The Diary of a Superfluous Man, and Other Stories

I solemnly led her the whole length of the hall, found two chairs, and seated myself with her in the circle of the mazurka, the tenth pair, almost opposite the Prince, to whom, of course, the first place had been conceded. The Prince, as I have already said, was dancing with Liza. Neither my partner nor I were incommoded with invitations; consequently, we had plenty of time for conversation. Truth to tell, my lady was not distinguished by ability to utter words in coherent speech: she employed her mouth more for the execution of a strange downward smile, hitherto unbeheld by me; at the same time, she rolled her eyes upward, as though some invisible force were stretching her face; but I had no need of her eloquence. Fortunately, I felt vicious, and my partner did not inspire me with timidity. I set to criticising everything and everybody in the world, laying special stress on whipper-snappers from the capital, and Petersburg fops, and waxed so angry, at last, that my lady gradually ceased to smile, and instead of rolling her eyes upward, she suddenly began – with amazement, it must have been – to look cross-eyed, and in such a queer way, to boot, as though she had perceived, for the first time, that she had a nose on her face; and my next neighbour, one of those lions of whom I have spoken above, more than once scanned me with a glance, even turned to me with the expression of an actor on the stage who has waked up in an unknown land, as much as to say: "Art thou still at it?" However, while I sang like a nightingale, as the saying is, I still continued to watch the Prince and Liza. They were constantly invited; but I suffered less when both of them were dancing; and even when they were sitting side by side and chatting with each other, and smiling with that gentle smile which refuses to leave the face of happy lovers, – even then I was not so greatly pained; but when Liza was fluttering through the hall with some gallant dandy, and the Prince, with her blue gauze scarf on his knees, thoughtfully followed her with his eyes, as though admiring his conquest, – then, oh, then I experienced unbearable tortures, and in my vexation I emitted such malicious remarks, that the pupils of my partner's eyes reclined completely from both sides, on her nose!

In the meantime, the mazurka was drawing to a close… They began to execute the figure known as "la confidente." In this figure the lady seats herself in the centre of the circle, chooses another lady for her confidante and whispers in her ear the name of the gentleman with whom she wishes to dance; the cavalier leads up to her the dancers, one by one, and the confidante refuses them until, at last, the happy man who has already been designated makes his appearance. Liza sat in the centre of the circle, and chose the daughter of the hostess, one of those young girls of whom it is said that they are "God bless them."13 The Prince began to search for the chosen man. In vain did he present about half a score of young men (the hostess' daughter refused them all, with a pleasant smile), and, at last, had recourse to me. Something unusual took place in me at that moment: I seemed to wink with my whole body, and tried to decline; nevertheless, I rose and went. The Prince conducted me to Liza… She did not even glance at me; the hostess' daughter shook her head in negation, the Prince turned toward me, and, prompted probably by the goose-like expression of my face, made me a profound bow. This mocking reverence, this refusal, presented to me by my triumphant rival, his negligent smile, Liza's indifferent inattention, – all this provoked an explosion on my part. I stepped up to the Prince and whispered in a frenzied rage: "I think you are permitting yourself to jeer at me?"

The Prince stared at me with scornful surprise, again took me by the hand, and with the air of leading me back to my seat, replied coldly: "I?"

"Yes, you, you!" – I went on in a whisper, obeying him, nevertheless; that is to say, following him to my seat; – "you! But I do not intend to allow any frivolous Petersburg upstart …"

The Prince smiled calmly, almost patronisingly, gripped my hand hard, whispered: "I understand you; but this is not the proper place; we will talk it over," turned away from me, approached Bizmyónkoff and led him to Liza. The pale little petty official proved to be the chosen cavalier. Liza rose to meet him.

As I sat beside my partner with the melancholy fly on her head, I felt myself almost a hero. My heart thumped violently within me, my bosom swelled nobly under my starched shirt-front, my breath came fast and deep – and all of a sudden, I stared at the adjacent lion in so magnificent a manner, that he involuntarily wiggled the leg which was turned toward me. Having rid myself of this man, I ran my eyes over the circle of dancers… It seemed to me that two or three gentlemen were gazing at me not without amazement; but, on the whole, my conversation with the Prince had not been noticed… My rival was already seated on his chair, perfectly composed, and with his former smile on his face. Bizmyónkoff led Liza to her place. She gave him a friendly nod and immediately turned to the Prince, as it seemed to me, with a certain anxiety; but he laughed in response, waved his hand gracefully, and must have said something very agreeable to her, for she flushed all over with pleasure, dropped her eyes, and then riveted them on him once more with affectionate reproach.

