Poor Folk

Chapter 25

Today I sat before my colleagues like a bear's cub or a plucked

sparrow, so that I fairly burned with shame. Yes, it hurt me

terribly, Barbara. Naturally one blushes when one can see one's

naked toes projecting through one's boots, and one's buttons

hanging by a single thread! As though on purpose, I seemed, on

this occasion, to be peculiarly dishevelled. No wonder that my

spirits fell. When I was talking on business matters to Stepan

Karlovitch, he suddenly exclaimed, for no apparent reason, "Ah,

poor old Makar Alexievitch!" and then left the rest unfinished.

But I knew what he had in his mind, and blushed so hotly that

even the bald patch on my head grew red. Of course the whole

thing is nothing, but it worries me, and leads to anxious

thoughts. What can these fellows know about me? God send that

they know nothing! But I confess that I suspect, I strongly

suspect, one of my colleagues. Let them only betray me! They

would betray one's private life for a groat, for they hold

nothing sacred.

I have an idea who is at the bottom of it all. It is Rataziaev.

Probably he knows someone in our department to whom he has

recounted the story with additions. Or perhaps he has spread it

abroad in his own department, and thence, it has crept and

crawled into ours. Everyone here knows it, down to the last

detail, for I have seen them point at you with their fingers

through the window. Oh yes, I have seen them do it. Yesterday,

when I stepped across to dine with you, the whole crew were

hanging out of the window to watch me, and the landlady exclaimed

that the devil was in young people, and called you certain

unbecoming names. But this is as nothing compared with

Rataziaev's foul intention to place us in his books, and to

describe us in a satire. He himself has declared that he is going

to do so, and other people say the same. In fact, I know not what

to think, nor what to decide. It is no use concealing the fact

that you and I have sinned against the Lord God.... You were

going to send me a book of some sort, to divert my mind--were you

not, dearest? What book, though, could now divert me? Only such

books as have never existed on earth. Novels are rubbish, and

written for fools and for the idle. Believe me, dearest, I know

it through long experience. Even should they vaunt Shakespeare to

you, I tell you that Shakespeare is rubbish, and proper only for

lampoons--Your own,

MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.