Федор Достоевский – Uncle's Dream / Дядюшкин сон (страница 6)

and even Zina smiled.

“But, prince, how clever, how witty, how humorous you are!” cried Maria Alexandrovna. “What a wonderful gilt of remarking the smallest refinements of character. And for a man like you to eschew all society, and shut yourself up for five years! With such talents! Why, prince, you could write, you could be an author. You could emulate Von Vezin, Gribojedoff, Gogol!”

“Ye-yes! ye-yes!” said the delighted prince. “I can reproduce things I see, very well. And, do you know, I used to be a very wi-witty fellow indeed, some time ago. I even wrote a play once. There were some very smart couplets, I remember; but it was never acted.”

“Oh! how nice it would be to read it over, especially just now, eh, Zina? for we are thinking of getting up a play, you must know, prince, for the benefit of the ‘martyrs of the Fatherland,’ the wounded soldiers. There, now, how handy your play would come in!”

“Certainly, certainly. I-I would even write you another. I think I’ve quite forgotten the old one. I remember there were two or three such epigrams that (here the prince kissed his own hand to convey an idea of the exquisite wit of his lines) I recollect when I was abroad I made a real furore. I remember Lord Byron well; we were great friends; you should have seen him dance the mazurka one day during the Vienna Congress.”

“Lord Byron, uncle?-Surely not!”

“Ye-yes, Lord Byron. Perhaps it was not Lord Byron, though, perhaps it was someone else; no, it wasn’t Lord Byron, it was some Pole; I remember now. A won-der-ful fellow that Pole was! He said he was a C-Count, and he turned out to be a c-cookshop man! But he danced the mazurka won-der-fully, and broke his leg at last. I recollect I wrote some lines at the time: —

“Our little Pole Danced like blazes.”

– How did it go on, now? Wait a minute! No, I can’t remember.”

“I’ll tell you, uncle. It must have been like this,” said Paul, becoming more and more inspired: —

“But he tripped in a hole, Which stopped his crazes.”

“Ye-yes, that was it, I think, or something very like it. I don’t know, though – perhaps it wasn’t. Anyhow, the lines were very sm-art. I forget a good deal of what I have seen and done. I’m so b-busy now!”

“But do let me hear how you have employed your time in your solitude, dear prince,” said Maria Alexandrovna. “I must confess that I have thought of you so often, and often, that I am burning with impatience to hear more about you and your doings.”

“Employed my time? Oh, very busy; very busy, ge-generally. One rests, you see, part of the day; and then I imagine a good many things.”

“I should think you have a very strong imagination, haven’t you, uncle?” remarked Paul.

“Exceptionally so, my dear fellow. I sometimes imagine things which amaze even myself! When I was at Kadueff, – by-the-by, you were vice-governor of Kadueff, weren’t you?”

“I, uncle! Why, what are you thinking of?”

“No? Just fancy, my dear fellow! and I’ve been thinking all this time how f-funny that the vice-governor of Kadueff should be here with quite a different face: he had a fine intelligent, dig-dignified face, you know. A wo-wonderful fellow! Always writing verses, too; he was rather like the Ki-King of Diamonds from the side view, but – “

“No, prince,” interrupted Maria Alexandrovna. “I assure you, you’ll ruin yourself with the life you are leading! To make a hermit of oneself for five years, and see no one, and hear no one: you’re a lost man, dear prince! Ask any one of those who love you, they’ll all tell you the same; you’re a lost man!”

“No,” cried the prince, “really?”

“Yes, I assure you of it! I am speaking to you as a sister – as a friend! I am telling you this because you are very dear to me, and because the memory of the past is sacred to me. No, no! You must change your way of living; otherwise you will fall ill, and break up, and die!”

“Gracious heavens! Surely I shan’t d-die so soon?” cried the old man. “You-you are right about being ill; I am ill now and then. I’ll tell you all the sy-symptoms! I’ll de-detail them to you. Firstly I – “

“Uncle, don’t you think you had better tell us all about it another day?” Paul interrupted hurriedly. “I think we had better be starting just now, don’t you?”

“Yes-yes, perhaps, perhaps. But remind me to tell you another time; it’s a most interesting case, I assure you!”

“But listen, my dear prince!” Maria Alexandrovna resumed, “why don’t you try being doctored abroad?”

