The weeping and lamentations of the ladies were eloquent response to Foma’s question.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ he went on, ‘I remember … now I remember — after my fall I ran here pursued by thunder and lightning, to perform my duty and then vanish forever! Help me to my feet! No matter how weak I am, I have to perform my duty.’

  Foma Fomich was immediately helped out of his chair. He assumed the posture of an orator and extended his arm.

  ‘Colonel!’ he cried, ‘my mind is now clear; the thunder has not destroyed my mental faculties; true, I sense a deafness in my right ear, but that, I take it, is not so much the result of thunder as of my tumble down the stone steps … Still, what of it! Who cares about the right ear of Foma!’

  Foma Fomich coloured these words with such a wealth of sorrowful irony and accompanied them by such a pathetic smile that the ladies were deeply moved, and lamentations broke out anew. They all looked at Uncle with sharp reproach, and some with unconcealed animosity, so that he began to show signs of capitulation in the face of such universal censure. Mizinchikov spat and walked over to the window in disgust. Bakhcheyev, barely able to contain himself, kept nudging me more and more violently with his elbow.

  ‘Now listen, all, to my confession!’ Foma Fomich cried out, looking about him with proud and resolute gaze, ‘and while you’re about it, pronounce your verdict upon the hapless Opiskin. Yegor Ilyich! I’ve had my eye on you for a long time now. I’ve been watching you with a sinking heart, and I could see everything, everything, when you did not even suspect that I was observing you. Colonel! I may be mistaken, but knowing your egoism, your boundless self-love, and your bestial appetite for carnal gratification, who would rebuke me for my involuntary concern for the honour of the most innocent of young persons?’

  ‘Foma, Foma! … take care what you say, Foma!’ Uncle exclaimed, looking anxiously at Nastenka’s tortured face.

  ‘What perturbed me most was not the innocence and gullibility of this person, but her inexperience,’ Foma Fomich continued as though he had not even heard Uncle’s words of caution. ‘I beheld a tender sentiment opening in her heart like a rose blossom in spring, and my thoughts turned involuntarily to Petrarch, for was it not he who said that “there lies but a hair’s breadth ’twixt innocence and peril”? I sighed, groaned, and though I would readily have offered every drop of my blood in surety for this maid, who is as pure as gold, where was I to find a similar guarantor for you, Yegor Ilyich? Conscious of the recklessness of your unbridled passions, conscious of the fact that you would stake your last to achieve their momentary gratification, I was suddenly plunged into an abyss of fear and apprehension regarding the fate of this most virtuous of maidens …’

  ‘Foma! did you really think that?’ Uncle exclaimed.

  ‘I watched you with a sinking heart. If you wish to know how I suffered, ask Shakespeare, he will tell you the state of my soul in Hamlet. I became suspicious and fearsome. In my deep distress and indignation I viewed everything in hues of darkness; but not the “darkness” of which we hear in the famous romance — rest assured! Hence my attempts to remove her from this house in order to save her; that’s why you beheld me irritable of late, and out of sorts with the whole of mankind. Oh! Who will now reconcile me with mankind? I feel I may perhaps have been too demanding and unjust towards your guests, towards your nephew, towards Mr Bakhcheyev, whom I challenged on his astronomy; but who will blame me for the state of my soul at the time? Turning again to Shakespeare, I will confess that my vision of the future appeared to me like an unfathomable pool with a crocodile lurking at the bottom. I felt that it was my duty to forestall disaster, that I had been appointed, created for that end — and what happened? You failed to appreciate the most noble aspirations of my soul, and paid me back with hatred, ingratitude, ridicule and humiliation …’

  ‘Foma! If this is so … of course, I feel …’ Uncle exclaimed in extreme agitation.

  ‘If indeed you know what feeling is, Colonel, you will hear me out and stop interrupting me. To continue: my fault was merely that I was too concerned for the fate and happiness of this child; for truly she is but a child before you. My exalted love for mankind turned me at the time into a veritable fiend of hatred and mistrust. I was ready to pounce upon people and tear them limb from limb. And do you know, Yegor Ilyich, that all your actions continually confirmed my mistrust and justified my suspicions? Do you know the thought that passed through my mind yesterday when you were showering me with your gold? “In me he’s turning away his own conscience so as to feel the more free to perpetrate his criminal act …”’

  ‘Foma, Foma! did you really think that?’ Uncle exclaimed in horror. ‘Good God, and I didn’t suspect a thing!’

