The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

spinster, old and nasty. They were both nasty. Her father had been in the civil service, but as a scrivener, and of merely nonhereditary nobility—in short, it all played into my hands. I came as if from a higher world: a retired staff captain, after all, of a brilliant regiment, a hereditary nobleman, independent, and so on, and as for the pawnshop, the aunts could only look upon it with respect. She had slaved for the aunts for three years, but passed an examination somewhere all the same—struggled to pass it, managed to pass it, from under her merciless daily work—and that did mean something about her yearning toward the lofty and noble! After all, why did I want to get married? Spit on me, though, that’s for later… As if that was the point! She taught her aunt’s children, did sewing, and toward the end not just sewing but, with her bad chest, also scrubbed the floors. Quite simply, they even beat her, reproached her for every crumb. In the end they were intending to sell her. Pah! I omit the filth of the details. Later she told me everything in detail. For a whole year a fat neighboring shopkeeper had been observing it all, not a simple shopkeeper, but with two grocery stores. He had already given a sweet time to two wives and was looking for a third, and so he cast an eye on her: “Quiet,” he thought, “grew up in poverty, and I’m marrying for my orphans.” In fact, he did have orphans. He sent a matchmaker, began making arrangements with the aunts, what’s more—he was fifty years old; she was horrified. It was then that she began coming to me often, so as to place advertisements in The Voice. Finally, she started asking her aunts to give her a bit of time to think it over. They gave her this bit, but just one, no more, because, they carped: “We don’t know what we’ll grub up ourselves, even without an extra mouth.” I already knew it all, and after that morning I made my decision. In the evening the merchant came, bringing a pound of candy from his shop worth fifty kopecks; she was sitting with him, and I called Lukerya out from the kitchen and told her to go and whisper to her that I was at the gate and wished to tell her something most urgently. I remained pleased with myself. And generally all that day I had been awfully pleased.

There at the gate, in Lukerya’s presence, I explained to her, amazed as she already was by the fact of my calling her outside, that I would consider it a happiness and an honor… Second: not to be surprised at my manner and that it was at the gate: “I’m a direct man,” I said, “and I’ve looked into the circumstances of the matter.” And I wasn’t lying that I’m direct. Well, spit on it. I spoke not only decently, that is, showing a man of breeding, but also originally, and that’s the main thing. So what, is it a sin to confess it? I want to judge myself and so I do. I must speak pro and contra, and so I do. Later I also remembered it with delight, though that is stupid: I declared directly, without any embarrassment, first, that I was not especially talented, not especially intelligent, maybe not even especially kind, a rather cheap egoist (I remember that expression, I thought it up then, on my way there, and remained pleased), and that it was very, very possible that I contained in myself much that was also unpleasant in many other respects. All this was spoken with a special sort of pride—we all know how such things are said. Of course, I had taste enough, after nobly declaring my shortcomings, not to start declaring my merits, saying: “But, on the other hand, I have this, this, and that.” I could see that so far she was terribly afraid, but I didn’t soften anything, what’s more, seeing that she was afraid, I intensified it on purpose: I said directly that she would have enough to eat, but as for outfits, theaters, balls—there would be none of that, or not till later, when I’d reached my goal. This stern tone decidedly carried me away. I added, also as casually as possible, that if I’d taken such an occupation, that is, keeping this shop, it was that I had a certain goal, there was a certain circumstance… But I had the right to speak that way: I actually had such a goal and such a circumstance. Wait, gentlemen, all my life I’ve been the first to hate this pawnshop, but, as a matter of fact, though it’s ridiculous to speak in mysterious phrases to oneself, I was in fact “taking revenge on society,” really, really, really! So that her morning witticism about my “taking revenge” was unjust. That is, you see, if I had told her directly in so many words: “Yes, I’m taking revenge on society,” and she had burst out laughing, as she did that morning, it would in fact have come out ridiculous. Well, but by an indirect hint, by letting in a mysterious phrase, it turned out that one could bribe the imagination. Besides, I no longer feared anything then: I knew that the fat shopkeeper was in any case more disgusting to her and that I, standing there at the gate, was a deliverer. That I understood. Oh, man understands meanness especially well! But was it meanness? How can one judge a man here? Didn’t I already love her even then?

