thinking over what I had done, I could not imagine what
the matter had been with me. I only felt with despair that I was for
ever lost.
At first the most profound stillness reigned around me--at least, so it
appeared to me as compared with the violent internal emotion which I had
been experiencing; but by and by I began to distinguish various sounds.
Basil brought something downstairs which he laid upon a chest outside.
It sounded like a broom-stick. Below me I could hear St. Jerome's
grumbling voice (probably he was speaking of me), and then children's
voices and laughter and footsteps; until in a few moments everything
seemed to have regained its normal course in the house, as though
nobody knew or cared to know that here was I sitting alone in the dark
store-room!
I did not cry, but something lay heavy, like a stone, upon my heart.
Ideas and pictures passed with extraordinary rapidity before my troubled
imagination, yet through their fantastic sequence broke continually
the remembrance of the misfortune which had befallen me as I once
again plunged into an interminable labyrinth of conjectures as to the
punishment, the fate, and the despair that were awaiting me. The
thought occurred to me that there must be some reason for the general
dislike--even contempt--which I fancied to be felt for me by others.
I was firmly convinced that every one, from Grandmamma down to the
coachman Philip, despised me, and found pleasure in my sufferings. Next
an idea struck me that perhaps I was not the son of my father and mother
at all, nor Woloda's brother, but only some unfortunate orphan who had
been adopted by them out of compassion, and this absurd notion not only
afforded me a certain melancholy consolation, but seemed to me quite
probable. I found it comforting to think that I was unhappy, not through
my own fault, but because I was fated to be so from my birth, and
conceived that my destiny was very much like poor Karl Ivanitch's.
'Why conceal the secret any longer, now that I have discovered it?' I
reflected. 'To-morrow I will go to Papa and say to him, 'It is in vain
for you to try and conceal from me the mystery of my birth. I know it
already.' And he will answer me, 'What else could I do, my good fellow?
Sooner or later you would have had to know that you are not my son, but
were adopted as such. Nevertheless, so long as you remain worthy of my
love, I will never cast you out.' Then I shall say, 'Papa, though I
have no right to call you by that name, and am now doing so for the last
time, I have always loved you, and shall always retain that love. At the
same time, while I can never forget that you have been my benefactor, I
cannot remain longer in your house. Nobody here loves me, and St. Jerome
has wrought my ruin. Either he or I must go forth, since I cannot answer
for myself. I hate the man so that I could do anything--I could even
kill him.' Papa will begin to entreat me, but I shall make a gesture,
and say, 'No, no, my friend and benefactor! We cannot live together. Let
me go'--and for the last time I shall embrace him, and say in French,
'O mon pere, O mon bienfaiteur, donne moi, pour la derniere fois, ta
benediction, et que la volonte de Dieu soit faite!''
I sobbed bitterly at these thoughts as I sat on a trunk in that dark
storeroom. Then, suddenly recollecting the shameful punishment which was
awaiting me, I would find myself back again in actuality, and the dreams
had fled. Soon, again, I began to fancy myself far away from the
house and alone in the world. I enter a hussar regiment and go to war.
