Description

Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

163 pages

One morning, just as I was about to set off to my office, Agrafena, my cook, washerwoman
and housekeeper, came in to me and, to my surprise, entered into conversation.
She had always been such a silent, simple creature that, except her daily inquiry about
dinner, she had not uttered a word for the last six years. I, at least, had heard nothing else
from her.
“Here I have come in to have a word with you, sir,” she began abruptly; “you really ought to
let the little room.”
“Which little room?”
“Why, the one next the kitchen, to be sure.”
“What for?”
“What for? Why because folks do take in lodgers, to be sure.”
“But who would take it?”
“Who would take it? Why, a lodger would take it, to be sure.”
“But, my good woman, one could not put a bedstead in it; there wouldn’t be room to move!
Who could live in it?”
“Who wants to live there! As long as he has a place to sleep in. Why, he would live in the
window.”
“In what window?”
“In what window! As though you didn’t know! The one in the passage, to be sure. He would
sit there, sewing or doing anything else. Maybe he would sit on a chair, too. He’s got a chair;
and he has a table, too; he’s got everything.”
“Who is ‘he’ then?”
“Oh, a good man, a man of experience. I will cook for him. And I’ll ask him three roubles a
month for his board and lodging.”
After prolonged efforts I succeeded at last in learning from Agrafena that an elderly man
had somehow managed to persuade her to admit him into the kitchen as a lodger and
boarder. Any notion Agrafena took into her head had to be carried out; if not, I knew she
would give me no peace. When anything was not to her liking, she at once began to brood,
and sank into a deep dejection that would last for a fortnight or three weeks. During that
period my dinners were spoiled, my linen was mislaid, my floors went unscrubbed; in
short, I had a great deal to put up with. I had observed long ago that this inarticulate
woman was incapable of conceiving a project, of originating an idea of her own. But if
anything like a notion or a project was by some means put into her feeble brain, to prevent
its being carried out meant, for a time, her moral assassination. And so, as I cared more for
my peace of mind than for anything else, I consented forthwith.
“Has he a passport anyway, or something of the sort?”
“To be sure, he has. He is a good man, a man of experience; three roubles he’s promised to
pay.”
The very next day the new lodger made his appearance in my modest bachelor quarters;
but I was not put out by this, indeed I was inwardly pleased. I lead as a rule a very lonely
hermit’s existence. I have scarcely any friends; I hardly ever go anywhere.