The results were terrible! His Excellency immediately directed his attention to my figure and my costume. I remembered what I had seen in the mirror; I flew to catch the button! A fit of madness descended upon me! I bent down and tried to grasp the button, but it rolled and twisted, and I couldn't get hold of it, in short, and I also distinguished myself in the matter of dexterity. Then I felt my last strength fail me, and knew that all, all was lost! My whole reputation was lost, the whole man ruined! And then, without rhyme or reason, Teresa and Faldoni began to ring in both my ears. At last I succeeded in seizing the button, rose upright, drew myself up in proper salute, but like a fool, and stood calmly there with my hands lined down on the seams of my trousers! No, I didn't, though. I began to try to fit the button on the broken thread, just as though it would stick fast by that means; and moreover, I began to smile and went on smiling.
At first his Excellency turned away; then he scrutinized me again, and I heard him say to Evstafiy Ivanovitch:—"How's this? See what a condition he is in! What a looking man! What's the matter with him?" Ah, my own dearest, think of that—"What a looking man!" and "What's the matter with him!"—"He has distinguished himself!" I heard Evstafiy say; "he has no bad marks, no bad marks on any score, and his conduct is exemplary; his salary is adequate, in accordance with the rates." "Well then, give him some sort of assistance," says his Excellency; "make him an advance on his salary."—"But he has had it, he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance. Probably circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his conduct is good, and he has received no reprimands, he has never been rebuked." My dear little angel, I turned hot and burned as though in the fires of the bad place! I was on the point of fainting. "Well," says his Excellency in a loud voice, "the document must be copied again as quickly as possible; come here, Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and listen to me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were all gone, his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and from it drew a hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this is all I can afford, and I am happy to help to that extent; reckon it as you please, take it,"—and he thrust it into my hand. I trembled, my angel, my whole soul was in a flutter; I didn't know what was the matter with me; I tried to catch his hand and kiss it. But he turned very red in the face, my darling, and—I am not deviating from the truth by so much as a hair's-breadth—he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank with his own, as though it belonged to a General like himself. "Go," says he; "I am glad to do what I can. Make no mistakes, but now do it as well as you can."
Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and Feodor—and if I had children I would lay my commands upon them—to pray to God for him; though they should not pray for their own father, that they should pray daily and forever, for his Excellency! One thing more I will say, my dearest, and I say it solemnly,—heed me well, my dear,—I swear that, no matter in what degree I may be reduced to spiritual anguish in the cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you and your poverty, on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,—in spite of all this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so precious to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to press my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby he restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life again my spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and I am firmly convinced that, however sinful I may be in the sight of the Almighty, yet my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of his Excellency will reach his throne!
My dearest, I am at present in the most terrible state of spiritual prostration, in a horribly overwrought condition. My heart beats as though it would burst out of my breast, and I seem to be weak all over. I send you forty-five rubles, paper money. I shall give twenty rubles to my landlady, and keep thirty-five for myself; with twenty I will get proper clothes, and the other fifteen will go for my living expenses. But just now all the impressions of this morning have shaken my whole being to the foundations. I am going to lie down for a bit. Nevertheless, I am calm, perfectly calm. Only, my soul aches, and down there, in the depths, my soul is trembling and throbbing and quivering. I shall go to see you; but just now I am simply intoxicated with all these emotions. God sees all, my dearest, my own darling, my precious one.
Your worthy friend,
Makar Dyevushkin.
Translation of Isabel F. Hapgood.