrovitch, talked with dignity, explained things, and showed him what was to be done. The
only thing he noticed was that he avoided looking at Akim Petrovitch for any length of time,
or rather Akim Petrovitch seemed afraid of catching his eye, but at last Akim Petrovitch had
finished and began to collect his papers.
"And there is one other matter," he began as dryly as he could, "the clerk Pseldonimov's
petition to be transferred to another department. His Excellency Semyon Ivanovitch
Shipulenko has promised him a post. He begs your gracious assent, your Excellency."
"Oh, so he is being transferred," said Ivan Ilyitch, and he felt as though a heavy weight had
rolled off his heart. He glanced at Akim Petrovitch, and at that instant their eyes met.
"Certainly, I for my part ... I will use," answered Ivan Ilyitch; "I am ready."
Akim Petrovitch evidently wanted to slip away as quickly as he could. But in a rush of
generous feeling Ivan Ilyitch determined to speak out. Apparently some inspiration had come
to him again.
"Tell him," he began, bending a candid glance full of profound meaning upon Akim
Petrovitch, "tell Pseldonimov that I feel no ill-will, no, I do not!... That on the contrary I am
ready to forget all that is past, to forget it all...."
But all at once Ivan Ilyitch broke off, looking with wonder at the strange behaviour of Akim
Petrovitch, who suddenly seemed transformed from a sensible person into a fearful fool.
Instead of listening and hearing Ivan Ilyitch to the end, he suddenly flushed crimson in the
silliest way, began with positively unseemly haste making strange little bows, and at the same
time edging towards the door. His whole appearance betrayed a desire to sink through the
floor, or more accurately, to get back to his table as quickly as possible. Ivan Ilyitch, left
alone, got up from his chair in confusion; he looked in the looking-glass without noticing his
face.
"No, severity, severity and nothing but severity," he whispered almost unconsciously, and
suddenly a vivid flush over-spread his face. He felt suddenly more ashamed, more weighed

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down than he had been in the most insufferable moments of his eight days of tribulation. "I
did break down!" he said to himself, and sank helplessly into his chair.

ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE

OR

THE HUSBAND UNDER THE BED

AN EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE

"Be so kind, sir ... allow me to ask you...."

The gentleman so addressed started and looked with some alarm at the gentleman in raccoon
furs who had accosted him so abruptly at eight o'clock in the evening in the street. We all
know that if a Petersburg gentleman suddenly in the street speaks to another gentleman with
whom he is unacquainted, the second gentleman is invariably alarmed.
And so the gentleman addressed started and was somewhat alarmed.
"Excuse me for troubling you," said the gentleman in raccoon, "but I ... I really don't know ...
you will pardon me, no doubt; you see, I am a little upset...."
Only then the young man in the wadded overcoat observed that this gentleman in the raccoon
furs certainly was upset. His wrinkled face was rather pale, his voice was trembling. He was
evidently in some confusion of mind, his words did not flow easily from his tongue, and it
could be seen that it cost him a terrible effort to present a very humble request to a personage
possibly his inferior in rank or condition, in spite of the urgent necessity of addressing his
request to somebody. And indeed the request was in any case unseemly, undignified, strange,
coming from a man who had such a dignified fur coat, such a respectable jacket of a superb
dark green colour, and such distinguished decorations adorning that jacket. It was evident that
the gentleman in raccoon was himself confused by all this, so that at last he could not stand it,
but made up his mind to suppress his emotion and politely to put an end to the unpleasant
position he had himself brought about.
"Excuse me, I am not myself: but it is true you don't know me ... forgive me for disturbing
you; I have changed my mind."
Here, from politeness, he raised his hat and hurried off.
"But allow me...."
The little gentleman had, however, vanished into the darkness, leaving the gentleman in the
wadded overcoat in a state of stupefaction.

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"What a queer fellow!" thought the gentleman in the wadded overcoat. After wondering, as
was only natural, and recovering at last from his stupefaction, he bethought him of his own
affairs, and began walking to and fro, staring intently at the gates of a house with an endless
number of storeys. A fog was beginning to come on, and the young man was somewhat
relieved at it, for his walking up and down was less noticeable in the fog, though indeed no
one could have noticed him but some cabman who had been waiting all day without a fare.
"Excuse me!"
The young man started again; again the gentleman in raccoon was standing before him.
"Excuse me again ..." he began, "but you ... you are no doubt an honourable man! Take no
notice of my social position ... but I am getting muddled ... look at it as man to man ... you see
before you, sir, a man craving a humble favour...."
"If I can.... What do you want?"
"You imagine, perhaps, that I am asking for money," said the mysterious gentleman, with a
wry smile, laughing hysterically and turning pale.
"Oh, dear, no."
"No, I see that I am tiresome to you! Excuse me, I cannot bear myself; consider that you are
seeing a man in an agitated condition, almost of insanity, and do not draw any conclusion...."
"But to the point, to the point," responded the young man, nodding his head encouragingly
and impatiently.
"Now think of that! A young man like you reminding me to keep to the point, as though I
were some heedless boy! I must certainly be doting!... How do I seem to you in my degrading
position? Tell me frankly."
The young man was overcome with confusion, and said nothing.
"Allow me to ask you openly: have you not seen a lady? That is all that I have to ask you,"
the gentleman in the raccoon coat said resolutely at last.
"Lady?"
"Yes, a lady."
"Yes, I have seen ... but I must say lots of them have passed...."
"Just so," answered the mysterious gentleman, with a bitter smile. "I am muddled, I did not
mean to ask that; excuse me, I meant to say, haven't you seen a lady in a fox fur cape, in a
dark velvet hood and a black veil?"
"No, I haven't noticed one like that ... no. I think I haven't seen one."
"Well, in that case, excuse me!"
The young man wanted to ask a question, but the gentleman in raccoon vanished again; again
he left his patient listener in a state of stupefaction.
"Well, the devil take him!" thought the young man in the wadded overcoat, evidently
troubled.

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With annoyance he turned up his beaver collar, and began cautiously walking to and fro again
before the gates of the house of many storeys. He was raging inwardly.
"Why doesn't she come out?" he thought. "It will soon be eight o'clock."
The town clock struck eight.
"Oh, devil take you!"
"Excuse me!..."
"Excuse me for speaking like that ... but you came upon me so suddenly that you quite
frightened me," said the young man, frowning and apologising.
"Here I am again. I must strike you as tiresome and queer."
"Be so good as to explain at once, without more ado; I don't know what it is you want...."
"You are in a hurry. Do you see, I will tell you everything openly, without wasting words. It
cannot be helped. Circumstances sometimes bring together people of very different
characters.... But I see you are impatient, young man.... So here ... though I really don't know
how to tell you: I am looking for a lady (I have made up my mind to tell you all about it).
You see, I must know where that lady has gone. Who she is—I imagine there is no need for
you to know her name, young man."
"Well, well, what next?"
"What next? But what a tone you take with me! Excuse me, but perhaps I have offended you
by calling you young man, but I had nothing ... in short, if you are willing to do me a very
great service, here it is: a lady—that is, I mean a gentlewoman of a very good family, of my
acquaintance ... I have been commissioned ... I have no family, you see...."
"Oh!"
"Put yourself in my position, young man (ah, I've done it again; excuse me, I keep calling you
young man). Every minute is precious.... Only fancy, that lady ... but cannot you tell me who
lives in this house?"
"But ... lots of people live here."
"Yes, that is, you are perfectly right," answered the gentleman in raccoon, giving a slight
laugh for the sake of good manners. "I feel I am rather muddled.... But why do you take that
tone? You see, I admit frankly that I am muddled, and however haughty you are, you have
seen enough of my humiliation to satisfy you.... I say a lady of honourable conduct, that is, of
light tendencies—excuse me, I am so confused; it is as though I were speaking of literature—
Paul de Kock is supposed to be of light tendencies, and all the trouble comes from him, you
see...."
The young man looked compassionately at the gentleman in raccoon, who seemed in a
hopeless muddle and pausing, stared at him with a meaningless smile and with a trembling
hand for no apparent reason gripped the lappet of his wadded overcoat.
"You ask who lives here?" said the young man, stepping back a little.
"Yes; you told me lots of people live here."

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"Here ... I know that Sofya Ostafyevna lives here, too," the young man brought out in a low
and even commiserating tone.
"There, you see, you see! You know something, young man?"
"I assure you I don't, I know nothing ... I judged from your troubled air...."
"I have just learned from the cook that she does come here; but you are on the wrong tack,
that is, with Sofya Ostafyevna ... she does not know her...."
"No? Oh ... I beg your pardon, then...."
"I see this is of no interest to you, young man," said the queer man, with bitter irony.
"Listen," said the young man, hesitating. "I really don't understand why you are in such a
state, but tell me frankly, I suppose you are being deceived?" The young man smiled
approvingly. "We shall understand one another, anyway," he added, and his whole person
loftily betrayed an inclination to make a half-bow.
"You crush me! But I frankly confess that is just it ... but it happens to every one!... I am
deeply touched by your sympathy. To be sure, among young men ... though I am not young;
but you know, habit, a bachelor life, among bachelors, we all know...."
"Oh, yes, we all know, we all know! But in what way can I be of assistance to you?"
"Why, look here: admitting a visit to Sofya Ostafyevna ... though I don't know for a fact
where the lady has gone, I only know that she is in that house; but seeing you walking up and
down, and I am walking up and down on the same side myself, I thought ... you see, I am
waiting for that lady ... I know that she is there. I should like to meet her and explain to her
how shocking and improper it is!... In fact, you understand me...."
"H'm! Well?"
"I am not acting for myself; don't imagine it; it is another man's wife! Her husband is
standing over there on the Voznesensky Bridge; he wants to catch her, but he doesn't dare; he
is still loath to believe it, as every husband is." (Here the gentleman in raccoon made an effort
to smile.) "I am a friend of his; you can see for yourself I am a person held in some esteem; I
could not be what you take me for."
"Oh, of course. Well, well!"
"So, you see, I am on the look out for her. The task has been entrusted to me (the unhappy
husband!). But I know that the young lady is sly (Paul de Kock for ever under her pillow); I
am certain she scurries off somewhere on the sly.... I must confess the cook told me she
comes here; I rushed off like a madman as soon as I heard the news; I want to catch her. I
have long had suspicions, and so I wanted to ask you; you are walking here ... you—you—I
don't know...."
"Come, what is it you want?"
"Yes ... I have not the honour of your acquaintance; I do not venture to inquire who and what
you may be.... Allow me to introduce myself, anyway; glad to meet you!..."
The gentleman, quivering with agitation, warmly shook the young man's hand.

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"I ought to have done this to begin with," he added, "but I have lost all sense of good
manners."
The gentleman in raccoon could not stand still as he talked; he kept looking about him
uneasily, fidgeted with his feet, and like a drowning man clutched at the young man's hand.
"You see," he went on, "I meant to address you in a friendly way.... Excuse the freedom.... I
meant to ask you to walk along the other side and down the side street, where there is a back
entrance. I, too, on my side, will walk from the front entrance, so that we cannot miss her; I'm
afraid of missing her by myself; I don't want to miss her. When you see her, stop her and
shout to me.... But I'm mad! Only now I see the foolishness and impropriety of my
suggestion!..."
"No, why, no! It's all right!..."
"Don't make excuses for me; I am so upset. I have never been in such a state before. As
though I were being tried for my life! I must own indeed—I will be straightforward and
honourable with you, young man; I actually thought you might be the lover."
"That is, to put it simply, you want to know what I am doing here?"
"You are an honourable man, my dear sir. I am far from supposing that you are he, I will not
insult you with such a suspicion; but ... give me your word of honour that you are not the
lover...."
"Oh, very well, I'll give you my word of honour that I am a lover, but not of your wife;
otherwise I shouldn't be here in the street, but should be with her now!"
"Wife! Who told you she was my wife, young man? I am a bachelor, I—that is, I am a lover
myself...."
"You told me there is a husband on Voznesensky Bridge...."
"Of course, of course, I am talking too freely; but there are other ties! And you know, young
man, a certain lightness of character, that is...."
"Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure...."
"That is, I am not her husband at all...."
"Oh, no doubt. But I tell you frankly that in reassuring you now, I want to set my own mind
at rest, and that is why I am candid with you; you are upsetting me and in my way. I promise
that I will call you. But I most humbly beg you to move further away and let me alone. I am
waiting for some one too."
"Certainly, certainly, I will move further off. I respect the passionate impatience of your
heart. Oh, how well I understand you at this moment!"
"Oh, all right, all right...."
"Till we meet again!... But excuse me, young man, here I am again ... I don't know how to say
it ... give me your word of honour once more, as a gentleman, that you are not her lover."
"Oh, mercy on us!"

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"One more question, the last: do you know the surname of the husband of your ... that is, I
mean the lady who is the object of your devotion?"
"Of course I do; it is not your name, and that is all about it."
"Why, how do you know my name?"
"But, I say, you had better go; you are losing time; she might go away a thousand times.
Why, what do you want? Your lady's in a fox cape and a hood, while mine is wearing a plaid
cloak and a pale blue velvet hat.... What more do you want? What else?"
"A pale blue velvet hat! She has a plaid cloak and a pale blue velvet hat!" cried the
pertinacious man, instantly turning back again.
"Oh, hang it all! Why, that may well be.... And, indeed, my lady does not come here!"
"Where is she, then—your lady?"
"You want to know that? What is it to you?"
"I must own, I am still...."
"Tfoo! Mercy on us! Why, you have no sense of decency, none at all. Well, my lady has
friends here, on the third storey looking into the street. Why, do you want me to tell you their
names?"
"My goodness, I have friends too, who live on the third storey, and their windows look on to
the street.... General...."
"General!"
"A general. If you like I will tell you what general: well, then ... General Polovitsyn."
"You don't say so! No, that is not the same! (Oh, damnation, damnation!)."
"Not the same?"
"No, not the same."
Both were silent, looking at each other in perplexity.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" exclaimed the young man, shaking off his
stupefaction and air of uncertainty with vexation.
The gentleman was in a fluster.
"I ... I must own...."
"Come, allow me, allow me; let us talk more sensibly now. It concerns us both. Explain to me
... whom do you know there?"
"You mean, who are my friends?"
"Yes, your friends...."
"Well, you see ... you see!... I see from your eyes that I have guessed right!"

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"Hang it all! No, no, hang it all! Are you blind? Why, I am standing here before you, I am not
with her. Oh, well! I don't care, whether you say so or not!"
Twice in his fury the young man turned on his heel with a contemptuous wave of his hand.
"Oh, I meant nothing, I assure you. As an honourable man I will tell you all about it. At first
my wife used to come here alone. They are relatives of hers; I had no suspicions; yesterday I
met his Excellency: he told me that he had moved three weeks ago from here to another flat,
and my wi ... that is, not mine, but somebody else's (the husband's on the Voznesensky
Bridge) ... that lady had told me that she was with them the day before yesterday, in this flat I
mean ... and the cook told me that his Excellency's flat had been taken by a young man called
Bobynitsyn...."
"Oh, damn it all, damn it all!..."
"My dear sir, I am in terror, I am in alarm!"
"Oh, hang it! What is it to me that you are in terror and in alarm? Ah! Over there ... some one
flitted by ... over there...."
"Where, where? You just shout, 'Ivan Andreyitch,' and I will run...."
"All right, all right. Oh, confound it! Ivan Andreyitch!"
"Here I am," cried Ivan Andreyitch, returning, utterly breathless. "What is it, what is it?
Where?"
"Oh, no, I didn't mean anything ... I wanted to know what this lady's name is."
"Glaf...."
"Glafira?"
"No, not Glafira.... Excuse me, I cannot tell you her name."
As he said this the worthy man was as white as a sheet.
"Oh, of course it is not Glafira, I know it is not Glafira, and mine's not Glafira; but with
whom can she be?"
"Where?"
"There! Oh, damn it, damn it!" (The young man was in such a fury that he could not stand
still.)
"There, you see! How did you know that her name was Glafira?"
"Oh, damn it all, really! To have a bother with you, too! Why, you say—that yours is not
called Glafira!..."
"My dear sir, what a way to speak!"
"Oh, the devil! As though that mattered now! What is she? Your wife?"
"No—that is, I am not married.... But I would not keep flinging the devil at a respectable man
in trouble, a man, I will not say worthy of esteem, but at any rate a man of education. You
keep saying, 'The devil, the devil!'"

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"To be sure, the devil take it; so there you are, do you understand?"
"You are blinded by anger, and I say nothing. Oh, dear, who is that?"
"Where?"
There was a noise and a sound of laughter; two pretty girls ran down the steps; both the men
rushed up to them.
"Oh, what manners! What do you want?"
"Where are you shoving?"
"They are not the right ones!"
"Aha, so you've pitched on the wrong ones! Cab!"
"Where do you want to go, mademoiselle?"
"To Pokrov. Get in, Annushka; I'll take you."
"Oh, I'll sit on the other side; off! Now, mind you drive quickly."
The cab drove off.
"Where did they come from?"
"Oh, dear, oh, dear! Hadn't we better go there?"
"Where?"
"Why, to Bobynitsyn's...."
"No, that's out of the question."
"Why?"
"I would go there, of course, but then she would tell me some other story; she would ... get
out of it. She would say that she had come on purpose to catch me with some one, and I
should get into trouble."
"And, you know, she may be there! But you—I don't know for what reason—why, you might
go to the general's...."
"But, you know, he has moved!"
"That doesn't matter, you know. She has gone there; so you go, too—don't you understand?
Behave as though you didn't know the general had gone away. Go as though you had come to
fetch your wife, and so on."
"And then?"
"Well, and then find the person you want at Bobynitsyn's. Tfoo, damnation take you, what a
senseless...."
"Well, and what is it to you, my finding? You see, you see!"
"What, what, my good man? What? You are on the same old tack again. Oh, Lord have
mercy on us! You ought to be ashamed, you absurd person, you senseless person!"

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"Yes, but why are you so interested? Do you want to find out...."
"Find out what? What? Oh, well, damnation take you! I have no thoughts for you now; I'll go
alone. Go away; get along; look out; be off!"
"My dear sir, you are almost forgetting yourself!" cried the gentleman in raccoon in despair.
"Well, what of it? What if I am forgetting myself?" said the young man, setting his teeth and
stepping up to the gentleman in raccoon in a fury. "What of it? Forgetting myself before
whom?" he thundered, clenching his fists.
"But allow me, sir...."
"Well, who are you, before whom I am forgetting myself? What is your name?"
"I don't know about that, young man; why do you want my name?... I cannot tell it you.... I
better come with you. Let us go; I won't hang back; I am ready for anything.... But I assure
you I deserve greater politeness and respect! You ought never to lose your self-possession,
and if you are upset about something—I can guess what about—at any rate there is no need
to forget yourself.... You are still a very, very young man!..."
"What is it to me that you are old? There's nothing wonderful in that! Go away. Why are you
dancing about here?"
"How am I old? Of course, in position; but I am not dancing about...."
"I can see that. But get away with you."
"No, I'll stay with you; you cannot forbid me; I am mixed up in it, too; I will come with
you...."
"Well, then, keep quiet, keep quiet, hold your tongue...."
They both went up the steps and ascended the stairs to the third storey. It was rather dark.
"Stay; have you got matches?"
"Matches! What matches?"
"Do you smoke cigars?"
"Oh, yes, I have, I have; here they are, here they are; here, stay...." The gentleman in raccoon
rummaged in a fluster.
"Tfoo, what a senseless ... damnation! I believe this is the door...."
"This, this, this?"
"This, this, this... Why are you bawling? Hush!..."
"My dear sir, overcoming my feelings, I ... you are a reckless fellow, so there!..."
The light flared up.
"Yes, so it is; here is the brass plate. This is Bobynitsyn's; do you see Bobynitsyn?"
"I see it, I see it."

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"Hu-ush!"
"Why, has it gone out?"
"Yes, it has."
"Should we knock?"
"Yes, we must," responded the gentleman in raccoon.
"Knock, then."
"No, why should I? You begin, you knock!"
"Coward!"
"You are a coward yourself!"
"G-et a-way with you!"
"I almost regret having confided my secret to you; you...."
"I—what about me?"
"You take advantage of my distress; you see that I am upset...."
"But do I care? I think it's ridiculous, that's all about it!"
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you here, too?..."
"Delightful morality!" observed the gentleman in raccoon, with indignation.
"What are you saying about morality? What are you?"
"Well, it's immoral!"
"What?..."
"Why, to your thinking, every deceived husband is a noodle!"
"Why, are you the husband? I thought the husband was on Voznesensky Bridge? So what is it
to you? Why do you meddle?"
"I do believe that you are the lover!..."
"Listen: if you go on like this I shall be forced to think you are a noodle! That is, do you
know who?"
"That is, you mean to say that I am the husband," said the gentleman in raccoon, stepping
back as though he were scalded with boiling water.
"Hush, hold your tongue. Do you hear?..."
"It is she."
"No!"
"Tfoo, how dark it is!"

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There was a hush; a sound was audible in Bobynitsyn's flat.

"Why should we quarrel, sir?" whispered the gentleman in raccoon.
"But you took offence yourself, damn it all!"
"But you drove me out of all patience."
"Hold your tongue!"
"You must admit that you are a very young man."
"Hold your tongue!"
"Of course I share your idea, that a husband in such a position is a noodle."
"Oh, will you hold your tongue? Oh!..."
"But why such savage persecution of the unfortunate husband?..."
"It is she!"
But at that moment the sound ceased.
"Is it she?"
"It is, it is, it is! But why are you—you worrying about it? It is not your trouble!"
"My dear sir, my dear sir," muttered the gentleman in raccoon, turning pale and gulping, "I
am, of course, greatly agitated ... you can see for yourself my abject position; but now it's
night, of course, but to-morrow ... though indeed we are not likely to meet to-morrow, though
I am not afraid of meeting you—and besides, it is not I, it is my friend on the Voznesensky
Bridge, it really is he! It is his wife, it is somebody else's wife. Poor fellow! I assure you, I
know him very intimately; if you will allow me I will tell you all about it. I am a great friend
of his, as you can see for yourself, or I shouldn't be in such a state about him now—as you
see for yourself. Several times I said to him: 'Why are you getting married, dear boy? You
have position, you have means, you are highly respected. Why risk it all at the caprice of
coquetry? You must see that.' 'No, I am going to be married,' he said; 'domestic bliss.'...
Here's domestic bliss for you! In old days he deceived other husbands ... now he is drinking
the cup ... you must excuse me, but this explanation was absolutely necessary.... He is an
unfortunate man, and is drinking the cup—now!..." At this point the gentleman in raccoon
gave such a gulp that he seemed to be sobbing in earnest.
"Ah, damnation take them all! There are plenty of fools. But who are you?"
The young man ground his teeth in anger.
"Well, you must admit after this that I have been gentlemanly and open with you ... and you
take such a tone!"
"No, excuse me ... what is your name?"
"Why do you want to know my name?..."
"Ah!"
"I cannot tell you my name...."

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"Do you know Shabrin?" the young man said quickly.

"Shabrin!!!"
"Yes, Shabrin! Ah!!!" (Saying this, the gentleman in the wadded overcoat mimicked the
gentleman in raccoon.) "Do you understand?"
"No, what Shabrin?" answered the gentleman in raccoon, in a fluster. "He's not Shabrin; he is
a very respectable man! I can excuse your discourtesy, due to the tortures of jealousy."
"He's a scoundrel, a mercenary soul, a rogue that takes bribes, he steals government money!
He'll be had up for it before long!"
"Excuse me," said the gentleman in raccoon, turning pale, "you don't know him; I see that
you don't know him at all."
"No, I don't know him personally, but I know him from others who are in close touch with
him."
"From what others, sir? I am agitated, as you see...."
"A fool! A jealous idiot! He doesn't look after his wife! That's what he is, if you like to
know!"
"Excuse me, young man, you are grievously mistaken...."
"Oh!"
"Oh!"
A sound was heard in Bobynitsyn's flat. A door was opened, voices were heard.
"Oh, that's not she! I recognise her voice; I understand it all now, this is not she!" said the
gentleman in raccoon, turning as white as a sheet.
"Hush!"
The young man leaned against the wall.
"My dear sir, I am off. It is not she, I am glad to say."
"All right! Be off, then!"
"Why are you staying, then?"
"What's that to you?"
The door opened, and the gentleman in raccoon could not refrain from dashing headlong
downstairs.
A man and a woman walked by the young man, and his heart stood still.... He heard a
familiar feminine voice and then a husky male voice, utterly unfamiliar.
"Never mind, I will order the sledge," said the husky voice.
"Oh, yes, yes; very well, do...."
"It will be here directly."

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The lady was left alone.

"Glafira! Where are your vows?" cried the young man in the wadded overcoat, clutching the
lady's arm.
"Oh, who is it? It's you, Tvorogov? My goodness! What are you doing here?"
"Who is it you have been with here?"
"Why, my husband. Go away, go away; he'll be coming out directly ... from ... in there ...
from the Polovitsyns'. Go away; for goodness' sake, go away."
"It's three weeks since the Polovitsyns moved! I know all about it!"
"Aïe!" The lady dashed downstairs. The young man overtook her.
"Who told you?" asked the lady.
"Your husband, madam, Ivan Andreyitch; he is here before you, madam...."
Ivan Andreyitch was indeed standing at the front door.
"Aïe, it's you," cried the gentleman in raccoon.
"Ah! C'est vous," cried Glafira Petrovna, rushing up to him with unfeigned delight. "Oh, dear,
you can't think what has been happening to me. I went to see the Polovitsyns; only fancy ...
you know they are living now by Izmailovsky Bridge; I told you, do you remember? I took a
sledge from there. The horses took fright and bolted, they broke the sledge, and I was thrown
out about a hundred yards from here; the coachman was taken up; I was in despair.
Fortunately Monsieur Tvorogov ..."
"What!"
Monsieur Tvorogov was more like a fossil than like Monsieur Tvorogov.
"Monsieur Tvorogov saw me here and undertook to escort me; but now you are here, and I
can only express my warm gratitude to you, Ivan Ilyitch...."
The lady gave her hand to the stupefied Ivan Ilyitch, and almost pinched instead of pressing
it.
"Monsieur Tvorogov, an acquaintance of mine; it was at the Skorlupovs' ball we had the
pleasure of meeting; I believe I told you; don't you remember, Koko?"
"Oh, of course, of course! Ah, I remember," said the gentleman in raccoon addressed as
Koko. "Delighted, delighted!" And he warmly pressed the hand of Monsieur Tvorogov.
"Who is it? What does it mean? I am waiting...." said a husky voice.
Before the group stood a gentleman of extraordinary height; he took out a lorgnette and
looked intently at the gentleman in the raccoon coat.
"Ah, Monsieur Bobynitsyn!" twittered the lady. "Where have you come from? What a
meeting! Only fancy, I have just had an upset in a sledge ... but here is my husband! Jean!
Monsieur Bobynitsyn, at the Karpovs' ball...."
"Ah, delighted, very much delighted!... But I'll take a carriage at once, my dear."

