Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (68 page)
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Authors: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Oh, for God’s sake, if only this once, spare her! Don’t say the last word,” I cried, flinging myself on my knees before Pyotr Alexandrovitch, and forgetting that I was betraying myself; but it was too late. A faint scream greeted my words, and the poor woman fell senseless on the floor.
“It is all over! You have killed her,” I said. “Call the servants, save her! I will wait for you in your study. I must speak to you; I will tell you all....”
“But what? But what?”
“Afterwards !”
The fainting and hysterics lasted two hours. The whole household was alarmed. The doctor shook his head dubiously. Two hours later I went into Pyotr Alexandrovitch’s study. He had only just come back from his wife, and was walking up and down the room, pale and distracted, biting his nails fill they bled. I had never seen him in such a state.
“What do you want to say to me?” he said in a harsh coarse voice. “You wanted to say something?”
“Here is the letter you found in my possession. Do you recognise it?”
“Yes.”
“Take it.”
He took the letter and raised it to the light. I watched him attentively. A few minutes later, he turned quickly to the fourth page and read the signature. I saw the blood rush to his head.
“What’s this?” he asked me, petrified with amazement.
“It’s three years ago that I found that letter in a book. I guessed that it was forgotten, I read it and learned everything. From that time forth it has been in my possession because I had no one to whom to give it. I could not give it to her. Could I to you? But you must have known the contents of this letter, and all the sorrowful story in it.... What your pretending is for, I don’t know. That is for the present dark to me. I cannot yet see clearly into your dark soul. You wanted to keep up your superiority over her, and have done so. But for what object? To triumph over a phantom, over a sick woman’s unhinged imagination, to prove to her that she has erred and you are more sinless than she! And you have attained your aim, for this suspicion of hers is the fixed idea of a failing brain, perhaps, the last plaint of a heart broken against the injustice of men’s verdict, with which you were at one. ‘What docs it matter if you have fallen in love with her?’ That is what she said, that is what she wanted to show you. Your vanity, your jealous egoism have been merciless. Good-bye! No need to explain! But mind, I know you, I see through you. Don’t forget that!”
I went to my own room, scarcely knowing what was happening to me. At the door I was stopped by Ovrov, Pyotr Alexandrovich’s secretary.
“I should like to have a word with you,” he said with a respectful bow.
I looked at him, scarcely understanding what he said to me.
“Afterwards. Excuse me, I am not well,” I answered at last, passing him.
“To-morrow then,” he said, bowing with an ambiguous smile.
But perhaps that was my fancy. All this seemed to flit before my eyes.
THE END OF THE FRAGMENT
LEFT UNFINISHED BY DOSTOYEVSKY
Translated by Constance Garnett
The Uncle’s Dream
was the first work that Dostoyevsky completed after his five years of agony in exile in Siberia and the novel reveals a profound transformation in the author’s vision of the world. There is no longer the contained, brooding, dream-prone atmosphere of his earlier stories. Instead,
Uncle’s Dream
is narrated with firm objectivity, combining satire, social reportage, puppet theatre and farce in its comic send-up of small-town manners and morals.
Dostoyevsky in the year of publication, 1859
The 2003 Russian TV series based on the short novel
UNCLE’S DREAM
CONTENTS
UNCLE’S DREAM
(FROM THE ANNALS OF MORDASOV )
CHAPTER I.
Maria Alexandrovna Moskaleva was the principal lady of Mordasoff — there was no doubt whatever on that point! She always bore herself as though
she
did not care a fig for anyone, but as though no one else could do without
her
. True, there were uncommonly few who loved her — in fact I may say that very many detested her; still, everyone was afraid of her, and that was what she liked!
Now, why did Maria Alexandrovna, who dearly loves scandal, and cannot sleep at night unless she has heard something new and piquant the day before, — why, or how did she know how to bear herself so that it would never strike anyone, looking at her, to suppose that the dignified lady was the most inveterate scandal-monger in the world — or at all events in Mordasoff? On the contrary, anyone would have said at once, that scandals and such-like pettiness must vanish in her presence; and that scandal-mongers, caught red-handed by Maria Alexandrovna, would blush and tremble, like schoolboys at the entrance of the master; and that the talk would immediately be diverted into channels of the loftiest and most sublime subjects so soon as she entered the room. Maria Alexandrovna knew many deadly and scandalous secrets of certain other Mordasoff inhabitants, which, if she liked to reveal them at any convenient opportunity, would produce results little less terrible than the earthquake of Lisbon. Still, she was very quiet about the secrets she knew, and never let them out except in cases of absolute need, and then only to her nearest and dearest friends. She liked to hint that she knew certain things, and frighten people out of their wits; preferring to keep them in a state of perpetual terror, rather than crush them altogether.
