Another Man's Wife or the Husband under the Bed an Extraordinary Adventure

Another Man's Wife or the Husband under the Bed

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Another Man's Wife or the Husband under the Bed" opens on a Petersburg street where a nervous, elderly gentleman in a raccoon fur coat repeatedly accosts and abandons a young stranger in a wadded overcoat outside a many-storeyed house, unable to steady himself enough to state his errand. He finally explains, in fits and evasions, that he is searching for a lady in a fox fur cape and velvet hood, first claiming she is a friend's wife, then a bachelor's own affair, contradicting himself at every turn. The young man, waiting for his own lady (in a plaid cloak and pale blue velvet hat), grows impatient and irritated with the old man's clinginess. Comparing notes, they realize their women may be connected to the same building, though the raccoon-coated man insists his acquaintance is not the wife of General Polovitsyn, whom the young man names. The old man eventually admits, under pressure, that he suspects his own wife, though he keeps trying to disguise this as concern for a friend "on the Voznesensky Bridge." They quarrel, reconcile, and climb together to a flat rented by a Mr. Bobynitsyn, straining to eavesdrop and light matches in the dark stairwell. A woman's voice is heard inside, then falls silent, and both men panic, bicker over cowardice, and trade accusations of being "the husband" or "the lover." When the flat's occupants emerge, the young man's own lady, Glafira Petrovna, appears with a stranger, claims her sledge overturned and that "Monsieur Tvorogov" (the young man) rescued her, and greets the raccoon-coated man as her husband, Ivan Andreyitch (sometimes addressed as "Koko" or misnamed "Ivan Ilyitch"). Introductions are made all around, including to the tall Mr. Bobynitsyn, and the couple drives off, leaving Tvorogov stupefied in the street. The next evening, Ivan Andreyitch bursts into the Italian opera in an agitated state, scanning the boxes for his wife, whom he spots with General Polovitsyn's party, including an adjutant and a partly hidden civilian youth. During the performance a scented love letter accidentally flutters down onto his bald head, evidently dropped in confusion between the adjutant and the civilian while a playbill was being passed. Certain it signals an assignation, Ivan Andreyitch reads an address on G. Street and a summons to appear there after the theatre. He rushes to the building, follows a dandy up to the third floor, and barges into a strange flat, terrifying a young woman who takes him for her husband arriving home. In a spasm of cowardice, rather than explain himself, Ivan Andreyitch hides under the bed — where he finds another man, a young stranger, already concealed there. The husband, an old, coughing, elderly gentleman, enters and rambles at length to his wife about ailments, remedies, and a "pretty woman in a blue hat" he saw on the stairs, unwittingly torturing both hidden men with jealous implications. The two men under the bed argue in whispers, each suspecting the other of being the lover or a rival, while Ivan Andreyitch pleads his respectability and the young man threatens to pass him off as a squandering uncle if discovered. The lady's small lapdog, Amishka, sniffs them out and barks; in panicked self-preservation Ivan Andreyitch strangles it. In the chaos the young man slips out unnoticed while the husband searches the wrong side of the bed, leaving Ivan Andreyitch alone to be dragged out and confronted by the husband and wife, who mistake him first for a thief. He tearfully explains himself as an "unhappy," jealous husband who blundered into the wrong flat and wrong storey, denies being anyone's lover, and vows his own wife is innocent. His absurd, contrite babbling — including a promise to replace the dead Amishka with a new lapdog — reduces the couple to helpless laughter, and they part on cordial terms, the wife inviting him to bring his wife and the new dog to visit. Ivan Andreyitch returns home dazed, still carrying Amishka's corpse in his pocket, which falls out before his wife Glafira Petrovna, who has been home all evening with a toothache and had sent for a doctor and leeches. Confronted with the dead dog and demanded to explain where he has been, he can only stammer "My love... my love..." before the narrator breaks off, promising that this new complication will be recounted another time, and closing with the reflection that jealousy is an unpardonable passion and a genuine misfortune.

By Fyodor Dostoevsky · First published 1872 · Genre: Comedy, Satire, Drama · 19,764 words

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I.

"Be so kind, sir. allow me to ask you. "

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Another Man's Wife or the Husband under the Bed an Extraordinary Adventure is listed on Textopian as a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, dated 1872 CE.

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adventure · mystery · suspense · infidelity · psychological · drama · relationships · betrayal · narrative · conflict · emotions · human nature

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