  ‘My suspicions were inspired from above,’ Foma Fomich went on. ‘Now judge for yourself, what was I to think when blind chance brought me in the evening to that fateful garden bench? What was I to be expected to feel at that moment — O God — when, finally, I perceived with my own eyes a glaring confirmation of all my suspicions? But a hope, albeit a slender one, still remained — and then what? This morning you yourself smashed it to smithereens! You sent me your letter; you set out your intention of entering into matrimony; you implored me not to reveal it … “Why should he,” I reasoned, “why should he be writing to me now, after I have caught him out, rather than before? Why did he not come running to me earlier, joyful and beautiful — for indeed, love does beautify the features — why did he not then fly into my arms, weep tears of infinite joy on my bosom, and reveal to me all, all?” Or am I a crocodile who would rather devour you than give you worthy counsel? Or am I some kind of vile bug which would sting you rather than be conducive to your happiness? “Am I his friend, or the most repulsive of insects?” was the question I put to myself this morning! “And finally,” I thought, “why should he have summoned his nephew from the capital and betrothed him to this maiden if not to deceive us, along with the frivolous boy himself, while at the same time secretly pursuing his most criminal intent?” No, Colonel, if anyone did confirm my belief that your mutual love was criminal, it was you, and you alone! Moreover, your criminal guilt extends to this young lady too, for, innocent and virtuous though she be, you, by reason of your maladroit and selfish mistrust, have subjected her to the odium of slander and of grave suspicion!’

  Uncle remained silent, his head hung low: Foma’s eloquence seemed to have triumphed over all his objections, and he was already prepared to regard himself as an out and out criminal. The General’s Lady and her company listened to Foma in mute reverence, while Perepelitsyna glared at poor Nastenka in hate-filled triumph.

  ‘Defeated, agitated and undone,’ continued Foma, ‘I locked myself in my room and prayed for divine guidance! Finally, I decided to give you one last and public test. Perhaps I was unduly eager, perhaps I was too consumed with indignation; for all my noble aspirations, you threw me out of the window! As I fell from the window, I thought to myself: “Thus it is that virtue is always rewarded in this world!” Then I hit the ground and can barely remember what became of me!’

  Yammering and groaning interrupted Foma Fomich’s tragic recollections. The General’s Lady was about to rush to him with the bottle of malaga which she had just snatched out of Praskovya Ilyinichna’s hands, when Foma, with a majestic sweep of his arm, waved aside both her and the bottle.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried, ‘let me finish. What happened after my fall — I have no idea. The only thing I know is that standing as I do before you, drenched and liable to catch fever, I am intent upon being the author of your mutual happiness. Colonel! By virtue of numerous indications, upon which I shall not enlarge at present, I have finally come to the conviction that your love has been pure and even sublime, although at the same time criminally deficient in candour. Having suffered physical assault, moral degradation and being under suspicion of insulting a young lady, for whose honour I, in the manner of knights of old, would be ready to shed my every drop of blood — I have now decided to demonstrate to you the manner in which Foma Opiskin chooses to redress the wrongs done to him. Give me your hand, Colonel!’

  ‘Gladly, Foma!’ Uncle exclaimed, ‘and now that you have so completely vindicated the honour of this excellent young lady … of course … here’s my hand, Foma, and with it my sincere repentance …’

  And Uncle eagerly put out his hand without suspecting what would come of it.

  ‘Let me have your hand too,’ Foma continued in a subdued tone, addressing himself to Nastenka as he parted the crowd of women who were clustering around him.

  Foma took it and put it into Uncle’s hand.

  ‘I join and bless you,’ he said in the most solemn tone, ‘and if there be any profit in the blessing of a sufferer mortified by grief, I urge you to be happy. Thus does Foma Opiskin take his revenge! Hurrah!’

  The amazement expressed on all sides knew no bounds. This outcome was so unexpected that everybody was struck rigid with surprise. The General’s Lady, her mouth wide open, came to a dead halt still clutching the bottle of malaga in her hands. Perepelitsyna went pale and began to shake all over with rage. The rest of the female contingent threw up their hands and stood petrified, rooted to the spot. Uncle began to tremble and was about to say something, but could not bring it out. Nastenka turned white as a sheet and said meekly ‘It isn’t right …’ — but it was too late. Bakhcheyev — to give him his due — was the first to echo Foma’s cry of hurrah, then I took it up, to be joined immediately by Sashenka’s pealing voice as she rushed forward to embrace her father; then Ilyusha, then Yezhevikin; and last of all Mizinchikov.

