THE COMPLETE NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

me, gentlemen, I scurried home as soon as I could. I got the money:

      “‘Here, father, here’s the money. I’ve only spent fifty roubles.’

      “‘Well, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘But now every trifle may count; the time is short, write a report dated some days ago that you were short of money and had taken fifty roubles on account. I’ll tell the authorities you had it in advance.’

      “Well, gentlemen, what do you think? I did write that report, too!”

      “Well, what then? What happened? How did it end?”

      “As soon as I had written the report, gentlemen, this is how it ended. The next day, in the early morning, an envelope with a government seal arrived. I looked at it and what had I got? The sack! That is, instructions to hand over my work, to deliver the accounts — and to go about my business!”

      “How so?”

      “That’s just what I cried at the top of my voice, ‘How so?’ Gentlemen, there was a ringing in my ears. I thought there was no special reason for it — but no, the Inspector had arrived in the town. My heart sank. ‘It’s not for nothing,’ I thought. And just as I was I rushed off to Fedosey Nikolaitch.

      “‘How is this?’ I said.

      “‘What do you mean?’ he said.

      “‘Why, I am dismissed.’

      “‘Dismissed? how?’

      “‘Why, look at this!’

      “‘Well, what of it?’

      “‘Why, but I didn’t ask for it!’

      “‘Yes, you did — you sent in your papers on the first of — April.’ (I had never taken that letter back!)

      “‘Fedosey Nikolaitch! I can’t believe my ears, I can’t believe my eyes! Is this you?’

      “‘It is me, why?’

      “‘My God!’

      “‘I am sorry, sir. I am very sorry that you made up your mind to retire from the service so early. A young man ought to be in the service, and you’ve begun to be a little lightheaded of late. And as for your character, set your mind at rest: I’ll see to that! Your behaviour has always been so exemplary!’

      “‘But that was a little joke, Fedosey Nikolaitch! I didn’t mean it, I just gave you the letter for your fatherly … that’s all.’

      “‘That’s all? A queer joke, sir! Does one jest with documents like that? Why, you are sometimes sent to Siberia for such jokes. Now, goodbye. I am busy. We have the Inspector here — the duties of the service before everything; you can kick up your heels, but we have to sit here at work. But I’ll get you a character —— Oh, another thing: I’ve just bought a house from Matveyev. We are moving in in a day or two. So I expect I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you at our new residence. Bon voyage!’

      “I ran home.

      “‘We are lost, granny!’

      “She wailed, poor dear, and then I saw the page from Fedosey Nikolaitch’s running up with a note and a bird-cage, and in the cage there was a starling. In the fullness of my heart I had given her the starling. And in the note there were the words: ‘April 1st,’ and nothing more. What do you think of that, gentlemen?”

      “What happened then? What happened then?”

      “What then! I met Fedosey Nikolaitch once, I meant to tell him to his face he was a scoundrel.”

      “Well?”

      “But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to it, gentlemen.”

      The Honest Thief

       Table of Contents

      One morning, just as I was about to set off to my office, Agrafena, my cook, washerwoman and housekeeper, came in to me and, to my surprise, entered into conversation.

      She had always been such a silent, simple creature that, except her daily inquiry about dinner, she had not uttered a word for the last six years. I, at least, had heard nothing else from her.

      “Here I have come in to have a word with you, sir,” she began abruptly; “you really ought to let the little room.”

      “Which little room?”

      “Why, the one next the kitchen, to be sure.”

      “What for?”

      “What for? Why because folks do take in lodgers, to be sure.”

      “But who would take it?”

      “Who would take it? Why, a lodger would take it, to be sure.”

      “But, my good woman, one could not put a bedstead in it; there wouldn’t be room to move! Who could live in it?”

      “Who wants to live there! As long as he has a place to sleep in. Why, he would live in the window.”

      “In what window?”

      “In what window! As though you didn’t know! The one in the passage, to be sure. He would sit there, sewing or doing anything else. Maybe he would sit on a chair, too. He’s got a chair; and he has a table, too; he’s got everything.”

      “Who is ‘he’ then?”

      “Oh, a good man, a man of experience. I will cook for him. And I’ll ask him three roubles a month for his board and lodging.”

      After prolonged efforts I succeeded at last in learning from Agrafena that an elderly man had somehow managed to persuade her to admit him into the kitchen as a lodger and boarder. Any notion Agrafena took into her head had to be carried out; if not, I knew she would give me no peace. When anything was not to her liking, she at once began to brood, and sank into a deep dejection that would last for a fortnight or three weeks. During that period my dinners were spoiled, my linen was mislaid, my floors went unscrubbed; in short, I had a great deal to put up with. I had observed long ago that this inarticulate woman was incapable of conceiving a project, of originating an idea of her own. But if anything like a notion or a project was by some means put into her feeble brain, to prevent its being carried out meant, for a time, her moral assassination. And so, as I cared more for my peace of mind than for anything else, I consented forthwith.

      “Has he a passport anyway, or something of the sort?”

      “To be sure, he has. He is a good man, a man of experience; three roubles he’s promised to pay.”

      The very next day the new lodger made his appearance in my modest bachelor quarters; but I was not put out by this, indeed I was inwardly pleased. I lead as a rule a very lonely hermit’s existence. I have scarcely any friends; I hardly ever go anywhere. As I had spent ten years never coming out of my shell, I had, of course, grown used to solitude. But another ten or fifteen years or more of the same solitary existence, with the same Agrafena, in the same bachelor quarters, was in truth a somewhat cheerless prospect. And therefore a new inmate, if well-behaved, was a heavensent blessing.

      Agrafena had spoken truly: my lodger was certainly a man of experience. From his passport it appeared that he was an old soldier, a fact which I should have known indeed from his face. An old soldier is easily recognised. Astafy Ivanovitch was a favourable specimen of his class. We got on very well together. What was best of all, Astafy Ivanovitch would sometimes tell a story, describing some incident in his own life. In the perpetual boredom of my existence such a storyteller was a veritable treasure. One day he told me one of these stories. It made an impression on me. The following event was what led to it.

      I was left alone in the flat; both Astafy and Agrafena were out on business of their own. All of a sudden I heard from the inner room somebody