Mr. Prohartchin Page #4

"Mr. Prohartchin" is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, written in 1862. The narrative centers around the character of Mr. Prohartchin, a middle-class clerk who embodies the absurdities and struggles of ordinary life. Through the lens of Prohartchin's experiences, Dostoevsky explores themes of social alienation, the nature of identity, and the often poignant contrasts between societal expectations and personal aspirations. The story reflects Dostoevsky's characteristic psychological insight and social commentary, highlighting the complexities of human nature and the often bleak realities of existence in 19th-century Russia.

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discovered, that he had himself seen the runaway in Tolkutchy Market and
other places, had followed and stood close to him, but had not dared to
speak to him; he had been near him in a crowd watching a house on fire
in Crooked Lane. Half an hour later Okeanov and Kantarev came in and
confirmed Sudbin's story, word for word; they, too, had stood near, had
followed him quite close, had stood not more than ten paces from him,
but they also had not ventured to speak to him, but both observed that
Semyon Ivanovitch was walking with a drunken cadger. The other lodgers
were all back and together at last, and after listening attentively they
made up their minds that Prohartchin could not be far off and would not
be long in returning; but they said that they had all known beforehand
that he was about with a drunken cadger. This drunken cadger was a
thoroughly bad lot, insolent and cringing, and it seemed evident that he
had got round Semyon Ivanovitch in some way. He had turned up just a
week before Semyon Ivanovitch's disappearance in company with Remnev,
had spent a little time in the flat telling them that he had suffered in
the cause of justice, that he had formerly been in the service in the
provinces, that an inspector had come down on them, that he and his
associates had somehow suffered in a good cause, that he had come to
Petersburg and fallen at the feet of Porfiry Grigoryevitch, that he had
been got, by interest, into a department; but through the cruel
persecution of fate he had been discharged from there too, and that
afterwards through reorganization the office itself had ceased to exist,
and that he had not been included in the new revised staff of clerks
owing as much to direct incapacity for official work as to capacity for
something else quite irrelevant--all this mixed up with his passion for
justice and of course the trickery of his enemies. After finishing his
story, in the course of which Mr. Zimoveykin more than once kissed his
sullen and unshaven friend Remnev, he bowed down to all in the room in
turn, not forgetting Avdotya the servant, called them all his
benefactors, and explained that he was an undeserving, troublesome,
mean, insolent and stupid man, and that good people must not be hard on
his pitiful plight and simplicity. After begging for their kind
protection Mr. Zimoveykin showed his livelier side, grew very cheerful,
kissed Ustinya Fyodorovna's hands, in spite of her modest protests that
her hand was coarse and not like a lady's; and towards evening promised
to show the company his talent in a remarkable character dance. But next
day his visit ended in a lamentable dénouement. Either because there
had been too much character in the character-dance, or because he had,
in Ustinya Fyodorovna's own words, somehow "insulted her and treated her
as no lady, though she was on friendly terms with Yaroslav Ilyitch
himself, and if she liked might long ago have been an officer's wife,"
Zimoveykin had to steer for home next day. He went away, came back
again, was again turned out with ignominy, then wormed his way into
Semyon Ivanovitch's good graces, robbed him incidentally of his new
breeches, and now it appeared he had led Semyon Ivanovitch astray.

As soon as the landlady knew that Semyon Ivanovitch was alive and well,
and that there was no need to hunt for his passport, she promptly left
off grieving and was pacified. Meanwhile some of the lodgers determined
to give the runaway a triumphal reception; they broke the bolt and moved
away the screen from Mr. Prohartchin's bed, rumpled up the bed a little,
took the famous box, put it at the foot of the bed; and on the bed laid
the sister-in-law, that is, a dummy made up of an old kerchief, a cap
and a mantle of the landlady's, such an exact counterfeit of a
sister-in-law that it might have been mistaken for one. Having finished
their work they waited for Semyon Ivanovitch to return, meaning to tell
him that his sister-in-law had arrived from the country and was there
behind his screen, poor thing! But they waited and waited.

Already, while they waited, Mark Ivanovitch had staked and lost half a
month's salary to Prepolovenko and Kantarev; already Okeanov's nose had
grown red and swollen playing "flips on the nose" and "three cards;"
already Avdotya the servant had almost had her sleep out and had twice
been on the point of getting up to fetch the wood and light the stove,
and Zinovy Prokofyevitch, who kept running out every minute to see
whether Semyon Ivanovitch were coming, was wet to the skin; but there
was no sign of any one yet--neither Semyon Ivanovitch nor the drunken
cadger. At last every one went to bed, leaving the sister-in-law behind
the screen in readiness for any emergency; and it was not till four
o'clock that a knock was heard at the gate, but when it did come it was
so loud that it quite made up to the expectant lodgers for all the
wearisome trouble they had been through. It was he--he himself--Semyon
Ivanovitch, Mr. Prohartchin, but in such a condition that they all cried
out in dismay, and no one thought about the sister-in-law. The lost man
was unconscious. He was brought in, or more correctly carried in, by a
sopping and tattered night-cabman. To the landlady's question where the
poor dear man had got so groggy, the cabman answered: "Why, he is not
drunk and has not had a drop, that I can tell you, for sure; but
seemingly a faintness has come over him, or some sort of a fit, or maybe
he's been knocked down by a blow."

They began examining him, propping the culprit against the stove to do
so more conveniently, and saw that it really was not a case of
drunkenness, nor had he had a blow, but that something else was wrong,
for Semyon Ivanovitch could not utter a word, but seemed twitching in a
sort of convulsion, and only blinked, fixing his eyes in bewilderment
first on one and then on another of the spectators, who were all attired
in night array. Then they began questioning the cabman, asking where he
had got him from. "Why, from folks out Kolomna way," he answered. "Deuce
knows what they are, not exactly gentry, but merry, rollicking
gentlemen; so he was like this when they gave him to me; whether they
had been fighting, or whether he was in some sort of a fit, goodness
knows what it was; but they were nice, jolly gentlemen!"

Semyon Ivanovitch was taken, lifted high on the shoulders of two or
three sturdy fellows, and carried to his bed. When Semyon Ivanovitch on
being put in bed felt the sister-in-law, and put his feet on his sacred
box, he cried out at the top of his voice, squatted up almost on his
heels, and trembling and shaking all over, with his hands and his body
he cleared a space as far as he could in his bed, while gazing with a
tremulous but strangely resolute look at those present, he seemed as it
were to protest that he would sooner die than give up the hundredth part
of his poor belongings to any one....
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