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diff --git a/1883.txt b/1883.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d09e398 --- /dev/null +++ b/1883.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8532 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wife and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wife and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #1883] +[Last updated: March 12, 2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIFE AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk and David Widger + + + + + +THE WIFE AND OTHER STORIES + +By + +Anton Tchekhov + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV VOLUME 5 + + + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + The Wife + Difficult People + The Grasshopper + A Dreary Story + The Privy Councillor + The Man in Case + Gooseberries + About Love + The Lottery Ticket + + + + +THE WIFE + +I + +I RECEIVED the following letter: + +"DEAR SIR, PAVEL ANDREITCH! + +"Not far from you--that is to say, in the village of Pestrovo--very +distressing incidents are taking place, concerning which I feel it +my duty to write to you. All the peasants of that village sold their +cottages and all their belongings, and set off for the province of +Tomsk, but did not succeed in getting there, and have come back. Here, +of course, they have nothing now; everything belongs to other people. +They have settled three or four families in a hut, so that there are no +less than fifteen persons of both sexes in each hut, not counting the +young children; and the long and the short of it is, there is nothing +to eat. There is famine and there is a terrible pestilence of hunger, or +spotted, typhus; literally every one is stricken. The doctor's assistant +says one goes into a cottage and what does one see? Every one is sick, +every one delirious, some laughing, others frantic; the huts are filthy; +there is no one to fetch them water, no one to give them a drink, and +nothing to eat but frozen potatoes. What can Sobol (our Zemstvo doctor) +and his lady assistant do when more than medicine the peasants need +bread which they have not? The District Zemstvo refuses to assist them, +on the ground that their names have been taken off the register of this +district, and that they are now reckoned as inhabitants of Tomsk; and, +besides, the Zemstvo has no money. + +"Laying these facts before you, and knowing your humanity, I beg you not +to refuse immediate help. + +"Your well-wisher." + +Obviously the letter was written by the doctor with the animal name* or +his lady assistant. Zemstvo doctors and their assistants go on for years +growing more and more convinced every day that they can do _nothing_, +and yet continue to receive their salaries from people who are living +upon frozen potatoes, and consider they have a right to judge whether I +am humane or not. + + *Sobol in Russian means "sable-marten."--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. + +Worried by the anonymous letter and by the fact that peasants came every +morning to the servants' kitchen and went down on their knees there, and +that twenty sacks of rye had been stolen at night out of the barn, the +wall having first been broken in, and by the general depression which +was fostered by conversations, newspapers, and horrible weather--worried +by all this, I worked listlessly and ineffectively. I was writing +"A History of Railways"; I had to read a great number of Russian +and foreign books, pamphlets, and articles in the magazines, to make +calculations, to refer to logarithms, to think and to write; then again +to read, calculate, and think; but as soon as I took up a book or began +to think, my thoughts were in a muddle, my eyes began blinking, I would +get up from the table with a sigh and begin walking about the big rooms +of my deserted country-house. When I was tired of walking about I would +stand still at my study window, and, looking across the wide courtyard, +over the pond and the bare young birch-trees and the great fields +covered with recently fallen, thawing snow, I saw on a low hill on the +horizon a group of mud-coloured huts from which a black muddy road ran +down in an irregular streak through the white field. That was Pestrovo, +concerning which my anonymous correspondent had written to me. If it had +not been for the crows who, foreseeing rain or snowy weather, floated +cawing over the pond and the fields, and the tapping in the carpenter's +shed, this bit of the world about which such a fuss was being made +would have seemed like the Dead Sea; it was all so still, motionless, +lifeless, and dreary! + +My uneasiness hindered me from working and concentrating myself; I did +not know what it was, and chose to believe it was disappointment. I had +actually given up my post in the Department of Ways and Communications, +and had come here into the country expressly to live in peace and +to devote myself to writing on social questions. It had long been my +cherished dream. And now I had to say good-bye both to peace and to +literature, to give up everything and think only of the peasants. And +that was inevitable, because I was convinced that there was absolutely +nobody in the district except me to help the starving. The people +surrounding me were uneducated, unintellectual, callous, for the most +part dishonest, or if they were honest, they were unreasonable and +unpractical like my wife, for instance. It was impossible to rely on +such people, it was impossible to leave the peasants to their fate, so +that the only thing left to do was to submit to necessity and see to +setting the peasants to rights myself. + +I began by making up my mind to give five thousand roubles to the +assistance of the starving peasants. And that did not decrease, but only +aggravated my uneasiness. As I stood by the window or walked about +the rooms I was tormented by the question which had not occurred to me +before: how this money was to be spent. To have bread bought and to go +from hut to hut distributing it was more than one man could do, to say +nothing of the risk that in your haste you might give twice as much to +one who was well-fed or to one who was making money out of his fellows +as to the hungry. I had no faith in the local officials. All these +district captains and tax inspectors were young men, and I distrusted +them as I do all young people of today, who are materialistic and +without ideals. The District Zemstvo, the Peasant Courts, and all the +local institutions, inspired in me not the slightest desire to appeal to +them for assistance. I knew that all these institutions who were busily +engaged in picking out plums from the Zemstvo and the Government pie +had their mouths always wide open for a bite at any other pie that might +turn up. + +The idea occurred to me to invite the neighbouring landowners and +suggest to them to organize in my house something like a committee or +a centre to which all subscriptions could be forwarded, and from +which assistance and instructions could be distributed throughout the +district; such an organization, which would render possible frequent +consultations and free control on a big scale, would completely meet +my views. But I imagined the lunches, the dinners, the suppers and the +noise, the waste of time, the verbosity and the bad taste which that +mixed provincial company would inevitably bring into my house, and I +made haste to reject my idea. + +As for the members of my own household, the last thing I could look +for was help or support from them. Of my father's household, of the +household of my childhood, once a big and noisy family, no one remained +but the governess Mademoiselle Marie, or, as she was now called, Marya +Gerasimovna, an absolutely insignificant person. She was a precise +little old lady of seventy, who wore a light grey dress and a cap with +white ribbons, and looked like a china doll. She always sat in the +drawing-room reading. + +Whenever I passed by her, she would say, knowing the reason for my +brooding: + +"What can you expect, Pasha? I told you how it would be before. You can +judge from our servants." + +My wife, Natalya Gavrilovna, lived on the lower storey, all the rooms of +which she occupied. She slept, had her meals, and received her visitors +downstairs in her own rooms, and took not the slightest interest in how +I dined, or slept, or whom I saw. Our relations with one another were +simple and not strained, but cold, empty, and dreary as relations are +between people who have been so long estranged, that even living under +the same roof gives no semblance of nearness. There was no trace now of +the passionate and tormenting love--at one time sweet, at another bitter +as wormwood--which I had once felt for Natalya Gavrilovna. There +was nothing left, either, of the outbursts of the past--the loud +altercations, upbraidings, complaints, and gusts of hatred which had +usually ended in my wife's going abroad or to her own people, and in my +sending money in small but frequent instalments that I might sting her +pride oftener. (My proud and sensitive wife and her family live at my +expense, and much as she would have liked to do so, my wife could not +refuse my money: that afforded me satisfaction and was one comfort in +my sorrow.) Now when we chanced to meet in the corridor downstairs or in +the yard, I bowed, she smiled graciously. We spoke of the weather, said +that it seemed time to put in the double windows, and that some one with +bells on their harness had driven over the dam. And at such times I read +in her face: "I am faithful to you and am not disgracing your good name +which you think so much about; you are sensible and do not worry me; we +are quits." + +I assured myself that my love had died long ago, that I was too much +absorbed in my work to think seriously of my relations with my wife. +But, alas! that was only what I imagined. When my wife talked aloud +downstairs I listened intently to her voice, though I could not +distinguish one word. When she played the piano downstairs I stood up +and listened. When her carriage or her saddlehorse was brought to the +door, I went to the window and waited to see her out of the house; then +I watched her get into her carriage or mount her horse and ride out of +the yard. I felt that there was something wrong with me, and was afraid +the expression of my eyes or my face might betray me. I looked after my +wife and then watched for her to come back that I might see again +from the window her face, her shoulders, her fur coat, her hat. I felt +dreary, sad, infinitely regretful, and felt inclined in her absence to +walk through her rooms, and longed that the problem that my wife and +I had not been able to solve because our characters were incompatible, +should solve itself in the natural way as soon as possible--that is, +that this beautiful woman of twenty-seven might make haste and grow old, +and that my head might be grey and bald. + +One day at lunch my bailiff informed me that the Pestrovo peasants +had begun to pull the thatch off the roofs to feed their cattle. Marya +Gerasimovna looked at me in alarm and perplexity. + +"What can I do?" I said to her. "One cannot fight single-handed, and I +have never experienced such loneliness as I do now. I would give a great +deal to find one man in the whole province on whom I could rely." + +"Invite Ivan Ivanitch," said Marya Gerasimovna. + +"To be sure!" I thought, delighted. "That is an idea! _C'est raison_," +I hummed, going to my study to write to Ivan Ivanitch. "_C'est raison, +c'est raison_." + +II + +Of all the mass of acquaintances who, in this house twenty-five to +thirty-five years ago, had eaten, drunk, masqueraded, fallen in love, +married, bored us with accounts of their splendid packs of hounds and +horses, the only one still living was Ivan Ivanitch Bragin. At one time +he had been very active, talkative, noisy, and given to falling in love, +and had been famous for his extreme views and for the peculiar charm of +his face, which fascinated men as well as women; now he was an old man, +had grown corpulent, and was living out his days with neither views nor +charm. He came the day after getting my letter, in the evening just +as the samovar was brought into the dining-room and little Marya +Gerasimovna had begun slicing the lemon. + +"I am very glad to see you, my dear fellow," I said gaily, meeting him. +"Why, you are stouter than ever...." + +"It isn't getting stout; it's swelling," he answered. "The bees must +have stung me." + +With the familiarity of a man laughing at his own fatness, he put his +arms round my waist and laid on my breast his big soft head, with the +hair combed down on the forehead like a Little Russian's, and went off +into a thin, aged laugh. + +"And you go on getting younger," he said through his laugh. "I wonder +what dye you use for your hair and beard; you might let me have some of +it." Sniffing and gasping, he embraced me and kissed me on the cheek. +"You might give me some of it," he repeated. "Why, you are not forty, +are you?" + +"Alas, I am forty-six!" I said, laughing. + +Ivan Ivanitch smelt of tallow candles and cooking, and that suited him. +His big, puffy, slow-moving body was swathed in a long frock-coat like a +coachman's full coat, with a high waist, and with hooks and eyes +instead of buttons, and it would have been strange if he had smelt of +eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, +which looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, +and in the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his +laugh, and his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, +interesting talker who used in old days to make the husbands of the +district jealous on account of their wives. + +"I am in great need of your assistance, my friend," I said, when we were +sitting in the dining-room, drinking tea. "I want to organize relief for +the starving peasants, and I don't know how to set about it. So perhaps +you will be so kind as to advise me." + +"Yes, yes, yes," said Ivan Ivanitch, sighing. "To be sure, to be sure, +to be sure...." + +"I would not have worried you, my dear fellow, but really there is no +one here but you I can appeal to. You know what people are like about +here." + +"To be sure, to be sure, to be sure.... Yes." + +I thought that as we were going to have a serious, business consultation +in which any one might take part, regardless of their position or +personal relations, why should I not invite Natalya Gavrilovna. + +"_Tres faciunt collegium_," I said gaily. "What if we were to ask +Natalya Gavrilovna? What do you think? Fenya," I said, turning to the +maid, "ask Natalya Gavrilovna to come upstairs to us, if possible at +once. Tell her it's a very important matter." + +A little later Natalya Gavrilovna came in. I got up to meet her and +said: + +"Excuse us for troubling you, Natalie. We are discussing a very +important matter, and we had the happy thought that we might take +advantage of your good advice, which you will not refuse to give us. +Please sit down." + +Ivan Ivanitch kissed her hand while she kissed his forehead; then, +when we all sat down to the table, he, looking at her tearfully and +blissfully, craned forward to her and kissed her hand again. She was +dressed in black, her hair was carefully arranged, and she smelt of +fresh scent. She had evidently dressed to go out or was expecting +somebody. Coming into the dining-room, she held out her hand to me with +simple friendliness, and smiled to me as graciously as she did to Ivan +Ivanitch--that pleased me; but as she talked she moved her fingers, +often and abruptly leaned back in her chair and talked rapidly, and this +jerkiness in her words and movements irritated me and reminded me of her +native town--Odessa, where the society, men and women alike, had wearied +me by its bad taste. + +"I want to do something for the famine-stricken peasants," I began, and +after a brief pause I went on: "Money, of course, is a great thing, but +to confine oneself to subscribing money, and with that to be satisfied, +would be evading the worst of the trouble. Help must take the form of +money, but the most important thing is a proper and sound organization. +Let us think it over, my friends, and do something." + +Natalya Gavrilovna looked at me inquiringly and shrugged her shoulders +as though to say, "What do I know about it?" + +"Yes, yes, famine..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. "Certainly... yes." + +"It's a serious position," I said, "and assistance is needed as soon as +possible. I imagine the first point among the principles which we must +work out ought to be promptitude. We must act on the military principles +of judgment, promptitude, and energy." + +"Yes, promptitude..." repeated Ivan Ivanitch in a drowsy and listless +voice, as though he were dropping asleep. "Only one can't do anything. +The crops have failed, and so what's the use of all your judgment and +energy?... It's the elements.... You can't go against God and fate." + +"Yes, but that's what man has a head for, to contend against the +elements." + +"Eh? Yes... that's so, to be sure.... Yes." + +Ivan Ivanitch sneezed into his handkerchief, brightened up, and as +though he had just woken up, looked round at my wife and me. + +"My crops have failed, too." He laughed a thin little laugh and gave +a sly wink as though this were really funny. "No money, no corn, and +a yard full of labourers like Count Sheremetyev's. I want to kick them +out, but I haven't the heart to." + +Natalya Gavrilovna laughed, and began questioning him about his private +affairs. Her presence gave me a pleasure such as I had not felt for a +long time, and I was afraid to look at her for fear my eyes would betray +my secret feeling. Our relations were such that that feeling might seem +surprising and ridiculous. + +She laughed and talked with Ivan Ivanitch without being in the least +disturbed that she was in my room and that I was not laughing. + +"And so, my friends, what are we to do?" I asked after waiting for a +pause. "I suppose before we do anything else we had better immediately +open a subscription-list. We will write to our friends in the capitals +and in Odessa, Natalie, and ask them to subscribe. When we have got +together a little sum we will begin buying corn and fodder for the +cattle; and you, Ivan Ivanitch, will you be so kind as to undertake +distributing the relief? Entirely relying on your characteristic tact +and efficiency, we will only venture to express a desire that before you +give any relief you make acquaintance with the details of the case on +the spot, and also, which is very important, you should be careful that +corn should be distributed only to those who are in genuine need, and +not to the drunken, the idle, or the dishonest." + +"Yes, yes, yes..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. "To be sure, to be sure." + +"Well, one won't get much done with that slobbering wreck," I thought, +and I felt irritated. + +"I am sick of these famine-stricken peasants, bother them! It's nothing +but grievances with them!" Ivan Ivanitch went on, sucking the rind of +the lemon. "The hungry have a grievance against those who have enough, +and those who have enough have a grievance against the hungry. Yes... +hunger stupefies and maddens a man and makes him savage; hunger is not a +potato. When a man is starving he uses bad language, and steals, and may +do worse.... One must realize that." + +Ivan Ivanitch choked over his tea, coughed, and shook all over with a +squeaky, smothered laughter. + +"'There was a battle at Pol... Poltava,'" he brought out, +gesticulating with both hands in protest against the laughter and +coughing which prevented him from speaking. "'There was a battle at +Poltava!' When three years after the Emancipation we had famine in two +districts here, Fyodor Fyodoritch came and invited me to go to him. +'Come along, come along,' he persisted, and nothing else would satisfy +him. 