The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky Page 9

  At that moment a young man passed by us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently for a moment, and then again took a few steps towards us. My heart missed a beat.

  “Nastenka,” I said in an undertone, “who is it, Nastenka?”

  “It’s him!” she replied in a whisper, clinging to me still more closely, still more tremulously.

  I could hardly stand up.

  “Nastenka! Nastenka! It’s you!” we heard a voice behind us, and at the same time the young man took a few steps towards us.

  Lord, how she cried out! How she started! How she tore herself out of my hands and rushed to meet him! I stood and looked at them, utterly crushed. But no sooner had she given him her hand, no sooner had she thrown herself into his arms, than she suddenly turned to me again, and was at my side in a flash, faster than lightning, faster than the wind, and before I could recover from my surprise, flung her arms round my neck and kissed me ardently. Then, without uttering a word, she rushed back to him again, clasped his hands, and drew him after her.

  I stood a long time, watching them walking away. At last both of them vanished from my sight.

  MORNING

  My nights came to an end with a morning. The weather was dreadful. It was pouring, and the rain kept beating dismally against my windowpanes. It was dark in the room; it was dull and dreary outside. My head ached. I felt giddy. I was beginning to feel feverish.

  “A letter for you, sir,” said Matryona, bending over me. “Came by the city post, it did, sir. The postman brought it.”

  “A letter? Who from?” I cried, jumping up from my chair.

  “I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. I suppose whoever sent it must have signed his name.”

  I broke the seal: the letter was from her!

  “Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” Nastenka wrote to me. “I beg you on my knees to forgive me! I deceived you and myself. It was all a dream, a delusion. I nearly died today thinking of you. Please, please forgive me!

  “Don’t blame me, for I haven’t changed a bit towards you. I said I would love you, and I do love you now, I more than love you. Oh, if only I could love both of you at once! Oh, if only you were he!”

  “Oh, if only he were you!” it flashed through my mind. “Those were your own words, Nastenka!”

  “God knows what I would do for you now. I know how sad and unhappy you must be. I’ve treated you abominably, but when one loves, you know, an injury is soon forgotten. And you do love me!

  “Thank you, yes! thank you for that love. For it remains imprinted in my memory like a sweet dream one remembers a long time after awakening. I shall never forget the moment when you opened your heart to me like a real friend, when you accepted the gift of my broken heart to take care of it, to cherish it, to heal it. If you forgive me, I promise you that the memory of you will always remain with me, that I shall be everlastingly grateful to you, and that my feeling of gratitude will never be erased from my heart. I shall treasure this memory, I’ll be true to it. I shall never be unfaithful to it, I shall never be unfaithful to my heart. It is too constant for that. It returned so quickly yesterday to him to whom it has always belonged.

  “We shall meet. You will come and see us. You will not leave us, will you? You’ll always be my friend, my brother. And when you see me, you’ll give me your hand, won’t you? You will give it to me because you’ve forgiven me. You have, haven’t you? You love me as before, don’t you?

  “Oh, yes, do love me! Don’t ever forsake me, because I love you so at this moment, because I am worthy of your love, because I promise to deserve it—oh, my dear, dear friend! Next week I’m to be married to him. He has come back as much in love with me as ever. He has never forgotten me. You will not be angry with me because I have written about him, will you? I would like to come and see you with him. You will like him, won’t you?

  “Forgive me, remember and love your Nastenka.”

  I read this letter over and over again. There were tears in my eyes. At last it dropped out of my hands, and I buried my face.

  “Look, love, look!” Matryona called me.

  “What is it, Matryona?”

  “Why, I’ve swept all the cobwebs off the ceiling. Looks so lovely and clean, you could be wed, love, and have your wedding party here. You might just as well do it now as wait till it gets dirty again!”

