XXX
“Well [nu!],” thinks the sapient reader, “now the main character is to be Rakhmétof; and he will put everybody into his belt, and Viéra Pavlovna will fall in love with him; and soon the same story will begin with Kirsánof as happened to Lopukhóf.”
There will be nothing of the sort, O sapient reader. Rakhmétof will spend the evening, will speak with Viéra Pavlovna. I shall not hide one word of their conversation from thee, and thou shalt quickly see, that if I did not want to share this conversation with thee, it might have been very easy for me to hide it from thee, and the current of my narration would not have been altered in the least if I had kept silent; and I tell thee in advance, that after Rakhmétof speaks with Viéra Pavlovna, he will leave the house, and then he will disappear forever from this narrative; and that he will be neither the main nor a subordinate, or any character whatsoever in my novel. Then why was he brought into the novel at all, and described so minutely? Just try, sapient reader, if thou canst guess why. But this will be told thee in the following pages, immediately after Rakhmétof’s conversation with Viéra Pavlovna. As soon as he disappears, I will tell thee at the end of the chapter. Now just try to guess what will be said there; it is not very hard to guess if thou hast the least conception of the artistic, of which thou art so fond of talking. But how canst thou? Nu! I will tell thee more than half of the answer. Rakhmétof was brought in so as to fulfil the principal, the most radical demand of what is artistic; exclusively to give satisfaction to it. Well, well! Guess now. Try to guess this very minute what is that demand. What was it needful to do for its satisfaction? and how was it satisfied by showing thee Rakhmétof’s figure, which has no influence or part in the current of this narrative? Well (nu-ko), guess! The lady reader and the simple reader, who do not talk about the artistic, they understand. But do try to guess, thou wiseling! For this reason plenty of time is given thee, and for this purpose a long and thick dash is placed between the lines. Dost thou see how much pains I take on thy account? Stop for a moment, and just think if thou canst not guess!
Mrs. Mertsálova came, shed a few tears, offered some consolation, and said it would give her pleasure to take charge of the sewing shop, but she did not know as she had the ability; and again she shed a few tears and offered some more consolation, while helping to look over the things. Rakhmétof, after asking the servant at the next neighbor’s to go to the bakery, put up the samovar, set it on the table, and they began to drink their tea. Rakhmétof sat for half an hour with the ladies, drank half a dozen glasses of tea, and, together with them, he emptied half of a huge pitcher of cream and ate a terrible quantity of baked things, besides two simple loaves of white bread, which served as the foundation for the rest.
“I have a right to take this delectation, because I sacrificed twelve hours.”
He took his enjoyment, listened as the ladies tormented themselves to death, three times expressed his opinion that it was “nonsense”; not the fact that the ladies were tormenting themselves to death, but suicide for any cause whatsoever, except too painful and incurable physical disease, or the presentiment of some painful and unavoidable death; for instance, being broken upon the wheel. He expressed this opinion in a few but strong words; according to his custom, he helped himself to a sixth glass of tea, poured the remainder of the cream into it, took what was left of the baked things—the ladies had already long ago finished with their tea—bowed, and went with these materials into the library again, to enjoy the finale of his material enjoyment, almost to make a sybarite of himself, to place himself on the sofa, on which everybody was free to take a nap, but which was for him something in the nature of genuine Capuan luxury.
“I have earned my right to this delectation, because I have sacrificed twelve or fourteen hours’ time.”
After he had finished his material enjoyment, he took up his intellectual feast again, the reading of the Commentary of the Apocalypse. At nine o’clock the police tchinovnik came to tell the suicide’s wife about the matter, which was now entirely cleared up. Rakhmétof told him that the widow knew all about it, and there was no need of her hearing anything more. The tchinovnik was very glad that he had escaped such a tormenting scene. Then Masha and Rachel put in appearance. They began to examine the things; Rachel found that everything, all told—except the good shuba, which she advised her not to sell, because in three months she would have to get a new one, and to this Viéra Pavlovna consented; that all the rest was worth four hundred and fifty rubles; and really she could not do better than that, even according to Mrs. Mertsálova’s inward conviction. Thus about ten o’clock, the commercial operation was brought to an end. Rachel paid down two hundred rubles; she had no more; the balance she would send in three days to Mertsálova: so she took the things and went off. Mertsálova stayed for an hour longer, and then it was time for her to go home and nurse her baby; and she went, saying that she would come on the next day to accompany her to the railroad station.