This was real talent — the talent of tactics.
We all considered Maria Alexandrovna as our type and model of irreproachable
comme-il-faut
! She had no rival in this respect in Mordasoff! She could kill and annihilate and pulverize any rival with a single word. We have seen her do it; and all the while she would look as though she had not even observed that she had let the fatal word fall.
Everyone knows that this trait is a speciality of the highest circles.
Her circle of friends was large. Many visitors to Mordasoff left the town again in an ecstasy over her reception of them, and carried on a correspondence with her afterwards! Somebody even addressed some poetry to her, which she showed about the place with great pride. The novelist who came to the town used to read his novel to her of an evening, and ended by dedicating it to her; which produced a very agreeable effect. A certain German professor, who came from Carlsbad to inquire into the question of a little worm with horns which abounds in our part of the world, and who wrote and published four large quarto volumes about this same little insect, was so delighted and ravished with her amiability and kindness that to this very day he carries on a most improving correspondence upon moral subjects from far Carlsbad!
Some people have compared Maria Alexandrovna, in certain respects, with Napoleon. Of course it may have been her enemies who did so, in order to bring Maria Alexandrovna to scorn; but all I can say is, How is it that Napoleon, when he rose to his highest, that
too
high estate of his, became giddy and fell? Historians of the old school have ascribed this to the fact that he was not only not of royal blood, but was not even a gentleman! and therefore when he rose too high, he thought of his proper place, the ground, became giddy and fell! But why did not Maria Alexandrovna’s head whirl? And how was it that she could always keep her place as the first lady of Mordasoff?
People have often said this sort of thing of Maria Alexandrovna; for instance: “Oh — yes, but how would she act under such and such difficult circumstances?” Yet, when the circumstances arose, Maria Alexandrovna invariably rose also to the emergency! For instance, when her husband — Afanassy Matveyevitch — was obliged to throw up his appointment, out of pure incapacity and feebleness of intellect, just before the government inspector came down to look into matters, all Mordasoff danced with delight to think that she would be down on her knees to this inspector, begging and beseeching and weeping and praying — in fact, that she would drop her wings and fall; but, bless you, nothing of the sort happened! Maria Alexandrovna quite understood that her husband was beyond praying for: he must retire. So she only rearranged her affairs a little, in such a manner that she lost not a scrap of her influence in the place, and her house still remained the acknowledged head of all Mordasoff Society!
The procurer’s wife, Anna Nicolaevna Antipova, the sworn foe of Maria Alexandrovna, though a friend so far as could be judged outside, had already blown the trumpet of victory over her rival! But when Society found that Maria Alexandrovna was extremely difficult to put down, they were obliged to conclude that the latter had struck her roots far deeper than they had thought for.
As I have mentioned Afanassy Matveyevitch, Maria Alexandrovna’s husband, I may as well add a few words about him in this place.
Firstly, then, he was a most presentable man, so far as exterior goes, and a very high-principled person besides; but in critical moments he used to lose his head and stand looking like a sheep which has come across a new gate. He looked very majestic and dignified in his dress-coat and white tie at dinner parties, and so on; but his dignity only lasted until he opened his mouth to speak; for then — well, you’d better have shut your ears, ladies and gentlemen, when he began to talk — that’s all! Everyone agreed that he was quite unworthy to be Maria Alexandrovna’s husband. He only sat in his place by virtue of his wife’s genius. In my humble opinion he ought long ago to have been derogated to the office of frightening sparrows in the kitchen garden. There, and only there, would he have been in his proper sphere, and doing some good to his fellow countrymen.
Therefore, I think Maria Alexandrovna did a very wise thing when she sent him away to her village, about a couple of miles from town, where she possessed a property of some hundred and twenty souls — which, to tell the truth, was all she had to keep up the respectability and grandeur of her noble house upon!
Everybody knew that Afanassy was only kept because he had earned a salary and perquisites; so that when he ceased to earn the said salary and perquisites, it surprised no-one to learn that he was sent away— “returned empty” to the village, as useless and fit for nothing! In fact, everyone praised his wife for her soundness of judgment and decision of character!
Afanassy lived in clover at the village. I called on him there once and spent a very pleasant hour. He tied on his white ties, cleaned his boots himself (not because he had no-one to do it for him, but for the sake of art, for he loved to have them
shine
), went to the bath as often as he could, had tea four times a day, and was as contented as possible.