THE COMPLETE NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ cemetery with the rest; they were stuck-up and held aloof from me. My uniform was certainly rather shabby. It’s five-and-twenty years, I believe, since I was at the cemetery; what a wretched place!

      To begin with the smell. There were fifteen hearses, with palls varying in expensiveness; there were actually two catafalques. One was a general’s and one some lady’s. There were many mourners, a great deal of feigned mourning and a great deal of open gaiety. The clergy have nothing to complain of; it brings them a good income. But the smell, the smell. I should not like to be one of the clergy here.

      I kept glancing at the faces of the dead cautiously, distrusting my impressionability. Some had a mild expression, some looked unpleasant. As a rule the smiles were disagreeable, and in some cases very much so. I don’t like them; they haunt one’s dreams.

      During the service I went out of the church into the air: it was a grey day, but dry. It was cold too, but then it was October. I walked about among the tombs. They are of different grades. The third grade cost thirty roubles; it’s decent and not so very dear. The first two grades are tombs in the church and under the porch; they cost a pretty penny. On this occasion they were burying in tombs of the third grade six persons, among them the general and the lady.

      I looked into the graves — and it was horrible: water and such water! Absolutely green, and … but there, why talk of it! The gravedigger was baling it out every minute. I went out while the service was going on and strolled outside the gates. Close by was an almshouse, and a little further off there was a restaurant. It was not a bad little restaurant: there was lunch and everything. There were lots of the mourners here. I noticed a great deal of gaiety and genuine heartiness. I had something to eat and drink.

      Then I took part in the bearing of the coffin from the church to the grave. Why is it that corpses in their coffins are so heavy? They say it is due to some sort of inertia, that the body is no longer directed by its owner … or some nonsense of that sort, in opposition to the laws of mechanics and common sense. I don’t like to hear people who have nothing but a general education venture to solve the problems that require special knowledge; and with us that’s done continually. Civilians love to pass opinions about subjects that are the province of the soldier and even of the field-marshal; while men who have been educated as engineers prefer discussing philosophy and political economy.

      I did not go to the requiem service. I have some pride, and if I am only received owing to some special necessity, why force myself on their dinners, even if it be a funeral dinner. The only thing I don’t understand is why I stayed at the cemetery; I sat on a tombstone and sank into appropriate reflections.

      I began with the Moscow exhibition and ended with reflecting upon astonishment in the abstract. My deductions about astonishment were these:

      “To be surprised at everything is stupid of course, and to be astonished at nothing is a great deal more becoming and for some reason accepted as good form. But that is not really true. To my mind to be astonished at nothing is much more stupid than to be astonished at everything. And, moreover, to be astonished at nothing is almost the same as feeling respect for nothing. And indeed a stupid man is incapable of feeling respect.”

      “But what I desire most of all is to feel respect. I thirst to feel respect,” one of my acquaintances said to me the other day.

      He thirsts to feel respect! Goodness, I thought, what would happen to you if you dared to print that nowadays?

      At that point I sank into forgetfulness. I don’t like reading the epitaphs of tombstones: they are everlastingly the same. An unfinished sandwich was lying on the tombstone near me; stupid and inappropriate. I threw it on the ground, as it was not bread but only a sandwich. Though I believe it is not a sin to throw bread on the earth, but only on the floor. I must look it up in Suvorin’s calendar.

      I suppose I sat there a long time — too long a time, in fact; I must have lain down on a long stone which was of the shape of a marble coffin. And how it happened I don’t know, but I began to hear things of all sorts being said. At first I did not pay attention to it, but treated it with contempt. But the conversation went on. I heard muffled sounds as though the speakers’ mouths were covered with a pillow, and at the same time they were distinct and very near. I came to myself, sat up and began listening attentively.

      “Your Excellency, it’s utterly impossible. You led hearts, I return your lead, and here you play the seven of diamonds. You ought to have given me a hint about diamonds.”

      “What, play by hard and fast rules? Where is the charm of that?”

      “You must, your Excellency. One can’t do anything without something to go upon. We must play with dummy, let one hand not be turned up.”

      “Well, you won’t find a dummy here.”

      What conceited words! And it was queer and unexpected. One was such a ponderous, dignified voice, the other softly suave; I should not have believed it if I had not heard it myself. I had not been to the requiem dinner, I believe. And yet how could they be playing preference here and what general was this? That the sounds came from under the tombstones of that there could be no doubt. I bent down and read on the tomb:

      “Here lies the body of Major-General Pervoyedov … a cavalier of such and such orders.” Hm! “Passed away in August of this year … fifty-seven…. Rest, beloved ashes, till the joyful dawn!”

      Hm, dash it, it really is a general! There was no monument on the grave from which the obsequious voice came, there was only a tombstone. He must have been a fresh arrival. From his voice he was a lower court councillor.

      “Oh-ho-ho-ho!” I heard in a new voice a dozen yards from the general’s resting-place, coming from quite a fresh grave. The voice belonged to a man and a plebeian, mawkish with its affectation of religious fervour. “Oh-ho-ho-ho!”

      “Oh, here he is hiccupping again!” cried the haughty and disdainful voice of an irritated lady, apparently of the highest society. “It is an affliction to be by this shopkeeper!”

      “I didn’t hiccup; why, I’ve had nothing to eat. It’s simply my nature. Really, madam, you don’t seem able to get rid of your caprices here.”

      “Then why did you come and lie down here?”

      “They put me here, my wife and little children put me here, I did not lie down here of myself. The mystery of death! And I would not have lain down beside you not for any money; I lie here as befitting my fortune, judging by the price. For we can always do that — pay for a tomb of the third grade.”

      “You made money, I suppose? You fleeced people?”

      “Fleece you, indeed! We haven’t seen the colour of your money since January. There’s a little bill against you at the shop.”

      “Well, that’s really stupid; to try and recover debts here is too stupid, to my thinking! Go to the surface. Ask my niece — she is my heiress.”

      “There’s no asking any one now, and no going anywhere. We have both reached our limit and, before the judgment-seat of God, are equal in our sins.”

      “In our sins,” the lady mimicked him contemptuously. “Don’t dare to speak to me.”

      “Oh-ho-ho-ho!”

      “You see, the shopkeeper obeys the lady, your Excellency.”

      “Why shouldn’t he?”

      “Why, СКАЧАТЬ