LITMIR.BIZ

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you to help me for? It’s hard for me alone, but the two of us together can arrange things and prevent Yegor Ilyitch from making a proposal. We must do everything we can to prevent it, even if it comes to thrashing Foma Fomitch and so distracting the general attention from all thoughts of the match. Of course that is only in the last extremity, I only give that for the sake of example. This is what I am relying on you for.”

      “One more last question: have you told no one but me of your scheme?”

      Mizintchikov scratched the back of his head and made a very wry face.

      “I must confess that question is worse than the bitterest pill for me. That’s just the trouble, that I have given away the idea... in fact, I have been the most awful fool! And to whom, do you suppose? To Obnoskin! I can scarcely believe it myself. I don’t know how it happened! He is always about the place, I did not know him so well, and when this inspiration dawned upon me I was, of course, greatly excited; and as I realised even then that I should need someone to help me, I appealed to Obnoskin... it was unpardonable, unpardonable!”

      “Well, and what did Obnoskin say?”

      “He agreed with enthusiasm, but next day early in the morning he disappeared. Three days later he turned up again with his mamma. He doesn’t say a word to me, and in fact avoids me as though he were afraid of me. I saw at once what was up. And his mother is a regular shark, she’s been in tight places before now. I used to know her in the past. Of course he has told her all about it. I am waiting and keeping quiet; they are spying on me, and things are in rather a strained position... that’s why I am in a hurry.”

      “What is it exactly you fear from them?”

      “They can’t do a great deal, of course, but that they will do something nasty—that is certain. They will insist on having money for keeping quiet and helping, that I expect. , . . Only I can’t give them a great deal, and I am not going to. I have made up my mind about that. I can’t give more than three thousand paper roubles. Judge for yourself: three thousand to them, five hundred in silver for the wedding, for I must pay your uncle back in full; then my old debts; then at least something for my sister, something at least. There won’t be much left out of a hundred thousand, will there? Why, it will be ruin!... The Obnoskins have gone away, though.”

      “Gone away?” I asked with curiosity.

      “Just after tea, damn them! but they will turn up again tomorrow, you will see. Well, how is it to be, then? Do you agree?”

      “I must own,” I answered, shrugging, “I really don’t know what to say. It’s a delicate matter.... Of course I will keep it all secret, I am not Obnoskin; but... I think it’s no use your building hopes on me.”

      “I see,” said Mizintchikov, getting up from his chair, “that you are not yet sick of Foma Fomitch and your grandmother; and though you do care for your kind and generous uncle, you have not yet sufficiently realised how he is being tormented. You are new to the place... But patience! You will be here tomorrow, look about you, and by evening you’ll consent. Your uncle is lost if you don’t, do you understand? They will certainly force him to marry her. Don’t forget that tomorrow he may perhaps make her an offer. It will be too late, we must settle things to-day.”

      “Really, I wish you every success, but as for helping you... I don’t know in what way.”

      “We know! But let us wait till tomorrow,” said Mizintchikov, smiling ironically. “La nuit porte conseil. Good-bye for the present. I will come to you early in the morning, and you think things over....”

      He turned and went out whistling.

      I almost followed him out, to get a breath of fresh air. The moon had not yet risen; it was a dark night, warm and stifling. The leaves on the trees did not stir. In spite of being terribly tired I wanted to walk to distract my mind, collect my thoughts; but I had not gone above ten paces when I suddenly heard my uncle’s voice. He was mounting the steps of the lodge in company with someone, and speaking with great animation. I turned back and called to him. My uncle was with Vidoplyasov.

Chapter 11 — The Extreme of Perplexity

      “Uncle,” I said, “at last I have got you.”

      “My dear boy, I was rushing to you myself. Here, I will just finish with Vidoplyasov, and then we can talk to our hearts’ content. I have a great deal to tell you.”

      “What, Vidoplyasov now! Oh, get rid of him, uncle.”

      “Only another five or ten minutes, Sergey, and I shall be entirely at your disposal. You see, it’s important.”

      “Oh, no doubt, it is his foolishness,” I said, with vexation.

      “What can I say to you, my dear? The man has certainly found a time to worry me with his nonsense! Yes, my good Grigory, couldn’t you find some other time for your complaints? Why, what can I do for you? You might have compassion even on me, my good boy. Why, I am, so to say, worn out by you all, devoured alive, body and soul! They are too much for me, Sergey!” And my uncle made a gesture of the profoundest misery with both hands.

      “But what business can be so important that you can’t leave it? And, uncle, I do so want...”

      “Oh, my dear boy, as it is they keep crying out that I take no trouble over my servants’ morals! Very likely he will complain of me tomorrow that I wouldn’t listen to him, and then...” and my uncle waved his hand in despair again.

      “Well, then, make haste and finish with him! Perhaps I can help you; let us go up the steps. What is it? What does he want?” I said as we went into the room.

      “Well, you see, my dear, he doesn’t like his own surname, and asks leave to change it. What do you think of that?”

      “His surname! What do you mean?... Well, uncle, before I hear what he has to say himself, allow me to remark that it is only in your household such queer things can happen,” I said, flinging up my hands in amazement.

      “Oh, my dear boy, I might fling up my hands like you, but that’s no good,” my uncle said with vexation. “Come, talk to him yourself, you have a try. He has been worrying me for two months past....”

      “It’s not a respectable surname,” Vidoplyasov observed.

      “But why is it not respectable?” I asked him in surprise.

      “Oh, because it suggests all sorts of abomination.”

      “But why abomination? And how can you change it? Does anyone change his surname?”

      “Well, really, sir, do other people have such surnames?”

      “I agree that your surname is a somewhat strange one,” I went on, in complete bewilderment; “but there is no help for it now, you know. Your father had the same surname, I suppose, didn’t he?”

      “That is precisely so that through my parent I have in that way had to suffer all my life, inasmuch as I am destined by my name to accept many jeers and to endure many sorrows,” answered Vidoplyasov.

      “I bet, uncle, that Foma Fomitch has a hand in this!” I cried with vexation.

      “Oh, no, my boy; oh, no, you are mistaken. Foma certainly has befriended him. He has taken him to be his secretary, that’s the whole of his duty. Well, of course he has developed him, has filled him with noble sentiments, so that he is even in some ways cultivated... You see, I will tell you all about it....”

      “That is true,” Vidoplyasov interrupted, “that Foma Fomitch is my true benefactor, and being a true benefactor to me, he has brought me to understand my insignificance, what a worm I am upon the earth, so that through his honour I have for the first time learned to comprehend my destiny.”

      “There you see, Seryozha, there you see what it all means,” my uncle went on, growing flustered as he always did. “He lived at first in Moscow, almost from childhood, in the service of a teacher of calligraphy. You should see how he has learned to write from

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