The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky Read online

  Having finished my pathetic speech, I lapsed into no less pathetic a silence. I remember I wished terribly that I could, somehow, in spite of myself, burst out laughing, for I was already feeling that a wicked little devil was stirring within me, that my throat was beginning to tighten, my chin to twitch, and my eyes to fill with tears. I expected Nastenka, who listened to me with wide-open, intelligent eyes, to break into her childish and irresistibly gay laughter. I was already regretting that I had gone too far, that I had been wasting my time in telling her what had been accumulating for so long a time in my heart, and about which I could speak as though I had it all written down—because I had long ago passed judgment on myself, and could not resist the temptation to read it out loud, though I admit I never expected to be understood. But to my surprise she said nothing, and, after a pause, pressed my hand gently and asked with timid sympathy:

  “Surely you haven’t lived like that all your life, have you?”

  “Yes, Nastenka, all my life,” I replied, “all my life, and I’m afraid I shall go on like that to the very end.”

  “No, you mustn’t do that,” she said, “that must not be, for if it were so, I too might spend all my life beside my granny. Don’t you think it’s just too awful to live like that?”

  “I know, Nastenka, I know,” I cried, unable to restrain my feelings any longer. “More than ever do I realise now that I’ve been wasting the best years of my life. I know that, and the realisation of it is all the more painful to me now that God has sent me you, my good angel, to tell me that and to prove it to me. Sitting beside you and talking to you now, I feel terrified to think of the future, for in my future I can discern nothing but more loneliness, more of this stale and unprofitable life. And what is there left for me to dream of now that I’ve been so happy beside you in real life and not in a dream? Oh, bless you, bless you a thousand times, my dear, for not having turned away from me at first, for making it possible for me to say that for at least two evenings in my life I have really lived!”

  “Oh, no, no,” Nastenka cried, and tears glistened in her eyes, “it can’t go on like that! We shan’t part like that! What are two evenings in a man’s life?”

  “Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka, do you realise that you’ve reconciled me to myself for a long, long time? Do you know that I shall never again think so ill of myself as I have sometimes done in the past? Do you know that I shall never again accuse myself of committing a crime and a sin in the way I live, for such a life is a crime and a sin? And for goodness sake don’t imagine I’ve exaggerated anything. Please, don’t imagine that, Nastenka, for there are moments when I’m plunged into such gloom, such a black gloom! Because at such moments I’m almost ready to believe that I shall never be able to start living in earnest; because the thought has already occurred to me often that I have lost all touch with life, all understanding of what is real and actual; because, finally, I have cursed myself; because already after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sanity, moments which fill me with horror and dismay! You see, I can’t help being aware of the crowd being whirled with a roaring noise in the vortex of life, I can’t help hearing and seeing people living real lives. I realise that their life is not made to order, that their life will not vanish like a dream, like a vision; that their life is eternally renewing itself, that it is eternally young, that not one hour of it is like another! No! Timid fancy is dreary and monotonous to the point of drabness. It is the slave of every shadow, of every idea. The slave of the first cloud that of a sudden drifts across the sun and reduces every Petersburg heart, which values the sun so highly, to a state of morbid melancholy—and what is the use of fancy when one is plunged into melancholy! You feel that this inexhaustible fancy grows weary at last and exhausts itself from the never-ending strain. For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And meanwhile your soul is all the time craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him! Do you realise, Nastenka, how far things have gone with me? Do you know that I’m forced now to celebrate the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was once so dear to me, but which never really existed? For I keep this anniversary in memory of those empty, foolish dreams! I keep it because even those foolish dreams are no longer there, because I have nothing left with which to replace them, for even dreams, Nastenka, have to be replaced by something! Do you know that I love to call to mind and revisit at certain dates the places where in my own fashion I was once so happy? I love to build up my present in harmony with my irrevocably lost past; and I often wander about like a shadow, aimlessly and without purpose, sad and dejected, through the alleys and streets of Petersburg. What memories they conjure up! For instance, I remember that exactly a year ago, at exactly this hour, on this very pavement, I wandered about cheerlessly and alone just as I did today. And I can’t help remembering that at the time, too, my dreams were sad and dreary, and though I did not feel better then I somehow can’t help feeling that it was better, that life was more peaceful, that at least I was not then obsessed by the black thoughts that haunt me now, that I did not suffer from these gloomy and miserable qualms of conscience which now give me no rest either by day or by night. And you ask yourself—where are your dreams? And you shake your head and murmur: how quickly time flies! And you ask yourself again—what have you done with your time, where have you buried the best years of your life? Have you lived or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how everything in the world is growing cold. Some more years will pass, and they will be followed by cheerless solitude, and then will come tottering old age, with its crutch, and after it despair and desolation. Your fantastic world will fade away, your dreams will wilt and die, scattering like yellow leaves from the trees. Oh, Nastenka, what can be more heartbreaking than to be left alone, all alone, and not have anything to regret even—nothing, absolutely nothing, because all you’ve lost was nothing, nothing but a silly round zero, nothing but an empty dream!”

  “Don’t,” said Nastenka, wiping a tear which rolled down her cheek, “please don’t! You’ll make me cry if you go on like that. All that is finished! From now on we shall be together. We’ll never part, whatever happens to me now. You know, I’m quite an ordinary girl, I’m not well educated, though Granny did engage a teacher for me, but I do understand you, for I went through all that you’ve described when Granny pinned me to her dress. Of course, I could never have described it as well as you,” she added diffidently, for she was still feeling a sort of respect for my pathetic speech and my high-flown style, “because I’m not educated; but I’m very glad you’ve told me everything about yourself. Now I know you properly. And—do you know what? I’d like to tell you the story of my life too, all of it, without concealing anything, and after that you must give me some good advice. You’re so clever, and I’d like to ask your advice. Do you promise to give it me?”

  “Oh, Nastenka,” I replied, “though I’ve never given any advice to anyone before, and though I’m certainly not clever enough to give good advice, I can see now that if we always lived like this, it would be very clever of us, and we should give each other a lot of good advice! Well, my sweet Nastenka, what sort of advice do you want? I’m now so gay, happy, bold, and clever that I’m sure I shan’t have any difficulty in giving you the best advice in the world!”

  “No, no,” Nastenka interrupted, laughing, “it isn’t only good advice that I want. I also want warm, brotherly advice, just as though you’d been fond of me for ages!”

  “Agreed, Nasten
ka, agreed!” I cried with enthusiasm. “And if I’d been fond of you for twenty years, I couldn’t have been fonder of you than I am now!”

  “Your hand!” said Nastenka.

  “Here it is!” I replied, giving her my hand.

  “Very well, let’s begin my story!”

  NASTENKA’S STORY

  “Half my story you know already, I mean, you know that I have an old grandmother.”

  “If the other half is as short as this one—” I interrupted, laughing.

  “Be quiet and listen. First of all you must promise not to interrupt me, or I shall get confused. Well, please listen quietly.