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Updated: June 8, 2025
"You're committing a great folly, Lichonin," Platonov was saying listlessly, "but I honour and respect the fine impulse within you. Here's the thought and here's the deed. You're a brave and a splendid fellow." "Here's to your commencement!" laughed Jennie. "Look out, don't forget to send for me to the christening."
Platonov, who had already long since put his plate away from him, was looking at her with astonishment, and even more almost with horror. He, who had seen in life much of the painful, the filthy, at times even of the bloody he grew frightened with an animal fright before this intensity of enormous, unvented hatred. Coming to himself, he said: "One great writer tells of such a case.
Can it be that I can't even feast myself with revenge? for that I have never known love; that of family life I know only by hearsay; that, like a disgustin', nasty little dog, they call me near, pat me and then with a boot over the head get out! that they made me over, from a human being, equal to all of them, no more foolish than all those I've met; made me over into a floor mop, some sort of a sewer pipe for their filthy pleasures? ...Ugh! ... Is it possible that for all of this I must take even such a disease with gratitude as well? ... Or am I a slave? ... A dumb object? ... A pack horse? ... And so, Platonov, it was just then that I resolved to infect them all: young, old, poor, rich, handsome, hideous all, all, all! ..."
Think of it, Platonov; why, thousands, thousands of people have taken me, clutched me; grunted, snorted over me; and all those who were, and all those who might yet have been on my bed oh, how I hate them all! If I only could, I would sentence them to torture by fire and iron! ... I would order..." "You are malicious and proud, Jennie," said Platonov quietly.
Take to-day, now ... Why do I feel at this minute as though I had robbed a sleeping man or deceived a three-year-old child, or hit a bound person? And why does it seem to me to-day that I myself am guilty of the evil of prostitution guilty in my silence, my indifference, my indirect permission? What am I to do, Platonov!" exclaimed the student with grief in his voice.
Platonov kept silent, squinting at him with his little narrow eyes. But Jennie unexpectedly said in a caustic tone: "Well, you do as one Englishwoman did ... A certain red-haired clodhopper came to us here.
"Here's what, Sergei Ivanovich, I'm a sick woman...Understand? sick in a bad way...With the most nasty disease...Do you know which?" "Go on!" said Platonov, nodding his head. "And I've been that way for a long time...more than a month...a month and a half, maybe...Yes, more than a month, because I found out about this on the Trinity..." Platonov quickly rubbed his forehead with his hand.
The same ones who started a row with Platonov? I found out about it for the first time then. I found out in the daytime." "Do you know," quietly remarked Tamara, "I almost guessed about this, and particularly then, when you went down on your knees before the singer and talked quietly about something with her. But still, my dear Jennechka, you must attend to yourself."
"But they do write!" unwillingly remarked Ramses. "They do write," wearily repeated Platonov in the same tone as he. "But it is all either a lie, or theatrical effects for children of tender years, or else a cunning symbolism, comprehensible only to the sages of the future. But the life itself no one as yet has touched.
Finally, Jennka got up, and, without looking at Platonov, extended her cold, feeble hand to him. "Good-bye, Sergei Ivanovich! Excuse me, that I took up your time ... Oh, well, I can see myself that you'd help me, if you only could ... But, evidently, there's nothing to be done here ... Good-bye!" "Only don't do anything foolish, Jennechka! I implore you! ..."
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