What was I to do? I could not go on there–it was evidently stupid, and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though … Heavens, how could I leave things! And after such insults! “No!” I cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. “It is ordained! It is fate! Drive on, drive on!”
And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck.
“What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?” the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking.
The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen now, at once, and that no force could stop it. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the showy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. I did not wrap myself up–all was lost, anyway.
At last we arrived. I jumped out, almost unconscious, rail up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. I felt fearfully weak, particularly in my legs and knees. The door was opened quickly as though they knew I was coming. As a fact, Simonov had warned them that perhaps another gentleman would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to observe certain precautions. It was one of those “millinery establishments” which were abolished by the police a good time ago. By day it really was a shop; but at night, if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes.
I walked rapidly through the dark shop into the familiar drawing- room, where there was only one candle burning, and stood still in amazement: there was no one there. “Where are they?” I asked somebody. But by now, of course, they had separated. Before me was standing a person with a stupid smile, the “madam” herself, who had seen me before. A minute later a door opened and another person came in.
Taking no notice of anything I strode about the room, and, I believe, I talked to myself. I felt as though I had been saved from death and was conscious of this, joyfully, all over: I should have given that slap, I should certainly, certainly have given it! But now they were not here and … everything had vanished and changed! I looked round. I could not realise my condition yet. I looked mechanically at the girl who had come in: and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather pale face, with straight, dark eyebrows, and with grave, as it were wondering, eyes that attracted me at once; I should have hated her if she had been smiling. I began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. I had not fully collected my thoughts. There was something simple and good-natured in her face, but something strangely grave. I am sure that this stood in her way here, and no one of those fools had noticed her. She could not, however, have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built. She was very simply dressed. Something loathsome stirred within me. I went straight up to her.
I chanced to look into the glass. My harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair. “No matter, I am glad of it,” I thought; “I am glad that I shall seem repulsive to her; I like that.”
VI
… Somewhere behind a screen a clock began wheezing, as though oppressed by something, as though someone were strangling it. After an unnaturally prolonged wheezing there followed a shrill, nasty, and as it were unexpectedly rapid, chime–as though someone were suddenly jumping forward. It struck two. I woke up, though I had indeed not been asleep but lying half-conscious.
It was almost completely dark in the narrow, cramped, low-pitched room, cumbered up with an enormous wardrobe and piles of cardboard boxes and all sorts of frippery and litter. The candle end that had been burning on the table was going out and gave a faint flicker from time to time. In a few minutes there would be complete darkness.
I was not long in coming to myself; everything came back to my mind at once, without an effort, as though it had been in ambush to pounce upon me again. And, indeed, even while I was unconscious a point seemed continually to remain in my memory unforgotten, and round it my dreams moved drearily. But strange to say, everything that had happened to me in that day seemed to me now, on waking, to be in the far, far away past, as though I had long, long ago lived all that down.
My head was full of fumes. Something seemed to be hovering over me, rousing me, exciting me, and making me restless. Misery and spite seemed surging up in me again and seeking an outlet. Suddenly I saw beside me two wide open eyes scrutinising me curiously and persistently. The look in those eyes was coldly detached, sullen, as it were utterly remote; it weighed upon me.
A grim idea came into my brain and passed all over my body, as a horrible sensation, such as one feels when one goes into a damp and mouldy cellar. There was something unnatural in those two eyes, beginning to look at me only now. I recalled, too, that during those two hours I had not said a single word to this creature, and had, in fact, considered it utterly superfluous; in fact, the silence had for some reason gratified me. Now I suddenly realised vividly the hideous idea– revolting as a spider–of vice, which, without love, grossly and shamelessly begins with that in which true love finds its consummation. For a long time we gazed at each other like that, but she did not drop her eyes before mine and her expression did not change, so that at last I felt uncomfortable.
“What is your name?” I asked abruptly, to put an end to it.
“Liza,” she answered almost in a whisper, but somehow far from graciously, and she turned her eyes away.
I was silent.
“What weather! The snow … it’s disgusting!” I said, almost to myself, putting my arm under my head despondently, and gazing at the ceiling.
She made no answer. This was horrible.
“Have you always lived in Petersburg?” I asked a minute later, almost angrily, turning my head slightly towards her.
“No.”
“Where do you come from?”
“From Riga,” she answered reluctantly.
“Are you a German?”
“No, Russian.”
“Have you been here long?”
“Where?”
“In this house?”
“A fortnight.”
She spoke more and more jerkily. The candle went out; I could no longer distinguish her face.
“Have you a father and mother?”
“Yes … no … I have.”
“Where are they?”
“There … in Riga.”
“What are they?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Nothing? Why, what class are they?”
“Tradespeople.”
“Have you always lived with them?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Why did you leave them?”
“Oh, for no reason.”
That answer meant “Let me alone; I feel sick, sad.”
We were silent.
God knows why I did not go away. I felt myself more and more sick and dreary. The images of the previous day began of themselves, apart from my will, flitting through my memory in confusion. I suddenly recalled something I had seen that morning when, full of anxious thoughts, I was hurrying to the office.
“I saw them carrying a coffin out yesterday and they nearly dropped it,” I suddenly said aloud, not that I desired to open the conversation, but as it were by accident.
“A coffin?”
“Yes, in the Haymarket; they were bringing it up out of a cellar.”
“From a cellar?”
“Not from a cellar, but a basement. Oh, you know… down below… from a house of ill-fame. It was filthy all round… Egg-shells, litter… a stench. It was loathsome.”
Silence.
“A nasty day to be buried,” I began, simply to avoid being silent.
“Nasty, in what way?”
“The snow, the wet.” (I yawned.)
“It makes no difference,” she said suddenly, after a brief silence.
“No, it’s horrid.” (I yawned again). “The gravediggers must have sworn at getting drenched by the snow. And there must have been water in the grave.”
“Why water in the grave?” she asked, with a sort of curiosity, but speaking even more harshly and abruptly than before.
I suddenly began to feel provoked.
“Why, there must have been water at the bottom a foot deep. You can’t dig a dry grave in Volkovo Cemetery.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why, the place is waterlogged. It’s a regular marsh. So they bury them in water. I’ve seen it myself … many times.”
(I had never seen it once, indeed I had never been in Volkovo, and had only heard stories of it.)