“Where did you go? Answer…”
“Where did I go…I went to good people! what else!”
“Ah, Lord God! Where did you go first? Did you go to the department?…Listen, Pyotr, maybe you’re drunk?”
“Me drunk? May I die on this spot, not a ti-ti-tittle—so there…”
“No, no, it’s nothing that you’re drunk…I just asked; it’s good that you’re drunk; it’s nothing to me, Petrusha, it’s nothing tome…Maybe you’ve only just forgotten, but do remember it all. Well, now, try to recall, did you go to see the clerk Vakhrameev—did you or didn’t you?”
“I didn’t, and there never was any such clerk. Right now you could…”
“No, no, Pyotr! No, Petrusha, it’s nothing to me. You see, it’s nothing to me…Well, what of it! Well, it’s cold outside, damp, well, so a man has a little drink, well, what of it…I’m not angry. I myself had a drink today, brother…Confess, recollect, brother: did you go to the clerk Vakhrameev?”
“Well, if it’s come to that now, then really and truly—I did go, right now you could…”
“Well, that’s good, Petrusha, it’s good you went. You see, I’m not angry…Well, well,” our hero went on, cajoling his servant still more, patting him on the shoulder and smiling at him, “well, you had a drop, you blackguard…a ten-kopeck drop, eh? you slyboots! Well, never mind; well, you see, I’m not angry…I’m not angry, brother, I’m not angry…”
“No, as you like, but I’m not a slyboots, sir…I just stopped to see some good people, but I’m no slyboots, and I’ve never been a slyboots…”
“Right, you’re not, you’re not, Petrusha! Listen, Pyotr: it’s nothing to me, it’s not to abuse you that I call you a slyboots. I say it kindly to you, in a noble sense. It’s sometimes flattering, Petrusha, to tell a man he’s a stitch, a cunning fellow, that there’s no flies on him, and he won’t let anybody hoodwink him. Some people like it…Well, well, never mind! Well, now tell me, Petrusha, without hiding anything, openly, as to a friend…well, so you went to the clerk Vakhrameev, and he gave you an address?”
“And he gave me an address, he also gave me an address. A good clerk! And your master, he says, is a good man, very good, he says; tell him, he says—I send greetings, he says, to your master, thank him and tell him, he says, that I love him—see, he says, how I respect your master! because, he says, your master, Petrusha, is a good man, he says, and you, he says, are also a good man, Petrusha—so there…”
“Ah, Lord God! And the address, the address, you Judas?” Mr. Goliadkin uttered the last words almost in a whisper.
“And the address…and he gave me the address.”
“He did? Well, where does he live, this Goliadkin, the clerk Goliadkin, the titular councillor?”
“And your Goliadkin, he says, you’ll find on Shestilavochnaya Street. You just go, he says, to Shestilavochnaya, to the right, upstairs, on the fourth floor. There, he says, you’ll find your Goliadkin…”
“You swindler!” shouted our hero, finally losing patience. “You brigand! But that’s me; you’re talking about me. But there’s another Goliadkin; I’m talking about the other one, you swindler!”
“Well, as you like! What’s it to me! Do whatever you like—so there!…”
“But the letter, the letter…”
“What letter? There was never any letter, I never saw any letter.”
“But what did you do with it, you rascal?!”
“I delivered it, I delivered the letter. Greetings, he says, and thanks; a good master, he says, yours is. Greetings, he says, to your master…”
“But who said it? Did Goliadkin say it?”
Petrushka paused for a moment and grinned from ear to ear, looking straight into his master’s eyes.
“Listen, brigand that you are!” Mr. Goliadkin began, breathless, at a loss from rage. “What have you done to me! Tell me, what have you done to me! You’ve cut me down, you villain! You’ve taken my head from my shoulders, you Judas!”
“Well, now, as you like! What’s it to me!” Petrushka said in a resolute tone, retiring behind the partition.