The heroic frame of mind which had suddenly developed in me did not disappear until the end of the mazurka; but I made no more jests, and did not criticise, and merely cast a severe and gloomy glance from time to time at my lady, who was, evidently, beginning to be afraid of me, and was reduced to a state of complete stammering and winked incessantly, when I led her to the natural stronghold of her mother, a very fat woman with a red head-dress. Having handed over the frightened young girl as behooved me, I walked off to the window, clasped my hands, and waited to see what would happen. I waited a good while. The Prince was constantly surrounded by the host, – precisely that, surrounded, as England is surrounded by the sea, – not to mention the other members of the county Marshal of the Nobility's family, and the other guests; and, moreover, he could not, without arousing universal surprise, approach such an insignificant man as I, and enter into conversation with him. This insignificance of mine, I remember, was even a source of delight to me then. "Fiddlesticks!" I thought, as I watched him turning courteously now to one, now to another respected personage who sought the honour of being noticed by him, if only for "the twinkling of an eye," as the poets say: – "Fiddlesticks, my dear fellow!.. Thou wilt come to me by and by – for I have insulted thee."

At last the Prince, having cleverly got rid of the crowd of his adorers, strode past me, darted a glance, not exactly at the window, nor yet exactly at my hair, was on the point of turning away, and suddenly came to a halt, as though he had just remembered something.

"Akh, yes!" – he said, addressing me with a smile; – "by the way, I have a little matter of business with you."

Two landed proprietors, the most persistent of all, who were obstinately following up the Prince, probably thought that the "little matter of business" was connected with the service, and respectfully retreated. The Prince put his arm in mine, and led me to one side. My heart thumped in my breast.

"You," – he began, drawling out the word you, and staring at my chin with a contemptuous expression which, strange to say, was infinitely becoming to his fresh, handsome face, – "you said something insolent to me, I believe."

"I said what I thought," – I retorted, raising my voice.

"Ssssh … speak more quietly," – he remarked: – "well-bred men do not shout. Perhaps you would like to fight with me?"

"That is your affair," – I replied, drawing myself up.

"I shall be compelled to call you out," – he said carelessly, – "if you do not withdraw your expressions…"

"I have no intention of withdrawing anything," – I retorted proudly.

"Really?" – he remarked, not without a sneering smile. – "In that case," – he went on, after a brief pause, – "I shall have the honour to send my second to you to-morrow."

"Very well, sir," – I said in the most indifferent tone I could muster.

The Prince bowed slightly.

"I cannot forbid you to think me a frivolous man," – he added, arrogantly narrowing his eyes; – "but it is impossible that the Princes N*** should be upstarts. Farewell for the present, Mr… Mr. Shtukatúrin."

He quickly turned his back on me, and again approached his host, who had already begun to grow agitated.

"Mr. Shtukatúrin"!.. My name is Tchulkatúrin… I could find no reply to make to this last insult of his, and only stared after him in a violent rage. – "Farewell until to-morrow," I whispered, setting my teeth, and immediately hunted up an officer of my acquaintance, Captain Koloberdyáeff of the uhlans, a desperate carouser and a splendid fellow, narrated to him in a few words my quarrel with the Prince, and asked him to be my second. He, of course, immediately consented, and I wended my way homeward.

I could not get to sleep all night – from agitation, not from pusillanimity. I am no coward. I even thought very little indeed about the impending possibility of losing my life, that highest good on earth, according to the Germans. I thought of Liza only, of my dead hopes, of what I ought to do. "Ought I to try to kill the Prince?" I asked myself, and, of course, wanted to kill him, – not out of vengeance, but out of a desire for Liza's good. "But she will not survive that blow," I went on. "No, it will be better to let him kill me!"

I confess that it was also pleasant to me to think that I, an obscure man from the country, had forced so important a personage to fight a duel with me.

Dawn found me engrossed in these cogitations; and later in the morning, Koloberdyáeff presented himself.

"Well," – he asked me, noisily entering my bedroom, – "and where 's the Prince's second?"