  ‘Hurrah!’ Foma cried a second time, ‘Hurrah! On your knees, children of my heart, on your knees before the tenderest of mothers! Beg her blessing and, if needs I must, I too shall throw myself at her feet alongside you …’

  Uncle and Nastenka, scared, confused and not even having looked at each other, dropped on their knees before the General’s Lady; everybody crowded around them; but the old woman stood stupefied, utterly at a loss as to what to do next. Foma Fomich was again quick to meet the situation: he himself dropped down before his benefactress. This had the effect of instantly dispelling her indecision. Through a flood of tears she finally pronounced her consent. Uncle jumped to his feet and embraced Foma in a bear hug.

  ‘Foma, Foma! …’ he said, but his voice failed him and he was unable to continue.

  ‘Champagne!’ yelled Stepan Alekseyevich. ‘Hurrah!’

  ‘No, not champagne!’ Perepelitsyna intervened, having had time to recover and weigh up the situation as well as to anticipate the consequences. ‘We’ll light a candle to the Good Lord to pray before the holy image and be blessed by it as befits all God-fearing folk …’

  There was a general rush to act upon this very judicious advice, which led to a fresh outburst of agitation. A candle had to be lit. Stepan Alekseyevich drew up a chair and clambered onto it to place the candle at the icon. However, the chair immediately buckled under him and he came down heavily on the floor, though he managed to stay on his feet. Not at all perturbed, he did not hesitate to give way respectfully to Perepelitsyna. The slim Perepelitsyna had the candle lit in a trice. The nun and the General’s Lady and her companions began to make the sign of the cross and prostrate themselves. The image of Our Saviour was taken off the wall and brought to the General’s Lady. Uncle and Nastenka again went down on their knees and the ceremony was performed under Perepelitsyna’s devout instructions: ‘Bow down to her feet; now pay your respects to the icon: now kiss Mamma’s hand!’ After the betrothed couple, Mr Bakhcheyev considered it his duty to reverence the icon, and he too did not omit to kiss the hand of the General’s Lady. He was in a transport of joy.

  ‘Hurrah!’ he cried again. ‘Now we’ll have champagne!’

  As a matter of fact, everyone was in a state of exultation. The General’s Lady was weeping, but hers were now tears of joy: the union sanctified by Foma immediately became in her eyes both respectable and holy — but the most important thing of all to her was that Foma Fomich had excelled himself and was now to remain with her for ever and ever. All the companions, outwardly at least, shared in the general elation. Uncle, when he was not kneeling at his mother’s feet and kissing her hands, was hugging me, Bakhcheyev, Mizinchikov or Yezhevikin in turn; as for Ilyusha, he nearly squeezed the life out of him in his arms. Sashenka had her arms round Nastenka and was showering her with kisses, Praskovya Ilyinichna was in a flood of tears. Mr Bakhcheyev, noticing this, went up to her and kissed her hand. Old Yezhevikin, profoundly affected, wept in a corner, wiping his eyes with the same check handkerchief that he had sported the previous day. Gavrila whispered in the corner opposite and regarded Foma Fomich with reverence, while Falaley went round the room howling at the top of his voice and planting kisses on everybody’s hands. We were all overcome with emotion. No one had yet begun to speak or offer explanations; it seemed that everything had already been said and there was room only for exclamations of joy. Neither did anyone know how matters had come to such a swift conclusion. One thing only was accepted as evident and incontrovertible fact: that the author of our happiness was Foma Fomich.

  But not five minutes of the general rejoicing had elapsed when Tatyana Ivanovna suddenly appeared in our midst. By what means, by what powers of perception, closeted as she was upstairs in her room, she could have learned about the love match and the engagement that had just taken place, nobody will ever know. She flitted into the room with a radiant face and tears of joy in her eyes, exquisitely and seductively attired (while upstairs she had somehow managed to find time for a change of dress), and with loud cries of joy flew to enclose Nastenka in an embrace.

  ‘Nastenka, Nastenka! You loved him, and I had no idea,’ she cried. ‘God! they were in love, they suffered secretly, in silence! They were being persecuted! What a romance! Nastenka, my darling. I want to know the whole truth: do you really love this madman?’

