Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Double

Finally, Mr. Goliadkin could endure no longer. “This will not be!” he shouted, resolutely sitting up in bed, and after this exclamation, he awakened completely.

Day had evidently begun long ago. The room was somehow unusually bright; the sun’s rays strained thickly through the frost-covered windowpanes and abundantly flooded the room, which surprised Mr. Goliadkin not a little; for the sun in its due progress peeked in on him only at noontime; previously such exceptions to the course of the heavenly luminary, at least as far as Mr. Goliadkin himself could recall, had almost never occurred. Our hero had just managed to marvel at it, when the wall clock behind the partition began to buzz and thus became completely ready to strike. “Ah, there!” thought Mr. Goliadkin, and in anguished expectation he got ready to listen…But, to Mr. Goliadkin’s complete and utter shock, his clock strained and struck only once. “What’s this story?” our hero cried, jumping out of bed altogether. Not believing his ears, he rushed behind the partition just as he was. The clock indeed showed one. Mr. Goliadkin glanced at Petrushka’s bed; but there was not even a whiff of Petrushka in the room: his bed had evidently long been made and left; there were no boots anywhere—an unquestionable sign that Petrushka was indeed not at home. Mr. Goliadkin rushed to the door: the door was locked. “But where is Petrushka?” he went on in a whisper, in terrible agitation, and feeling a considerable trembling in all his limbs…Suddenly a thought raced through his head…Mr. Goliadkin rushed to his desk, looked it over, searched around—that was it: yesterday’s letter to Vakhrameev was not there…Petrushka was also not there at all behind the partition; the wall clock showed one, and in yesterday’s letter from Vakhrameev some new points had been introduced which, though vague at first glance, were now quite explainable. Finally, Petrushka, too—obviously, Petrushka had been bribed! Yes, yes, it was so!

“So it was there that the chief knot was tied!” cried Mr. Goliadkin, striking himself on the forehead and opening his eyes wider and wider. “So it’s in that niggardly German woman’s nest that the chief unclean powers are hidden now! So that means she was only making a strategic diversion when she directed me to the Izmailovsky Bridge—distracting my attention, confusing me (the worthless witch!), and in that way undermining me!!! Yes, it’s so! If you look at it from that side, it’s all precisely so! And the appearance of the scoundrel is now fully explained: it all goes together. They’ve been keeping him for a long time, preparing him and saving him for a rainy day. That’s how it is now, that’s how it all turns out! That’s the whole solution! Ah, well, never mind! I still have time!…” Here Mr. Goliadkin recalled with terror that it was already past one in the afternoon. “What if they’ve now managed to…” A groan burst from his breast…“But no, nonsense, they haven’t managed—we’ll see…” He dressed haphazardly, seized some paper, a pen, and scribbled the following missive:

My dear Yakov Petrovich!

Either you or me, but two of us is impossible! And therefore I announce to you that your strange, ridiculous, and at the same time impossible wish—to appear my twin and pass yourself off as such—will serve nothing except your total dishonor and defeat. And therefore I beg you, for your own benefit, to step aside and give way to people of true nobility and well-intentioned purposes. In the contrary case, I am prepared to venture even upon the most extreme measures. I lay down my pen and wait…However, I remain ready to be at your service and—to pistols.

Our hero rubbed his hands energetically when he had finished the note. Then, having pulled on his overcoat and put on his hat, he unlocked the door with a spare key and set off for the department. He reached the department, but did not venture to go in; indeed, it was much too late; Mr. Goliadkin’s watch showed half-past two. Suddenly a certain, apparently quite unimportant, circumstance resolved some of Mr. Goliadkin’s doubts: a breathless and red-faced little figure appeared from around the corner of the office building and stealthily, with a ratlike gait, darted onto the porch and then at once into the front hall. This was the scrivener Ostafyev, a man quite well known to Mr. Goliadkin, a somewhat necessary man and ready to do anything for ten kopecks. Knowing Ostafyev’s soft spot and realizing that, after absenting himself on a most urgent necessity, he was now probably still more avid for his ten-kopeck pieces, our hero decided not to be sparing and at once darted onto the porch and then also into the front hall after Ostafyev, called to him, and with a mysterious look invited him to one side, into a nook behind an enormous iron stove. Having led him there, our hero began asking questions.

“Well, so, my friend, how’s things there, sort of…you understand me?”

“Yes, Your Honor, I wish Your Honor good day.”

“Very well, my friend, very well; and I’ll reward you, my dear friend. Well, so you see, how are things, my friend?”

“What are you asking, if you please, sir?” Here Ostafyev slightly covered his accidentally opened mouth with his hand.

“You see, my friend, I sort of…but don’t go thinking anything…Well, so, is Andrei Filippovich here?…”

“He is, sir.”

“And the clerks are here?”

“The clerks also, as they should be, sir.”

“And his excellency also?”

“And his excellency also, sir.” Here once more the scrivener held his hand over his again opened mouth and looked at Mr. Goliadkin somehow curiously and strangely. At least it seemed so to our hero.

“And there’s nothing special, my friend?”

“No, sir, nothing at all, sir.”

“So, my dear friend, there isn’t anything about me, anything just…eh? just so, my friend, you understand?”

“No, sir, I’ve heard nothing so far.” Here the scrivener again held his hand to his mouth and again glanced at Mr. Goliadkin somehow strangely. The thing was that our hero was now trying to penetrate Ostafyev’s physiognomy, to read whether there was not something hidden in it. And indeed there seemed to be something hidden; the thing was that Ostafyev was becoming somehow ruder and dryer, and no longer entered into Mr. Goliadkin’s interests with the same concern as at the beginning of the conversation. “He’s partly within his rights,” thought Mr. Goliadkin. “What am I to him? He may already have gotten something from the other side, and that’s why he absented himself with such urgency. But now I’ll sort of…” Mr. Goliadkin understood that the time for ten-kopeck pieces had come.

“Here you are, my dear friend…”

“I cordially thank Your Honor.”

“I’ll give you more.”

“As you say, Your Honor.”

“I’ll give you more now, at once, and when the matter’s ended, I’ll give you as much again. Understand?”

The scrivener said nothing, stood at attention, and looked fixedly at Mr. Goliadkin.

“Well, tell me now: have you heard anything about me?…”

“It seems that, so far…sort of…nothing so far, sir.” Ostafyev also replied measuredly, like Mr. Goliadkin, preserving a slightly mysterious look, twitching his eyebrows slightly, looking at the ground, trying to fall into the right tone and, in short, trying with all his might to earn what had been promised, because what had been given he considered his own and definitively acquired.

“And nothing’s known?”

“Not so far, sir.”

“But listen…sort of…maybe it will be known?”

“Later on, of course, maybe it will be known, sir.”

“That’s bad!” thought our hero.