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"Yes, do, Jean, do; I still feel frightened; I am all of a tremble, I feel quite giddy.... At the
masquerade to-night," she whispered to Tvorogov.... "Good-bye, good-bye, Mr. Bobynitsyn!
We shall meet to-morrow at the Karpovs' ball, most likely."
"No, excuse me, I shall not be there to-morrow; I don't know about to-morrow, if it is like
this now...." Mr. Bobynitsyn muttered something between his teeth, made a scrape with his
boot, got into his sledge and drove away.
A carriage drove up; the lady got into it. The gentleman in the raccoon coat stopped, seemed
incapable of making a movement and gazed blankly at the gentleman in the wadded coat. The
gentleman in the wadded coat smiled rather foolishly.
"I don't know...."
"Excuse me, delighted to make your acquaintance," answered the young man, bowing with
curiosity and a little intimidated.
"Delighted, delighted!..."
"I think you have lost your galosh...."
"I—oh, yes, thank you, thank you. I keep meaning to get rubber ones."
"The foot gets so hot in rubbers," said the young man, apparently with immense interest.
"Jean! Are you coming?"
"It does make it hot. Coming directly, darling; we are having an interesting conversation!
Precisely so, as you say, it does make the foot hot.... But excuse me, I ..."
"Oh, certainly."
"Delighted, very much delighted to make your acquaintance!..."
The gentleman in raccoon got into the carriage, the carriage set off, the young man remained
standing looking after it in astonishment.

II

The following evening there was a performance of some sort at the Italian opera. Ivan
Andreyitch burst into the theatre like a bomb. Such furore, such a passion for music had
never been observed in him before. It was known for a positive fact, anyway, that Ivan
Andreyitch used to be exceeding fond of a nap for an hour or two at the Italian opera; he even
declared on several occasions how sweet and pleasant it was. "Why, the prima donna," he
used to say to his friends, "mews a lullaby to you like a little white kitten." But it was a long
time ago, last season, that he used to say this; now, alas! even at home Ivan Andreyitch did
not sleep at nights. Nevertheless he burst into the crowded opera-house like a bomb. Even the
conductor started suspiciously at the sight of him, and glanced out of the corner of his eye at
his side-pocket in the full expectation of seeing the hilt of a dagger hidden there in readiness.
It must be observed that there were at that time two parties, each supporting the superior
claims of its favourite prima donna. They were called the ——sists and the ——nists. Both
parties were so devoted to music, that the conductors actually began to be apprehensive of
some startling manifestation of the passion for the good and the beautiful embodied in the
two prima donnas. This was how it was that, looking at this youthful dash into the parterre of
a grey-haired senior (though, indeed, he was not actually grey-haired, but a man about fifty,
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rather bald, and altogether of respectable appearance), the conductor could not help recalling
the lofty judgment of Hamlet Prince of Denmark upon the evil example set by age to youth,
and, as we have mentioned above, looking out of the corner of his eye at the gentleman's
side-pocket in the expectation of seeing a dagger. But there was a pocket-book and nothing
else there.
Darting into the theatre, Ivan Andreyitch instantly scanned all the boxes of the second tier,
and, oh—horror! His heart stood still, she was here! She was sitting in the box! General
Polovitsyn, with his wife and sister-in-law, was there too. The general's adjutant—an
extremely alert young man, was there too; there was a civilian too.... Ivan Andreyitch strained
his attention and his eyesight, but—oh, horror! The civilian treacherously concealed himself
behind the adjutant and remained in the darkness of obscurity.
She was here, and yet she had said she would not be here!
It was this duplicity for some time displayed in every step Glafira Petrovna took which
crushed Ivan Andreyitch. This civilian youth reduced him at last to utter despair. He sank
down in his stall utterly overwhelmed. Why? one may ask. It was a very simple matter....
It must be observed that Ivan Andreyitch's stall was close to the baignoire, and to make
matters worse the treacherous box in the second tier was exactly above his stall, so that to his
intense annoyance he was utterly unable to see what was going on over his head. At which he
raged, and got as hot as a samovar. The whole of the first act passed unnoticed by him, that
is, he did not hear a single note of it. It is maintained that what is good in music is that
musical impressions can be made to fit any mood. The man who rejoices finds joy in its
strains, while he who grieves finds sorrow in it; a regular tempest was howling in Ivan
Andreyitch's ears. To add to his vexation, such terrible voices were shouting behind him,
before him and on both sides of him, that Ivan Andreyitch's heart was torn. At last the act was
over. But at the instant when the curtain was falling, our hero had an adventure such as no
pen can describe.
It sometimes happens that a playbill flies down from the upper boxes. When the play is dull
and the audience is yawning this is quite an event for them. They watch with particular
interest the flight of the extremely soft paper from the upper gallery, and take pleasure in
watching its zigzagging journey down to the very stalls, where it infallibly settles on some
head which is quite unprepared to receive it. It is certainly very interesting to watch the
embarrassment of the head (for the head is invariably embarrassed). I am indeed always in
terror over the ladies' opera-glasses which usually lie on the edge of the boxes; I am
constantly fancying that they will fly down on some unsuspecting head. But I perceive that
this tragic observation is out of place here, and so I shall send it to the columns of those
newspapers which are filled with advice, warnings against swindling tricks, against
unconscientiousness, hints for getting rid of beetles if you have them in the house,
recommendations of the celebrated Mr. Princhipi, sworn foe of all beetles in the world, not
only Russian but even foreign, such as Prussian cockroaches, and so on.
But Ivan Andreyitch had an adventure, which has never hitherto been described. There flew
down on his—as already stated, somewhat bald—head, not a playbill; I confess I am actually
ashamed to say what did fly down upon his head, because I am really loath to remark that on
the respectable and bare—that is, partly hairless—head of the jealous and irritated Ivan
Andreyitch there settled such an immoral object as a scented love-letter. Poor Ivan
Andreyitch, utterly unprepared for this unforeseen and hideous occurrence, started as though
he had caught upon his head a mouse or some other wild beast.

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That the note was a love-letter of that there could be no mistake. It was written on scented
paper, just as love-letters are written in novels, and folded up so as to be treacherously small
so that it might be slipped into a lady's glove. It had probably fallen by accident at the
moment it had been handed to her. The playbill might have been asked for, for instance, and
the note, deftly folded in the playbill, was being put into her hands; but an instant, perhaps an
accidental, nudge from the adjutant, extremely adroit in his apologies for his awkwardness,
and the note had slipped from a little hand that trembled with confusion, and the civilian
youth, stretching out his impatient hand, received instead of the note, the empty playbill, and
did not know what to do with it. A strange and unpleasant incident for him, no doubt, but you
must admit that for Ivan Andreyitch it was still more unpleasant.
"Prédestiné," he murmured, breaking into a cold sweat and squeezing the note in his hands,
"prédestiné! The bullet finds the guilty man," the thought flashed through his mind. "No,
that's not right! In what way am I guilty? But there is another proverb, 'Once out of luck,
never out of trouble.'..."
But it was not enough that there was a ringing in his ears and a dizziness in his head at this
sudden incident. Ivan Andreyitch sat petrified in his chair, as the saying is, more dead than
alive. He was persuaded that his adventure had been observed on all sides, although at that
moment the whole theatre began to be filled with uproar and calls of encore. He sat
overwhelmed with confusion, flushing crimson and not daring to raise his eyes, as though
some unpleasant surprise, something out of keeping with the brilliant assembly had happened
to him. At last he ventured to lift his eyes.
"Charmingly sung," he observed to a dandy sitting on his left side.
The dandy, who was in the last stage of enthusiasm, clapping his hands and still more
actively stamping with his feet, gave Ivan Andreyitch a cursory and absent-minded glance,
and immediately putting up his hands like a trumpet to his mouth, so as to be more audible,
shouted the prima donna's name. Ivan Andreyitch, who had never heard such a roar, was
delighted. "He has noticed nothing!" he thought, and turned round; but the stout gentleman
who was sitting behind him had turned round too, and with his back to him was scrutinising
the boxes through his opera-glass. "He is all right too!" thought Ivan Andreyitch. In front, of
course, nothing had been seen. Timidly and with a joyous hope in his heart, he stole a glance
at the baignoire, near which was his stall, and started with the most unpleasant sensation. A
lovely lady was sitting there who, holding her handkerchief to her mouth and leaning back in
her chair, was laughing as though in hysterics.
"Ugh, these women!" murmured Ivan Andreyitch, and treading on people's feet, he made for
the exit.
Now I ask my readers to decide, I beg them to judge between me and Ivan Andreyitch. Was
he right at that moment? The Grand Theatre, as we all know, contains four tiers of boxes and
a fifth row above the gallery. Why must he assume that the note had fallen from one
particular box, from that very box and no other? Why not, for instance, from the gallery
where there are often ladies too? But passion is an exception to every rule, and jealousy is the
most exceptional of all passions.
Ivan Andreyitch rushed into the foyer, stood by the lamp, broke the seal and read:
"To-day immediately after the performance, in G. Street at the corner of X. Lane, K.
buildings, on the third floor, the first on the right from the stairs. The front entrance. Be
there,sans faute; for God's sake."

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Ivan Andreyitch did not know the handwriting, but he had no doubt it was an assignation.
"To track it out, to catch it and nip the mischief in the bud," was Ivan Andreyitch's first idea.
The thought occurred to him to unmask the infamy at once on the spot; but how could it be
done? Ivan Andreyitch even ran up to the second row of boxes, but judiciously came back
again. He was utterly unable to decide where to run. Having nothing clear he could do, he ran
round to the other side and looked through the open door of somebody else's box at the
opposite side of the theatre. Yes, it was so, it was! Young ladies and young men were sitting
in all the seats vertically one above another in all the five tiers. The note might have fallen
from all tiers at once, for Ivan Andreyitch suspected all of them of being in a plot against
him. But nothing made him any better, no probabilities of any sort. The whole of the second
act he was running up and down all the corridors and could find no peace of mind anywhere.
He would have dashed into the box office in hope of finding from the attendant there the
names of the persons who had taken boxes on all the four tiers, but the box office was shut.
At last there came an outburst of furious shouting and applause. The performance was over.
Calls for the singers began, and two voices from the top gallery were particularly
deafening—the leaders of the opposing factions. But they were not what mattered to Ivan
Andreyitch. Already thoughts of what he was to do next flitted through his mind. He put on
his overcoat and rushed off to G. Street to surprise them there, to catch them unawares, to
unmask them, and in general to behave somewhat more energetically than he had done the
day before. He soon found the house, and was just going in at the front door, when the figure
of a dandy in an overcoat darted forward right in front of him, passed him and went up the
stairs to the third storey. It seemed to Ivan Andreyitch that this was the same dandy, though
he had not been able at the time to distinguish his features in the theatre. His heart stood still.
The dandy was two flights of stairs ahead of him. At last he heard a door opened on the third
floor, and opened without the ringing of a bell, as though the visitor was expected. The young
man disappeared into the flat. Ivan Andreyitch mounted to the third floor, before there was
time to shut the door. He meant to stand at the door, to reflect prudently on his next step, to
be rather cautious, and then to determine upon some decisive course of action; but at that
very minute a carriage rumbled up to the entrance, the doors were flung open noisily, and
heavy footsteps began ascending to the third storey to the sound of coughing and clearing of
the throat. Ivan Andreyitch could not stand his ground, and walked into the flat with all the
majesty of an injured husband. A servant-maid rushed to meet him much agitated, then a
man-servant appeared. But to stop Ivan Andreyitch was impossible. He flew in like a bomb,
and crossing two dark rooms, suddenly found himself in a bedroom facing a lovely young
lady, who was trembling all over with alarm and gazing at him in utter horror as though she
could not understand what was happening around her. At that instant there was a sound in the
adjoining room of heavy footsteps coming straight towards the bedroom; they were the same
footsteps that had been mounting the stairs.
"Goodness! It is my husband!" cried the lady, clasping her hands and turning whiter than her
dressing-gown.
Ivan Andreyitch felt that he had come to the wrong place, that he had made a silly, childish
blunder, that he had acted without due consideration, that he had not been sufficiently
cautious on the landing. But there was no help for it. The door was already opening, already
the heavy husband, that is if he could be judged by his footsteps, was coming into the room....
I don't know what Ivan Andreyitch took himself to be at that moment! I don't know what
prevented him from confronting the husband, telling him that he had made a mistake,
confessing that he had unintentionally behaved in the most unseemly way, making his
apologies and vanishing—not of course with flying colours, not of course with glory, but at
any rate departing in an open and gentlemanly manner. But no, Ivan Andreyitch again

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behaved like a boy, as though he considered himself a Don Juan or a Lovelace! He first hid
himself behind the curtain of the bed, and finally, feeling utterly dejected and hopeless, he
dropped on the floor and senselessly crept under the bed. Terror had more influence on him
than reason, and Ivan Andreyitch, himself an injured husband, or at any rate a husband who
considered himself such, could not face meeting another husband, but was afraid to wound
him by his presence. Be this as it may, he found himself under the bed, though he had no idea
how it had come to pass. But what was most surprising, the lady made no opposition. She did
not cry out on seeing an utterly unknown elderly gentleman seek a refuge under her bed.
Probably she was so alarmed that she was deprived of all power of speech.
The husband walked in gasping and clearing his throat, said good-evening to his wife in a
singsong, elderly voice, and flopped into an easy chair as though he had just been carrying up
a load of wood. There was a sound of a hollow and prolonged cough. Ivan Andreyitch,
transformed from a ferocious tiger to a lamb, timid and meek as a mouse before a cat,
scarcely dared to breathe for terror, though he might have known from his own experience
that not all injured husbands bite. But this idea did not enter his head, either from lack of
consideration or from agitation of some sort. Cautiously, softly, feeling his way he began to
get right under the bed so as to lie more comfortably there. What was his amazement when
with his hand he felt an object which, to his intense amazement, stirred and in its turn seized
his hand! Under the bed there was another person!
"Who's this?" whispered Ivan Andreyitch.
"Well, I am not likely to tell you who I am," whispered the strange man. "Lie still and keep
quiet, if you have made a mess of things!"
"But, I say!..."
"Hold your tongue!"
And the extra gentleman (for one was quite enough under the bed) the extra gentleman
squeezed Ivan Andreyitch's hand in his fist so that the latter almost shrieked with pain.
"My dear sir...."
"Sh!"
"Then don't pinch me so, or I shall scream."
"All right, scream away, try it on."
Ivan Andreyitch flushed with shame. The unknown gentleman was sulky and ill-humoured.
Perhaps it was a man who had suffered more than once from the persecutions of fate, and had
more than once been in a tight place; but Ivan Andreyitch was a novice and could not breathe
in his constricted position. The blood rushed to his head. However, there was no help for it;
he had to lie on his face. Ivan Andreyitch submitted and was silent.
"I have been to see Pavel Ivanitch, my love," began the husband. "We sat down to a game of
preference. Khee-khee-khee!" (he had a fit of coughing). "Yes ... khee! So my back ... khee!
Bother it ... khee-khee-khee!"
And the old gentleman became engrossed in his cough.
"My back," he brought out at last with tears in his eyes, "my spine began to ache.... A damned
hæmorrhoid, I can't stand nor sit ... or sit. Akkhee-khee-khee!"...

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And it seemed as though the cough that followed was destined to last longer than the old
gentleman in possession of it. The old gentleman grumbled something in its intervals, but it
was utterly impossible to make out a word.
"Dear sir, for goodness' sake, move a little," whispered the unhappy Ivan Andreyitch.
"How can I? There's no room."
"But you must admit that it is impossible for me. It is the first time that I have found myself
in such a nasty position."
"And I in such unpleasant society."
"But, young man!..."
"Hold your tongue!"
"Hold my tongue? You are very uncivil, young man.... If I am not mistaken, you are very
young; I am your senior."
"Hold your tongue!"
"My dear sir! You are forgetting yourself. You don't know to whom you are talking!"
"To a gentleman lying under the bed."
"But I was taken by surprise ... a mistake, while in your case, if I am not mistaken,
immorality...."
"That's where you are mistaken."
"My dear sir! I am older than you, I tell you...."
"Sir, we are in the same boat, you know. I beg you not to take hold of my face!"
"Sir, I can't tell one thing from another. Excuse me, but I have no room."
"You shouldn't be so fat!"
"Heavens! I have never been in such a degrading position."
"Yes, one couldn't be brought more low."
"Sir, sir! I don't know who you are, I don't understand how this came about; but I am here by
mistake; I am not what you think...."
"I shouldn't think about you at all if you didn't shove. But hold your tongue, do!"
"Sir, if you don't move a little I shall have a stroke; you will have to answer for my death, I
assure you.... I am a respectable man, I am the father of a family. I really cannot be in such a
position!..."
"You thrust yourself into the position. Come, move a little! I've made room for you, I can't do
more!"
"Noble young man! Dear sir! I see I was mistaken about you," said Ivan Andreyitch, in a
transport of gratitude for the space allowed him, and stretching out his cramped limbs. "I
understand your constricted condition, but there's no help for it. I see you think ill of me.

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Allow me to redeem my reputation in your eyes, allow me to tell you who I am. I have come
here against my will, I assure you; I am not here with the object you imagine.... I am in a
terrible fright."
"Oh, do shut up! Understand that if we are overheard it will be the worse for us. Sh!... He is
talking."
The old gentleman's cough did, in fact, seem to be over.
"I tell you what, my love," he wheezed in the most lachrymose chant, "I tell you what, my
love ... khee-khee! Oh, what an affliction! Fedosey Ivanovitch said to me: 'You should try
drinking yarrow tea,' he said to me; do you hear, my love?"
"Yes, dear."
"Yes, that was what he said, 'You should try drinking yarrow tea,' he said. I told him I had put
on leeches. But he said, 'No, Alexandr Demyanovitch, yarrow tea is better, it's a laxative, I
tell you' ... Khee-khee. Oh, dear! What do you think, my love? Khee! Oh, my God! Khee-
khee! Had I better try yarrow tea?... Khee-khee-khee! Oh ... Khee!" and so on.
"I think it would be just as well to try that remedy," said his wife.
"Yes, it would be! 'You may be in consumption," he said. "Khee-khee! And I told him it was
gout and irritability of the stomach ... Khee-khee! But he would have it that it might be
consumption. What do you think ... khee-khee! What do you think, my love; is it
consumption?"
"My goodness, what are you talking about?"
"Why, consumption! You had better undress and go to bed now, my love ... khee-khee! I've
caught a cold in my head to-day."
"Ouf!" said Ivan Andreyitch. "For God's sake, do move a little."
"I really don't know what is the matter with you; can't you lie still?..."
"You are exasperated against me, young man, you want to wound me, I see that. You are, I
suppose, this lady's lover?"
"Shut up!"
"I will not shut up! I won't allow you to order me about! You are, no doubt, her lover. If we
are discovered I am not to blame in any way; I know nothing about it."
"If you don't hold your tongue," said the young man, grinding his teeth, "I will say that you
brought me here. I'll say that you are my uncle who has dissipated his fortune. Then they
won't imagine I am this lady's lover, anyway."
"Sir, you are amusing yourself at my expense. You are exhausting my patience."
"Hush, or I will make you hush! You are a curse to me. Come, tell me what you are here for?
If you were not here I could lie here somehow till morning, and then get away."
"But I can't lie here till morning. I am a respectable man, I have family ties, of course.... What
do you think, surely he is not going to spend the night here?"
"Who?"

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"Why, this old gentleman...."

"Of course he will. All husbands aren't like you. Some of them spend their nights at home."
"My dear sir, my dear sir!" cried Ivan Andreyitch, turning cold with terror, "I assure you I
spend my nights at home too, and this is the first time; but, my God, I see you know me. Who
are you, young man? Tell me at once, I beseech you, from disinterested friendship, who are
you?"
"Listen, I shall resort to violence...."
"But allow me, allow me, sir, to tell you, allow me to explain all this horrid business."
"I won't listen to any explanation. I don't want to know anything about it. Be silent or...."
"But I cannot...."
A slight skirmish took place under the bed, and Ivan Andreyitch subsided.
"My love, it sounds as though there were cats hissing."
"Cats! What will you imagine next?"
Evidently the lady did not know what to talk to her husband about. She was so upset that she
could not pull herself together. Now she started and pricked up her ears.
"What cats?"
"Cats, my love. The other day I went into my study, and there was the tom-cat in my study,
and hissing shoo-shoo-shoo! I said to him: 'What is it, pussy?' and he went shoo-shoo-shoo
again, as though he were whispering. I thought, 'Merciful heavens! isn't he hissing as a sign
of my death?'"
"What nonsense you are talking to-day! You ought to be ashamed, really!"
"Never mind, don't be cross, my love. I see, you don't like to think of me dying; I didn't mean
it. But you had better undress and get to bed, my love, and I'll sit here while you go to bed."
"For goodness' sake, leave off; afterwards...."
"Well, don't be cross, don't be cross; but really I think there must be mice here."
"Why, first cats and then mice, I really don't know what is the matter with you."
"Oh, I am all right ... Khee ... I ... khee! Never mind ... khee-khee-khee-khee! Oh! Lord have
mercy on me ... khee."
"You hear, you are making such an upset that he hears you," whispers the young man.
"But if you knew what is happening to me. My nose is bleeding."
"Let it bleed. Shut up. Wait till he goes away."
"But, young man, put yourself in my place. Why, I don't know with whom I am lying."
"Would you be any better off if you did? Why, I don't want to know your name. By the way,
what is your name?"

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"No; what do you want with my name?... I only want to explain the senseless way in
which...."
"Hush ... he is speaking again...."
"Really, my love, there is whispering."
"Oh, no, it's the cotton wool in your ears has got out of place."
"Oh, by the way, talking of the cotton wool, do you know that upstairs ... khee-khee ...
upstairs ... khee-khee ..." and so on.
"Upstairs!" whispered the young man. "Oh, the devil! I thought that this was the top storey;
can it be the second?"
"Young man," whispered Ivan Andreyitch, "what did you say? For goodness' sake why does
it concern you? I thought it was the top storey too. Tell me, for God's sake, is there another
storey?"
"Really some one is stirring," said the old man, leaving off coughing at last.
"Hush! Do you hear?" whispered the young man, squeezing Ivan Andreyitch's hands.
"Sir, you are holding my hands by force. Let me go!"
"Hush!"
A slight struggle followed and then there was a silence again.
"So I met a pretty woman ..." began the old man.
"A pretty woman!" interrupted his wife.
"Yes.... I thought I told you before that I met a pretty woman on the stairs, or perhaps I did
not mention it? My memory is weak. Yes, St. John's wort ... khee!"
"What?"
"I must drink St. John's wort; they say it does good ... khee-khee-khee! It does good!"
"It was you interrupted him," said the young man, grinding his teeth again.
"You said, you met some pretty woman to-day?" his wife went on.
"Eh?"
"Met a pretty woman?"
"Who did?"
"Why, didn't you?"
"I? When?"
"Oh, yes!..."
"At last! What a mummy! Well!" whispered the young man, inwardly raging at the forgetful
old gentleman.

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"My dear sir, I am trembling with horror. My God, what do I hear? It's like yesterday, exactly
like yesterday!..."
"Hush!"
"Yes, to be sure! I remember, a sly puss, such eyes ... in a blue hat...."
"In a blue hat! Aïe, aïe!"
"It's she! She has a blue hat! My God!" cried Ivan Andreyitch.
"She? Who is she?" whispered the young man, squeezing Ivan Andreyitch's hands.
"Hush!" Ivan Andreyitch exhorted in his turn. "He is speaking."
"Ah, my God, my God!"
"Though, after all, who hasn't a blue hat?"
"And such a sly little rogue," the old gentleman went on "She comes here to see friends. She
is always making eyes. And other friends come to see those friends too...."
"Foo! how tedious!" the lady interrupted. "Really, how can you take interest in that?"
"Oh, very well, very well, don't be cross," the old gentleman responded in a wheedling chant.
"I won't talk if you don't care to hear me. You seem a little out of humour this evening."
"But how did you get here?" the young man began.
"Ah, you see, you see! Now you are interested, and before you wouldn't listen!"
"Oh, well, I don't care! Please don't tell me. Oh, damnation take it, what a mess!"
"Don't be cross, young man; I don't know what I am saying. I didn't mean anything; I only
meant to say that there must be some good reason for your taking such an interest.... But who
are you, young man? I see you are a stranger, but who are you? Oh, dear, I don't know what I
am saying!"
"Ugh, leave off, please!" the young man interrupted, as though he were considering
something.
"But I will tell you all about it. You think, perhaps, that I will not tell you. That I feel
resentment against you. Oh, no! Here is my hand. I am only feeling depressed, nothing more.
But for God's sake, first tell me how you came here yourself? Through what chance? As for
me, I feel no ill-will; no, indeed, I feel no ill-will, here is my hand. I have made it rather dirty,
it is so dusty here; but that's nothing, when the feeling is true."
"Ugh, get away with your hand! There is no room to turn, and he keeps thrusting his hand on
me!"
"But, my dear sir, but you treat me, if you will allow me to say so, as though I were an old
shoe," said Ivan Andreyitch in a rush of the meekest despair, in a voice full of entreaty.
"Treat me a little more civilly, just a little more civilly, and I will tell you all about it! We
might be friends; I am quite ready to ask you home to dinner. We can't lie side by side like
this, I tell you plainly. You are in error, young man, you do not know...."

