Master of Petersburg Read Online Free PDF Page B

the file Maximov selects another page and advances it across the desk. ‘And this?’
    He does not need to read it. How stupid! he thinks. A flush of dizziness overtakes him. His voice seems to come from far away. ‘It is a letter from myself. I am not Isaev. I simply took the name –’
    Maximov is waving a hand as if to chase away a fly, waving his words away, waving for silence; but he masters the dizziness and completes his declaration.
    â€˜I took the name so as not to complicate matters – for no other reason. Pavel Alexandrovich Isaev is my stepson, my late wife’s only child. But to me he is my own son. He has no one but me in the world.’
    Maximov takes the letter from his slack grasp and peruses it again. It is the last letter he wrote from Dresden, a letter in which he chides Pavel for spending too much money. Mortifying to sit here while a stranger reads it! Mortifying ever to have written it! But how is one to know, how is one to know , which day will be the last?
    â€˜â€œYour loving father, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky,”’ murmurs the magistrate, and looks up. ‘So let me be clear, you are not Isaev at all, you are Dostoevsky.’
    â€˜Yes. It has been a deception, a mistake, stupid but harmless, which I regret.’
    â€˜I understand. Nevertheless, you have come here purporting – but need we use that ugly word? Let us use it gingerly, so to speak, for the time being, for lack of a better – purporting to be the deceased Pavel Alexandrovich Isaev’s father and applying to have his property released to you, while in fact you are not that person at all. It does not look well, does it?’
    â€˜It was a mistake, as I say, which I now bitterly regret. But the deceased is my son, and I am his guardian in law, properly appointed.’
    â€˜Hm. I see here he was twenty-one, getting on for twenty-two, at the time of decease. So, strictly speaking, the writ of guardianship had expired. A man of twenty-one is his own master, is he not? A free person, in law.’
    It is this mockery that finally rouses him. He stands up. ‘I did not come here to discuss my son with strangers,’ he says, his voice rising. ‘If you insist on keeping his papers, say so directly, and I will take other steps.’
    â€˜Insist on keeping the papers? Of course not! My dear sir, please be seated! Of course not! On the contrary, I would very much like you to examine the papers, for your own sake and for ours too. The guidance you could give us would be appreciated, deeply appreciated. To begin with, let us take this item.’ He lays before him a set of half a dozen leaves written on both sides, the complete list of names of which he has already seen the first page, the As. ‘Not your son’s handwriting, is it?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜No, we know that. Any idea whose handwriting it is?’
    â€˜I do not recognize it.’
    â€˜It belongs to a young woman at present resident abroad. Her name is not relevant, though if I mentioned it I think you would be surprised. She is a friend and associate of a man named Nechaev, Sergei Gennadevich Nechaev. Does the name mean anything to you?’
    â€˜I do not know Nechaev personally, and I doubt very much that my son knew him. Nechaev is a conspirator and an insurrectionist whose designs I repudiate with the utmost force.’
    â€˜You do not know him personally, as you say. But you have had contact with him.’
    â€˜No, I have not had contact with him. I attended a public meeting in Switzerland, in Geneva, at which numerous people spoke, Nechaev among them. He and I have been together in the same room – that is the sum of my acquaintance with him.’
    â€˜And when was that?’
    â€˜It was in the autumn of 1867. The meeting was organized by the League for Peace and Freedom, as the body calls itself. I attended openly, as a patriotic Russian, to hear what might be said