The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky Read online

  “Well, sir, for the next fortnight Yemelyan was out on the spree, drinking hard all the time. Went off the rails good and proper, that is. He’d go out in the morning and come back late at night, and for the whole of that fortnight I never heard him utter a single word. I suppose he must have felt pretty low at the time, or maybe he even wanted to do himself in, one way or another. However, at last it was all over. There was no more drinking. I reckon he must have run through his money by then. At all events, there he was sitting in the window again. Sat there, if my memory serves me right, for three whole days, without uttering a word. Then all of a sudden I saw that he was crying. You see, sir, one minute he sat there as if nothing was wrong, and the next minute he was crying. And, Lord, how that man did cry! Tears streamed in a flood out of his eyes, while he seemed to be unaware of them, just like water pouring out of a well. Well, sir, it’s a terrible thing to see a man, and, particularly, an old man like Yemelyan, crying from sorrow and despair.

  “ ‘What’s the matter, Yemelyan?’ I says.

  “He started shaking all over. Was very startled, you see, for it was the first time that evening I had spoken to him.

  “ ‘Nothing, Astafy.…’

  “ ‘Now, look here, Yemelyan, what does it matter? Let the whole thing go hang, so far as I’m concerned. What are you sitting like a broody hen for?’

  “Felt very sorry for him, I did, sir.

  “ ‘Oh, it’s nothing, Astafy. It isn’t because of that at all. I’ve been thinking—er—I’d like to get some work, Astafy.’

  “ ‘What sort of work, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘Oh, any sort of work. Maybe I could find a job, same as I had before. I’ve already been to ask Fedossey Ivanovich.… I don’t want to be a burden to you, Astafy. Maybe when I find a job I’ll pay it all back and reward you for all your trouble.’

  “ ‘Don’t talk such nonsense, Yemelyan. Suppose you did something you didn’t ought to—what does it matter? To hell with it! Let’s go on as we used to!’

  “ ‘No, Astafy. I can see you’re still—er—harping on it, but I told you I never took your breeches.’

  “ ‘Well, have it your own way. I don’t mind, I’m sure.’

  “ ‘No, Astafy, I can see I can’t go on living with you. I’m sorry, Astafy, but I shall have to go.’

  “ ‘But, bless my soul,’ I says, ‘who’s been offending you, Yemelyan? Who’s driving you out of the house? You don’t mean to say I’m doing it, do you?’

  “ ‘No, Astafy, I can’t possibly stay with you now. I’d better be going.’

  “You see, sir, the man was too cut up, kept harping on the same thing. And sure enough, he gets up and starts pulling his old coat over his shoulders.

  “ ‘But where are you off to, Yemelyan? Be sensible, man. What are you doing? Where will you go?’

  “ ‘Goodbye, Astafy. Don’t try to stop me (here he began whimpering again). I think it’s time I got out of your way. You’re no longer the same.’

  “ ‘How do you mean I’m no longer the same? Of course I am the same! Mark my words, Yemelyan, you’ll perish like a helpless child by yourself.’

  “ ‘No, Astafy, you’re not the same,’ he says. ‘Every time you go out now you lock up your chest, and I can’t help crying when I see you do that. No, you’d better not try to stop me, Astafy, and forgive me if I done anything to offend you while living with you.’

  “Well, sir, he did go. Left me that very day, he did. I waited the whole day for him, expecting him to be back in the evening, but no, he didn’t come. There was no sign of him next day, either, nor the day after. I got really worried, so worried that I could neither eat, drink nor sleep. The fellow had quite disarmed me! On the fourth day I went out to look for him. Went round all the pubs asking for him, but he wasn’t to be found anywhere: gone, vanished! ‘Not dead, are you, Yemelyan?’ I thought to myself. ‘Yielded up the ghost under some fence in a drunken stupor maybe and now you’re lying there like a piece of rotten wood.’ I just dragged myself home, feeling more dead than alive. Made up my mind to go out looking for him again the next day. And all the time I was cursing myself for having let such a helpless fool of a man go off by himself. Very early on the morning of the fifth day (it was a holiday) I heard the door creak. I looked up and saw Yemelyan coming in. His face was gone a bluish colour and his hair was caked in mud, as though he’d been sleeping in the street. Thin as a lath he was. He took off his tattered old coat, sat down beside me on the chest, and looked at me. I was glad to see him, I can tell you, sir, but at the same time I was more cut up than ever. For you see, sir, it’s like this: if I had ever done something wrong, I’d have died like a dog sooner than come back. Aye, it’s the gospel truth I’m telling you. But Yemelyan came back. And, naturally, it fairly broke my heart to see a man in such a terrible plight. I made much of him, talked kindly to him, comforted him.