After Mertsálova went away, Rakhmétof closed Newton’s Commentary on the Apocalypse, put it carefully in its place, and sent Masha to ask Viéra Pavlovna if he might see her. He came in with his usual tranquillity and calmness.
“Viéra Pavlovna, I can now, to a great degree, console you. Now it is possible; before it was impossible. I will tell you in advance that the general result of my visit will be consoling to you; you know that I do not speak vain words, therefore, and in advance, you must become calm. I am going to lay the matter before you in due order: I told you that I met Aleksandr Matvéitch, and that I know all about it. This is really true; I really saw Aleksandr Matvéitch, and I really know everything. But I did not say that I knew all from him, and I could not have said so, because I do not know all from him; because, to tell the truth, I know all that I know, not from him, but from Dmitri Sergéitch, who spent two hours with me. I was told that he was coming to see me, and so I stayed at home; he was with me for two hours, and even longer, after he had written the little note which caused you so much pain, and he asked—”
“You heard what he intended to do, and you did not stop him?”
“I asked you to be calm, because the result of my call will be comforting to you. No; I did not stop him, because his decision was soundly based, as you yourself will acknowledge. I will begin again: he asked me to spend this evening with you, because he knew that you would be grieved, and he gave me a message to you. He naturally chose me to do this, because he knew me as a man who fulfils messages with minute exactness, if I undertake it; and cannot be turned aside by any feeling or by any requests, from the exact fulfilment of the obligation undertaken. He foresaw that you would implore anyone to violate his will, and he knew that I, not being moved by your prayers, would fulfil it, and I shall fulfil it; and so I beg of you in advance, do not ask me to yield in any degree from what I say. His commission was as follows: he, while going away, in order to ‘leave these scenes—’ ”
“Bozhe moï! what has he done? How could it be that you did not stop him?”
“Just get the meaning of his expression, ‘to leave these scenes,’ and do not condemn me prematurely. He used that expression in the note which you received; didn’t he? and we must use this very same expression, because it is very strikingly chosen.”
Viéra Pavlovna’s eyes began to show some lack of comprehension; her whole face clearly implied the thought, “I do not know what he means! what am I to think about this?”
O Rakhmétof! with all the apparent absurdity of his circumstantial manner of laying the matter before her, was a master, a great master, in the art of management! He was a great psychologist; he knew and could fulfil the laws of gradual preparation.
“And so, while going away, in order, as he rightly expressed it, ‘to leave these scenes,’ he left in my hands a note for you.”
Viéra Pavlovna jumped up. “Where is it? Let me have it! and how could you sit a whole day without giving it to me?”
“I could, because I saw the necessity. Very soon you will appreciate my reasons; they are well founded. Before all, I want to explain to you the expression which I used when I began, ‘that the result will be comforting to you.’ I did not mean that this note would conduce to your comfort; for two reasons, the first of which is that the receipt of the note would not have been sufficiently comforting to deserve the name of consolation; isn’t that true? For consolation something more is required. And so the consolation must be in the very contents of the note.”
Viéra Pavlovna again jumped up.
“Be calm; I cannot say that you are in the wrong. Having mentioned to you the contents of the note, I shall ask you to listen to the second reason why I could not mean by the words ‘comforting result’ the mere act of your receiving the note, but that I had to mean its contents. These contents, the character of which we have insinuated, are so important that I can only show it to you, but I cannot give it to you. You may read it, but you cannot keep it.”
“What! You are not going to give it to me?”