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"When was it he met her?" the young man muttered, evidently in violent emotion. "Perhaps
she is expecting me now.... I'll certainly get away from here!"
"She? Who is she? My God, of whom are you speaking, young man? You imagine that
upstairs.... My God, my God! Why am I punished like this?"
Ivan Andreyitch tried to turn on his back in his despair.
"Why do you want to know who she is? Oh, the devil whether it was she or not, I will get
out."
"My dear sir! What are you thinking about? What will become of me?" whispered Ivan
Andreyitch, clutching at the tails of his neighbour's dress coat in his despair.
"Well, what's that to me? You can stop here by yourself. And if you won't, I'll tell them that
you are my uncle, who has squandered all his property, so that the old gentleman won't think
that I am his wife's lover."
"But that is utterly impossible, young man; it's unnatural I should be your uncle. Nobody
would believe you. Why, a baby wouldn't believe it," Ivan Andreyitch whispered in despair.
"Well, don't babble then, but lie as flat as a pancake! Most likely you will stay the night here
and get out somehow to-morrow; no one will notice you. If one creeps out, it is not likely
they would think there was another one here. There might as well be a dozen. Though you are
as good as a dozen by yourself. Move a little, or I'll get out."
"You wound me, young man.... What if I have a fit of coughing? One has to think of
everything."
"Hush!"
"What's that? I fancy I hear something going on upstairs again," said the old gentleman, who
seemed to have had a nap in the interval.
"Upstairs?"
"Do you hear, young man? I shall get out."
"Well, I hear."
"My goodness! Young man, I am going."
"Oh, well, I am not, then! I don't care. If there is an upset I don't mind! But do you know
what I suspect? I believe you are an injured husband—so there."
"Good heavens, what cynicism!... Can you possibly suspect that? Why a husband?... I am not
married."
"Not married? Fiddlesticks!"
"I may be a lover myself!"
"A nice lover."
"My dear sir, my dear sir! Oh, very well, I will tell you the whole story. Listen to my
desperate story. It is not I—I am not married. I am a bachelor like you. It is my friend, a
companion of my youth.... I am a lover.... He told me that he was an unhappy man. 'I am

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drinking the cup of bitterness,' he said; 'I suspect my wife.' 'Well,' I said to him reasonably,
'why do you suspect her?'... But you are not listening to me. Listen, listen! 'Jealousy is
ridiculous,' I said to him; 'jealousy is a vice!'... 'No,' he said; 'I am an unhappy man! I am
drinking ... that is, I suspect my wife.' 'You are my friend,' I said; 'you are the companion of
my tender youth. Together we culled the flowers of happiness, together we rolled in
featherbeds of pleasure.' My goodness, I don't know what I am saying. You keep laughing,
young man. You'll drive me crazy."
"But you are crazy now...."
"There, I knew you would say that ... when I talked of being crazy. Laugh away, laugh away,
young man. I did the same in my day; I, too, went astray! Ah, I shall have inflammation of
the brain!"
"What is it, my love? I thought I heard some one sneeze," the old man chanted. "Was that you
sneezed, my love?"
"Oh, goodness!" said his wife.
"Tch!" sounded from under the bed.
"They must be making a noise upstairs," said his wife, alarmed, for there certainly was a
noise under the bed.
"Yes, upstairs!" said the husband. "Upstairs, I told you just now, I met a ... khee-khee ... that I
met a young swell with moustaches—oh, dear, my spine!—a young swell with moustaches."
"With moustaches! My goodness, that must have been you," whispered Ivan Andreyitch.
"Merciful heavens, what a man! Why, I am here, lying here with you! How could he have
met me? But don't take hold of my face."
"My goodness, I shall faint in a minute."
There certainly was a loud noise overhead at this moment.
"What can be happening there?" whispered the young man.
"My dear sir! I am in alarm, I am in terror, help me."
"Hush!"
"There really is a noise, my love; there's a regular hubbub. And just over your bedroom, too.
Hadn't I better send up to inquire?"
"Well, what will you think of next?"
"Oh, well, I won't; but really, how cross you are to-day!..."
"Oh, dear, you had better go to bed."
"Liza, you don't love me at all."
"Oh, yes, I do! For goodness' sake, I am so tired."
"Well, well; I am going!"
"Oh, no, no; don't go!" cried his wife; "or, no, better go!"

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"Why, what is the matter with you! One minute I am to go, and the next I'm not! Khee-khee!
It really is bedtime, khee-khee! The Panafidins' little girl ... khee-khee ... their little girl ...
khee ... I saw their little girl's Nuremburg doll ... khee-khee...."
"Well, now it's dolls!"
"Khee-khee ... a pretty doll ... khee-khee."
"He is saying good-bye," said the young man; "he is going, and we can get away at once. Do
you hear? You can rejoice!"
"Oh, God grant it!"
"It's a lesson to you...."
"Young man, a lesson for what!... I feel it ... but you are young, you cannot teach me."
"I will, though.... Listen."
"Oh, dear, I am going to sneeze!..."
"Hush, if you dare."
"But what can I do, there is such a smell of mice here; I can't help it. Take my handkerchief
cut of my pocket; I can't stir.... Oh, my God, my God, why am I so punished?"
"Here's your handkerchief! I will tell you what you are punished for. You are jealous.
Goodness knows on what grounds, you rush about like a madman, burst into other people's
flats, create a disturbance...."
"Young man, I have not created a disturbance."
"Hush!"
"Young man, you can't lecture to me about morals, I am more moral than you."
"Hush!"
"Oh, my God—oh, my God!"
"You create a disturbance, you frighten a young lady, a timid woman who does not know
what to do for terror, and perhaps will be ill; you disturb a venerable old man suffering from
a complaint and who needs repose above everything—and all this what for? Because you
imagine some nonsense which sets you running all over the neighbourhood! Do you
understand what a horrid position you are in now?"
"I do very well, sir! I feel it, but you have not the right...."
"Hold your tongue! What has right got to do with it? Do you understand that this may have a
tragic ending? Do you understand that the old man, who is fond of his wife, may go out of his
mind when he sees you creep out from under the bed? But no, you are incapable of causing a
tragedy! When you crawl out, I expect every one who looks at you will laugh. I should like to
see you in the light; you must look very funny."
"And you. You must be funny, too, in that case. I should like to have a look at you too."
"I dare say you would!"

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"You must carry the stamp of immorality, young man."

"Ah! you are talking about morals, how do you know why I'm here? I am here by mistake, I
made a mistake in the storey. And the deuce knows why they let me in, I suppose she must
have been expecting some one (not you, of course). I hid under the bed when I heard your
stupid footsteps, when I saw the lady was frightened. Besides, it was dark. And why should I
justify myself to you. You are a ridiculous, jealous old man, sir. Do you know why I don't
crawl out? Perhaps you imagine I am afraid to come out? No, sir, I should have come out
long ago, but I stay here from compassion for you. Why, what would you be taken for, if I
were not here? You'd stand facing them, like a post, you know you wouldn't know what to
do...."
"Why like that object? Couldn't you find anything else to compare me with, young man?
Why shouldn't I know what to do? I should know what to do."
"Oh, my goodness, how that wretched dog keeps barking!"
"Hush! Oh, it really is.... That's because you keep jabbering. You've waked the dog, now
there will be trouble."
The lady's dog, who had till then been sleeping on a pillow in the corner, suddenly awoke,
sniffed strangers and rushed under the bed with a loud bark.
"Oh, my God, what a stupid dog!" whispered Ivan Andreyitch; "it will get us all into trouble.
Here's another affliction!"
"Oh, well, you are such a coward, that it may well be so."
"Ami, Ami, come here," cried the lady; "ici, ici." But the dog, without heeding her, made
straight for Ivan Andreyitch.
"Why is it Amishka keeps barking?" said the old gentleman. "There must be mice or the cat
under there. I seem to hear a sneezing ... and pussy had a cold this morning."
"Lie still," whispered the young man. "Don't twist about! Perhaps it will leave off."
"Sir, let go of my hands, sir! Why are you holding them?"
"Hush! Be quiet!"
"But mercy on us, young man, it will bite my nose. Do you want me to lose my nose?"
A struggle followed, and Ivan Andreyitch got his hands free. The dog broke into volleys of
barking. Suddenly it ceased barking and gave a yelp.
"Aïe!" cried the lady.
"Monster! what are you doing?" cried the young man. "You will be the ruin of us both! Why
are you holding it? Good heavens, he is strangling it! Let it go! Monster! You know nothing
of the heart of women if you can do that! She will betray us both if you strangle the dog."
But by now Ivan Andreyitch could hear nothing. He had succeeded in catching the dog, and
in a paroxysm of self-preservation had squeezed its throat. The dog yelled and gave up the
ghost.
"We are lost!" whispered the young man.

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"Amishka! Amishka," cried the lady. "My God, what are they doing with my Amishka?
Amishka! Amishka! Ici! Oh, the monsters! Barbarians! Oh, dear, I feel giddy!"
"What is it, what is it?" cried the old gentleman, jumping up from his easy chair. "What is the
matter with you, my darling? Amishka! here, Amishka! Amishka! Amishka!" cried the old
gentleman, snapping with his fingers and clicking with his tongue, and calling Amishka from
under the bed. "Amishka, ici, ici. The cat cannot have eaten him. The cat wants a thrashing,
my love, he hasn't had a beating for a whole month, the rogue. What do you think? I'll talk to
Praskovya Zaharyevna. But, my goodness, what is the matter, my love? Oh, how white you
are! Oh, oh, servants, servants!" and the old gentleman ran about the room.
"Villains! Monsters!" cried the lady, sinking on the sofa.
"Who, who, who?" cried the old gentleman.
"There are people there, strangers, there under the bed! Oh, my God, Amishka, Amishka,
what have they done to you?"
"Good heavens, what people? Amishka.... Servants, servants, come here! Who is there, who
is there?" cried the old gentleman, snatching up a candle and bending down under the bed.
"Who is there?"
Ivan Andreyitch was lying more dead than alive beside the breathless corpse of Amishka, but
the young man was watching every movement of the old gentleman. All at once the old
gentleman went to the other side of the bed by the wall and bent down. In a flash the young
man crept out from under the bed and took to his heels, while the husband was looking for his
visitors on the other side.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the lady, staring at the young man. "Who are you? Why, I
thought...."
"That monster's still there," whispered the young man. "He is guilty of Amishka's death!"
"Aïe!" shrieked the lady, but the young man had already vanished from the room.
"Aïe! There is some one here. Here are somebody's boots!" cried the husband, catching Ivan
Andreyitch by the leg.
"Murderer, murderer!" cried the lady. "Oh, Ami! Ami!"
"Come out, come out!" cried the old gentleman, stamping on the carpet with both feet; "come
out. Who are you? Tell me who you are! Good gracious, what a queer person!"
"Why, it's robbers!..."
"For God's sake, for God's sake," cried Ivan Andreyitch creeping out, "for God's sake, your
Excellency, don't call the servants! Your Excellency, don't call any one. It is quite
unnecessary. You can't kick me out!... I am not that sort of person. I am a different case. Your
Excellency, it has all been due to a mistake! I'll explain directly, your Excellency," exclaimed
Ivan Andreyitch, sobbing and gasping. "It's all my wife that is not my wife, but somebody
else's wife. I am not married, I am only.... It's my comrade, a friend of youthful days."
"What friend of youthful days?" cried the old gentleman, stamping. "You are a thief, you
have come to steal ... and not a friend of youthful days."

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"No, I am not a thief, your Excellency; I am really a friend of youthful days.... I have only
blundered by accident, I came into the wrong place."
"Yes, sir, yes; I see from what place you've crawled out."
"Your Excellency! I am not that sort of man. You are mistaken. I tell you, you are cruelly
mistaken, your Excellency. Only glance at me, look at me, and by signs and tokens you will
see that I can't be a thief. Your Excellency! Your Excellency!" cried Ivan Andreyitch, folding
his hands and appealing to the young lady. "You are a lady, you will understand me.... It was
I who killed Amishka.... But it was not my fault.... It was really not my fault.... It was all my
wife's fault. I am an unhappy man, I am drinking the cup of bitterness!"
"But really, what has it to do with me that you are drinking the cup of bitterness? Perhaps it's
not the only cup you've drunk. It seems so, to judge from your condition. But how did you
come here, sir?" cried the old gentleman, quivering with excitement, though he certainly was
convinced by certain signs and tokens that Ivan Andreyitch could not be a thief. "I ask you:
how did you come here? You break in like a robber...."
"Not a robber, your Excellency. I simply came to the wrong place; I am really not a robber! It
is all because I was jealous. I will tell you all about it, your Excellency, I will confess it all
frankly, as I would to my own father; for at your venerable age I might take you for a father."
"What do you mean by venerable age?"
"Your Excellency! Perhaps I have offended you? Of course such a young lady ... and your
age ... it is a pleasant sight, your Excellency, it really is a pleasant sight such a union ... in the
prime of life.... But don't call the servants, for God's sake, don't call the servants ... servants
would only laugh.... I know them ... that is, I don't mean that I am only acquainted with
footmen, I have a footman of my own, your Excellency, and they are always laughing ... the
asses! Your Highness ... I believe I am not mistaken, I am addressing a prince...."
"No, I am not a prince, sir, I am an independent gentleman.... Please do not flatter me with
your 'Highness.' How did you get here, sir? How did you get here?"
"Your Highness, that is, your Excellency.... Excuse me, I thought that you were your
Highness. I looked ... I imagined ... it does happen. You are so like Prince
Korotkouhov whom I have had the honour of meeting at my friend Mr. Pusyrev's.... You see,
I am acquainted with princes, too, I have met princes, too, at the houses of my friends; you
cannot take me for what you take me for. I am not a thief. Your Excellency, don't call the
servants; what will be the good of it if you do call them?"
"But how did you come here?" cried the lady. "Who are you?"
"Yes, who are you?" the husband chimed in. "And, my love, I thought it was pussy under the
bed sneezing. And it was he. Ah, you vagabond! Who are you? Tell me!"
And the old gentleman stamped on the carpet again.
"I cannot speak, your Excellency, I am waiting till you are finished, I am enjoying your witty
jokes. As regards me, it is an absurd story, your Excellency; I will tell you all about it. It can
all be explained without more ado, that is, I mean, don't call the servants, your Excellency!
Treat me in a gentlemanly way.... It means nothing that I was under the bed, I have not
sacrificed my dignity by that. It is a most comical story, your Excellency!" cried Ivan
Andreyitch, addressing the lady with a supplicating air. "You, particularly, your Excellency,

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will laugh! You behold upon the scene a jealous husband. You see, I abase myself, I abase
myself of my own free will. I did indeed kill Amishka, but ... my God, I don't know what I
am saying!"
"But how, how did you get here?"
"Under cover of night, your Excellency, under cover of night.... I beg your pardon! Forgive
me, your Excellency! I humbly beg your pardon! I am only an injured husband, nothing
more! Don't imagine, your Excellency, that I am a lover! I am not a lover! Your wife is virtue
itself, if I may venture so to express myself. She is pure and innocent!"
"What, what? What did you have the audacity to say?" cried the old gentleman, stamping his
foot again. "Are you out of your mind or not? How dare you talk about my wife?"
"He is a villain, a murderer who has killed Amishka," wailed the lady, dissolving into tears.
"And then he dares!..."
"Your Excellency, your Excellency! I spoke foolishly," cried Ivan Andreyitch in a fluster. "I
was talking foolishly, that was all! Think of me as out of my mind.... For goodness' sake,
think of me as out of my mind.... I assure you that you will be doing me the greatest favour. I
would offer you my hand, but I do not venture to.... I was not alone, I was an uncle.... I mean
to say that you cannot take me for the lover.... Goodness! I have put my foot in it again.... Do
not be offended, your Excellency," cried Ivan Andreyitch to the lady. "You are a lady, you
understand what love is, it is a delicate feeling.... But what am I saying? I am talking
nonsense again; that is, I mean to say that I am an old man—that is, a middle-aged man, not
an old man; that I cannot be your lover; that a lover is a Richardson—that is, a Lovelace.... I
am talking nonsense, but you see, your Excellency, that I am a well-educated man and know
something of literature. You are laughing, your Excellency. I am delighted, delighted that I
have provoked your mirth, your Excellency. Oh, how delighted I am that I have provoked
your mirth."
"My goodness, what a funny man!" cried the lady, exploding with laughter.
"Yes, he is funny, and in such a mess," said the old man, delighted that his wife was
laughing. "He cannot be a thief, my love. But how did he come here?"
"It really is strange, it really is strange, it is like a novel! Why! At the dead of night, in a great
city, a man under the bed. Strange, funny! Rinaldo-Rinaldini after a fashion. But that is no
matter, no matter, your Excellency. I will tell you all about it.... And I will buy you a new
lapdog, your Excellency.... A wonderful lapdog! Such a long coat, such short little legs, it
can't walk more than a step or two: it runs a little, gets entangled in its own coat, and tumbles
over. One feeds it on nothing but sugar. I will bring you one, I will certainly bring you one."
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" The lady was rolling from side to side with laughter. "Oh, dear, I shall
have hysterics! Oh, how funny he is!"
"Yes, yes! Ha-ha-ha! Khee-khee-khee! He is funny and he is in a mess—khee-khee-khee!"
"Your Excellency, your Excellency, I am now perfectly happy. I would offer you my hand,
but I do not venture to, your Excellency. I feel that I have been in error, but now I am
opening my eyes. I am certain my wife is pure and innocent! I was wrong in suspecting her."
"Wife—his wife!" cried the lady, with tears in her eyes through laughing.
"He married? Impossible! I should never have thought it," said the old gentleman.

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"Your Excellency, my wife—it is all her fault; that is, it is my fault: I suspected her; I knew
that an assignation had been arranged here—here upstairs; I intercepted a letter, made a
mistake about the storey and got under the bed...."
"He-he-he-he!"
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" Ivan Andreyitch began laughing at last. "Oh, how happy I am! Oh, how
wonderful to see that we are all so happy and harmonious! And my wife is entirely innocent.
That must be so, your Excellency!"
"He-he-he! Khee-khee! Do you know, my love, who it was?" said the old man at last,
recovering from his mirth.
"Who? Ha-ha-ha."
"She must be the pretty woman who makes eyes, the one with the dandy. It's she, I bet that's
his wife!"
"No, your Excellency, I am certain it is not she; I am perfectly certain."
"But, my goodness! You are losing time," cried the lady, leaving off laughing. "Run, go
upstairs. Perhaps you will find them."
"Certainly, your Excellency, I will fly. But I shall not find any one, your Excellency; it is not
she, I am certain of it beforehand. She is at home now. It is all my fault! It is simply my
jealousy, nothing else.... What do you think? Do you suppose that I shall find them there,
your Excellency?"
"Ha-ha-ha!"
"He-he-he! Khee-khee!"
"You must go, you must go! And when you come down, come in and tell us!" cried the lady;
"or better still, to-morrow morning. And do bring her too, I should like to make her
acquaintance."
"Good-bye, your Excellency, good-bye! I will certainly bring her, I shall be very glad for her
to make your acquaintance. I am glad and happy that it was all ended so and has turned out
for the best."
"And the lapdog! Don't forget it: be sure to bring the lapdog!"
"I will bring it, your Excellency, I will certainly bring it," responded Ivan Andreyitch, darting
back into the room, for he had already made his bows and withdrawn. "I will certainly bring
it. It is such a pretty one. It is just as though a confectioner had made it of sweet-meats. And
it's such a funny little thing—gets entangled in its own coat and falls over. It really is a
lapdog! I said to my wife: 'How is it, my love, it keeps tumbling over?' 'It is such a little
thing,' she said. As though it were made of sugar, of sugar, your Excellency! Good-bye, your
Excellency, very, very glad to make your acquaintance, very glad to make your
acquaintance!"
Ivan Andreyitch bowed himself out.
"Hey, sir! Stay, come back," cried the old gentleman, after the retreating Ivan Andreyitch.

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The latter turned back for the third time.

"I still can't find the cat, didn't you meet him when you were under the bed?"
"No, I didn't, your Excellency. Very glad to make his acquaintance, though, and I shall look
upon it as an honour...."
"He has a cold in his head now, and keeps sneezing and sneezing. He must have a beating."
"Yes, your Excellency, of course; corrective punishment is essential with domestic animals."
"What?"
"I say that corrective punishment is necessary, your Excellency, to enforce obedience in the
domestic animals."
"Ah!... Well, good-bye, good-bye, that is all I had to say."
Coming out into the street, Ivan Andreyitch stood for a long time in an attitude that suggested
that he was expecting to have a fit in another minute. He took off his hat, wiped the cold
sweat from his brow, screwed up his eyes, thought a minute, and set off homewards.
What was his amazement when he learned at home that Glafira Petrovna had come back from
the theatre a long, long time before, that she had toothache, that she had sent for the doctor,
that she had sent for leeches, and that now she was lying in bed and expecting Ivan
Andreyitch.
Ivan Andreyitch slapped himself on the forehead, told the servant to help him wash and to
brush his clothes, and at last ventured to go into his wife's room.
"Where is it you spend your time? Look what a sight you are! What do you look like? Where
have you been lost all this time? Upon my word, sir; your wife is dying and you have to be
hunted for all over the town. Where have you been? Surely you have not been tracking me,
trying to disturb a rendezvous I am supposed to have made, though I don't know with whom.
For shame, sir, you are a husband! People will soon be pointing at you in the street."
"My love ..." responded Ivan Andreyitch.
But at this point he was so overcome with confusion that he had to feel in his pocket for his
handkerchief and to break off in the speech he was beginning, because he had neither words,
thoughts or courage.... What was his amazement, horror and alarm when with his
handkerchief fell out of his pocket the corpse of Amishka. Ivan Andreyitch had not noticed
that when he had been forced to creep out from under the bed, in an access of despair and
unreasoning terror he had stuffed Amishka into his pocket with a far-away idea of burying
the traces, concealing the evidence of his crime, and so avoiding the punishment he deserved.
"What's this?" cried his spouse; "a nasty dead dog! Goodness! where has it come from?...
What have you been up to?... Where have you been? Tell me at once where have you been?"
"My love," answered Ivan Andreyitch, almost as dead as Amishka, "my love...."
But here we will leave our hero—till another time, for a new and quite different adventure
begins here. Some day we will describe all these calamities and misfortunes, gentlemen. But
you will admit that jealousy is an unpardonable passion, and what is more, it is a positive
misfortune.

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THE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREE

I am a novelist, and I suppose I have made up this story. I write "I suppose," though I know
for a fact that I have made it up, but yet I keep fancying that it must have happened
somewhere at some time, that it must have happened on Christmas Eve in some great town in
a time of terrible frost.
I have a vision of a boy, a little boy, six years old or even younger. This boy woke up that
morning in a cold damp cellar. He was dressed in a sort of little dressing-gown and was
shivering with cold. There was a cloud of white steam from his breath, and sitting on a box in
the corner, he blew the steam out of his mouth and amused himself in his dullness watching it
float away. But he was terribly hungry. Several times that morning he went up to the plank
bed where his sick mother was lying on a mattress as thin as a pancake, with some sort of
bundle under her head for a pillow. How had she come here? She must have come with her
boy from some other town and suddenly fallen ill. The landlady who let the "corners" had
been taken two days before to the police station, the lodgers were out and about as the
holiday was so near, and the only one left had been lying for the last twenty-four hours dead
drunk, not having waited for Christmas. In another corner of the room a wretched old woman
of eighty, who had once been a children's nurse but was now left to die friendless, was
moaning and groaning with rheumatism, scolding and grumbling at the boy so that he was
afraid to go near her corner. He had got a drink of water in the outer room, but could not find
a crust anywhere, and had been on the point of waking his mother a dozen times. He felt
frightened at last in the darkness: it had long been dusk, but no light was kindled. Touching
his mother's face, he was surprised that she did not move at all, and that she was as cold as
the wall. "It is very cold here," he thought. He stood a little, unconsciously letting his hands
rest on the dead woman's shoulders, then he breathed on his fingers to warm them, and then
quietly fumbling for his cap on the bed, he went out of the cellar. He would have gone earlier,
but was afraid of the big dog which had been howling all day at the neighbour's door at the
top of the stairs. But the dog was not there now, and he went out into the street.
Mercy on us, what a town! He had never seen anything like it before. In the town from which
he had come, it was always such black darkness at night. There was one lamp for the whole
street, the little, low-pitched, wooden houses were closed up with shutters, there was no one
to be seen in the street after dusk, all the people shut themselves up in their houses, and there
was nothing but the howling of packs of dogs, hundreds and thousands of them barking and
howling all night. But there it was so warm and he was given food, while here—oh, dear, if
he only had something to eat! And what a noise and rattle here, what light and what people,
horses and carriages, and what a frost! The frozen steam hung in clouds over the horses, over
their warmly breathing mouths; their hoofs clanged against the stones through the powdery
snow, and every one pushed so, and—oh, dear, how he longed for some morsel to eat, and
how wretched he suddenly felt. A policeman walked by and turned away to avoid seeing the
boy.
Here was another street—oh, what a wide one, here he would be run over for certain; how
everyone was shouting, racing and driving along, and the light, the light! And what was this?
A huge glass window, and through the window a tree reaching up to the ceiling; it was a fir

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tree, and on it were ever so many lights, gold papers and apples and little dolls and horses;
and there were children clean and dressed in their best running about the room, laughing and
playing and eating and drinking something. And then a little girl began dancing with one of
the boys, what a pretty little girl! And he could hear the music through the window. The boy
looked and wondered and laughed, though his toes were aching with the cold and his fingers
were red and stiff so that it hurt him to move them. And all at once the boy remembered how
his toes and fingers hurt him, and began crying, and ran on; and again through another
window-pane he saw another Christmas tree, and on a table cakes of all sorts—almond cakes,
red cakes and yellow cakes, and three grand young ladies were sitting there, and they gave
the cakes to any one who went up to them, and the door kept opening, lots of gentlemen and
ladies went in from the street. The boy crept up, suddenly opened the door and went in. Oh,
how they shouted at him and waved him back! One lady went up to him hurriedly and slipped
a kopeck into his hand, and with her own hands opened the door into the street for him! How
frightened he was. And the kopeck rolled away and clinked upon the steps; he could not bend
his red fingers to hold it tight. The boy ran away and went on, where he did not know. He
was ready to cry again but he was afraid, and ran on and on and blew his fingers. And he was
miserable because he felt suddenly so lonely and terrified, and all at once, mercy on us! What
was this again? People were standing in a crowd admiring. Behind a glass window there were
three little dolls, dressed in red and green dresses, and exactly, exactly as though they were
alive. One was a little old man sitting and playing a big violin, the two others were standing
close by and playing little violins and nodding in time, and looking at one another, and their
lips moved, they were speaking, actually speaking, only one couldn't hear through the glass.
And at first the boy thought they were alive, and when he grasped that they were dolls he
laughed. He had never seen such dolls before, and had no idea there were such dolls! And he
wanted to cry, but he felt amused, amused by the dolls. All at once he fancied that some one
caught at his smock behind: a wicked big boy was standing beside him and suddenly hit him
on the head, snatched off his cap and tripped him up. The boy fell down on the ground, at
once there was a shout, he was numb with fright, he jumped up and ran away. He ran, and not
knowing where he was going, ran in at the gate of some one's courtyard, and sat down behind
a stack of wood: "They won't find me here, besides it's dark!"
He sat huddled up and was breathless from fright, and all at once, quite suddenly, he felt so
happy: his hands and feet suddenly left off aching and grew so warm, as warm as though he
were on a stove; then he shivered all over, then he gave a start, why, he must have been
asleep. How nice to have a sleep here! "I'll sit here a little and go and look at the dolls again,"
said the boy, and smiled thinking of them. "Just as though they were alive!..." And suddenly
he heard his mother singing over him. "Mammy, I am asleep; how nice it is to sleep here!"
"Come to my Christmas tree, little one," a soft voice suddenly whispered over his head.
He thought that this was still his mother, but no, it was not she. Who it was calling him, he
could not see, but some one bent over and embraced him in the darkness; and he stretched out
his hands to him, and ... and all at once—oh, what a bright light! Oh, what a Christmas tree!
And yet it was not a fir tree, he had never seen a tree like that! Where was he now?
Everything was bright and shining, and all round him were dolls; but no, they were not dolls,
they were little boys and girls, only so bright and shining. They all came flying round him,
they all kissed him, took him and carried him along with them, and he was flying himself,
and he saw that his mother was looking at him and laughing joyfully. "Mammy, Mammy; oh,
how nice it is here, Mammy!" And again he kissed the children and wanted to tell them
at once of those dolls in the shop window. "Who are you, boys? Who are you, girls?" he
asked, laughing and admiring them.

