What Is to Be Done?

to drink one glass of tea more, or not to finish your glass of tea. He was very much to blame. Nu, but he has paid dearly enough for it. Drink one more glass of sherry, and go to bed. I have now reached the final purpose of my call. It is already three o’clock. If no one wakes you, you will sleep very long; and I told Masha not to wake you before half-past ten, so that tomorrow you will hardly have time enough to drink your tea; you will have to hurry to the railroad station. If you do not have time to put away all the things, it will not make any difference, for you will either return soon, or they will send them to you. What do you think is best to be done? Shall Aleksandr Matvéitch go after you, or will you return by yourself? It would be hard for you and Masha now, for it would not do for her to notice that you are entirely calm. And how could she notice it during the half an hour of hasty preparations? Mertsálova would be a great deal worse. But I will go to see her early in the morning, and tell her that she had better not come here, because you have not slept much, and you ought not to be wakened, but that she had better go straight to the station.”

“How much care you take for me,” said Viéra Pavlovna.

“Don’t, at least, ascribe this to him; it is of my own accord. But, except that which I reproach him for, as regards the things of the past (to his own face I told him more things, and more emphatically), except the fact that he was entirely to blame for the arising of this vain suffering, he behaved like a hero.”

XXXI

A Colloquy with the Sapient Reader, and His Banishment

“Now tell me, O sapient reader, why Rakhmétof was introduced,81 who has now vanished, and will not appear again in my story? I have already told thee that this figure has no part in my story⁠—”

“That is not true,” says the sapient reader, interrupting me. “Rakhmétof is an important character, for he brought a note from which⁠—”

“Thou art very poor, my dear sir, in aesthetical judgments, of which thou art so fond,” say I, interrupting him in my turn. “At this rate, according to your opinion, then Masha, also, is an important character, is she not? At the very beginning of the story, she, also, brought a letter, which startled Viéra Pavlovna. And is Rachel also an important character? for she advanced the money, without which Viéra Pavlovna would not have been able to leave. And is Professor N. an important character, because he recommended Viéra Pavlovna to Mrs. B., without which there would not have been any scene on returning from the Konno-Gvardéïsky Boulevard? Possibly the Konno-Gvardéïsky Boulevard is an active character also. How is it? Because without it there wouldn’t have been any stage for the interview while returning from it. And the Gorokhovaïa Street would certainly be the most important main character, because without it there would be no houses standing on it, and so Storeshnikof’s house would not be there; consequently there would be no manager of it, and the manager would not have any daughter, and then there would be no story at all. Well [nu], let us grant that, according to your opinion, all of these are active characters⁠—the Konno-Gvardéïsky Boulevard, and Masha, and Rachel, and the Gorokhovaïa Street. But only half a dozen words are said about them, or even less, because their action is of such a nature that they are not worth more than half a dozen words; but see how many pages have been given to Rakhmétof.”

“Ah! now I know,” says the sapient reader; “Rakhmétof was introduced for the sake of pronouncing the sentence on Viéra Pavlovna and Lopukhóf. He was necessary for the talk with Viéra Pavlovna.”

“O how dull you are, my dear sir! You are quite wrong in your judgment. Was it necessary to introduce an extraordinary man just for the purpose of telling his opinion about other people? For such necessities, maybe, your great artists may introduce people into their works and take them away again; but I, though I am a wretched writer, still somewhat better understand the conditions of the artistic. No; my dear sir; Rakhmétof is not at all necessary for this purpose. How many times have not Viéra Pavlovna, Lopukhóf, and Kirsánof by themselves expressed the opinion about their actions and relations? They are not stupid people; they are able to judge for themselves what is good and what is bad, and therefore for this do not need a prompter. Do you really think that Viéra Pavlovna herself, when at leisure after a few days, would remember the past confusion and not condemn her forgetfulness about the interests of the shop just as Rakhmétof had done? And don’t you think that Lopukhóf himself thought about his relations in exactly the same way as Rakhmétof told Viéra Pavlovna? He had thought it all over. Honorable people themselves think about themselves, all that can be said to their discredit, and so, my dear sir, these are honorable people; didn’t you know it? You are very ignorant, my dear sir, in regard to what honorable people think about themselves. I shall tell you further. Do you really suppose that Rakhmétof, in this conversation with Viéra Pavlovna, acted independently of Lopukhóf? No, my dear sir; he was only a tool for Lopukhóf, and he himself understood that he was only Lopukhóf’s tool, and Viéra Pavlovna understood it also in a day or two, and she would have guessed it the very moment that Rakhmétof opened his mouth had she not been too much excited; that was really the state of things. Did not you really understand it? Of course