  I looked at Matryona. She was still hale and hearty, quite a young-looking old woman, in fact. But I don’t know why all of a sudden she looked old and decrepit to me, with a wrinkled face and lustreless eyes. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden my room, too, seemed to have grown as old as Matryona. The walls and floors looked discoloured, everything was dark and grimy, and the cobwebs were thicker than ever. I don’t know why, but when I looked out of the window the house opposite, too, looked dilapidated and dingy, the plaster on its columns peeling and crumbling, its cornices blackened and full of cracks, and its bright brown walls disfigured by large white and yellow patches. Either the sun, appearing suddenly from behind the dark rainclouds, had hidden itself so quickly that everything had grown dark before my eyes again, or perhaps the whole sombre and melancholy perspective of my future flashed before my mind’s eye at that moment, and I saw myself just as I was now fifteen years hence, only grown older, in the same room, living the same sort of solitary life, with the same Matryona, who had not grown a bit wiser in all those years.

  But that I should feel any resentment against you, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark shadow over your bright, serene happiness! That I should chill and darken your heart with bitter reproaches, wound it with secret remorse, cause it to beat anxiously at the moment of bliss! That I should crush a single one of those delicate blooms which you will wear in your dark hair when you walk up the aisle to the altar with him! Oh no—never, never! May your sky be always clear, may your dear smile be always bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart!

  Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man’s life?

  THE HONEST THIEF

  From the Memoirs of an Unknown

  One morning as I was leaving for my office, Agrafena, my cook, washerwoman, and housekeeper, came into my room and, to my great surprise, began a conversation with me. Until that morning this simple, ordinary woman of the people had been so uncommunicative that, except for a few words about my dinner each day, she had for the last six years scarcely uttered a word to me. At least I never heard her speak of anything else.

  “I’d like to have a word with you, sir,” she began abruptly. “Why don’t you let the little room?”

  “Which little room?”

  “Why, as if you didn’t know, sir. The one next to the kitchen, of course!”

  “What for?”

  “What for, sir? Why, don’t you know? Because other people let their rooms, of course!”

  “But who would take it?”

  “Who would take it, sir? Why, surely, sir, you know who would take it. A lodger, of course.”

  “But, my good woman, who’d like to live in a cubbyhole like that? Why, it’s nothing but a boxroom. I doubt if you could put a bed in it, and even if you could, there wouldn’t be any room left to move about in.”

  “Why, sir, nobody wants to live in it. All he wants is a place to sleep in. He’d live on the windowsill.”

  “Which windowsill?”

  “Why, as if you didn’t know, sir! The windowsill in the passage, of course. He could sit there and sew, or do whatever he liked. He could sit on a chair, if he liked. He’s got a chair, and a table, too. He’s got everything, sir.”

  “But who is he?”

  “Oh, he’s a good man, sir. He’s had a lot of experience in his life, he has, sir. I’ll cook for him, and I’ll only charge him ten roubles a month for his board and lodging.”

  After the exercise of a great deal of patience, I found that an elderly man had persuaded or somehow
induced Agrafena to admit him to her kitchen as a paying guest. Now, I knew very well that if Agrafena ever took it into her head to do a thing, it had better be done at once, or she would give me no peace. For whenever anything was not to her liking, Agrafena became moody and fell a prey to the blackest melancholy which lasted for a fortnight or three weeks. During that time my dinners were uneatable, my floors remained unscrubbed, and several indispensable articles were missing from my personal washing, in short, my life became one long chapter of the most unfortunate accidents. I had long ago observed that this inarticulate woman was quite incapable of making up her mind or of fixing her mind on an idea that might be said to be her own. But if her feeble brain did once in a while conceive something resembling an idea or a plan, then to prevent her from carrying it into immediate execution was tantamount to putting her for some time morally out of existence. That being so, and my peace of mind being dearer to me than anything else in the world, I at once accepted Agrafena’s proposal to take in a lodger.

  “Tell me, has he at least some papers? A passport or something?”

  “Why yes, sir. Of course he has. He’s a good man, sir, just as I was telling you. A man with experience. Promised to pay me ten roubles a month, he did.”

