Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Gambler

I came home only at eleven o’clock. The general sent for me at once.

Our people occupy two suites in the hotel; they have four rooms. The first—a big one—is the salon, with a grand piano. Next to it another big room—the general’s study. He was waiting for me there, standing in the middle of the study in an extemely majestic attitude. Des Grieux was sprawled on the sofa.

“My dear sir, allow me to ask, what you have done?” the general began, addressing me.

“I would like you to get straight to the point, General,” I said. “You probably want to speak of my encounter with a certain German today?”

“A certain German?! This German is Baron Wurmerhelm and an important person, sir! You were rude to him and to the baroness.”

“Not in the least.”

“You frightened them, my dear sir,” cried the general.

“Not at all. Back in Berlin this jawohl got stuck in my ear, which they constantly repeat after every word and draw out so disgustingly. When I met him in the avenue, for some reason this jawohl suddenly popped up in my memory and had an irritating effect on me…Besides, three times now the baroness, on meeting me, has had the habit of walking straight at me as if I was a worm that could be crushed underfoot. You must agree that I, too, may have my self-respect. I took off my hat and politely (I assure you it was politely) said: ‘ Madame, j’ai l’honneur d’être votre esclave. ’ When the baron turned and shouted ‘ Hein! ’—I also suddenly felt pushed to shout: ‘ Jawohl! ’ So I shouted it twice, the first time in an ordinary way, and the second time drawing it out with all my might. That’s all.”

I confess, I was terribly glad of this highly schoolboyish explanation. I had an astonishing wish to smear the whole story around as absurdly as possible.

And the further it went, the more I got a taste for it.

“Are you laughing at me, or what?” shouted the general. He turned to the Frenchman and told him in French that I was decidedly inviting a scandal. Des Grieux smiled contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, don’t think that, it’s nothing of the sort!” I cried to the general. “My act was not nice, of course, and I admit it to you frankly in the highest degree. My act may even be called stupid and indecent prankishness, but—nothing more. And you know, General, I’m repentant in the highest degree. But there’s one circumstance here which, in my eyes, almost even spares me any repentance. Lately, for some two or even three weeks, I’ve been feeling unwell: sick, nervous, irritable, fantastic, and on some occasions I even lose all control of myself. Really, I’ve sometimes wanted terribly to address the marquis des Grieux all at once and…However, there’s no point in saying it; he may get offended. In short, these are signs of illness. I don’t know whether Baroness Wurmerhelm will take that circumstance into consideration when I offer my apologies (because I intend to apologize). I suppose she won’t, the less so in that, from what I know, this circumstance has lately been misused in the legal world: in criminal trials, lawyers have begun quite frequently to justify their clients, the criminals, by saying that at the moment of the crime they remembered nothing and that it was supposedly some such illness. ‘He beat someone,’ they say, ‘and remembers nothing.’ And imagine, General, medical science agrees with them—it really confirms that there is such an illness, such a temporary madness, when a man remembers almost nothing, or half-remembers, or a quarter-remembers. But the baron and baroness are people of the older generation, and Prussian Junkers and landowners to boot. They must still be unfamiliar with this progress in the legal and medical world, and therefore will not accept my explanations. What do you think, General?”

“Enough, sir!” the general uttered sharply and with restrained indignation, “enough! I will try to rid myself once and for all of your prankishness. Apologize to the baron and baroness you will not. Any relations with you, even if they consist solely of your asking forgiveness, would be too humiliating for them. The baron, having learned that you belong to my household, already had a talk with me in the vauxhall, and, I confess to you, a little more and he would have demanded satisfaction from me. Do you realize what you have subjected me to—me, my dear sir? I, I was forced to offer my apologies to the baron and give him my word that, immediately, this very day, you would cease to belong to my household…”

“Pardon me, pardon me, General, so it was he himself who absolutely demanded that I not belong to your household, as you’re pleased to put it?”

“No; but I myself considered it my duty to give him that satisfaction, and, naturally, the baron remained pleased. We are parting, my dear sir. I still owe you those four friedrichs d’or and three florins in local currency. Here’s the money, and here’s the paper with the accounting; you may verify it. Good-bye. We are strangers from here on out. I have seen nothing from you but trouble and unpleasantness. I will summon the desk clerk at once and announce to him that starting tomorrow I do not answer for your hotel expenses. I have the honor to remain your obedient servant.”

I took the money, the paper on which the accounting was penciled, bowed to the general, and said to him quite gravely:

“General, the matter cannot end this way. I am very sorry that you were subjected to unpleasantness by the baron, but—excuse me—you yourself are to blame for it. How is it that you took it upon yourself to answer to the baron for me? What is the meaning of the expression that I belong to your household? I am simply a tutor in your house, and only that. I am not your son, I am not under your guardianship, and you cannot answer for my acts. I am a legally competent person. I am twenty-five years old, I have a university degree, I am a nobleman, I am a perfect stranger to you. Only my boundless respect for your merits keeps me from demanding satisfaction from you right now and a further accounting for the fact that you took upon yourself the right to answer for me.”

The general was so dumbfounded that he spread his arms, then turned to the Frenchman and told him hurriedly that I had just all but challenged him to a duel. The Frenchman guffawed loudly.

“But I do not intend to let the baron off,” I continued with perfect equanimity, not embarrassed in the least by M. des Grieux’s laughter, “and since you, General, by consenting today to listen to the baron’s complaint, and thereby entering into his interests, have put yourself in the position of a participant, as it were, in this whole business, I have the honor to inform you that, no later than tomorrow morning, I will, in my own name, demand a formal explanation from the baron of the reasons why, having business with me, he bypassed me and addressed himself to another person, as if I could not or was not worthy to answer him for myself.”

What I anticipated happened. The general, hearing this new silliness, became terribly scared.

“What, can you really intend to go on with this cursed business?” he cried. “But what are you doing to me, oh, Lord! Don’t you dare, don’t you dare, my dear sir, or I swear to you!…There are authorities here, too, and I…I…in short, by my rank…and the baron also…in short, you’ll be arrested and sent away from here by the police, so that you won’t make a row! Understand that, sir!” And though he was choking with wrath, all the same he was terribly scared.

“General,” I replied, with an equanimity intolerable to him, “one cannot be arrested for rowdiness before there’s any rowdiness. I have not yet begun my talk with the baron, and it is as yet completely unknown to you in what manner and on what basis I intend to go about the business. My only wish is to clarify the offensive suggestion that I am under the guardianship of a person who supposedly has power over my free will. You needn’t trouble and worry yourself so much.”