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.'
For Nechaev, no. But for you.
He wraps the clothes in a towel and steals downstairs to the privy. But then he has second thoughts. Clothes among the human filth: what if he is underestimating the nightsoil collectors?
He notices the concierge peering at him from his lodge and turns purposefully toward the street. Then he realizes he has come without his coat. Climbing the stairs again, he is all at once face to face with Amalia Karlovna, the old woman from the first floor. She holds out a plate of cinnamon cakes as if to welcome him. 'Good afternoon, sir,' she says ceremoniously. He mutters a greeting and brushes past.
What is he searching for? For a hole, a crevice, into which the bundle that is so suddenly and obstinately his can disappear and be forgotten. Without cause or reason, he has become like a girl with a stillborn baby, or a murderer with a bloody axe. Anger against Nechaev rises in him again. Why am I risking myself for you, he wants to cry, you who are nothing to me? But too late, it seems. At the instant he accepted the bundle from Matryona's hands, a shift took place; there is no way back to before.
At the end of the corridor, where one of the rooms stands empty, lies a heap of plaster and rubble. He scratches at it halfheartedly with the toe of his boot. A workman stops his trowelling and, through the open door, regards him mistrustfully.
At least there is no Ivanov to follow him around. But perhaps Ivanov has been replaced by now. Who would the new spy be? Is this very workman paid to keep an eye on him? Is the concierge?
He stuffs the bundle under his jacket and makes for the street again. The wind is like a wall of ice. At the first corner he turns, then turns again. He is in the same blind alley where he found the dog. There is no dog today. Did the dog die the night he abandoned it?
He sets the bundle down in a corner. The curls, pinned to the hat, flap in the wind, both comical and sinister. Where did Nechaev get the curls – from one of his sisters? How many little sisters does he have, all itching to snip off their maiden locks for him?