Chapter 38 - Page 2

darling, it is often that I
think of you and feel my heart sink. How is it that YOU are so
unfortunate, Barbara? How is it that YOU are so much worse off
than other people? In my eyes you are kind-hearted, beautiful,
and clever-- why, then, has such an evil fate fallen to your lot?
How comes it that you are left desolate--you, so good a human
being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at
all? Yes, I know--I know it well--that I ought not to say it, for
to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven,
Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet
in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth
in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot
of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. "You, you
fool Ivanushka," says Fate, "shall succeed to your grandfather's
money-bags, and eat, drink, and be merry; whereas YOU (such and
such another one) shall do no more than lick the dish, since that
is all that you are good for." Yes, I know that it is wrong to
hold such opinions, but involuntarily the sin of so doing grows
upon one's soul. Nevertheless, it is you, my darling, who ought
to be riding in one of those carriages. Generals would have come
seeking your favour, and, instead of being clad in a humble
cotton dress, you would have been walking in silken and golden
attire. Then you would not have been thin and wan as now, but
fresh and plump and rosy-cheeked as a figure on a sugar-cake.
Then should I too have been happy--happy if only I could look at
your lighted windows from the street, and watch your shadow--
happy if only I could think that you were well and happy, my
sweet little bird! Yet how are things in reality? Not only have
evil folk brought you to ruin, but there comes also an old rascal
of a libertine to insult you! Just because he struts about in a
frockcoat, and can ogle you through a gold-mounted lorgnette, the
brute thinks that everything will fall into his hands--that you
are bound to listen to his insulting condescension! Out upon him!
But why is this? It is because you are an orphan, it is because
you are unprotected, it is because you have no powerful friend to
afford you the decent support which is your due. WHAT do such
facts matter to a man or to men to whom the insulting of an
orphan is an offence allowed? Such fellows are not men at all,
but mere vermin, no matter what they think themselves to be. Of
that I am certain. Why, an organ-grinder whom I met in
Gorokhovaia Street would inspire more respect than they do, for
at least he walks about all day, and suffers hunger--at least he
looks for a stray, superfluous groat to earn him subsistence, and
is, therefore, a true gentleman, in that