"If I . . ." he began, constantly breaking off and jumping to another subject, "I'm so grateful to you, and so guilty before you . . . I . . . you see . . ." and again he pointed to the room, "at the present moment my situation . . ."
"Oh," I said, "there's nothing to see; it's a well-known thing; you must have lost your job, and you've come to explain things and look for another job?"
"How . . . did you know?" he asked in surprise.
"It's obvious at first glance," I said with unintentional mockery. "Many people come here from the provinces with hopes, go running around, and live like this."
He suddenly began speaking heatedly, his lips trembling; he complained, talked, and, I confess, got me carried away; I sat there for almost an hour. He told me his story, a very ordinary one, by the way. He had been a provincial doctor, had occupied a
government post, but then some intrigues had started, which his wife was even mixed up in. He had shown his pride, his hot temper; a change had occurred in the provincial government to the advantage of his enemies; there had been sabotage, complaints; he had lost his job and on his last means had come to Petersburg for an explanation; in Petersburg, to be sure, they did not listen to him for a long time, then they heard him out, then responded with a refusal, then lured him with promises, then responded with severity, then told him to write something in explanation, then refused to accept what he had written, told him to petition—in short, it was already the fifth month that he had been running around, everything had been eaten up, his wife's last clothes had been pawned, and now the baby had been born and, and . . . "today came the final negative response to my petition, and I have almost no food, nothing, my wife has given birth. I . . . I . . ."
He jumped up from his chair and turned away. His wife wept in the corner, the baby began squealing again. I took out my notebook and started writing in it. When I finished and got up, he was standing before me and looking at me with timorous curiosity.
"I've written down your name," I said to him, "well, and all the rest: the place of work, the name of your governor, the days, the months. I have a friend from my school days, Bakhmutov, and his uncle, Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov, an actual state councillor, 15who serves as the director . . ."
"Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov!" my medical man cried out, all but trembling. "But it's on him that almost everything depends!"
Indeed, in my medical man's story and in its denouement, to which I inadvertently contributed, everything came together and got settled as if it had been prepared that way on purpose, decidedly as in a novel. I told these poor people that they should try not to place any hopes in me, that I myself was a poor high-school student (I exaggerated the humiliation on purpose; I finished my studies long ago and am not a student), and that they need not know my name, but that I would go at once to Vassilievsky Island, to see my friend Bakhmutov, and as I knew for certain that his uncle, an actual state councillor, a bachelor, and with no children, decidedly adored his nephew and loved him to the point of passion, seeing in him the last bearer of his name, "maybe my friend will be able to do something for you—and for me, of course—through his uncle . . ."
"If only I could be allowed to explain things to his excellency!
If only I could be vouchsafed the honor of explaining it verbally!" he exclaimed, trembling as if in fever and with flashing eyes. He did say vouchsafed.Having repeated once more that the thing would probably be a flop and turn out to be all nonsense, I added that if I did not come to see them the next morning, it would mean that the matter was ended and they had nothing to expect. They saw me off, bowing, they were nearly out of their minds. I will never forget the expressions on their faces. I hired a cab and headed at once for Vassilievsky Island.
In school, over the course of several years, I was constantly at enmity with this Bakhmutov. Among us he was considered an aristocrat, or at least I called him one: he was excellently dressed, drove around in his own carriage, did not show off in the least, was always a wonderful comrade, was always remarkably cheerful and sometimes even very witty, though none too long on intelligence, despite the fact that he was always first in the class; while I was never first in anything. All our classmates liked him, except for me alone. He approached me several times during those several years; but each time I sullenly and irritably turned my back on him. Now I had not seen him for about a year; he was at the university. When, towards nine o'clock, I entered his room (with great ceremony: I was announced), he met me at first with surprise, even quite ungraciously, but he cheered up at once and, looking at me, suddenly burst into laughter.
"But why did you take it into your head to call on me, Terentyev?" he cried with his usual sweet casualness, sometimes bold but never offensive, which I so loved in him and for which I so hated him. "But what's wrong," he cried in fear, "you're quite ill!"
Coughing tormented me again, I fell into a chair and was barely able to catch my breath.
"Don't worry, I have consumption," I said. "I've come to you with a request."
He sat down in surprise, and I at once told him the doctor's whole story and explained that he himself, having great influence on his uncle, might be able to do something.
"I will, I certainly will, I'll assault my uncle tomorrow; and I'm even glad, and you told it all so well . . . But still, Terentyev, why did you take it into your head to turn to me?"
"So much of it depends on your uncle, and besides, Bakhmutov, you and I were always enemies, and since you are a noble man, I thought you would not refuse an enemy," I added with irony.
"Like Napoleon turning to England!" 16he cried, bursting into laughter. "I'll do it, I'll do it! I'll even go right now if I can!" he hastened to add, seeing that I was getting up seriously and sternly from my chair.
And in fact the matter, quite unexpectedly, got settled for us in the best possible way. A month and a half later our medical man obtained a new post, in another province, was given travel money and even financial assistance. I suspect that Bakhmutov, who began calling on them frequently (while I, because of that, purposely stopped seeing them and received the doctor, who kept running by, almost drily)—Bakhmutov, I suspect, even persuaded the doctor to accept a loan from him. I saw Bakhmutov a couple of times during those six weeks, we met for a third time when we saw the doctor off. Bakhmutov arranged a farewell party at his own house, in the form of a dinner with champagne, at which the doctor's wife was also present; she left very soon, however, to go to the baby. It was at the beginning of May, the evening was bright, the enormous ball of the sun was sinking into the bay. Bakhmutov saw me home; we crossed the Nikolaevsky Bridge; we were both a bit drunk. Bakhmutov spoke of his delight that the matter had ended so well, thanked me for something, explained how pleasant it was for him now, after this good deed, insisted that all the credit was mine, and that what many now taught and preached about the meaninglessness of individual good deeds was wrong. I also wanted terribly to talk.
"Whoever infringes upon individual 'charity,'" I began, "infringes upon man's nature and scorns his personal dignity. But the organizing of 'social charity' and the question of personal freedom are two different questions and are not mutually exclusive. Individual goodness will always abide, because it is a personal need, a living need for the direct influence of one person on another. In Moscow there lived an old man, a 'general,' that is, an actual state councillor, with a German name; all his life he dragged himself around to jails and prisoners; every group of exiles to Siberia knew beforehand that 'the little old general' would visit them on Sparrow Hills. He did it all seriously and piously in the highest degree; he arrived, walked along the rows of exiles, who surrounded him, stopped before each one, asked each one about his needs, hardly ever admonished anyone, called them all 'dear hearts.' He gave them money, sent them necessary things—leg wrappings, foot-cloths, pieces of linen, sometimes brought pious tracts and gave