The Death-Bed Notes of a Fool

My life is coming to an end. Soon Death will tap its boney finger on my door… soon! Suffering has so withered my chest that no maiden’s kisses can warm it. For the sins of my life, for my battle against Reason, harsh Fate has torn all the hair from my head, and not even Macassar oil will help it grow back! It’s hard to die when you have done as many foolish things in life as I have. It’s hard to die with the bitter knowledge that you have more sins on your soul than you had hairs on your head in your prime. It’s hard to settle accounts with this earthly life when you have so many debts… it’s hard, so very hard! Oh, what a wretch I am! What a fool! Why didn’t I think before I acted? Why did it take me so long to know myself? My fellow man! Have pity on your poor neighbor, who realized so late that he was a fool and that his entire life purpose was to keep from doing foolish things. Have pity on your wretched neighbor, who did not know himself in time and acted against his purpose in life…

I blame no one for succumbing to temptation. No one planted these temptations in me; they took root on their own. I thank you, kind journalists. You tried to bring me to my senses; you proved to me in print the bitter truth that I came to understand so late and the ignorance that was the cause of such unhappiness and sinfulness! My foolish vanity kept me from believing that I was a fool!

Not long before this moment I had intended to bequeath to the world the history of my follies, but the task of the historian is hard. It is hard to maintain objectivity about oneself, as you know from your own experience. With that in mind, I decided not to tear off the veil from my past life. I feel compelled, however, to lift up the veil a bit, since I think that my openness may be useful to humanity. Perhaps I am mistaken. Do not censure me for such a bold thought. Remember: I am a fool.

I think the tale of what happened to me in my youth and threw such a strong shadow on the rest of my life will be useful to someone. Be patient: I want to tell you about the greatest folly of my life.

Of all the passions that inflamed my tempestuous youth, envy was in first place, if only by mite. I suffered greatly from it. I do not wish, however, to unconditionally condemn this emotion. I must suppress my personal hatred for envy and first express my honest opinion of it. Envy is not a useless emotion, although it can be quite harmful. It stirs the blood and prevents the deadly stagnation of the soul; it awakens a person from the inaction that is so harmful to society; it may make someone do absolutely stupid things so extraordinarily boldly that they appear to be well-considered acts. When a person is possessed by envy, it puts him under the great pressure of the powers to act — Reason and Will. I do not speak of the petty, everyday envy that you may meet at every step in London and Kaluga, on the Vyborg side of the Neva River or on Nevsky Prospekt, but I will speak of envy that is more worthy of attention.

There are people who envy Napoleon and Suvorov, Shakespeare and Baron Brambeus, Croesus and Sinebrychoff; there are others who envy Baucis and Philemon, Petrach and Laura, Peter and John, Stanislav and Anna; there is a third group that envies Manfred and Faust; and fourth that envies yet others… in a word, we all envy someone. You come across envy in the theater watching Hamlet, in the pastry shop reading the military newspaper “Russian Invalid,” at the ball dancing with a young beauty who will be forever out of reach of the person who envies her. Envy is especially pervasive in trade, service and literature.

But enough on where you might come across envy. I want to tell you where I felt it… I hold my left hand over my heart, gather up the remnants of my strength, and pray that kind Fate will not end my life before I can finish my instructive talk with my benevolent reader…

I was born on one of the streets of Vasilievsky Island to noble but poor parents. After I turned 18, I was orphaned and received an inheritance of ten thousand rubles. Obeying my father’s death-bed advice, I lent it out to private investors, but since the returns weren’t enough to live on, I had to give lessons… I bitterly complained about my fate, having to run sometimes as much as 10 versts a day to make just five rubles. “So many people travel in carriages!” I thought. “How are they better than me?” Little by little, those complaints arose more and more often.  Unhappy creature! I did not understand then how much I sinned against Providence when I dared to lament its good will. Whenever I saw a carriage my heart nearly burst from ire and envy. I hated anyone who owned one… Envy sucked my soul dry… No matter what I did, no matter where I went, the thought of a carriage never left me. I missed lessons, used vulgar language, committed follies — and the only reason was one thought. I cried out in sinful despair: “Why, cruel Fate, did you make me a poor man? What good deeds did so many people do to be blessed with a carriage? What transgressions did I commit to be sentenced to walk on foot my whole life?”

Inclement weather had an even more dreadful effect on me. When there was rain, mud, lightning and thunder outside, the same storm raged within me. A glance at my muddy boots conquered the resolve of my heart. Tears streamed down my face, my eyes flashed like lightning, and a tempest pounded in my head. “Terrible! How terrible not to own a carriage!” I said as I tiptoed across muddy streets. Suddenly I heard a sound far off. I peered into the distance. My fury turned me to stone: A carriage was passing me! I could not control myself! I was ready to leap into the maw of that monstrous four-seater. I was ready to devour that square bulk with my eyes, swallow up its repellent rattle, and clamp down with my teeth to stop it in its path. My blood boiled, my knees buckled: I couldn’t walk as rain poured down on me, thunder cracked above my head, and fear of being late for my lesson burnt my heart by a stroke of lightning. The monstrosity rattled by me. I calmed down, but not for long. Once again I heard the rattle in the distance — another monstrosity! But sometimes — the horror! — two, three, four of them all at once… there was truly no salvation! Clumps of mud flew up and hit my side, my leg, my arm, my face, my mouth… The horror of it! So many reasons to hate mankind! They force you to eat mud in public, so you don’t dare to open your mouth! “Crash into pieces, you despicable tool of Satan!” I shouted, dashing out from under the horses’ hooves.

