She did not rise from her knees; she would not listen to him; she put her questions hurriedly, as though she were pursued.
“I am going away tomorrow, as you bade me—I won’t write—so that this is the last time I shall see you, the last time! This is really the last time!”
“Oh, be calm—be calm! Get up!” he entreated, in despair.
She gazed thirstily at him and clutched his hands.
“Goodbye!” she said at last, and rose and left him, very quickly.
The prince noticed that Rogojin had suddenly appeared at her side, and had taken her arm and was leading her away.
“Wait a minute, prince,” shouted the latter, as he went. “I shall be back in five minutes.”
He reappeared in five minutes as he had said. The prince was waiting for him.
“I’ve put her in the carriage,” he said; “it has been waiting round the corner there since ten o’clock. She expected that you would be with them all the evening. I told her exactly what you wrote me. She won’t write to the girl any more, she promises; and tomorrow she will be off, as you wish. She desired to see you for the last time, although you refused, so we’ve been sitting and waiting on that bench till you should pass on your way home.”
“Did she bring you with her of her own accord?”
“Of course she did!” said Rogojin, showing his teeth; “and I saw for myself what I knew before. You’ve read her letters, I suppose?”
“Did you read them?” asked the prince, struck by the thought.
“Of course—she showed them to me herself. You are thinking of the razor, eh? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Oh, she is mad!” cried the prince, wringing his hands.
“Who knows? Perhaps she is not so mad after all,” said Rogojin, softly, as though thinking aloud.
The prince made no reply.
“Well, goodbye,” said Rogojin. “I’m off tomorrow too, you know. Remember me kindly! By the by,” he added, turning round sharply again, “did you answer her question just now? Are you happy, or not?”
“No, no, no!” cried the prince, with unspeakable sadness.
“Ha, ha! I never supposed you would say ‘yes,’ ” cried Rogojin, laughing sardonically.
And he disappeared, without looking round again.
Part IV
I
A week had elapsed since the rendezvous of our two friends on the green bench in the park, when, one fine morning at about half-past ten o’clock, Varvara Ardalionovna, otherwise Mrs. Ptitsin, who had been out to visit a friend, returned home in a state of considerable mental depression.
There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself.
“Podkoleosin”5 was perhaps an exaggeration, but he was by no means a nonexistent character; on the contrary, how many intelligent people, after hearing of this Podkoleosin from Gogol, immediately began to find that scores of their friends were exactly like him! They knew, perhaps, before Gogol told them, that their friends were like Podkoleosin, but they did not know what name to give them. In real life, young fellows seldom jump out of the window just before their weddings, because such a feat, not to speak of its other aspects, must be a decidedly unpleasant mode of escape; and yet there are plenty of bridegrooms, intelligent fellows too, who would be ready to confess themselves Podkoleosins in the depths of their consciousness, just before marriage. Nor does every husband feel bound to repeat at every step, “Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!” like another typical personage; and yet how many millions and billions of Georges Dandins there are in real life who feel inclined to utter this soul-drawn cry after their honeymoon, if not the day after the wedding! Therefore, without entering into any more serious examination of the question, I will content myself with remarking that in real life typical characters are “watered down,” so to speak; and all these Dandins and Podkoleosins actually exist among us every day, but in a diluted form. I will just add, however, that Georges Dandin might have existed exactly as Molière presented him, and probably does exist now and then, though rarely; and so I will end this scientific examination, which is beginning to look like a newspaper criticism. But for all this, the question remains—what are the novelists to do with commonplace people, and how are they to be presented to the reader in such a form as to be in the least degree interesting? They cannot be left out altogether, for commonplace people meet one at every turn of life, and to leave them out would be to destroy the whole reality and probability of the story. To fill a novel with typical characters only, or with merely strange and uncommon people, would render the book unreal and improbable, and would very likely destroy the interest. In my opinion, the duty of the novelist is to seek out points of interest and instruction even in the characters of commonplace people.
For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—I think such an individual really does become a type of his own—a type of commonplaceness which will not for the world, if it can help it, be contented, but strains and yearns to be something original and independent, without the slightest possibility of being so. To