“Ab-road? Yes, yes – I shall certainly go abroad. I remember when I was abroad, about ‘20; it was delightfully g-gay and jolly. I very nearly married a vi-viscountess, a French woman. I was fearfully in love, but som-somebody else married her, not I. It was a very s-strange thing. I had only gone away for a coup-couple of hours, and this Ger-German baron fellow came and carried her off! He went into a ma-madhouse afterwards!”

“Yes, dear prince, you must look after your health. There are such good doctors abroad; and – besides, the mere change of life, what will not that alone do for you! You must desert your dear Donchanovo, if only for a time!”

“C-certainly, certainly! I’ve long meant to do it. I’m going to try hy-hydropathy!”

“Hydropathy?”

“Yes. I’ve tried it once before: I was abroad, you know, and they persuaded me to try drinking the wa-waters. There wasn’t anything the matter with me, but I agreed, just out of deli-delicacy for their feelings; and I did seem to feel easier, somehow. So I drank, and drank, and dra-ank up a whole waterfall;

and I assure you if I hadn’t fallen ill just then I should have been quite well, th-thanks to the water! But, I confess, you’ve frightened me so about these ma-maladies and things, I feel quite put out. I’ll come back d-directly!”

“Why, prince, where are you off to?” asked Maria Alexandrovna in surprise.

“Directly, directly. I’m just going to note down an i-idea!”

“What sort of idea?” cried Paul, bursting with laughter.

Maria Alexandrovna lost all patience.

“I cannot understand what you find to laugh at!” she cried, as the old man disappeared; “to laugh at an honourable old man, and turn every word of his into ridicule – presuming on his angelic good nature. I assure you I blushed for you, Paul Alexandrovitch! Why, what do you see in him to laugh at? I never saw anything funny about him!”

“Well, I laugh because he does not recognise people, and talks such nonsense!”

“That’s simply the result of his sad life, of his dreadful five years’ captivity, under the guardianship of that she-devil! You should pity, not laugh at him! He did not even know me; you saw it yourself. I tell you it’s a crying shame; he must be saved, at all costs! I recommend him to go abroad so that he may get out of the clutches of that – beast of a woman!”

“Do you know what – we must find him a wife!” cried Paul.

“Oh, Mr. Mosgliakoff, you are too bad; you really are too bad!”

“No, no, Maria Alexandrovna; I assure you, this time I’m speaking in all seriousness. Why not marry him off? Isn’t it rather a brilliant idea? What harm can marriage do him? On the contrary, he is in that position that such a step alone can save him! In the first place, he will get rid of that fox of a woman; and, secondly, he may find some girl, or better still some widow – kind, good, wise and gentle, and poor, who will look after him as his own daughter would, and who will be sensible of the honour he does her in making her his wife! And what could be better for the old fellow than to have such a person about him, rather than the – woman he has now? Of course she must be nice-looking, for uncle appreciates good looks; didn’t you observe how he stared at Miss Zina?”

“But how will you find him such a bride?” asked Nastasia Petrovna, who had listened intently to Paul’s suggestion.

“What a question! Why, you yourself, if you pleased! and why not, pray? In the first place, you are good-looking, you are a widow, you are generous, you are poor (at least I don’t think you are very rich). Then you are a very reasonable woman: you’ll learn to love him, and take good care of him; you’ll send that other woman to the deuce, and take your husband abroad, where you will feed him on pudding and lollipops till the moment of his quitting this wicked world, which will be in about a year, or in a couple of months perhaps. After that, you emerge a princess, a rich widow, and, as a prize for your goodness to the old gentleman, you’ll marry a fine young marquis, or a governor-general, or somebody of the sort! There – that’s a pretty enough prospect, isn’t it?”

“Tfu! Goodness me! I should fall in love with him at once, out of pure gratitude, if he only proposed to me!” said the widow, with her black eyes all ablaze; “but, of course, it’s all nonsense!”

“Nonsense, is it? Shall I make it sound sense, then, for you? Ask me prettily, and if I don’t make you his betrothed by this evening, you may cut my little finger off! Why, there’s nothing in the world easier than to talk uncle into anything you please! He’ll only say, ‘Ye-yes, ye-yes,’ just as you heard him now! We’ll marry him so that he doesn’t know anything about it, if you like? We’ll deceive him and marry him, if you please! Any way you like, it can be done! Why, it’s for his own good; it’s out of pity for himself! Don’t you think, seriously, Nastasia Petrovna, that you had better put on some smart clothes in any case?”