Chapter II

The offer of marriage

The “details” I learned about her I will tell in one word: her father and mother were dead, they had died three years before, and she had been left with two disreputable aunts: though it is saying too little to call them disreputable. One aunt was a widow with a large family (six children, one smaller than another), the other a horrid old maid. Both were horrid. Her father was in the service, but only as a copying clerk, and was only a gentleman by courtesy; in fact, everything was in my favour. I came as though from a higher world; I was anyway a retired lieutenant of a brilliant regiment, a gentleman by birth, independent and all the rest of it, and as for my pawnbroker’s shop, her aunts could only have looked on that with respect. She had been living in slavery at her aunts’ for those three years: yet she had managed to pass an examination somewhere — she managed to pass it, she wrung the time for it, weighed down as a she was by the pitiless burden of daily drudgery, and that proved something in the way of striving for what was higher and better on her part! Why, what made me want to marry her? Never mind me, though; of that later on . . . As though that mattered! — She taught her aunt’s children; she made their clothes; and towards the end not only washed the clothes, but with her weak chest even scrubbed the floors. To put it plainly, they used to beat her, and taunt her with eating their bread. It ended by their scheming to sell her. Tfoo! I omit the filthy details. She told me all about it afterwards.

All this had been watched for a whole year by a neighbour, a fat shopkeeper, and not a humble one but the owner of two grocer’s shops. He had ill-treated two wives and now he was looking for a third, and so he cast his eye on her. “She’s a quiet one,” he thought; “she’s grown up in poverty, and I am marrying for the sake of my motherless children.”

He really had children. He began trying to make the match and negotiating with the aunts. He was fifty years old, besides. She was aghast with horror. It was then she began coming so often to me to advertise in the Voice. At last she began begging the aunts to give her just a little time to think it over. They granted her that little time, but would not let her have more; they were always at her: “We don’t know where to turn to find food for ourselves, without an extra mouth to feed.”

I had found all this out already, and the same day, after what had happened in the morning, I made up my mind. That evening the shopkeeper came, bringing with him a pound of sweets from the shop; she was sitting with him, and I called Lukerya out of the kitchen and told her to go and whisper to her that I was at the gate and wanted to say something to her without delay. I felt pleased with myself. And altogether I felt awfully pleased all that day.

On the spot, at the gate, in the presence of Lukerya, before she had recovered from her amazement at my sending for her, I informed her that I should look upon it as an honour and happiness . . . telling her, in the next place, not to be surprised at the manner of my declaration and at my speaking at the gate, saying that I was a straightforward man and had learned the position of affairs. And I was not lying when I said I was straightforward. Well, hang it all. I did not only speak with propriety — that is, showing I was a man of decent breeding, but I spoke with originality and that was the chief thing. After all, is there any harm in admitting it? I want to judge myself and am judging myself. I must speak pro and contra, and I do. I remembered afterwards with enjoyment, though it was stupid, that I frankly declared, without the least embarrassment, that, in the first place, I was not particularly talented, not particularly intelligent, not particularly good-natured, rather a cheap egoist (I remember that expression, I thought of it on the way and was pleased with it) and that very probably there was a great deal that was disagreeable in me in other respects. All this was said with a special sort of pride — we all know how that sort of thing is said. Of course, I had good taste enough not to proceed to enlarge on my virtues after honourably enumerating my defects, not to say “to make up for that I have this and that and the other.” I saw that she was still horrible frightened I purposely exaggerated. I told her straight out that she would have enough to eat, but that fine clothes, theatres, balls — she would have none of, at any rate not till later on, when I had attained my object. this severe tone was a positive delight to me. I added as cursorily as possible, that in adopting such a calling — that is, in keeping a pawnbroker’s shop, I had one object, hinting there was a special circumstance . . . but I really had a right to say so: I really had such an aim and there really was such a circumstance. Wait a minute, gentlemen; I have always been the first to hate this pawnbroking business, but in reality, though it is absurd to talk about oneself in such mysterious phrases, yet, you know, I was “revenging myself on society,” I really was, I was, I was! So that her gibe that morning at the idea of my revenging myself was unjust. that is, do you see, if I had said to her straight out in words: “yes, I am revenging myself on society,” she would have laughed as she did that morning, and it would, in fact have been absurd. But by indirect hints, but dropping mysterious phrases, it appeared that it was possible to work upon her imagination. Besides, I had no fears then: I knew that the fat shopkeeper was anyway more repulsive to her than I was, and that I, standing at the gate, had appeared as a deliverer. I understood that, of course. Oh, what is base a man understands particularly well! But was it base? How can a man judge? Didn’t I love her even then?

Wait a bit: of course, I didn’t breathe a word to her of doing her a benefit; the opposite, oh, quite the opposite; I made out that it was I that would be under an obligation to her, not she to me. Indeed, I said as much — I couldn’t resist saying it — and it sounded stupid, perhaps, for I noticed a shade flit across her face. But altogether I won the day completely. Wait a bit, if I am to recall all that vileness, then I will tell of that worst beastliness. As I stood there what was stirring in my mind was, “You are tall, a good figure, educated and — speaking without conceit — good-looking.” That is what was at work in my mind. I need hardly say that, on the spot, out there at the gate she said “yes.” But . . . but I ought to add: that out there by the gate she thought a long time before she said “yes.” She pondered for so long that I said to her, “Well?” — and could not even refrain from asking it with a certain swagger.

“Wait a little. I’m thinking.”

And her little face was so serious, so serious that even then I might have read it! And I was mortified: “Can she be choosing between me and the grocer!” I thought. Oh, I did not understand then! I did not understand anything, anything, then! I did not understand till today! I remember Lukerya ran after me as I was going away, stopped me on the road and said, breathlessly: “God will reward you, sir, for taking our dear young lady; only don’t speak of that to her — she’s proud.”

Proud, is she! “I like proud people,” I thought. Proud people are particularly nice when . . . well, when one has no doubt of one’s power over them, eh? Oh, base, tactless man! Oh, how pleased I was! You know, when she was standing there at the gate, hesitating whether to say “yes” to me, and I was wondering at it, you know, she may have had some such thought as this: “If it is to be misery either way, isn’t it best to choose the very worst” — that is, let the fat grocer beat her to death when he was drunk! Eh! what do you think, could there have been a thought like that?

And, indeed, I don’t understand it now, I don’t understand it at all, even now. I have only just said that she may have had that thought: of two evils choose the worst — that is the grocer. But which was the worst for her then — the grocer or I? The grocer or the pawnbroker who quoted Goethe? That’s another question! What a question! And even that you don’t understand: the answer is lying on the table and you call it a question! Never mind me, though. It’s not a question of me at all . . . and, by the way, what is there left for me now — whether it’s a question of me or whether it is not? That’s what I am utterly unable to answer. I had better go to bed. My head aches. . . .