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"This is Christ's Christmas tree," they answered. "Christ always has a Christmas tree on this
day, for the little children who have no tree of their own...." And he found out that all these
little boys and girls were children just like himself; that some had been frozen in the baskets
in which they had as babies been laid on the doorsteps of well-to-do Petersburg people, others
had been boarded out with Finnish women by the Foundling and had been suffocated, others
had died at their starved mother's breasts (in the Samara famine), others had died in the third-
class railway carriages from the foul air; and yet they were all here, they were all like angels
about Christ, and He was in the midst of them and held out His hands to them and blessed
them and their sinful mothers.... And the mothers of these children stood on one side
weeping; each one knew her boy or girl, and the children flew up to them and kissed them
and wiped away their tears with their little hands, and begged them not to weep because they
were so happy.
And down below in the morning the porter found the little dead body of the frozen child on
the woodstack; they sought out his mother too.... She had died before him. They met before
the Lord God in heaven.
Why have I made up such a story, so out of keeping with an ordinary diary, and a writer's
above all? And I promised two stories dealing with real events! But that is just it, I keep
fancying that all this may have happened really—that is, what took place in the cellar and on
the woodstack; but as for Christ's Christmas tree, I cannot tell you whether that could have
happened or not.

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THE PEASANT MAREY

It was the second day in Easter week. The air was warm, the sky was blue, the sun was high,
warm, bright, but my soul was very gloomy. I sauntered behind the prison barracks. I stared
at the palings of the stout prison fence, counting the movers; but I had no inclination to count
them, though it was my habit to do so. This was the second day of the "holidays" in the
prison; the convicts were not taken out to work, there were numbers of men drunk, loud
abuse and quarrelling was springing up continually in every corner. There were hideous,
disgusting songs and card-parties installed beside the platform-beds. Several of the convicts
who had been sentenced by their comrades, for special violence, to be beaten till they were
half dead, were lying on the platform-bed, covered with sheepskins till they should recover
and come to themselves again; knives had already been drawn several times. For these two
days of holiday all this had been torturing me till it made me ill. And indeed I could never
endure without repulsion the noise and disorder of drunken people, and especially in this
place. On these days even the prison officials did not look into the prison, made no searches,
did not look for vodka, understanding that they must allow even these outcasts to enjoy
themselves once a year, and that things would be even worse if they did not. At last a sudden
fury flamed up in my heart. A political prisoner called M. met me; he looked at me gloomily,
his eyes flashed and his lips quivered. "Je haïs ces brigands!" he hissed to me through his
teeth, and walked on. I returned to the prison ward, though only a quarter of an hour before I
had rushed out of it, as though I were crazy, when six stalwart fellows had all together
flung themselves upon the drunken Tatar Gazin to suppress him and had begun beating him;
they beat him stupidly, a camel might have been killed by such blows, but they knew that this
Hercules was not easy to kill, and so they beat him without uneasiness. Now on returning I
noticed on the bed in the furthest corner of the room Gazin lying unconscious, almost without
sign of life. He lay covered with a sheepskin, and every one walked round him, without
speaking; though they confidently hoped that he would come to himself next morning, yet if
luck was against him, maybe from a beating like that, the man would die. I made my way to
my own place opposite the window with the iron grating, and lay on my back with my hands
behind my head and my eyes shut. I liked to lie like that; a sleeping man is not molested, and
meanwhile one can dream and think. But I could not dream, my heart was beating uneasily,
and M.'s words, "Je haïs ces brigands!" were echoing in my ears. But why describe my
impressions; I sometimes dream even now of those times at night, and I have no dreams more
agonising. Perhaps it will be noticed that even to this day I have scarcely once spoken in print
of my life in prison. The House of the Dead I wrote fifteen years ago in the character of an
imaginary person, a criminal who had killed his wife. I may add by the way that since then,
very many persons have supposed, and even now maintain, that I was sent to penal servitude
for the murder of my wife.
Gradually I sank into forgetfulness and by degrees was lost in memories. During the whole
course of my four years in prison I was continually recalling all my past, and seemed to live
over again the whole of my life in recollection. These memories rose up of themselves, it was
not often that of my own will I summoned them. It would begin from some point, some little
thing, at times unnoticed, and then by degrees there would rise up a complete picture, some
vivid and complete impression. I used to analyse these impressions, give new features to what
had happened long ago, and best of all, I used to correct it, correct it continually, that was my

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great amusement. On this occasion, I suddenly for some reason remembered an unnoticed
moment in my early childhood when I was only nine years old—a moment which I should
have thought I had utterly forgotten; but at that time I was particularly fond of memories of
my early childhood. I remembered the month of August in our country house: a dry bright
day but rather cold and windy; summer was waning and soon we should have to go to
Moscow to be bored all the winter over French lessons, and I was so sorry to leave the
country. I walked past the threshing-floor and, going down the ravine, I went up to the dense
thicket of bushes that covered the further side of the ravine as far as the copse. And I plunged
right into the midst of the bushes, and heard a peasant ploughing alone on the clearing about
thirty paces away. I knew that he was ploughing up the steep hill and the horse was moving
with effort, and from time to time the peasant's call "come up!" floated upwards to me. I
knew almost all our peasants, but I did not know which it was ploughing now, and I did not
care who it was, I was absorbed in my own affairs. I was busy, too; I was breaking off
switches from the nut trees to whip the frogs with. Nut sticks make such fine whips, but they
do not last; while birch twigs are just the opposite. I was interested, too, in beetles and other
insects; I used to collect them, some were very ornamental. I was very fond, too, of the little
nimble red and yellow lizards with black spots on them, but I was afraid of snakes. Snakes,
however, were much more rare than lizards. There were not many mushrooms there. To get
mushrooms one had to go to the birch wood, and I was about to set off there. And there was
nothing in the world that I loved so much as the wood with its mushrooms and wild berries,
with its beetles and its birds, its hedgehogs and squirrels, with its damp smell of dead leaves
which I loved so much, and even as I write I smell the fragrance of our birch wood: these
impressions will remain for my whole life. Suddenly in the midst of the profound stillness I
heard a clear and distinct shout, "Wolf!" I shrieked and, beside myself with terror, calling out
at the top of my voice, ran out into the clearing and straight to the peasant who was
ploughing.
It was our peasant Marey. I don't know if there is such a name, but every one called him
Marey—a thick-set, rather well-grown peasant of fifty, with a good many grey hairs in his
dark brown, spreading beard. I knew him, but had scarcely ever happened to speak to him till
then. He stopped his horse on hearing my cry, and when, breathless, I caught with one hand
at his plough and with the other at his sleeve, he saw how frightened I was.
"There is a wolf!" I cried, panting.
He flung up his head, and could not help looking round for an instant, almost believing me.
"Where is the wolf?"
"A shout ... some one shouted: 'wolf' ..." I faltered out.
"Nonsense, nonsense! A wolf? Why, it was your fancy! How could there be a wolf?" he
muttered, reassuring me. But I was trembling all over, and still kept tight hold of his smock
frock, and I must have been quite pale. He looked at me with an uneasy smile, evidently
anxious and troubled over me.
"Why, you have had a fright, aïe, aïe!" He shook his head. "There, dear.... Come, little
one, aïe!"
He stretched out his hand, and all at once stroked my cheek.
"Come, come, there; Christ be with you! Cross yourself!"

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But I did not cross myself. The corners of my mouth were twitching, and I think that struck
him particularly. He put out his thick, black-nailed, earth-stained finger and softly touched
my twitching lips.
"Aïe, there, there," he said to me with a slow, almost motherly smile. "Dear, dear, what is the
matter? There; come, come!"
I grasped at last that there was no wolf, and that the shout that I had heard was my fancy. Yet
that shout had been so clear and distinct, but such shouts (not only about wolves) I had
imagined once or twice before, and I was aware of that. (These hallucinations passed away
later as I grew older.)
"Well, I will go then," I said, looking at him timidly and inquiringly.
"Well, do, and I'll keep watch on you as you go. I won't let the wolf get at you," he added,
still smiling at me with the same motherly expression. "Well, Christ be with you! Come, run
along then," and he made the sign of the cross over me and then over himself. I walked away,
looking back almost at every tenth step. Marey stood still with his mare as I walked away,
and looked after me and nodded to me every time I looked round. I must own I felt a little
ashamed at having let him see me so frightened, but I was still very much afraid of the wolf
as I walked away, until I reached the first barn half-way up the slope of the ravine; there my
fright vanished completely, and all at once our yard-dog Voltchok flew to meet me. With
Voltchok I felt quite safe, and I turned round to Marey for the last time; I could not see his
face distinctly, but I felt that he was still nodding and smiling affectionately to me. I waved to
him; he waved back to me and started his little mare. "Come up!" I heard his call in the
distance again, and the little mare pulled at the plough again.
All this I recalled all at once, I don't know why, but with extraordinary minuteness of detail. I
suddenly roused myself and sat up on the platform-bed, and, I remember, found myself still
smiling quietly at my memories. I brooded over them for another minute.
When I got home that day I told no one of my "adventure" with Marey. And indeed it was
hardly an adventure. And in fact I soon forgot Marey. When I met him now and then
afterwards, I never even spoke to him about the wolf or anything else; and all at once now,
twenty years afterwards in Siberia, I remembered this meeting with such distinctness to the
smallest detail. So it must have lain hidden in my soul, though I knew nothing of it, and rose
suddenly to my memory when it was wanted; I remembered the soft motherly smile of the
poor serf, the way he signed me with the cross and shook his head. "There, there, you have
had a fright, little one!" And I remembered particularly the thick earth-stained finger with
which he softly and with timid tenderness touched my quivering lips. Of course any one
would have reassured a child, but something quite different seemed to have happened in that
solitary meeting; and if I had been his own son, he could not have looked at me with eyes
shining with greater love. And what made him like that? He was our serf and I was his little
master, after all. No one would know that he had been kind to me and reward him for it. Was
he, perhaps, very fond of little children? Some people are. It was a solitary meeting in the
deserted fields, and only God, perhaps, may have seen from above with what deep and
humane civilised feeling, and with what delicate, almost feminine tenderness, the heart of a
coarse, brutally ignorant Russian serf, who had as yet no expectation, no idea even of his
freedom, may be filled. Was not this, perhaps, what Konstantin Aksakov meant when he
spoke of the high degree of culture of our peasantry?
And when I got down off the bed and looked around me, I remember I suddenly felt that I
could look at these unhappy creatures with quite different eyes, and that suddenly by some
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miracle all hatred and anger had vanished utterly from my heart. I walked about, looking into
the faces that I met. That shaven peasant, branded on his face as a criminal, bawling his
hoarse, drunken song, may be that very Marey; I cannot look into his heart.
I met M. again that evening. Poor fellow! he could have no memories of Russian peasants,
and no other view of these people but: "Je haïs ces brigands!" Yes, the Polish prisoners had
more to bear than I.

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THE CROCODILE

AN EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT

A true story of how a gentleman of a certain age and of respectable appearance was
swallowed alive by the crocodile in the Arcade, and of the consequences that followed.
Ohé Lambert! Où est Lambert?As tu vu Lambert?

On the thirteenth of January of this present year, 1865, at half-past twelve in the day, Elena
Ivanovna, the wife of my cultured friend Ivan Matveitch, who is a colleague in the same
department, and may be said to be a distant relation of mine, too, expressed the desire to see
the crocodile now on view at a fixed charge in the Arcade. As Ivan Matveitch had already in
his pocket his ticket for a tour abroad (not so much for the sake of his health as for the
improvement of his mind), and was consequently free from his official duties and had
nothing whatever to do that morning, he offered no objection to his wife's irresistible fancy,
but was positively aflame with curiosity himself.
"A capital idea!" he said, with the utmost satisfaction. "We'll have a look at the crocodile! On
the eve of visiting Europe it is as well to acquaint ourselves on the spot with its indigenous
inhabitants." And with these words, taking his wife's arm, he set off with her at once for the
Arcade. I joined them, as I usually do, being an intimate friend of the family. I have never
seen Ivan Matveitch in a more agreeable frame of mind than he was on that memorable
morning—how true it is that we know not beforehand the fate that awaits us! On entering the
Arcade he was at once full of admiration for the splendours of the building, and when we
reached the shop in which the monster lately arrived in Petersburg was being exhibited, he
volunteered to pay the quarter-rouble for me to the crocodile owner—a thing which had never
happened before. Walking into a little room, we observed that besides the crocodile there
were in it parrots of the species known as cockatoo, and also a group of monkeys in a special
case in a recess. Near the entrance, along the left wall stood a big tin tank that looked like a
bath covered with a thin iron grating, filled with water to the depth of two inches. In this
shallow pool was kept a huge crocodile, which lay like a log absolutely motionless and
apparently deprived of all its faculties by our damp climate, so inhospitable to foreign
visitors. This monster at first aroused no special interest in any one of us.
"So this is the crocodile!" said Elena Ivanovna, with a pathetic cadence of regret. "Why, I
thought it was ... something different."
Most probably she thought it was made of diamonds. The owner of the crocodile, a German,
came out and looked at us with an air of extraordinary pride.
"He has a right to be," Ivan Matveitch whispered to me, "he knows he is the only man in
Russia exhibiting a crocodile."

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This quite nonsensical observation I ascribe also to the extremely good-humoured mood
which had overtaken Ivan Matveitch, who was on other occasions of rather envious
disposition.
"I fancy your crocodile is not alive," said Elena Ivanovna, piqued by the irresponsive stolidity
of the proprietor, and addressing him with a charming smile in order to soften his
churlishness—a manœuvre so typically feminine.
"Oh, no, madam," the latter replied in broken Russian; and instantly moving the grating half
off the tank, he poked the monster's head with a stick.
Then the treacherous monster, to show that it was alive, faintly stirred its paws and tail, raised
its snout and emitted something like a prolonged snuffle.
"Come, don't be cross, Karlchen," said the German caressingly, gratified in his vanity.
"How horrid that crocodile is! I am really frightened," Elena Ivanovna twittered, still more
coquettishly. "I know I shall dream of him now."
"But he won't bite you if you do dream of him," the German retorted gallantly, and was the
first to laugh at his own jest, but none of us responded.
"Come, Semyon Semyonitch," said Elena Ivanovna, addressing me exclusively, "let us go
and look at the monkeys. I am awfully fond of monkeys; they are such darlings ... and the
crocodile is horrid."
"Oh, don't be afraid, my dear!" Ivan Matveitch called after us, gallantly displaying his manly
courage to his wife. "This drowsy denison of the realms of the Pharaohs will do us no harm."
And he remained by the tank. What is more, he took his glove and began tickling the
crocodile's nose with it, wishing, as he said afterwards, to induce him to snort. The proprietor
showed his politeness to a lady by following Elena Ivanovna to the case of monkeys.
So everything was going well, and nothing could have been foreseen. Elena Ivanovna was
quite skittish in her raptures over the monkeys, and seemed completely taken up with them.
With shrieks of delight she was continually turning to me, as though determined not to notice
the proprietor, and kept gushing with laughter at the resemblance she detected between these
monkeys and her intimate friends and acquaintances. I, too, was amused, for the resemblance
was unmistakable. The German did not know whether to laugh or not, and so at last was
reduced to frowning. And it was at that moment that a terrible, I may say unnatural, scream
set the room vibrating. Not knowing what to think, for the first moment I stood still, numb
with horror, but noticing that Elena Ivanovna was screaming too, I quickly turned round—
and what did I behold! I saw—oh, heavens!—I saw the luckless Ivan Matveitch in the terrible
jaws of the crocodile, held by them round the waist, lifted horizontally in the air and
desperately kicking. Then—one moment, and no trace remained of him. But I must describe
it in detail, for I stood all the while motionless, and had time to watch the whole process
taking place before me with an attention and interest such as I never remember to have felt
before. "What," I thought at that critical moment, "what if all that had happened to me instead
of to Ivan Matveitch—how unpleasant it would have been for me!"
But to return to my story. The crocodile began by turning the unhappy Ivan Matveitch in his
terrible jaws so that he could swallow his legs first; then bringing up Ivan Matveitch, who
kept trying to jump out and clutching at the sides of the tank, sucked him down again as far as
his waist. Then bringing him up again, gulped him down, and so again and again. In this way
Ivan Matveitch was visibly disappearing before our eyes. At last, with a final gulp, the
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crocodile swallowed my cultured friend entirely, this time leaving no trace of him. From the
outside of the crocodile we could see the protuberances of Ivan Matveitch's figure as he
passed down the inside of the monster. I was on the point of screaming again when destiny
played another treacherous trick upon us. The crocodile made a tremendous effort, probably
oppressed by the magnitude of the object he had swallowed, once more opened his terrible
jaws, and with a final hiccup he suddenly let the head of Ivan Matveitch pop out for a second,
with an expression of despair on his face. In that brief instant the spectacles dropped off his
nose to the bottom of the tank. It seemed as though that despairing countenance had only
popped out to cast one last look on the objects around it, to take its last farewell of all earthly
pleasures. But it had not time to carry out its intention; the crocodile made another effort,
gave a gulp and instantly it vanished again—this time for ever. This appearance and
disappearance of a still living human head was so horrible, but at the same—either from its
rapidity and unexpectedness or from the dropping of the spectacles—there was something so
comic about it that I suddenly quite unexpectedly exploded with laughter. But pulling myself
together and realising that to laugh at such a moment was not the thing for an old family
friend, I turned at once to Elena Ivanovna and said with a sympathetic air:
"Now it's all over with our friend Ivan Matveitch!"
I cannot even attempt to describe how violent was the agitation of Elena Ivanovna during the
whole process. After the first scream she seemed rooted to the spot, and stared at the
catastrophe with apparent indifference, though her eyes looked as though they were starting
out of her head; then she suddenly went off into a heart-rending wail, but I seized her hands.
At this instant the proprietor, too, who had at first been also petrified by horror, suddenly
clasped his hands and cried, gazing upwards:
"Oh my crocodile! Oh mein allerliebster Karlchen! Mutter, Mutter, Mutter!"
A door at the rear of the room opened at this cry, and the Mutter, a rosy-cheeked, elderly but
dishevelled woman in a cap made her appearance, and rushed with a shriek to her German.
A perfect Bedlam followed. Elena Ivanovna kept shrieking out the same phrase, as though in
a frenzy, "Flay him! flay him!" apparently entreating them—probably in a moment of
oblivion—to flay somebody for something. The proprietor and Mutter took no notice
whatever of either of us; they were both bellowing like calves over the crocodile.
"He did for himself! He will burst himself at once, for he did swallow a ganz official!" cried
the proprietor.
"Unser Karlchen, unser allerliebster Karlchen wird sterben," howled his wife.
"We are bereaved and without bread!" chimed in the proprietor.
"Flay him! flay him! flay him!" clamoured Elena Ivanovna, clutching at the German's coat.
"He did tease the crocodile. For what did your man tease the crocodile?" cried the German,
pulling away from her. "You will if Karlchen wird burst, therefore pay, das war mein Sohn,
das war mein einziger Sohn."
I must own I was intensely indignant at the sight of such egoism in the German and the cold-
heartedness of his dishevelled Mutter; at the same time Elena Ivanovna's reiterated shriek of
"Flay him! flay him!" troubled me even more and absorbed at last my whole attention,
positively alarming me. I may as well say straight off that I entirely misunderstood this
strange exclamation: it seemed to me that Elena Ivanovna had for the moment taken leave of

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her senses, but nevertheless wishing to avenge the loss of her beloved Ivan Matveitch, was
demanding by way of compensation that the crocodile should be severely thrashed, while she
was meaning something quite different. Looking round at the door, not without
embarrassment, I began to entreat Elena Ivanovna to calm herself, and above all not to use
the shocking word "flay." For such a reactionary desire here, in the midst of the Arcade and
of the most cultured society, not two paces from the hall where at this very minute Mr.
Lavrov was perhaps delivering a public lecture, was not only impossible but unthinkable, and
might at any moment bring upon us the hisses of culture and the caricatures of Mr. Stepanov.
To my horror I was immediately proved to be correct in my alarmed suspicions: the curtain
that divided the crocodile room from the little entry where the quarter-roubles were taken
suddenly parted, and in the opening there appeared a figure with moustaches and beard,
carrying a cap, with the upper part of its body bent a long way forward, though the feet were
scrupulously held beyond the threshold of the crocodile room in order to avoid the necessity
of paying the entrance money.
"Such a reactionary desire, madam," said the stranger, trying to avoid falling over in our
direction and to remain standing outside the room, "does no credit to your development, and
is conditioned by lack of phosphorus in your brain. You will be promptly held up to shame in
the Chronicle of Progress and in our satirical prints...."
But he could not complete his remarks; the proprietor coming to himself, and seeing with
horror that a man was talking in the crocodile room without having paid entrance money,
rushed furiously at the progressive stranger and turned him out with a punch from each fist.
For a moment both vanished from our sight behind a curtain, and only then I grasped that the
whole uproar was about nothing. Elena Ivanovna turned out quite innocent; she had, as I have
mentioned already, no idea whatever of subjecting the crocodile to a degrading corporal
punishment, and had simply expressed the desire that he should be opened and her husband
released from his interior.
"What! You wish that my crocodile be perished!" the proprietor yelled, running in again.
"No! let your husband be perished first, before my crocodile!... Mein Vater showed
crocodile, mein Grossvater showed crocodile, mein Sohn will show crocodile, and I will
show crocodile! All will show crocodile! I am known to ganz Europa, and you are not known
to ganz Europa, and you must pay me a strafe!"
"Ja, ja," put in the vindictive German woman, "we shall not let you go. Strafe, since Karlchen
is burst!"
"And, indeed, it's useless to flay the creature," I added calmly, anxious to get Elena Ivanovna
away home as quickly as possible, "as our dear Ivan Matveitch is by now probably soaring
somewhere in the empyrean."
"My dear"—we suddenly heard, to our intense amazement, the voice of Ivan Matveitch—
"my dear, my advice is to apply direct to the superintendent's office, as without the assistance
of the police the German will never be made to see reason."
These words, uttered with firmness and aplomb, and expressing an exceptional presence of
mind, for the first minute so astounded us that we could not believe our ears. But, of course,
we ran at once to the crocodile's tank, and with equal reverence and incredulity listened to the
unhappy captive. His voice was muffled, thin and even squeaky, as though it came from a
considerable distance. It reminded one of a jocose person who, covering his mouth with a
pillow, shouts from an adjoining room, trying to mimic the sound of two peasants calling to

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one another in a deserted plain or across a wide ravine—a performance to which I once had
the pleasure of listening in a friend's house at Christmas.
"Ivan Matveitch, my dear, and so you are alive!" faltered Elena Ivanovna.
"Alive and well," answered Ivan Matveitch, "and, thanks to the Almighty, swallowed without
any damage whatever. I am only uneasy as to the view my superiors may take of the incident;
for after getting a permit to go abroad I've got into a crocodile, which seems anything but
clever."
"But, my dear, don't trouble your head about being clever; first of all we must somehow
excavate you from where you are," Elena Ivanovna interrupted.
"Excavate!" cried the proprietor. "I will not let my crocodile be excavated. Now
the publicum will come many more, and I will fünfzig kopecks ask and Karlchen will cease to
burst."
"Gott sei dank!" put in his wife.
"They are right," Ivan Matveitch observed tranquilly; "the principles of economics before
everything."
"My dear! I will fly at once to the authorities and lodge a complaint, for I feel that we cannot
settle this mess by ourselves."
"I think so too," observed Ivan Matveitch; "but in our age of industrial crisis it is not easy to
rip open the belly of a crocodile without economic compensation, and meanwhile the
inevitable question presents itself: What will the German take for his crocodile? And with it
another: How will it be paid? For, as you know, I have no means...."
"Perhaps out of your salary...." I observed timidly, but the proprietor interrupted me at once.
"I will not the crocodile sell; I will for three thousand the crocodile sell! I will for four
thousand the crocodile sell! Now the publicum will come very many. I will for five thousand
the crocodile sell!"
In fact he gave himself insufferable airs. Covetousness and a revolting greed gleamed
joyfully in his eyes.
"I am going!" I cried indignantly.
"And I! I too! I shall go to Andrey Osipitch himself. I will soften him with my tears," whined
Elena Ivanovna.
"Don't do that, my dear," Ivan Matveitch hastened to interpose. He had long been jealous of
Andrey Osipitch on his wife's account, and he knew she would enjoy going to weep before a
gentleman of refinement, for tears suited her. "And I don't advise you to do so either, my
friend," he added, addressing me. "It's no good plunging headlong in that slap-dash way;
there's no knowing what it may lead to. You had much better go to-day to Timofey
Semyonitch, as though to pay an ordinary visit; he is an old-fashioned and by no means
brilliant man, but he is trustworthy, and what matters most of all, he is straightforward. Give
him my greetings and describe the circumstances of the case. And since I owe him seven
roubles over our last game of cards, take the opportunity to pay him the money; that will
soften the stern old man. In any case his advice may serve as a guide for us. And meanwhile
take Elena Ivanovna home.... Calm yourself, my dear," he continued, addressing her. "I am

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weary of these outcries and feminine squabblings, and should like a nap. It's soft and warm in
here, though I have hardly had time to look round in this unexpected haven."
"Look round! Why, is it light in there?" cried Elena Ivanovna in a tone of relief.
"I am surrounded by impenetrable night," answered the poor captive; "but I can feel and, so
to speak, have a look round with my hands.... Good-bye; set your mind at rest and don't deny
yourself recreation and diversion. Till to-morrow! And you, Semyon Semyonitch, come to
me in the evening, and as you are absent-minded and may forget it, tie a knot in your
handkerchief."
I confess I was glad to get away, for I was overtired and somewhat bored. Hastening to offer
my arm to the disconsolate Elena Ivanovna, whose charms were only enhanced by her
agitation, I hurriedly led her out of the crocodile room.
"The charge will be another quarter-rouble in the evening," the proprietor called after us.
"Oh, dear, how greedy they are!" said Elena Ivanovna, looking at herself in every mirror on
the walls of the Arcade, and evidently aware that she was looking prettier than usual.
"The principles of economics," I answered with some emotion, proud that passers-by should
see the lady on my arm.
"The principles of economics," she drawled in a touching little voice. "I did not in the least
understand what Ivan Matveitch said about those horrid economics just now."
"I will explain to you," I answered, and began at once telling her of the beneficial effects of
the introduction of foreign capital into our country, upon which I had read an article in
thePetersburg News and the Voice that morning.
"How strange it is," she interrupted, after listening for some time. "But do leave off, you
horrid man. What nonsense you are talking.... Tell me, do I look purple?"
"You look perfect, and not purple!" I observed, seizing the opportunity to pay her a
compliment.
"Naughty man!" she said complacently. "Poor Ivan Matveitch," she added a minute later,
putting her little head on one side coquettishly. "I am really sorry for him. Oh, dear!" she
cried suddenly, "how is he going to have his dinner ... and ... and ... what will he do ... if he
wants anything?"
"An unforeseen question," I answered, perplexed in my turn. To tell the truth, it had not
entered my head, so much more practical are women than we men in the solution of the
problems of daily life!
"Poor dear! how could he have got into such a mess ... nothing to amuse him, and in the
dark.... How vexing it is that I have no photograph of him.... And so now I am a sort of
widow," she added, with a seductive smile, evidently interested in her new position. "Hm!... I
am sorry for him, though."
It was, in short, the expression of the very natural and intelligible grief of a young and
interesting wife for the loss of her husband. I took her home at last, soothed her, and after
dining with her and drinking a cup of aromatic coffee, set off at six o'clock to Timofey
Semyonitch, calculating that at that hour all married people of settled habits would be sitting
or lying down at home.

