Mr. Prohartchin Page #6

"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.

• Novel

								

woman of whom he had dreamed more than once during his illness--she
stood before him now as she had done then, in wretched bark shoes and
rags, with a crutch and a wicker-basket on her back. She was shouting
more loudly than the firemen or the crowd, waving her crutch and her
arms, saying that her own children had turned her out and that she had
lost two coppers in consequence. The children and the coppers, the
coppers and the children, were mingled together in an utterly
incomprehensible muddle, from which every one withdrew baffled, after
vain efforts to understand. But the woman would not desist, she kept
wailing, shouting, and waving her arms, seeming to pay no attention
either to the fire up to which she had been carried by the crowd from
the street or to the people about her, or to the misfortune of
strangers, or even to the sparks and red-hot embers which were beginning
to fall in showers on the crowd standing near. At last Mr. Prohartchin
felt that a feeling of terror was coming upon him; for he saw clearly
that all this was not, so to say, an accident, and that he would not get
off scot-free. And, indeed, upon the woodstack, close to him, was a
peasant, in a torn smock that hung loose about him, with his hair and
beard singed, and he began stirring up all the people against Semyon
Ivanovitch. The crowd pressed closer and closer, the peasant shouted,
and foaming at the mouth with horror, Mr. Prohartchin suddenly realized
that this peasant was a cabman whom he had cheated five years before in
the most inhuman way, slipping away from him without paying through a
side gate and jerking up his heels as he ran as though he were barefoot
on hot bricks. In despair Mr. Prohartchin tried to speak, to scream, but
his voice failed him. He felt that the infuriated crowd was twining
round him like a many-coloured snake, strangling him, crushing him. He
made an incredible effort and awoke. Then he saw that he was on fire,
that all his corner was on fire, that his screen was on fire, that the
whole flat was on fire, together with Ustinya Fyodorovna and all her
lodgers, that his bed was burning, his pillow, his quilt, his box, and
last of all, his precious mattress. Semyon Ivanovitch jumped up,
clutched at the mattress and ran dragging it after him. But in the
landlady's room into which, regardless of decorum, our hero ran just as
he was, barefoot and in his shirt, he was seized, held tight, and
triumphantly carried back behind the screen, which meanwhile was not on
fire--it seemed that it was rather Semyon Ivanovitch's head that was on
fire--and was put back to bed. It was just as some tattered, unshaven,
ill-humoured organ-grinder puts away in his travelling box the Punch who
has been making an upset, drubbing all the other puppets, selling his
soul to the devil, and who at last ends his existence, till the next
performance, in the same box with the devil, the negroes, the Pierrot,
and Mademoiselle Katerina with her fortunate lover, the captain.

Immediately every one, old and young, surrounded Semyon Ivanovitch,
standing in a row round his bed and fastening eyes full of expectation
on the invalid. Meantime he had come to himself, but from shame or some
other feeling, began pulling up the quilt over him, apparently wishing
to hide himself under it from the attention of his sympathetic friends.
At last Mark Ivanovitch was the first to break silence, and as a
sensible man he began saying in a very friendly way that Semyon
Ivanovitch must keep calm, that it was too bad and a shame to be ill,
that only little children behaved like that, that he must get well and
go to the office. Mark Ivanovitch ended by a little joke, saying that no
regular salary had yet been fixed for invalids, and as he knew for a
fact that their grade would be very low in the service, to his thinking
anyway, their calling or condition did not promise great and substantial
advantages. In fact, it was evident that they were all taking genuine
interest in Semyon Ivanovitch's fate and were very sympathetic. But with
incomprehensible rudeness, Semyon Ivanovitch persisted in lying in bed
in silence, and obstinately pulling the quilt higher and higher over his
head. Mark Ivanovitch, however, would not be gainsaid, and restraining
his feelings, said something very honeyed to Semyon Ivanovitch again,
knowing that that was how he ought to treat a sick man. But Semyon
Ivanovitch would not feel this: on the contrary he muttered something
between his teeth with the most distrustful air, and suddenly began
glancing askance from right to left in a hostile way, as though he would
have reduced his sympathetic friends to ashes with his eyes. It was no
use letting it stop there. Mark Ivanovitch lost patience, and seeing
that the man was offended and completely exasperated, and had simply
made up his mind to be obstinate, told him straight out, without any
softening suavity, that it was time to get up, that it was no use lying
there, that shouting day and night about houses on fire, sisters-in-law,
drunken cadgers, locks, boxes and goodness knows what, was all stupid,
improper, and degrading, for if Semyon Ivanovitch did not want to sleep
himself he should not hinder other people, and please would he bear it
in mind.

This speech produced its effects, for Semyon Ivanovitch, turning
promptly to the orator, articulated firmly, though in a hoarse voice,
"You hold your tongue, puppy! You idle speaker, you foul-mouthed man! Do
you hear, young dandy? Are you a prince, eh? Do you understand what I
say?"

Hearing such insults, Mark Ivanovitch fired up, but realizing that he
had to deal with a sick man, magnanimously overcame his resentment and
tried to shame him out of his humour, but was cut short in that too; for
Semyon Ivanovitch observed at once that he would not allow people to
play with him for all that Mark Ivanovitch wrote poetry. Then followed a
silence of two minutes; at last recovering from his amazement Mark
Ivanovitch, plainly, clearly, in well-chosen language, but with
firmness, declared that Semyon Ivanovitch ought to understand that he
was among gentlemen, and "you ought to understand, sir, how to behave
with gentlemen."

Mark Ivanovitch could on occasion speak effectively and liked to impress
his hearers, but, probably from the habit of years of silence, Semyon
Ivanovitch talked and acted somewhat abruptly; and, moreover, when he
did on occasion begin a long sentence, as he got further into it every
word seemed to lead to another word, that other word to a third word,
that third to a fourth and so on, so that his mouth seemed brimming
over; he began stuttering, and the crowding words took to flying out in
picturesque disorder. That was why Semyon Ivanovitch, who was a sensible
man, sometimes talked terrible nonsense. "You are lying," he said now.
"You booby, you loose fellow! You'll come to want--you'll go begging,
you seditious fellow, you--you loafer. Take that, you poet!"
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