"Why, good gracious!" – I replied with vexation, – "it 's only seven o'clock in the morning now; I presume the Prince is still fast asleep."

"In that case," – returned the irrepressible cavalry-captain, – "order them to give me some tea. I have a headache from last night's doings… I have n't even been undressed. However," – he added with a yawn, – "I rarely do undress anyway."

Tea was served to him. He drank six glasses with rum, smoked four pipes, told me that on the preceding day he had bought for a song a horse which the coachmen had given up as a bad job, and intended to break it in by tying up one of its forelegs, – and fell asleep, without undressing, on the couch, with his pipe still in his mouth. I rose, and put my papers in order. One note of invitation from Liza, the only note I had received from her, I was on the point of putting in my breast, but changed my mind, and tossed it into a box. Koloberdyáeff was snoring faintly, with his head hanging down from the leather cushions… I remember that I surveyed for a long time his dishevelled, dashing, care-free and kindly face. At ten o'clock my servant announced the arrival of Bizmyónkoff. The Prince had selected him for his second.

Together we roused the soundly-sleeping captain. He rose, stared at us with eyes owlishly stupid from sleep, and in a hoarse voice asked for vodka; – he recovered himself, and after having exchanged salutes with Bizmyónkoff, went out with him into the next room for consultation. The conference of the seconds did not last long. A quarter of an hour later they both came to me in my bedroom; Koloberdyáeff announced to me that "we shall fight to-day, at three o'clock, with pistols." I silently bowed my head, in token of assent. Bizmyónkoff immediately took leave of us, and drove away. He was somewhat pale and inwardly agitated, like a man who is not accustomed to that sort of performance, but was very polite and cold. I seemed, somehow, to feel ashamed in his presence, and I did not dare to look him in the eye.

Koloberdyáeff began to talk about his horse again. This conversation was very much to my taste. I was afraid he might mention Liza. But my good captain was no scandal-monger, and, more than that, he despised all women, calling them, God knows why, "salad." At two o'clock we lunched, and at three were already on the field of action – in that same birch-grove where I had once strolled with Liza, a couple of paces from that cliff.

We were the first to arrive. But the Prince and Bizmyónkoff did not make us wait long for them. The Prince was, without exaggeration, as fresh as a rose; his brown eyes gazed out with extreme affability from beneath the visor of his military cap. He was smoking a straw cigar, and on catching sight of Koloberdyáeff he shook hands with him in a cordial manner. He even bowed very charmingly to me. I, on the contrary, felt conscious that I was pale, and my hands, to my intense vexation, were trembling slightly;… my throat was dry… Never, up to that time, had I fought a duel. "O God!" I thought; "if only that sneering gentleman does not take my agitation for timidity!" I inwardly consigned my nerves to all the fiends; but on glancing, at last, straight at the Prince's face, and catching on his lips an almost imperceptible smile, I suddenly became inflated with wrath, and immediately recovered my equanimity.

In the meantime, our seconds had arranged the barrier, had paced off the distance, and loaded the pistols. Koloberdyáeff did most of the active part; Bizmyónkoff chiefly watched him. It was a magnificent day – quite equal to the day of the never-to-be-forgotten stroll. The dense azure of the sky again peeped through the gilded green of the leaves. Their rustling seemed to excite me. The Prince continued to smoke his cigar, as he leaned his shoulder against the trunk of a linden…

"Be so good as to take your places, gentlemen; all is ready," – said Koloberdyáeff at last, handing us the pistols.

The Prince retreated a few paces, halted, and turning his head back over his shoulder, asked me: "And do you still refuse to withdraw your words?"… I tried to answer him; but my voice failed me, and I contented myself with a disdainful motion of the hand. The Prince laughed again, and took his place. We began to approach each other. I raised my pistol, and was on the point of taking aim at the breast of my enemy, – at that moment he really was my enemy, – but suddenly elevated the barrel, as though some one had jogged my elbow, and fired. The Prince staggered, raised his left hand to his left temple – a thin stream of blood trickled down his cheek from beneath his white wash-leather glove. Bizmyónkoff flew to him.

"It is nothing," – he said, taking off his cap, which had been perforated; – "if it did not enter my head, that means it is only a scratch."

He calmly pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, and laid it on his curls, which were wet with blood. I looked at him as though petrified, and did not stir from the spot.