'Very well, let us go,' I said. And, so we set off. It was in the +evening; there was snow falling. Towards night we were getting near his +place, and suddenly from the wood came 'bang!' and another time 'bang!' +'Oh, damn it all!'... I jumped out of the sledge, and I saw in the +darkness a man running up to me, knee-deep in the snow. I put my arm +round his shoulder, like this, and knocked the gun out of his hand. Then +another one turned up; I fetched him a knock on the back of his head so +that he grunted and flopped with his nose in the snow. I was a sturdy +chap then, my fist was heavy; I disposed of two of them, and when I +turned round Fyodor was sitting astride of a third. We did not let our +three fine fellows go; we tied their hands behind their backs so that +they might not do us or themselves any harm, and took the fools into the +kitchen. We were angry with them and at the same time ashamed to look at +them; they were peasants we knew, and were good fellows; we were sorry +for them. They were quite stupid with terror. One was crying and begging +our pardon, the second looked like a wild beast and kept swearing, the +third knelt down and began to pray. I said to Fedya: 'Don't bear them +a grudge; let them go, the rascals!' He fed them, gave them a bushel of +flour each, and let them go: 'Get along with you,' he said. So that's +what he did.... The Kingdom of Heaven be his and everlasting peace! He +understood and did not bear them a grudge; but there were some who did, +and how many people they ruined! Yes... Why, over the affair at the +Klotchkovs' tavern eleven men were sent to the disciplinary battalion. +Yes.... And now, look, it's the same thing. Anisyin, the investigating +magistrate, stayed the night with me last Thursday, and he told me about +some landowner.... Yes.... They took the wall of his barn to pieces at +night and carried off twenty sacks of rye. When the gentleman heard that +such a crime had been committed, he sent a telegram to the Governor +and another to the police captain, another to the investigating +magistrate!... Of course, every one is afraid of a man who is fond of +litigation. The authorities were in a flutter and there was a general +hubbub. Two villages were searched." + +"Excuse me, Ivan Ivanitch," I said. "Twenty sacks of rye were stolen +from me, and it was I who telegraphed to the Governor. I telegraphed to +Petersburg, too. But it was by no means out of love for litigation, as +you are pleased to express it, and not because I bore them a grudge. +I look at every subject from the point of view of principle. From the +point of view of the law, theft is the same whether a man is hungry or +not." + +"Yes, yes..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch in confusion. "Of course... To be +sure, yes." + +Natalya Gavrilovna blushed. + +"There are people..." she said and stopped; she made an effort to seem +indifferent, but she could not keep it up, and looked into my eyes with +the hatred that I know so well. "There are people," she said, "for whom +famine and human suffering exist simply that they may vent their hateful +and despicable temperaments upon them." + +I was confused and shrugged my shoulders. + +"I meant to say generally," she went on, "that there are people who are +quite indifferent and completely devoid of all feeling of sympathy, +yet who do not pass human suffering by, but insist on meddling for fear +people should be able to do without them. Nothing is sacred for their +vanity." + +"There are people," I said softly, "who have an angelic character, but +who express their glorious ideas in such a form that it is difficult to +distinguish the angel from an Odessa market-woman." + +I must confess it was not happily expressed. + +My wife looked at me as though it cost her a great effort to hold her +tongue. Her sudden outburst, and then her inappropriate eloquence on the +subject of my desire to help the famine-stricken peasants, were, to say +the least, out of place; when I had invited her to come upstairs I had +expected quite a different attitude to me and my intentions. I cannot +say definitely what I had expected, but I had been agreeably agitated by +the expectation. Now I saw that to go on speaking about the famine would +be difficult and perhaps stupid. + +"Yes..." Ivan Ivanitch muttered inappropriately. "Burov, the merchant, +must have four hundred thousand at least. I said to him: 'Hand over one +or two thousand to the famine. You can't take it with you when you die, +anyway.' He was offended. But we all have to die, you know. Death is not +a potato." + +A silence followed again. + +"So there's nothing left for me but to reconcile myself to loneliness," +I sighed. "One cannot fight single-handed. Well, I will try +single-handed. Let us hope that my campaign against the famine will be +more successful than my campaign against indifference." + +"I am expected downstairs," said Natalya Gavrilovna. + +She got up from the table and turned to Ivan Ivanitch. + +"So you will look in upon me downstairs for a minute? I won't say +good-bye to you." + +And she went away. + +Ivan Ivanitch was now drinking his seventh glass of tea, choking, +smacking his lips, and sucking sometimes his moustache, sometimes the +lemon. He was muttering something drowsily and listlessly, and I did +not listen but waited for him to go. At last, with an expression that +suggested that he had only come to me to take a cup of tea, he got up +and began to take leave. As I saw him out I said: + +"And so you have given me no advice." + +"Eh? I am a feeble, stupid old man," he answered. "What use would my +advice be? You shouldn't worry yourself.... I really don't know why you +worry yourself. Don't disturb yourself, my dear fellow! Upon my word, +there's no need," he whispered genuinely and affectionately, soothing me +as though I were a child. "Upon my word, there's no need." + +"No need? Why, the peasants are pulling the thatch off their huts, and +they say there is typhus somewhere already." + +"Well, what of it? If there are good crops next year, they'll thatch +them again, and if we die of typhus others will live after us. Anyway, +we have to die--if not now, later. Don't worry yourself, my dear." + +"I can't help worrying myself," I said irritably. + +We were standing in the dimly lighted vestibule. Ivan Ivanitch suddenly +took me by the elbow, and, preparing to say something evidently very +important, looked at me in silence for a couple of minutes. + +"Pavel Andreitch!" he said softly, and suddenly in his puffy, set face +and dark eyes there was a gleam of the expression for which he had once +been famous and which was truly charming. "Pavel Andreitch, I speak to +you as a friend: try to be different! One is ill at ease with you, my +dear fellow, one really is!" + +He looked intently into my face; the charming expression faded away, his +eyes grew dim again, and he sniffed and muttered feebly: + +"Yes, yes.... Excuse an old man.... It's all nonsense... yes." + +As he slowly descended the staircase, spreading out his hands to balance +himself and showing me his huge, bulky back and red neck, he gave me the +unpleasant impression of a sort of crab. + +"You ought to go away, your Excellency," he muttered. "To Petersburg or +abroad.... Why should you live here and waste your golden days? You are +young, wealthy, and healthy.... Yes.... Ah, if I were younger I would +whisk away like a hare, and snap my fingers at everything." + +III + +My wife's outburst reminded me of our married life together. In old days +after every such outburst we felt irresistibly drawn to each other; +we would meet and let off all the dynamite that had accumulated in our +souls. And now after Ivan Ivanitch had gone away I had a strong impulse +to go to my wife. I wanted to go downstairs and tell her that her +behaviour at tea had been an insult to me, that she was cruel, petty, +and that her plebeian mind had never risen to a comprehension of what +_I_ was saying and of what _I_ was doing. I walked about the rooms a +long time thinking of what I would say to her and trying to guess what +she would say to me. + +That evening, after Ivan Ivanitch went away, I felt in a peculiarly +irritating form the uneasiness which had worried me of late. I could +not sit down or sit still, but kept walking about in the rooms that were +lighted up and keeping near to the one in which Marya Gerasimovna was +sitting. I had a feeling very much like that which I had on the North +Sea during a storm when every one thought that our ship, which had no +freight nor ballast, would overturn. And that evening I understood that +my uneasiness was not disappointment, as I had supposed, but a different +feeling, though what exactly I could not say, and that irritated me more +than ever. + +"I will go to her," I decided. "I can think of a pretext. I shall say +that I want to see Ivan Ivanitch; that will be all." + +I went downstairs and walked without haste over the carpeted floor +through the vestibule and the hall. Ivan Ivanitch was sitting on the +sofa in the drawing-room; he was drinking tea again and muttering +something. My wife was standing opposite to him and holding on to the +back of a chair. There was a gentle, sweet, and docile expression on her +face, such as one sees on the faces of people listening to crazy saints +or holy men when a peculiar hidden significance is imagined in their +vague words and mutterings. There was something morbid, something of +a nun's exaltation, in my wife's expression and attitude; and her +low-pitched, half-dark rooms with their old-fashioned furniture, with +her birds asleep in their cages, and with a smell of geranium, reminded +me of the rooms of some abbess or pious old lady. + +I went into the drawing-room. My wife showed neither surprise nor +confusion, and looked at me calmly and serenely, as though she had known +I should come. + +"I beg your pardon," I said softly. "I am so glad you have not gone yet, +Ivan Ivanitch. I forgot to ask you, do you know the Christian name of +the president of our Zemstvo?" + +"Andrey Stanislavovitch. Yes...." + +"_Merci_," I said, took out my notebook, and wrote it down. + +There followed a silence during which my wife and Ivan Ivanitch were +probably waiting for me to go; my wife did not believe that I wanted to +know the president's name--I saw that from her eyes. + +"Well, I must be going, my beauty," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, after I +had walked once or twice across the drawing-room and sat down by the +fireplace. + +"No," said Natalya Gavrilovna quickly, touching his hand. "Stay another +quarter of an hour.... Please do!" + +Evidently she did not wish to be left alone with me without a witness. + +"Oh, well, I'll wait a quarter of an hour, too," I thought. + +"Why, it's snowing!" I said, getting up and looking out of window. "A +good fall of snow! Ivan Ivanitch"--I went on walking about the room--"I +do regret not being a sportsman. I can imagine what a pleasure it must +be coursing hares or hunting wolves in snow like this!" + +My wife, standing still, watched my movements, looking out of the corner +of her eyes without turning her head. She looked as though she thought I +had a sharp knife or a revolver in my pocket. + +"Ivan Ivanitch, do take me out hunting some day," I went on softly. "I +shall be very, very grateful to you." + +At that moment a visitor came into the room. He was a tall, thick-set +gentleman whom I did not know, with a bald head, a big fair beard, and +little eyes. From his baggy, crumpled clothes and his manners I took him +to be a parish clerk or a teacher, but my wife introduced him to me as +Dr. Sobol. + +"Very, very glad to make your acquaintance," said the doctor in a loud +tenor voice, shaking hands with me warmly, with a naive smile. "Very +glad!" + +He sat down at the table, took a glass of tea, and said in a loud voice: + +"Do you happen to have a drop of rum or brandy? Have pity on me, Olya, +and look in the cupboard; I am frozen," he said, addressing the maid. + +I sat down by the fire again, looked on, listened, and from time to time +put in a word in the general conversation. My wife smiled graciously +to the visitors and kept a sharp lookout on me, as though I were a +wild beast. She was oppressed by my presence, and this aroused in me +jealousy, annoyance, and an obstinate desire to wound her. "Wife, these +snug rooms, the place by the fire," I thought, "are mine, have been mine +for years, but some crazy Ivan Ivanitch or Sobol has for some reason +more right to them than I. Now I see my wife, not out of window, but +close at hand, in ordinary home surroundings that I feel the want of now +I am growing older, and, in spite of her hatred for me, I miss her as +years ago in my childhood I used to miss my mother and my nurse. And +I feel that now, on the verge of old age, my love for her is purer and +loftier than it was in the past; and that is why I want to go up to her, +to stamp hard on her toe with my heel, to hurt her and smile as I do +it." + +"Monsieur Marten," I said, addressing the doctor, "how many hospitals +have we in the district?" + +"Sobol," my wife corrected. + +"Two," answered Sobol. + +"And how many deaths are there every year in each hospital?" + +"Pavel Andreitch, I want to speak to you," said my wife. + +She apologized to the visitors and went to the next room. I got up and +followed her. + +"You will go upstairs to your own rooms this minute," she said. + +"You are ill-bred," I said to her. + +"You will go upstairs to your own rooms this very minute," she repeated +sharply, and she looked into my face with hatred. + +She was standing so near that if I had stooped a little my beard would +have touched her face. + +"What is the matter?" I asked. "What harm have I done all at once?" + +Her chin quivered, she hastily wiped her eyes, and, with a cursory +glance at the looking-glass, whispered: + +"The old story is beginning all over again. Of course you won't go away. +Well, do as you like. I'll go away myself, and you stay." + +We returned to the drawing-room, she with a resolute face, while +I shrugged my shoulders and tried to smile. There were some more +visitors--an elderly lady and a young man in spectacles. Without +greeting the new arrivals or taking leave of the others, I went off to +my own rooms. + +After what had happened at tea and then again downstairs, it became +clear to me that our "family happiness," which we had begun to forget +about in the course of the last two years, was through some absurd and +trivial reason beginning all over again, and that neither I nor my +wife could now stop ourselves; and that next day or the day after, the +outburst of hatred would, as I knew by experience of past years, be +followed by something revolting which would upset the whole order of our +lives. "So it seems that during these two years we have grown no wiser, +colder, or calmer," I thought as I began walking about the rooms. "So +there will again be tears, outcries, curses, packing up, going abroad, +then the continual sickly fear that she will disgrace me with some +coxcomb out there, Italian or Russian, refusing a passport, letters, +utter loneliness, missing her, and in five years old age, grey hairs." +I walked about, imagining what was really impossible--her, grown +handsomer, stouter, embracing a man I did not know. By now convinced +that that would certainly happen, "'Why," I asked myself, "Why, in one +of our long past quarrels, had not I given her a divorce, or why had she +not at that time left me altogether? I should not have had this yearning +for her now, this hatred, this anxiety; and I should have lived out my +life quietly, working and not worrying about anything." + +A carriage with two lamps drove into the yard, then a big sledge with +three horses. My wife was evidently having a party. + +Till midnight everything was quiet downstairs and I heard nothing, +but at midnight there was a sound of moving chairs and a clatter of +crockery. So there was supper. Then the chairs moved again, and through +the floor I heard a noise; they seemed to be shouting hurrah. Marya +Gerasimovna was already asleep and I was quite alone in the whole upper +storey; the portraits of my forefathers, cruel, insignificant people, +looked at me from the walls of the drawing-room, and the reflection +of my lamp in the window winked unpleasantly. And with a feeling of +jealousy and envy for what was going on downstairs, I listened and +thought: "I am master here; if I like, I can in a moment turn out all +that fine crew." But I knew that all that was nonsense, that I could not +turn out any one, and the word "master" had no meaning. One may think +oneself master, married, rich, a kammer-junker, as much as one likes, +and at the same time not know what it means. + +After supper some one downstairs began singing in a tenor voice. + +"Why, nothing special has happened," I tried to persuade myself. "Why am +I so upset? I won't go downstairs tomorrow, that's all; and that will be +the end of our quarrel." + +At a quarter past one I went to bed. + +"Have the visitors downstairs gone?" I asked Alexey as he was undressing +me. + +"Yes, sir, they've gone." + +"And why were they shouting hurrah?" + +"Alexey Dmitritch Mahonov subscribed for the famine fund a thousand +bushels of flour and a thousand roubles. And the old lady--I don't know +her name--promised to set up a soup kitchen on her estate to feed a +hundred and fifty people. Thank God... Natalya Gavrilovna has been +pleased to arrange that all the gentry should assemble every Friday." + +"To assemble here, downstairs?" + +"Yes, sir. Before supper they read a list: since August up to today +Natalya Gavrilovna has collected eight thousand roubles, besides corn. +Thank God.... What I think is that if our mistress does take trouble for +the salvation of her soul, she will soon collect a lot. There are plenty +of rich people here." + +Dismissing Alexey, I put out the light and drew the bedclothes over my +head. + +"After all, why am I so troubled?" I thought. "What force draws me to +the starving peasants like a butterfly to a flame? I don't know them, I +don't understand them; I have never seen them and I don't like them. Why +this uneasiness?" + +I suddenly crossed myself under the quilt. + +"But what a woman she is!" I said to myself, thinking of my wife. +"There's a regular committee held in the house without my knowing. +Why this secrecy? Why this conspiracy? What have I done to them? Ivan +Ivanitch is right--I must go away." + +Next morning I woke up firmly resolved to go away. The events of the +previous day--the conversation at tea, my wife, Sobol, the supper, my +apprehensions--worried me, and I felt glad to think of getting away from +the surroundings which reminded me of all that. While I was drinking my +coffee the bailiff gave me a long report on various matters. The most +agreeable item he saved for the last. + +"The thieves who stole our rye have been found," he announced with a +smile. "The magistrate arrested three peasants at Pestrovo yesterday." + +"Go away!" I shouted at him; and a propos of nothing, I picked up the +cake-basket and flung it on