The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Novels, Short Stories and Autobiographical Writings. Федор Достоевский

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СКАЧАТЬ preternatural voracity. The name was accepted with enthusiasm, and the bulldog was always called that. Falstaff behaved well. Like a regular Englishman, he was taciturn, morose, and never attacked anyone till he was touched; he only insisted that his place on the bearskin should be regarded as sacred, and that he should be shown fitting respect in general. Sometimes he seemed to have something like an attack of hysterics, as though he were overcome by the spleen, and at such moments Falstaff remembered with bitterness that his foe, his irreconcilable foe, who had encroached upon his rights, was still unpunished. Then he made his way stealthily to the staircase that led to the upper storey, and finding the door, as usual, closed, lay down somewhere not far from it, hid in a corner, and craftily waited till someone should be careless and leave the door open. Sometimes the revengeful beast would lie in wait for three days. But strict orders had been given to keep watch over the door, and for three months Falstaff had not got upstairs.

      “Falstaff! Falstaff!” cried Katya, opening the door and coaxingly beckoning the dog to come to us on the stairs. At that very time Falstaff, with an instinctive feeling that the door would be opened, was preparing to leap across his Rubicon, but Katya’s summons seemed to him so impossible that for some time he resolutely refused to believe his ears. He was as sly as a cat, and not to show that he noticed the heedless opening of the door, went up to the window, laid his powerful paws on the window-sill and began gazing at the building opposite — behaved, in fact, like a man quite uninterested who has gone out for a walk and stopped for a minute to admire the fine architecture of a neighbouring building. Meanwhile his heart was throbbing and swooning in voluptuous expectation. What was his amazement, his joy, his frantic joy, when the door was flung wide open before him, and not only that, but he was called, invited, besought to go upstairs and wreak his just vengeance. Whining with delight, he showed his teeth, and terrible, triumphant, darted upstairs like an arrow. His impetus was so great that a chair that happened to be in his way was sent flying and overturned seven feet away. Falstaff flew like a cannon-ball. Madame Leotard uttered a shriek of horror. But Falstaff had already dashed to the forbidden door, was beating upon it with both paws, but could not open it, and howled like a lost soul. He was answered by a fearful scream from the old maid within. But a whole legion of enemies was flocking from all quarters, the whole household was moving upstairs, and Falstaff, the ferocious Falstaff, with a muzzle deftly popped over his jaws, with all his four limbs tied up, was ingloriously withdrawn from the field of battle and led downstairs with a noose round him.

      An envoy was sent to his mistress.

      On this occasion the princess was in no mood for forgiving and showing mercy; but whom could she punish? She guessed at once, in a flash; her eyes fell upon Katya…. That was it: Katya stood pale and trembling with fear. It was only now that she realised, poor child, the results of her mischief. Suspicion might fall upon the servants, on innocent people, and Katya was already preparing to tell the whole truth.

      “Are you responsible?” her mother asked sternly.

      I saw Katya’s deadly pallor and, stepping forward, I pronounced in a resolute voice —

      “It was I let Falstaff in… by accident,” I added, for all my courage vanished before the princess’s threatening eyes.

      “Madame Leotard, give her an exemplary punishment!” said the princess, and she walked out of the room.

      I glanced at Katya: she stood as though thunderstruck; her hands hung down at her sides; her little blanched face was looking down.

      The only punishment that was made use of for the prince’s children was being shut up in an empty room. To stay for two hours in an empty room was nothing. But when a child is put there by force against its will and told that it is deprived of freedom, the punishment is considerable. As a rule, Katya and her brother were shut up for two hours. In view of the enormity of my offence, I was shut up for four. Faint with delight I entered my black hole. I thought about Katya. I knew that I had won her. But instead of being there four hours, I was there till four o’clock in the morning. This is how it happened.

      Two hours after I had been put in confinement, Madame Leotard learned that her daughter had arrived from Moscow, had been taken ill and wanted to see her. Madame Leotard went off, forgetting me. The maid who looked after us probably took for granted that I had been released. Katya was sent for downstairs, and obliged to stay with her mother till eleven o’clock in the evening. When she came back she was very much surprised that I was not in bed. The maid undressed her and put her to bed, but Katya had her reasons for not inquiring about me. She got into bed expecting me to come, knowing for a fact that I had been shut up for four hours, and expecting me to be brought by our nurse. But Nastya forgot me entirely, the more readily as I always undressed myself. And so I was left to spend the night in prison.

      At four o’clock in the night I heard someone knocking and trying to break in. I was asleep, lying anyhow on the floor. When I awoke, I cried out with terror, but at once recognised Katya’s voice which rang out above all the rest, then the voice of Madame Leotard, then of the frightened Nastya, then of the housekeeper. At last the door was opened, and Madame Leotard hugged me with tears in her eyes, begging me to forgive her for having forgotten me. I flung myself on her neck in tears. I was shivering with cold, and all my bones ached from lying on the bare floor. I looked for Katya, but she had run into our bedroom, leapt into bed, and when I went in she was already asleep — or pretending to be. She had accidentally fallen asleep while waiting for me in the evening, and had slept on till four o’clock in the morning. When she woke, she had made a fuss, a regular uproar in fact, wakened Madame Leotard, who had returned, our nurse, all the maids, and released me.

      In the morning the whole household knew of my adventure; even the princess said that I had been treated too severely. As for the prince, I saw him that day, for the first time, moved to anger. He came upstairs at ten o’clock in the morning in great excitement.

      “Upon my word,” he began to Madame Leotard, “what are you about? What a way to treat the poor child. It’s barbarous.

      simply barbarous! Savage! A delicate, sick child, such a dreamy, timid little girl, so imaginative, and you shut her in a dark room all night! Why, it is ruining her! Don’t you know her story? It’s barbarous, it’s inhuman, I tell you, madam! And how is such a punishment possible? Who invented, who could have invented such a punishment?”

      Poor Madame Leotard, with tears in her eyes, began in confusion explaining how it had all happened, how she had forgotten me, how her daughter had arrived; but that the punishment in itself was good if it did not last too long, and that Jean Jacques Rousseau indeed said something of the sort.

      “Jean Jacques Rousseau, madam! But Jean Jacques could not have said that. Jean Jacques is no authority. Jean Jacques Rousseau should not have dared to talk of education, he had no right to do so. Jean Jacques Rousseau abandoned his own children, madam! Jean Jacques was a bad man, madam!”

      “Jean Jacques Rousseau! Jean Jacques a bad man! Prince! Prince! What are you saying?”

      And Madame Leotard flared up.

      Madame Leotard was a splendid woman, and above all things disliked hurting anyone’s feelings; but touch one of her favourites, trouble the classic shades of Corneille, or Racine, insult Voltaire, call Jean Jacques Rousseau a bad man, call him a barbarian and — good heavens! Tears came into Madame Leotard’s eyes, and the old lady trembled with excitement.

      “You are forgetting yourself, prince!” she said at last, beside herself with agitation.

      The prince pulled himself up at once and begged her pardon, then came up to me, kissed me with great feeling, made the sign of the cross over me, and left the room.

      “Pauvre prince!” said Madame Leotard growing sentimental in her СКАЧАТЬ