A Desperate Character and Other Stories eBook

Andrei Nikolaevitch—­no longer in his first youth—­married a young lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education.  She played the piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears....  She was of unbalanced character, in fact.  She regarded her life as wasted, could not care for her husband, who, ‘of course,’ did not understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of another ‘affection.’  Besides, she was always completely engrossed in the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom she brought up herself with great zeal.  Andrei Nikolaevitch did not oppose his wife’s looking after Misha, on the one condition of his education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all, within which everything must move in his house!  Thus, for instance, at Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily’s eve, it was permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant boys—­and not only permissible, but even a binding duty....  But, at any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on.

II

I remember Misha at thirteen.  He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and modest—­a regular little girl!  There was only one thing about him I did not like:  he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth—­large white teeth, pointed like an animal’s—­showed disagreeably, and the laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there were unpleasant gleams in his eyes.  His mother was always praising him for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society.  ’A mother’s darling, a milksop,’ his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; ’but he’s always ready to go into the house of God....  And that I am glad to see.’  Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain, once said before me, speaking of Misha, ’Mark my words, he’ll be a rebel.’  And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time.  The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides.

Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost almost on the same day.  As I was all the while living constantly at Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman.  An acquaintance coming from his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me