White nights, and other storiesDostoyevsky, Fyodor
General
White nights, and other stories
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881 -- Translations into English; Russian fiction -- Translations into English
Lizanka will keep the purse for both of us: not a farthing will be
wasted. Do you suppose I would go to a restaurant? What do you take me
for? Not on any account. And then we shall get a bonus and reward, for
we shall be zealous in the service--oh! how we shall work, like oxen
toiling in the fields.... Only fancy," and Arkady Ivanovitch's voice was
faint with pleasure, "all at once and quite unexpected, twenty-five or
thirty roubles.... Whenever there's an extra, there'll be a cap or a
scarf or a pair of little stockings. She must knit me a scarf; look what
a horrid one I've got, the nasty yellow thing, it did me a bad turn
to-day! And you wore a nice one, Vasya, to introduce me while I had my
head in a halter.... Though never mind that now. And look here, I
undertake all the silver. I am bound to give you some little
present,--that will be an honour, that will flatter my vanity.... My
bonuses won't fail me, surely; you don't suppose they would give them to
Skorohodov? No fear, they won't be landed in that person's pocket. I'll
buy you silver spoons, brother, good knives--not silver knives, but
thoroughly good ones; and a waistcoat, that is a waistcoat for myself. I
shall be best man, of course. Only now, brother, you must keep at it,
you must keep at it. I shall stand over you with a stick, brother,
to-day and to-morrow and all night; I shall worry you to work. Finish,
make haste and finish, brother. And then again to spend the evening, and
then again both of us happy; we will go in for loto. We will spend the
evening there--oh, it's jolly! Oh, the devil! How, vexing it is I can't
help you. I should like to take it and write it all for you.... Why is
it our handwriting is not alike?"
"Yes," answered Vasya. "Yes, I must make haste. I think it must be
eleven o'clock; we must make haste.... To work!" And saying this, Vasya,
who had been all the time alternately smiling and trying to interrupt
with some enthusiastic rejoinder the flow of his friend's feelings, and
had, in short, been showing the most cordial response, suddenly
subsided, sank into silence, and almost ran along the street. It seemed
as though some burdensome idea had suddenly chilled his feverish head;
he seemed all at once dispirited.
Arkady Ivanovitch felt quite uneasy; he scarcely got an answer to his
hurried questions from Vasya, who confined himself to a word or two,
sometimes an irrelevant exclamation.
"Why, what is the matter with you, Vasya?" he cried at last, hardly able
to keep up with him. "Can you really be so uneasy?"
"Oh, brother, that's enough chatter!" Vasya answered, with vexation.
"Don't be depressed, Vasya--come, come," Arkady interposed. "Why, I have
known you write much more in a shorter time! What's the matter? You've
simply a talent for it! You can write quickly in an emergency; they are
not going to lithograph your copy. You've plenty of time!... The only
thing is that you are excited now, and preoccupied, and the work won't
go so easily."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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