THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Федор Достоевский
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a little more bonhomie on your side too, and we should agree and get on famously, and understand one another perfectly in the end. Don’t wonder at me. I am so sick of all this innocence, all these pastoral idyllics of Alyosha’s, all this Schillerism, all the loftiness of this damnable intrigue with this Natasha (not that she’s not a very taking little girl) that I am, so to speak, glad of an opportunity to have my fling at them. Well, the opportunity has come. Besides, I am longing to pour out my heart to you. Ha! ha! ha!”
“You surprise me, prince, and I hardly recognize you. You are sinking to the level of a Polichinello. These unexpected revelations….”
“Ha! ha! ha! to be sure that’s partly true! A charming comparison, ha-ha-ha! I’m out for a spree, my boy, I’m out for a spree! I’m enjoying myself! And you, my poet, must show me every possible indulgence. But we’d better drink,” he concluded filling up his glass, perfectly satisfied with himself. “I tell you what, my boy, that stupid evening at Natasha’s, do you remember, was enough to finish me off completely. It’s true she was very charming in herself, but I came away feeling horribly angry, and I don’t want to forget it. Neither to forget it nor to conceal it. Of course our time will come too, and it’s coming quickly indeed, but we’ll leave that for now. And among other things, I wanted to explain to you that I have one peculiarity of which you don’t know yet, that is my hatred for all these vulgar and worthless naivities and idyllic nonsense; and one of the enjoyments I relish most has always been putting on that style myself, falling in with that tone, making much of some ever-young Schiller, and egging him on, and then, suddenly, all at once, crushing him at one blow, suddenly taking off my mask before him, and suddenly distorting my ecstatic countenance into a grimace, putting out my tongue at him when he is least of all expecting such a surprise. What? You don’t understand that, you think it nasty, stupid, undignified perhaps, is that it?”
“Of course it is.”
“You are candid. I dare say, but what am I to do if they plague me? I’m stupidly candid too, but such is my character. But I want to tell you some characteristic incidents in my life. It will make you understand me better, and it will be very interesting. Yes, I really am, perhaps, like a Polichinello today, but a Polichinello is candid, isn’t he?”
“Listen, prince, it’s late now, and really….”
“What? Good heavens, what impatience! Besides what’s the hurry? You think I’m drunk. Never mind. So much the better. Ha-ha-ha! These friendly interviews are always remembered so long afterwards, you know, one recalls them with such enjoyment. You’re not a goodnatured man, Ivan Petrovitch. There’s no sentimentality, no feeling about you. What is a paltry hour or two to you for the sake of a friend like me? Besides, it has a bearing on a certain affair…. Of course you must realize that, and you a literary man too; yes, you ought to bless the chance. You might create a type from me, ha-haha! My word, how sweetly candid I am to-day!”
He was evidently drunk. His face changed and began to assume a spiteful expression. He was obviously longing to wound, to sting, to bite, to jeer. “In a way it’s better he’s drunk,” I thought, “men always let things out when they’re drunk.” But he knew what he was about.
“My young friend,” he began, unmistakably enjoying himself, “I made you a confession just now, perhaps an inappropriate one, that I sometimes have an irresistible desire to put out my tongue at people in certain cases. For this naive and simplehearted frankness you compare me to Polichinello, which really amuses me. But if you wonder or reproach me for being rude to you now, and perhaps as unmannerly as a peasant, with having changed my tone to you in fact, in that case you are quite unjust. In the first place it happens to suit me, and secondly I am not at home, but out with you…by which I mean we’re out for a spree together like good friends, and thirdly I’m awfully given to acting on my fancies. Do you know that once I had a fancy to become a metaphysician and a philanthropist, and came round almost to the same ideas as you? But that was ages ago, in the golden days of my youth. I remember at that time going to my home in the country with humane intentions, and was, of course, bored to extinction. And you wouldn’t believe what happened to me then. In my boredom I began to make the acquaintance of some pretty little girls…. What, you’re not making faces already? Oh, my young friend! Why, we’re talking as friends now! One must sometimes enjoy oneself, one must sometimes let oneself go! I have the Russian temperament, you know, a genuine Russian temperament, I’m a patriot, I love to throw off everything; besides one must snatch the moment to enjoy life.. We shall die — and what comes then! Well, so I took to dangling after the girls. I remember one little shepherdess had a husband, a handsome lad he was. I gave him a sound thrashing and meant to send him for a soldier (past pranks, my poet), but I didn’t send him for a soldier. He died in my hospital. I had a hospital in the village, with twelve beds, splendidly fitted up; such cleanliness, parquet floors. I abolished it long ago though, but at that time I was proud of it: I was a philanthropist. Well, I nearly flogged the peasant to death on his wife’s account…. Why are you making faces again? It disgusts you to hear about it? It revolts your noble feelings? There, there, don’t upset yourself! All that’s a thing of the past. I did that when I was in my romantic stage. I wanted to be a benefactor of humanity, to found a philanthropic society… . That was the groove I was in at that time. And then it was I went in for thrashing. Now I never do it; now one has to grimace about it; now we all grimace about it — such are the times…. But what amuses me most of all now is that fool Ichmenyev. I’m convinced that he knew all about that episode with the peasant…and what do you think? In the goodness of his heart, which is made, I do believe, of treacle, and because he was in love with me at that time, and was cracking me up to himself, he made up his mind not to believe a word of it, and he didn’t believe a word of it; that is, he refused to believe in the fact and for twelve years he stood firm as a rock for me, till he was touched himself. Ha-ha-ha! But all that’s nonsense! Let us drink, my young friend. Listen: are you fond of women?”
I made no answer. I only listened to him. He was already beginning the second bottle.
“Well, I’m fond of talking about them over supper. I could introduce you after supper to a Mlle. Philiberte I know. Hein? What do you say? But what’s the matter? You won’t even look at me…hm!”
He seemed to ponder. But he suddenly raised his head, glanced at me as it were significantly, and went on: “I tell you what, my poet, I want to reveal to you a mystery of nature of which it seems to me you are not in the least aware, I’m certain that you’re calling me at this moment a sinner, perhaps even a scoundrel, a monster of vice and corruption. But I can tell you this. If it were only possible (which, however, from the laws of human nature never can be possible), if it were possible for every one of us to describe all his secret thoughts, without hesitating to disclose what he is afraid to tell and would not on any account tell other people, what he is afraid to tell his best friends, what, indeed, he is even at times afraid to confess to himself, the world would be filled with such a stench that we should all be suffocated. That’s why, I may observe in parenthesis, our social proprieties and conventions are so good. They have a profound value, I won’t say for morality, but simply for self-preservation, for comfort, which, of course, is even more, since morality is really that same comfort, that is, it’s invented simply for the sake of comfort. But we’ll talk of the proprieties later; I’m wandering from the point, remind me later. I will conclude by saying: you charge me with vice, corruption, immorality, but perhaps I’m only to blame for being more open than other people, that’s all; for not concealing what other people hide even from themselves, as I said before.… It’s horrid of me but it’s what I want to do just now. But don’t be uneasy,” he added with an ironical smile, “I said ‘to blame’ but I’m not asking forgiveness. Note this too: I’m not putting you to the blush. I’m not asking you whether you haven’t yourself some such secrets, in order to justify myself. I am behaving quite nicely and honourably. I always behave like a gentleman….”
“This is simply silly talk,” I said, looking at him with contempt.
“Silly talk! Ha-ha-ha! But shall I tell you what you’re thinking? You’re wondering why I brought you here, and am suddenly, without rhyme or reason, beginning to be so open with you. Isn’t that it?”
“Yes.”