  The very next day my new lodger installed himself in my modest bachelor quarters. I can’t say that I was very sorry; on the contrary, in my heart of hearts I felt rather pleased. I live, on the whole, a very secluded sort of life, the life of a regular recluse. I have no acquaintances to speak of and I scarcely ever go out. Having spent ten years of my life in complete isolation from the world, I had naturally got used to solitude. But another ten, fifteen, or even more years of the same solitude, with the same Agrafena and in the same bachelor quarters, did not strike me as a particularly inviting prospect. So that in these circumstances another man, a man, moreover, of quiet habits, was a real blessing.

  Agrafena had not deceived me; my lodger was a man of great experience of the world. His passport brought to light the fact that he was an old soldier; but that I knew even before I had opened it. One look at a man is sufficient to tell you that. My lodger, Astafy Ivanovich, was the finest specimen of an old soldier that it was ever my good fortune to come across. But what I liked best about him was that now and again he would tell some really good stories, mostly incidents from his own life. In view of the habitual boredom of my sort of existence, such a story-teller was a real find to me. One of the stories he told me left a vivid impression upon my mind. It arose out of the following circumstance.

  I was alone in my flat, Astafy and Agrafena having gone out on business. Suddenly I heard somebody come in, and thinking it was a stranger, I went out of my room to see who it might be. It really was a stranger, a short man, who in spite of the cold autumn day, wore no overcoat.

  “What do you want?”

  “Does a civil servant by the name of Alexandrov live here?”

  “No, I’m afraid there’s no one here of that name,” I replied, and I bade him a curt goodbye.

  “That’s odd,” the stranger said, beating a cautious retreat to the door, “the caretaker told me he lived here.”

  “Get out! Beat it!”

  Next day after dinner, while Astafy was fitting on a coat he was altering for me, someone came into the passage. I opened the door a little, and there before my very eyes my yesterday’s visitor calmly took down my short winter overcoat from the coat-rack and, putting it under his arm, dashed out of the flat. Agrafena did nothing but gape at him, struck dumb with astonishment, and did not lift a finger to protect my property. Astafy Ivanovich ran out after the thief, and he came back ten minutes later, out of breath and empty-handed. The man had just vanished into thin air!

  “That’s a bit of bad luck, Astafy Ivanovich,” I said. “A good job I’ve still got my winter cloak, or the villain would have left me absolutely stranded.”

  But Astafy Ivanovich was so overcome by it all that, looking at him, I almost forgot the loss I had suffered. He simply couldn’t get over it. Every minute he would throw down the work on which he was engaged and start recounting the whole incident, how it had all happened, how he had been standing only a few feet away from the man, how the thief had taken down the coat before his very eyes, and how it had come about that he had not been able to catch him. Then he would sit down at his work again, but only to leave it a minute later, and I saw him go down to the caretaker to tell him all about it and to remonstrate with him for allowing such things to happen in his house. Then he came back and began lecturing Agrafena. When at last he did finally sit down to his work, he went on muttering to himself a long time, how it all happened, how he stood here and I there, how before his very eyes, hardly a few feet away, the man took the coat off the rack, and so on. In short, though a good man at his trade, Astafy Ivanovich was a terrible fellow for getting himself all worked up and making no end of a fuss.

  “We’ve been fooled, Astafy Ivanovich,” I said to him in the evening, offering him a glass of tea and hoping to dispel my boredom by making him tell me again the story of the stolen coat; for from its frequent repetition and the great sincerity of the speaker, I was beginning to find the story highly amusing.

  “Aye, sir, we’ve been fooled all right,” said Astafy Ivanovich. “Mind you, it’s not my business, of course, but I can’t help being upset all the same. It fairly makes my blood boil, it does, sir, though it’s not my coat that’s been stolen. For to my thinking, sir, there’s no worse villain in the world than a thief. Aye, I’ve known many a man who’d take your things and never dream of paying for them, but a thief, sir, steals the work of your hands, the sweat of your brow, and your time, too. A nasty piece of work, that’s what he is sir. Makes my blood boil just to talk about him. But begging your pardon, sir, how is it you don’t seem to care about the loss of your property?”

