A cunning and obstinate buffoon, Fyodor Pavlovich, while he had a very firm character “in certain things in life,” as he himself put it, showed, to his own surprise, even a rather weakish character in certain other “things in life.” And he knew which ones, he knew and was afraid of many things. In certain things in life one had to be on one’s guard, and that was difficult without a faithful man. And Grigory was a most faithful man. It even so happened that many times in the course of his career, Fyodor Pavlovich might have been beaten, and beaten badly, but Grigory always came to his rescue, though he admonished him each time afterwards. But Fyodor Pavlovich would not have been afraid of beatings alone: there were higher occasions, even rather subtle and complicated ones, when Fyodor Pavlovich himself would have been unable, perhaps, to explain this remarkable need for a close and faithful man that he would sometimes, all of a sudden, momentarily and inconceivably, begin to feel in himself. These occasions were almost morbid: most depraved, and, in his sensuality, almost as cruel as a wicked insect, Fyodor Pavlovich at times suddenly felt in himself, in his drunken moments, a spiritual fear, a moral shock, that almost, so to speak, resounded physically in his soul. “On those occasions it’s as if my soul were fluttering in my throat,” he sometimes used to say. And at such moments he was glad that nearby, close at hand, maybe not in the same room but in the cottage, there was such a man, firm, devoted, not at all like himself, not depraved, who, though he saw all this depravity going on and knew all the secrets, still put up with it all out of devotion, did not protest, and–above all–did not reproach him or threaten him with anything either in this age or in the age to come; and who would defend him if need be–from whom? From someone unknown, but terrible and dangerous. The thing precisely was that there should be another man, ancient and amicable, who could be summoned in a morbid moment, so that he could look him in the face and perhaps exchange a few words, even quite irrelevant words, and if it’s all right and he does not get angry, then somehow it eases the heart, but if he gets angry, well, then it’s a little sadder.
—TBK