"I will give forty rubles for six, in a week"s time."
"If only I had it," says I, "I should not think of refusing you, but I haven"t."
What do you think! He rushed away, his teeth set, his fist doubled up, and ran down the corridor like one mad, and all at once he gave himself a knock on the forehead.
"O my G.o.d!" says he, "what has it come to?"
But he did not return to the dining-room; he jumped into a carriage, and drove away. Didn"t we have our laugh over it! The hussar asks,--
"Where is the gentleman who was dining with me?"
"He has gone," said some one.
"Where has he gone? What message did he leave?"
"He didn"t leave any; he just took to his carriage, and went off."
"That"s a fine way of entertaining a man!" says he.
Now, thinks I to myself, it"ll be a long time before he comes again after this; that is, on account of this scandal. But no. On the next day he came about evening. He came into the billiard-room. He had a sort of a box in his hand. Took off his overcoat.
"Now let us have a game," says he.
He looked out from under his eyebrows, rather fierce like.
We played a game. "That"s enough now," says he: "go and bring me a pen and paper; I must write a letter."
Not thinking any thing, not suspecting any thing, I bring some paper, and put it on the table in the little room.
"It"s all ready, sir," says I.
"Very good." He sat down at the table. He kept on writing and writing, and muttering to himself all the time: then he jumps up, and, frowning, says, "Look and see if my carriage has come yet."
It was on a Friday, during carnival time, and so there weren"t any of the customers on hand; they were all at some ball. I went to see about the carriage, and just as I was going out of the door, "Petrushka! Petrushka!"
he shouted, as if something suddenly frightened him.
I turn round. I see he"s pale as a sheet, standing here and looking at me.
"Did you call me, sir?" says I.
He makes no reply.
"What do you want?" says I.
He says nothing. "Oh, yes!" says he. "Let"s have another game."
Then says he, "Haven"t I learned to play pretty well?"
He had just won the game. "Yes," says I.
"All right," says he; "go now, and see about my carriage." He himself walked up and down the room.
Without thinking any thing, I went down to the door. I didn"t see any carriage at all. I started to go up again.
Just as I am going up, I hear what sounds like the thud of a billiard-cue.
I go into the billiard-room. I notice a peculiar smell.
I look around; and there he is lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with a pistol beside him. I was so scared that I could not speak a word.
He keeps twitching, twitching his leg; and stretched himself a little. Then he sort of snored, and stretched out his full length in such a strange way.
And G.o.d knows why such a sin came about,--how it was that it occurred to him to ruin his own soul,--but as to what he left written on this paper, I don"t understand it at all. Truly, you can never account for what is going on in the world.
"G.o.d gave me all that a man can desire,--wealth, name, intellect, n.o.ble aspirations. I wanted to enjoy myself, and I trod in the mire all that was best in me. I have done nothing dishonorable, I am not unfortunate, I have not committed any crime; but I have done worse: I have destroyed my feelings, my intellect, my youth. I became entangled in a filthy net, from which I could not escape, and to which I could not accustom myself. I feel that I am falling lower and lower every moment, and I cannot stop my fall.
"And what ruined me? Was there in me some strange pa.s.sion which I might plead as an excuse? No!
"My recollections are pleasant. One fearful moment of forgetfulness, which can never be erased from my mind, led me to come to my senses. I shuddered when I saw what a measureless abyss separated me from what I desired to be, and might have been. In my imagination arose the hopes, the dreams, and the thoughts of my youth.
"Where are those lofty thoughts of life, of eternity, of G.o.d, which at times filled my soul with light and strength? Where that aimless power of love which kindled my heart with its comforting warmth?...
"But how good and happy I might have been, had I trodden that path which, at the very entrance of life, was pointed out to me by my fresh mind and true feelings! More than once did I try to go from the ruts in which my life ran, into that sacred path.
"I said to myself, Now I will use my whole strength of will; and yet I could not do it. When I happened to be alone, I felt awkward and timid.
When I was with others, I no longer heard the inward voice; and I fell all the time lower and lower.
"At last I came to a terrible conviction that it was impossible for me to lift myself from this low plane. I ceased to think about it, and I wished to forget all; but hopeless repentance worried me still more and more.
Then, for the first time, the thought of suicide occurred to me....
"I once thought that the nearness of death would rouse my soul. I was mistaken. In a quarter of an hour I shall be no more, yet my view has not in the least changed. I see with the same eyes, I hear with the same ears, I think the same thoughts; there is the same strange incoherence, unsteadiness, and lightness in my thoughts."....
ALBERT.
_A STORY._
1857.
I.
Five rich young men went at three o"clock in the morning to a ball in Petersburg to have a good time.
Much champagne was drunk; a majority of the gentlemen were very young; the girls were pretty; a pianist and a fiddler played indefatigably one polka after another; there was no cease to the noise of conversation and dancing.
But there was a sense of awkwardness and constraint; every one felt somehow or other--and this is not unusual--that all was not as it should be.