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
A minute later he pulled himself together. "It's nothing, it's only for
the minute," he said to himself, with pale face and blue, quivering
lips, and he hastened to put on his outdoor things. He meant to run
straight for a doctor. All at once Vasya called to him. Arkady rushed to
him and clasped him in his arms like a mother whose child is being torn
from her.
"Arkady, Arkady, don't tell any one! Don't tell any one, do you hear? It
is my trouble, I must bear it alone."
"What is it--what is it? Rouse yourself, Vasya, rouse yourself!"
Vasya sighed, and slow tears trickled down his cheeks.
"Why kill her? How is she to blame?" he muttered in an agonized,
heartrending voice. "The sin is mine, the sin is mine!"
He was silent for a moment.
"Farewell, my love! Farewell, my love!" he whispered, shaking his
luckless head. Arkady started, pulled himself together and would have
rushed for the doctor. "Let us go, it is time," cried Vasya, carried
away by Arkady's last movement. "Let us go, brother, let us go; I am
ready. You lead the way." He paused and looked at Arkady with a downcast
and mistrustful face.
"Vasya, for goodness' sake, don't follow me! Wait for me here. I will
come back to you directly, directly," said Arkady Ivanovitch, losing his
head and snatching up his cap to run for a doctor. Vasya sat down at
once, he was quiet and docile; but there was a gleam of some desperate
resolution in his eye. Arkady turned back, snatched up from the table an
open penknife, looked at the poor fellow for the last time, and ran out
of the flat.
It was eight o'clock. It had been broad daylight for some time in the
room.
He found no one. He was running about for a full hour. All the doctors
whose addresses he had got from the house porter when he inquired of the
latter whether there were no doctor living in the building, had gone
out, either to their work or on their private affairs. There was one who
saw patients. This one questioned at length and in detail the servant
who announced that Nefedevitch had called, asking him who it was, from
whom he came, what was the matter, and concluded by saying that he could
not go, that he had a great deal to do, and that patients of that kind
ought to be taken to a hospital.
Then Arkady, exhausted, agitated, and utterly taken aback by this turn
of affairs, cursed all the doctors on earth, and rushed home in the
utmost alarm about Vasya. He ran into the flat. Mavra, as though there
were nothing the matter, went on scrubbing the floor, breaking up wood
and preparing to light the stove. He went into the room; there was no
trace of Vasya, he had gone out.
"Which way? Where? Where will the poor fellow be off to?" thought
Arkady, frozen with terror. He began questioning Mavra. She knew
nothing, had neither seen nor heard him go out, God bless him!
Nefedevitch rushed off to the Artemyevs'.
It occurred to him for some reason that he must be there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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