  “ ‘Well, Yemelyan, my dear old fellow,’ I says to him, ‘I’m certainly glad to see you back. Had you been a few minutes later, I’d have gone round the pubs again looking for you. Have you had anything to eat at all?’

  “ ‘Yes, thank you, Astafy,’ he says, ‘I have.’

  “ ‘Come now, are you sure? Here, my dear fellow, here’s some cabbage soup left over from yesterday. It’s good stuff, had some beef in it. And here’s some bread and an onion. Come on, eat it,’ I says. ‘It’ll do you good.’

  “I gave it to him, and saw at once that the poor chap had not tasted food for maybe three days—he was so ravenous! Aye, it was hunger that had driven him to me. Well, I felt real sorry for the poor wretch. My heart overflowed with pity as I looked at him. ‘I think,’ I says to myself, ‘I’d better run out to the pub and get him a drink to cheer him up a little, and let’s put an end to all that sorry business. There’s not a drop of bitterness left in my heart against you, Yemelyan, old fellow!’ So I ran out to the pub and brought back some vodka. ‘Here, Yemelyan,’ I says, ‘come on, let’s have a drink, seeing it’s a holiday today! Like a drink? It’s good for your health.’

  “He held out his hand, held it out greedy-like, but stopped before taking the glass. A minute later I saw him take it, lift it to his mouth, and spill some of the drink on his sleeve. He got it as far as his lips, but put it down at once on the table.

  “ ‘Why, what’s the matter, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘No, thank you, Astafy, I—er—I don’t think I—’

  “ ‘Don’t you want a drink?’

  “ ‘No, thank you, Astafy, I—er—I—well—I’m not going to—er—drink any more, Astafy.’

  “ ‘But why not, Yemelyan? Have you given up drink altogether, or is it only today you don’t feel like having one?’

  “He made no answer. A moment later I noticed that he dropped his head wearily on his hand.

  “ ‘What’s the matter, Yemelyan? Are you ill?’

  “ ‘Yes, Astafy. Afraid so.’

  “I put him to bed at once. I could see he was in a bad way: his head was burning and he was shivering in a fever. I sat by him all day, and towards night his illness took a turn for the worse. I mixed some vegetable oil and kvas, put in some chopped-up spring onions and breadcrumbs, and gave it to him. ‘Come,’ I says, ‘have some of this, Yemelyan. It’ll make you feel better.’ But he shook his head. ‘No, thank you, Astafy,’ he says. ‘If you don’t mind I’d much rather not have any dinner today.’ I made some tea, tired my landlady out preparing all sorts of things for him, but he wouldn’t have anything. ‘Well,’ I says to myself, ‘it certainly looks bad!’ The third morning I went to fetch a doctor. There was one living quite near, Kosto-pravov his name was. I’d known him when I was in service with the Bossomyagins. Had him in myself when I was ill. The doctor came and had a look at Yemelyan. ‘He’s in a bad way, isn’t he?’ he says. ‘You could have spared yourself the trouble of calling me in. Still,’ he says, ‘I suppose I’d better give him some powders.’ Well, sir, I never gave Yemelyan the powders, for I could see that the doct
or himself hadn’t any faith in them. In the meantime the fifth day came.

  “Well, sir, there he lay dying before my eyes. I sat in the window with my work in my hands. My landlady was heating the stove. None of us spoke. My heart bled on account of that worthless drunkard, sir. I felt like I was losing my own son. I knew Yemelyan was looking at me all the time. I noticed that the poor fellow had been trying hard since morning to tell me something, but it seemed as if he couldn’t screw up his courage to do it. At last I looked up at him. Oh, the agony in the poor fellow’s eyes, sir! He’d never taken them off me for a moment; but when he saw me looking at him he dropped them quickly.

