THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Федор Достоевский
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he is afraid of losing my affection, he is testing me, he wants to see how much I am ready to sacrifice for him. ‘No/ he said, ‘I am just as good as the general for you, I am myself “your Excellency” for you! I will be reconciled to you when you prove your respect for me/ ‘In what way am I to prove my respect for you, Foma Fomitch?”Call me for a whole day “your Excellency”, says he, ‘then you will prove your respect.’ I felt as though I were dropping from the clouds; you can picture my amazement. ‘That will serve you,’ said he, ‘as a lesson not to be in ecstasies at the sight of generals when there are other people, perhaps, superior to all your generals.’ Well, at that point I lost patience, I confess it! I confess it openly. ‘Foma Fomitch/ I said, ‘is such a thing possible? Can I take it upon myself to do it? Can I, have I the right to promote you to be a general? Think who it is bestows the rank of a general. How can I address you as, “your Excellency”? Why, it is infringing the decrees of Providence! Why, the general is an honour to his country; the general has faced the enemy, he has shed his blood on the field of honour. How am I to call you “your Excellency”?’ He would not give way, there was no doing anything. ‘Whatever you want, Foma/ I said, ‘I will do anything for you. Here you told me to shave off my whiskers because they were not patriotic enough — I shaved them off; I frowned, but I did shave them. What is more, I will do anything you like, only do give up the rank of a general’/ ‘No/ said he, ‘I won’t be reconciled till you call mo “your Excellency”; that/ said he, ‘will be good for your moral character, it will humble your spirit!’ said he. And so now for a week, a whole week, he won’t speak to me; he is cross to everyone that comes; he heard about you, that you were learned — that was my fault; I got warm and said too much — so he said he would not set foot in the house if you came into it. ‘So I am not learned enough for you now,’ said he. So there will be trouble when he hears now about Korovkin! Come now, please, tell me in what way have I been to blame? Was I to take on myself to call him ‘your Excellency’? Why, it is impossible to live in such a position! What did he drive poor Bahtcheyev away from the table to-day for? Supposing Bahtcheyev is not a great astronomer, why I am not a great astronomer, and you are not a great astronomer… . Why is it? Why is it?”
“Because you are envious, Yegorushka,” mumbled Madame la Générale again.
“Mamma,” cried my uncle in despair, “you will drive me out of my mind! … Those are not your words, you are repeating what others say, mamma! I am, in fact, made out a stone, a block, a lamppost and not your son.”
“I heard, uncle,” I interposed, utterly amazed by his story— “I heard from Bahtcheyev, I don’t know whether it was true or not — that Foma Fomitch was jealous of Ilyusha’s nameday, and declares that tomorrow is his nameday too. I must own that this characteristic touch so astounded me that I …”
“His birthday, my dear, his birthday!” my uncle interrupted me, speaking rapidly. “He only made a mistake in the word, but he is right; tomorrow is his birthday. Truth, my boy, before everything. …”
“It’s not his birthday at all!” cried Sashenka.
“Not his birthday!” cried my uncle, in a fluster.
“It’s not his birthday, papa. You simply say what isn’t true to deceive yourself and to satisfy Foma Fomitch. His birthday was in March. Don’t you remember, too, we went on a pilgrimage to the monastery just before, and he wouldn’t let anyone sit in peace in the carriage? He kept crying out that the cushion was crushing his side, and pinching us; he pinched auntie twice in his ill humour. T am fond of camellias/ he said, ‘for I have the taste of the most refined society, and you grudge picking me any from the conservatory.’ And all day long he sulked and grizzled and would not talk to us… .”
I fancy that if a bomb had fallen in the middle of the room it would not have astounded and alarmed them all as much as this open mutiny — and of whom? — of a little girl who was not even permitted to speak aloud in her grandmother’s presence. Madame fa Generale, dumb with amazement and fury, rose from her seat, stood erect and stared at her insolent grandchild, unable to believe her eyes. My uncle was paralysed with horror.
