J.M. Coetzee - The Master of Petersburg

'I need more.'

'Then go into the streets and beg for it. You won't get it from me. Go and beg for alms in the name of the people.'

They glare at each other.

'Why won't you give him money?' says Matryona. 'He's Pavel's friend!'

'I don't have money to give.'

'That isn't true! You told Mama you had lots of money. Why don't you give him half? Pavel Alexandrovich would have given him half.'

Pavel and Jesus! 'I said nothing of the kind. I don't have lots of money.'

'Come, give it to me!' Nechaev grips his arm; his eyes glitter. Again he smells the young man's fear. Fierce but frightened: poor fellow! Then, deliberately, he closes the door on pity. 'Certainly not.'

'Why are you so mean ?' Matryona bursts out, uttering the word with all the contempt at her command.

'I am not mean.'

'Of course you are mean! You were mean to Pavel and now you are mean to his friends! You have lots of money but you keep it all for yourself.' She turns to Nechaev. 'They pay him thousands of roubles to write books and he keeps it all for himself! It's true! Pavel told me!'

'What nonsense! Pavel knew nothing about money matters.'

'It's true! Pavel looked in your desk! He looked in your account books!'

'Damn Pavel! Pavel doesn't know how to read a ledger, he sees only what he wants to see! I have been carrying debts for years that you can't even imagine!' He turns to Nechaev. 'This is a ridiculous conversation. I don't have money to give you. I think you should leave at once.'

But Nechaev is no longer in a hurry. He is even smiling. 'Not a ridiculous conversation at all,' he says. 'On the contrary, most instructive. I have always had a suspicion about fathers, that their real sin, the one they never confess, is greed. They want everything for themselves. They won't hand over the moneybags, even when it's time. The moneybags are all that matter to them; they couldn't care less what happens as a consequence. I didn't believe what your stepson told me because I had heard you were a gambler and I thought gamblers didn't care about money. But there is a second side to gambling, isn't there? I should have seen that. You must be the kind who gambles because he is never satisfied, who is always greedy for more.'

It is a ludicrous charge. He thinks of Anya in Dresden scrimping to keep the child fed and clothed. He thinks of his own turned collars, of the holes in his socks. He thinks of the letters he has written year after year, exercises in self-abasement every one of them, to Strakhov and Kraevsky and Lyubimov, to Stellovsky in particular, begging for advances. Dostoevski l'avare - preposterous! He feels in his pocket and brings out his last roubles. 'This,' he exclaims, thrusting them beneath Nechaev's nose, 'this is all I have!'

Nechaev regards the out-thrust hand coolly, then in a single swooping movement snatches the money, all save a coin that falls and rolls under the bed. Matryona dives after it.

He tries to take his money back, even tussles with the younger man. But Nechaev holds him off easily, in the same movement spiriting the money into his pocket. 'Wait… wait… wait,' Nechaev murmurs. 'In your heart, Fyodor Mikhailovich, in your heart, for your son's sake, I know you want to give it to me.' And he takes a step back, smoothing the suit as if to show off its splendour.

What a poseur! What a hypocrite! The People's Vengeance indeed! Yet he cannot deny that a certain gaiety is creeping into his own heart, a gaiety he recognizes, the gaiety of the spendthrift husband. Of course they are something to be ashamed of, these reckless bouts of his. Of course, when he comes home stripped bare and confesses to his wife and bows his head and endures her reproaches and vows he will never lapse again, he is sincere. But at the bottom of his heart, beneath the sincerity, where only God can see, he knows he is right and she is wrong. Money is there to be spent, and what form of spending is purer than gambling?

Matryona is holding out her hand. In the palm is a single fifty-kopek coin. She seems unsure to whom it should go. He nudges the hand toward Nechaev. 'Give it to him, he needs it.' Nechaev pockets the coin.

Good. Done. Now it is his turn to take up the position of penniless virtue, Nechaev's turn to bow his head and be scolded. But what has he to say? Nothing, nothing at all.

Nor does Nechaev care to wait. He is bundling up the blue dress. 'Find somewhere to hide this,' he instructs Matryona – 'not in the apartment – somewhere else.' He hands her the hat and wig too, tucks the cuffs of his trousers into his trim little boots, dons his coat, pats his head distractedly. 'Wasted too much time,' he mutters. 'Have you -?' He snatches a fur cap from the chair and makes for the door. Then he remembers something and turns back. 'You are an interesting man, Fyodor Mikhailovich. If you had a daughter of the right age I wouldn't mind marrying her. She would be an exceptional girl, I am sure. But as for your stepson, he was another story, not like you at all. I'm not sure I would have known what to do with him. He didn't have – you know – what it takes. That's my opinion, for what it's worth.'

'And what does it take?'

'He was a bit too much of a saint. You are right to burn candles for him.'

While he speaks, he has been idly waving a hand over the candle, making the flame dance. Now he puts a finger directly into the flame and holds it there. The seconds pass: one, two, three, four, five. The look on his face does not change. He could be in a trance.

He removes his hand. 'That's what he didn't have. Bit of a sissy, in fact.'

He puts an arm around Matryona, gives her a hug. She responds without reserve, pressing her blonde head-against his breast, returning his embrace.

'Wachsam, wachsam!' whispers Nechaev meaningfully, and, over her head, wags the burned finger at him. Then he is gone.

It takes a moment to make sense of the strange syllables. Even after he has recognized the word he fails to understand. Vigilant: vigilant about what?

Matryona is at the window, craning down over the street. There are quick tears in her eyes, but she is too excited to be sad. 'Will he be safe, do you think?' she asks; and then, without waiting for an answer: 'Shall I go with him? He can pretend he is blind and I am leading him.' But it is just a passing idea.

He stands close behind her. It is almost dark; snow is beginning to fall; soon her mother will be home.

'Do you like him?' he asks.

'Mm.'

'He leads a busy life, doesn't he?'

'Mm.'

She barely hears him. What an unequal contest! How can he compete with these young men who come from nowhere and vanish into nowhere breathing adventure and mystery? Busy lives indeed: she is the one who should be wachsam.

'Why do you like him so much, Matryosha?'

'Because he is Pavel Alexandrovich's best friend.'

'Is that true?' he objects mildly. 'I think I am Pavel Alexandrovich's best friend. I will go on being his friend when everyone else has forgotten him. I am his friend for life.'

She turns away from the window and regards him oddly, on the point of saying something. But what? 'You are only Pavel Alexandrovich's stepfather'? Or something quite different: 'Do not use that voice when you speak to me'?

Pushing the hair away from her face in what he has come to recognize as a gesture of embarrassment, she tries to duck under his arm. He stops her bodily, barring her way. 'I have to…' she whispers – 'I have to hide the clothes.'

He gives her a moment longer to feel her powerless-ness. Then he stands aside. 'Throw them down the privy,' he says. 'No one will look there.'

She wrinkles her nose. 'Down?' she says. 'In…?'

'Yes, do as I say. Or give them to me and go back to bed. I'll do it for you.'