'You grin ironically. And what you said to me about charity, for example? And yet the pleasure of charity is an arrogant and immoral pleasure, a rich man's pleasure in his riches, his power, and in the comparison of his significance with the significance of a beggar. Charity corrupts both him who gives and him who takes, and, moreover, does not achieve its goal, because it only increases beggary. Sluggards who do not want to work crowd around those who give like gamblers around the gaming table, hoping to win. And yet the pitiful half-kopecks that are thrown to them are not even a hundredth part enough. How much have you given in your life? Eighty kopecks, if that, go on, use your memory. Try to remember when was the last time you gave anything—about two years ago, maybe all of four. You shout and it only hinders the cause. Charity should be forbidden by law, even in our present society. In the new order there will be no poor at all.'
'Oh, what an outpouring of other people's words! So it's even gone as far as the new order? God help you, unhappy woman!'
'Yes, it has, Stepan Trofimovich; you carefully concealed from me all the new ideas that are now known to everyone, and you were doing it solely out of jealousy, so as to have more power over me. Now even this Yulia is a hundred miles ahead of me. But I, too, have now opened my eyes. I've defended you, Stepan Trofimovich, as far as I could; absolutely everyone accuses you.'
'Enough!' he made as if to get up from his seat, 'enough! And what else shall I wish you, if not indeed repentance?'
'Sit down for a minute, Stepan Trofimovich, there is still something I want to ask you. You have received an invitation to read at the literary matinee; that was arranged through me. Tell me, what precisely will you read?'
'Why, precisely about that queen of queens, that ideal of humanity, the Sistine Madonna, who in your opinion is not worth a glass or a pencil.'
'Not from history, then?' Varvara Petrovna was ruefully surprised. 'But they won't listen to you. You and your Madonna, really! Who wants it, if you just put everyone to sleep? I assure you, Stepan Trofimovich, I am speaking solely in your interest. How different if you'd take some brief but amusing little medieval court story from Spanish history, or, better, some anecdote, and pad it out with more anecdotes and witticisms of your own. They had magnificent courts there; there were such ladies, poisonings. Karmazinov says it would be strange if you couldn't at least find something amusing from Spanish history.'
'Karmazinov, that written-out fool, hunts up a topic for me!'
'Karmazinov, that all but statesmanly mind! You have too bold a tongue, Stepan Trofimovich.'
'Your Karmazinov is a written-out, spiteful old woman!
'I still cannot stand him for his self-importance, but I do justice to his intelligence. I repeat, I've defended you with all my strength, as far as I could. And why must you so necessarily show yourself as ridiculous and dull? On the contrary, come out on the stage with a venerable smile, as the representative of a past age, and tell three anecdotes, with all your wittiness, as only you sometimes know how to do. So you're an old man, so you belong to a bygone age, so you've fallen behind them, finally; but you can confess all that with a smile in your preface, and everyone will see that you are a dear, kind, witty relic ... In short, a man of the old stamp, and sufficiently advanced to be able to set the right value on all the scandalousness of certain notions he used to follow. Do give me that pleasure, I beg you.'
'Most likely you alone, Stepan Trofimovich.'
'Such is my lot. I will tell of that mean slave, that stinking and depraved lackey, who will be the first to clamber up a ladder with scissors in his hand and slash the divine face of the great ideal in the name of equality, envy, and... digestion. Let my curse thunder out, and then, then...'
'To the madhouse?'
'Perhaps. But in any case, whether I emerge defeated or victorious, that same evening I shall take my bag, my beggar's bag, leave all my belongings, all your presents, all pensions and promises of boons to come, and go off on foot to end my life as a merchant's tutor, or die of hunger somewhere in a ditch. I have spoken.
He again rose slightly.
'I've been sure,' Varvara Petrovna rose, flashing her eyes, 'for years I've been sure that you lived precisely so that in the end you might disgrace me and my house with slander! What do you mean to say by this tutoring in a merchant's house or dying in a ditch? Spite, slander, and nothing more!'
'You have always despised me; but I will end as a knight faithful to his lady, for your opinion has always been dearest of all to me. From this minute I shall accept nothing, but revere disinterestedly.'
'How stupid that is!'
'You have always not respected me. I may have had a myriad of weaknesses. Yes, I was grubbing off you—I speak the language of nihilism—but grubbing was never the highest principle of my actions. It happened just so, of itself, I don't know how ... I always thought that something else remained between us, higher than food, and— never, never have I been a scoundrel! And so, on our way, to set things right! A late way, for it is late autumn outside, mist lies over the fields, the chill hoarfrost of old age covers my future path, and wind howls about the imminent grave... But on our way, our new way:
Filled with love that's pure
And true to the sweet dream...[127]
Oh, my dreams, farewell! Twenty years!
His face was splashed with the tears that suddenly burst through; he took his hat.
'I don't understand Latin,' said Varvara Petrovna, holding herself back with all her might.
Who knows, perhaps she also wanted to cry, but indignation and caprice once again got the upper hand.
'I know only one thing, that this is all pranks. You will never be able to carry out your threats, so filled with egoism. You will not go anywhere, not to any merchant, but will end up quite contentedly on my hands, getting a
