The Complete Novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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      “Yes, Foma, I certainly feel more at ease,” answered my uncle.

      “As though after you have conquered yourself your heart were, so to say, steeped in holy oil?”

      “Yes, Foma; certainly it all seems as it were in butter.”

      “As it were in butter? H’m. I wasn’t talking of butter, though… . Well, never mind! You see, Colonel, the value of a duty performed! Conquer yourself. You are vain, immensely vain!”

      “I see I am, Foma,” my uncle answered, with a sigh.

      “You are an egoist, and indeed a gloomy egoist… .”

      “An egoist I am, it is true, Foma, and I see it; ever since I have come to know you, I have learned to know that too.”

      “I am speaking to you now like a father, like a tender mother… . You repel people and forget that a friendly calf sucks two mothers.”

      “That is true too, Foma!”

      “You are coarse. You jar so coarsely upon the human heart, you so egoistically insist upon attention, that a decent man is ready to run from you to the utmost ends of the earth.”

      My uncle heaved another deep sigh.

      “Be softer, more attentive, more loving to others; forget yourself for the sake of others, then they will think of you. Live and let others live — that is my rule! Suffer, labour, pray and hope — those are the truths which I would like to instil into all mankind at once! Model yourself on them and then I shall be the first to open my heart to you, I shall weep on your bosom … if need be… . As it is, it is always T and T and ‘my gracious self with you. But, you know, one may get sick at last of your gracious self, if you will allow me to say so.”

      “A sweet-tongued gentleman,” Gavrila brought out, awestruck.

      “That’s true, Foma, I feel all’ that,” my uncle assented, deeply touched. “But I am not altogether to blame, Foma. I’ve been brought up like this, I have lived with soldiers; but I swear, Foma, I have not been without feeling. When I said goodbye to the regiment, all the hussars, all my division, simply shed tears and said they would never get another like me. I thought at the time that I too was not altogether a lost soul.”

      “Again a piece of egoism! Again I catch you in vanity. You are boasting and at the same time reproaching me with the hussars’ tears. Why don’t I boast of anyone’s tears? And yet there may have been grounds, there may have been grounds for doing so.”

      “I meant nothing, Foma, it was a slip of the tongue. I couldn’t help remembering those old happy times.”

      “Happy times do not fall from heaven, we make them ourselves; it lies in our hearts, Yegor Ilyitch. That is why I am always happy and, in spite of my sufferings, contented, tranquil in spirit, and am not a burden to anyone unless it is to fools, upstarts and learned gentlemen, on whom I have no mercy and don’t care to have. I don’t like fools! And what are these learned gentlemen? ‘A man of learning’; and his learning turns out to be nothing but a hoaxing trick, and not learning. Why, what did he say just now? Let him come here! Let all these men of learning come here! I can refute them all; I can refute all their propositions! I say nothing of greatness of soul …”

      “Of course, Foma. Who doubts it?”

      “This afternoon, for instance, I showed intelligence, talent, colossal erudition, knowledge of the human heart, knowledge of contemporary literature; I showed and displayed in a brilliant fashion how some wretched Komarinsky may furnish a lofty topic of conversation for a man of talent. And did any one of them appreciate me as I deserved? No, they turned away! Why, I am certain he has told you already that I know nothing, and yet perhaps Macchiaveili himself or some Mercadante was sitting before him and only to blame for being poor and in obscurity… . That does not penetrate to them I … I hear of Korovkin too. What sort of queer fish is he?”

      “He is a clever man, Foma, a man of learning. … I am expecting him. He will certainly be a nice man, Foma.”

      “H’m, I doubt it. Most likely some modern ass laden with books; there is no soul in them, Colonel, no heart in them! And what is learning without virtue?”

      “No, Foma, no. How he talked of family happiness! The heart feels it of itself, Foma.”

      “H’m! We will have a look at him; we will examine Korovkin too. But enough,” Foma concluded, getting up from his easy-chair. “I cannot altogether forgive you yet, Colonel; the insult was too deadly; but I will pray, and perhaps God will shed peace on the wounded heart. We will speak further of this tomorrow, but now permit me to withdraw. I am tired and exhausted. …”

      “Oh, Foma!” cried my uncle in a fluster, “why, of course you are tired! I say, won’t you have something to support you, a snack of something? I will order something at once.”

      “A snack! Ha-ha-ha!” answered Foma, with a contemptuous laugh. “First they offer you a drink of poison, and then they ask you if you won’t have a snack of something. They want to heal the wounds of the heart with stewed mushrooms or pickled apples! What a pitiful materialist you are, Colonel!”

      “Oh, Foma, I spoke in all simplicity …”

      “Oh, very well. Enough of that. I will withdraw, and you go at once to your mother; fall on your knees, sob, weep, but beg for her forgiveness, that is your duty, that is a moral obligation.”

      “Oh, Foma, I have been thinking of nothing but that all the time; even now while I have been talking to you I have been thinking of it. I am ready to implore her on my knees till dawn. But only think, Foma, what they are expecting of me.

      Why, you know it’s unjust, Foma, it’s cruel. Be entirely magnanimous, make me completely happy, think a little, decide, and then … then … I swear! …”

      “No, Yegor Ilyitch, no, it’s no business of mine,” answered Foma. “You know that I do not meddle in the slightest degree in all that; you may be persuaded that I am at the bottom of it all, but I assure you that from the very beginning I have held entirely aloof from this affair. It is solely the desire of your mother, and she, of course, wishes for nothing but your good. … Go to her, make haste, fly and rectify the position by your obedience … and let not the sun go down upon your wrath; while I … I shall be all night long praying for you. I have known no sleep for many a night, Yegor Ilyitch. Good night! I forgive you too, old man,” he said, turning to Gavrila. “I know you did not do it of yourself. You forgive me too if I have offended you… . Good night, good night, all, and may the Lord bless you.”

      Foma went out. I rushed at once into the room.

      “You’ve been listening!” cried my uncle.

      “Yes, uncle, I have been listening! And you, you could call him ‘your Excellency’?”

      “What could I do, brother? Indeed, I am proud of it… . That was no great act of sacrifice. But what a noble, what a disinterested, what a great man! Sergey, why, you heard yourself … and how I could, how I could thrust that money on him, I simply don’t understand I My dear, I was carried away, I was in a rage. I did not understand him; I suspected him, I accused him… . But no, he could not be antagonistic to me — I see that now … and do you remember what a noble expression there was on his face when he was refusing the money?”

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