“She is allowed to do just as she likes, she wants to be the death of her grandmother!” cried Miss Perepelitsyn.
“Sasha, Sasha, think what you arc saying! What’s the matter with you, Sasha?” cried my uncle, rushing from one to the other, from his mother to Sashenka to stop her.
“I won’t hold my tongue, papa!” cried Sashenka, leaping up from her chair with flashing eyes and stamping with her feet. “I won’t hold my tongue! We have all suffered too long from Foma Fomitch, from your nasty, horrid Foma Fomitch! Foma Fomitch will be the ruin of us all, for people keep on telling him that he is so clever, generous, noble, learned, a mix-up of all the virtues, a sort of potpourri, and like an idiot Foma Fomitch believes it all. So many nice things are offered to him that anyone else would be ashamed; but Foma Fomitch gobbles up all that is put before him and asks for more. You’ll see, he will be the ruin of us all, and it’s all papa’s fault! Horrid, horrid Foma Fomitch! I speak straight out, I am not afraid of anyone! He is stupid, ill-tempered, dirty, ungentlemanly, cruel-hearted, a bully, a mischief-maker, a liar… . Oh, I’d turn him out of the house this minute, I would, but papa adores him, papa is crazy over him!”
“Oh!” shrieked her grandmother, and she fell in a swoon on the sofa.
“Agafya Timofyevna, my angel,” cried Anfisa Petrovna, “take my smelling-salts! Water, make haste, water!”
“Water, water!” shouted my uncle. “Mamma, mamma, calm yourself! I beg you on my knees to calm yourself! …”
“You ought to be kept on bread and water and shut up in a dark room … you’re a murderess!” Miss Perepelitsyn, shaking with spite, hissed at Sashenka.
“I will be kept on bread and water, I am not afraid of anything!” cried Sashenka, moved to frenzy in her turn. “I will defend papa because he can’t defend himself. Who is he, who is your Foma Fomitch compared with papa? He eats papa’s bread and insults papa, the ungrateful creature. I would tear him to pieces, your Foma Fomitch! I’d challenge him to a duel and shoot him on the spot with two pistols! …”
“Sasha, Sasha,” cried my uncle in despair. “Another word and I am ruined, hopelessly ruined.”
“Papa,” cried Sashenka, flinging herself headlong at her father, dissolving into tears and hugging him in her arms, “papa, how can you ruin yourself like this, you so kind, and good, and merry and clever? How can you give in to that horrid ungrateful man, be his plaything and let him turn you into ridicule? Papa, my precious papa! …”
She burst into sobs, covered her face with her hands and ran out of the room.
A fearful hubbub followed. Madame la Générale lay in a swoon. My uncle was kneeling beside her kissing her hands. Miss Perepelitsyn was wriggling about them and casting spiteful but triumphant glances at us. Anfisa Petrovna was moistening the old lady’s temples and applying her smelling-salts. Praskovya Ilyinitchna was shedding tears and trembling, Yezhevikin was looking for a corner to seek refuge in, while the governess stood pale and completely overwhelmed with terror. Mizintchikov was the only one who remained unchanged. He got up, went to the window and began looking out of it, resolutely declining to pay attention to the scene around him.
All at once Madame la Générale sat up, drew herself up and scanned me with a menacing eye.
“Go away!” she shouted, stamping her foot at me.
I must confess that this I had not in the least expected.
“Go away! Go out of the house! What has he come for? Don’t let me see a trace of him!”
“Mamma, mamma, what do you mean? Why, this is Seryozha,” my uncle muttered, shaking all over with terror. “Why, he has come to pay us a visit, mamma.”
“What Seryozha? Nonsense. I won’t hear a word. Go away! It’s Korovkin. I am convinced it is Korovkin. My presentiments never deceive me. He has come to turn Foma Fomitch out; he has been sent for with