“No! For this very reason I was chosen! for anyone else in my place would have given it to you. It cannot remain in your hands, because, from the extraordinary importance of its contents, which we have mentioned, it must not remain in anyone’s hands. But you would certainly want to keep it if I were to give it to you. Therefore, rather than be compelled to take it away from you by main force, I shall not give it to you, but I shall only show it to you. But I shall only show it to you when you have sat down, put your hands on your knees, and given me your promise not to lift them.”
If there had been any stranger there, no matter with what a sentimental heart he had been gifted, he could not have helped laughing over the solemnity of all this procedure, and especially over the ceremonious ceremony of its final scene. It was ridiculous without doubt. But how good it would be for all nerves if, while imparting cruel tidings, you were able to preserve the tenth part of the ceremony of preparation which Rakhmétof did.
But Viéra Pavlovna, not being a stranger, of course could only feel the trying element of this torturing slowness, and she herself presented a figure at which the observer would have found no less cause for amusement, when, sitting down quickly, obediently folding her hands, and with the most ludicrous voice, that is, with a voice of poignant impatience, she cried out, “I take my oath!”
Rakhmétof laid on the table a sheet of writing paper, on which were written ten or twelve lines.
Viéra Pavlovna had hardly cast her eyes upon them when, at the very same instant, flushing, forgetting all her oaths, she jumped up; like a lightning-flash her hand grasped for the note, but the note was already far in Rakhmétof’s uplifted hand.
“I foresaw this, and therefore, if you were able to notice, as you may have noticed, I did not take my hand entirely from the note. The very same way I shall keep hold of this sheet by the corner so long as it lies on the table. Therefore, all your attempts to grab it will be in vain.”
Viéra Pavlovna sat down again and folded her hands. Again Rakhmétof put the note before her eyes. She read it over twenty times in excitement. Rakhmétof stood very patiently behind her chair, keeping in his hand the corner of the sheet. Thus passed a quarter of an hour. Finally Viéra Pavlovna lifted her hand very quietly, evidently without any thieving intention, and covered her eyes with it: “How kind! how kind!” she exclaimed.
“I do not entirely share your opinion, and why, we shall see later on. This is not the fulfilment of his commission, but only the expression of my opinion, which I expressed also to him when we met last. His commission consisted in my showing you this note and then burning it up. Have you seen it as long as you want?”
“I want to see it more, more!”
Again she folded her hands; again he put down the note, and with patience as before he again stood a good quarter of an hour. Again she hid her face in her hands, and kept uttering, “Oh, how kind! how kind!”
“So far as you could learn this note by heart, you have done so. If you were in a calm state of mind you would not only have known it by heart, but the form of every letter would forever be engraved in your memory, so long and attentively you have been looking at it; but by such excitement as you are in, the laws of remembrance are violated, and your memory may fail you. Foreseeing this emergency, I made a copy of this note; whenever you want you can always see this copy, which I shall retain. Sometime I may even see the possibility of giving it to you. But now, I suppose, the original can be burned up, and then my errand will be ended.”
“Show it to me again!”
Once more he laid the note down. This time Viéra Pavlovna kept continually lifting her eyes from the paper: it was evident that she was learning herself to see if she knew it perfectly. In a few minutes she sighed and ceased to lift her eyes from the note.
“Now, I see you have already seen it long enough. It is already twelve o’clock, and I want to give you the benefit of my thoughts about this affair, because I consider it useful for you to learn my opinion about it. Are you willing?”
“Yes.”
At that very moment the note was burning in the flame of the candle.
“Akh!” cried Viéra Pavlovna; “I did not mean that! why did you?”
“Yes, you only said that you were willing to listen to me. But it does not make any difference now. It was necessary to burn it up some time.” When he had said this, Rakhmétof sat down. “And besides, there is a copy of the note left. Now, Viéra Pavlovna, I am going to express my judgment on this whole matter. I am going to begin with you. You are going away. Why?”
“Because it would be very hard for me to stay here. The sight of places which would remind me of the past would drive me crazy!”
“Yes, it is a very disagreeable feeling. But would it be any easier in another place? For very few it is easy! And meantime, what have you done? For the sake of getting some trifling comfort for yourself, you have left to the mercy of chance the fate of fifty people whose lives depend upon you. Is that good?”