"Please go to the barrier!" – remarked Koloberdyáeff to me with severity.

I obeyed.

"Shall the duel go on?" – he added, addressing Bizmyónkoff.

Bizmyónkoff made him no reply; but the Prince, without removing the handkerchief from the wound, nor even giving himself the satisfaction of teasing me at the barrier, replied with a smile: "The duel is ended," and fired into the air. I nearly wept with vexation and rage. That man, by his magnanimity, had definitively trampled me in the mud, had cut my throat. I wanted to protest, I wanted to demand that he should fire at me; but he stepped up to me, and offering me his hand, "Everything is forgotten between us, is it not?" – he said, in a cordial voice.

I cast a glance at his pale face, at that blood-stained handkerchief, and utterly losing my head, blushing with shame, and annihilated, I pressed his hand…

"Gentlemen!" – he added, addressing the seconds: – "I hope that all this will remain a secret?"

"Of course!" – exclaimed Koloberdyáeff, – "but, Prince, allow me…"

And he himself bound up his head.

The Prince, as he departed, bowed to me once more; but Bizmyónkoff did not even bestow a glance on me. Slain, – morally slain, – I returned home with Koloberdyáeff.

"But what ails you?" – the captain asked me. "Calm yourself; the wound is not dangerous. He can dance to-morrow, if he likes. Or are you sorry that you did not kill him? In that case, you 're wrong; he 's a splendid fellow."

"Why did he spare me?!" – I muttered at last.

"Oho! so that 's it!" – calmly retorted the captain… "Okh, these romancers will be the death of me!"

I positively refuse to describe my tortures in the course of the evening which followed this unlucky duel. My pride suffered inexpressibly. It was not my conscience which tormented me; the consciousness of my stupidity annihilated me. "I myself have dealt myself the last, the final blow!" I kept repeating as I paced my room with long strides… "The Prince wounded by me and forgiving me … yes, Liza is his now. Nothing can save her now, nor hold her back on the brink of perdition." I was very well aware that our duel could not remain a secret, in spite of the Prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret to Liza. "The Prince is not so stupid" – I whispered in a frenzy – "as not to take advantage of it."… And, nevertheless, I was mistaken: the whole town heard about the duel and its actual cause, – on the very next day, of course; but it was not the Prince who had babbled – on the contrary; when he had presented himself to Liza with a bandaged head and an excuse which had been prepared in advance, she already knew everything… Whether Bizmyónkoff had betrayed me, or whether the news had reached her by other roads, I cannot say. And, after all, is it possible to conceal anything in a small town? You can imagine how Liza took it, how the whole Ozhógin family took it! As for me, I suddenly became the object of universal indignation, of loathing, a monster, a crazily jealous man, and a cannibal. My few acquaintances renounced me, as they would have renounced a leper. The town authorities appealed to the Prince with a proposition to chastise me in a stern and exemplary manner; only the persistent and importunate entreaties of the Prince himself warded off the calamity which menaced my head. This man was fated to annihilate me in every way. By his magnanimity he had shut me up as though with my coffin-lid. It is needless to say that the Ozhógins' house was immediately closed to me. Kiríla Matvyéevitch even returned to me a plain pencil, which I had left at his residence. In reality, he was precisely the last man who should have been incensed with me. My "crazy" jealousy, as they called it in the town, had defined, elucidated, so to speak, the relations between Liza and the Prince. The old Ozhógins themselves and the other residents began to look upon him almost in the light of a betrothed husband. In reality, that could not have been quite agreeable to him; but he liked Liza very much; and moreover, at that time he had not, as yet, attained his object… With all the tact of a clever man of the world, he accommodated himself to his new position, immediately entered into the spirit of his new part, as the saying is…

But I!.. I then gave up in despair, so far as I myself was concerned, and so far as my future was concerned. When sufferings reach such a pitch that they make our whole inward being crack and creak like an overloaded cart, they ought to cease being ridiculous… But no! laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the point where it is impossible to shed any more of them, – not at all! it still rings and resounds at a point where the tongue grows dumb and lamentation itself dies away… And then, in the first place, as I have no intention of appearing absurd even to myself, and in the second place, as I am frightfully tired, I shall defer the continuation and, God willing, the conclusion of my story until to-morrow…

March 29. A light frost; last night there was a thaw.

