“I thought while I was abroad that even I might be of some use. I have money of my own lying idle. Why shouldn't I— even I— work for the common cause? Besides, the idea somehow occurred to me all at once of itself. I didn't invent it at all, and was delighted with it. But I saw at once that I couldn't get on without some one to help, because I am not competent to do anything of myself. My helper, of course, would be the co-editor of the book. We would go halves. You would give the plan and the work. Mine would be the original idea and the means for publishing it. Would the book pay its expenses, do you think?”
“If we hit on a good plan the book will go.”
“I warn you that I am not doing it for profit; but I am very anxious that the book should circulate and should be very proud of making a profit.”
“Well, but how do I come in?”
“Why, I invite you to be my fellow-worker, to go halves. You will think out the plan.”
“How do you know that I am capable of thinking out the plan?”
“People have talked about you to me, and here I've heard
... I know that you are very clever and . . . are working for the cause . . . and think a great deal. Pyotr Stepanovitch Verhovensky spoke about you in Switzerland,” she added hurriedly. “He's a very clever man, isn't he?”
Shatov stole a fleeting, momentary glance at her, but dropped his eyes again.
“Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch told me a great deal about you, too.”
Shatov suddenly turned red.
“But here are the newspapers.” Liza hurriedly picked up from a chair a bundle of newspapers that lay tied up ready. “I've tried to mark the facts here for selection, to sort them, and I have put the papers together . . . you will see.”
Shatov took the bundle.
“Take them home and look at them. Where do you live?”
“In Bogoyavlensky Street, Filipov's house.”
“I know. I think it's there, too, I've been told, a captain lives, beside you, Mr. Lebyadkin,” said Liza in the same hurried manner.
Shatov sat for a full minute with the bundle in his outstretched hand, making no answer and staring at the floor.
“You'd better find some one else for these jobs. I shouldn't suit you at all,” he brought out at last, dropping his voice in an awfully strange way, almost to a whisper.
Liza flushed crimson.
“What jobs are you speaking of? Mavriky Nikolaevitch,” she cried, “please bring that letter here.”
I too followed Mavriky Nikolaevitch to the table,
“Look at this,” she turned suddenly to me, unfolding the letter in great excitement. “Have you ever seen anything like it. Please read it aloud. I want Mr. Shatov to hear it too.”
With no little astonishment I read aloud the following missive:
“To the.
Perfection, Miss Tushin.
“Gracious Lady
“Lizaveta Nikolaevna!
“Oh, she's a sweet queen, Lizaveta Tushin!
When on side-saddle she gallops by,
And in the breeze her fair tresses fly!
Or when with her mother in church she bows low
And on devout faces a red flush doth flow!
Then for the joys of lawful wedlock I aspire,
And follow her and her mother with tears of desire.
“Composed by an unlearned man in the midst of a discussion.
“Gracious Lady!
“I pity myself above all men that I did not lose my arm at Sevastopol, not having been there at all, but served all the campaign delivering paltry provisions, which I look on as a degradation. You are a goddess of antiquity, and I am nothing, but have had a glimpse of infinity. Look on it as a poem and no more, for, after all, poetry is nonsense and justifies what would be considered impudence in prose. Can the sun be angry with the infusoria if the latter composes verses to her from the drop of water, where there is a multitude of them if you look through the microscope? Even the club for promoting humanity to the larger animals in tip-top society in Petersburg, winch rightly feels compassion for dogs and horses, despises the brief infusoria making no reference to it whatever, because it is not big enough. I'm not big enough either. The idea of marriage might seem droll, but soon I shall have property worth two hundred souls through a misanthropist whom you ought to despise. I can tell a lot and I can undertake to produce documents that would mean Siberia. Don't despise my proposal. A letter from an infusoria is of course in verse.
“Captain Lebyadkin your most humble friend
And he has time no end.”
“That was written by a man in a drunken condition, a worthless fellow,” I cried indignantly. “I know him.”
“That letter I received yesterday,” Liza began to explain, flushing and speaking hurriedly. “I saw myself, at once, that it came from some foolish creature, and I haven't yet shown it to maman, for fear of upsetting her more. But if he is going to keep on like that, I don't know how to act. Mavriky Nikolaevitch wants to go out and forbid him to do it. As I have looked upon you as a colleague,” she turned to Shatov, “and as you live there, I wanted to question you so as to judge what more is to be expected of him.”
“He's a drunkard and a worthless fellow,” Shatov muttered with apparent reluctance.
“Is he always so stupid?”
“No, he's not stupid at all when he's not drunk.”
“I used to know a general who wrote verses exactly like that,” I observed, laughing.
“One can see from the letter that he is clever enough for his own purposes,” Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who had till then been silent, put in unexpectedly.
“He lives with some sister?” Liza queried.
“Yes, with his sister.”
“They say he tyrannises over her, is that true?”
Shatov looked at Liza again, scowled, and muttering, “What business is it of mine?” moved towards the door.
“Ah, stay!” cried Liza, in a flutter. “Where are you going? We have so much still to talk over. . . .”
“What is there to talk over? I'll let you know to-morrow.”
“Why, the most important thing of all — the printing-press! Do believe me that I am not in jest, that I really want to work in good earnest!” Liza assured him in growing agitation. “If we decide to publish it, where is it to be printed? You know it's a most important question, for we shan't go to Moscow for it, and the printing-press here is out of the question for such a publication. I made up my mind long ago to set up a printing-press of my own, in your name perhaps — and I know maman will allow it so long as it is in your name. . . .”
“How do you know that I could be a printer?” Shatov asked sullenly.
“Why, Pyotr Stepanovitch told me of you in Switzerland, and referred me to you as one who knows the business and able to set up a printing-press. He even meant to give me a note to you from himself, but I forgot it.”
Shatov's face changed, as I recollect now. He stood for a few seconds longer, then went out of the room.
Liza was angry.
“Does he always go out like that?” she asked, turning to me.
I was just shrugging my shoulders when Shatov suddenly came back, went straight up to the table and put down the roll of papers he had taken.
“I'm not going to be your helper, I haven't the time. . . .”
“Why? Why? I think you are angry!” Liza asked him in a grieved and imploring voice.
The sound of her voice seemed to strike him; for some moments he looked at her intently, as though trying to penetrate to her very soul.
“No matter,” he muttered, softly, “I don't want to. . . .”
And he went away altogether.
Liza was completely overwhelmed, quite disproportionately in fact, so it seemed to me.
“Wonderfully queer man,” Mavriky Nikolaevitch observed aloud.
III
He certainly was queer, but in all this there was a very great deal not clear to me. There was something underlying it all? I simply did not believe in this publication; then that stupid letter, in which there was an offer, only too barefaced, to give information and produce “documents,” though they were all silent about that, and talked of something quite different; finally that printing-press and Shatov's sudden exit, just because they spoke of a printing-press. All this led me to imagine that something had happened before I came in of which I knew nothing; and, consequently, that it was no business of mine and that I was in the way. And, indeed, it was time to take leave, I had stayed long enough for the first call. I went up to say good-bye to Lizaveta Nikolaevna.