'plunges,' his wanderings, or, as he expressed it, 'his peregrinations from pillar to post,' then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. 'Give, and God will reward you, though I don't deserve it,' he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; 'if you don't give, you'll be perfectly right, and I shan't blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of help—plenty, plenty!' Misha was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don't suppose that he was or fancied himself a Lovelace….Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm— as, according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing a woman harm—I won't undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of which I have spoken already…. I can think of no other word for it.
But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, in the public assembly at T——, got as far as setting on the table a jug with a notice: 'Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.' And I am told there were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a nobleman's nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one rouble and gave him
In the course of his 'peregrinations from pillar to post,' he made his way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in fact he did.
In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a corner in a peasant's hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master's being there. He found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge.
Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. 'Timofay!' he said at last; Timofay started.
'What do you desire?'
'Have you a spade?'
'I can get one…. But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo
Andreitch, sir?'
'I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time everlasting between my father and mother. There's only this spot left me in the world. Get a spade!'
'Yes, sir,' said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his hand, repeating: 'It's all that's left for you and me, master!'
Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: 'Life's not worth living, is it, Timofay?'
'It's not indeed, master.'
The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very angry, wanted to send for the police: 'This is sacrilege,' said he. But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,—he went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he had not noticed his successor. 'Mihail Andreitch,' began the money-lender, 'allow me to ask what you are doing here?'
'You can see—I am digging myself a grave.'
'Why are you doing so?'
'Because I don't want to live any longer.'
The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. 'You don't want to live?'
Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. 'That surprises you? Aren't you the cause of it all? … You? … You? … Wasn't it you, Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren't you flaying the peasants' skins off their backs? Haven't you taken from this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn't it you? … O God! everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing…. Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don't care for life, I don't care for life in Russia!' And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha's hands.
'Here's a devil of a business!' thought the money-lender; 'he's positively burying himself alive.' 'Mihail Andreevitch,' he began again: 'listen. I've been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.'
Misha went on digging.
'But why be desperate?'
Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the money-lender's feet, as though to say, 'Here you are, land-grabber.'
'Really, you 're wrong in this. Won't you be pleased to come in to have some lunch, and rest a bit?'
Misha raised his head. 'So that's it now! And anything to drink?'
The money-lender was delighted. 'Why, of course … I should think so.'
'You invite Timofay too?'
'Well, … yes, him too.'
Misha pondered. 'Only, mind … you made me a beggar, you know…. Don't think you can get off with one bottle!'
'Set your mind at rest … there shall be all you can want.'
Misha got up and flung down the spade…. 'Well, Timosha,' said he to his old nurse; 'let's do honour to our host…. Come along.'
'Yes, sir,' answered the old man.
And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to 'grant all sorts of immunities' to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge…. As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped—him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they couldn't get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant.
VI
Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha…. God knows what he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on the T—— highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the words: 'Monsieur … monsieur … prenez pitie