the floor. + +IV + +After lunch I rubbed my hands, and thought I must go to my wife and tell +her that I was going away. Why? Who cared? Nobody cares, I answered, but +why shouldn't I tell her, especially as it would give her nothing but +pleasure? Besides, to go away after our yesterday's quarrel without +saying a word would not be quite tactful: she might think that I was +frightened of her, and perhaps the thought that she has driven me out of +my house may weigh upon her. It would be just as well, too, to tell her +that I subscribe five thousand, and to give her some advice about +the organization, and to warn her that her inexperience in such a +complicated and responsible matter might lead to most lamentable +results. In short, I wanted to see my wife, and while I thought of +various pretexts for going to her, I had a firm conviction in my heart +that I should do so. + +It was still light when I went in to her, and the lamps had not yet been +lighted. She was sitting in her study, which led from the drawing-room +to her bedroom, and, bending low over the table, was writing something +quickly. Seeing me, she started, got up from the table, and remained +standing in an attitude such as to screen her papers from me. + +"I beg your pardon, I have only come for a minute," I said, and, I don't +know why, I was overcome with embarrassment. "I have learnt by chance +that you are organizing relief for the famine, Natalie." + +"Yes, I am. But that's my business," she answered. + +"Yes, it is your business," I said softly. "I am glad of it, for it just +fits in with my intentions. I beg your permission to take part in it." + +"Forgive me, I cannot let you do it," she said in response, and looked +away. + +"Why not, Natalie?" I said quietly. "Why not? I, too, am well fed and I, +too, want to help the hungry." + +"I don't know what it has to do with you," she said with a contemptuous +smile, shrugging her shoulders. "Nobody asks you." + +"Nobody asks you, either, and yet you have got up a regular committee in +_my_ house," I said. + +"I am asked, but you can have my word for it no one will ever ask you. +Go and help where you are not known." + +"For God's sake, don't talk to me in that tone." I tried to be mild, and +besought myself most earnestly not to lose my temper. For the first few +minutes I felt glad to be with my wife. I felt an atmosphere of youth, +of home, of feminine softness, of the most refined elegance--exactly +what was lacking on my floor and in my life altogether. My wife was +wearing a pink flannel dressing-gown; it made her look much younger, +and gave a softness to her rapid and sometimes abrupt movements. Her +beautiful dark hair, the mere sight of which at one time stirred me to +passion, had from sitting so long with her head bent come loose from +the comb and was untidy, but, to my eyes, that only made it look more +rich and luxuriant. All this, though is banal to the point of vulgarity. +Before me stood an ordinary woman, perhaps neither beautiful nor +elegant, but this was my wife with whom I had once lived, and with +whom I should have been living to this day if it had not been for her +unfortunate character; she was the one human being on the terrestrial +globe whom I loved. At this moment, just before going away, when I knew +that I should no longer see her even through the window, she seemed to +me fascinating even as she was, cold and forbidding, answering me with +a proud and contemptuous mockery. I was proud of her, and confessed to +myself that to go away from her was terrible and impossible. + +"Pavel Andreitch," she said after a brief silence, "for two years we +have not interfered with each other but have lived quietly. Why do you +suddenly feel it necessary to go back to the past? Yesterday you came to +insult and humiliate me," she went on, raising her voice, and her face +flushed and her eyes flamed with hatred; "but restrain yourself; do not +do it, Pavel Andreitch! Tomorrow I will send in a petition and they will +give me a passport, and I will go away; I will go! I will go! I'll go +into a convent, into a widows' home, into an almshouse...." + +"Into a lunatic asylum!" I cried, not able to restrain myself. + +"Well, even into a lunatic asylum! That would be better, that would be +better," she cried, with flashing eyes. "When I was in Pestrovo today I +envied the sick and starving peasant women because they are not living +with a man like you. They are free and honest, while, thanks to you, +I am a parasite, I am perishing in idleness, I eat your bread, I spend +your money, and I repay you with my liberty and a fidelity which is of +no use to any one. Because you won't give me a passport, I must respect +your good name, though it doesn't exist." + +I had to keep silent. Clenching my teeth, I walked quickly into the +drawing-room, but turned back at once and said: + +"I beg you earnestly that there should be no more assemblies, plots, +and meetings of conspirators in my house! I only admit to my house those +with whom I am acquainted, and let all your crew find another place +to do it if they want to take up philanthropy. I can't allow people at +midnight in my house to be shouting hurrah at successfully exploiting an +hysterical woman like you!" + +My wife, pale and wringing her hands, took a rapid stride across the +room, uttering a prolonged moan as though she had toothache. With a wave +of my hand, I went into the drawing-room. I was choking with rage, and +at the same time I was trembling with terror that I might not restrain +myself, and that I might say or do something which I might regret all my +life. And I clenched my hands tight, hoping to hold myself in. + +After drinking some water and recovering my calm a little, I went back +to my wife. She was standing in the same attitude as before, as though +barring my approach to the table with the papers. Tears were slowly +trickling down her pale, cold face. I paused then and said to her +bitterly but without anger: + +"How you misunderstand me! How unjust you are to me! I swear upon my +honour I came to you with the best of motives, with nothing but the +desire to do good!" + +"Pavel Andreitch!" she said, clasping her hands on her bosom, and her +face took on the agonized, imploring expression with which frightened, +weeping children beg not to be punished, "I know perfectly well that +you will refuse me, but still I beg you. Force yourself to do one kind +action in your life. I entreat you, go away from here! That's the only +thing you can do for the starving peasants. Go away, and I will forgive +you everything, everything!" + +"There is no need for you to insult me, Natalie," I sighed, feeling a +sudden rush of humility. "I had already made up my mind to go away, but +I won't go until I have done something for the peasants. It's my duty!" + +"Ach!" she said softly with an impatient frown. "You can make an +excellent bridge or railway, but you can do nothing for the starving +peasants. Do understand!" + +"Indeed? Yesterday you reproached me with indifference and with being +devoid of the feeling of compassion. How well you know me!" I laughed. +"You believe in God--well, God is my witness that I am worried day and +night...." + +"I see that you are worried, but the famine and compassion have nothing +to do with it. You are worried because the starving peasants can get +on without you, and because the Zemstvo, and in fact every one who is +helping them, does not need your guidance." + +I was silent, trying to suppress my irritation. Then I said: + +"I came to speak to you on business. Sit down. Please sit down." + +She did not sit down. + +"I beg you to sit down," I repeated, and I motioned her to a chair. + +She sat down. I sat down, too, thought a little, and said: + +"I beg you to consider earnestly what I am saying. Listen.... Moved by +love for your fellow-creatures, you have undertaken the organization of +famine relief. I have nothing against that, of course; I am completely +in sympathy with you, and am prepared to co-operate with you in every +way, whatever our relations may be. But, with all my respect for your +mind and your heart... and your heart," I repeated, "I cannot allow +such a difficult, complex, and responsible matter as the organization +of relief to be left in your hands entirely. You are a woman, you are +inexperienced, you know nothing of life, you are too confiding and +expansive. You have surrounded yourself with assistants whom you +know nothing about. I am not exaggerating if I say that under +these conditions your work will inevitably lead to two deplorable +consequences. To begin with, our district will be left unrelieved; +and, secondly, you will have to pay for your mistakes and those of your +assistants, not only with your purse, but with your reputation. The +money deficit and other losses I could, no doubt, make good, but +who could restore you your good name? When through lack of proper +supervision and oversight there is a rumour that you, and consequently +I, have made two hundred thousand over the famine fund, will your +assistants come to your aid?" + +She said nothing. + +"Not from vanity, as you say," I went on, "but simply that the starving +peasants may not be left unrelieved and your reputation may not be +injured, I feel it my moral duty to take part in your work." + +"Speak more briefly," said my wife. + +"You will be so kind," I went on, "as to show me what has been +subscribed so far and what you have spent. Then inform me daily of every +fresh subscription in money or kind, and of every fresh outlay. You will +also give me, Natalie, the list of your helpers. Perhaps they are quite +decent people; I don't doubt it; but, still, it is absolutely necessary +to make inquiries." + +She was silent. I got up, and walked up and down the room. + +"Let us set to work, then," I said, and I sat down to her table. + +"Are you in earnest?" she asked, looking at me in alarm and +bewilderment. + +"Natalie, do be reasonable!" I said appealingly, seeing from her face +that she meant to protest. "I beg you, trust my experience and my sense +of honour." + +"I don't understand what you want." + +"Show me how much you have collected and how much you have spent." + +"I have no secrets. Any one may see. Look." + +On the table lay five or six school exercise books, several sheets of +notepaper covered with writing, a map of the district, and a number of +pieces of paper of different sizes. It was getting dusk. I lighted a +candle. + +"Excuse me, I don't see anything yet," I said, turning over the leaves +of the exercise books. "Where is the account of the receipt of money +subscriptions?" + +"That can be seen from the subscription lists." + +"Yes, but you must have an account," I said, smiling at her naivete. +"Where are the letters accompanying the subscriptions in money or in +kind? _Pardon_, a little practical advice, Natalie: it's absolutely +necessary to keep those letters. You ought to number each letter and +make a special note of it in a special record. You ought to do the same +with your own letters. But I will do all that myself." + +"Do so, do so..." she said. + +I was very much pleased with myself. Attracted by this living +interesting work, by the little table, the naive exercise books and the +charm of doing this work in my wife's society, I was afraid that my wife +would suddenly hinder me and upset everything by some sudden whim, and +so I was in haste and made an effort to attach no consequence to the +fact that her lips were quivering, and that she was looking about her +with a helpless and frightened air like a wild creature in a trap. + +"I tell you what, Natalie," I said without looking at her; "let me take +all these papers and exercise books upstairs to my study. There I will +look through them and tell you what I think about it tomorrow. Have you +any more papers?" I asked, arranging the exercise books and sheets of +papers in piles. + +"Take them, take them all!" said my wife, helping me to arrange them, +and big tears ran down her cheeks. "Take it all! That's all that was +left me in life.... Take the last." + +"Ach! Natalie, Natalie!" I sighed reproachfully. + +She opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out +of it on the table at random, poking me in the chest with her elbow +and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept +dropping upon my knees and on the floor. + +"Take everything!" she said in a husky voice. + +When she had thrown out the papers she walked away from me, and putting +both hands to her head, she flung herself on the couch. I picked up the +money, put it back in the drawer, and locked it up that the servants +might not be led into dishonesty; then I gathered up all the papers and +went off with them. As I passed my wife I stopped and, looking at her +back and shaking shoulders, I said: + +"What a baby you are, Natalie! Fie, fie! Listen, Natalie: when you +realize how serious and responsible a business it is you will be the +first to thank me. I assure you you will." + +In my own room I set to work without haste. The exercise books were not +bound, the pages were not numbered. The entries were put in all sorts +of handwritings; evidently any one who liked had a hand in managing the +books. In the record of the subscriptions in kind there was no note of +their money value. But, excuse me, I thought, the rye which is now worth +one rouble fifteen kopecks may be worth two roubles fifteen kopecks in +two months' time! Was that the way to do things? Then, "Given to A. M. +Sobol 32 roubles." When was it given? For what purpose was it given? +Where was the receipt? There was nothing to show, and no making anything +of it. In case of legal proceedings, these papers would only obscure the +case. + +"How naive she is!" I thought with surprise. "What a child!" + +I felt both vexed and amused. + +V + +My wife had already collected eight thousand; with my five it would be +thirteen thousand. For a start that was very good. The business which +had so worried and interested me was at last in my hands; I was doing +what the others would not and could not do; I was doing my duty, +organizing the relief fund in a practical and business-like way. + +Everything seemed to be going in accordance with my desires and +intentions; but why did my feeling of uneasiness persist? I spent four +hours over my wife's papers, making out their meaning and correcting her +mistakes, but instead of feeling soothed, I felt as though some one were +standing behind me and rubbing my back with a rough hand. What was it +I wanted? The organization of the relief fund had come into trustworthy +hands, the hungry would be fed--what more was wanted? + +The four hours of this light work for some reason exhausted me, so that +I could not sit bending over the table nor write. From below I heard +from time to time a smothered moan; it was my wife sobbing. Alexey, +invariably meek, sleepy, and sanctimonious, kept coming up to the table +to see to the candles, and looked at me somewhat strangely. + +"Yes, I must go away," I decided at last, feeling utterly exhausted. +"As far as possible from these agreeable impressions! I will set off +tomorrow." + +I gathered together the papers and exercise books, and went down to my +wife. As, feeling quite worn out and shattered, I held the papers and +the exercise books to my breast with both hands, and passing through +my bedroom saw my trunks, the sound of weeping reached me through the +floor. + +"Are you a kammer-junker?" a voice whispered in my ear. "That's a very +pleasant thing. But yet you are a reptile." + +"It's all nonsense, nonsense, nonsense," I muttered as I went +downstairs. "Nonsense... and it's nonsense, too, that I am actuated +by vanity or a love of display.... What rubbish! Am I going to get a +decoration for working for the peasants or be made the director of a +department? Nonsense, nonsense! And who is there to show off to here in +the country?" + +I was tired, frightfully tired, and something kept whispering in my +ear: "Very pleasant. But, still, you are a reptile." For some reason I +remembered a line out of an old poem I knew as a child: "How pleasant it +is to be good!" + +My wife was lying on the couch in the same attitude, on her face and +with her hands clutching her head. She was crying. A maid was standing +beside her with a perplexed and frightened face. I sent the maid away, +laid the papers on the table, thought a moment and said: + +"Here are all your papers, Natalie. It's all in order, it's all capital, +and I am very much pleased. I am going away tomorrow." + +She went on crying. I went into the drawing-room and sat there in the +dark. My wife's sobs, her sighs, accused me of something, and to justify +myself I remembered the whole of our quarrel, starting from my unhappy +idea of inviting my wife to our consultation and ending with the +exercise books and these tears. It was an ordinary attack of our +conjugal hatred, senseless and unseemly, such as had been frequent +during our married life, but what had the starving peasants to do with +it? How could it have happened that they had become a bone of +contention between us? It was just as though pursuing one another we had +accidentally run up to the altar and had carried on a quarrel there. + +"Natalie," I said softly from the drawing-room, "hush, hush!" + +To cut short her weeping and make an end of this agonizing state of +affairs, I ought to have gone up to my wife and comforted her, caressed +her, or apologized; but how could I do it so that she would believe me? +How could I persuade the wild duck, living in captivity and hating me, +that it was dear to me, and that I felt for its sufferings? I had never +known my wife, so I had never known how to talk to her or what to +talk about. Her appearance I knew very well and appreciated it as it +deserved, but her spiritual, moral world, her mind, her outlook on life, +her frequent changes of mood, her eyes full of hatred, her disdain, +the scope and variety of her reading which sometimes struck me, or, +for instance, the nun-like expression I had seen on her face the day +before--all that was unknown and incomprehensible to me. When in my +collisions with her I tried to define what sort of a person she was, +my psychology went no farther than deciding that she was giddy, +impractical, ill-tempered, guided by feminine logic; and it seemed to +me that that was quite sufficient. But now that she was crying I had a +passionate desire to know more. + +The weeping ceased. I went up to my wife. She sat up on the couch, and, +with her head propped in both hands, looked fixedly and dreamily at the +fire. + +"I am going away tomorrow morning," I said. + +She said nothing. I walked across the room, sighed, and said: + +"Natalie, when you begged me to go away, you said: 'I will forgive you +everything, everything'.... So you think I have wronged you. I beg you +calmly and in brief terms to formulate the wrong I've done you." + +"I am worn out. Afterwards, some time..." said my wife. + +"How am I to blame?" I went on. "What have I done? Tell me: you are +young and beautiful, you want to live, and I am nearly twice your age +and hated by you, but is that my fault? I didn't marry you by force. But +if you want to live in freedom, go; I'll give you your liberty. You can +go and love whom you please.... I will give you a divorce." + +"That's not what I want," she said. "You know I used to love you and +always thought of myself as older than you. That's all nonsense.... +You are not to blame for being older or for my being younger, or that I +might be able to love some one