And indeed you express yourself with such originality that I am tempted to note down your words.”
“What’s that, sir, noting down?” asked Mr. Bahtcheyev, looking at me with suspicion and speaking with some alarm.
“Though perhaps I shall not note them down… . I didn’t mean anything.”
“No doubt you are trying to flatter me?”
“Flatter you, what do you mean?” I asked with surprise.
“Why, yes. Here you are flattering me now; I am telling you everything like a fool, and later on you will go and write a sketch of me somewhere.”
I made haste at once to assure Mr. Bahtcheyev that I was not that sort of person, but he still looked at me suspiciously.
“Not that sort of person! Who can tell what you are? Perhaps better still. Foma there threatened to write an account of me and to send it to be published.”
“Allow me to ask,” I interrupted, partly from a desire to change the conversation. “Is it true that my uncle wants to get married?”
“What if he does? That would not matter. Get married if you have a mind to, that’s no harm; but something else is,” added Mr. Bahtcheyev meditatively. “H’ml that question, my good sir, I cannot answer fully. There are a lot of females mixed up in the business now, like flies in jam; and you know there is no making out which wants to be married. And as a friend I don’t mind telling you, sir, I don’t like woman! It’s only talk that she is a human being, but in reality she is simply a disgrace and a danger to the soul’s salvation. But that your uncle is in love like a Siberian cat, that I can tell you for a fact. I’ll say no more about that now, sir, you will see for yourself; but what’s bad is that the business drags on. If you are going to get married, get married; but he is afraid to tell Foma and afraid to tell the old lady, she will be squealing all over the place and begin kicking up a rumpus. She takes Foma’s part: ‘Foma Fomitch will be hurt,’ she’d say, ‘if a new mistress comes into the house, for then he won’t be able to stay two hours in it.’ The bride will chuck him out by the scruff of his neck, if she is not a fool, and in one way or another will make such an upset that he won’t be able to find a place anywhere in the neighbourhood. So now he is at his pranks, and he and the mamma are trying to foist a queer sort of bride on him… . But why did you interrupt me, sir? I wanted to tell you what was most important, and you interrupted me! I am older than you are, and it is not the right thing to interrupt an old man.”
I apologised.
“You needn’t apologise! I wanted to put before you, as a learned man, how he insulted me to-day. Come, tell me what you think of it, if you are a goodhearted man. We sat down to dinner; well, he fairly bit my head off at dinner, I can tell you! I saw from the very beginning; he sat there as cross as, two sticks, as though nothing were to his liking. He’d have been glad to drown me in a spoonful of water, the viper! He is a man of such vanity that his skin’s not big enough for him. So he took it into his head to pick a quarrel with me, to teach me a higher standard. Asked me to tell him why I was so fat! The man kept pestering me, why was I fat and not thin? What do you think of that question? Tell me, my good sir. Do you see anything witty in it? I answered him very reasonably: ‘That’s as God has ordained, Foma Fomitch. One man’s fat and one man’s thin; and no mortal can go against the decrees of Divine Providence.’ That was sensible, wasn’t it? What do you say? ‘No,’ said he; ‘you have five hundred serfs, you live at your ease and do nothing for your country; you ought to be in the service, but you sit at home and play your concertina’ — and it is true when I am depressed I am fond of playing on the concertina. I answered very reasonably again: ‘How should I go into the service, Foma Fomitch? What uniform could I pinch my corpulence into? If I pinched myself in and put on a uniform, and sneezed unwarily — all the buttons would fly off, and what’s more, maybe before my superiors, and, God forbid! they might take it for a practical joke, and what then?’ Well, tell me, what was there funny in that? But there, there was such a roar at my expense, such a ha-ha-ha and he-he-he… . The fact is he has no sense of decency, I tell you, and he even thought fit to slander me in the French dialect: ‘cochon/ he called me. Well I know what cochon means. ‘Ah, you damned philosopher,’ I thought. ‘Do you suppose I’m going to give in to you?’ I bore it as long as I could, but I couldn’t stand it. I got up from the table, and before all the honourable company I blurted out in his face: ‘I have done you an injustice, Foma Fomitch, my kind benefactor.’ I said, ‘I thought that you were a well-bred man, and you turn out to be just as great a hog as any one of us.’ I said that and I left the table, left the pudding — they were just handing the pudding round. ‘Bother you ana your pudding!’ I thought. …”
“Excuse me,” I said, listening to Mr. Bahtcheyev’s whole story; “I am ready, of course, to agree with you completely. The point is, that so far I know nothing positive… . But I have got ideas of my own on the subject, you see.”
“What ideas, my good sir?” Mr. Bahtcheyev asked mistrustfully.
“You see,” I began, hesitating a little, “it is perhaps not the moment, but I am ready to tell it. This is what I think: perhaps we are both mistaken about Foma Fomitch, perhaps under these oddities lies hidden a peculiar, perhaps a gifted nature, who knows? Perhaps it is a nature that has been wounded, crushed by sufferings, avenging itself, so to speak, on all humanity. I have heard that in the past he was something like a buffoon; perhaps that humiliated him, mortified him, overwhelmed him. … Do you understand: a man of noble nature … perception … and to play the part of a buffoon! … And so he has become mistrustful of all mankind and … and perhaps if he could be reconciled to humanity … that is, to his fellows, perhaps he would turn out a rare nature, perhaps even a very remarkable one and … and … you know there must be something in the man. There is a reason, of course, for everyone doing homage to him.”
I was conscious myself that I was maundering horribly. I might have been forgiven in consideration of my youth. But Mr. Bahtcheyev did not forgive me. He looked gravely and sternly into my face and suddenly turned crimson as a turkey cock.
“Do you mean that Foma’s a remarkable man?” he asked abruptly.
“Listen, I scarcely myself believe a word of what I said just now. It was merely by way of a guess. …”
“Allow me, sir, to be so inquisitive as to ask: have you studied philosophy?”
“In what sense?” I asked in perplexity.
“No, in no particular sense; you answer me straight out, apart from any sense, sir: have you studied philosophy or not?”
“I must own I am intending to study it, but …”
“There it is!” shouted Mr. Bahtcheyev, giving full rein to his indignation. “Before you opened your mouth, sir, I guessed that you were a philosopher! There is no deceiving me! No, thank you! I can scent out a philosopher two miles off! You can go and kiss your Foma Fomitch. A remarkable man, indeed! Tfoo! confound it all! I thought you” were a man of good intentions too, while you … Here!” he shouted to the coachman, who had already clambered on the box of the carriage, which by now had been put in order. “Home!”
With difficulty I succceded somehow in soothing him; somehow or other he was mollified at last; but it was a long time before he could bring himself to lay aside his wrath and look on me with favour. Meantime he got into the carriage, assisted by Grishka and Arhip, the man who had reproved Vassilyev.
“Allow me to ask you,” I said, going up to the carriage. “Are you never coming again to my uncle’s?”
“To