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Having written this first chapter in a style appropriate to the incident recorded, I intend to
proceed in a language more natural though less elevated, and I beg to forewarn the reader of
the fact.

II

The venerable Timofey Semyonitch met me rather nervously, as though somewhat

embarrassed. He led me to his tiny study and shut the door carefully, "that the children may
not hinder us," he added with evident uneasiness. There he made me sit down on a chair by
the writing-table, sat down himself in an easy chair, wrapped round him the skirts of his old
wadded dressing-gown, and assumed an official and even severe air, in readiness for
anything, though he was not my chief nor Ivan Matveitch's, and had hitherto been reckoned
as a colleague and even a friend.
"First of all," he said, "take note that I am not a person in authority, but just such a
subordinate official as you and Ivan Matveitch.... I have nothing to do with it, and do not
intend to mix myself up in the affair."
I was surprised to find that he apparently knew all about it already. In spite of that I told him
the whole story over in detail. I spoke with positive excitement, for I was at that moment
fulfilling the obligations of a true friend. He listened without special surprise, but with
evident signs of suspicion.
"Only fancy," he said, "I always believed that this would be sure to happen to him."
"Why, Timofey Semyonitch? It is a very unusual incident in itself...."
"I admit it. But Ivan Matveitch's whole career in the service was leading up to this end. He
was flighty—conceited indeed. It was always 'progress' and ideas of all sorts, and this is what
progress brings people to!"
"But this is a most unusual incident and cannot possibly serve as a general rule for all
progressives."
"Yes, indeed it can. You see, it's the effect of over-education, I assure you. For over-
education leads people to poke their noses into all sorts of places, especially where they are
not invited. Though perhaps you know best," he added, as though offended. "I am an old man
and not of much education. I began as a soldier's son, and this year has been the jubilee of my
service."
"Oh, no, Timofey Semyonitch, not at all. On the contrary, Ivan Matveitch is eager for your
advice; he is eager for your guidance. He implores it, so to say, with tears."
"So to say, with tears! Hm! Those are crocodile's tears and one cannot quite believe in them.
Tell me, what possessed him to want to go abroad? And how could he afford to go? Why, he
has no private means!"
"He had saved the money from his last bonus," I answered plaintively. "He only wanted to go
for three months—to Switzerland ... to the land of William Tell."
"William Tell? Hm!"
"He wanted to meet the spring at Naples, to see the museums, the customs, the animals...."

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"Hm! The animals! I think it was simply from pride. What animals? Animals, indeed!
Haven't we animals enough? We have museums, menageries, camels. There are bears quite
close to Petersburg! And here he's got inside a crocodile himself...."
"Oh, come, Timofey Semyonitch! The man is in trouble, the man appeals to you as to a
friend, as to an older relation, craves for advice—and you reproach him. Have pity at least on
the unfortunate Elena Ivanovna!"
"You are speaking of his wife? A charming little lady," said Timofey Semyonitch, visibly
softening and taking a pinch of snuff with relish. "Particularly prepossessing. And so plump,
and always putting her pretty little head on one side.... Very agreeable. Andrey Osipitch was
speaking of her only the other day."
"Speaking of her?"
"Yes, and in very flattering terms. Such a bust, he said, such eyes, such hair.... A sugar-plum,
he said, not a lady—and then he laughed. He is still a young man, of course." Timofey
Semyonitch blew his nose with a loud noise. "And yet, young though he is, what a career he
is making for himself."
"That's quite a different thing, Timofey Semyonitch."
"Of course, of course."
"Well, what do you say then, Timofey Semyonitch?"
"Why, what can I do?"
"Give advice, guidance, as a man of experience, a relative! What are we to do? What steps
are we to take? Go to the authorities and ..."
"To the authorities? Certainly not," Timofey Semyonitch replied hurriedly. "If you ask my
advice, you had better, above all, hush the matter up and act, so to speak, as a private person.
It is a suspicious incident, quite unheard of. Unheard of, above all; there is no precedent for
it, and it is far from creditable.... And so discretion above all.... Let him lie there a bit. We
must wait and see...."
"But how can we wait and see, Timofey Semyonitch? What if he is stifled there?"
"Why should he be? I think you told me that he made himself fairly comfortable there?"
I told him the whole story over again. Timofey Semyonitch pondered.
"Hm!" he said, twisting his snuff-box in his hands. "To my mind it's really a good thing he
should lie there a bit, instead of going abroad. Let him reflect at his leisure. Of course he
mustn't be stifled, and so he must take measures to preserve his health, avoiding a cough, for
instance, and so on.... And as for the German, it's my personal opinion he is within his rights,
and even more so than the other side, because it was the other party who got
into his crocodile without asking permission, and not he who got into Ivan Matveitch's
crocodile without asking permission, though, so far as I recollect, the latter has no
crocodile. And a crocodile is private property, and so it is impossible to slit him open without
compensation."
"For the saving of human life, Timofey Semyonitch."
"Oh, well, that's a matter for the police. You must go to them."

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"But Ivan Matveitch may be needed in the department. He may be asked for."
"Ivan Matveitch needed? Ha-ha! Besides, he is on leave, so that we may ignore him—let him
inspect the countries of Europe! It will be a different matter if he doesn't turn up when his
leave is over. Then we shall ask for him and make inquiries."
"Three months! Timofey Semyonitch, for pity's sake!"
"It's his own fault. Nobody thrust him there. At this rate we should have to get a nurse to look
after him at government expense, and that is not allowed for in the regulations. But the chief
point is that the crocodile is private property, so that the principles of economics apply in this
question. And the principles of economics are paramount. Only the other evening, at Luka
Andreitch's, Ignaty Prokofyitch was saying so. Do you know Ignaty Prokofyitch? A
capitalist, in a big way of business, and he speaks so fluently. 'We need industrial
development,' he said; 'there is very little development among us. We must create it. We must
create capital, so we must create a middle-class, the so-called bourgeoisie. And as we haven't
capital we must attract it from abroad. We must, in the first place, give facilities to foreign
companies to buy up lands in Russia as is done now abroad. The communal holding of land is
poison, is ruin.' And, you know, he spoke with such heat; well, that's all right for him—a
wealthy man, and not in the service. 'With the communal system,' he said, 'there will be no
improvement in industrial development or agriculture. Foreign companies,' he said, 'must as
far as possible buy up the whole of our land in big lots, and then split it up, split it up, split it
up, in the smallest parts possible'—and do you know he pronounced the words 'split it up'
with such determination—'and then sell it as private property. Or rather, not sell it, but simply
let it. When,' he said, 'all the land is in the hands of foreign companies they can fix any rent
they like. And so the peasant will work three times as much for his daily bread and he can be
turned out at pleasure. So that he will feel it, will be submissive and industrious, and will
work three times as much for the same wages. But as it is, with the commune, what does he
care? He knows he won't die of hunger, so he is lazy and drunken. And meanwhile money
will be attracted into Russia, capital will be created and the bourgeoisie will spring up. The
English political and literary paper, The Times, in an article the other day on our finances
stated that the reason our financial position was so unsatisfactory was that we had no middle-
class, no big fortunes, no accommodating proletariat.' Ignaty Prokofyitch speaks well. He is
an orator. He wants to lay a report on the subject before the authorities, and then to get it
published in the News. That's something very different from verses like Ivan Matveitch's...."
"But how about Ivan Matveitch?" I put in, after letting the old man babble on.
Timofey Semyonitch was sometimes fond of talking and showing that he was not behind the
times, but knew all about things.
"How about Ivan Matveitch? Why, I am coming to that. Here we are, anxious to bring foreign
capital into the country—and only consider: as soon as the capital of a foreigner, who has
been attracted to Petersburg, has been doubled through Ivan Matveitch, instead of protecting
the foreign capitalist, we are proposing to rip open the belly of his original capital—the
crocodile. Is it consistent? To my mind, Ivan Matveitch, as the true son of his fatherland,
ought to rejoice and to be proud that through him the value of a foreign crocodile has been
doubled and possibly even trebled. That's just what is wanted to attract capital. If one man
succeeds, mind you, another will come with a crocodile, and a third will bring two or three of
them at once, and capital will grow up about them—there you have a bourgeoisie. It must be
encouraged."

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"Upon my word, Timofey Semyonitch!" I cried, "you are demanding almost supernatural
self-sacrifice from poor Ivan Matveitch."
"I demand nothing, and I beg you, before everything—as I have said already—to remember
that I am not a person in authority and so cannot demand anything of any one. I am speaking
as a son of the fatherland, that is, not as the Son of the Fatherland, but as a son of the
fatherland. Again, what possessed him to get into the crocodile? A respectable man, a man of
good grade in the service, lawfully married—and then to behave like that! Is it consistent?"
"But it was an accident."
"Who knows? And where is the money to compensate the owner to come from?"
"Perhaps out of his salary, Timofey Semyonitch?"
"Would that be enough?"
"No, it wouldn't, Timofey Semyonitch," I answered sadly. "The proprietor was at first
alarmed that the crocodile would burst, but as soon as he was sure that it was all right, he
began to bluster and was delighted to think that he could double the charge for entry."
"Treble and quadruple perhaps! The public will simply stampede the place now, and
crocodile owners are smart people. Besides, it's not Lent yet, and people are keen on
diversions, and so I say again, the great thing is that Ivan Matveitch should preserve his
incognito, don't let him be in a hurry. Let everybody know, perhaps, that he is in the
crocodile, but don't let them be officially informed of it. Ivan Matveitch is in particularly
favourable circumstances for that, for he is reckoned to be abroad. It will be said he is in the
crocodile, and we will refuse to believe it. That is how it can be managed. The great thing is
that he should wait; and why should he be in a hurry?"
"Well, but if ..."
"Don't worry, he has a good constitution...."
"Well, and afterwards, when he has waited?"
"Well, I won't conceal from you that the case is exceptional in the highest degree. One doesn't
know what to think of it, and the worst of it is there is no precedent. If we had a precedent we
might have something to go by. But as it is, what is one to say? It will certainly take time to
settle it."
A happy thought flashed upon my mind.
"Cannot we arrange," I said, "that if he is destined to remain in the entrails of the monster and
it is the will of Providence that he should remain alive, that he should send in a petition to be
reckoned as still serving?"
"Hm!... Possibly as on leave and without salary...."
"But couldn't it be with salary?"
"On what grounds?"
"As sent on a special commission."
"What commission and where?"

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"Why, into the entrails, the entrails of the crocodile.... So to speak, for exploration, for
investigation of the facts on the spot. It would, of course, be a novelty, but that is progressive
and would at the same time show zeal for enlightenment."
Timofey Semyonitch thought a little.
"To send a special official," he said at last, "to the inside of a crocodile to conduct a special
inquiry is, in my personal opinion, an absurdity. It is not in the regulations. And what sort of
special inquiry could there be there?"
"The scientific study of nature on the spot, in the living subject. The natural sciences are all
the fashion nowadays, botany.... He could live there and report his observations.... For
instance, concerning digestion or simply habits. For the sake of accumulating facts."
"You mean as statistics. Well, I am no great authority on that subject, indeed I am no
philosopher at all. You say 'facts'—we are overwhelmed with facts as it is, and don't know
what to do with them. Besides, statistics are a danger."
"In what way?"
"They are a danger. Moreover, you will admit he will report facts, so to speak, lying like a
log. And, can one do one's official duties lying like a log? That would be another novelty and
a dangerous one; and again, there is no precedent for it. If we had any sort of precedent for it,
then, to my thinking, he might have been given the job."
"But no live crocodiles have been brought over hitherto, Timofey Semyonitch."
"Hm ... yes," he reflected again. "Your objection is a just one, if you like, and might indeed
serve as a ground for carrying the matter further; but consider again, that if with the arrival of
living crocodiles government clerks begin to disappear, and then on the ground that they are
warm and comfortable there, expect to receive the official sanction for their position, and
then take their ease there ... you must admit it would be a bad example. We should have every
one trying to go the same way to get a salary for nothing."
"Do your best for him, Timofey Semyonitch. By the way, Ivan Matveitch asked me to give
you seven roubles he had lost to you at cards."
"Ah, he lost that the other day at Nikifor Nikiforitch's. I remember. And how gay and
amusing he was—and now!"
The old man was genuinely touched.
"Intercede for him, Timofey Semyonitch!"
"I will do my best. I will speak in my own name, as a private person, as though I were asking
for information. And meanwhile, you find out indirectly, unofficially, how much would the
proprietor consent to take for his crocodile?"
Timofey Semyonitch was visibly more friendly.
"Certainly," I answered. "And I will come back to you at once to report."
"And his wife ... is she alone now? Is she depressed?"
"You should call on her, Timofey Semyonitch."

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"I will. I thought of doing so before; it's a good opportunity.... And what on earth possessed
him to go and look at the crocodile? Though, indeed, I should like to see it myself."
"Go and see the poor fellow, Timofey Semyonitch."
"I will. Of course, I don't want to raise his hopes by doing so. I shall go as a private person....
Well, good-bye, I am going to Nikifor Nikiforitch's again: shall you be there?"
"No, I am going to see the poor prisoner."
"Yes, now he is a prisoner!... Ah, that's what comes of thoughtlessness!"
I said good-bye to the old man. Ideas of all kinds were straying through my mind. A good-
natured and most honest man, Timofey Semyonitch, yet, as I left him, I felt pleased at the
thought that he had celebrated his fiftieth year of service, and that Timofey Semyonitchs are
now a rarity among us. I flew at once, of course, to the Arcade to tell poor Ivan Matveitch all
the news. And, indeed, I was moved by curiosity to know how he was getting on in the
crocodile and how it was possible to live in a crocodile. And, indeed, was it possible to live in
a crocodile at all? At times it really seemed to me as though it were all an outlandish,
monstrous dream, especially as an outlandish monster was the chief figure in it.

III

And yet it was not a dream, but actual, indubitable fact. Should I be telling the story if it were
not? But to continue.
It was late, about nine o'clock, before I reached the Arcade, and I had to go into the crocodile
room by the back entrance, for the German had closed the shop earlier than usual that
evening. Now in the seclusion of domesticity he was walking about in a greasy old frock-
coat, but he seemed three times as pleased as he had been in the morning. It was evidently
that he had no apprehensions now, and that the public had been coming "many more."
The Mutter came out later, evidently to keep an eye on me. The German and
theMutter frequently whispered together. Although the shop was closed he charged me a
quarter-rouble! What unnecessary exactitude!
"You will every time pay; the public will one rouble, and you one quarter pay; for you are the
good friend of your good friend; and I a friend respect...."
"Are you alive, are you alive, my cultured friend?" I cried, as I approached the crocodile,
expecting my words to reach Ivan Matveitch from a distance and to flatter his vanity.
"Alive and well," he answered, as though from a long way off or from under the bed, though
I was standing close beside him. "Alive and well; but of that later.... How are things going?"
As though purposely not hearing the question, I was just beginning with sympathetic haste to
question him how he was, what it was like in the crocodile, and what, in fact, there was inside
a crocodile. Both friendship and common civility demanded this. But with capricious
annoyance he interrupted me.
"How are things going?" he shouted, in a shrill and on this occasion particularly revolting
voice, addressing me peremptorily as usual.
I described to him my whole conversation with Timofey Semyonitch down to the smallest
detail. As I told my story I tried to show my resentment in my voice.

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"The old man is right," Ivan Matveitch pronounced as abruptly as usual in his conversation
with me. "I like practical people, and can't endure sentimental milk-sops. I am ready to admit,
however, that your idea about a special commission is not altogether absurd. I certainly have
a great deal to report, both from a scientific and from an ethical point of view. But now all
this has taken a new and unexpected aspect, and it is not worth while to trouble about mere
salary. Listen attentively. Are you sitting down?"
"No, I am standing up."
"Sit down on the floor if there is nothing else, and listen attentively."
Resentfully I took a chair and put it down on the floor with a bang, in my anger.
"Listen," he began dictatorially. "The public came to-day in masses. There was no room left
in the evening, and the police came in to keep order. At eight o'clock, that is, earlier than
usual, the proprietor thought it necessary to close the shop and end the exhibition to count the
money he had taken and prepare for to-morrow more conveniently. So I know there will be a
regular fair to-morrow. So we may assume that all the most cultivated people in the capital,
the ladies of the best society, the foreign ambassadors, the leading lawyers and so on, will all
be present. What's more, people will be flowing here from the remotest provinces of our vast
and interesting empire. The upshot of it is that I am the cynosure of all eyes, and though
hidden to sight, I am eminent. I shall teach the idle crowd. Taught by experience, I shall be an
example of greatness and resignation to fate! I shall be, so to say, a pulpit from which to
instruct mankind. The mere biological details I can furnish about the monster I am inhabiting
are of priceless value. And so, far from repining at what has happened, I confidently hope for
the most brilliant of careers."
"You won't find it wearisome?" I asked sarcastically.
What irritated me more than anything was the extreme pomposity of his language.
Nevertheless, it all rather disconcerted me. "What on earth, what, can this frivolous
blockhead find to be so cocky about?" I muttered to myself. "He ought to be crying instead of
being cocky."
"No!" he answered my observation sharply, "for I am full of great ideas, only now can I at
leisure ponder over the amelioration of the lot of humanity. Truth and light will come forth
now from the crocodile. I shall certainly develop a new economic theory of my own and I
shall be proud of it—which I have hitherto been prevented from doing by my official duties
and by trivial distractions. I shall refute everything and be a new Fourier. By the way, did you
give Timofey Semyonitch the seven roubles?"
"Yes, out of my own pocket," I answered, trying to emphasise that fact in my voice.
"We will settle it," he answered superciliously. "I confidently expect my salary to be raised,
for who should get a raise if not I? I am of the utmost service now. But to business. My
wife?"
"You are, I suppose, inquiring after Elena Ivanovna?"
"My wife?" he shouted, this time in a positive squeal.
There was no help for it! Meekly, though gnashing my teeth, I told him how I had left Elena
Ivanovna. He did not even hear me out.

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"I have special plans in regard to her," he began impatiently. "If I am celebrated here, I wish
her to be celebrated there. Savants, poets, philosophers, foreign mineralogists, statesmen,
after conversing in the morning with me, will visit her salon in the evening. From next week
onwards she must have an 'At Home' every evening. With my salary doubled, we shall have
the means for entertaining, and as the entertainment must not go beyond tea and hired
footmen—that's settled. Both here and there they will talk of me. I have long thirsted for an
opportunity for being talked about, but could not attain it, fettered by my humble position
and low grade in the service. And now all this has been attained by a simple gulp on the part
of the crocodile. Every word of mine will be listened to, every utterance will be thought over,
repeated, printed. And I'll teach them what I am worth! They shall understand at last what
abilities they have allowed to vanish in the entrails of a monster. 'This man might have been
Foreign Minister or might have ruled a kingdom,' some will say. 'And that man did not rule a
kingdom,' others will say. In what way am I inferior to a Garnier-Pagesishky or whatever
they are called? My wife must be a worthy second—I have brains, she has beauty and charm.
'She is beautiful, and that is why she is his wife,' some will say. 'She is beautiful because she
is his wife,' others will amend. To be ready for anything let Elena Ivanovna buy to-morrow
the Encyclopædia edited by Andrey Kraevsky, that she may be able to converse on any topic.
Above all, let her be sure to read the political leader in the Petersburg News, comparing it
every day with the Voice. I imagine that the proprietor will consent to take me sometimes
with the crocodile to my wife's brilliant salon. I will be in a tank in the middle of the
magnificent drawing-room, and I will scintillate with witticisms which I will prepare in the
morning. To the statesmen I will impart my projects; to the poet I will speak in rhyme; with
the ladies I can be amusing and charming without impropriety, since I shall be no danger to
their husbands' peace of mind. To all the rest I shall serve as a pattern of resignation to fate
and the will of Providence. I shall make my wife a brilliant literary lady; I shall bring her
forward and explain her to the public; as my wife she must be full of the most striking
virtues; and if they are right in calling Andrey Alexandrovitch our Russian Alfred de Musset,
they will be still more right in calling her our Russian Yevgenia Tour."
I must confess that although this wild nonsense was rather in Ivan Matveitch's habitual style,
it did occur to me that he was in a fever and delirious. It was the same, everyday Ivan
Matveitch, but magnified twenty times.
"My friend," I asked him, "are you hoping for a long life? Tell me, in fact, are you well? How
do you eat, how do you sleep, how do you breathe? I am your friend, and you must admit that
the incident is most unnatural, and consequently my curiosity is most natural."
"Idle curiosity and nothing else," he pronounced sententiously, "but you shall be satisfied.
You ask how I am managing in the entrails of the monster? To begin with, the crocodile, to
my amusement, turns out to be perfectly empty. His inside consists of a sort of huge empty
sack made of gutta-percha, like the elastic goods sold in the Gorohovy Street, in the
Morskaya, and, if I am not mistaken, in the Voznesensky Prospect. Otherwise, if you think of
it, how could I find room?"
"Is it possible?" I cried, in a surprise that may well be understood. "Can the crocodile be
perfectly empty?"
"Perfectly," Ivan Matveitch maintained sternly and impressively. "And in all probability, it is
so constructed by the laws of Nature. The crocodile possesses nothing but jaws furnished
with sharp teeth, and besides the jaws, a tail of considerable length—that is all, properly
speaking. The middle part between these two extremities is an empty space enclosed by
something of the nature of gutta-percha, probably really gutta-percha."

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"But the ribs, the stomach, the intestines, the liver, the heart?" I interrupted quite angrily.
"There is nothing, absolutely nothing of all that, and probably there never has been. All that is
the idle fancy of frivolous travellers. As one inflates an air-cushion, I am now with my person
inflating the crocodile. He is incredibly elastic. Indeed, you might, as the friend of the family,
get in with me if you were generous and self-sacrificing enough—and even with you here
there would be room to spare. I even think that in the last resort I might send for Elena
Ivanovna. However, this void, hollow formation of the crocodile is quite in keeping with the
teachings of natural science. If, for instance, one had to construct a new crocodile, the
question would naturally present itself. What is the fundamental characteristic of the
crocodile? The answer is clear: to swallow human beings. How is one, in constructing the
crocodile, to secure that he should swallow people? The answer is clearer still: construct him
hollow. It was settled by physics long ago that Nature abhors a vacuum. Hence the inside of
the crocodile must be hollow so that it may abhor the vacuum, and consequently swallow and
so fill itself with anything it can come across. And that is the sole rational cause why every
crocodile swallows men. It is not the same in the constitution of man: the emptier a man's
head is, for instance, the less he feels the thirst to fill it, and that is the one exception to the
general rule. It is all as clear as day to me now. I have deduced it by my own observation and
experience, being, so to say, in the very bowels of Nature, in its retort, listening to the
throbbing of its pulse. Even etymology supports me, for the very word crocodile means
voracity. Crocodile—crocodillo—is evidently an Italian word, dating perhaps from the
Egyptian Pharaohs, and evidently derived from the French verb croquer, which means to eat,
to devour, in general to absorb nourishment. All these remarks I intend to deliver as my first
lecture in Elena Ivanovna's salon when they take me there in the tank."
"My friend, oughtn't you at least to take some purgative?" I cried involuntarily.
"He is in a fever, a fever, he is feverish!" I repeated to myself in alarm.
"Nonsense!" he answered contemptuously. "Besides, in my present position it would be most
inconvenient. I knew, though, you would be sure to talk of taking medicine."
"But, my friend, how ... how do you take food now? Have you dined to-day?"
"No, but I am not hungry, and most likely I shall never take food again. And that, too, is quite
natural; filling the whole interior of the crocodile I make him feel always full. Now he need
not be fed for some years. On the other hand, nourished by me, he will naturally impart to me
all the vital juices of his body; it is the same as with some accomplished coquettes who
embed themselves and their whole persons for the night in raw steak, and then, after their
morning bath, are fresh, supple, buxom and fascinating. In that way nourishing the crocodile,
I myself obtain nourishment from him, consequently we mutually nourish one another. But as
it is difficult even for a crocodile to digest a man like me, he must, no doubt, be conscious of
a certain weight in his stomach—an organ which he does not, however, possess—and that is
why, to avoid causing the creature suffering, I do not often turn over, and although I could
turn over I do not do so from humanitarian motives. This is the one drawback of my present
position, and in an allegorical sense Timofey Semyonitch was right in saying I was lying like
a log. But I will prove that even lying like a log—nay, that only lying like a log—one can
revolutionise the lot of mankind. All the great ideas and movements of our newspapers and
magazines have evidently been the work of men who were lying like logs; that is why they
call them divorced from the realities of life—but what does it matter, their saying that! I am
constructing now a complete system of my own, and you wouldn't believe how easy it is!
You have only to creep into a secluded corner or into a crocodile, to shut your eyes, and you