else if I were free; but because you are +a difficult person, an egoist, and hate every one." + +"Perhaps so. I don't know," I said. + +"Please go away. You want to go on at me till the morning, but I warn +you I am quite worn out and cannot answer you. You promised me to go to +town. I am very grateful; I ask nothing more." + +My wife wanted me to go away, but it was not easy for me to do that. I +was dispirited and I dreaded the big, cheerless, chill rooms that I was +so weary of. Sometimes when I had an ache or a pain as a child, I used +to huddle up to my mother or my nurse, and when I hid my face in the +warm folds of their dress, it seemed to me as though I were hiding from +the pain. And in the same way it seemed to me now that I could only hide +from my uneasiness in this little room beside my wife. I sat down +and screened away the light from my eyes with my hand.... There was a +stillness. + +"How are you to blame?" my wife said after a long silence, looking at me +with red eyes that gleamed with tears. "You are very well educated and +very well bred, very honest, just, and high-principled, but in you +the effect of all that is that wherever you go you bring suffocation, +oppression, something insulting and humiliating to the utmost degree. +You have a straightforward way of looking at things, and so you hate +the whole world. You hate those who have faith, because faith is an +expression of ignorance and lack of culture, and at the same time you +hate those who have no faith for having no faith and no ideals; you hate +old people for being conservative and behind the times, and young people +for free-thinking. The interests of the peasantry and of Russia are dear +to you, and so you hate the peasants because you suspect every one of +them of being a thief and a robber. You hate every one. You are just, +and always take your stand on your legal rights, and so you are always +at law with the peasants and your neighbours. You have had twenty +bushels of rye stolen, and your love of order has made you complain of +the peasants to the Governor and all the local authorities, and to send +a complaint of the local authorities to Petersburg. Legal justice!" said +my wife, and she laughed. "On the ground of your legal rights and in +the interests of morality, you refuse to give me a passport. Law and +morality is such that a self-respecting healthy young woman has to spend +her life in idleness, in depression, and in continual apprehension, and +to receive in return board and lodging from a man she does not love. You +have a thorough knowledge of the law, you are very honest and just, you +respect marriage and family life, and the effect of all that is that all +your life you have not done one kind action, that every one hates you, +that you are on bad terms with every one, and the seven years that you +have been married you've only lived seven months with your wife. You've +had no wife and I've had no husband. To live with a man like you is +impossible; there is no way of doing it. In the early years I was +frightened with you, and now I am ashamed.... That's how my best years +have been wasted. When I fought with you I ruined my temper, grew +shrewish, coarse, timid, mistrustful.... Oh, but what's the use of +talking! As though you wanted to understand! Go upstairs, and God be +with you!" + +My wife lay down on the couch and sank into thought. + +"And how splendid, how enviable life might have been!" she said softly, +looking reflectively into the fire. "What a life it might have been! +There's no bringing it back now." + +Any one who has lived in the country in winter and knows those long +dreary, still evenings when even the dogs are too bored to bark and even +the clocks seem weary of ticking, and any one who on such evenings has +been troubled by awakening conscience and has moved restlessly about, +trying now to smother his conscience, now to interpret it, will +understand the distraction and the pleasure my wife's voice gave me as +it sounded in the snug little room, telling me I was a bad man. I did +not understand what was wanted of me by my conscience, and my wife, +translating it in her feminine way, made clear to me in the meaning of +my agitation. As often before in the moments of intense uneasiness, I +guessed that the whole secret lay, not in the starving peasants, but in +my not being the sort of a man I ought to be. + +My wife got up with an effort and came up to me. + +"Pavel Andreitch," she said, smiling mournfully, "forgive me, I don't +believe you: you are not going away, but I will ask you one more favour. +Call this"--she pointed to her papers--"self-deception, feminine logic, +a mistake, as you like; but do not hinder me. It's all that is left me +in life." She turned away and paused. "Before this I had nothing. I have +wasted my youth in fighting with you. Now I have caught at this and am +living; I am happy.... It seems to me that I have found in this a means +of justifying my existence." + +"Natalie, you are a good woman, a woman of ideas," I said, looking at my +wife enthusiastically, "and everything you say and do is intelligent and +fine." + +I walked about the room to conceal my emotion. + +"Natalie," I went on a minute later, "before I go away, I beg of you as +a special favour, help me to do something for the starving peasants!" + +"What can I do?" said my wife, shrugging her shoulders. "Here's the +subscription list." + +She rummaged among the papers and found the subscription list. + +"Subscribe some money," she said, and from her tone I could see that she +did not attach great importance to her subscription list; "that is the +only way in which you can take part in the work." + +I took the list and wrote: "Anonymous, 5,000." + +In this "anonymous" there was something wrong, false, conceited, but +I only realized that when I noticed that my wife flushed very red and +hurriedly thrust the list into the heap of papers. We both felt ashamed; +I felt that I must at all costs efface this clumsiness at once, or else +I should feel ashamed afterwards, in the train and at Petersburg. But +how efface it? What was I to say? + +"I fully approve of what you are doing, Natalie," I said genuinely, "and +I wish you every success. But allow me at parting to give you one +piece of advice, Natalie; be on your guard with Sobol, and with your +assistants generally, and don't trust them blindly. I don't say they are +not honest, but they are not gentlefolks; they are people with no ideas, +no ideals, no faith, with no aim in life, no definite principles, and +the whole object of their life is comprised in the rouble. Rouble, +rouble, rouble!" I sighed. "They are fond of getting money easily, for +nothing, and in that respect the better educated they are the more they +are to be dreaded." + +My wife went to the couch and lay down. + +"Ideas," she brought out, listlessly and reluctantly, "ideas, ideals, +objects of life, principles....you always used to use those words when +you wanted to insult or humiliate some one, or say something unpleasant. +Yes, that's your way: if with your views and such an attitude to people +you are allowed to take part in anything, you would destroy it from the +first day. It's time you understand that." + +She sighed and paused. + +"It's coarseness of character, Pavel Andreitch," she said. "You are +well-bred and educated, but what a... Scythian you are in reality! +That's because you lead a cramped life full of hatred, see no one, and +read nothing but your engineering books. And, you know, there are good +people, good books! Yes... but I am exhausted and it wearies me to talk. +I ought to be in bed." + +"So I am going away, Natalie," I said. + +"Yes... yes.... _Merci_...." + +I stood still for a little while, then went upstairs. An hour later--it +was half-past one--I went downstairs again with a candle in my hand to +speak to my wife. I didn't know what I was going to say to her, but I +felt that I must say some thing very important and necessary. She was +not in her study, the door leading to her bedroom was closed. + +"Natalie, are you asleep?" I asked softly. + +There was no answer. + +I stood near the door, sighed, and went into the drawing-room. There I +sat down on the sofa, put out the candle, and remained sitting in the +dark till the dawn. + +VI + +I went to the station at ten o'clock in the morning. There was no frost, +but snow was falling in big wet flakes and an unpleasant damp wind was +blowing. + +We passed a pond and then a birch copse, and then began going uphill +along the road which I could see from my window. I turned round to take +a last look at my house, but I could see nothing for the snow. Soon +afterwards dark huts came into sight ahead of us as in a fog. It was +Pestrovo. + +"If I ever go out of my mind, Pestrovo will be the cause of it," I +thought. "It persecutes me." + +We came out into the village street. All the roofs were intact, not one +of them had been pulled to pieces; so my bailiff had told a lie. A boy +was pulling along a little girl and a baby in a sledge. Another boy of +three, with his head wrapped up like a peasant woman's and with huge +mufflers on his hands, was trying to catch the flying snowflakes on his +tongue, and laughing. Then a wagon loaded with fagots came toward us and +a peasant walking beside it, and there was no telling whether his +beard was white or whether it was covered with snow. He recognized my +coachman, smiled at him and said something, and mechanically took off +his hat to me. The dogs ran out of the yards and looked inquisitively at +my horses. Everything was quiet, ordinary, as usual. The emigrants had +returned, there was no bread; in the huts "some were laughing, some were +delirious"; but it all looked so ordinary that one could not believe +it really was so. There were no distracted faces, no voices whining for +help, no weeping, nor abuse, but all around was stillness, order, life, +children, sledges, dogs with dishevelled tails. Neither the children nor +the peasant we met were troubled; why was I so troubled? + +Looking at the smiling peasant, at the boy with the huge mufflers, at +the huts, remembering my wife, I realized there was no calamity that +could daunt this people; I felt as though there were already a breath +of victory in the air. I felt proud and felt ready to cry out that I +was with them too; but the horses were carrying us away from the village +into the open country, the snow was whirling, the wind was howling, and +I was left alone with my thoughts. Of the million people working for the +peasantry, life itself had cast me out as a useless, incompetent, +bad man. I was a hindrance, a part of the people's calamity; I was +vanquished, cast out, and I was hurrying to the station to go away and +hide myself in Petersburg in a hotel in Bolshaya Morskaya. + +An hour later we reached the station. The coachman and a porter with a +disc on his breast carried my trunks into the ladies' room. My coachman +Nikanor, wearing high felt boots and the skirt of his coat tucked up +through his belt, all wet with the snow and glad I was going away, gave +me a friendly smile and said: + +"A fortunate journey, your Excellency. God give you luck." + +Every one, by the way, calls me "your Excellency," though I am only a +collegiate councillor and a kammer-junker. The porter told me the train +had not yet left the next station; I had to wait. I went outside, and +with my head heavy from my sleepless night, and so exhausted I could +hardly move my legs, I walked aimlessly towards the pump. There was not +a soul anywhere near. + +"Why am I going?" I kept asking myself. "What is there awaiting me +there? The acquaintances from whom I have come away, loneliness, +restaurant dinners, noise, the electric light, which makes my eyes ache. +Where am I going, and what am I going for? What am I going for?" + +And it seemed somehow strange to go away without speaking to my wife. I +felt that I was leaving her in uncertainty. Going away, I ought to have +told that she was right, that I really was a bad man. + +When I turned away from the pump, I saw in the doorway the +station-master, of whom I had twice made complaints to his superiors, +turning up the collar of his coat, shrinking from the wind and the snow. +He came up to me, and putting two fingers to the peak of his cap, told +me with an expression of helpless confusion, strained respectfulness, +and hatred on his face, that the train was twenty minutes late, and +asked me would I not like to wait in the warm? + +"Thank you," I answered, "but I am probably not going. Send word to my +coachman to wait; I have not made up my mind." + +I walked to and fro on the platform and thought, should I go away or +not? When the train came in I decided not to go. At home I had to expect +my wife's amazement and perhaps her mockery, the dismal upper storey and +my uneasiness; but, still, at my age that was easier and as it were +more homelike than travelling for two days and nights with strangers to +Petersburg, where I should be conscious every minute that my life was of +no use to any one or to anything, and that it was approaching its end. +No, better at home whatever awaited me there.... I went out of the +station. It was awkward by daylight to return home, where every one was +so glad at my going. I might spend the rest of the day till evening at +some neighbour's, but with whom? With some of them I was on strained +relations, others I did not know at all. I considered and thought of +Ivan Ivanitch. + +"We are going to Bragino!" I said to the coachman, getting into the +sledge. + +"It's a long way," sighed Nikanor; "it will be twenty miles, or maybe +twenty-five." + +"Oh, please, my dear fellow," I said in a tone as though Nikanor had the +right to refuse. "Please let us go!" + +Nikanor shook his head doubtfully and said slowly that we really ought +to have put in the shafts, not Circassian, but Peasant or Siskin; and +uncertainly, as though expecting I should change my mind, took the reins +in his gloves, stood up, thought a moment, and then raised his whip. + +"A whole series of inconsistent actions..." I thought, screening my face +from the snow. "I must have gone out of my mind. Well, I don't care...." + +In one place, on a very high and steep slope, Nikanor carefully held +the horses in to the middle of the descent, but in the middle the horses +suddenly bolted and dashed downhill at a fearful rate; he raised his +elbows and shouted in a wild, frantic voice such as I had never heard +from him before: + +"Hey! Let's give the general a drive! If you come to grief he'll buy new +ones, my darlings! Hey! look out! We'll run you down!" + +Only now, when the extraordinary pace we were going at took my breath +away, I noticed that he was very drunk. He must have been drinking at +the station. At the bottom of the descent there was the crash of ice; a +piece of dirty frozen snow thrown up from the road hit me a painful blow +in the face. + +The runaway horses ran up the hill as rapidly as they had downhill, and +before I had time to shout to Nikanor my sledge was flying along on +the level in an old pine forest, and the tall pines were stretching out +their shaggy white paws to me from all directions. + +"I have gone out of my mind, and the coachman's drunk," I thought. +"Good!" + +I found Ivan Ivanitch at home. He laughed till he coughed, laid his head +on my breast, and said what he always did say on meeting me: + +"You grow younger and younger. I don't know what dye you use for your +hair and your beard; you might give me some of it." + +"I've come to return your call, Ivan Ivanitch," I said untruthfully. +"Don't be hard on me; I'm a townsman, conventional; I do keep count of +calls." + +"I am delighted, my dear fellow. I am an old man; I like respect.... +Yes." + +From his voice and his blissfully smiling face, I could see that he was +greatly flattered by my visit. Two peasant women helped me off with my +coat in the entry, and a peasant in a red shirt hung it on a hook, and +when Ivan Ivanitch and I went into his little study, two barefooted +little girls were sitting on the floor looking at a picture-book; when +they saw us they jumped up and ran away, and a tall, thin old woman +in spectacles came in at once, bowed gravely to me, and picking up a +pillow from the sofa and a picture-book from the floor, went away. From +the adjoining rooms we heard incessant whispering and the patter of bare +feet. + +"I am expecting the doctor to dinner," said Ivan Ivanitch. "He promised +to come from the relief centre. Yes. He dines with me every Wednesday, +God bless him." He craned towards me and kissed me on the neck. +"You have come, my dear fellow, so you are not vexed," he whispered, +sniffing. "Don't be vexed, my dear creature. Yes. Perhaps it is +annoying, but don't be cross. My only prayer to God before I die is to +live in peace and harmony with all in the true way. Yes." + +"Forgive me, Ivan Ivanitch, I will put my feet on a chair," I said, +feeling that I was so exhausted I could not be myself; I sat further +back on the sofa and put up my feet on an arm-chair. My face was burning +from the snow and the wind, and I felt as though my whole body were +basking in the warmth and growing weaker from it. + +"It's very nice here," I went on--"warm, soft, snug... and goose-feather +pens," I laughed, looking at the writing-table; "sand instead of +blotting-paper." + +"Eh? Yes... yes.... The writing-table and the mahogany cupboard here +were made for my father by a self-taught cabinet-maker--Glyeb Butyga, a +serf of General Zhukov's. Yes... a great artist in his own way." + +Listlessly and in the tone of a man dropping asleep, he began telling me +about cabinet-maker Butyga. I listened. Then Ivan Ivanitch went into the +next room to show me a polisander wood chest of drawers remarkable for +its beauty and cheapness. He tapped the chest with his fingers, then +called my attention to a stove of patterned tiles, such as one never +sees now. He tapped the stove, too, with his fingers. There was an +atmosphere of good-natured simplicity and well-fed abundance about +the chest of drawers, the tiled stove, the low chairs, the pictures +embroidered in wool and silk on canvas in solid, ugly frames. When one +remembers that all those objects were standing in the same places and +precisely in the same order when I was a little child, and used to come +here to name-day parties with my mother, it is simply unbelievable that +they could ever cease to exist. + +I thought what a fearful difference between Butyga and me! Butyga who +made things, above all, solidly and substantially, and seeing in that +his chief object, gave to length of life peculiar significance, had no +thought of death, and probably hardly believed in its possibility; I, +when I built my bridges of iron and stone which would last a thousand +years, could not keep from me the thought, "It's not for long....it's no +use." If in time Butyga's cupboard and my bridge should come under the +notice of some sensible historian of art, he would say: "These were two +men remarkable in their own way: Butyga loved his fellow-creatures and +would not admit the thought that they might die and be annihilated, and +so when he made his furniture he had the immortal man in his mind. The +engineer Asorin did not love life or his fellow-creatures; even in +the happy moments of creation, thoughts of death, of finiteness and +dissolution, were not alien to him, and we see how insignificant and +finite, how timid and poor, are these lines of his...." + +"I only heat these rooms," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, showing me his rooms. +"Ever since my wife died and my son was killed in the war, I have kept +the best rooms shut up. Yes... see..." + +He opened a door, and I saw a big room with four columns, an old piano, +and a heap of peas on the floor; it smelt cold and damp. + +"The garden seats are in the next room..