“Come here, come here, you brigand!…”
“And I just won’t go to you now, I won’t go at all. What’s it to me! I’ll go to good people…Good people live honestly, good people live without falseness, and they never come in twos…”
Mr. Goliadkin’s hands and feet turned ice cold, and his breath was taken away…
“Yes, sir,” Petrushka went on, “they never come in twos, they don’t offend God and honest people…”
“You lout, you’re drunk! Sleep now, you brigand! But you’re going to get it tomorrow,” Mr. Goliadkin said in a barely audible voice. As for Petrushka, he muttered something more; then he could be heard putting his full weight on the bed, so that the bed creaked, producing a long yawn, stretching out, and finally snoring the sleep of the innocent, as they say. Mr. Goliadkin was neither dead nor alive. Petrushka’s behavior, his hints, which were quite strange, though remote, at which, therefore, there was no point in being angry, the less so as it was all spoken by a drunk man, and, finally, the whole malignant turn that affairs were taking—all this shook Mr. Goliadkin to his foundations. “And I just had to go reprimanding him in the middle of the night,” our hero said, his whole body trembling with some sort of morbid sensation. “And I just couldn’t help dealing with a drunk man! What sense can you expect from a drunk man? His every word is drivel. What was it, however, that he was hinting at, the brigand! Oh, Lord God! And why did I write all those letters, manslayer that I am! suicide that I am! Just couldn’t keep quiet! Had to go driveling! What else! You’re perishing, you’re like an old rag, and yet, no, there’s still vanity, say, my honor’s suffering, say, you must save your honor! Suicide that I am!”
So spoke Mr. Goliadkin, sitting on his sofa and not daring to stir from fear. Suddenly his eye rested on a certain object that aroused his attention to the highest degree. Fearing that the object which aroused his attention was an illusion, a trick of the imagination, he reached out his hand, with hope, with timidity, with indescribable curiosity…No, it was not a trick! not an illusion! A letter, precisely a letter, certainly a letter, and addressed to him…Mr. Goliadkin took the letter from the table. His heart was pounding terribly. “That swindler must have brought it,” he thought, “and put it here, and then forgotten it; it must have happened that way; that’s precisely how it must have happened…” The letter was from the clerk Vakhrameev, a young colleague and erstwhile friend of Mr. Goliadkin’s. “However, I anticipated it all beforehand,” thought our hero, “and everything that will now be in the letter I’ve anticipated as well…” The letter went as follows:
Dear sir, Yakov Petrovich,
Your man is drunk, and no sense can be expected from him; for that reason I prefer to reply in writing. I hasten to inform you that I agree to perform with all accuracy and precision the mission you have entrusted to me, which consists in conveying through my hands a letter to an individual known to you. This individual, who is well known to you and who has now replaced a friend for me, and whose name I hereby pass over in silence (because I do not want vainly to blacken the reputation of a totally innocent man), now lodges with us in Karolina Ivanovna’s apartment, in that same room which formerly, while you were still with us, was occupied by an infantry officer visiting from Tambov. However, you can find this individual everywhere among honest and open-hearted people— something that cannot be said of others. I intend to terminate my contacts with you as of this date; it is impossible for us to remain in a friendly tone and the former harmonious air of comradeship, and therefore I ask you, my dear sir, immediately upon receipt of this frank letter of mine, to send me the two roubles owing to me for the razors of foreign workmanship that I sold you, if you will kindly remember, seven months ago on credit, still in the time of your living with us at Karolina Ivanovna’s, whom I respect with all my soul. I am acting in this manner because you, by the accounts of intelligent people, have lost your pride and reputation and become dangerous to the morality of innocent and uninfected people, for certain individuals do not live by the truth and, above all, their words are falseness and their well-intentioned air suspicious. It is possible always and everywhere to find people capable of interceding for the offense of Karolina Ivanovna—who has always been of good behavior and, secondly, is an honest woman and moreover a virgin, though no longer young, yet of a good foreign family—of which certain individuals have asked me to make mention in this letter of mine, in passing and speaking for my own person. In any case, you will learn everything in due time, if you have not learned it yet, despite the fact that you have disgraced yourself, by the accounts of intelligent people, in all corners of the capital and, consequently, may already have received from many places, my dear sir, appropriate information about yourself. In conclusion of my letter, I inform you, my dear sir, that the individual known to you, whose name I do not mention here for well-known noble reasons, is highly respected by well-minded people; moreover, he is of a cheerful and agreeable character, succeeds as much in