What had become of the melancholy solemnity of Rakhmétof’s tone? He spoke lively, easily, simply, enthusiastically.
“Yes; but I was going to ask Mertsálova.”
“ ’Tis not the same thing. You don’t know whether she would be capable of taking your place in the shop; for her ability in regard to this has never yet been tried. But here a grade of ability is demanded which it is very hard to find. There are ten chances to one that you will not find anybody to take your place, and that your withdrawal will affect the shop injuriously. Is that good? You are going to subject to certain, almost unavoidable, injury the interests of fifty people; and for what? For a slight comfort to yourself. Is that good? What a tender solicitude for a trifling alleviation of your pain, and what heartlessness for the fate of others! What do you think of this part of your action?”
“But why didn’t you stop me?”
“You would not have listened. And then, I knew that you would soon come back. Consequently the matter would not amount to anything important. Do you plead guilty?”
“Absolutely,” said Viéra Pavlovna, partly jesting, but partly, and for the most part, in serious earnest.
“Now, this is only one part of your fault. All around you still greater will be found. But since you confess, you shall be rewarded by help towards correcting the other fault, which it is possible still to correct. Are you calm now, Viéra Pavlovna?”
“Yes, almost.”
“All right. What do you think? is Masha asleep? Do you need her now for anything?”
“Of course not.”
“But now you are calm; consequently, you might remember that you ought to tell her to go to bed, for it is one o’clock, and she gets up early in the morning. Who ought to have remembered about this, you or I? I am going to tell her to go to bed. And here, by the way, for your new confession—for you are sorry for your fault now—there shall be a new recompense. I am going to bring whatever I can find there for your supper. You have not had any dinner today, have you? and now I think you must be hungry.”
“Yes, I am; I see that I am, now that you have reminded me of it,” said Viéra Pavlovna, laughing heartily.
Rakhmétof brought the cold victuals which were left over from his dinner. Masha showed him the cheese, and a jar of mushrooms. The lunch was very excellent. He set the table for her, and did everything himself.
“Do you see, Rakhmétof, how ravenously I am eating? That shows that I was hungry; and I had not felt it before, and I had forgotten about myself, and not about Masha alone. So you see I am not such an ill-conditioned criminal as you thought.”
“Neither am I such a miracle for taking care of others. When I remembered your appetite for you, I myself wanted something to eat; I did not have much for dinner. I suppose I ate enough to fill anybody else up to the eyes, for a dinner and a half; but you know how much I eat—enough for two muzhiks.”
“Akh! Rakhmétof, you were a good angel, and not for my appetite alone. But why did you sit there all day, and not show me that note? Why did you torment me so long?”
“The reason was a very sensible one. It was necessary for others to see in what distress you were, so that the news about your terrible trouble should be carried around, so as to confirm the fact which caused you the trouble. You would not want to make believe. Yes, and it is impossible to make anybody’s nature different from what it is; nature acts more vigorously. Now, there are three ways by which the fact will be confirmed—Masha, Mertsálova, and Rachel. Mertsálova is a particularly important source. She will be enough to take the news to all your friends. I was very glad that you thought of sending for her.”
“How shrewd you are, Rakhmétof!”
“Yes, that was not a bad thought—to wait till it was night; but it was not my thought. That was Dmitri Sergéitch’s own idea.”
“How kind he was!”
Viéra Pavlovna sighed; but, to tell the truth, she sighed not from grief, but from gratefulness.
“Eh! Viéra Pavlovna, we shall yet pick him to pieces. Lately he has thought of things very cleverly, and acted very well. But we shall find little faults in him, and very big ones, too.”
“Don’t dare to speak so about him, Rakhmétof! I shall get angry.”
“Do you mutiny? There’s a punishment for this. Shall I keep on executing you? for the list of your crimes has only begun.”
“Execute me! execute me, Rakhmétof!”
“For your humility, a reward. Humility is always rewarded. You must certainly have a bottle of wine. It will not be bad for you to drink some. Where shall I find it? on the sideboard or in the cupboard?”
“On the sideboard.”
