"You may feel pleased at your work," said St. Jerome to me as he led me
from the room.
"Good God! What have I done?" I thought to myself. "What a terribly bad
boy I am!"
As soon as St. Jerome, bidding me go into his room, had returned to
Grandmamma, I, all unconscious of what I was doing, ran down the grand
staircase leading to the front door. Whether I intended to drown myself,
or whether merely to run away from home, I do not remember. I only know
that I went blindly on, my face covered with my hands that I might see
nothing.
"Where are you going to?" asked a well-known voice. "I want you, my
boy."
I would have passed on, but Papa caught hold of me, and said sternly:
"Come here, you impudent rascal. How could you dare to do such a thing
as to touch the portfolio in my study?" he went on as he dragged me into
his room. "Oh! you are silent, eh?" and he pulled my ear.
"Yes, I WAS naughty," I said. "I don't know myself what came over me
then."
"So you don't know what came over you--you don't know, you don't know?"
he repeated as he pulled my ear harder and harder. "Will you go and put
your nose where you ought not to again--will you, will you?"
Although my ear was in great pain, I did not cry, but, on the contrary,
felt a sort of morally pleasing sensation. No sooner did he let go of my
ear than I seized his hand and covered it with tears and kisses.
"Please whip me!" I cried, sobbing. "Please hurt me the more and more,
for I am a wretched, bad, miserable boy!"
"Why, what on earth is the matter with you?" he said, giving me a slight
push from him.
"No, I will not go away!" I continued, seizing his coat. "Every one else
hates me--I know that, but do YOU listen to me and protect me, or else
send me away altogether. I cannot live with HIM. He tries to humiliate
me--he tells me to kneel before him, and wants to strike me. I can't
stand it. I'm not a baby. I can't stand it--I shall die, I shall kill
myself. HE told Grandmamma that I was naughty, and now she is ill--she
will die through me. It is all his fault. Please let me--W-why
should-he-tor-ment me?"
The tears choked my further speech. I sat down on the sofa, and, with
my head buried on Papa's knees, sobbed until I thought I should die of
grief.
"Come, come! Why are you such a water-pump?" said Papa compassionately,
as he stooped over me.
"He is such a bully! He is murdering me! I shall die! Nobody loves me at
all!" I gasped almost inaudibly, and went into convulsions.
Papa lifted me up, and carried me to my bedroom, where I fell asleep.
When I awoke it was late. Only a solitary candle burned in the room,
while beside the bed there were seated Mimi, Lubotshka, and our doctor.
In their faces I could discern anxiety for my health, so, although
I felt so well after my twelve-hours' sleep that I could have got up
directly, I thought it best to let them continue thinking that I was
unwell.
XVII. HATRED
Yes, it was the real feeling of hatred that was mine now--not the hatred
of which one reads in novels, and in the existence of which I do
not believe--the hatred which finds satisfaction in doing harm to a
fellow-creature, but the hatred which consists of an unconquerable
aversion to a person who may be wholly deserving of your esteem, yet
whose very hair, neck, walk, voice, limbs, movements, and everything
else are disgusting to you, while all the while an incomprehensible
force attracts you towards him, and compels you to follow his slightest
acts with anxious attention.
This was the feeling which I cherished for St. Jerome, who had lived
with us now for a year and a half.
Judging coolly of the man at this time of day, I find that he was a true
Frenchman, but a Frenchman in the better acceptation of the term. He was
fairly well educated, and fulfilled his duties to us conscientiously,
but he had the peculiar features of fickle egotism, boastfulness,
impertinence, and ignorant self-assurance which are common to all his
countrymen, as well as entirely opposed to the Russian character.
All this set me against him, Grandmamma had signified to him her dislike
for corporal punishment, and therefore he dared not beat us, but he
frequently THREATENED us, particularly myself, with the cane, and would
utter the word fouetter as though it were fouatter in an expressive
and detestable way which always gave me the idea that to whip me would
afford him the greatest possible satisfaction.
I was not in the least afraid of the bodily pain, for I had never
experienced it. It was the mere idea that he could beat me that threw me
into such paroxysms of wrath and despair.
True, Karl Ivanitch sometimes (in moments of exasperation) had recourse
to a ruler or to his braces, but that I can look back upon without
anger. Even if he had struck me at the time of which I am now speaking
(namely, when I was fourteen years old), I should have submitted quietly
to the correction, for I loved him, and had known him all my life,
and looked upon him as a member of our family, but St. Jerome was a
conceited, opinionated fellow for whom I felt merely the unwilling
respect which I entertained for all persons older than myself. Karl
Ivanitch was a comical old "Uncle" whom I loved with my whole heart, but
who, according to my childish conception of social distinctions, ranked
below us, whereas St. Jerome was a well-educated, handsome young dandy
who was for showing himself the equal of any one.
Karl Ivanitch had always scolded and punished us coolly, as though he
thought it a necessary, but extremely disagreeable, duty. St. Jerome,
on the contrary, always liked to emphasise his part as JUDGE when
correcting us, and clearly did it as much for his own satisfaction
as for our good. He loved authority. Nevertheless, I always found his
grandiloquent French phrases (which he pronounced with a strong emphasis
on all the final syllables) inexpressibly disgusting, whereas Karl, when
angry, had never said anything beyond, "What a foolish puppet-comedy it
is!" or "You boys are as irritating as Spanish fly!" (which he always
called "Spaniard" fly). St. Jerome, however, had names for us like
"mauvais sujet," "villain," "garnement," and so forth--epithets which
greatly offended my self-respect. When Karl Ivanitch ordered us to
kneel in the corner with our faces to the wall, the punishment consisted
merely in the bodily discomfort of the position, whereas St. Jerome, in
such cases, always assumed a haughty air, made a grandiose gesture with
his hand, and exclaiming in a pseudo-tragic tone, "A genoux, mauvais
sujet!" ordered us to kneel with our faces towards him, and to crave his
pardon. His punishment consisted in humiliation.
However, on the present occasion the punishment never came, nor was the
matter ever referred to again. Yet, I could not forget all that I had
gone through--the shame, the fear, and the hatred of those two days.
From that time forth, St. Jerome appeared to give me up in despair, and
took no further trouble with me, yet I could not bring myself to treat
him with indifference. Every time that our eyes met I felt that my
look expressed only too plainly my dislike, and, though I tried hard
to assume a careless air, he seemed to divine my hypocrisy, until I was