Chapter 18

July 1st.

Rubbish, rubbish, Barbara!--What you say is sheer rubbish. Stay
here, rather, and put such thoughts out of your head. None of
what you suppose is true. I can see for myself that it is not.
Whatsoever you lack here, you have but to ask me for it. Here you
love and are loved, and we might easily be happy and contented
together. What could you want more? What have you to do with
strangers? You cannot possibly know what strangers are like. I
know it, though, and could have told you if you had asked me.
There is a stranger whom I know, and whose bread I have eaten. He
is a cruel man, Barbara--a man so bad that he would be unworthy
of your little heart, and would soon tear it to pieces with his
railings and reproaches and black looks. On the other hand, you
are safe and well here--you are as safe as though you were
sheltered in a nest. Besides, you would, as it were, leave me
with my head gone. For what should I have to do when you were
gone? What could I, an old man, find to do? Are you not necessary
to me? Are you not useful to me? Eh? Surely you do not think that
you are not useful? You are of great use to me, Barbara, for you
exercise a beneficial influence upon my life. Even at this
moment, as I think of you, I feel cheered, for always I can write
letters to you, and put into them what I am feeling, and receive
from you detailed answers.... I have bought you a wardrobe, and
also procured you a bonnet; so you see that you have only to give
me a commission for it to be executed. . . . No-- in what way are
you not useful? What should I do if I were deserted in my old
age? What would become of me? Perhaps you never thought of that,
Barbara--perhaps you never said to yourself, "How could HE get on
without me?" You see, I have grown so accustomed to you. What
else would it end in, if you were to go away? Why, in my hiking
to the Neva's bank and doing away with myself. Ah, Barbara,
darling, I can see that you want me to be taken away to the
Volkovo Cemetery in a broken-down old hearse, with some poor
outcast of the streets to accompany my coffin as chief mourner,
and the gravediggers to heap my body with clay, and depart and
leave me there. How wrong of you, how wrong of you, my beloved!
Yes, by heavens, how wrong of you! I am returning you your book,
little friend; and ,if you were to ask of me my opinion of it, I
should say that never before in my life had I read a book so
splendid. I keep wondering how I have hitherto contrived to
remain such an owl. For what have I ever done? From what wilds
did I spring into existence? I KNOW nothing--I know simply
NOTHING. My ignorance is complete. Frankly, I am not an educated
man, for until now I have read scarcely a single book--only "A