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immediately devise a perfect millennium for mankind. When you went away this afternoon I
set to work at once and have already invented three systems, now I am preparing the fourth. It
is true that at first one must refute everything that has gone before, but from the crocodile it is
so easy to refute it; besides, it all becomes clearer, seen from the inside of the crocodile....
There are some drawbacks, though small ones, in my position, however; it is somewhat damp
here and covered with a sort of slime; moreover, there is a smell of india-rubber like the smell
of my old galoshes. That is all, there are no other drawbacks."
"Ivan Matveitch," I interrupted, "all this is a miracle in which I can scarcely believe. And can
you, can you intend never to dine again?"
"What trivial nonsense you are troubling about, you thoughtless, frivolous creature! I talk to
you about great ideas, and you.... Understand that I am sufficiently nourished by the great
ideas which light up the darkness in which I am enveloped. The good-natured proprietor has,
however, after consulting the kindly Mutter, decided with her that they will every morning
insert into the monster's jaws a bent metal tube, something like a whistle pipe, by means of
which I can absorb coffee or broth with bread soaked in it. The pipe has already been
bespoken in the neighbourhood, but I think this is superfluous luxury. I hope to live at least a
thousand years, if it is true that crocodiles live so long, which, by the way—good thing I
thought of it—you had better look up in some natural history to-morrow and tell me, for I
may have been mistaken and have mixed it up with some excavated monster. There is only
one reflection rather troubles me: as I am dressed in cloth and have boots on, the crocodile
can obviously not digest me. Besides, I am alive, and so am opposing the process of digestion
with my whole will power; for you can understand that I do not wish to be turned into what
all nourishment turns into, for that would be too humiliating for me. But there is one thing I
am afraid of: in a thousand years the cloth of my coat, unfortunately of Russian make, may
decay, and then, left without clothing, I might perhaps, in spite of my indignation, begin to be
digested; and though by day nothing would induce me to allow it, at night, in my sleep, when
a man's will deserts him, I may be overtaken by the humiliating destiny of a potato, a
pancake, or veal. Such an idea reduces me to fury. This alone is an argument for the revision
of the tariff and the encouragement of the importation of English cloth, which is stronger and
so will withstand Nature longer when one is swallowed by a crocodile. At the first
opportunity I will impart this idea to some statesman and at the same time to the political
writers on our Petersburg dailies. Let them publish it abroad. I trust this will not be the only
idea they will borrow from me. I foresee that every morning a regular crowd of them,
provided with quarter-roubles from the editorial office, will be flocking round me to seize my
ideas on the telegrams of the previous day. In brief, the future presents itself to me in the
rosiest light."
"Fever, fever!" I whispered to myself.
"My friend, and freedom?" I asked, wishing to learn his views thoroughly. "You are, so to
speak, in prison, while every man has a right to the enjoyment of freedom."
"You are a fool," he answered. "Savages love independence, wise men love order; and if
there is no order...."
"Ivan Matveitch, spare me, please!"
"Hold your tongue and listen!" he squealed, vexed at my interrupting him. "Never has my
spirit soared as now. In my narrow refuge there is only one thing that I dread—the literary
criticisms of the monthlies and the hiss of our satirical papers. I am afraid that thoughtless
visitors, stupid and envious people and nihilists in general, may turn me into ridicule. But I
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will take measures. I am impatiently awaiting the response of the public to-morrow, and
especially the opinion of the newspapers. You must tell me about the papers to-morrow."
"Very good; to-morrow I will bring a perfect pile of papers with me."
"To-morrow it is too soon to expect reports in the newspapers, for it will take four days for it
to be advertised. But from to-day come to me every evening by the back way through the
yard. I am intending to employ you as my secretary. You shall read the newspapers and
magazines to me, and I will dictate to you my ideas and give you commissions. Be
particularly careful not to forget the foreign telegrams. Let all the European telegrams be here
every day. But enough; most likely you are sleepy by now. Go home, and do not think of
what I said just now about criticisms: I am not afraid of it, for the critics themselves are in a
critical position. One has only to be wise and virtuous and one will certainly get on to a
pedestal. If not Socrates, then Diogenes, or perhaps both of them together—that is my future
rôle among mankind."
So frivolously and boastfully did Ivan Matveitch hasten to express himself before me, like
feverish weak-willed women who, as we are told by the proverb, cannot keep a secret. All
that he told me about the crocodile struck me as most suspicious. How was it possible that the
crocodile was absolutely hollow? I don't mind betting that he was bragging from vanity and
partly to humiliate me. It is true that he was an invalid and one must make allowances for
invalids; but I must frankly confess, I never could endure Ivan Matveitch. I have been trying
all my life, from a child up, to escape from his tutelage and have not been able to! A thousand
times over I have been tempted to break with him altogether, and every time I have been
drawn to him again, as though I were still hoping to prove something to him or to revenge
myself on him. A strange thing, this friendship! I can positively assert that nine-tenths of my
friendship for him was made up of malice. On this occasion, however, we parted with
genuine feeling.
"Your friend a very clever man!" the German said to me in an undertone as he moved to see
me out; he had been listening all the time attentively to our conversation.
"À propos," I said, "while I think of it: how much would you ask for your crocodile in case
any one wanted to buy it?"
Ivan Matveitch, who heard the question, was waiting with curiosity for the answer; it was
evident that he did not want the German to ask too little; anyway, he cleared his throat in a
peculiar way on hearing my question.
At first the German would not listen—was positively angry.
"No one will dare my own crocodile to buy!" he cried furiously, and turned as red as a boiled
lobster. "Me not want to sell the crocodile! I would not for the crocodile a million thalers
take. I took a hundred and thirty thalers from the public to-day, and I shall to-morrow ten
thousand take, and then a hundred thousand every day I shall take. I will not him sell."
Ivan Matveitch positively chuckled with satisfaction. Controlling myself—for I felt it was a
duty to my friend—I hinted coolly and reasonably to the crazy German that his calculations
were not quite correct, that if he makes a hundred thousand every day, all Petersburg will
have visited him in four days, and then there will be no one left to bring him roubles, that life
and death are in God's hands, that the crocodile may burst or Ivan Matveitch may fall ill and
die, and so on and so on.
The German grew pensive.
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"I will him drops from the chemist's get," he said, after pondering, "and will save your friend
that he die not."
"Drops are all very well," I answered, "but consider, too, that the thing may get into the law
courts. Ivan Matveitch's wife may demand the restitution of her lawful spouse. You are
intending to get rich, but do you intend to give Elena Ivanovna a pension?"
"No, me not intend," said the German in stern decision.
"No, we not intend," said the Mutter, with positive malignancy.
"And so would it not be better for you to accept something now, at once, a secure and solid
though moderate sum, than to leave things to chance? I ought to tell you that I am inquiring
simply from curiosity."
The German drew the Mutter aside to consult with her in a corner where there stood a case
with the largest and ugliest monkey of his collection.
"Well, you will see!" said Ivan Matveitch.
As for me, I was at that moment burning with the desire, first, to give the German a thrashing,
next, to give the Mutter an even sounder one, and, thirdly, to give Ivan Matveitch the
soundest thrashing of all for his boundless vanity. But all this paled beside the answer of the
rapacious German.
After consultation with the Mutter he demanded for his crocodile fifty thousand roubles in
bonds of the last Russian loan with lottery voucher attached, a brick house in Gorohovy
Street with a chemist's shop attached, and in addition the rank of Russian colonel.
"You see!" Ivan Matveitch cried triumphantly. "I told you so! Apart from this last senseless
desire for the rank of a colonel, he is perfectly right, for he fully understands the present
value of the monster he is exhibiting. The economic principle before everything!"
"Upon my word!" I cried furiously to the German. "But what should you be made a colonel
for? What exploit have you performed? What service have you done? In what way have you
gained military glory? You are really crazy!"
"Crazy!" cried the German, offended. "No, a person very sensible, but you very stupid! I have
a colonel deserved for that I have a crocodile shown and in him a live hofrath sitting! And a
Russian can a crocodile not show and a live hofrath in him sitting! Me extremely clever man
and much wish colonel to be!"
"Well, good-bye, then, Ivan Matveitch!" I cried, shaking with fury, and I went out of the
crocodile room almost at a run.
I felt that in another minute I could not have answered for myself. The unnatural expectations
of these two block-heads were insupportable. The cold air refreshed me and somewhat
moderated my indignation. At last, after spitting vigorously fifteen times on each side, I took
a cab, got home, undressed and flung myself into bed. What vexed me more than anything
was my having become his secretary. Now I was to die of boredom there every evening,
doing the duty of a true friend! I was ready to beat myself for it, and I did, in fact, after
putting out the candle and pulling up the bedclothes, punch myself several times on the head
and various parts of my body. That somewhat relieved me, and at last I fell asleep fairly
soundly, in fact, for I was very tired. All night long I could dream of nothing but monkeys,
but towards morning I dreamt of Elena Ivanovna.

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IV

The monkeys I dreamed about, I surmise, because they were shut up in the case at the
German's; but Elena Ivanovna was a different story.
I may as well say at once, I loved the lady, but I make haste—post-haste—to make a
qualification. I loved her as a father, neither more nor less. I judge that because I often felt an
irresistible desire to kiss her little head or her rosy cheek. And though I never carried out this
inclination, I would not have refused even to kiss her lips. And not merely her lips, but her
teeth, which always gleamed so charmingly like two rows of pretty, well-matched pearls
when she laughed. She laughed extraordinarily often. Ivan Matveitch in demonstrative
moments used to call her his "darling absurdity"—a name extremely happy and appropriate.
She was a perfect sugar-plum, and that was all one could say of her. Therefore I am utterly at
a loss to understand what possessed Ivan Matveitch to imagine his wife as a Russian
Yevgenia Tour? Anyway, my dream, with the exception of the monkeys, left a most pleasant
impression upon me, and going over all the incidents of the previous day as I drank my
morning cup of tea, I resolved to go and see Elena Ivanovna at once on my way to the
office—which, indeed, I was bound to do as the friend of the family.
In a tiny little room out of the bedroom—the so-called little drawing-room, though their big
drawing-room was little too—Elena Ivanovna was sitting, in some half-transparent morning
wrapper, on a smart little sofa before a little tea-table, drinking coffee out of a little cup in
which she was dipping a minute biscuit. She was ravishingly pretty, but struck me as being at
the same time rather pensive.
"Ah, that's you, naughty man!" she said, greeting me with an absent-minded smile. "Sit down,
feather-head, have some coffee. Well, what were you doing yesterday? Were you at the
masquerade?"
"Why, were you? I don't go, you know. Besides, yesterday I was visiting our captive...." I
sighed and assumed a pious expression as I took the coffee.
"Whom?... What captive?... Oh, yes! Poor fellow! Well, how is he—bored? Do you know ... I
wanted to ask you.... I suppose I can ask for a divorce now?"
"A divorce!" I cried in indignation and almost spilled the coffee. "It's that swarthy fellow," I
thought to myself bitterly.
There was a certain swarthy gentleman with little moustaches who was something in the
architectural line, and who came far too often to see them, and was extremely skilful
inamusing Elena Ivanovna. I must confess I hated him and there was no doubt that he had
succeeded in seeing Elena Ivanovna yesterday either at the masquerade or even here, and
putting all sorts of nonsense into her head.
"Why," Elena Ivanovna rattled off hurriedly, as though it were a lesson she had learnt, "if he
is going to stay on in the crocodile, perhaps not come back all his life, while I sit waiting for
him here! A husband ought to live at home, and not in a crocodile...."
"But this was an unforeseen occurrence," I was beginning, in very comprehensible agitation.
"Oh, no, don't talk to me, I won't listen, I won't listen," she cried, suddenly getting quite
cross. "You are always against me, you wretch! There's no doing anything with you, you will
never give me any advice! Other people tell me that I can get a divorce because Ivan
Matveitch will not get his salary now."
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"Elena Ivanovna! is it you I hear!" I exclaimed pathetically. "What villain could have put
such an idea into your head? And divorce on such a trivial ground as a salary is quite
impossible. And poor Ivan Matveitch, poor Ivan Matveitch is, so to speak, burning with love
for you even in the bowels of the monster. What's more, he is melting away with love like a
lump of sugar. Yesterday while you were enjoying yourself at the masquerade, he was saying
that he might in the last resort send for you as his lawful spouse to join him in the entrails of
the monster, especially as it appears the crocodile is exceedingly roomy, not only able to
accommodate two but even three persons...."
And then I told her all that interesting part of my conversation the night before with Ivan
Matveitch.
"What, what!" she cried, in surprise. "You want me to get into the monster too, to be with
Ivan Matveitch? What an idea! And how am I to get in there, in my hat and crinoline?
Heavens, what foolishness! And what should I look like while I was getting into it, and very
likely there would be some one there to see me! It's absurd! And what should I have to eat
there? And ... and ... and what should I do there when.... Oh, my goodness, what will they
think of next?... And what should I have to amuse me there?... You say there's a smell of
gutta-percha? And what should I do if we quarrelled—should we have to go on staying there
side by side? Foo, how horrid!"
"I agree, I agree with all those arguments, my sweet Elena Ivanovna," I interrupted, striving
to express myself with that natural enthusiasm which always overtakes a man when he feels
the truth is on his side. "But one thing you have not appreciated in all this, you have not
realised that he cannot live without you if he is inviting you there; that is a proof of love,
passionate, faithful, ardent love.... You have thought too little of his love, dear Elena
Ivanovna!"
"I won't, I won't, I won't hear anything about it!" waving me off with her pretty little hand
with glistening pink nails that had just been washed and polished. "Horrid man! You will
reduce me to tears! Get into it yourself, if you like the prospect. You are his friend, get in and
keep him company, and spend your life discussing some tedious science...."
"You are wrong to laugh at this suggestion"—I checked the frivolous woman with dignity—
"Ivan Matveitch has invited me as it is. You, of course, are summoned there by duty; for me,
it would be an act of generosity. But when Ivan Matveitch described to me last night the
elasticity of the crocodile, he hinted very plainly that there would be room not only for you
two, but for me also as a friend of the family, especially if I wished to join you, and
therefore...."
"How so, the three of us?" cried Elena Ivanovna, looking at me in surprise. "Why, how
should we ... are we going to be all three there together? Ha-ha-ha! How silly you both are!
Ha-ha-ha! I shall certainly pinch you all the time, you wretch! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!"
And falling back on the sofa, she laughed till she cried. All this—the tears and the laughter—
were so fascinating that I could not resist rushing eagerly to kiss her hand, which she did not
oppose, though she did pinch my ears lightly as a sign of reconciliation.
Then we both grew very cheerful, and I described to her in detail all Ivan Matveitch's plans.
The thought of her evening receptions and her salon pleased her very much.
"Only I should need a great many new dresses," she observed, "and so Ivan Matveitch must
send me as much of his salary as possible and as soon as possible. Only ... only I don't know

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about that," she added thoughtfully. "How can he be brought here in the tank? That's very
absurd. I don't want my husband to be carried about in a tank. I should feel quite ashamed for
my visitors to see it.... I don't want that, no, I don't."
"By the way, while I think of it, was Timofey Semyonitch here yesterday?"
"Oh, yes, he was; he came to comfort me, and do you know, we played cards all the time. He
played for sweet-meats, and if I lost he was to kiss my hands. What a wretch he is! And only
fancy, he almost came to the masquerade with me, really!"
"He was carried away by his feelings!" I observed. "And who would not be with you, you
charmer?"
"Oh, get along with your compliments! Stay, I'll give you a pinch as a parting present. I've
learnt to pinch awfully well lately. Well, what do you say to that? By the way, you say Ivan
Matveitch spoke several times of me yesterday?"
"N-no, not exactly.... I must say he is thinking more now of the fate of humanity, and
wants...."
"Oh, let him! You needn't go on! I am sure it's fearfully boring. I'll go and see him some time.
I shall certainly go to-morrow. Only not to-day; I've got a headache, and besides, there will
be such a lot of people there to-day.... They'll say, 'That's his wife,' and I shall feel ashamed....
Good-bye. You will be ... there this evening, won't you?"
"To see him, yes. He asked me to go and take him the papers."
"That's capital. Go and read to him. But don't come and see me to-day. I am not well, and
perhaps I may go and see some one. Good-bye, you naughty man."
"It's that swarthy fellow is going to see her this evening," I thought.
At the office, of course, I gave no sign of being consumed by these cares and anxieties. But
soon I noticed some of the most progressive papers seemed to be passing particularly rapidly
from hand to hand among my colleagues, and were being read with an extremely serious
expression of face. The first one that reached me was the News-sheet, a paper of no particular
party but humanitarian in general, for which it was regarded with contempt among us, though
it was read. Not without surprise I read in it the following paragraph:
"Yesterday strange rumours were circulating among the spacious ways and sumptuous
buildings of our vast metropolis. A certain well-known bon-vivant of the highest society,
probably weary of the cuisine at Borel's and at the X. Club, went into the Arcade, into the
place where an immense crocodile recently brought to the metropolis is being exhibited, and
insisted on its being prepared for his dinner. After bargaining with the proprietor he at once
set to work to devour him (that is, not the proprietor, a very meek and punctilious German,
but his crocodile), cutting juicy morsels with his penknife from the living animal, and
swallowing them with extraordinary rapidity. By degrees the whole crocodile disappeared
into the vast recesses of his stomach, so that he was even on the point of attacking an
ichneumon, a constant companion of the crocodile, probably imagining that the latter would
be as savoury. We are by no means opposed to that new article of diet with which
foreign gourmands have long been familiar. We have, indeed, predicted that it would come.
English lords and travellers make up regular parties for catching crocodiles in Egypt, and
consume the back of the monster cooked like beefsteak, with mustard, onions and potatoes.
The French who followed in the train of Lesseps prefer the paws baked-in hot ashes, which

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they do, however, in opposition to the English, who laugh at them. Probably both ways would
be appreciated among us. For our part, we are delighted at a new branch of industry, of which
our great and varied fatherland stands pre-eminently in need. Probably before a year is out
crocodiles will be brought in hundreds to replace this first one, lost in the stomach of a
Petersburg gourmand. And why should not the crocodile be acclimatised among us in
Russia? If the water of the Neva is too cold for these interesting strangers, there are ponds in
the capital and rivers and lakes outside it. Why not breed crocodiles at Pargolovo, for
instance, or at Pavlovsk, in the Presnensky Ponds and in Samoteka in Moscow? While
providing agreeable, wholesome nourishment for our fastidious gourmands, they might at the
same time entertain the ladies who walk about these ponds and instruct the children in natural
history. The crocodile skin might be used for making jewel-cases, boxes, cigar-cases, pocket-
books, and possibly more than one thousand saved up in the greasy notes that are peculiarly
beloved of merchants might be laid by in crocodile skin. We hope to return more than once to
this interesting topic."
Though I had foreseen something of the sort, yet the reckless inaccuracy of the paragraph
overwhelmed me. Finding no one with whom to share my impression, I turned to Prohor
Savvitch who was sitting opposite to me, and noticed that the latter had been watching me for
some time, while in his hand he held the Voice as though he were on the point of passing it to
me. Without a word he took the News-sheet from me, and as he handed me the Voice he drew
a line with his nail against an article to which he probably wished to call my attention. This
Prohor Savvitch was a very queer man: a taciturn old bachelor, he was not on intimate terms
with any of us, scarcely spoke to any one in the office, always had an opinion of his own
about everything, but could not bear to import it to any one. He lived alone. Hardly any one
among us had ever been in his lodging.
This was what I read in the Voice.
"Every one knows that we are progressive and humanitarian and want to be on a level with
Europe in this respect. But in spite of all our exertions and the efforts of our paper we are still
far from maturity, as may be judged from the shocking incident which took place yesterday in
the Arcade and which we predicted long ago. A foreigner arrives in the capital bringing with
him a crocodile which he begins exhibiting in the Arcade. We immediately hasten to
welcome a new branch of useful industry such as our powerful and varied fatherland stands
in great need of. Suddenly yesterday at four o'clock in the afternoon a gentleman of
exceptional stoutness enters the foreigner's shop in an intoxicated condition, pays his entrance
money, and immediately without any warning leaps into the jaws of the crocodile, who was
forced, of course, to swallow him, if only from an instinct of self-preservation, to avoid being
crushed. Tumbling into the inside of the crocodile, the stranger at once dropped asleep.
Neither the shouts of the foreign proprietor, nor the lamentations of his terrified family, nor
threats to send for the police made the slightest impression. Within the crocodile was heard
nothing but laughter and a promise to flay him (sic), though the poor mammal, compelled to
swallow such a mass, was vainly shedding tears. An uninvited guest is worse than a Tartar.
But in spite of the proverb the insolent visitor would not leave. We do not know how to
explain such barbarous incidents which prove our lack of culture and disgrace us in the eyes
of foreigners. The recklessness of the Russian temperament has found a fresh outlet. It may
be asked what was the object of the uninvited visitor? A warm and comfortable abode? But
there are many excellent houses in the capital with very cheap and comfortable lodgings, with
the Neva water laid on, and a staircase lighted by gas, frequently with a hall-porter
maintained by the proprietor. We would call our readers' attention to the barbarous treatment
of domestic animals: it is difficult, of course, for the crocodile to digest such a mass all at

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once, and now he lies swollen out to the size of a mountain, awaiting death in insufferable
agonies. In Europe persons guilty of inhumanity towards domestic animals have long been
punished by law. But in spite of our European enlightenment, in spite of our European
pavements, in spite of the European architecture of our houses, we are still far from shaking
off our time-honoured traditions.
"Though the houses are new, the conventions are old."
And, indeed, the houses are not new, at least the staircases in them are not. We have more
than once in our paper alluded to the fact that in the Petersburg Side in the house of the
merchant Lukyanov the steps of the wooden staircase have decayed, fallen away, and have
long been a danger for Afimya Skapidarov, a soldier's wife who works in the house, and is
often obliged to go up the stairs with water or armfuls of wood. At last our predictions have
come true: yesterday evening at half-past eight Afimya Skapidarov fell down with a basin of
soup and broke her leg. We do not know whether Lukyanov will mend his staircase now,
Russians are often wise after the event, but the victim of Russian carelessness has by now
been taken to the hospital. In the same way we shall never cease to maintain that the house-
porters who clear away the mud from the wooden pavement in the Viborgsky Side ought not
to spatter the legs of passers-by, but should throw the mud up into heaps as is done in
Europe," and so on, and so on.
"What's this?" I asked in some perplexity, looking at Prohor Savvitch. "What's the meaning
of it?"
"How do you mean?"
"Why, upon my word! Instead of pitying Ivan Matveitch, they pity the crocodile!"
"What of it? They have pity even for a beast, a mammal. We must be up to Europe, mustn't
we? They have a very warm feeling for crocodiles there too. He-he-he!"
Saying this, queer old Prohor Savvitch dived into his papers and would not utter another
word.
I stuffed the Voice and the News-sheet into my pocket and collected as many old copies of the
newspapers as I could find for Ivan Matveitch's diversion in the evening, and though the
evening was far off, yet on this occasion I slipped away from the office early to go to the
Arcade and look, if only from a distance, at what was going on there, and to listen to the
various remarks and currents of opinion. I foresaw that there would be a regular crush there,
and turned up the collar of my coat to meet it. I somehow felt rather shy—so unaccustomed
are we to publicity. But I feel that I have no right to report my own prosaic feelings when
faced with this remarkable and original incident.

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BOBOK

FROM SOMEBODY'S DIARY

Semyon Ardalyonovitch said to me all of a sudden the day before yesterday: "Why, will you
ever be sober, Ivan Ivanovitch? Tell me that, pray."
A strange requirement. I did not resent it, I am a timid man; but here they have actually made
me out mad. An artist painted my portrait as it happened: "After all, you are a literary man,"
he said. I submitted, he exhibited it. I read: "Go and look at that morbid face suggesting
insanity."
It may be so, but think of putting it so bluntly into print. In print everything ought to be
decorous; there ought to be ideals, while instead of that....
Say it indirectly, at least; that's what you have style for. But no, he doesn't care to do it
indirectly. Nowadays humour and a fine style have disappeared, and abuse is accepted as wit.
I do not resent it: but God knows I am not enough of a literary man to go out of my mind. I
have written a novel, it has not been published. I have written articles—they have been
refused. Those articles I took about from one editor to another; everywhere they refused
them: you have no salt they told me. "What sort of salt do you want?" I asked with a jeer.
"Attic salt?"
They did not even understand. For the most part I translate from the French for the
booksellers. I write advertisements for shopkeepers too: "Unique opportunity! Fine tea, from
our own plantations ..." I made a nice little sum over a panegyric on his deceased excellency
Pyotr Matveyitch. I compiled the "Art of pleasing the ladies," a commission from a
bookseller. I have brought out some six little works of this kind in the course of my life. I am
thinking of making a collection of the bon mots of Voltaire, but am afraid it may seem a little
flat to our people. Voltaire's no good now; nowadays we want a cudgel, not Voltaire. We
knock each other's last teeth out nowadays. Well, so that's the whole extent of my literary
activity. Though indeed I do send round letters to the editors gratis and fully signed. I give
them all sorts of counsels and admonitions, criticise and point out the true path. The letter I
sent last week to an editor's office was the fortieth I had sent in the last two years. I have
wasted four roubles over stamps alone for them. My temper is at the bottom of it all.
I believe that the artist who painted me did so not for the sake of literature, but for the sake of
two symmetrical warts on my forehead, a natural phenomenon, he would say. They have no
ideas, so now they are out for phenomena. And didn't he succeed in getting my warts in his
portrait—to the life. That is what they call realism.
And as to madness, a great many people were put down as mad among us last year. And in
such language! "With such original talent" ... "and yet, after all, it appears" ... "however, one
ought to have foreseen it long ago." That is rather artful; so that from the point of view of
pure art one may really commend it. Well, but after all, these so-called madmen have turned
out cleverer than ever. So it seems the critics can call them mad, but they cannot produce any
one better.

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The wisest of all, in my opinion, is he who can, if only once a month, call himself a fool—a
faculty unheard of nowadays. In old days, once a year at any rate a fool would recognise that
he was a fool, but nowadays not a bit of it. And they have so muddled things up that there is
no telling a fool from a wise man. They have done that on purpose.
I remember a witty Spaniard saying when, two hundred and fifty years ago, the French built
their first madhouses: "They have shut up all their fools in a house apart, to make sure that
they are wise men themselves." Just so: you don't show your own wisdom by shutting some
one else in a madhouse. "K. has gone out of his mind, means that we are sane now." No, it
doesn't mean that yet.
Hang it though, why am I maundering on? I go on grumbling and grumbling. Even my
maidservant is sick of me. Yesterday a friend came to see me. "Your style is changing," he
said; "it is choppy: you chop and chop—and then a parenthesis, then a parenthesis in the
parenthesis, then you stick in something else in brackets, then you begin chopping and
chopping again."
The friend is right. Something strange is happening to me. My character is changing and my
head aches. I am beginning to see and hear strange things, not voices exactly, but as though
some one beside me were muttering, "bobok, bobok, bobok!"
What's the meaning of this bobok? I must divert my mind.

I went out in search of diversion, I hit upon a funeral. A distant relation—a collegiate
counsellor, however. A widow and five daughters, all marriageable young ladies. What must
it come to even to keep them in slippers. Their father managed it, but now there is only a little
pension. They will have to eat humble pie. They have always received me ungraciously. And
indeed I should not have gone to the funeral now had it not been for a peculiar circumstance.
I followed the procession to the cemetery with the rest; they were stuck-up and held aloof
from me. My uniform was certainly rather shabby. It's five-and-twenty years, I believe, since
I was at the cemetery; what a wretched place!
To begin with the smell. There were fifteen hearses, with palls varying in expensiveness;
there were actually two catafalques. One was a general's and one some lady's. There were
many mourners, a great deal of feigned mourning and a great deal of open gaiety. The clergy
have nothing to complain of; it brings them a good income. But the smell, the smell. I should
not like to be one of the clergy here.
I kept glancing at the faces of the dead cautiously, distrusting my impressionability. Some
had a mild expression, some looked unpleasant. As a rule the smiles were disagreeable, and
in some cases very much so. I don't like them; they haunt one's dreams.
During the service I went out of the church into the air: it was a grey day, but dry. It was cold
too, but then it was October. I walked about among the tombs. They are of different grades.
The third grade cost thirty roubles; it's decent and not so very dear. The first two grades are
tombs in the church and under the porch; they cost a pretty penny. On this occasion they were
burying in tombs of the third grade six persons, among them the general and the lady.

