But there is more to his reluctance than that. There is something ugly in this intrusion on Pavel, and indeed something obscene in the idea of the Nachlass of a child.
Pavel's Siberian story has been spoilt for him, perhaps forever, by Maximov's ridicule. He cannot pretend that the writing itself is not juvenile and derivative. Yet it would take so little to breathe life into it! He itches to take his pen to it, to cross out the long passages of sentiment and doctrine and add the lifegiving touches it cries out for. Young Sergei is a self-righteous prig who needs to be distanced, seen more humorously, particularly in his solemn disciplining of his body. What draws the peasant girl to him can surely not be the promise of connubial life (a diet of dry bread and turnips, as far as he can see, and bare boards to sleep on) but his air of holding himself ready for a mysterious destiny. Where does that come from? From Chernyshevsky, certainly, but beyond Chernyshevsky from the Gospels, from Jesus – from an imitation of Jesus as obtuse and perverted in its way as that of the atheist Nechaev, gathering together a band of disciples and leading them out on errands of death. A piper with a troop of swine dancing at his heels. 'She will do anything for him,' said Matryona of the swine-girl Katri. Do anything, endure any humiliation, endure death. All shame burnt away, all self-respect. What went on between Nechaev and his women in the room above Madame la Fay's? And Matryona – was she being groomed for the harem too?
He closes Pavel's manuscript and pushes it aside. Once he begins to write on it he will certainly turn it into an abomination.
Then there is the diary. Paging through it, he notices for the first time a trail of pencil-marks, neat little ticks that are not in Pavel's hand and can therefore only be in Maximov's. For whom are they intended? Probably for a copyist; yet in his present state he cannot but take them as directives to himself.
'Saw A. today,' reads the ticked entry for November 11, 1868, almost exacdy a year ago. November 14: a cryptic 'A.' November 20: 'A. at Antonov's.' Each reference to 'A.' from there onward has a tick beside it.
He turns the pages back. The earliest 'A.' is on June 6, save for May 14, where there is an entry, 'Long talk to – -,' with a tick and a question-mark beside it.
September 14, 1869, a month before his death: 'Outline of a story (idea from A.). A locked gate, outside which we stand, hammering on it, crying to be let in. Every few days it is opened a crack and a guard beckons one of us in. The chosen one is stripped of everything he owns, even his clothes. He becomes a servant, learns to bow, to keep his voice down. As servants they select those they consider the most docile, the easiest to tame. To the strong they bar entry.
'Theme: spread of the spirit among the servants. First muttering, then anger, rebelliousness, at last a joining of hands, swearing of an oath of vengeance. Closes with a faithful old retainer, white-haired, grandfatherly, coming with a candelabrum "to do his bit" (as he says), setting fire to the curtains.'
An idea for a fable, an allegory, not for a story. No life of its own, no centre. No spirit.
July 6, 1869: 'In the mail, ten roubles from the Snit-kina, for my name-day (late), with orders not to mention it to The Master.'
'The Snitkina': Anya, his wife. 'The Master': himself. Is this what Maximov meant when he warned against hurtful passages? If so, then Maximov should know this is a pygmy arrow. There is more he can bear, much more.
He leafs back further to the early days.
March 26, 1867: 'Bumped into F. M. in the street last night. He furtive (had he been with a whore?), so I had to pretend to be drunker than I was. He "guided my steps home" (loves to play the father forgiving the prodigal son), laid me out on the sofa like a corpse while he and the Snitkina had a long whispered fight. I had lost my shoes (perhaps I gave them away). It ended with F. M. in his shirtsleeves trying to wash my feet. All v. embarrassing. This morning told the S. I must have my own lodgings, can't she twist his arm, use her wiles. But she's too frightened of him.'
Painful? Yes, painful indeed: he will concede that to Maximov. Yet if anything is going to persuade him to stop reading, it will be not pain but fear. Fear, for instance, that his trust in his wife will be undermined. Fears, too, for his trust in Pavel.
For whom were these mischievous pages intended? Did Pavel write them for his father's eyes and then die so as to leave his accusations unanswerable? Of course not: what madness to think so! More like a woman writing to a lover with the familiar phantom figure of her husband reading over her shoulder. Every word double: to the one, passion and the promise of surrender; to the other, a plea, a reproach. Split writing, from a split heart. Would Maximov have appreciated that?
July 2, 1867, three months later: 'Liberation of the serf. Free at last! Saw off F. M. and bride at the railway station. Then immediately gave notice at these impossible lodgings he has put me in {own cup, own napkin-ring, and a 10:30 curfew). V. G. has promised I can stay with him till I find another place. Must persuade old Maykov to let me have the money to pay my rent directly.'
He turns the pages back and forth distractedly. Forgiveness: is there no word of forgiveness, however oblique, however disguised? Impossible to live out his days with a child inside him whose last word is not of forgiveness.
Inside the lead casket a silver casket. Inside the silver casket a gold casket. Inside the gold casket the body of a young man clothed in white with his hands crossed on his breast. Between the fingers a telegram. He peers at the telegram till his eyes swim, looking for the word of forgiveness that is not there. The telegram is written in Hebrew, in Syriac, in symbols he has never seen before.
There is a tap at the door. It is Anna Sergeyevna, in her street clothes. 'I must thank you for looking after Matryosha. Has she been any trouble?'
It takes him a moment to collect himself, to remember that she knows nothing about the abominable uses Nechaev has put the child to.
'No trouble at all. How does she seem to you?'
'She's asleep, I don't want to wake her.'
She notices the papers spread out on the bed.
'I see you are reading Pavel's papers after all. I won't interrupt.'
'No, don't go yet. It is not a pleasant business.'
'Fyodor Mikhailovich, let me plead with you again, don't read things not meant for your eyes. You will only hurt yourself.'
'I wish I could follow your advice. Unfortunately that is not why I am here – to save myself from hurt. I have been going through Pavel's diary, and I came to an incident that I remember all too well, from the year before last. Illuminating, to see it now through another's eyes. Pavel came home in the middle of the night incapable – he had been drinking. I had to undress him, and I was struck by something I had never noticed before – how small his toenails were, as though they had not grown since he was a child. Broad, fleshy feet – his father's, I suppose – with tiny nails. He had lost his shoes or given them away; his feet were like blocks of ice.'
Pavel tramping the cold streets after midnight in his socks. A lost angel, an imperfect angel, one of God's castoffs. His feet the feet of a walker, a treader upon our great mother; of a peasant, not a dancer.
Then on the sofa, his head lolling, vomit all over his clothes.
'I gave him an old pair of boots, and watched him go off in the morning, very grumpily, with the boots in his hand. And that was that, I thought. An awkward age, though, eighteen, nineteen, awkward for everyone, when they are fullgrown but can't leave the nest yet. Feathered but unable to fly. Always eating, always hungry. They remind me of pelicans: gangling creatures, ungainliest of birds, till they spread those great wings of theirs and leave the ground.