LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER XI

      THE EXTREME OF PERPLEXITY

       Table of Contents

       “T TNCLE,” I said, “at last I have got you.”

      vJ “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 suj> pose, 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 thisl” 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 him, and he illuminates in colours and gold with cupids round, you know — in fact he is an artist, you know. Ilyusha has lessons from him; I pay him a rouble and a half a lesson. Foma himself fixed on a rouble and a half. He goes to three gentlemen’s houses in the neighbourhood; they pay him too. You see how he is dressed! What’s more, he writes poetry.”

      “Poetry! That’s the last straw!”

      “Poetry, my dear boy, poetry. And don’t imagine I am joking; real poetry, so to say, versifications, and so well composed, you know, on all sorts of subjects. He’ll describe any subject you like in a poem. It’s a real talent! On mamma’s nameday he concocted such a harangue that we listened with our mouths open; there was something from mythology in it, and the Muses flying about, so that indeed, you know, one could see the … what do you call it? … polish of form — in fact it was perfectly in rhyme. Foma corrected it. Well, I have nothing against that, and indeed I am quite pleased. Let him compose, as long as he doesn’t get into mischief. You see, Grigory, my boy, I speak to you like a father. Foma heard of it, looked at his poetry, encouraged him, and chose him as his reader and copyist — in fact he has educated him. It is true, as he says, that Foma has been a benefactor to him. Well, and so, you know, he has begun to have gentlemanly and romantic sentiments, and a feeling of independence — Foma explained it all to me, but I have really forgotten; only I must own that I wanted, apart from Foma, to give him his freedom. I feel somehow ashamed, you know! … but Foma opposes that and says that he finds him useful, that he likes him; and what’s more he says: ‘It’s a great honour to me, as his master, to have poets among my own servants; that that’s how some barons somewhere used to live, and that it is living en grand.’ Well, en grand so be it, then! I have begun to respect him, my boy — you understand… . Only goodness knows how he is behaving! The worst of it is that since he has taken to poetry he has become so stuck-up with the rest of the servants that he won’t speak to them. Don’t you take offence, Grigory, I am speaking to you like a father. Last winter, he promised to marry a serf girl here, Matryona, and a very nice girl she is, honest, hardworking and

Скачать книгу