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I looked into the graves—and it was horrible: water and such water! Absolutely green, and ...
but there, why talk of it! The gravedigger was baling it out every minute. I went out while the
service was going on and strolled outside the gates. Close by was an almshouse, and a little
further off there was a restaurant. It was not a bad little restaurant: there was lunch and
everything. There were lots of the mourners here. I noticed a great deal of gaiety and genuine
heartiness. I had something to eat and drink.
Then I took part in the bearing of the coffin from the church to the grave. Why is it that
corpses in their coffins are so heavy? They say it is due to some sort of inertia, that the body
is no longer directed by its owner ... or some nonsense of that sort, in opposition to the laws
of mechanics and common sense. I don't like to hear people who have nothing but a general
education venture to solve the problems that require special knowledge; and with us that's
done continually. Civilians love to pass opinions about subjects that are the province of the
soldier and even of the field-marshal; while men who have been educated as engineers prefer
discussing philosophy and political economy.
I did not go to the requiem service. I have some pride, and if I am only received owing to
some special necessity, why force myself on their dinners, even if it be a funeral dinner. The
only thing I don't understand is why I stayed at the cemetery; I sat on a tombstone and sank
into appropriate reflections.
I began with the Moscow exhibition and ended with reflecting upon astonishment in the
abstract. My deductions about astonishment were these:
"To be surprised at everything is stupid of course, and to be astonished at nothing is a great
deal more becoming and for some reason accepted as good form. But that is not really true.
To my mind to be astonished at nothing is much more stupid than to be astonished at
everything. And, moreover, to be astonished at nothing is almost the same as feeling respect
for nothing. And indeed a stupid man is incapable of feeling respect."
"But what I desire most of all is to feel respect. I thirst to feel respect," one of my
acquaintances said to me the other day.
He thirsts to feel respect! Goodness, I thought, what would happen to you if you dared to
print that nowadays?
At that point I sank into forgetfulness. I don't like reading the epitaphs of tombstones: they
are everlastingly the same. An unfinished sandwich was lying on the tombstone near me;
stupid and inappropriate. I threw it on the ground, as it was not bread but only a sandwich.
Though I believe it is not a sin to throw bread on the earth, but only on the floor. I must look
it up in Suvorin's calendar.
I suppose I sat there a long time—too long a time, in fact; I must have lain down on a long
stone which was of the shape of a marble coffin. And how it happened I don't know, but I
began to hear things of all sorts being said. At first I did not pay attention to it, but treated it
with contempt. But the conversation went on. I heard muffled sounds as though the speakers'
mouths were covered with a pillow, and at the same time they were distinct and very near. I
came to myself, sat up and began listening attentively.
"Your Excellency, it's utterly impossible. You led hearts, I return your lead, and here you
play the seven of diamonds. You ought to have given me a hint about diamonds."
"What, play by hard and fast rules? Where is the charm of that?"

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"You must, your Excellency. One can't do anything without something to go upon. We must
play with dummy, let one hand not be turned up."
"Well, you won't find a dummy here."
What conceited words! And it was queer and unexpected. One was such a ponderous,
dignified voice, the other softly suave; I should not have believed it if I had not heard it
myself. I had not been to the requiem dinner, I believe. And yet how could they be playing
preference here and what general was this? That the sounds came from under the tombstones
of that there could be no doubt. I bent down and read on the tomb:
"Here lies the body of Major-General Pervoyedov ... a cavalier of such and such orders." Hm!
"Passed away in August of this year ... fifty-seven.... Rest, beloved ashes, till the joyful
dawn!"
Hm, dash it, it really is a general! There was no monument on the grave from which the
obsequious voice came, there was only a tombstone. He must have been a fresh arrival. From
his voice he was a lower court councillor.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho!" I heard in a new voice a dozen yards from the general's resting-place, coming
from quite a fresh grave. The voice belonged to a man and a plebeian, mawkish with its
affectation of religious fervour. "Oh-ho-ho-ho!"
"Oh, here he is hiccupping again!" cried the haughty and disdainful voice of an irritated lady,
apparently of the highest society. "It is an affliction to be by this shopkeeper!"
"I didn't hiccup; why, I've had nothing to eat. It's simply my nature. Really, madam, you don't
seem able to get rid of your caprices here."
"Then why did you come and lie down here?"
"They put me here, my wife and little children put me here, I did not lie down here of myself.
The mystery of death! And I would not have lain down beside you not for any money; I lie
here as befitting my fortune, judging by the price. For we can always do that—pay for a tomb
of the third grade."
"You made money, I suppose? You fleeced people?"
"Fleece you, indeed! We haven't seen the colour of your money since January. There's a little
bill against you at the shop."
"Well, that's really stupid; to try and recover debts here is too stupid, to my thinking! Go to
the surface. Ask my niece—she is my heiress."
"There's no asking any one now, and no going anywhere. We have both reached our limit
and, before the judgment-seat of God, are equal in our sins."
"In our sins," the lady mimicked him contemptuously. "Don't dare to speak to me."
"Oh-ho-ho-ho!"
"You see, the shopkeeper obeys the lady, your Excellency."
"Why shouldn't he?"
"Why, your Excellency, because, as we all know, things are different here."

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"Different? How?"
"We are dead, so to speak, your Excellency."
"Oh, yes! But still...."
Well, this is an entertainment, it is a fine show, I must say! If it has come to this down here,
what can one expect on the surface? But what a queer business! I went on listening, however,
though with extreme indignation.

"Yes, I should like a taste of life! Yes, you know ... I should like a taste of life." I heard a new
voice suddenly somewhere in the space between the general and the irritable lady.
"Do you hear, your Excellency, our friend is at the same game again. For three days at a time
he says nothing, and then he bursts out with 'I should like a taste of life, yes, a taste of life!'
And with such appetite, he-he!"
"And such frivolity."
"It gets hold of him, your Excellency, and do you know, he is growing sleepy, quite sleepy—
he has been here since April; and then all of a sudden 'I should like a taste of life!'"
"It is rather dull, though," observed his Excellency.
"It is, your Excellency. Shall we tease Avdotya Ignatyevna again, he-he?"
"No, spare me, please. I can't endure that quarrelsome virago."
"And I can't endure either of you," cried the virago disdainfully. "You are both of you bores
and can't tell me anything ideal. I know one little story about you, your Excellency—don't
turn up your nose, please—how a man-servant swept you out from under a married couple's
bed one morning."
"Nasty woman," the general muttered through his teeth.
"Avdotya Ignatyevna, ma'am," the shopkeeper wailed suddenly again, "my dear lady, don't be
angry, but tell me, am I going through the ordeal by torment now, or is it something else?"
"Ah, he is at it again, as I expected! For there's a smell from him which means he is turning
round!"
"I am not turning round, ma'am, and there's no particular smell from me, for I've kept my
body whole as it should be, while you're regularly high. For the smell is really horrible even
for a place like this. I don't speak of it, merely from politeness."
"Ah, you horrid, insulting wretch! He positively stinks and talks about me."
"Oh-ho-ho-ho! If only the time for my requiem would come quickly: I should hear their
tearful voices over my head, my wife's lament and my children's soft weeping!..."
"Well, that's a thing to fret for! They'll stuff themselves with funeral rice and go home.... Oh,
I wish somebody would wake up!"

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"Avdotya Ignatyevna," said the insinuating government clerk, "wait a bit, the new arrivals
will speak."
"And are there any young people among them?"
"Yes, there are, Avdotya Ignatyevna. There are some not more than lads."
"Oh, how welcome that would be!"
"Haven't they begun yet?" inquired his Excellency.
"Even those who came the day before yesterday haven't awakened yet, your Excellency. As
you know, they sometimes don't speak for a week. It's a good job that to-day and yesterday
and the day before they brought a whole lot. As it is, they are all last year's for seventy feet
round."
"Yes, it will be interesting."
"Yes, your Excellency, they buried Tarasevitch, the privy councillor, to-day. I knew it from
the voices. I know his nephew, he helped to lower the coffin just now."
"Hm, where is he, then?"
"Five steps from you, your Excellency, on the left.... Almost at your feet. You should make
his acquaintance, your Excellency."
"Hm, no—it's not for me to make advances."
"Oh, he will begin of himself, your Excellency. He will be flattered. Leave it to me, your
Excellency, and I...."
"Oh, oh! ... What is happening to me?" croaked the frightened voice of a new arrival.
"A new arrival, your Excellency, a new arrival, thank God! And how quick he's been!
Sometimes they don't say a word for a week."
"Oh, I believe it's a young man!" Avdotya Ignatyevna cried shrilly.
"I ... I ... it was a complication, and so sudden!" faltered the young man again. "Only the
evening before, Schultz said to me, 'There's a complication,' and I died suddenly before
morning. Oh! oh!"
"Well, there's no help for it, young man," the general observed graciously, evidently pleased
at a new arrival. "You must be comforted. You are kindly welcome to our Vale of
Jehoshaphat, so to call it. We are kind-hearted people, you will come to know us and
appreciate us. Major-General Vassili Vassilitch Pervoyedov, at your service."
"Oh, no, no! Certainly not! I was at Schultz's; I had a complication, you know, at first it was
my chest and a cough, and then I caught a cold: my lungs and influenza ... and all of a
sudden, quite unexpectedly ... the worst of all was its being so unexpected."
"You say it began with the chest," the government clerk put in suavely, as though he wished
to reassure the new arrival.
"Yes, my chest and catarrh and then no catarrh, but still the chest, and I couldn't breathe ...
and you know...."

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"I know, I know. But if it was the chest you ought to have gone to Ecke and not to Schultz."
"You know, I kept meaning to go to Botkin's, and all at once...."
"Botkin is quite prohibitive," observed the general.
"Oh, no, he is not forbidding at all; I've heard he is so attentive and foretells everything
beforehand."
"His Excellency was referring to his fees," the government clerk corrected him.
"Oh, not at all, he only asks three roubles, and he makes such an examination, and gives you
a prescription ... and I was very anxious to see him, for I have been told.... Well, gentlemen,
had I better go to Ecke or to Botkin?"
"What? To whom?" The general's corpse shook with agreeable laughter. The government
clerk echoed it in falsetto.
"Dear boy, dear, delightful boy, how I love you!" Avdotya Ignatyevna squealed ecstatically.
"I wish they had put some one like you next to me."
No, that was too much! And these were the dead of our times! Still, I ought to listen to more
and not be in too great a hurry to draw conclusions. That snivelling new arrival—I remember
him just now in his coffin—had the expression of a frightened chicken, the most revolting
expression in the world! However, let us wait and see.

But what happened next was such a Bedlam that I could not keep it all in my memory. For a
great many woke up at once; an official—a civil councillor—woke up, and began discussing
at once the project of a new sub-committee in a government department and of the probable
transfer of various functionaries in connection with the sub-committee—which very greatly
interested the general. I must confess I learnt a great deal that was new myself, so much so
that I marvelled at the channels by which one may sometimes in the metropolis learn
government news. Then an engineer half woke up, but for a long time muttered absolute
nonsense, so that our friends left off worrying him and let him lie till he was ready. At last the
distinguished lady who had been buried in the morning under the catafalque
showed symptoms of the reanimation of the tomb. Lebeziatnikov (for the obsequious lower
court councillor whom I detested and who lay beside General Pervoyedov was called, it
appears, Lebeziatnikov) became much excited, and surprised that they were all waking up so
soon this time. I must own I was surprised too; though some of those who woke had been
buried for three days, as, for instance, a very young girl of sixteen who kept giggling ...
giggling in a horrible and predatory way.
"Your Excellency, privy councillor Tarasevitch is waking!" Lebeziatnikov announced with
extreme fussiness.
"Eh? What?" the privy councillor, waking up suddenly, mumbled, with a lisp of disgust.
There was a note of ill-humoured peremptoriness in the sound of his voice.
I listened with curiosity—for during the last few days I had heard something about
Tarasevitch—shocking and upsetting in the extreme.

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"It's I, your Excellency, so far only I."

"What is your petition? What do you want?"
"Merely to inquire after your Excellency's health; in these unaccustomed surroundings every
one feels at first, as it were, oppressed.... General Pervoyedov wishes to have the honour of
making your Excellency's acquaintance, and hopes...."
"I've never heard of him."
"Surely, your Excellency! General Pervoyedov, Vassili Vassilitch...."
"Are you General Pervoyedov?"
"No, your Excellency, I am only the lower court councillor Lebeziatnikov, at your service,
but General Pervoyedov...."
"Nonsense! And I beg you to leave me alone."
"Let him be." General Pervoyedov at last himself checked with dignity the disgusting
officiousness of his sycophant in the grave.
"He is not fully awake, your Excellency, you must consider that; it's the novelty of it all.
When he is fully awake he will take it differently."
"Let him be," repeated the general.

"Vassili Vassilitch! Hey, your Excellency!" a perfectly new voice shouted loudly and
aggressively from close beside Avdotya Ignatyevna. It was a voice of gentlemanly insolence,
with the languid pronunciation now fashionable and an arrogant drawl. "I've been watching
you all for the last two hours. Do you remember me, Vassili Vassilitch? My name is
Klinevitch, we met at the Volokonskys' where you, too, were received as a guest, I am sure I
don't know why."
"What, Count Pyotr Petrovitch?... Can it be really you ... and at such an early age? How sorry
I am to hear it."
"Oh, I am sorry myself, though I really don't mind, and I want to amuse myself as far as I can
everywhere. And I am not a count but a baron, only a baron. We are only a set of scurvy
barons, risen from being flunkeys, but why I don't know and I don't care. I am only a
scoundrel of the pseudo-aristocratic society, and I am regarded as 'a charming polis-son.' My
father is a wretched little general, and my mother was at one time received en haut lieu. With
the help of the Jew Zifel I forged fifty thousand rouble notes last year and then I informed
against him, while Julie Charpentier de Lusignan carried off the money to Bordeaux. And
only fancy, I was engaged to be married—to a girl still at school, three months under sixteen,
with a dowry of ninety thousand. Avdotya Ignatyevna, do you remember how you seduced
me fifteen years ago when I was a boy of fourteen in the Corps des Pages?"
"Ah, that's you, you rascal! Well, you are a godsend, anyway, for here...."

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"You were mistaken in suspecting your neighbour, the business gentleman, of unpleasant
fragrance.... I said nothing, but I laughed. The stench came from me: they had to bury me in a
nailed-up coffin."
"Ugh, you horrid creature! Still, I am glad you are here; you can't imagine the lack of life and
wit here."
"Quite so, quite so, and I intend to start here something original. Your Excellency—I don't
mean you, Pervoyedov—your Excellency the other one, Tarasevitch, the privy councillor!
Answer! I am Klinevitch, who took you to Mlle. Furie in Lent, do you hear?"
"I do, Klinevitch, and I am delighted, and trust me...."
"I wouldn't trust you with a halfpenny, and I don't care. I simply want to kiss you, dear old
man, but luckily I can't. Do you know, gentlemen, what this grand-père's little game was? He
died three or four days ago, and would you believe it, he left a deficit of four hundred
thousand government money from the fund for widows and orphans. He was the sole person
in control of it for some reason, so that his accounts were not audited for the last eight years. I
can fancy what long faces they all have now, and what they call him. It's a delectable thought,
isn't it? I have been wondering for the last year how a wretched old man of seventy, gouty
and rheumatic, succeeded in preserving the physical energy for his debaucheries—and now
the riddle is solved! Those widows and orphans—the very thought of them must have egged
him on! I knew about it long ago, I was the only one who did know; it was Julie told me, and
as soon as I discovered it, I attacked him in a friendly way at once in Easter week: 'Give me
twenty-five thousand, if you don't they'll look into your accounts to-morrow.' And just fancy,
he had only thirteen thousand left then, so it seems it was very apropos his dying
now. Grand-père, grand-père, do you hear?"
"Cher Klinevitch, I quite agree with you, and there was no need for you ... to go into such
details. Life is so full of suffering and torment and so little to make up for it ... that I wanted
at last to be at rest, and so far as I can see I hope to get all I can from here too."
"I bet that he has already sniffed Katiche Berestov!"
"Who? What Katiche?" There was a rapacious quiver in the old man's voice.
"A-ah, what Katiche? Why, here on the left, five paces from me and ten from you. She has
been here for five days, and if only you knew, grand-père, what a little wretch she is! Of
good family and breeding and a monster, a regular monster! I did not introduce her to any one
there, I was the only one who knew her.... Katiche, answer!"
"He-he-he!" the girl responded with a jangling laugh, in which there was a note of something
as sharp as the prick of a needle. "He-he-he!"
"And a little blonde?" the grand-père faltered, drawling out the syllables.
"He-he-he!"
"I ... have long ... I have long," the old man faltered breathlessly, "cherished the dream of a
little fair thing of fifteen and just in such surroundings."
"Ach, the monster!" cried Avdotya Ignatyevna.

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"Enough!" Klinevitch decided. "I see there is excellent material. We shall soon arrange things
better. The great thing is to spend the rest of our time cheerfully; but what time? Hey, you,
government clerk, Lebeziatnikov or whatever it is, I hear that's your name!"
"Semyon Yevseitch Lebeziatnikov, lower court councillor, at your service, very, very, very
much delighted to meet you."
"I don't care whether you are delighted or not, but you seem to know everything here. Tell me
first of all how it is we can talk? I've been wondering ever since yesterday. We are dead and
yet we are talking and seem to be moving—and yet we are not talking and not moving. What
jugglery is this?"
"If you want an explanation, baron, Platon Nikolaevitch could give you one better than I."
"What Platon Nikolaevitch is that? To the point. Don't beat about the bush."
"Platon Nikolaevitch is our home-grown philosopher, scientist and Master of Arts. He has
brought out several philosophical works, but for the last three months he has been getting
quite drowsy, and there is no stirring him up now. Once a week he mutters something utterly
irrelevant."
"To the point, to the point!"
"He explains all this by the simplest fact, namely, that when we were living on the surface we
mistakenly thought that death there was death. The body revives, as it were, here, the remains
of life are concentrated, but only in consciousness. I don't know how to express it, but life
goes on, as it were, by inertia. In his opinion everything is concentrated somewhere in
consciousness and goes on for two or three months ... sometimes even for half a year.... There
is one here, for instance, who is almost completely decomposed, but once every six weeks he
suddenly utters one word, quite senseless of course, about some bobok,[1] 'Bobok, bobok,' but
you see that an imperceptible speck of life is still warm within him."
[1]i. e. small bean.
"It's rather stupid. Well, and how is it I have no sense of smell and yet I feel there's a stench?"
"That ... he-he.... Well, on that point our philosopher is a bit foggy. It's apropos of smell, he
said, that the stench one perceives here is, so to speak, moral—he-he! It's the stench of the
soul, he says, that in these two or three months it may have time to recover itself ... and this
is, so to speak, the last mercy.... Only, I think, baron, that these are mystic ravings very
excusable in his position...."
"Enough; all the rest of it, I am sure, is nonsense. The great thing is that we have two or three
months more of life and then—bobok! I propose to spend these two months as agreeably as
possible, and so to arrange everything on a new basis. Gentlemen! I propose to cast aside all
shame."
"Ah, let us cast aside all shame, let us!" many voices could be heard saying; and strange to
say, several new voices were audible, which must have belonged to others newly awakened.
The engineer, now fully awake, boomed out his agreement with peculiar delight. The girl
Katiche giggled gleefully.
"Oh, how I long to cast off all shame!" Avdotya Ignatyevna exclaimed rapturously.
"I say, if Avdotya Ignatyevna wants to cast off all shame...."

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"No, no, no, Klinevitch, I was ashamed up there all the same, but here I should like to cast off
shame, I should like it awfully."
"I understand, Klinevitch," boomed the engineer, "that you want to rearrange life here on new
and rational principles."
"Oh, I don't care a hang about that! For that we'll wait for Kudeyarov who was brought here
yesterday. When he wakes he'll tell you all about it. He is such a personality, such a titanic
personality! To-morrow they'll bring along another natural scientist, I believe, an officer for
certain, and three or four days later a journalist, and, I believe, his editor with him. But deuce
take them all, there will be a little group of us anyway, and things will arrange themselves.
Though meanwhile I don't want us to be telling lies. That's all I care about, for that is one
thing that matters. One cannot exist on the surface without lying, for life and lying are
synonymous, but here we will amuse ourselves by not lying. Hang it all, the grave has some
value after all! We'll all tell our stories aloud, and we won't be ashamed of anything. First of
all I'll tell you about myself. I am one of the predatory kind, you know. All that was bound
and held in check by rotten cords up there on the surface. Away with cords and let us spend
these two months in shameless truthfulness! Let us strip and be naked!"
"Let us be naked, let us be naked!" cried all the voices.
"I long to be naked, I long to be," Avdotya Ignatyevna shrilled.
"Ah ... ah, I see we shall have fun here; I don't want Ecke after all."
"No, I tell you. Give me a taste of life!"
"He-he-he!" giggled Katiche.
"The great thing is that no one can interfere with us, and though I see Pervoyedov is in a
temper, he can't reach me with his hand. Grand-père, do you agree?"
"I fully agree, fully, and with the utmost satisfaction, but on condition that Katiche is the first
to give us her biography."
"I protest! I protest with all my heart!" General Pervoyedov brought out firmly.
"Your Excellency!" the scoundrel Lebeziatnikov persuaded him in a murmur of fussy
excitement, "your Excellency, it will be to our advantage to agree. Here, you see, there's this
girl's ... and all their little affairs."
"There's the girl, it's true, but...."
"It's to our advantage, your Excellency, upon my word it is! If only as an experiment, let us
try it...."
"Even in the grave they won't let us rest in peace."
"In the first place, General, you were playing preference in the grave, and in the second we
don't care a hang about you," drawled Klinevitch.
"Sir, I beg you not to forget yourself."
"What? Why, you can't get at me, and I can tease you from here as though you were Julie's
lapdog. And another thing, gentlemen, how is he a general here? He was a general there, but
here is mere refuse."

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"No, not mere refuse.... Even here...."

"Here you will rot in the grave and six brass buttons will be all that will be left of you."
"Bravo, Klinevitch, ha-ha-ha!" roared voices.
"I have served my sovereign.... I have the sword...."
"Your sword is only fit to prick mice, and you never drew it even for that."
"That makes no difference; I formed a part of the whole."
"There are all sorts of parts in a whole."
"Bravo, Klinevitch, bravo! Ha-ha-ha!"
"I don't understand what the sword stands for," boomed the engineer.
"We shall run away from the Prussians like mice, they'll crush us to powder!" cried a voice in
the distance that was unfamiliar to me, that was positively spluttering with glee.
"The sword, sir, is an honour," the general cried, but only I heard him. There arose a
prolonged and furious roar, clamour, and hubbub, and only the hysterically impatient squeals
of Avdotya Ignatyevna were audible.
"But do let us make haste! Ah, when are we going to begin to cast off all shame!"
"Oh-ho-ho!... The soul does in truth pass through torments!" exclaimed the voice of the
plebeian, "and ..."
And here I suddenly sneezed. It happened suddenly and unintentionally, but the effect was
striking: all became as silent as one expects it to be in a churchyard, it all vanished like a
dream. A real silence of the tomb set in. I don't believe they were ashamed on account of my
presence: they had made up their minds to cast off all shame! I waited five minutes—not a
word, not a sound. It cannot be supposed that they were afraid of my informing the police; for
what could the police do to them? I must conclude that they had some secret unknown to the
living, which they carefully concealed from every mortal.
"Well, my dears," I thought, "I shall visit you again." And with those words, I left the
cemetery.
No, that I cannot admit; no, I really cannot! The bobok case does not trouble me (so that is
what that bobok signified!)
Depravity in such a place, depravity of the last aspirations, depravity of sodden and rotten
corpses—and not even sparing the last moments of consciousness! Those moments have been
granted, vouchsafed to them, and ... and, worst of all, in such a place! No, that I cannot admit.
I shall go to other tombs, I shall listen everywhere. Certainly one ought to listen everywhere
and not merely at one spot in order to form an idea. Perhaps one may come across something
reassuring.
But I shall certainly go back to those. They promised their biographies and anecdotes of all
sorts. Tfoo! But I shall go, I shall certainly go; it is a question of conscience!
I shall take it to the Citizen; the editor there has had his portrait exhibited too. Maybe he will
print it.

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THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN

I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were
not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all
dear to me now, even when they laugh at me—and, indeed, it is just then that they are
particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter—not exactly at myself, but through
affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the
truth and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they
won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.
In old days I used to be miserable at seeming ridiculous. Not seeming, but being. I have
always been ridiculous, and I have known it, perhaps, from the hour I was born. Perhaps from
the time I was seven years old I knew I was ridiculous. Afterwards I went to school, studied
at the university, and, do you know, the more I learned, the more thoroughly I understood that
I was ridiculous. So that it seemed in the end as though all the sciences I studied at the
university existed only to prove and make evident to me as I went more deeply into them that
I was ridiculous. It was the same with life as it was with science. With every year the same
consciousness of the ridiculous figure I cut in every relation grew and strengthened. Every
one always laughed at me. But not one of them knew or guessed that if there were one man
on earth who knew better than anybody else that I was absurd, it was myself, and what I
resented most of all was that they did not know that. But that was my own fault; I was so
proud that nothing would have ever induced me to tell it to any one. This pride grew in me
with the years; and if it had happened that I allowed myself to confess to any one that I was
ridiculous, I believe that I should have blown out my brains the same evening. Oh, how I
suffered in my early youth from the fear that I might give way and confess it to my
schoolfellows. But since I grew to manhood, I have for some unknown reason become
calmer, though I realised my awful characteristic more fully every year. I say "unknown," for
to this day I cannot tell why it was. Perhaps it was owing to the terrible misery that was
growing in my soul through something which was of more consequence than anything else
about me: that something was the conviction that had come upon me that nothing in the world
mattered. I had long had an inkling of it, but the full realisation came last year almost
suddenly. I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether
there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing
existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed
that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some
reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left
off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even
in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so
much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking
by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not
settled one of them, and how many they were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all
the problems disappeared.