On the sideboard he found a bottle of sherry. Rakhmétof compelled Viéra Pavlovna to drink two glasses, and he himself lighted a cigar.
“How sorry I am that I cannot drink three or four glasses; I should like it.”
“Do you really like it, Rakhmétof?”
“I envy you, Viéra Pavlovna, I envy you,” said he, laughing; “man is weak.”
“Are you weak? Thank God! But, Rakhmétof, you surprise me. You are not at all like what I supposed you were. Why are you always such a gloomy monster? But now you are a lovely, jovial man.”
“Viéra Pavlovna, I am now fulfilling a pleasant duty; so why should I not be happy? But this is a rare occasion. As a general rule, you see things about you that are not happy. How can you help being a gloomy monster? Only, Viéra Pavlovna, as you happen to see me in a mood such as I would like to be in all the time, and since there is such frankness between us, let it be a secret that I am not by my own will a gloomy monster. It is easier for me to fulfil my duty when I am not noticed, because I myself would like to fulfil my duty and still be happy in life. Now people do not try to entertain me any more, and I do not have to waste my time by refusing invitations. But that you may the more easily imagine me nothing else than a gloomy monster, it will be necessary to continue the inquisition of your crimes.”
“But why do you want to find more? You have already found two: heartlessness toward Masha and heartlessness towards the shop; I confess it.”
“Indifference to Masha is only a error, not a great crime. Masha has not been lost by rubbing her sleepy eyes an hour longer; on the contrary, she did it with the pleasant consciousness of fulfilling her duty; but for the shop, I really want to torture you.”
“Yes, but you have already tortured me.”
“Not entirely; I want to finish it. How could you dare to give it out at the risk of its destruction?”
“But I have confessed already that I have not given out; Mertsálof promised to take my place.”
“We have already said that your intention of putting her in your place was not a sufficient excuse, but by this remark you have only pleaded guilty to a new crime.” Rakhmétof again gradually assumed a serious, though not a gloomy, tone. “You say that she takes your place; is that decided?”
“Yes,” said Viéra Pavlovna, without her former jocular tone, anticipating that something really bad might result from this.
“Just look here. By whom was the matter decided? by you and by her, without any inquiry whether those fifty people would consent to the change or not, or whether they wanted somebody else, or might not find somebody else better? This is despotism, Viéra Pavlovna. So here are two great crimes on your part: heartlessness and despotism! but the third one is still more cruel. The establishment which, to a greater or less degree, corresponded with sound ideas of managing life, which should serve as a more or less important corroboration of their practicability—but practical proofs are so few, and every one of them is so valuable—this establishment you have subjected to the risk of going to destruction, of bringing it from a practical proof into an affidavit of impracticability; a refutation of your convictions, a means of showing the uselessness of ideas, which ought to be proved of real benefit to humanity. You have afforded the upholders of darkness and wickedness an argument against your holy principles. Now I am not speaking at all about the fact that you are going to injure the welfare of fifty people. What does fifty people mean? You have injured the chances of humanity; you have proved to be a traitor against progress. This, Viéra Pavlovna, in the language of the Church, is called a sin against the Holy Ghost—a sin about which is said that any other sin may be forgiven to a person, but this, never, never. Isn’t it true that you are a criminal? But it is well that everything has ended as it has, and that your sins were committed only in your imagination; but, however, you are really blushing, Viéra Pavlovna. Good! I will give you some consolation. If you were not suffering so keenly, you would not have committed such horrible crimes, even in your imagination. Consequently the real criminal in things is the one who has caused you so much trouble; but you keep repeating, ‘How kind he was! how kind he was!’ ”
“How do you make out that he is to blame for my suffering?”
“Who else? In regard to all this he has done well; I do not deny it; but why did it happen? Why all this disturbance? Nothing of the sort should have happened!”
“No, I oughtn’t to have had this feeling, but I didn’t ask for it; I did my best to overcome it.”