Wait: naturally, I didn’t say half a word to her then about being a benefactor; on the contrary, oh, on the contrary: “It’s you,” I might have said, “who are my benefactor, not I yours” So that I even put it into words, I couldn’t help myself, and it came out stupid, perhaps, because I noticed a fleeting wrinkle on her face. But on the whole I was decidedly the winner. Wait, if I’m to recall all this filth, I’ll also recall the ultimate swinishness: I was standing there, and it was stirring in my head: you’re tall, well built, well bred, and—and, finally, speaking without braggadocio, you’re not bad looking. That’s what was playing through my mind. Naturally, she said yes to me right there at the gate. But… but I must add: right there at the gate she thought for a long time before she said yes. She got so thoughtful, so thoughtful, that I already started asking: “Well, what is it?”—and even couldn’t help myself, asking with a certain chic: “Well, what is it, miss?”—adding a polite touch.

“Wait, I’m thinking.”

And her little face was so serious, so serious—that even then I might have read! And there I was feeling offended: “Can it be,” I thought, “that she’s choosing between me and the merchant?” Oh, I didn’t understand then! I didn’t understand anything, not anything! Until today I didn’t understand! I remember Lukerya ran out after me, as I was leaving, stopped me in the street, and said breathlessly: “God will reward you, sir, for taking our dear young lady, only don’t tell it to her, she’s proud.”

Proud, eh! I say I like the proud ones myself. The proud ones are especially good when… well, when one no longer doubts one’s power over them, eh? Oh, mean, clumsy man! Oh, how pleased I was! Do you know, she might, when she was standing at the gate then, thinking whether to say yes to me, and I got surprised, do you know, she might even have been thinking: “If it’s disaster either way, isn’t it better to choose the worst straight off, that is, the fat shopkeeper, let him get drunk and quickly beat me to death!” Eh? What do you think, could she have had such a thought?

And now, too, I don’t understand, now, too, I don’t understand anything! I only just said that she might have had this thought: to choose the worst of two disasters, that is, the merchant? But who was worse for her then—I or the merchant? The merchant or the pawnbroker quoting Goethe? That’s still a question! Why a question? And you don’t understand this: the answer’s lying on the table, and you say question! No, but spit on me! I’m not the point… And by the way, what is it to me now—whether I’m the point or not? That’s something I’m quite unable to decide. I’d better go to bed. I have a headache…

III

THE NOBLEST OF MEN, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IT MYSELF

Didn’t fall asleep. How could I, some pulse was throbbing in my head. I want to take it all in, all this filth. Oh, filth! Oh, what filth I dragged her out of then! She really ought to have understood it, to have appreciated my action! I also liked various thoughts, for instance, that I was forty-one and she had just turned sixteen. This captivated me, this feeling of inequality, very sweet it was, very sweet.

I, for instance, wanted to do the wedding a l’anglaise,⁴ that is, decidedly the two of us, with perhaps two witnesses, one of them Lukerya, and then straight to the train, say, for instance, to Moscow (I happened incidentally to have business there), to a hotel, for a couple of weeks. She protested, she wouldn’t allow it, and I was forced to go visiting her aunts, honoring them as relatives from whom I was taking her. I yielded, and the aunts were rendered their due. I even gave the creatures a hundred roubles each and promised more, naturally without telling her anything about it, so as not to upset her by the meanness of the situation. The aunts at once became like silk. There was also an argument about the dowry: she had nothing, almost literally, but she also wanted nothing. I, however, succeeded in proving to her that nothing at all was not possible, and I took care of the dowry, because who else would do anything for her? Well, but spit on talking about me. My various ideas, however, I did manage to tell her then, so that she’d at least know. Even too hastily, perhaps. The main thing is that from the very first, though she tried to hold back, she threw herself to me with love, she would meet me with rapture when I came home in the evening, told me in her prattle (the charming prattle of