Yesterday I was unable to go on with my diary; like Póprishshtchin, I lay most of the time in bed, and chatted with Teréntievna. There 's a woman for you! Sixty years ago she lost her first betrothed from the plague, she has outlived all her children, she herself is unpardonably old, she drinks tea to her heart's content, she is well-fed, warmly clad; but what do you think she talked to me about yesterday? I had ordered that the cape of an old livery-coat should be given to another utterly denuded old woman for a waistcoat (she wears a breast-piece in the shape of a waistcoat)… The cape was pretty thoroughly eaten by moths, so why should not she have it? "Well, it strikes me that I 'm your nurse… O-okh, my dear little father, 't is a sin for you to do that… And have n't I been tending you?"… and so forth. The merciless old woman fairly wore me out with her reproaches… But let us return to the story.

So, then, I suffered like a dog which has had the hind part of its body run over by a wheel. Only then, – only after my expulsion from the Ozhógins' house, – did I become definitively aware how much pleasure a man may derive from the contemplation of his own unhappiness. Oh, men! ye are, in reality, a pitiful race!.. Well, but that is in the nature of a philosophical remark… I passed my days in utter solitude, and only in the most roundabout and even base ways was I able to find out what was going on in the Ozhógin family, what the Prince was doing. My servant struck up an acquaintance with the great-aunt of the wife of his coachman. This acquaintance afforded me some alleviation, and my servant speedily was able, from my hints and gifts, to divine what it behooved him to talk about with his master, when he was pulling off the latter's boots at night. Sometimes I chanced to meet in the street some member of the Ozhógin family, Bizmyónkoff, or the Prince… With the Prince and Bizmyónkoff I exchanged bows, but I did not enter into conversation. I saw Liza thrice in all: once with her mamma, in a milliner's shop, once in an open calash with her father, her mother, and the Prince; once in church. Of course, I did not venture to approach her, and only gazed at her from afar. In the shop she was anxious but cheerful… She was ordering something for herself, and busily trying on ribbons. Her mother was gazing at her, with hands clasped on her stomach, her nose elevated, and indulging in that stupid and affectionate smile which is permissible only to fond mothers. Liza was in the calash with the Prince… I shall never forget that meeting! The old Ozhógins were sitting on the back seat of the calash, the Prince and Liza in front. She was paler than usual; two pink streaks were barely discernible on her cheeks. She was half-turned toward the Prince; supporting herself on her outstretched right hand (she was holding her parasol in her left), and wearily bending her head, she was gazing straight into his face with her expressive eyes. At that moment she was surrendering herself utterly to him, trusting him irrevocably. I did not have a chance to get a good look at his face, – the calash dashed past too swiftly, – but it seemed to me that he also was deeply moved.

The third time I saw her was in church. Not more than ten days had elapsed since the day when I had encountered her in the calash with the Prince, not more than three weeks since my duel. The business on account of which the Prince had come to O*** had long been finished; but he still deferred his departure; he reported in Petersburg that he was ill. In the city, people were expecting every day a formal proposal on his part to Kiríla Matvyéevitch. I myself was only waiting for this last blow, in order to retire forever. The town of O*** had grown loathsome to me. I could not sit still at home, and from morning till night I dragged myself about the suburbs. One grey, wet day, as I was returning from a stroll which had been cut short by the rain, I stepped into the church. The evening service was only just beginning, there were very few people present; I looked about me, and suddenly, near a window, I descried a familiar profile. At first I did not recognise it; that pale face, that extinct glance, those sunken cheeks – could it be the same Liza whom I had seen two weeks before? Enveloped in a cloak, with no hat on her head, illuminated from one side by a cold ray of light, which fell through the broad window of white glass, she was staring immovably at the ikonostásis, and, apparently, making a violent effort to pray, striving to escape from some sort of dejected rigidity. A fat, red-cheeked page with yellow cartridge-cases on his breast14 was standing behind her, with his hands clasped behind his back, and staring with sleepy surprise at his mistress. I shuddered all over; I started to go to her, but stopped short. A torturing foreboding gripped my breast. Liza never stirred until the very end of vespers. All the congregation departed, a chanter began to sweep out the church, and still she did not stir from her place. The page approached her, and touched her gown; she glanced round, passed her hand over her face, and went away. I escorted her, at a distance, to her house, then returned home.