“That sounds well, ‘ought not to have had it’! The real cause of your sin you have not perceived; and, for what you are not to blame at all, you reproach yourself. This feeling was bound infallibly to arise as soon as your nature and Dmitri Sergéitch’s came into contact; if not one way, then another, it would have been developed anyhow; for the root of the feeling does not lie in the fact that you love another; that is a consequence: the root of the feeling is the dissatisfaction with your former relations. In what form was this dissatisfaction bound to develop? If both you and he, or either one of you, had been people of no intelligence, not refined or even bad, it would have been developed in its usual form—a quarrel between husband and wife. You would have fought like cats and dogs, if both of you had been bad; or if one of you had been bad, one would have eaten the other up, and the other would have been eaten. At all events, there would have been a domestic galleys, such as we are pleased to see almost universally in married life; and this, of course, would not have prevented the development of love for another; but the main thing would be the galleys, and the eating each other up. Your dissatisfaction could not have taken such a form, because both of you were enlightened people, and therefore it was developed in only its easiest, gentlest, and least offensive form—love towards another. Consequently there is no use in talking about love to another; that is not the main trouble at all. The essence of the matter lies in your dissatisfaction with your former position, and the cause of this dissatisfaction was the discordance of your characters. Both of you were good people, but after your character became mature, Viéra Pavlovna, and lost its childish indefiniteness, and acquired definite features, it proved that you and Dmitri Sergéitch were not very well adapted to each other. Is there anything reprehensible in either of you? Now, for example, I also am a decent man, but could you get along with me? You would hang yourself with weariness of me; how long do you suppose it would take you to come to that point?”
“A very few days,” said Viéra Pavlovna, laughing.
“He was not such a gloomy monster as I am, yet you and he are quite too little adapted to each other. Who ought to have noticed it first? Who was the older? Whose character settled sooner? Who had the more experience in life? He ought to have foreseen it, and have prepared your mind so that you would not get alarmed or worry; but he understood it only when the feeling, which he ought to have expected and did not expect, was developed; but when the feeling resulting from the other feeling developed, then he perceived it. Why had he not foreseen and noticed it? Was he stupid? He had enough sense for that. No; it was from inattention, from carelessness. He neglected his duties toward you, Viéra Pavlovna; that is the case; and you are declaring that he was kind, that he loved you.” Rakhmétof, gradually becoming excited, spoke with feeling; but Viéra Pavlovna stopped him.
“I must not listen to you, Rakhmétof,” she said, in a tone of extreme dissatisfaction. “You are pouring reproaches upon a man to whom I am endlessly indebted.”
“No, Viéra Pavlovna; if there had been no necessity of my saying that, I should not have said it. Did I notice it today only for the first time? Could I have said it if I had seen it only today for the first time? You know that it is impossible to avoid a conversation with me, if I think a conversation is necessary. Indeed, I could have told you this long ago, but I held my peace. So if I speak now, it is because it is necessary to speak. I do not say anything before it is necessary. You saw how I kept the note ten hours in my pocket, though it was pitiful to look at you; but it was necessary not to speak, and I did not speak. Consequently, if I speak now, it shows that I thought long ago about Dmitri Sergéitch’s relations towards you; thus, of course, it was necessary to speak about them.”
“No, I do not want to listen,” said Viéra Pavlovna, greatly stirred. “I ask you to be silent, Rakhmétof. I beg of you to go. I am very much obliged to you for wasting an evening on my account, but I beg you to leave me.”
“Are you in earnest?”
“In earnest.”
“Very well,” he said laughing. “It’s all right, Viéra Pavlovna, but you cannot get rid of me so easily; I foresaw that this would happen and I provided for it. The little note which I burned up, he wrote of his own accord; but this he wrote according to my request; this I can leave in your hands because it is not a proof. Here it is.”
Rakhmétof gave Viéra Pavlovna this note:—
“Twenty-third of July; two o’clock in the morning. Dear friend Viérotchka, listen to everything that Rakhmétof will have to say to you. I do not know what he wants to tell you; I have not authorized him to say anything; he has not given me the least hint that he wants to speak to you, but I know that he never says anything but what he thinks is necessary. Yours, D. L.”