  “Well, Astafy Ivanovich, you’re quite right of course. It is a confounded nuisance. I’d much rather burn my things than let a thief have them.”

  “Well, sir, it’s a nuisance all right. Though, mind you, there are thieves and thieves. I well remember, sir, coming across an honest thief once.”

  “An honest thief? Why, how can a man be honest and a thief at the same time, Astafy Ivanovich?”

  “Well, sir, that’s true enough. There are no honest thieves, and there never have been any. What I wanted to say, sir, was that the man I had in mind seemed honest enough, but he stole all the same. Aye, I just couldn’t help being sorry for him.”

  “Why, how did that happen, Astafy Ivanovich?”

  “Well, sir, it happened two years ago. At the time I’d been out of work for nearly a year, and just before I lost my job I struck up an acquaintance with a man I accidentally met in a pub. Down and out he was. A terrible drunkard, loafer, vagabond. Been a clerk in some government office, but got chucked out a long time ago on account of his drinking. Lord, what a disgraceful sight he was! Walked about in rags, and sometimes I wasn’t sure he had a shirt under his coat. No sooner did he get something than he’d spend it on drink. Not that he was what you might call obstreperous. No, sir, he was a very quiet man, kind and gentle, and he’d never ask you for anything on account of being very shy by nature. But of course I couldn’t help seeing how badly the poor fellow wanted a drink, so I’d stand him one. Well, so we became good friends. I mean to say, sir, it was he really who got himself attached to me. I didn’t mind either way. And what a funny man he was, sir! Stuck to me like a dog, followed me about everywhere, and that after I’d only met him once. No character at all. A rag of a man! At first he asked me to let him stay the night. Well, I did. For you see, sir, I had a look at his passport, and there was nothing wrong with it—the man was all right! The next day he wanted to stay again, and on the following day he came and spent the whole day on my windowsill. Stayed the night, too. ‘Good Lord,’ I thought to myself, ‘I shan’t be able to get rid of him now—provide food and drink for him, and a bed as well!’ Just a poor man’s luck, sir. Nothing
to eat myself, and here’s a perfect stranger to carry about on my back! Nor was it the first time he had hung on to somebody he’d never seen before. He used to spend his days with some clerk before he ran across me in the pub. They were always out drinking together. Only the poor man seemed to have had some serious trouble, for he soon drank himself to death. Anyway, the man I’m telling you about, sir, was called Yemelyan Ilyich. I was racking my brains what to do with him. I couldn’t just chuck him out. I was dreadfully sorry for the poor beggar. You can’t imagine, sir, what a pitiful wreck of a man he was. Never uttered a word, never asked for anything, just sat there gazing into my eyes like a dog. That’s what drink does to a man, sir! Well, so there I was wondering what to say to the man. I couldn’t very well say, ‘Look here, Yemelyan, you’d better go. This is no place for you. You’ve come to the wrong man. Soon I shall have nothing to eat myself, so how can you expect me to keep you?’ I wondered, sir, what he would have done if I’d said that to him. Well, I knew very well of course that if I told him that he’d sit there looking at me a long time without at first being able to take in what I was saying, and when he at last saw what I meant he’d get up from the window, pick up his little bundle (I can see that bundle now, sir, a red check bundle full of holes that he carried about with him everywhere and that he used to stuff all sorts of rubbish into), and set his tattered old coat to rights to make it look decent and keep him warm, and so that the holes didn’t show—very particular he was about his appearance! Then he’d open the door and go out on the landing with tears in his eyes. Well, sir, I couldn’t let a man go to the dogs like that—I was really sorry for him! But, I thought next, what was going to happen to me when I lost my job? ‘Wait a bit, Yemelyan, my dear fellow,’ I says to myself, ‘you won’t be eating and drinking and making merry at my expense very much longer now. I’ll be moving soon, and then, my lad, it’s ten to one you’ll never find me.’