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch. +"There's no one to dance the mazurka now.... I've shut them up." + +We heard a noise. It was Dr. Sobol arriving. While he was rubbing his +cold hands and stroking his wet beard, I had time to notice in the +first place that he had a very dull life, and so was pleased to see Ivan +Ivanitch and me; and, secondly, that he was a naive and simple-hearted +man. He looked at me as though I were very glad to see him and very much +interested in him. + +"I have not slept for two nights," he said, looking at me naively and +stroking his beard. "One night with a confinement, and the next I stayed +at a peasant's with the bugs biting me all night. I am as sleepy as +Satan, do you know." + +With an expression on his face as though it could not afford me anything +but pleasure, he took me by the arm and led me to the dining-room. His +naive eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie and the smell of iodoform +made an unpleasant impression upon me; I felt as though I were in vulgar +company. When we sat down to table he filled my glass with vodka, and, +smiling helplessly, I drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I +ate it submissively. + +"_Repetitia est mater studiorum_," said Sobol, hastening to drink off +another wineglassful. "Would you believe it, the joy of seeing good +people has driven away my sleepiness? I have turned into a peasant, a +savage in the wilds; I've grown coarse, but I am still an educated man, +and I tell you in good earnest, it's tedious without company." + +They served first for a cold course white sucking-pig with horse-radish +cream, then a rich and very hot cabbage soup with pork on it, with +boiled buckwheat, from which rose a column of steam. The doctor went on +talking, and I was soon convinced that he was a weak, unfortunate man, +disorderly in external life. Three glasses of vodka made him drunk; he +grew unnaturally lively, ate a great deal, kept clearing his throat and +smacking his lips, and already addressed me in Italian, "Eccellenza." +Looking naively at me as though he were convinced that I was very glad +to see and hear him, he informed me that he had long been separated from +his wife and gave her three-quarters of his salary; that she lived in +the town with his children, a boy and a girl, whom he adored; that +he loved another woman, a widow, well educated, with an estate in the +country, but was rarely able to see her, as he was busy with his work +from morning till night and had not a free moment. + +"The whole day long, first at the hospital, then on my rounds," he told +us; "and I assure you, Eccellenza, I have not time to read a book, let +alone going to see the woman I love. I've read nothing for ten years! +For ten years, Eccellenza. As for the financial side of the question, +ask Ivan Ivanitch: I have often no money to buy tobacco." + +"On the other hand, you have the moral satisfaction of your work," I +said. + +"What?" he asked, and he winked. "No," he said, "better let us drink." + +I listened to the doctor, and, after my invariable habit, tried to take +his measure by my usual classification--materialist, idealist, filthy +lucre, gregarious instincts, and so on; but no classification fitted +him even approximately; and strange to say, while I simply listened and +looked at him, he seemed perfectly clear to me as a person, but as soon +as I began trying to classify him he became an exceptionally complex, +intricate, and incomprehensible character in spite of all his candour +and simplicity. "Is that man," I asked myself, "capable of wasting other +people's money, abusing their confidence, being disposed to sponge on +them?" And now this question, which had once seemed to me grave and +important, struck me as crude, petty, and coarse. + +Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between, during +which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of pigeons, +some dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges, cauliflower, curd +dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and finally pancakes and jam. +At first I ate with great relish, especially the cabbage soup and the +buckwheat, but afterwards I munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling +helplessly and unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning +from the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and +Sobol, too, were crimson. + +"To the health of your wife," said Sobol. "She likes me. Tell her her +doctor sends her his respects." + +"She's fortunate, upon my word," sighed Ivan Ivanitch. "Though she takes +no trouble, does not fuss or worry herself, she has become the most +important person in the whole district. Almost the whole business is +in her hands, and they all gather round her, the doctor, the District +Captains, and the ladies. With people of the right sort that happens +of itself. Yes.... The apple-tree need take no thought for the apple to +grow on it; it will grow of itself." + +"It's only people who don't care who take no thought," said I. + +"Eh? Yes..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch, not catching what I said, "that's +true.... One must not worry oneself. Just so, just so.... Only do your +duty towards God and your neighbour, and then never mind what happens." + +"Eccellenza," said Sobol solemnly, "just look at nature about us: if +you poke your nose or your ear out of your fur collar it will be +frost-bitten; stay in the fields for one hour, you'll be buried in the +snow; while the village is just the same as in the days of Rurik, +the same Petchenyegs and Polovtsi. It's nothing but being burnt down, +starving, and struggling against nature in every way. What was I saying? +Yes! If one thinks about it, you know, looks into it and analyses all +this hotchpotch, if you will allow me to call it so, it's not life but +more like a fire in a theatre! Any one who falls down or screams with +terror, or rushes about, is the worst enemy of good order; one must +stand up and look sharp, and not stir a hair! There's no time for +whimpering and busying oneself with trifles. When you have to deal with +elemental forces you must put out force against them, be firm and as +unyielding as a stone. Isn't that right, grandfather?" He turned to Ivan +Ivanitch and laughed. "I am no better than a woman myself; I am a limp +rag, a flabby creature, so I hate flabbiness. I can't endure petty +feelings! One mopes, another is frightened, a third will come straight +in here and say: 'Fie on you! Here you've guzzled a dozen courses and +you talk about the starving!' That's petty and stupid! A fourth will +reproach you, Eccellenza, for being rich. Excuse me, Eccellenza," he +went on in a loud voice, laying his hand on his heart, "but your +having set our magistrate the task of hunting day and night for your +thieves--excuse me, that's also petty on your part. I am a little drunk, +so that's why I say this now, but you know, it is petty!" + +"Who's asking him to worry himself? I don't understand!" I said, getting +up. + +I suddenly felt unbearably ashamed and mortified, and I walked round the +table. + +"Who asks him to worry himself? I didn't ask him to.... Damn him!" + +"They have arrested three men and let them go again. They turned out not +to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a fresh lot," said +Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!" + +"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with +excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well, supposing I was +wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they try to put me more in +the wrong?" + +"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me. "Come! I +have had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my enemy. Come," he +sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now for a nap." + +He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and +staggering from repletion, went out of the dining-room. Ivan Ivanitch +and I smoked in silence. + +"I don't sleep after dinner, my dear," said Ivan Ivanitch, "but you have +a rest in the lounge-room." + +I agreed. In the half-dark and warmly heated room they called the +lounge-room, there stood against the walls long, wide sofas, solid and +heavy, the work of Butyga the cabinet maker; on them lay high, soft, +white beds, probably made by the old woman in spectacles. On one of them +Sobol, without his coat and boots, already lay asleep with his face to +the back of the sofa; another bed was awaiting me. I took off my coat +and boots, and, overcome by fatigue, by the spirit of Butyga which +hovered over the quiet lounge-room, and by the light, caressing snore of +Sobol, I lay down submissively. + +And at once I began dreaming of my wife, of her room, of the +station-master with his face full of hatred, the heaps of snow, a fire +in the theatre. I dreamed of the peasants who had stolen twenty sacks of +rye out of my barn. + +"Anyway, it's a good thing the magistrate let them go," I said. + +I woke up at the sound of my own voice, looked for a moment in +perplexity at Sobol's broad back, at the buckles of his waistcoat, at +his thick heels, then lay down again and fell asleep. + +When I woke up the second time it was quite dark. Sobol was asleep. +There was peace in my heart, and I longed to make haste home. I dressed +and went out of the lounge-room. Ivan Ivanitch was sitting in a big +arm-chair in his study, absolutely motionless, staring at a fixed point, +and it was evident that he had been in the same state of petrifaction +all the while I had been asleep. + +"Good!" I said, yawning. "I feel as though I had woken up after breaking +the fast at Easter. I shall often come and see you now. Tell me, did my +wife ever dine here?" + +"So-ome-ti-mes... sometimes,"' muttered Ivan Ivanitch, making an effort +to stir. "She dined here last Saturday. Yes.... She likes me." + +After a silence I said: + +"Do you remember, Ivan Ivanitch, you told me I had a disagreeable +character and that it was difficult to get on with me? But what am I to +do to make my character different?" + +"I don't know, my dear boy.... I'm a feeble old man, I can't advise +you.... Yes.... But I said that to you at the time because I am fond +of you and fond of your wife, and I was fond of your father.... Yes. I +shall soon die, and what need have I to conceal things from you or to +tell you lies? So I tell you: I am very fond of you, but I don't respect +you. No, I don't respect you." + +He turned towards me and said in a breathless whisper: + +"It's impossible to respect you, my dear fellow. You look like a +real man. You have the figure and deportment of the French President +Carnot--I saw a portrait of him the other day in an illustrated paper... +yes.... You use lofty language, and you are clever, and you are high up +in the service beyond all reach, but haven't real soul, my dear boy... +there's no strength in it." + +"A Scythian, in fact," I laughed. "But what about my wife? Tell me +something about my wife; you know her better." + +I wanted to talk about my wife, but Sobol came in and prevented me. + +"I've had a sleep and a wash," he said, looking at me naively. "I'll +have a cup of tea with some rum in it and go home." + +VII + +It was by now past seven. Besides Ivan Ivanitch, women servants, the old +dame in spectacles, the little girls and the peasant, all accompanied us +from the hall out on to the steps, wishing us good-bye and all sorts of +blessings, while near the horses in the darkness there were standing and +moving about men with lanterns, telling our coachmen how and which way +to drive, and wishing us a lucky journey. The horses, the men, and the +sledges were white. + +"Where do all these people come from?" I asked as my three horses and +the doctor's two moved at a walking pace out of the yard. + +"They are all his serfs," said Sobol. "The new order has not reached him +yet. Some of the old servants are living out their lives with him, and +then there are orphans of all sorts who have nowhere to go; there are +some, too, who insist on living there, there's no turning them out. A +queer old man!" + +Again the flying horses, the strange voice of drunken Nikanor, the wind +and the persistent snow, which got into one's eyes, one's mouth, and +every fold of one's fur coat.... + +"Well, I am running a rig," I thought, while my bells chimed in with +the doctor's, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and while this +frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the details of that strange +wild day, unique in my life, and it seemed to me that I really had gone +out of my mind or become a different man. It was as though the man I had +been till that day were already a stranger to me. + +The doctor drove behind and kept talking loudly with his coachman. From +time to time he overtook me, drove side by side, and always, with the +same naive confidence that it was very pleasant to me, offered me a +cigarette or asked for the matches. Or, overtaking me, he would lean right +out of his sledge, and waving about the sleeves of his fur coat, which +were at least twice as long as his arms, shout: + +"Go it, Vaska! Beat the thousand roublers! Hey, my kittens!" + +And to the accompaniment of loud, malicious laughter from Sobol and +his Vaska the doctor's kittens raced ahead. My Nikanor took it as an +affront, and held in his three horses, but when the doctor's bells had +passed out of hearing, he raised his elbows, shouted, and our horses +flew like mad in pursuit. We drove into a village, there were glimpses +of lights, the silhouettes of huts. Some one shouted: + +"Ah, the devils!" We seemed to have galloped a mile and a half, and +still it was the village street and there seemed no end to it. When we +caught up the doctor and drove more quietly, he asked for matches and +said: + +"Now try and feed that street! And, you know, there are five streets +like that, sir. Stay, stay," he shouted. "Turn in at the tavern! We must +get warm and let the horses rest." + +They stopped at the tavern. + +"I have more than one village like that in my district," said the +doctor, opening a heavy door with a squeaky block, and ushering me in +front of him. "If you look in broad daylight you can't see to the end of +the street, and there are side-streets, too, and one can do nothing but +scratch one's head. It's hard to do anything." + +We went into the best room where there was a strong smell of +table-cloths, and at our entrance a sleepy peasant in a waistcoat and a +shirt worn outside his trousers jumped up from a bench. Sobol asked for +some beer and I asked for tea. + +"It's hard to do anything," said Sobol. "Your wife has faith; I respect +her and have the greatest reverence for her, but I have no great faith +myself. As long as our relations to the people continue to have the +character of ordinary philanthropy, as shown in orphan asylums and +almshouses, so long we shall only be shuffling, shamming, and deceiving +ourselves, and nothing more. Our relations ought to be businesslike, +founded on calculation, knowledge, and justice. My Vaska has been +working for me all his life; his crops have failed, he is sick and +starving. If I give him fifteen kopecks a day, by so doing I try to +restore him to his former condition as a workman; that is, I am first +and foremost looking after my own interests, and yet for some reason I +call that fifteen kopecks relief, charity, good works. Now let us put +it like this. On the most modest computation, reckoning seven kopecks a +soul and five souls a family, one needs three hundred and fifty roubles +a day to feed a thousand families. That sum is fixed by our practical +duty to a thousand families. Meanwhile we give not three hundred and +fifty a day, but only ten, and say that that is relief, charity, that +that makes your wife and all of us exceptionally good people and hurrah +for our humaneness. That is it, my dear soul! Ah! if we would talk less +of being humane and calculated more, reasoned, and took a conscientious +attitude to our duties! How many such humane, sensitive people there are +among us who tear about in all good faith with subscription lists, but +don't pay their tailors or their cooks. There is no logic in our life; +that's what it is! No logic!" + +We were silent for a while. I was making a mental calculation and said: + +"I will feed a thousand families for two hundred days. Come and see me +tomorrow to talk it over." + +I was pleased that this was said quite simply, and was glad that Sobol +answered me still more simply: + +"Right." + +We paid for what we had and went out of the tavern. + +"I like going on like this," said Sobol, getting into the sledge. +"Eccellenza, oblige me with a match. I've forgotten mine in the tavern." + +A quarter of an hour later his horses fell behind, and the sound of his +bells was lost in the roar of the snow-storm. Reaching home, I walked +about my rooms, trying to think things over and to define my position +clearly to myself; I had not one word, one phrase, ready for my wife. My +brain was not working. + +But without thinking of anything, I went downstairs to my wife. She was +in her room, in the same pink dressing-gown, and standing in the same +attitude as though screening her papers from me. On her face was an +expression of perplexity and irony, and it was evident that having heard +of my arrival, she had prepared herself not to cry, not to entreat me, +not to defend herself, as she had done the day before, but to laugh at +me, to answer me contemptuously, and to act with decision. Her face was +saying: "If that's how it is, good-bye." + +"Natalie, I've not gone away," I said, "but it's not deception. I have +gone out of my mind; I've grown old, I'm ill, I've become a different +man--think as you like.... I've shaken off my old self with horror, with +horror; I despise him and am ashamed of him, and the new man who has +been in me since yesterday will not let me go away. Do not drive me +away, Natalie!" + +She looked intently into my face and believed me, and there was a gleam +of uneasiness in her eyes. Enchanted by her presence, warmed by the +warmth of her room, I muttered as in delirium, holding out my hands to +her: + +"I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for one +minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity prevented me +from owning it. The past, when we lived as husband and wife, cannot be +brought back, and there's no need; but make me your servant, take all my +property, and give it away to any one you like. I am at peace, Natalie, +I am content.... I am at peace." + +My wife, looking intently and with curiosity into my face, suddenly +uttered a faint cry, burst into tears, and ran into the next room. I +went upstairs to my own storey. + +An hour later I was sitting at my table, writing my "History of +Railways," and the starving peasants did not now hinder me from doing +so. Now I feel no uneasiness. Neither the scenes of disorder which I saw +when I went the round of the huts at Pestrovo with my wife and Sobol the +other day, nor malignant rumours, nor the mistakes of the people around +me, nor old age close upon me--nothing disturbs me. Just as the flying +bullets do