Viéra Pavlovna kissed this note, God knows how many times.
“Why didn’t you let me have it before. You probably have something else of his?”
“No, I have nothing more, because nothing more was necessary. Why didn’t I let you have it? Until there was necessity, there was no need of giving it to you.”
“Bozhe moï! Why so? For the sake of my own pleasure in having some lines from him, now that he has gone from me!”
“Well, if it was only for that reason, nu, that was not very important.” He smiled.
“Akh, Rakhmétof, you want to tease me!”
“So this note is going to serve as another quarrel between us, is it?” he said, laughing again. “If that is the case, I shall take it away from you and burn it up, for you know that it is said about such people as you and me, that we consider nothing holy, for we are capable of all murderous deeds of violence. But how is it? may I continue?”
They both grew a little more subdued; she, on account of having seen the note; he, because he had been sitting a few minutes in silence while she was kissing it.
“Yes; I am obliged to listen.”
“He did not notice that which he ought to have noticed,” continued Rakhmétof, in a calm tone of voice, “and this brought about bad consequences. But if he could not be blamed for not having noticed it, still he could not be excused for it either. Let us suppose that he did not know that this was bound unavoidably to arise from the very nature of the given relations between your character and his, still he ought, at all events, to have given you some preparation for something of the kind, simply as a thing that might happen, which is not desirable and which it is not necessary to expect, but which still may arise; no one can guarantee what occurrences the future may bring. This axiom, that there are a good many contingencies, he certainly knew. How did he leave you in this state of mind, that when this happened you were not prepared for it? The very fact that he did not foresee it resulted only from neglectfulness which was insulting to you, but in itself is a matter of no importance, not a bad one, not a good one. That he did not prepare you at all for any such event came about from a very, very bad motive. Of course he acted unconsciously, but a man’s nature is betrayed in those things which are done unconsciously. To prepare you for it would have been contradictory to his interests. But if you had been prepared, your resistance to the feeling which was contradictory to his interests would have been less violent. There was always such a strong feeling in you that the most energetic resistance on your part was useless, but it is a matter of mere chance that the feeling appealed in such a strength. If it had been caused by a man less deserving, but still a decent man, it would have been weaker. Such strong feelings, against which all struggles are useless, are rare exceptions. Many more are the chances for the appearance of feelings which it is possible to conquer, if the strength of the resistance is not weakened entirely. Now for these most likely chances he did not want to weaken your powers of resistance. And this is the motive that he had in leaving you unprepared and subjecting you to so much suffering. How does this strike you?”
“It is not true, Rakhmétof. He has never hidden from me any of his thoughts. His convictions were as well known to me as they were to you.”
“Of course, Viéra Pavlovna, to hide them would have been too much. To interfere with the development of your convictions, so as to gratify his own convictions, and for this reason to make believe think differently from what he really thinks—this would have been an absolutely dishonorable thing. Such a man you could never love. Did I call him a bad man? He was a very good man; in what respect was he not good? Yes, I shall praise him to your heart’s content. I only say that before this matter arose: after it arose, he behaved towards you very nobly; but before it arose, he acted unkindly towards you. Why did you torment yourself so? He said—and then there was no need of saying it, because it was self-evident—that you did it, so that you might not grieve him. How could this thought have occurred to you, that this would greatly grieve him? You ought not to have had such an idea. What kind of grief was that? It was stupid. What kind of jealousy is that?”
“Don’t you recognize such a thing as jealousy, Rakhmétof?”
“In an intelligent person it has no right to exist. It is a mutilated feeling, it is a false feeling, a contemptible feeling; it is the result of that order of things, according to which I don’t allow anybody to wear my underclothes, smoke my meerschaum; this is the result of viewing a person as personal property, as a chattel.”
“But, Rakhmétof, if jealousy should not be acknowledged, then there would be a horrible state of things.”
“For him who feels it there are horrible things, but for the one who does not feel it there is nothing horrible, or even important.”
“But you are advocating an absolute immorality, Rakhmétof.”
