The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Novels, Short Stories and Autobiographical Writings. Федор Достоевский
I am not sure there is any,” my uncle said, anxiously looking towards Praskovya Ilyinitchna.
“To be sure there is!” the latter answered. “There are four whole bottles left.” And jingling her keys she ran to fetch the Malaga, followed by exclamations of the ladies, who were clinging to Foma like flies round jam. On the other hand, Mr Bahtcheyev was indignant in the extreme.
“He wants Malaga!” he grumbled almost aloud. “And asks for a wine that no one drinks. Who drinks Malaga nowadays but rascals like him? Tfoo, you confounded fellow! What am I standing here for? What am I waiting for?”
“Foma,” my uncle began, stumbling over every word, “you see now … when you are rested and are with us again … that is, I meant to say, Foma, that I understand how accusing, so to say, the most innocent of beings …”
“Where is it, my innocence, where?” Foma interrupted, as though he were feverish and in delirium. “Where are my golden days? Where art thou, my golden childhood, when innocent and lovely I ran about the fields chasing the spring butterflies? Where are those days? Give me back my innocence, give it me back! …”
And Foma, flinging wide his arms, turned to each one of us in succession as though his innocence were in somebody’s pocket. Bahtcheyev was ready to explode with wrath.
“Ech, so that’s what he wants!” he muttered in a fury. “Give him his innocence! Does he want to kiss it, or what? Most likely he was as great a villain when he was a boy as he is now! I’ll take my oath he was.”
“Foma!” … my uncle was beginning again.
“Where, where are they, those days when I still had faith in love and loved mankind?” cried Foma; “when I embraced man and wept upon his bosom? But now where am I? Where am I?”
“You are with us, Foma, calm yourself,” cried my uncle. “This is what I wanted to say to you, Foma. …”
“You might at least keep silent now,” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn, with a spiteful gleam in her vipcnsh eyes.
“Where am I?” Foma went on. “Who are about me? They are bulls and buffaloes turning their horns against me. Life, what art thou? If one lives one is dishonoured, disgraced, humbled, crushed; and when the earth is scattered on one’s coffin, only then men will remember one and pile a monument on one’s poor bones!”
“Holy saints, he is talking about monuments!” whispered Yezhevikin, clasping his hands.
“Oh, do not put up a monument to me,” cried Foma, “do not! I don’t need monuments. Raise up a monument to me in your hearts, I want nothing more, nothing more!”
“Foma,” my uncle interposed, “enough, calm yourself! There is no need to talk about monuments. Only listen. You see, Foma, I understand that you were perhaps, so to say, inspired with righteous fervour when you reproached me, but you were carried away, Foma, beyond the limit of righteousness — I assure you you were mistaken, Foma… .”
“Oh, will you give over?” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn again. “Do you want to murder the poor man because he is in your hands? …”
After Miss Perepelitsyn, Madame la Générale made a stir, and all her suite followed her example; they all waved their hands at my uncle to stop him.
“Anna Nilovna, be silent yourself, I know what I am saying!” my uncle answered firmly. “This is a sacred matter! A question of honour and justice. Foma! you are a sensible man, you must at once ask the forgiveness of the virtuous young lady whom you have insulted.”
“What young lady? What young lady have I insulted?” Foma articulated in amazement, staring round at everyone as though he had entirely forgotten everything that had happened, and did not know what was the matter.
“Yes, Foma; and if now of your own accord you frankly acknowledge you have done wrong, I swear, Foma, I will fall at your feet and then …”
“Whom have I insulted?” wailed Foma. “What young lady? Where is she? Where is the young lady? Recall to me something about the young lady! …”
At that instant, Nastenka, confused and frightened, went up to Yegor Ilyitch and pulled him by the sleeve.
“No, Yegor Ilyitch, leave him alone, there is no need of an apology. What is the object of it all?” she said in an imploring voice. “Give it up!”
“Ah, now I begin to remember,” cried Foma. “My God, I understand. Oh, help me, help me to remember!” he implored, apparently in great excitement. “Tell me, is it true that I was turned out of this house, like the mangiest of curs? Is it true that I was struck by lightning? Is it true that I was kicked down the steps? Is it true? Is that true?”
The weeping and wailing of the fair sex were the most eloquent reply to Foma Fomitch.
“Yes, yes,” he repeated, “I remember … I remember now that after the lightning and my fall I was running here, pursued by the thunder, to do my duty and then vanish for ever! Raise me up! Weak as I may be now, I must do my duty.”
He was at once helped up from his chair. Foma stood in the attitude of an orator and stretched out his hands.
“Colonel,” he cried, “now I have quite recovered. The thunder has not extinguished my intellectual capacities; it has left, it is true, -a deafness in my right ear, due perhaps not so much to the thunder as to my fall down the steps, but what of that? And what does anyone care about Foma’s right ear!”
Foma threw such a wealth of mournful irony into these last words, and accompanied them with such a pathetic smile, that the groans of the deeply-moved ladies resounded again. They all looked with reproach, and some also with fury, at my uncle, who was beginning to be crushed by so unanimous an expression of public opinion. Mizintchikov, with a curse, walked away to the window. Bahtcheyev kept prodding me more and more violently with his elbow; he could hardly stand still.
“Now listen to my whole confession!’’ yelled Foma, turning upon all a proud and determined gaze, “and at the same time decide the fate of poor Opiskin! Yegor Ilyitch, for a long time past I have been watching over you, watching over you with a tremor at my heart, and I have seen everything, everything, while you were not suspecting that I was watching over you. Colonel! Perhaps I was mistaken, but I knew your egotism, your boundless vanity, your phenomenal sensuality, and who would blame me for trembling for the honour of an innocent young person?”
“Loma, ioma! … you need not enlarge on it, Foma,” cried my uncle, looking uneasily at Nastenka’s suffering face.
“What troubled me was not so much the innocence and trustfulness of the person in question as her inexperience,” Foma went on, as though he had not heard my uncle’s warning. “I saw that a tender feeling was blossoming in her heart, like a rose in spring, and I could not help recalling Petrarch’s saying, ‘Innocence is often but a hair’s breadth from ruin.’ I sighed, I groaned, and though I was ready to shed the last drop ot my blood to safeguard that pure pearl of maidenhood, who could answer to me for you, Yegor Ilyitch? I know the unbridled violence of your passions, and knowing that you are ready to sacrifice everything for their momentary gratification, I was plunged in the depths of alarm and apprehension for the fate of the noblest of girls. …”
“Foma! Could you really imagine such a thing?” cried my uncle.
“With a shudder at my heart I watched over you. And if you want to know what I have been suffering, go to Shakespeare: in his Hamlet he describes the state of my soul. I became suspicious and terrible. In my anxiety, in indignation, I saw everything in the blackest colour and that not fhe ‘black colour’ sung of in the well-known song — I can assure you. That was the cause of the desire you saw in me to remove her far away from this house: I wanted to save her; that was why you have seen me of late irritable and bitter against the whole human race. Oh! who will reconcile me with humanity? I feel that I was perhaps over-exacting and unjust to your guests, to your nephew, to Mr. Bahtcheyev, when I expected from him a knowledge of astronomy; but