not hinder soldiers from talking of their own affairs, eating +and cleaning their boots, so the starving peasants do not hinder me from +sleeping quietly and looking after my personal affairs. In my house and +far around it there is in full swing the work which Dr. Sobol calls "an +orgy of philanthropy." My wife often comes up to me and looks about +my rooms uneasily, as though looking for what more she can give to the +starving peasants "to justify her existence," and I see that, thanks +to her, there will soon be nothing of our property left and we shall be +poor; but that does not trouble me, and I smile at her gaily. What will +happen in the future I don't know. + + + + + +DIFFICULT PEOPLE + +YEVGRAF IVANOVITCH SHIRYAEV, a small farmer, whose father, a parish +priest, now deceased, had received a gift of three hundred acres of land +from Madame Kuvshinnikov, a general's widow, was standing in a corner +before a copper washing-stand, washing his hands. As usual, his face +looked anxious and ill-humoured, and his beard was uncombed. + +"What weather!" he said. "It's not weather, but a curse laid upon us. +It's raining again!" + +He grumbled on, while his family sat waiting at table for him to have +finished washing his hands before beginning dinner. Fedosya Semyonovna, +his wife, his son Pyotr, a student, his eldest daughter Varvara, and +three small boys, had been sitting waiting a long time. The boys--Kolka, +Vanka, and Arhipka--grubby, snub-nosed little fellows with chubby faces +and tousled hair that wanted cutting, moved their chairs impatiently, +while their elders sat without stirring, and apparently did not care +whether they ate their dinner or waited.... + +As though trying their patience, Shiryaev deliberately dried his hands, +deliberately said his prayer, and sat down to the table without hurrying +himself. Cabbage-soup was served immediately. The sound of carpenters' +axes (Shiryaev was having a new barn built) and the laughter of Fomka, +their labourer, teasing the turkey, floated in from the courtyard. + +Big, sparse drops of rain pattered on the window. + +Pyotr, a round-shouldered student in spectacles, kept exchanging glances +with his mother as he ate his dinner. Several times he laid down his +spoon and cleared his throat, meaning to begin to speak, but after an +intent look at his father he fell to eating again. At last, when the +porridge had been served, he cleared his throat resolutely and said: + +"I ought to go tonight by the evening train. I ought to have gone before; +I have missed a fortnight as it is. The lectures begin on the first of +September." + +"Well, go," Shiryaev assented; "why are you lingering on here? Pack up +and go, and good luck to you." + +A minute passed in silence. + +"He must have money for the journey, Yevgraf Ivanovitch," the mother +observed in a low voice. + +"Money? To be sure, you can't go without money. Take it at once, since +you need it. You could have had it long ago!" + +The student heaved a faint sigh and looked with relief at his mother. +Deliberately Shiryaev took a pocket-book out of his coat-pocket and put +on his spectacles. + +"How much do you want?" he asked. + +"The fare to Moscow is eleven roubles forty-two kopecks...." + +"Ah, money, money!" sighed the father. (He always sighed when he saw +money, even when he was receiving it.) "Here are twelve roubles for +you. You will have change out of that which will be of use to you on the +journey." + +"Thank you." + +After waiting a little, the student said: + +"I did not get lessons quite at first last year. I don't know how it +will be this year; most likely it will take me a little time to find +work. I ought to ask you for fifteen roubles for my lodging and dinner." + +Shiryaev thought a little and heaved a sigh. + +"You will have to make ten do," he said. "Here, take it." + +The student thanked him. He ought to have asked him for something more, +for clothes, for lecture fees, for books, but after an intent look at +his father he decided not to pester him further. + +The mother, lacking in diplomacy and prudence, like all mothers, could +not restrain herself, and said: + +"You ought to give him another six roubles, Yevgraf Ivanovitch, for a +pair of boots. Why, just see, how can he go to Moscow in such wrecks?" + +"Let him take my old ones; they are still quite good." + +"He must have trousers, anyway; he is a disgrace to look at." + +And immediately after that a storm-signal showed itself, at the sight of +which all the family trembled. + +Shiryaev's short, fat neck turned suddenly red as a beetroot. The colour +mounted slowly to his ears, from his ears to his temples, and by degrees +suffused his whole face. Yevgraf Ivanovitch shifted in his chair +and unbuttoned his shirt-collar to save himself from choking. He +was evidently struggling with the feeling that was mastering him. A +deathlike silence followed. The children held their breath. Fedosya +Semyonovna, as though she did not grasp what was happening to her +husband, went on: + +"He is not a little boy now, you know; he is ashamed to go about without +clothes." + +Shiryaev suddenly jumped up, and with all his might flung down his fat +pocket-book in the middle of the table, so that a hunk of bread flew off +a plate. A revolting expression of anger, resentment, avarice--all mixed +together--flamed on his face. + +"Take everything!" he shouted in an unnatural voice; "plunder me! Take +it all! Strangle me!" + +He jumped up from the table, clutched at his head, and ran staggering +about the room. + +"Strip me to the last thread!" he shouted in a shrill voice. "Squeeze +out the last drop! Rob me! Wring my neck!" + +The student flushed and dropped his eyes. He could not go on eating. +Fedosya Semyonovna, who had not after twenty-five years grown used to +her husband's difficult character, shrank into herself and muttered +something in self-defence. An expression of amazement and dull terror +came into her wasted and birdlike face, which at all times looked dull +and scared. The little boys and the elder daughter Varvara, a girl in +her teens, with a pale ugly face, laid down their spoons and sat mute. + +Shiryaev, growing more and more ferocious, uttering words each more +terrible than the one before, dashed up to the table and began shaking +the notes out of his pocket-book. + +"Take them!" he muttered, shaking all over. "You've eaten and drunk your +fill, so here's money for you too! I need nothing! Order yourself new +boots and uniforms!" + +The student turned pale and got up. + +"Listen, papa," he began, gasping for breath. "I... I beg you to end +this, for..." + +"Hold your tongue!" the father shouted at him, and so loudly that the +spectacles fell off his nose; "hold your tongue!" + +"I used... I used to be able to put up with such scenes, but... but now +I have got out of the way of it. Do you understand? I have got out of +the way of it!" + +"Hold your tongue!" cried the father, and he stamped with his feet. "You +must listen to what I say! I shall say what I like, and you hold your +tongue. At your age I was earning my living, while you... Do you know +what you cost me, you scoundrel? I'll turn you out! Wastrel!" + +"Yevgraf Ivanovitch," muttered Fedosya Semyonovna, moving her fingers +nervously; "you know he... you know Petya...!" + +"Hold your tongue!" Shiryaev shouted out to her, and tears actually came +into his eyes from anger. "It is you who have spoilt them--you! It's +all your fault! He has no respect for us, does not say his prayers, and +earns nothing! I am only one against the ten of you! I'll turn you out +of the house!" + +The daughter Varvara gazed fixedly at her mother with her mouth open, +moved her vacant-looking eyes to the window, turned pale, and, uttering +a loud shriek, fell back in her chair. The father, with a curse and a +wave of the hand, ran out into the yard. + +This was how domestic scenes usually ended at the Shiryaevs'. But on +this occasion, unfortunately, Pyotr the student was carried away by +overmastering anger. He was just as hasty and ill-tempered as his father +and his grandfather the priest, who used to beat his parishioners about +the head with a stick. Pale and clenching his fists, he went up to his +mother and shouted in the very highest tenor note his voice could reach: + +"These reproaches are loathsome! sickening to me! I want nothing from +you! Nothing! I would rather die of hunger than eat another mouthful at +your expense! Take your nasty money back! take it!" + +The mother huddled against the wall and waved her hands, as though it +were not her son, but some phantom before her. "What have I done?" she +wailed. "What?" + +Like his father, the boy waved his hands and ran into the yard. +Shiryaev's house stood alone on a ravine which ran like a furrow for +four miles along the steppe. Its sides were overgrown with oak saplings +and alders, and a stream ran at the bottom. On one side the house looked +towards the ravine, on the other towards the open country, there were no +fences nor hurdles. Instead there were farm-buildings of all sorts close +to one another, shutting in a small space in front of the house which +was regarded as the yard, and in which hens, ducks, and pigs ran about. + +Going out of the house, the student walked along the muddy road towards +the open country. The air was full of a penetrating autumn dampness. The +road was muddy, puddles gleamed here and there, and in the yellow fields +autumn itself seemed looking out from the grass, dismal, decaying, dark. +On the right-hand side of the road was a vegetable-garden cleared of its +crops and gloomy-looking, with here and there sunflowers standing up in +it with hanging heads already black. + +Pyotr thought it would not be a bad thing to walk to Moscow on foot; to +walk just as he was, with holes in his boots, without a cap, and +without a farthing of money. When he had gone eighty miles his father, +frightened and aghast, would overtake him, would begin begging him to +turn back or take the money, but he would not even look at him, but +would go on and on.... Bare forests would be followed by desolate +fields, fields by forests again; soon the earth would be white with the +first snow, and the streams would be coated with ice.... Somewhere near +Kursk or near Serpuhovo, exhausted and dying of hunger, he would sink +down and die. His corpse would be found, and there would be a paragraph +in all the papers saying that a student called Shiryaev had died of +hunger.... + +A white dog with a muddy tail who was wandering about the +vegetable-garden looking for something gazed at him and sauntered after +him. + +He walked along the road and thought of death, of the grief of his +family, of the moral sufferings of his father, and then pictured all +sorts of adventures on the road, each more marvellous than the one +before--picturesque places, terrible nights, chance encounters. He +imagined a string of pilgrims, a hut in the forest with one little +window shining in the darkness; he stands before the window, begs for a +night's lodging.... They let him in, and suddenly he sees that they are +robbers. Or, better still, he is taken into a big manor-house, where, +learning who he is, they give him food and drink, play to him on the +piano, listen to his complaints, and the daughter of the house, a +beauty, falls in love with him. + +Absorbed in his bitterness and such thoughts, young Shiryaev walked on +and on. Far, far ahead he saw the inn, a dark patch against the grey +background of cloud. Beyond the inn, on the very horizon, he could see a +little hillock; this was the railway-station. That hillock reminded him +of the connection existing between the place where he was now standing +and Moscow, where street-lamps were burning and carriages were rattling +in the streets, where lectures were being given. And he almost wept +with depression and impatience. The solemn landscape, with its order and +beauty, the deathlike stillness all around, revolted him and moved him +to despair and hatred! + +"Look out!" He heard behind him a loud voice. + +An old lady of his acquaintance, a landowner of the neighbourhood, drove +past him in a light, elegant landau. He bowed to her, and smiled all +over his face. And at once he caught himself in that smile, which was so +out of keeping with his gloomy mood. Where did it come from if his whole +heart was full of vexation and misery? And he thought nature itself had +given man this capacity for lying, that even in difficult moments of +spiritual strain he might be able to hide the secrets of his nest as the +fox and the wild duck do. Every family has its joys and its horrors, but +however great they may be, it's hard for an outsider's eye to see them; +they are a secret. The father of the old lady who had just driven by, +for instance, had for some offence lain for half his lifetime under the +ban of the wrath of Tsar Nicolas I.; her husband had been a gambler; of +her four sons, not one had turned out well. One could imagine how many +terrible scenes there must have been in her life, how many tears must +have been shed. And yet the old lady seemed happy and satisfied, and +she had answered his smile by smiling too. The student thought of his +comrades, who did not like talking about their families; he thought of +his mother, who almost always lied when she had to speak of her husband +and children.... + +Pyotr walked about the roads far from home till dusk, abandoning +himself to dreary thoughts. When it began to drizzle with rain he turned +homewards. As he walked back he made up his mind at all costs to talk +to his father, to explain to him, once and for all, that it was dreadful +and oppressive to live with him. + +He found perfect stillness in the house. His sister Varvara was lying +behind a screen with a headache, moaning faintly. His mother, with a +look of amazement and guilt upon her face, was sitting beside her on a +box, mending Arhipka's trousers. Yevgraf Ivanovitch was pacing from one +window to another, scowling at the weather. From his walk, from the +way he cleared his throat, and even from the back of his head, it was +evident he felt himself to blame. + +"I suppose you have changed your mind about going today?" he asked. + +The student felt sorry for him, but immediately suppressing that +feeling, he said: + +"Listen... I must speak to you seriously... yes, seriously. I have +always respected you, and... and have never brought myself to speak to +you in such a tone, but your behaviour... your last action..." + +The father looked out of the window and did not speak. The student, as +though considering his words, rubbed his forehead and went on in great +excitement: + +"Not a dinner or tea passes without your making an uproar. Your bread +sticks in our throat... nothing is more bitter, more humiliating, than +bread that sticks in one's throat.... Though you are my father, no one, +neither God nor nature, has given you the right to insult and humiliate +us so horribly, to vent your ill-humour on the weak. You have worn my +mother out and made a slave of her, my sister is hopelessly crushed, +while I..." + +"It's not your business to teach me," said his father. + +"Yes, it is my business! You can quarrel with me as much as you like, +but leave my mother in peace! I will not allow you to torment my +mother!" the student went on, with flashing eyes. "You are spoilt +because no one has yet dared to oppose you. They tremble and are +mute towards you, but now that is over! Coarse, ill-bred man! You are +coarse... do you understand? You are coarse, ill-humoured, unfeeling. +And the peasants can't endure you!" + +The student had by now lost his thread, and was not so much speaking as +firing off detached words. Yevgraf Ivanovitch listened in silence, as +though stunned; but suddenly his neck turned crimson, the colour crept +up his face, and he made a movement. + +"Hold your tongue!" he shouted. + +"That's right!" the son persisted; "you don't like to hear the truth! +Excellent! Very good! begin shouting! Excellent!" + +"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" roared Yevgraf Ivanovitch. + +Fedosya Semyonovna appeared in the doorway, very pale, with an +astonished face; she tried to say something, but she could not, and +could only move her fingers. + +"It's all your fault!" Shiryaev shouted at her. "You have brought him up +like this!" + +"I don't want to go on living in this house!" shouted the student, +crying, and looking angrily at his mother. "I don't want to live with +you!" + +Varvara uttered a shriek behind the screen and broke into loud sobs. +With a wave of his hand, Shiryaev ran out of the house. + +The student went to his own room and quietly lay down. He lay till +midnight without moving or opening his eyes. He felt neither anger nor +shame, but a vague ache in his soul. He neither blamed his father nor +pitied his mother, nor was he tormented by stings of conscience; he +realized that every one in the house was feeling the same ache, and God +only knew which was most to blame, which was suffering most.... + +At midnight he woke the labourer, and told him to have the horse ready +at five o'clock in the morning for him to drive to the station; he +undressed and got into bed, but could not get to sleep. He heard how his +father, still awake, paced slowly from window to window, sighing, +till early morning. No one was asleep; they spoke rarely, and only in +whispers. Twice his mother came to him behind the screen. Always with +the same look of vacant wonder, she slowly made the cross over him, +shaking nervously. + +At five o'clock in the morning he said good-bye to them all +affectionately, and even shed tears. As he passed his father's room, he +glanced in at the door. Yevgraf Ivanovitch, who had not taken off his +clothes or gone to bed, was standing by the window, drumming on the +panes. + +"Good-bye; I am going," said his son. + +"Good-bye... the money is on the round table..." his father answered, +without turning round. + +A cold, hateful rain was falling as the labourer drove him to the +station. The sunflowers were drooping their heads still lower, and the +grass seemed darker than ever. + + + + + +THE GRASSHOPPER + +I + +ALL Olga Ivanovna's friends and acquaintances were at her wedding. + +"Look at him; isn't it true that there is something in him?" she said +to her friends, with a nod towards her husband, as though she wanted +to explain why she was marrying a simple, very ordinary, and in no way +remarkable man. + +Her husband, Osip Stepanitch Dymov, was a doctor, and only of the rank +of a titular councillor. He was on the staff of two hospitals: in one a +ward-surgeon and in the other a dissecting demonstrator. Every day +from nine to twelve he saw patients and was busy in his ward, and +after twelve o'clock he went by tram to the other hospital, where he +dissected. His private practice was a small one, not worth more than +five hundred roubles a year. That was all. What more could one say about +him? