‘‘I see my sister Nina every night. She comes and sits in the armchair by my bed...’
An hour later, as he was again putting his coat on in the front hall, he smiled and felt abashed in front of the maid. Laptev drove with him to Pyatnitskaya.
‘‘Come for dinner with us tomorrow,’’ he said on the way, holding him under the arm, ‘‘and for Easter we’ll go abroad together. You need airing out, you’ve grown quite stale as it is.’’
‘‘Yes, yes. I’ll go, I’ll go...And we’ll take little sister along.’’
When he returned home, Laptev found his wife in great nervous agitation. The incident with Fyodor had shocked her, and she was unable to calm down. She did not cry, but she was very pale, and thrashed about on her bed, and with her cold fingers tenaciously clutched hold of the blanket, the pillow, her husband’s hands. Her eyes were large, frightened.
‘‘Don’t go, don’t go,’’ she kept saying to her husband. ‘‘Tell me, Alyosha, why have I stopped praying to God? Where is my faith? Ah, why did you talk about religion in front of me? You’ve confused me, you and your friends. I don’t pray anymore.’’
He put compresses on her forehead, warmed her hands, gave her tea, and she clung to him in fear...
Towards morning she grew weary and fell asleep, with Laptev sitting beside her and holding her hand. He did not have a chance to sleep. The whole next day he felt broken, dull, thought about nothing, and wandered sluggishly through the rooms.
XVI
THE DOCTORS SAID that Fyodor had a mental illness. Laptev did not know what was going on at Pyatnitskaya, and the dark warehouse, in which neither the old man nor Fyodor appeared anymore, gave him the impression of a tomb. When his wife told him that it was necessary for him to go every day both to the warehouse and to Pyatnitskaya, he either said nothing or began talking irritably about his childhood, about his inability to forgive his father for his past, about Pyatnitskaya and the warehouse being hateful to him, and so on.
One Sunday morning Yulia herself drove to Pyatnitskaya. She found old Fyodor Stepanych in the same big room where the prayer service had been held on the occasion of her arrival. In his canvas jacket, without a tie, in slippers, he was sitting motionless in an armchair, blinking his blind eyes.
‘‘It’s me, your daughter-in-law,’’ she said, going up to him. ‘‘I’ve come to see how you are.’’
He started breathing heavily from excitement. Moved by his misfortune, by his solitude, she kissed his hand, and he felt her face and head and, as if he had assured himself that it was her, made the sign of the cross over her.
‘‘Thank you, thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘And I’ve lost my eyes and don’t see anything... I can just barely see the window, and also the fire, but not people or objects. Yes, I’m going blind, Fyodor’s fallen ill, and it’s bad now without a master’s supervision. If there’s some disorder, nobody’s answerable; people will get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor’s fallen ill? Was it a cold? I’ve never taken sick and never been treated. Never known any doctors.’’
And the old man started boasting as usual. Meanwhile, the servants were hurriedly setting the table in the big room and putting hors d’oeuvres and bottles of wine on it. They put out some ten bottles, and one of them looked like the Eiffel Tower. A dish of hot little pirozhki was served, smelling of boiled rice and fish.
‘‘My dear guest, please have a bite to eat,’’ said the old man.
She took him under the arm, led him to the table, and poured him some vodka.
‘‘I’ll come to see you tomorrow, too,’’ she said, ‘‘and bring along your two granddaughters, Sasha and Lida. They’ll feel sorry and be nice to you.’’
‘‘No need, don’t bring them. They’re illegitimate.’’
‘‘Why illegitimate? Their father and mother were married in church.’’
‘‘Without my permission. I didn’t bless them and don’t want to know them. God be with them.’’
‘‘That’s a strange thing for you to say, Fyodor Stepanych,’’ Yulia said with a sigh.
‘‘In the Gospel it says children should respect and fear their parents.’’
‘‘Nothing of the sort. In the Gospel it says we should even forgive our enemies.’’
‘‘In our business you can’t forgive. If you start forgiving everybody, in three years it’ll all fly up the chimney.’’
‘‘But to forgive, to say an affectionate, friendly word to a man, even if he’s to blame—is higher than business, higher than riches!’’
Yulia wanted to soften the old man, to fill him with a sense of pity, to awaken repentance in him, but everything she said he listened to only with condescension, as adults listen to children.
‘‘Fyodor Stepanych,’’ Yulia said resolutely, ‘‘you’re old, and God will soon call you to Him; He will ask you not about your trade, and whether your business went well, but whether you were merciful to people; weren’t you severe to those weaker than you, for instance, to servants, to salesclerks?’’
‘‘I’ve always been a benefactor to those who worked for me, and they should eternally pray to God for me,’’ the old man said with conviction; but, touched by Yulia’s sincere tone and wishing to give her pleasure, he said: ‘‘Very well, bring the granddaughters tomorrow. I’ll have presents bought for them.’’
The old man was untidily dressed and had cigar ashes on his chest and knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots or clothes. The rice in the pirozhki was undercooked, the tablecloth smelled of soap, the servants stamped their feet loudly. Both the old man and this whole house on Pyatnitskaya had an abandoned air, and Yulia, who felt it, was ashamed of herself and of her husband.
‘‘I’ll be sure to come and see you tomorrow,’’ she said.
She walked through the rooms and ordered the old man’s bedroom tidied up and the icon lamp lighted. Fyodor was sitting in his room and looking into an open book without reading it; Yulia talked to him and ordered his room tidied up as well, then went downstairs to the salesclerks. In the middle of the room where the salesclerks dined stood an unpainted wooden column that propped up the ceiling, keeping it from collapsing; the ceilings here were low, the walls covered with cheap wallpaper; it smelled of fumes and the kitchen. All the salesclerks were at home for Sunday and sat on their beds waiting for dinner. When Yulia came in, they jumped up from their places and
