great pain, I did not cry, but, on the contrary,
felt a sort of morally pleasing sensation. No sooner did he let go of my
ear than I seized his hand and covered it with tears and kisses.
'Please whip me!' I cried, sobbing. 'Please hurt me the more and more,
for I am a wretched, bad, miserable boy!'
'Why, what on earth is the matter with you?' he said, giving me a slight
push from him.
'No, I will not go away!' I continued, seizing his coat. 'Every one else
hates me--I know that, but do YOU listen to me and protect me, or else
send me away altogether. I cannot live with HIM. He tries to humiliate
me--he tells me to kneel before him, and wants to strike me. I can't
stand it. I'm not a baby. I can't stand it--I shall die, I shall kill
myself. HE told Grandmamma that I was naughty, and now she is ill--she
will die through me. It is all his fault. Please let me--W-why
should-he-tor-ment me?'
The tears choked my further speech. I sat down on the sofa, and, with
my head buried on Papa's knees, sobbed until I thought I should die of
grief.
'Come, come! Why are you such a water-pump?' said Papa compassionately,
as he stooped over me.
'He is such a bully! He is murdering me! I shall die! Nobody loves me at
all!' I gasped almost inaudibly, and went into convulsions.
Papa lifted me up, and carried me to my bedroom, where I fell asleep.
When I awoke it was late. Only a solitary candle burned in the room,
while beside the bed there were seated Mimi, Lubotshka, and our doctor.
In their faces I could discern anxiety for my health, so, although
I felt so well after my twelve-hours' sleep that I could have got up
directly, I thought it best to let them continue thinking that I was
unwell.
XVII. HATRED
Yes, it was the real feeling of hatred that was mine now--not the hatred
of which one reads in novels, and in the existence of which I do
not believe--the hatred which finds satisfaction in doing harm to a
fellow-creature, but the hatred which consists of an unconquerable
aversion to a person who may be wholly deserving of your esteem, yet
whose very hair, neck, walk, voice, limbs, movements, and everything
else are disgusting to you, while all the while an incomprehensible
force attracts you towards him, and compels you to follow his slightest
acts with anxious attention.
This was the feeling which I cherished for St. Jerome, who had lived
with us now for a year and a half.
Judging coolly of the man at this time of day, I find that he was a true
Frenchman, but a Frenchman in the better acceptation of the term. He was
fairly well educated, and fulfilled his duties to us conscientiously,
but he had the peculiar features of fickle egotism, boastfulness,
impertinence, and ignorant self-assurance which are common to all his
countrymen, as well as entirely opposed to the Russian character.
All this set me against him, Grandmamma had signified to him her dislike
for corporal punishment, and therefore he dared not beat us, but he
frequently THREATENED us, particularly myself, with the cane, and would
utter the word fouetter as though it were fouatter in an expressive
and detestable way which always gave me the idea that to whip me would
afford him the greatest possible satisfaction.
I was not in the least afraid of the bodily pain, for I had never
experienced it. It was the mere idea that he could beat me that threw me
into such paroxysms of wrath and despair.
True, Karl Ivanitch sometimes (in moments of exasperation) had recourse
to a ruler or to his braces, but that I can look back upon without