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and acquaintances were not +quite ordinary people. Every one of them was remarkable in some way, and +more or less famous; already had made a reputation and was looked upon +as a celebrity; or if not yet a celebrity, gave brilliant promise of +becoming one. There was an actor from the Dramatic Theatre, who was +a great talent of established reputation, as well as an elegant, +intelligent, and modest man, and a capital elocutionist, and who +taught Olga Ivanovna to recite; there was a singer from the opera, a +good-natured, fat man who assured Olga Ivanovna, with a sigh, that she +was ruining herself, that if she would take herself in hand and not +be lazy she might make a remarkable singer; then there were several +artists, and chief among them Ryabovsky, a very handsome, fair young +man of five-and-twenty who painted genre pieces, animal studies, and +landscapes, was successful at exhibitions, and had sold his last picture +for five hundred roubles. He touched up Olga Ivanovna's sketches, +and used to say she might do something. Then a violoncellist, whose +instrument used to sob, and who openly declared that of all the ladies +of his acquaintance the only one who could accompany him was Olga +Ivanovna; then there was a literary man, young but already well known, +who had written stories, novels, and plays. Who else? Why, Vassily +Vassilyitch, a landowner and amateur illustrator and vignettist, with +a great feeling for the old Russian style, the old ballad and epic. On +paper, on china, and on smoked plates, he produced literally marvels. +In the midst of this free artistic company, spoiled by fortune, though +refined and modest, who recalled the existence of doctors only in times +of illness, and to whom the name of Dymov sounded in no way different +from Sidorov or Tarasov--in the midst of this company Dymov seemed +strange, not wanted, and small, though he was tall and broad-shouldered. +He looked as though he had on somebody else's coat, and his beard was +like a shopman's. Though if he had been a writer or an artist, they +would have said that his beard reminded them of Zola. + +An artist said to Olga Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her +wedding-dress she was very much like a graceful cherry-tree when it is +covered all over with delicate white blossoms in spring. + +"Oh, let me tell you," said Olga Ivanovna, taking his arm, "how it was +it all came to pass so suddenly. Listen, listen!... I must tell you that +my father was on the same staff at the hospital as Dymov. When my poor +father was taken ill, Dymov watched for days and nights together at his +bedside. Such self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky! You, my writer, listen; +it is very interesting! Come nearer. Such self-sacrifice, such genuine +sympathy! I sat up with my father, and did not sleep for nights, either. +And all at once--the princess had won the hero's heart--my Dymov fell +head over ears in love. Really, fate is so strange at times! Well, after +my father's death he came to see me sometimes, met me in the street, and +one fine evening, all at once he made me an offer... like snow upon +my head.... I lay awake all night, crying, and fell hellishly in love +myself. And here, as you see, I am his wife. There really is something +strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn't there? Now his face is +turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he turns +round look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say to that forehead? +Dymov, we are talking about you!" she called to her husband. "Come here; +hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky.... That's right, be friends." + +Dymov, with a naive and good-natured smile, held out his hand to +Ryabovsky, and said: + +"Very glad to meet you. There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the medical +school. Was he a relation of yours?" + + +II + + +Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two, Dymov was thirty-one. They got on +splendidly together when they were married. Olga Ivanovna hung all her +drawing-room walls with her own and other people's sketches, in +frames and without frames, and near the piano and furniture arranged +picturesque corners with Japanese parasols, easels, daggers, busts, +photographs, and rags of many colours.... In the dining-room she +papered the walls with peasant woodcuts, hung up bark shoes and sickles, +stood in a corner a scythe and a rake, and so achieved a dining-room in +the Russian style. In her bedroom she draped the ceiling and the walls +with dark cloths to make it like a cavern, hung a Venetian lantern over +the beds, and at the door set a figure with a halberd. And every one +thought that the young people had a very charming little home. + +When she got up at eleven o'clock every morning, Olga Ivanovna played +the piano or, if it were sunny, painted something in oils. Then between +twelve and one she drove to her dressmaker's. As Dymov and she had very +little money, only just enough, she and her dressmaker were often put to +clever shifts to enable her to appear constantly in new dresses and make +a sensation with them. Very often out of an old dyed dress, out of bits +of tulle, lace, plush, and silk, costing nothing, perfect marvels +were created, something bewitching--not a dress, but a dream. From +the dressmaker's Olga Ivanovna usually drove to some actress of her +acquaintance to hear the latest theatrical gossip, and incidentally to +try and get hold of tickets for the first night of some new play or for +a benefit performance. From the actress's she had to go to some artist's +studio or to some exhibition or to see some celebrity--either to pay a +visit or to give an invitation or simply to have a chat. And everywhere +she met with a gay and friendly welcome, and was assured that she was +good, that she was sweet, that she was rare.... Those whom she called +great and famous received her as one of themselves, as an equal, and +predicted with one voice that, with her talents, her taste, and her +intelligence, she would do great things if she concentrated herself. She +sang, she played the piano, she painted in oils, she carved, she took +part in amateur performances; and all this not just anyhow, but all with +talent, whether she made lanterns for an illumination or dressed up or +tied somebody's cravat--everything she did was exceptionally graceful, +artistic, and charming. But her talents showed themselves in nothing +so clearly as in her faculty for quickly becoming acquainted and on +intimate terms with celebrated people. No sooner did any one become ever +so little celebrated, and set people talking about him, than she made +his acquaintance, got on friendly terms the same day, and invited him to +her house. Every new acquaintance she made was a veritable fete for her. +She adored celebrated people, was proud of them, dreamed of them every +night. She craved for them, and never could satisfy her craving. The old +ones departed and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but to +these, too, she soon grew accustomed or was disappointed in them, and +began eagerly seeking for fresh great men, finding them and seeking for +them again. What for? + +Between four and five she dined at home with her husband. His +simplicity, good sense, and kind-heartedness touched her and moved her +up to enthusiasm. She was constantly jumping up, impulsively hugging his +head and showering kisses on it. + +"You are a clever, generous man, Dymov," she used to say, "but you have +one very serious defect. You take absolutely no interest in art. You +don't believe in music or painting." + +"I don't understand them," he would say mildly. "I have spent all my +life in working at natural science and medicine, and I have never had +time to take an interest in the arts." + +"But, you know, that's awful, Dymov!" + +"Why so? Your friends don't know anything of science or medicine, but +you don't reproach them with it. Every one has his own line. I don't +understand landscapes and operas, but the way I look at it is that if +one set of sensible people devote their whole lives to them, and other +sensible people pay immense sums for them, they must be of use. I don't +understand them, but not understanding does not imply disbelieving in +them." + +"Let me shake your honest hand!" + +After dinner Olga Ivanovna would drive off to see her friends, then to a +theatre or to a concert, and she returned home after midnight. So it was +every day. + +On Wednesdays she had "At Homes." At these "At Homes" the hostess +and her guests did not play cards and did not dance, but entertained +themselves with various arts. An actor from the Dramatic Theatre +recited, a singer sang, artists sketched in the albums of which Olga +Ivanovna had a great number, the violoncellist played, and the hostess +herself sketched, carved, sang, and played accompaniments. In the +intervals between the recitations, music, and singing, they talked +and argued about literature, the theatre, and painting. There were no +ladies, for Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies wearisome and vulgar +except actresses and her dressmaker. Not one of these entertainments +passed without the hostess starting at every ring at the bell, and +saying, with a triumphant expression, "It is he," meaning by "he," of +course, some new celebrity. Dymov was not in the drawing-room, and no +one remembered his existence. But exactly at half-past eleven the door +leading into the dining-room opened, and Dymov would appear with his +good-natured, gentle smile and say, rubbing his hands: + +"Come to supper, gentlemen." + +They all went into the dining-room, and every time found on the table +exactly the same things: a dish of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, +sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms, vodka, and two decanters of wine. + +"My dear _maitre d' hotel!_" Olga Ivanovna would say, clasping her hands +with enthusiasm, "you are simply fascinating! My friends, look at his +forehead! Dymov, turn your profile. Look! he has the face of a Bengal +tiger and an expression as kind and sweet as a gazelle. Ah, the +darling!" + +The visitors ate, and, looking at Dymov, thought, "He really is a nice +fellow"; but they soon forgot about him, and went on talking about the +theatre, music, and painting. + +The young people were happy, and their life flowed on without a hitch. + +The third week of their honeymoon was spent, however, not quite +happily--sadly, indeed. Dymov caught erysipelas in the hospital, was in +bed for six days, and had to have his beautiful black hair cropped. Olga +Ivanovna sat beside him and wept bitterly, but when he was better she +put a white handkerchief on his shaven head and began to paint him as +a Bedouin. And they were both in good spirits. Three days after he had +begun to go back to the hospital he had another mischance. + +"I have no luck, little mother," he said one day at dinner. "I had four +dissections to do today, and I cut two of my fingers at one. And I did +not notice it till I got home." + +Olga Ivanovna was alarmed. He smiled, and told her that it did not +matter, and that he often cut his hands when he was dissecting. + +"I get absorbed, little mother, and grow careless." + +Olga Ivanovna dreaded symptoms of blood-poisoning, and prayed about it +every night, but all went well. And again life flowed on peaceful and +happy, free from grief and anxiety. The present was happy, and to follow +it spring was at hand, already smiling in the distance, and promising a +thousand delights. There would be no end to their happiness. In +April, May and June a summer villa a good distance out of town; walks, +sketching, fishing, nightingales; and then from July right on to autumn +an artist's tour on the Volga, and in this tour Olga Ivanovna would take +part as an indispensable member of the society. She had already had made +for her two travelling dresses of linen, had bought paints, brushes, +canvases, and a new palette for the journey. Almost every day Ryabovsky +visited her to see what progress she was making in her painting; when +she showed him her painting, he used to thrust his hands deep into his +pockets, compress his lips, sniff, and say: + +"Ye--es...! That cloud of yours is screaming: it's not in the evening +light. The foreground is somehow chewed up, and there is something, +you know, not the thing.... And your cottage is weighed down and whines +pitifully. That corner ought to have been taken more in shadow, but on +the whole it is not bad; I like it." + +And the more incomprehensible he talked, the more readily Olga Ivanovna +understood him. + +III + +After dinner on the second day of Trinity week, Dymov bought some sweets +and some savouries and went down to the villa to see his wife. He had +not seen her for a fortnight, and missed her terribly. As he sat in the +train and afterwards as he looked for his villa in a big wood, he felt +all the while hungry and weary, and dreamed of how he would have supper +in freedom with his wife, then tumble into bed and to sleep. And he +was delighted as he looked at his parcel, in which there was caviare, +cheese, and white salmon. + +The sun was setting by the time he found his villa and recognized it. +The old servant told him that her mistress was not at home, but +that most likely she would soon be in. The villa, very uninviting in +appearance, with low ceilings papered with writing-paper and with uneven +floors full of crevices, consisted only of three rooms. In one there was +a bed, in the second there were canvases, brushes, greasy papers, and +men's overcoats and hats lying about on the chairs and in the windows, +while in the third Dymov found three unknown men; two were dark-haired +and had beards, the other was clean-shaven and fat, apparently an actor. +There was a samovar boiling on the table. + +"What do you want?" asked the actor in a bass voice, looking at Dymov +ungraciously. "Do you want Olga Ivanovna? Wait a minute; she will be +here directly." + +Dymov sat down and waited. One of the dark-haired men, looking sleepily +and listlessly at him, poured himself out a glass of tea, and asked: + +"Perhaps you would like some tea?" + +Dymov was both hungry and thirsty, but he refused tea for fear of +spoiling his supper. Soon he heard footsteps and a familiar laugh; +a door slammed, and Olga Ivanovna ran into the room, wearing a +wide-brimmed hat and carrying a box in her hand; she was followed +by Ryabovsky, rosy and good-humoured, carrying a big umbrella and a +camp-stool. + +"Dymov!" cried Olga Ivanovna, and she flushed crimson with pleasure. +"Dymov!" she repeated, laying her head and both arms on his bosom. "Is +that you? Why haven't you come for so long? Why? Why?" + +"When could I, little mother? I am always busy, and whenever I am free +it always happens somehow that the train does not fit." + +"But how glad I am to see you! I have been dreaming about you the whole +night, the whole night, and I was afraid you must be ill. Ah! if you +only knew how sweet you are! You have come in the nick of time! You will +be my salvation! You are the only person who can save me! There is to be +a most original wedding here tomorrow," she went on, laughing, and tying +her husband's cravat. "A young telegraph clerk at the station, called +Tchikeldyeev, is going to be married. He is a handsome young man +and--well, not stupid, and you know there is something strong, bearlike +in his face... you might paint him as a young Norman. We summer visitors +take a great interest in him, and have promised to be at his wedding.... +He is a lonely, timid man, not well off, and of course it would be a +shame not to be sympathetic to him. Fancy! the wedding will be after +the service; then we shall all walk from the church to the bride's +lodgings... you see the wood, the birds singing, patches of sunlight on +the grass, and all of us spots of different colours against the +bright green background--very original, in the style of the French +impressionists. But, Dymov, what am I to go to the church in?" said +Olga Ivanovna, and she looked as though she were going to cry. "I have +nothing here, literally nothing! no dress, no flowers, no gloves... you +must save me. Since you have come, fate itself bids you save me. Take +the keys, my precious, go home and get my pink dress from the wardrobe. +You remember it; it hangs in front.... Then, in the storeroom, on the +floor, on the right side, you will see two cardboard boxes. When you +open the top one you will see tulle, heaps of tulle and rags of all +sorts, and under them flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try +not to crush them, darling; I will choose among them later.... And buy +me some gloves." + +"Very well," said Dymov; "I will go tomorrow and send them to you." + +"Tomorrow?" asked Olga Ivanovna, and she looked at him surprised. "You +won't have time tomorrow. The first train goes tomorrow at nine, and the +wedding's at eleven. No, darling, it must be today; it absolutely +must be today. If you won't be able to come tomorrow, send them by a +messenger. Come, you must run along.... The passenger train will be in +directly; don't miss it, darling." + +"Very well." + +"Oh, how sorry I am to let you go!" said Olga Ivanovna, and tears came +into her eyes. "And why did I promise that telegraph clerk, like a +silly?" + +Dymov hurriedly drank a glass of tea, took a cracknel, and, smiling +gently, went to the station. And the caviare, the cheese, and the white +salmon were eaten by the two dark gentlemen and the fat actor. + +IV + +On a still moonlight night in July Olga Ivanovna was standing on the +deck of a Volga steamer and looking alternately at the water and at the +picturesque banks. Beside her was standing Ryabovsky, telling her the +black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream, that it would +be sweet to sink into forgetfulness, to die, to become a memory in the +sight of that enchanted water with the fantastic glimmer, in sight of +the fathomless sky and the mournful, dreamy shores that told of the +vanity of our life and of the existence of something higher, blessed, +and eternal. The past was vulgar and uninteresting, the future was +trivial, and that marvellous night, unique in a lifetime, would soon be +over, would blend with eternity; then, why live? + +And Olga Ivanovna listened alternately to Ryabovsky's voice and the +silence of the night, and thought of her being immortal and never dying. +The turquoise colour of the water, such as she had never seen before, +the sky, the river-banks, the black shadows, and the unaccountable joy +that flooded her soul, all told her that she would make a great artist, +and that somewhere in the distance, in the infinite space beyond the +moonlight, success, glory, the love of the people, lay awaiting her.... +When she gazed steadily without blinking into the distance, she seemed +to see crowds of people, lights, triumphant strains of music, cries of +enthusiasm, she herself in a white dress, and flowers showered upon +her from all sides. She thought, too, that beside her, leaning with his +elbows on the rail of the steamer, there was standing a real great +man, a genius, one of God's elect.... All that he had created up to the +present was fine, new, and extraordinary, but what he would create in +time, when with maturity his rare talent reached its full development, +would be astounding, immeasurably sublime; and that could be seen by his +face, by his manner of expressing himself and his attitude to nature. +He talked of shadows, of the tones of evening, of the moonlight, in +a special way, in a language of his own, so that one could not help +feeling the fascination of his power over nature. He was very handsome, +original, and his life, free, independent, aloof from all common cares, +was like the life of a bird. + +"It's growing cooler," said Olga Ivanovna, and she gave a shudder. + +Ryabovsky wrapped her in his cloak, and said mournfully: + +"I feel that I am in your power; I am a slave. Why are you so enchanting +today?" + +He kept staring intently at her, and his eyes were terrible. And she was +afraid to look at him. + +"I love you madly," he whispered, breathing on her cheek. "Say one word +to me and I will not go on living; I will give up art..." he muttered +in violent emotion. "Love me, love...." + +"Don't talk like that," said Olga Ivanovna, covering her eyes. "It's +dreadful! How about Dymov?" + +"What of Dymov? Why Dymov? What have I to do with Dymov? The Volga, the +moon, beauty, my love, ecstasy, and there is no such thing as Dymov.... +Ah! I don't know... I don't care about the past; give me one moment, one +instant!" + +Olga Ivanovna's heart began to throb. She tried to think about her +husband, but all her past, with her wedding, with Dymov, and with her +"At Homes," seemed to her petty, trivial, dingy, unnecessary, and far, +far away.... Yes, really, what of Dymov? Why Dymov? What had she to do +with Dymov? Had he any existence in nature, or was he only a dream? + +"For him, a simple and ordinary man the happiness he has had already +is enough," she thought, covering her face with her hands. "Let them +condemn me, let them curse me, but in spite of them all I will go to my +ruin; I will go to my ruin!... One must experience everything in life. +My God! how terrible and how glorious!" + +"Well? Well?" muttered the artist, embracing her, and greedily kissing +the hands with which she feebly tried to thrust him from her. "You love +me? Yes? Yes? Oh, what a night! marvellous night!" + +"Yes, what a night!