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And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November—on the third
of November, to be precise—and I remember every instant since. It was a gloomy evening,
one of the gloomiest possible evenings. I was going home at about eleven o'clock, and I
remember that I thought that the evening could not be gloomier. Even physically. Rain had
been falling all day, and it had been a cold, gloomy, almost menacing rain, with, I remember,
an unmistakable spite against mankind. Suddenly between ten and eleven it had stopped, and
was followed by a horrible dampness, colder and damper than the rain, and a sort of steam
was rising from everything, from every stone in the street, and from every by-lane if one
looked down it as far as one could. A thought suddenly occurred to me, that if all the street
lamps had been put out it would have been less cheerless, that the gas made one's heart
sadder because it lighted it all up. I had had scarcely any dinner that day, and had been
spending the evening with an engineer, and two other friends had been there also. I sat
silent—I fancy I bored them. They talked of something rousing and suddenly they got excited
over it. But they did not really care, I could see that, and only made a show of being excited. I
suddenly said as much to them. "My friends," I said, "you really do not care one way or the
other." They were not offended, but they all laughed at me. That was because I spoke without
any note of reproach, simply because it did not matter to me. They saw it did not, and it
amused them.
As I was thinking about the gas lamps in the street I looked up at the sky. The sky was
horribly dark, but one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black
patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently.
That was because that star gave me an idea: I decided to kill myself that night. I had firmly
determined to do so two months before, and poor as I was, I bought a splendid revolver that
very day, and loaded it. But two months had passed and it was still lying in my drawer; I was
so utterly indifferent that I wanted to seize a moment when I would not be so indifferent—
why, I don't know. And so for two months every night that I came home I thought I would
shoot myself. I kept waiting for the right moment. And so now this star gave me a thought. I
made up my mind that it should certainly be that night. And why the star gave me the thought
I don't know.
And just as I was looking at the sky, this little girl took me by the elbow. The street was
empty, and there was scarcely any one to be seen. A cabman was sleeping in the distance in
his cab. It was a child of eight with a kerchief on her head, wearing nothing but a wretched
little dress all soaked with rain, but I noticed particularly her wet broken shoes and I recall
them now. They caught my eye particularly. She suddenly pulled me by the elbow and called
me. She was not weeping, but was spasmodically crying out some words which she could not
utter properly, because she was shivering and shuddering all over. She was in terror about
something, and kept crying, "Mammy, mammy!" I turned facing her, I did not say a word and
went on; but she ran, pulling at me, and there was that note in her voice which in frightened
children means despair. I know that sound. Though she did not articulate the words, I
understood that her mother was dying, or that something of the sort was happening to them,
and that she had run out to call some one, to find something to help her mother. I did not go
with her; on the contrary, I had an impulse to drive her away. I told her first to go to a
policeman. But clasping her hands, she ran beside me sobbing and gasping, and would not
leave me. Then I stamped my foot, and shouted at her. She called out "Sir! sir!..." but
suddenly abandoned me and rushed headlong across the road. Some other passer-by appeared
there, and she evidently flew from me to him.
I mounted up to my fifth storey. I have a room in a flat where there are other lodgers. My
room is small and poor, with a garret window in the shape of a semicircle. I have a sofa

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covered with American leather, a table with books on it, two chairs and a comfortable arm-
chair, as old as old can be, but of the good old-fashioned shape. I sat down, lighted the
candle, and began thinking. In the room next to mine, through the partition wall, a perfect
Bedlam was going on. It had been going on for the last three days. A retired captain lived
there, and he had half a dozen visitors, gentlemen of doubtful reputation, drinking vodka and
playing stoss with old cards. The night before there had been a fight, and I know that two of
them had been for a long time engaged in dragging each other about by the hair. The landlady
wanted to complain, but she was in abject terror of the captain. There was only one other
lodger in the flat, a thin little regimental lady, on a visit to Petersburg, with three little
children who had been taken ill since they came into the lodgings. Both she and her children
were in mortal fear of the captain, and lay trembling and crossing themselves all night, and
the youngest child had a sort of fit from fright. That captain, I know for a fact, sometimes
stops people in the Nevsky Prospect and begs. They won't take him into the service, but
strange to say (that's why I am telling this), all this month that the captain has been here his
behaviour has caused me no annoyance. I have, of course, tried to avoid his acquaintance
from the very beginning, and he, too, was bored with me from the first; but I never care how
much they shout the other side of the partition nor how many of them there are in there: I sit
up all night and forget them so completely that I do not even hear them. I stay awake till
daybreak, and have been going on like that for the last year. I sit up all night in my arm-chair
at the table, doing nothing. I only read by day. I sit—don't even think; ideas of a sort wander
through my mind and I let them come and go as they will. A whole candle is burnt every
night. I sat down quietly at the table, took out the revolver and put it down before me. When I
had put it down I asked myself, I remember, "Is that so?" and answered with complete
conviction, "It is." That is, I shall shoot myself. I knew that I should shoot myself that night
for certain, but how much longer I should go on sitting at the table I did not know. And no
doubt I should have shot myself if it had not been for that little girl.

II

You see, though nothing mattered to me, I could feel pain, for instance. If any one had struck
me it would have hurt me. It was the same morally: if anything very pathetic happened, I
should have felt pity just as I used to do in old days when there were things in life that did
matter to me. I had felt pity that evening. I should have certainly helped a child. Why, then,
had I not helped the little girl? Because of an idea that occurred to me at the time: when she
was calling and pulling at me, a question suddenly arose before me and I could not settle it.
The question was an idle one, but I was vexed. I was vexed at the reflection that if I were
going to make an end of myself that night, nothing in life ought to have mattered to me. Why
was it that all at once I did not feel that nothing mattered and was sorry for the little girl? I
remember that I was very sorry for her, so much so that I felt a strange pang, quite
incongruous in my position. Really I do not know better how to convey my fleeting sensation
at the moment, but the sensation persisted at home when I was sitting at the table, and I was
very much irritated as I had not been for a long time past. One reflection followed another. I
saw clearly that so long as I was still a human being and not nothingness, I was alive and so
could suffer, be angry and feel shame at my actions. So be it. But if I am going to kill myself,
in two hours, say, what is the little girl to me and what have I to do with shame or with
anything else in the world? I shall turn into nothing, absolutely nothing. And can it really be
true that the consciousness that I shall completely cease to exist immediately and so
everything else will cease to exist, does not in the least affect my feeling of pity for the child
nor the feeling of shame after a contemptible action? I stamped and shouted at the unhappy
child as though to say—not only I feel no pity, but even if I behave inhumanly and

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contemptibly, I am free to, for in another two hours everything will be extinguished. Do you
believe that that was why I shouted that? I am almost convinced of it now. It seemed clear to
me that life and the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world
now seemed created for me alone: if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for
me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for any one when I am gone, and
that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become
void like a phantom, as a mere appurtenance of my consciousness, for possibly all this world
and all these people are only me myself. I remember that as I sat and reflected, I turned all
these new questions that swarmed one after another quite the other way, and thought of
something quite new. For instance, a strange reflection suddenly occurred to me, that if I had
lived before on the moon or on Mars and there had committed the most disgraceful and
dishonourable action and had there been put to such shame and ignominy as one can only
conceive and realise in dreams, in nightmares, and if, finding myself afterwards on earth, I
were able to retain the memory of what I had done on the other planet and at the same time
knew that I should never, under any circumstances, return there, then looking from the earth
to the moon—should I care or not? Should I feel shame for that action or not? These were
idle and superfluous questions for the revolver was already lying before me, and I knew in
every fibre of my being that it would happen for certain, but they excited me and I raged. I
could not die now without having first settled something. In short, the child had saved me, for
I put off my pistol shot for the sake of these questions. Meanwhile the clamour had begun to
subside in the captain's room: they had finished their game, were settling down to sleep, and
meanwhile were grumbling and languidly winding up their quarrels. At that point I suddenly
fell asleep in my chair at the table—a thing which had never happened to me before. I
dropped asleep quite unawares.
Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling
vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one
gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and
time. Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the
heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what
utterly incomprehensible things happen to it! My brother died five years ago, for instance. I
sometimes dream of him; he takes part in my affairs, we are very much interested, and yet all
through my dream I quite know and remember that my brother is dead and buried. How is it
that I am not surprised that, though he is dead, he is here beside me and working with me?
Why is it that my reason fully accepts it? But enough. I will begin about my dream. Yes, I
dreamed a dream, my dream of the third of November. They tease me now, telling me it was
only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known
to me the truth? If once one has recognised the truth and seen it, you know that it is the truth
and that there is no other and there cannot be, whether you are asleep or awake. Let it be a
dream, so be it, but that real life of which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by
suicide, and my dream, my dream—oh, it revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and
full of power!
Listen.

III

I have mentioned that I dropped asleep unawares and even seemed to be still reflecting on the
same subjects. I suddenly dreamt that I picked up the revolver and aimed it straight at my
heart—my heart, and not my head; and I had determined beforehand to fire at my head, at my

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right temple. After aiming at my chest I waited a second or two, and suddenly my candle, my
table, and the wall in front of me began moving and heaving. I made haste to pull the trigger.
In dreams you sometimes fall from a height, or are stabbed, or beaten, but you never feel pain
unless, perhaps, you really bruise yourself against the bedstead, then you feel pain and almost
always wake up from it. It was the same in my dream. I did not feel any pain, but it seemed as
though with my shot everything within me was shaken and everything was suddenly dimmed,
and it grew horribly black around me. I seemed to be blinded and benumbed, and I was lying
on something hard, stretched on my back; I saw nothing, and could not make the slightest
movement. People were walking and shouting around me, the captain bawled, the landlady
shrieked—and suddenly another break and I was being carried in a closed coffin. And I felt
how the coffin was shaking and reflected upon it, and for the first time the idea struck me that
I was dead, utterly dead, I knew it and had no doubt of it, I could neither see nor move and
yet I was feeling and reflecting. But I was soon reconciled to the position, and as one usually
does in a dream, accepted the facts without disputing them.
And now I was buried in the earth. They all went away, I was left alone, utterly alone. I did
not move. Whenever before I had imagined being buried the one sensation I associated with
the grave was that of damp and cold. So now I felt that I was very cold, especially the tips of
my toes, but I felt nothing else.
I lay still, strange to say I expected nothing, accepting without dispute that a dead man had
nothing to expect. But it was damp. I don't know how long a time passed—whether an hour,
or several days, or many days. But all at once a drop of water fell on my closed left eye,
making its way through a coffin lid; it was followed a minute later by a second, then a minute
later by a third—and so on, regularly every minute. There was a sudden glow of profound
indignation in my heart, and I suddenly felt in it a pang of physical pain. "That's my wound,"
I thought; "that's the bullet...." And drop after drop every minute kept falling on my closed
eyelid. And all at once, not with my voice, but with my whole being, I called upon the power
that was responsible for all that was happening to me:
"Whoever you may be, if you exist, and if anything more rational than what is happening
here is possible, suffer it to be here now. But if you are revenging yourself upon me for my
senseless suicide by the hideousness and absurdity of this subsequent existence, then let me
tell you that no torture could ever equal the contempt which I shall go on dumbly feeling,
though my martyrdom may last a million years!"
I made this appeal and held my peace. There was a full minute of unbroken silence and again
another drop fell, but I knew with infinite unshakable certainty that everything would change
immediately. And behold my grave suddenly was rent asunder, that is, I don't know whether
it was opened or dug up, but I was caught up by some dark and unknown being and we found
ourselves in space. I suddenly regained my sight. It was the dead of night, and never, never
had there been such darkness. We were flying through space far away from the earth. I did
not question the being who was taking me; I was proud and waited. I assured myself that I
was not afraid, and was thrilled with ecstasy at the thought that I was not afraid. I do not
know how long we were flying, I cannot imagine; it happened as it always does in
dreams when you skip over space and time, and the laws of thought and existence, and only
pause upon the points for which the heart yearns. I remember that I suddenly saw in the
darkness a star. "Is that Sirius?" I asked impulsively, though I had not meant to ask any
questions.

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"No, that is the star you saw between the clouds when you were coming home," the being
who was carrying me replied.
I knew that it had something like a human face. Strange to say, I did not like that being, in
fact I felt an intense aversion for it. I had expected complete non-existence, and that was why
I had put a bullet through my heart. And here I was in the hands of a creature not human, of
course, but yet living, existing. "And so there is life beyond the grave," I thought with the
strange frivolity one has in dreams. But in its inmost depth my heart remained unchanged.
"And if I have got to exist again," I thought, "and live once more under the control of some
irresistible power, I won't be vanquished and humiliated."
"You know that I am afraid of you and despise me for that," I said suddenly to my
companion, unable to refrain from the humiliating question which implied a confession, and
feeling my humiliation stab my heart as with a pin. He did not answer my question, but all at
once I felt that he was not even despising me, but was laughing at me and had no compassion
for me, and that our journey had an unknown and mysterious object that concerned me only.
Fear was growing in my heart. Something was mutely and painfully communicated to me
from my silent companion, and permeated my whole being. We were flying through dark,
unknown space. I had for some time lost sight of the constellations familiar to my eyes. I
knew that there were stars in the heavenly spaces the light of which took thousands or
millions of years to reach the earth. Perhaps we were already flying through those spaces. I
expected something with a terrible anguish that tortured my heart. And suddenly I was
thrilled by a familiar feeling that stirred me to the depths: I suddenly caught sight of our sun!
I knew that it could not be our sun, that gave life to our earth, and that we were an infinite
distance from our sun, but for some reason I knew in my whole being that it was a sun
exactly like ours, a duplicate of it. A sweet, thrilling feeling resounded with ecstasy in my
heart: the kindred power of the same light which had given me light stirred an echo in my
heart and awakened it, and I had a sensation of life, the old life of the past for the first time
since I had been in the grave.
"But if that is the sun, if that is exactly the same as our sun," I cried, "where is the earth?"
And my companion pointed to a star twinkling in the distance with an emerald light. We were
flying straight towards it.
"And are such repetitions possible in the universe? Can that be the law of Nature?... And if
that is an earth there, can it be just the same earth as ours ... just the same, as poor, as
unhappy, but precious and beloved for ever, arousing in the most ungrateful of her children
the same poignant love for her that we feel for our earth?" I cried out, shaken by irresistible,
ecstatic love for the old familiar earth which I had left. The image of the poor child whom I
had repulsed flashed through my mind.
"You shall see it all," answered my companion, and there was a note of sorrow in his voice.
But we were rapidly approaching the planet. It was growing before my eyes; I could already
distinguish the ocean, the outline of Europe; and suddenly a feeling of a great and holy
jealousy glowed in my heart.
"How can it be repeated and what for? I love and can love only that earth which I have left,
stained with my blood, when, in my ingratitude, I quenched my life with a bullet in my heart.
But I have never, never ceased to love that earth, and perhaps on the very night I parted from
it I loved it more than ever. Is there suffering upon this new earth? On our earth we can only
love with suffering and through suffering. We cannot love otherwise, and we know of no

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other sort of love. I want suffering in order to love. I long, I thirst, this very instant, to kiss
with tears the earth that I have left, and I don't want, I won't accept life on any other!"
But my companion had already left me. I suddenly, quite without noticing how, found myself
on this other earth, in the bright light of a sunny day, fair as paradise. I believe I was standing
on one of the islands that make up on our globe the Greek archipelago, or on the coast of the
mainland facing that archipelago. Oh, everything was exactly as it is with us, only everything
seemed to have a festive radiance, the splendour of some great, holy triumph attained at last.
The caressing sea, green as emerald, splashed softly upon the shore and kissed it with
manifest, almost conscious love. The tall, lovely trees stood in all the glory of their blossom,
and their innumerable leaves greeted me, I am certain, with their soft, caressing rustle and
seemed to articulate words of love. The grass glowed with bright and fragrant flowers. Birds
were flying in flocks in the air, and perched fearlessly on my shoulders and arms and joyfully
struck me with their darling, fluttering wings. And at last I saw and knew the people of this
happy land. They came to me of themselves, they surrounded me, kissed me. The children of
the sun, the children of their sun—oh, how beautiful they were! Never had I seen on our own
earth such beauty in mankind. Only perhaps in our children, in their earliest years, one might
find some remote, faint reflection of this beauty. The eyes of these happy people shone with a
clear brightness. Their faces were radiant with the light of reason and fullness of a serenity
that comes of perfect understanding, but those faces were gay; in their words and voices there
was a note of childlike joy. Oh, from the first moment, from the first glance at them, I
understood it all! It was the earth untarnished by the Fall; on it lived people who had not
sinned. They lived just in such a paradise as that in which, according to all the legends of
mankind, our first parents lived before they sinned; the only difference was that all this earth
was the same paradise. These people, laughing joyfully, thronged round me and caressed me;
they took me home with them, and each of them tried to reassure me. Oh, they asked me no
questions, but they seemed, I fancied, to know everything without asking, and they wanted to
make haste and smoothe away the signs of suffering from my face.

IV

And do you know what? Well, granted that it was only a dream, yet the sensation of the love
of those innocent and beautiful people has remained with me for ever, and I feel as though
their love is still flowing out to me from over there. I have seen them myself, have known
them and been convinced; I loved them, I suffered for them afterwards. Oh, I understood at
once even at the time that in many things I could not understand them at all; as an up-to-date
Russian progressive and contemptible Petersburger, it struck me as inexplicable that,
knowing so much, they had, for instance, no science like ours. But I soon realised that their
knowledge was gained and fostered by intuitions different from those of us on earth, and that
their aspirations, too, were quite different. They desired nothing and were at peace; they did
not aspire to knowledge of life as we aspire to understand it, because their lives were full. But
their knowledge was higher and deeper than ours; for our science seeks to explain what life
is, aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to live, while they without science
knew how to live; and that I understood, but I could not understand their knowledge. They
showed me their trees, and I could not understand the intense love with which they looked at
them; it was as though they were talking with creatures like themselves. And perhaps I shall
not be mistaken if I say that they conversed with them. Yes, they had found their language,
and I am convinced that the trees understood them. They looked at all Nature like that—at the
animals who lived in peace with them and did not attack them, but loved them, conquered by
their love. They pointed to the stars and told me something about them which I could not

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understand, but I am convinced that they were somehow in touch with the stars, not only in
thought, but by some living channel. Oh, these people did not persist in trying to make me
understand them, they loved me without that, but I knew that they would never understand
me, and so I hardly spoke to them about our earth. I only kissed in their presence the earth on
which they lived and mutely worshipped them themselves. And they saw that and let me
worship them without being abashed at my adoration, for they themselves loved much. They
were not unhappy on my account when at times I kissed their feet with tears, joyfully
conscious of the love with which they would respond to mine. At times I asked myself with
wonder how it was they were able never to offend a creature like me, and never once to
arouse a feeling of jealousy or envy in me? Often I wondered how it could be that, boastful
and untruthful as I was, I never talked to them of what I knew—of which, of course, they had
no notion—that I was never tempted to do so by a desire to astonish or even to benefit them.
They were as gay and sportive as children. They wandered about their lovely woods and
copses, they sang their lovely songs; their fare was light—the fruits of their trees, the honey
from their woods, and the milk of the animals who loved them. The work they did for food
and raiment was brief and not laborious. They loved and begot children, but I never noticed
in them the impulse of that cruel sensuality which overcomes almost every man on this earth,
all and each, and is the source of almost every sin of mankind on earth. They rejoiced at the
arrival of children as new beings to share their happiness. There was no quarrelling, no
jealousy among them, and they did not even know what the words meant. Their children were
the children of all, for they all made up one family. There was scarcely any illness among
them, though there was death; but their old people died peacefully, as though falling asleep,
giving blessings and smiles to those who surrounded them to take their last farewell with
bright and loving smiles. I never saw grief or tears on those occasions, but only love, which
reached the point of ecstasy, but a calm ecstasy, made perfect and contemplative. One might
think that they were still in contact with the departed after death, and that their earthly union
was not cut short by death. They scarcely understood me when I questioned them about
immortality, but evidently they were so convinced of it without reasoning that it was not for
them a question at all. They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted
sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain
knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there
would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with
the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste,
not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to
one another.
In the evening before going to sleep they liked singing in musical and harmonious chorus. In
those songs they expressed all the sensations that the parting day had given them, sang its
glories and took leave of it. They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods. They
liked making songs about one another, and praised each other like children; they were the
simplest songs, but they sprang from their hearts and went to one's heart. And not only in
their songs but in all their lives they seemed to do nothing but admire one another. It was like
being in love with each other, but an all-embracing, universal feeling.
Some of their songs, solemn and rapturous, I scarcely understood at all. Though I understood
the words I could never fathom their full significance. It remained, as it were, beyond the
grasp of my mind, yet my heart unconsciously absorbed it more and more. I often told them
that I had had a presentiment of it long before, that this joy and glory had come to me on our
earth in the form of a yearning melancholy that at times approached insufferable sorrow; that
I had had a foreknowledge of them all and of their glory in the dreams of my heart and the

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visions of my mind; that often on our earth I could not look at the setting sun without tears ...
that in my hatred for the men of our earth there was always a yearning anguish: why could I
not hate them without loving them? why could I not help forgiving them? and in my love for
them there was a yearning grief: why could I not love them without hating them? They
listened to me, and I saw they could not conceive what I was saying, but I did not regret that I
had spoken to them of it: I knew that they understood the intensity of my yearning anguish
over those whom I had left. But when they looked at me with their sweet eyes full of love,
when I felt that in their presence my heart, too, became as innocent and just as theirs, the
feeling of the fullness of life took my breath away, and I worshipped them in silence.
Oh, every one laughs in my face now, and assures me that one cannot dream of such details
as I am telling now, that I only dreamed or felt one sensation that arose in my heart in
delirium and made up the details myself when I woke up. And when I told them that perhaps
it really was so, my God, how they shouted with laughter in my face, and what mirth I
caused! Oh, yes, of course I was overcome by the mere sensation of my dream, and that was
all that was preserved in my cruelly wounded heart; but the actual forms and images of my
dream, that is, the very ones I really saw at the very time of my dream, were filled with such
harmony, were so lovely and enchanting and were so actual, that on awakening I was, of
course, incapable of clothing them in our poor language, so that they were bound to become
blurred in my mind; and so perhaps I really was forced afterwards to make up the details, and
so of course to distort them in my passionate desire to convey some at least of them as
quickly as I could. But on the other hand, how can I help believing that it was all true? It was
perhaps a thousand times brighter, happier and more joyful than I describe it. Granted that I
dreamed it, yet it must have been real. You know, I will tell you a secret: perhaps it was not a
dream at all! For then something happened so awful, something so horribly true, that it could
not have been imagined in a dream. My heart may have originated the dream, but would my
heart alone have been capable of originating the awful event which happened to me
afterwards? How could I alone have invented it or imagined it in my dream? Could my petty
heart and my fickle, trivial mind have risen to such a revelation of truth? Oh, judge for
yourselves: hitherto I have concealed it, but now I will tell the truth. The fact is that I ...
corrupted them all!

Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could come to pass I do not know, but I
remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of
the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like
a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy and
sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of
falsehood. Oh, at first perhaps it began innocently, with a jest, coquetry, with amorous play,
perhaps indeed with a germ, but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts and
pleased them. Then sensuality was soon begotten, sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy—
cruelty.... Oh, I don't know, I don't remember; but soon, very soon the first blood was shed.
They marvelled and were horrified, and began to be split up and divided. They formed into
unions, but it was against one another. Reproaches, upbraidings followed. They came to
know shame, and shame brought them to virtue. The conception of honour sprang up, and
every union began waving its flags. They began torturing animals, and the animals withdrew
from them into the forests and became hostile to them. They began to struggle for separation,
for isolation, for individuality, for mine and thine. They began to talk in different languages.
They became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said

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that truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science appeared. As they became
wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas.
As they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to
observe it, and to ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly remembered what
they had lost, in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent. They
even laughed at the possibility of this happiness in the past, and called it a dream. They could
not even imagine it in definite form and shape, but, strange and wonderful to relate, though
they lost all faith in their past happiness and called it a legend, they so longed to be happy and
innocent once more that they succumbed to this desire like children, made an idol of it, set up
temples and worshipped their own idea, their own desire; though at the same time they fully
believed that it was unattainable and could not be realised, yet they bowed down to it and
adored it with tears! Nevertheless, if it could have happened that they had returned to the
innocent and happy condition which they had lost, and if some one had shown it to them
again and had asked them whether they wanted to go back to it, they would certainly have
refused. They answered me:
"We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and weep over it, we grieve over it; we
torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that merciful Judge Who will judge us and
whose Name we know not. But we have science, and by means of it we shall find the truth
and we shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of
life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the
knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness."
That is what they said, and after saying such things every one began to love himself better
than any one else, and indeed they could not do otherwise. All became so jealous of the rights
of their own personality that they did their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others,
and made that the chief thing in their lives. Slavery followed, even voluntary slavery; the
weak eagerly submitted to the strong, on condition that the latter aided them to subdue the
still weaker. Then there were saints who came to these people, weeping, and talked to them
of their pride, of their loss of harmony and due proportion, of their loss of shame. They were
laughed at or pelted with stones. Holy blood was shed on the threshold of the temples. Then
there arose men who began to think how to bring all people together again, so that everybody,
while still loving himself best of all, might not interfere with others, and all might live
together in something like a harmonious society. Regular wars sprang up over this idea. All
the combatants at the same time firmly believed that science, wisdom and the instinct of self-
preservation would force men at last to unite into a harmonious and rational society; and so,
meanwhile, to hasten matters, "the wise" endeavoured to exterminate as rapidly as possible
all who were "not wise" and did not understand their idea, that the latter might not hinder its
triumph. But the instinct of self-preservation grew rapidly weaker; there arose men, haughty
and sensual, who demanded all or nothing. In order to obtain everything they resorted to
crime, and if they did not succeed—to suicide. There arose religions with a cult of non-
existence and self-destruction for the sake of the everlasting peace of annihilation. At last
these people grew weary of their meaningless toil, and signs of suffering came into their
faces, and then they proclaimed that suffering was a beauty, for in suffering alone was there
meaning. They glorified suffering in their songs. I moved about among them, wringing my
hands and weeping over them, but I loved them perhaps more than in old days when there
was no suffering in their faces and when they were innocent and so lovely. I loved the earth
they had polluted even more than when it had been a paradise, if only because sorrow had
come to it. Alas! I always loved sorrow and tribulation, but only for myself, for myself; but I
wept over them, pitying them. I stretched out my hands to them in despair, blaming, cursing
and despising myself. I told them that all this was my doing, mine alone; that it was I had

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brought them corruption, contamination and falsity. I besought them to crucify me, I taught
them how to make a cross. I could not kill myself, I had not the strength, but I wanted to
suffer at their hands. I yearned for suffering, I longed that my blood should be drained to the
last drop in these agonies. But they only laughed at me, and began at last to look upon me as
crazy. They justified me, they declared that they had only got what they wanted themselves,
and that all that now was could not have been otherwise. At last they declared to me that I
was becoming dangerous and that they should lock me up in a madhouse if I did not hold my
tongue. Then such grief took possession of my soul that my heart was wrung, and I felt as
though I were dying; and then ... then I awoke.

It was morning, that is, it was not yet daylight, but about six o'clock. I woke up in the same
arm-chair; my candle had burnt out; every one was asleep in the captain's room, and there
was a stillness all round, rare in our flat. First of all I leapt up in great amazement: nothing
like this had ever happened to me before, not even in the most trivial detail; I had never, for
instance, fallen asleep like this in my arm-chair. While I was standing and coming to myself I
suddenly caught sight of my revolver lying loaded, ready—but instantly I thrust it away! Oh,
now, life, life! I lifted up my hands and called upon eternal truth, not with words but with
tears; ecstasy, immeasurable ecstasy flooded my soul. Yes, life and spreading the good
tidings! Oh, I at that moment resolved to spread the tidings, and resolved it, of course, for my
whole life. I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings—of what? Of the truth, for I
have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.
And since then I have been preaching! Moreover I love all those who laugh at me more than
any of the rest. Why that is so I do not know and cannot explain, but so be it. I am told that I
am vague and confused, and if I am vague and confused now, what shall I be later on? It is
true indeed: I am vague and confused, and perhaps as time goes on I shall be more so. And of
course I shall make many blunders before I find out how to preach, that is, find out what
words to say, what things to do, for it is a very difficult task. I see all that as clear as daylight,
but, listen, who does not make mistakes? And yet, you know, all are making for the same
goal, all are striving in the same direction anyway, from the sage to the lowest robber, only
by different roads. It is an old truth, but this is what is new: I cannot go far wrong. For I have
seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing
the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of
mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I
have seen the truth—it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it,
and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that
I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall
make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long:
the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me.
Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand
years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a
mistake—that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and
preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise—I don't know, because I do not
know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief
words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I
won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I
saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination.

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Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And
is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass
(that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one
hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself,
that's the great thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted—you will find out at once
how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times—
but it hasnot formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the
knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness—that is what one must contend
against. And I shall. If only every one wants it, it can all be arranged at once.

And I tracked out that little girl ... and I shall go on and on!

THE END

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