  “ ‘I say, Astafy.…’

  “ ‘What is it, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘If you took my old coat to the second-hand market, Astafy, do you think they’d give you a lot for it?’

  “ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I hardly think they’d offer me a great deal for it, Yemelyan. Three roubles, perhaps.’

  “But as a matter of fact, sir, if I had taken it, they wouldn’t have given me as much as a penny for it. Most likely they would have laughed in my face for trying to sell them a useless old rag like that. I said it just to comfort the old fellow, seeing what a simpleton he was.

  “ ‘And I was thinking, Astafy, that they might give you ten roubles for it. It’s made of fine cloth, Astafy. They’d give you more than three roubles for a coat made of fine cloth, wouldn’t they?’

  “ ‘Well, I don’t really know, Yemelyan,’ I says, ‘but if you want me to take it, then of course I’ll ask ten roubles for it to begin with.’

  “Yemelyan was silent for a minute or two; then he called me again.

  “ ‘Astafy!’

  “ ‘What is it, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘Sell my coat when I die. Don’t bury me in it. I’ll be all right without it. It’s a valuable article, Astafy. It might come in very handy for you.’

  “Well, sir, I can’t tell you how dreadful I felt when he said that! I could see that the end was near. We were silent again. So a whole hour passed. Then I looked at him. He was still staring at me, but when he met my eyes he looked down again.

  “ ‘Want a drink of water, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘Yes, thank you, Astafy.’

  “I gave him some water and he drank it.

  “ ‘Thank you, Astafy,’ he says again.

  “ ‘Is there anything else you’d like, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘No, thank you, Astafy, I don’t want anything. Only—’

  “ ‘Only what, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘I—er—’

  “ ‘What is it, Yemelyan?’

  “ ‘The riding breeches, Astafy. It was me who—er—took them.’

  “ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’m sure the Lord will forgive you, you poor fellow. You can die in peace.’

  “And feeling a lump coming up to my throat and tears gushing out of my eyes, I turned away for a moment.

  “ ‘Astafy—’

  “I turned round and saw that Yemelyan was trying to say something to me. He was trying desperately to sit up, and his lips were moving soundlessly. All of a sudden he reddened, and looked at me. Then I saw him go pale again, paler and paler, and suddenly he seemed to shrivel up. His head fell back, he drew one last breath, and gave up his soul to his Maker.”

  THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND A WEDDING

  From the Memoirs of an Unknown

  The other day I saw a wedding. But no! I’d better tell you about the Christmas tree. The wedding was all right; I liked it very much, but the other affair was much better. I don’t know how it was that, looking at the wedding, I should have remembered the Christmas tree. It happened like this. Exactly five years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I was invited to a children’s party. The person who had invited me was a well-known business man, a man of good connections, a man with an influential circle of acquaintances, a man who knew all there was to know about pulling strings, so that there was good reason to believe that the children’s party was merely an excuse for the parents to get together and have a talk about other interesting matters in an innocent, casual, unpremeditated sort of way. I was a stranger there; I had no interesting matters to discuss, and for that reason I spent the evening more or less as I pleased. There was another man there who, too, apparently had neither friends nor relations and who, like me, just happened to be present on that happy family occasion. He was the first to catch my eye—a tall, spare man, very serious, very decently dressed. But it was quite evident that he was in no mood for fun or happy family occasions. Indeed, whenever he found himself alone in some corner he left off smiling at once and knit his bushy, black brows. Apart from our host, he did not know a single soul at the party. One could see that he was terribly bored, but he kept up valiantly and to the bitter end the part of a perfectly happy man who was having a really good time. I found out afterwards that he was from the provinces and had come up to town on some extremely important and highly complicated business. He had brought a letter of introduction to our host who extended his patronage to him by no means con amore, and who invited him to his children’s party out of mere courtesy. There were no card games, no one offered him a cigar, no one engaged him in conversation, having, perhaps, recognised at a distance the sort of awkward customer he was, and for that reason the poor fellow, not knowing what to do with his hands, was forced to spend the whole evening stroking his whiskers. His whiskers were indeed extremely handsome. But he stroked them with such enthusiasm that one could not help feeling that his whiskers were brought into the world first, and the gentleman himself was only afterwards attached to them in order to stroke them.