  In place of a reply Nastenka hugged and kissed her.

  ‘God, what a lovely romance!’ and Tatyana Ivanovna clapped her hands in excitement. ‘Listen, Nastenka, listen, my angel: all these men are ungrateful, they’re monsters, they’re not worthy of our love. But perhaps he is the best of a bad bunch. Come here, you madman!’ she exclaimed, turning to Uncle and grabbing hold of his hand. ‘Are you really in love? Are you really capable of loving? Look at me — I want to look into your eyes, I want to see if these eyes are lying or not. No, they’re not lying — they’re shining with love. Oh, how happy I am! Nastenka, my friend, listen, you’re not rich: I shall give you thirty thousand. Take them, for God’s sake! I don’t need them, I don’t need them; I’ll still have a lot left over. No, no, no, no!’ she cried, shaking her hands on seeing that Nastenka was about to object. ‘You keep quiet too, Yegor Ilyich, it’s none of your business. No, Nastenka, I’ve decided to give you a present; I’ve been meaning to give you a present for a long time now, and I’ve just been waiting for you to fall in love for the first time … I shall rejoice in your happiness. You will insult me if you don’t agree to accept; I shall cry, Nastenka … No, no, no, no!’

  Tatyana Ivanovna was so elated that at that moment it would have been cruel to argue with her. Nor did anybody venture to do so; it was decided to await a more opportune moment. She rushed forward to kiss the General’s Lady, Perepelitsyna, and then all of us in turn. Bakhcheyev threaded his way towards her and with exquisite courtesy took her hand.

  ‘Bless you, my dear sweet lady! Can you pardon an old fool for what he got up to yesterday: if only I’d known what a jewel of a heart you’ve got!’

  ‘I’ve known you all along, you madman!’ Tatyana Ivanovna replied, full of playful excitement, and dabbed him on the nose with her glove as she wafted past like a zephyr, catching him with the folds of her gorgeous dress. The fat man bowed respectfully to her.

  ‘A most worthy lady!’ he said with affection. ‘I’ll tell you, that German’s nose has been glued back on!’ he whispered confidentially, giving me a merry look.

  ‘What nose? What German?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘The one I ordered of course, with him kissing his lady’s hand as she wipes away a tear with her handkerchief. My Yevdokim had it mended yesterday; I sent for it as soon as we got back from the chase … It’ll be here soon. A beautiful piece of work!’

  ‘Foma!’ cried Uncle, carried away with elation, ‘you’re the cause of our happiness! How can I ever repay you?’

  ‘You can’t, Colonel,’ replied Foma Fomich, with a pinched expression. ‘Continue to pay no attention to me, and enjoy your happiness without Foma.’

  Evidently he was piqued that amidst the general rejoicing he had somehow found himself neglected.

  ‘It’s because we’re all so excited, Foma!’ Uncle exclaimed. ‘To tell you the truth, my friend, I hardly know where I am now. Listen, Foma, I’ve offended you. My life and my every drop of blood could not make good the damage done to you, and so I shan’t say a word, not even by way of apology. But if ever you should require my head, my life, I’ll willingly plunge into the deepest pit for you; command and you shall see … I’ve no more to say, Foma.’

  And Uncle, with a wave of the hand, conscious of the impossibility of lending any further conviction to his words, continued to gaze at Foma Fomich with eyes full of tears and gratitude.

  ‘Now you see what an angel he is!’ Perepelitsyna piped up, adding her contribution to the general praise of Foma Fomich.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Sashenka put in, ‘I had no idea that you’re such a good man, Foma Fomich, and I’ve been disrespectful towards you. Do forgive me, Foma Fomich, you can be assured that I shall love you with my whole heart. If only you knew how much I now respect you!’

  ‘Yes, Foma!’ said Bakhcheyev in his turn, ‘please forgive me too, fool that I am! How little I knew you! You’re not only a scholar, Foma Fomich, you’re a real hero! My whole house is at your disposal. I say, my friend, why don’t you come over the day after tomorrow, and Mamma the General’s Lady too, along with the betrothed pair, of course — look here, all of you come! I tell you, we’ll have such a meal! I shan’t brag in advance, but I’ll lay on a feast fit for the Tsar. That’s a solemn promise!’