The torture became unbearable. The love I felt for the sister of one of my students yielded to unfathomable feelings — for carriages. I say “unfathomable” because they were truly unfathomable. I loved carriages, which is why I envied their owners; I hated them and wished them every conceivable harm, since they were the source of all my suffering. Oh, how foolish I was! Once again I say that my love almost turned to hatred because the object of my adoration rode in a carriage. I was tortured, I fulminated, I suffered like the Prisoner of Chillon, I cursed like Byron, and in my terrible despair I didn’t notice that I had failed to lend out my capital… To calm my heart, I needed to take my revenge on mankind, and for that revenge I needed a carriage… I felt that owning one would make me happier, but the delight of having that beast on springs in my power, to have the right to smash it at the first flash of anger… Oh, that would be worth the sacrifice! I fought with myself for a long time. For a long time the spark of Reason, however fading, saved me from the shameful moniker of “arrant fool.” But finally one terrible event decided my lot in life and helped Fate transform me into one of the “utter fools” that I have to honor to be…

One day when the weather was fair, I took a walk along Nevsky Prospekt. I was at ease because I hadn’t seen any carriages for a long time. I thought about my love. There was nothing comforting about my love but the promise of much pure pleasure in the present. My love was wealthy, meant to ride in a carriage and live in joy and luxury. I was a creature born to walk on foot, marked by a strange defect — envy of carriages! But the greatest obstacles in fools often turn into their illusory advantages: I persuaded myself that the obstacles meant nothing, that everything would be fine, and came to the most inane conclusions that seemed completely plausible to my limited intellect.

Suddenly it began to rain and the streets became muddy. My vision was sullied by more and more carriages. As was my wont, I thought that the owners smirked at me and the drivers purposely went out of their way to nearly trample this poor little pedestrian as they even shouted to fall, that is, “Fall and say good-bye to life!” Foolish, so foolish! But I must admit that such madness seemed plausible to me then. There I was crossing the street, when I saw a carriage in the distance. I turned to avoid falling under the horses’ hooves… and suddenly a disgusting clump of mud flew up and hit me right in the face. I shook in horror and outrage. I wanted to wipe it off, but just then I heard a peal of laughter from inside the carriage… Good Lord! Who was laughing? I dropped my hands. I turned around and saw Lyuba, my dream, the object of my love. She stuck her head out the door and screamed with laughter. I can still hear her laughter in my ears! I can’t recall what I said. I just remember that I uttered some dreadful nonsense… My fate was sealed. Like a madman I ran home. That clump of mud was still stuck to my face, and feeling it there kept my fury white-hot.

I sold everything I owned, took all my money and bought a carriage. Oh, what a fool I was!

After committing this enormous folly, I had a few hundred rubles left. Meanwhile, my expenses had soared: the cursed carriage needed a shed; the horses needed a stall and oats; the staff needed apartments and bread. I rented a small room with a big stable. The first trip I took in my carriage was to them — to give a lesson. The entire family and an officer I didn’t know greeted me with laughter. I turned hot and then cold. She, that devilish woman, laughed more than the others!

 “Just imagine!” the mother told the officer. “We just went out to buy a trousseau for our girl Lyuba…”

“Trousseau? For your daughter?” I repeated with a horrible foreboding.

“Yes,” Lyuba laughed. “We went to buy gowns and we weren’t careful… ha ha ha!… and we splashed…”

Zumpt’s Latin Grammar fell from my hands…

“I’ll get my revenge!” I said as I ran from the room.

“Where to?” asked the footman.

“Wherever you want! Just drive as fast as you can to the muddiest streets and splash all the pedestrians!” I screamed at the coachman.

The coachman and footman rolled their eyes at me, thinking that I was mad… but I was merely a fool…

After that, my favorite pasttime was to gallop along the streets and watch the mud from my carriage hit passersby in the face. As soon as the weather was foul and the streets were muddy, I would order the carriage to be harnessed up and then gallop, gallop, gallop while taking indescribable pleasure watching the mud fly up from under the wheels and the horses’ hooves! I consoled myself with the thought that in avenging the insults inflicted upon me, I was muddying all of mankind. What a fool I was.

But no matter how I tried, I was never able to sling mud onto the faces of those who once inflicted that humiliation on me…

In the end, my capital ran out. I stopped eating so that I could feed my horses, but it was all for naught. The bitter moment came when I had to accept my poverty and realize that I could no longer afford the carriage. But I didn’t sell it. In a fit of mindless fury at the mute instrument of my misery, I tore my carriage apart with my own hands. And in my poverty and despair I consoled myself with the thought that I had wiped off the face of the earth at least one of those two-seated monstrosities that had splashed mud on so many people, including sinful me. Oh, how stupid I was!

What else can I say? I already told you that this event had a disastrous effect of the rest of my life. I destroyed the carriage and took to my bed. After a long illness I finally got up from my sick bed pale and emaciated, deeply disappointed, with a broken heart. I was still weak, but I thirsted for God’s light and clean air, and so I went outside. On Nevsky Prospekt I fell under a carriage and lost my right leg.

Learn from my sad tale, all you who are fated to walk about on foot, and do not envy people riding in carriages. If my example will cure two or three envious wretches, I will be consoled that I did at least one wise thing at the end of my life. For a fool, that’s a lot!

In my will I ask those who bury me to ensure that not a single carriage follows after my coffin. I recognize that my ill feeling is foolish, but I cannot be completely free of its influence. Such is the power of habit. But I am an old fool and may be forgiven.