Poor Folk: Chapter 25

Chapter 25

August 1st.

MY DARLING BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,--Thank God that He has sent you a
chance of repaying my good with good. I believe in so doing, as
well as in the sweetness of your angelic heart. Therefore, I will
not reproach you. Only I pray you, do not again blame me because
in the decline of my life I have played the spendthrift. It was
such a sin, was it not?--such a thing to do? And even if you
would still have it that the sin was there, remember, little
friend, what it costs me to hear such words fall from your lips.
Do not be vexed with me for saying this, for my heart is
fainting. Poor people are subject to fancies--this is a provision
of nature. I myself have had reason to know this. The poor man is
exacting. He cannot see God's world as it is, but eyes each
passer-by askance, and looks around him uneasily in order that he
may listen to every word that is being uttered. May not people be
talking of him? How is it that he is so unsightly? What is he
feeling at all? What sort of figure is he cutting on the one side
or on the other? It is matter of common knowledge, my Barbara,
that the poor man ranks lower than a rag, and will never earn the
respect of any one. Yes, write about him as you like--let
scribblers say what they choose about him-- he will ever remain
as he was. And why is this? It is because, from his very nature,
the poor man has to wear his feelings on his sleeve, so that
nothing about him is sacred, and as for his self-respect--! Well,
Emelia told me the other day that once, when he had to collect
subscriptions, official sanction was demanded for every single
coin, since people thought that it would be no use paying their
money to a poor man. Nowadays charity is strangely administered.
Perhaps it has always been so. Either folk do not know how to
administer it, or they are adept in the art--one of the two.
Perhaps you did not know this, so I beg to tell it you. And how
comes it that the poor man knows, is so conscious of it all? The
answer is--by experience. He knows because any day he may see a
gentleman enter a restaurant and ask himself, "What shall I have
to eat today? I will have such and such a dish," while all the
time the poor man will have nothing to eat that day but gruel.
There are men, too--wretched busybodies--who walk about merely to
see if they can find some wretched tchinovnik or broken-down
official who has got toes projecting from his boots or his hair
uncut! And when they have found such a one they make a report of
the circumstance, and their rubbish gets entered on the file....
But what does it matter to you if my hair lacks the shears? If
you will forgive me what may seem to you a piece of rudeness, I
declare that the poor man is ashamed of such things with the
sensitiveness of a young girl. YOU, for instance, would not care
(pray pardon my bluntness) to unrobe yourself before the public
eye; and in the same way, the poor man does not like to be pried
at or questioned concerning his family relations, and so forth. A
man of honour and self-respect such as I am finds it painful and
grievous to have to consort with men who would deprive him of
both.

Today I sat before my colleagues like a bear's cub or a plucked
sparrow, so that I fairly burned with shame. Yes, it hurt me
terribly, Barbara. Naturally one blushes when one can see one's
naked toes projecting through one's boots, and one's buttons
hanging by a single thread! As though on purpose, I seemed, on
this occasion, to be peculiarly dishevelled. No wonder that my
spirits fell. When I was talking on business matters to Stepan
Karlovitch, he suddenly exclaimed, for no apparent reason, "Ah,
poor old Makar Alexievitch!" and then left the rest unfinished.
But I knew what he had in his mind, and blushed so hotly that
even the bald patch on my head grew red. Of course the whole
thing is nothing, but it worries me, and leads to anxious
thoughts. What can these fellows know about me? God send that
they know nothing! But I confess that I suspect, I strongly
suspect, one of my colleagues. Let them only betray me! They
would betray one's private life for a groat, for they hold
nothing sacred.

I have an idea who is at the bottom of it all. It is Rataziaev.
Probably he knows someone in our department to whom he has
recounted the story with additions. Or perhaps he has spread it
abroad in his own department, and thence, it has crept and
crawled into ours. Everyone here knows it, down to the last
detail, for I have seen them point at you with their fingers
through the window. Oh yes, I have seen them do it. Yesterday,
when I stepped across to dine with you, the whole crew were
hanging out of the window to watch me, and the landlady exclaimed
that the devil was in young people, and called you certain
unbecoming names. But this is as nothing compared with
Rataziaev's foul intention to place us in his books, and to
describe us in a satire. He himself has declared that he is going
to do so, and other people say the same. In fact, I know not what
to think, nor what to decide. It is no use concealing the fact
that you and I have sinned against the Lord God.... You were
going to send me a book of some sort, to divert my mind--were you
not, dearest? What book, though, could now divert me? Only such
books as have never existed on earth. Novels are rubbish, and
written for fools and for the idle. Believe me, dearest, I know
it through long experience. Even should they vaunt Shakespeare to
you, I tell you that Shakespeare is rubbish, and proper only for
lampoons--Your own,

MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.

Back to chapter list of: Poor Folk