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
"I will take him what is done the day after to-morrow. About the rest I
will tell a lie. I will say it has been burnt, that it has been sopped
in water, that I have lost it.... That, in fact, I have not finished it;
I cannot lie. I will explain, do you know, what? I'll explain to him all
about it. I will tell him how it was that I could not. I'll tell him
about my love; he has got married himself just lately, he'll understand
me. I will do it all, of course, respectfully, quietly; he will see my
tears and be touched by them...."
"Yes, of course, you must go, you must go and explain to him.... But
there's no need of tears! Tears for what? Really, Vasya, you quite scare
me."
"Yes, I'll go, I'll go. But now let me write, let me write, Arkasha. I
am not interfering with any one, let me write!"
Arkady flung himself on the bed. He had no confidence in Vasya, no
confidence at all. "Vasya was capable of anything, but to ask
forgiveness for what? how? That was not the point. The point was, that
Vasya had not carried out his obligations, that Vasya felt guilty _in
his own eyes_, felt that he was ungrateful to destiny, that Vasya was
crushed, overwhelmed by happiness and thought himself unworthy of it;
that, in fact, he was simply trying to find an excuse to go off his head
on that point, and that he had not recovered from the unexpectedness of
what had happened the day before; that's what it is," thought Arkady
Ivanovitch. "I must save him. I must reconcile him to himself. He will
be his own ruin." He thought and thought, and resolved to go at once
next day to Yulian Mastakovitch, and to tell him all about it.
Vasya was sitting writing. Arkady Ivanovitch, worn out, lay down to
think things over again, and only woke at daybreak.
"Damnation! Again!" he cried, looking at Vasya; the latter was still
sitting writing.
Arkady rushed up to him, seized him and forcibly put him to bed. Vasya
was smiling: his eyes were closing with sleep. He could hardly speak.
"I wanted to go to bed," he said. "Do you know, Arkady, I have an idea;
I shall finish. I made my pen go faster! I could not have sat at it any
longer; wake me at eight o'clock."
Without finishing his sentence, he dropped asleep and slept like the
dead.
"Mavra," said Arkady Ivanovitch to Mavra, who came in with the tea, "he
asked to be waked in an hour. Don't wake him on any account! Let him
sleep ten hours, if he can. Do you understand?"
"I understand, sir."
"Don't get the dinner, don't bring in the wood, don't make a noise or it
will be the worse for you. If he asks for me, tell him I have gone to
the office--do you understand?"
"I understand, bless you, sir; let him sleep and welcome! I am glad my
gentlemen should sleep well, and I take good care of their things. And
about that cup that was broken, and you blamed me, your honour, it
wasn't me, it was poor pussy broke it, I ought to have kept an eye on
her. 'S-sh, you confounded thing,' I said."
"Hush, be quiet, be quiet!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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