“Does it seem to you so, after living with him four years? In this respect he is to blame. How often do you dine every day? Once? Would anybody be offended if you dined twice? Of course not. Then why don’t you do so? Is it because you are afraid of offending someone? In all probability, it is simply because you do not need it, because you do not care to. But a dinner is an agreeable thing. But reason, and principally the stomach, says, that one dinner is agreeable and the second may be disagreeable. But if you have a fancy or a morbid desire to dine twice a day, would you have been kept from it by your fear of offending somebody? No; if anyone were offended, or forbade you to do it, you would only do it secretly; you would begin to eat the dishes in a bad style, you would soil your hands by your hurried seizing of the food, you would soil your dress by hiding victuals in your pockets, and that’s all. The question here has nothing whatsoever to do with morality or immorality, but only whether the contraband is a good thing. Who has the idea that jealousy is a feeling worthy of respect and mercy, that the feeling says, ‘Akh! when I do this, I shall offend him’; and whom does it compel to suffer vainly in the strife? Only a few of the most noble, for whom it is impossible to fear that their nature would draw them into immorality. For the rest are not restrained by this nonsense, but are simply driven to be cunning, deceitful; that is, it makes them really bad. That is all. Is this not well known to you?”
“Of course it is.”
“Now, how, henceforth, can you find any moral advantage in jealousy?”
“Yes, but we ourselves always used to speak together in this spirit.”
“Probably not absolutely in this sense of the word, or you spoke words, but did not believe each other, when you heard these words on each other’s tongue; and of course you really did not believe, because you constantly heard about other subjects, and maybe this very subject, words in a different sense; else why should you have suffered so long?—God knows how long! And for what reason? and from what nonsense what a great rumpus! How much trouble for all three, and particularly for you, Viéra Pavlovna! Meantime, you all three might have lived together very calmly, just as you did afterwards for a year; or, somehow, you might have arranged to move into one apartment, or to have arranged it otherwise, however it might happen, only without the least trouble. In accordance with your former style, to drink tea all three together, and, as before, to go to the opera all three together. Why, then, this suffering? Why this catastrophe? All this because there was left in your mind, thanks to his bad method of preparing you for it, the thought, ‘I am killing him,’ which was entirely a fancy. Yes; he caused you entirely too much worriment.”
“No, Rakhmétof; you are speaking terrible things.”
“Again ‘terrible things’! Terrible to me are the awful sufferings from trifles and unnecessary catastrophes.”
“And so, then, according to your view, all our history is a stupid melodrama.”
“Yes; an entirely unnecessary melodrama, with an entirely unnecessary tragedy; and for the fact that, instead of a simple conversation of the calmest tenor, arose an exciting melodrama, Dmitri Sergéitch is to blame. His honest style of action in regard to it is hardly sufficient for covering his fault in not averting this melodrama, by preparing you and himself for very calm views in regard to all this, as a mere piece of nonsense, for which it is not worth while to drink one glass of tea more, or not to finish your glass of tea. He was very much to blame. Nu, but he has paid dearly enough for it. Drink one more glass of sherry, and go to bed. I have now reached the final purpose of my call. It is already three o’clock. If no one wakes you, you will sleep very long; and I told Masha not to wake you before half-past ten, so that tomorrow you will hardly have time enough to drink your tea; you will have to hurry to the railroad station. If you do not have time to put away all the things, it will not make any difference, for you will either return soon, or they will send them to you. What do you think is best to be done? Shall Aleksandr Matvéitch go after you, or will you return by yourself? It would be hard for you and Masha now, for it would not do for her to notice that you are entirely calm. And how could she notice it during the half an hour of hasty preparations? Mertsálova would be a great deal worse. But I will go to see her early in the morning, and tell her that she had better not come here, because you have not slept much, and you ought not to be wakened, but that she had better go straight to the station.”
“How much care you take for me,” said Viéra Pavlovna.
“Don’t, at least, ascribe this to him; it is of my own accord. But, except that which I reproach him for, as regards the things of the past (to his own face I told him more things, and more emphatically), except the fact that he was entirely to blame for the arising of this vain suffering, he behaved like a hero.”