  In addition to this odd character who took part in this extraordinary manner in the family celebration of our host (the proud father of five strapping boys), there was another man in the room who aroused my curiosity. But he was a person of quite a different sort. He was a man of consequence. His name was Julian Mastakovich. From the first glance it was obvious that he was on the same terms with our host as our host was with the gentleman who was stroking his whiskers. Our host and hostess overwhelmed him with compliments, danced attendance on him, offered him drinks, fawned upon him, took their visitors up to him to be introduced, but did not take him to be introduced to anybody. I noticed the glint of a tear in our host’s eye when Julian Mastakovich observed apropos of the party that he did not often spend his time so pleasantly. I don’t know why, but I felt overawed in the presence of so important a personage and, consequently, having admired the children, I withdrew to a small drawing-room, which was completely deserted, and sat down in the arbour of flowers arranged by our hostess which occupied almost half the room.

  All the children were incredibly sweet and quite determined not to behave like grown-ups in spite of the admonitions of their fond mothers and governesses. They stripped the Christmas tree to the last sweetmeat in a twinkling and even found time to break half the toys before they knew what toy was meant for which. One black-eyed, curly-headed boy, who kept trying to shoot me with his wooden gun, was particularly lovely to look at. But it was his sister who attracted more attention than any other child at the party. She was a girl of eleven, pretty as a picture, very quiet, pale, dreamy, with a pair of large, pensive, prominent eyes. The children must have done something to hurt her feelings, for she went away to the same drawing-room in which I was sitting and busied herself in a corner—with her doll. The visitors respectfully pointed out a wealthy government contractor, her father, and I heard someone saying in a whisper that he had already set aside three hundred thousand roubles for her dowry. I turned round to see who was so interested in such a circumstance, and my glance fell on Julian Mastakovich, who, with his hands behind his back and his head slightly inclined to one side, seemed to listen with rapt attention to the idle talk of these people. Afterwards I could not help admiring the wisdom of our hosts in the distribution of the children’s presents. The little girl who already had a portion of three hundred thousand roubles received the most expensive
doll. There followed presents which decreased in value in accordance with the decrease in the social rank of the parents of all these happy children. Finally, the last child to receive a present, a small, thin, freckled, red-haired little boy of ten, got nothing but a book of stories with descriptions of the grandeur of nature, the tears shed under the influence of strong emotion, etc., without pictures or even a tail-piece. He was the son of a poor widow, the governess of our host’s children, a completely cowed and scared little boy. He was dressed in a jacket of cheap material. Having received his book, he wandered round the other toys for a long time. He wanted terribly to play with the other children, but he did not dare: one could see that he already felt and understood his position. I am very fond of watching children. I find their first manifestation of independence most fascinating. I noticed that the red-haired boy was so tempted by the expensive toys of the other children, and especially by the theatre, in which he wanted very badly to take some part, that he did not hesitate to do a bit of cringing. He smiled and ingratiated himself with the other children, he gave away his apple to a pasty-faced boy who already had a large number of presents tied up in a handkerchief, and he even went so far as to give a ride on his back to another boy so as not to be driven away from the theatre. But a minute later some scamp of a boy gave him a really good thrashing. The little boy did not dare to cry. His mother, the governess, immediately intervened and told him not to interfere with the games of the other children. The child went away into the same drawing-room where the little girl was playing by herself. She made friends with him, and the two set about dressing the expensive doll, in which occupation they soon became intently absorbed.

  I had been sitting there for about half an hour in the ivy arbour and had almost fallen asleep, as I listened to the brisk chatter of the red-haired boy and the beautiful little girl with the dowry of three hundred thousand, both so busy with their doll, when Julian Mastakovich suddenly walked into the room. He had taken advantage of a rather disgraceful scene caused by a quarrel among the children to escape unnoticed from the ballroom. I noticed that only a minute ago he had been talking very animatedly to the father of the future heiress, to whom he had just been introduced, about the superiority of some branch of public service over another. Now he stood absorbed in meditation and seemed to be doing a sum on his fingers.