Oh let me die and cease to be!”
‘SHE DROPPED HER HANDKERCHIEF. I RUSHED FOR IT, AND SLIPPED ON THE CONFOUNDED FLOOR.’
They must have been written by Poushkin. In the evening I muffled myself in my cloak, went to her excellency’s doorstep, and waited long on the chance of seeing her for a moment coming out and getting into her carriage; but she did not come.
November 6th.
I have infuriated the chief of the section. When I came to the Department he called me into his room, and began talking after this fashion, “Now just tell me, my man, what you’re after.” “How? What? I’m not after anything,” said I. “Now, think it over and be reasonable! Why, you’re past forty; you ought to have come to years of discretion. What have you got into your head? Do you imagine I don’t know all you’re up to? Why, you are dangling about after the director’s daughter! Now just look at yourself, and think a minute what you are like. You know you’re a complete nonentity. You know you haven’t got a farthing in the world. Look at your face in the looking-glass—how can you think of such a thing?” The devil take it! Just because he has a face something like an apothecary’s drug-bottle and one little wisp of hair on his head twisted up into a barber’s cock’s-comb, and holds up his head and smears it with a bandoline stick, he thinks he must be over everybody. But I understand, I understand perfectly well why he’s so angry—he’s envious; very likely he has noticed the signs of special favour shown to me. But what do I care for him? How very important—a D.C.L.! He’s got a gold watch-chain and pays thirty roubles for his boots—and the devil take him! Does he imagine that I am one of the common people; that I’m the son of a tailor or a corporal? I am a noble! I, too, may rise in the service; I am only forty-two—just the proper age to begin one’s career. Wait a bit, my friend! Perhaps we shall be a colonel some day, or higher up than that even, by God’s grace; and we’ll have a better reputation than yours is. I should like to know what put it into your head that no one can be a decent fellow except yourself. Give me a fashionably cut dress-coat and a fine necktie like yours, and you won’t be fit to hold a candle to me. I have no fortune, that’s the trouble.
November 8th.
I went to the theatre. They played the Russian fool, Filàtka, and I laughed heartily. Then there was some sort of vaudeville with very funny verses about lawyers, especially about a certain collegiate registrar. They were written in so free a style that I wondered at the censorship passing them; and about shopkeepers it was said, right out, that they cheat the public, and that their sons are dissipated and always trying to get into the nobility. There was a very comic verse about journalists—that they are always finding fault, and so the author begs the public to take his part. Very amusing things are written nowadays. I love the theatre; whenever I have a few pence in my pocket I can’t resist going. Now, a good many of our officials are regular pigs; they care no more about the theatre than if they were peasants. Of course, if you give them a ticket free, they’ll go. One actress sang very well. I thought of Her.... Oh! hang it all!... Never mind.... Hush!
November 9th.
At eight o’clock I went to the Department. The chief of the section pretended not to notice my entrance at all. For my part, I behaved as if nothing had happened between us. I looked over a lot of papers, examined them; and went away at four o’clock. I passed the director’s house, but there was no one to be seen. After dinner, I lay on my bed most of the time.