Poor Folk: Chapter 17

Chapter 17

June 28th.

MY DEAREST BARBARA ALEXIEVNA--Away with melancholy! Really,
beloved, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! How can you allow
such thoughts to enter your head? Really and truly you are quite
well; really and truly you are, my darling. Why, you are blooming
--simply blooming. True, I see a certain touch of pallor in your
face, but still you are blooming. A fig for dreams and visions!
Yes, for shame, dearest! Drive away those fancies; try to despise
them. Why do I sleep so well? Why am I never ailing? Look at ME,
beloved. I live well, I sleep peacefully, I retain my health, I
can ruffle it with my juniors. In fact, it is a pleasure to see
me. Come, come, then, sweetheart! Let us have no more of this. I
know that that little head of yours is capable of any fancy--that
all too easily you take to dreaming and repining; but for my
sake, cease to do so.

Are you to go to these people, you ask me? Never! No, no, again
no! How could you think of doing such a thing as taking a
journey? I will not allow it--I intend to combat your intention
with all my might. I will sell my frockcoat, and walk the streets
in my shirt sleeves, rather than let you be in want. But no,
Barbara. I know you, I know you. This is merely a trick, merely a
trick. And probably Thedora alone is to blame for it. She appears
to be a foolish old woman, and to be able to persuade you to do
anything. Do not believe her, my dearest. I am sure that you know
what is what, as well as SHE does. Eh, sweetheart? She is a
stupid, quarrelsome, rubbish-talking old woman who brought her
late husband to the grave. Probably she has been plaguing you as
much as she did him. No, no, dearest; you must not take this
step. What should I do then? What would there be left for ME to
do? Pray put the idea out of your head. What is it you lack here?
I cannot feel sufficiently overjoyed to be near you, while, for
your part, you love me well, and can live your life here as
quietly as you wish. Read or sew, whichever you like--or read and
do not sew. Only, do not desert me. Try, yourself, to imagine how
things would seem after you had gone. Here am I sending you
books, and later we will go for a walk. Come, come, then, my
Barbara! Summon to your aid your reason, and cease to babble of
trifles.

As soon as I can I will come and see you, and then you shall tell
me the whole story. This will not do, sweetheart; this certainly
will not do. Of course, I know that I am not an educated man, and
have received but a sorry schooling, and have had no inclination
for it, and think too much of Rataziaev, if you will; but he is
my friend, and therefore, I must put in a word or two for him.
Yes, he is a splendid writer. Again and again I assert that he
writes magnificently. I do not agree with you about his works,
and never shall. He writes too ornately, too laconically, with
too great a wealth of imagery and imagination. Perhaps you have
read him without insight, Barbara? Or perhaps you were out of
spirits at the time, or angry with Thedora about something, or
worried about some mischance? Ah, but you should read him
sympathetically, and, best of all, at a time when you are feeling
happy and contented and pleasantly disposed-- for instance, when
you have a bonbon or two in your mouth. Yes, that is the way to
read Rataziaev. I do not dispute (indeed, who would do so?) that
better writers than he exist--even far better; but they are good,
and he is good too--they write well, and he writes well. It is
chiefly for his own sake that he writes, and he is to be approved
for so doing.

Now goodbye, dearest. More I cannot write, for I must hurry away
to business. Be of good cheer, and the Lord God watch over you!--
Your faithful friend,

MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.

P.S--Thank you so much for the book, darling! I will read it
through, this volume of Pushkin, and tonight come to you.



MY DEAR MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH--No, no, my friend, I must not go on
living near you. I have been thinking the matter over, and come
to the conclusion that I should be doing very wrong to refuse so
good a post. I should at least have an assured crust of bread; I
might at least set to work to earn my employers' favour, and even
try to change my character if required to do so. Of course it is
a sad and sorry thing to have to live among strangers, and to be
forced to seek their patronage, and to conceal and constrain
one's own personality-- but God will help me. I must not remain
forever a recluse, for similar chances have come my way before. I
remember how, when a little girl at school, I used to go home on
Sundays and spend the time in frisking and dancing about.
Sometimes my mother would chide me for so doing, but I did not
care, for my heart was too joyous, and my spirits too buoyant,
for that. Yet as the evening of Sunday came on, a sadness as of
death would overtake me, for at nine o'clock I had to return to
school, where everything was cold and strange and severe--where
the governesses, on Mondays, lost their tempers, and nipped my
ears, and made me cry. On such occasions I would retire to a
corner and weep alone; concealing my tears lest I should be
called lazy. Yet it was not because I had to study that I used to
weep, and in time I grew more used to things, and, after my
schooldays were over, shed tears only when I was parting with
friends. . . .

It is not right for me to live in dependence upon you. The
thought tortures me. I tell you this frankly, for the reason that
frankness with you has become a habit. Cannot I see that daily,
at earliest dawn, Thedora rises to do washing and scrubbing, and
remains working at it until late at night, even though her poor
old bones must be aching for want of rest? Cannot I also see that
YOU are ruining yourself for me, and hoarding your last kopeck
that you may spend it on my behalf? You ought not so to act, my
friend, even though you write that you would rather sell your all
than let me want for anything. I believe in you, my friend--I
entirely believe in your good heart; but, you say that to me now
(when, perhaps, you have received some unexpected sum or
gratuity) and there is still the future to be thought of. You
yourself know that I am always ailing--that I cannot work as you
do, glad though I should be of any work if I could get it; so
what else is there for me to do? To sit and repine as I watch you
and Thedora? But how would that be of any use to you? AM I
necessary to you, comrade of mine? HAVE I ever done you any good?
Though I am bound to you with my whole soul, and love you dearly
and strongly and wholeheartedly, a bitter fate has ordained that
that love should be all that I have to give--that I should be
unable, by creating for you subsistence, to repay you for all
your kindness. Do not, therefore, detain me longer, but think the
matter out, and give me your opinion on it. In expectation of
which I remain your sweetheart,

B. D.

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