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, which were +bright with tears. + +Then she looked round quickly, put her arms round him, and kissed him on +the lips. + +"We are nearing Kineshmo!" said some one on the other side of the deck. + +They heard heavy footsteps; it was a waiter from the refreshment-bar. + +"Waiter," said Olga Ivanovna, laughing and crying with happiness, "bring +us some wine." + +The artist, pale with emotion, sat on the seat, looking at Olga Ivanovna +with adoring, grateful eyes; then he closed his eyes, and said, smiling +languidly: + +"I am tired." + +And he leaned his head against the rail. + + +V + + +On the second of September the day was warm and still, but overcast. In +the early morning a light mist had hung over the Volga, and after nine +o'clock it had begun to spout with rain. And there seemed no hope of the +sky clearing. Over their morning tea Ryabovsky told Olga Ivanovna that +painting was the most ungrateful and boring art, that he was not an +artist, that none but fools thought that he had any talent, and all at +once, for no rhyme or reason, he snatched up a knife and with it scraped +over his very best sketch. After his tea he sat plunged in gloom at the +window and gazed at the Volga. And now the Volga was dingy, all of +one even colour without a gleam of light, cold-looking. Everything, +everything recalled the approach of dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed +as though nature had removed now from the Volga the sumptuous green +covers from the banks, the brilliant reflections of the sunbeams, the +transparent blue distance, and all its smart gala array, and had packed +it away in boxes till the coming spring, and the crows were flying above +the Volga and crying tauntingly, "Bare, bare!" + +Ryabovsky heard their cawing, and thought he had already gone off +and lost his talent, that everything in this world was relative, +conditional, and stupid, and that he ought not to have taken up with +this woman.... In short, he was out of humour and depressed. + +Olga Ivanovna sat behind the screen on the bed, and, passing her +fingers through her lovely flaxen hair, pictured herself first in the +drawing-room, then in the bedroom, then in her husband's study; her +imagination carried her to the theatre, to the dress-maker, to her +distinguished friends. Were they getting something up now? Did they +think of her? The season had begun by now, and it would be time to think +about her "At Homes." And Dymov? Dear Dymov! with what gentleness and +childlike pathos he kept begging her in his letters to make haste and +come home! Every month he sent her seventy-five roubles, and when she +wrote him that she had lent the artists a hundred roubles, he sent that +hundred too. What a kind, generous-hearted man! The travelling wearied +Olga Ivanovna; she was bored; and she longed to get away from the +peasants, from the damp smell of the river, and to cast off the feeling +of physical uncleanliness of which she was conscious all the time, +living in the peasants' huts and wandering from village to village. If +Ryabovsky had not given his word to the artists that he would stay with +them till the twentieth of September, they might have gone away that +very day. And how nice that would have been! + +"My God!" moaned Ryabovsky. "Will the sun ever come out? I can't go on +with a sunny landscape without the sun...." + +"But you have a sketch with a cloudy sky," said Olga Ivanovna, coming +from behind the screen. "Do you remember, in the right foreground forest +trees, on the left a herd of cows and geese? You might finish it now." + +"Aie!" the artist scowled. "Finish it! Can you imagine I am such a fool +that I don't know what I want to do?" + +"How you have changed to me!" sighed Olga Ivanovna. + +"Well, a good thing too!" + +Olga Ivanovna's face quivered; she moved away to the stove and began to +cry. + +"Well, that's the last straw--crying! Give over! I have a thousand +reasons for tears, but I am not crying." + +"A thousand reasons!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "The chief one is that you +are weary of me. Yes!" she said, and broke into sobs. "If one is to tell +the truth, you are ashamed of our love. You keep trying to prevent the +artists from noticing it, though it is impossible to conceal it, and +they have known all about it for ever so long." + +"Olga, one thing I beg you," said the artist in an imploring voice, +laying his hand on his heart--"one thing; don't worry me! I want nothing +else from you!" + +"But swear that you love me still!" + +"This is agony!" the artist hissed through his teeth, and he jumped up. +"It will end by my throwing myself in the Volga or going out of my mind! +Let me alone!" + +"Come, kill me, kill me!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "Kill me!" + +She sobbed again, and went behind the screen. There was a swish of rain +on the straw thatch of the hut. Ryabovsky clutched his head and strode +up and down the hut; then with a resolute face, as though bent on +proving something to somebody, put on his cap, slung his gun over his +shoulder, and went out of the hut. + +After he had gone, Olga Ivanovna lay a long time on the bed, crying. At +first she thought it would be a good thing to poison herself, so that +when Ryabovsky came back he would find her dead; then her imagination +carried her to her drawing-room, to her husband's study, and she +imagined herself sitting motionless beside Dymov and enjoying the +physical peace and cleanliness, and in the evening sitting in the +theatre, listening to Mazini. And a yearning for civilization, for the +noise and bustle of the town, for celebrated people sent a pang to her +heart. A peasant woman came into the hut and began in a leisurely way +lighting the stove to get the dinner. There was a smell of charcoal +fumes, and the air was filled with bluish smoke. The artists came in, in +muddy high boots and with faces wet with rain, examined their sketches, +and comforted themselves by saying that the Volga had its charms even +in bad weather. On the wall the cheap clock went "tic-tic-tic."... The +flies, feeling chilled, crowded round the ikon in the corner, buzzing, +and one could hear the cockroaches scurrying about among the thick +portfolios under the seats.... + +Ryabovsky came home as the sun was setting. He flung his cap on the +table, and, without removing his muddy boots, sank pale and exhausted on +the bench and closed his eyes. + +"I am tired..." he said, and twitched his eyebrows, trying to raise his +eyelids. + +To be nice to him and to show she was not cross, Olga Ivanovna went up +to him, gave him a silent kiss, and passed the comb through his fair +hair. She meant to comb it for him. + +"What's that?" he said, starting as though something cold had touched +him, and he opened his eyes. "What is it? Please let me alone." + +He thrust her off, and moved away. And it seemed to her that there was a +look of aversion and annoyance on his face. + +At that time the peasant woman cautiously carried him, in both hands, +a plate of cabbage-soup. And Olga Ivanovna saw how she wetted her fat +fingers in it. And the dirty peasant woman, standing with her body +thrust forward, and the cabbage-soup which Ryabovsky began eating +greedily, and the hut, and their whole way of life, which she at first +had so loved for its simplicity and artistic disorder, seemed horrible +to her now. She suddenly felt insulted, and said coldly: + +"We must part for a time, or else from boredom we shall quarrel in +earnest. I am sick of this; I am going today." + +"Going how? Astride on a broomstick?" + +"Today is Thursday, so the steamer will be here at half-past nine." + +"Eh? Yes, yes.... Well, go, then..." Ryabovsky said softly, wiping his +mouth with a towel instead of a dinner napkin. "You are dull and have +nothing to do here, and one would have to be a great egoist to try and +keep you. Go home, and we shall meet again after the twentieth." + +Olga Ivanovna packed in good spirits. Her cheeks positively glowed with +pleasure. Could it really be true, she asked herself, that she would +soon be writing in her drawing-room and sleeping in her bedroom, and +dining with a cloth on the table? A weight was lifted from her heart, +and she no longer felt angry with the artist. + +"My paints and brushes I will leave with you, Ryabovsky," she said. "You +can bring what's left.... Mind, now, don't be lazy here when I am gone; +don't mope, but work. You are such a splendid fellow, Ryabovsky!" + +At ten o'clock Ryabovsky gave her a farewell kiss, in order, as she +thought, to avoid kissing her on the steamer before the artists, and +went with her to the landing-stage. The steamer soon came up and carried +her away. + +She arrived home two and a half days later. Breathless with excitement, +she went, without taking off her hat or waterproof, into the +drawing-room and thence into the dining-room. Dymov, with his waistcoat +unbuttoned and no coat, was sitting at the table sharpening a knife on a +fork; before him lay a grouse on a plate. As Olga Ivanovna went into the +flat she was convinced that it was essential to hide everything from her +husband, and that she would have the strength and skill to do so; but +now, when she saw his broad, mild, happy smile, and shining, joyful +eyes, she felt that to deceive this man was as vile, as revolting, and +as impossible and out of her power as to bear false witness, to steal, +or to kill, and in a flash she resolved to tell him all that had +happened. Letting him kiss and embrace her, she sank down on her knees +before him and hid her face. + +"What is it, what is it, little mother?" he asked tenderly. "Were you +homesick?" + +She raised her face, red with shame, and gazed at him with a guilty and +imploring look, but fear and shame prevented her from telling him the +truth. + +"Nothing," she said; "it's just nothing...." + +"Let us sit down," he said, raising her and seating her at the table. +"That's right, eat the grouse. You are starving, poor darling." + +She eagerly breathed in the atmosphere of home and ate the grouse, while +he watched her with tenderness and laughed with delight. + + +VI + + +Apparently, by the middle of the winter Dymov began to suspect that he +was being deceived. As though his conscience was not clear, he could not +look his wife straight in the face, did not smile with delight when he +met her, and to avoid being left alone with her, he often brought in +to dinner his colleague, Korostelev, a little close-cropped man with a +wrinkled face, who kept buttoning and unbuttoning his reefer jacket with +embarrassment when he talked with Olga Ivanovna, and then with his right +hand nipped his left moustache. At dinner the two doctors talked about +the fact that a displacement of the diaphragm was sometimes accompanied +by irregularities of the heart, or that a great number of neurotic +complaints were met with of late, or that Dymov had the day before +found a cancer of the lower abdomen while dissecting a corpse with +the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia. And it seemed as though they were +talking of medicine to give Olga Ivanovna a chance of being silent--that +is, of not lying. After dinner Korostelev sat down to the piano, while +Dymov sighed and said to him: + +"Ech, brother--well, well! Play something melancholy." + +Hunching up his shoulders and stretching his fingers wide apart, +Korostelev played some chords and began singing in a tenor voice, "Show +me the abode where the Russian peasant would not groan," while Dymov +sighed once more, propped his head on his fist, and sank into thought. + +Olga Ivanovna had been extremely imprudent in her conduct of late. Every +morning she woke up in a very bad humour and with the thought that she +no longer cared for Ryabovsky, and that, thank God, it was all over now. +But as she drank her coffee she reflected that Ryabovsky had robbed her +of her husband, and that now she was left with neither her husband +nor Ryabovsky; then she remembered talks she had heard among her +acquaintances of a picture Ryabovsky was preparing for the exhibition, +something striking, a mixture of genre and landscape, in the style of +Polyenov, about which every one who had been into his studio went into +raptures; and this, of course, she mused, he had created under her +influence, and altogether, thanks to her influence, he had greatly +changed for the better. Her influence was so beneficent and essential +that if she were to leave him he might perhaps go to ruin. And she +remembered, too, that the last time he had come to see her in a +great-coat with flecks on it and a new tie, he had asked her languidly: + +"Am I beautiful?" + +And with his elegance, his long curls, and his blue eyes, he really +was very beautiful (or perhaps it only seemed so), and he had been +affectionate to her. + +Considering and remembering many things Olga Ivanovna dressed and in +great agitation drove to Ryabovsky's studio. She found him in high +spirits, and enchanted with his really magnificent picture. He was +dancing about and playing the fool and answering serious questions with +jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of the picture and hated it, but from +politeness she stood before the picture for five minutes in silence, +and, heaving a sigh, as though before a holy shrine, said softly: + +"Yes, you have never painted anything like it before. Do you know, it is +positively awe-inspiring?" + +And then she began beseeching him to love her and not to cast her off, +to have pity on her in her misery and her wretchedness. She shed tears, +kissed his hands, insisted on his swearing that he loved her, told him +that without her good influence he would go astray and be ruined. And, +when she had spoilt his good-humour, feeling herself humiliated, she +would drive off to her dressmaker or to an actress of her acquaintance +to try and get theatre tickets. + +If she did not find him at his studio she left a letter in which she +swore that if he did not come to see her that day she would poison +herself. He was scared, came to see her, and stayed to dinner. +Regardless of her husband's presence, he would say rude things to her, +and she would answer him in the same way. Both felt they were a burden +to each other, that they were tyrants and enemies, and were wrathful, +and in their wrath did not notice that their behaviour was unseemly, +and that even Korostelev, with his close-cropped head, saw it all. After +dinner Ryabovsky made haste to say good-bye and get away. + +"Where are you off to?" Olga Ivanovna would ask him in the hall, looking +at him with hatred. + +Scowling and screwing up his eyes, he mentioned some lady of their +acquaintance, and it was evident that he was laughing at her jealousy +and wanted to annoy her. She went to her bedroom and lay down on her +bed; from jealousy, anger, a sense of humiliation and shame, she bit +the pillow and began sobbing aloud. Dymov left Korostelev in the +drawing-room, went into the bedroom, and with a desperate and +embarrassed face said softly: + +"Don't cry so loud, little mother; there's no need. You must be quiet +about it. You must not let people see.... You know what is done is done, +and can't be mended." + +Not knowing how to ease the burden of her jealousy, which actually set +her temples throbbing with pain, and thinking still that things might be +set right, she would wash, powder her tear-stained face, and fly off to +the lady mentioned. + +Not finding Ryabovsky with her, she would drive off to a second, then to +a third. At first she was ashamed to go about like this, but afterwards +she got used to it, and it would happen that in one evening she would +make the round of all her female acquaintances in search of Ryabovsky, +and they all understood it. + +One day she said to Ryabovsky of her husband: + +"That man crushes me with his magnanimity." + +This phrase pleased her so much that when she met the artists who knew +of her affair with Ryabovsky she said every time of her husband, with a +vigorous movement of her arm: + +"That man crushes me with his magnanimity." + +Their manner of life was the same as it had been the year before. On +Wednesdays they were "At Home"; an actor recited, the artists sketched. +The violoncellist played, a singer sang, and invariably at half-past +eleven the door leading to the dining-room opened and Dymov, smiling, +said: + +"Come to supper, gentlemen." + +As before, Olga Ivanovna hunted celebrities, found them, was not +satisfied, and went in pursuit of fresh ones. As before, she came back +late every night; but now Dymov was not, as last year, asleep, but +sitting in his study at work of some sort. He went to bed at three +o'clock and got up at eight. + +One evening when she was getting ready to go to the theatre and +standing before the pier glass, Dymov came into her bedroom, wearing his +dress-coat and a white tie. He was smiling gently and looked into his +wife's face joyfully, as in old days; his face was radiant. + +"I have just been defending my thesis," he said, sitting down and +smoothing his knees. + +"Defending?" asked Olga Ivanovna. + +"Oh, oh!" he laughed, and he craned his neck to see his wife's face in +the mirror, for she was still standing with her back to him, doing up +her hair. "Oh, oh," he repeated, "do you know it's very possible they +may offer me the Readership in General Pathology? It seems like it." + +It was evident from his beaming, blissful face that if Olga Ivanovna +had shared with him his joy and triumph he would have forgiven her +everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten +everything, but she did not understand what was meant by a "readership" +or by "general pathology"; besides, she was afraid of being late for the +theatre, and she said nothing. + +He sat there another two minutes, and with a guilty smile went away. + +VII + +It had been a very troubled day. + +Dymov had a very bad headache; he had no breakfast, and did not go to +the hospital, but spent the whole time lying on his sofa in the study. +Olga Ivanovna went as usual at midday to see Ryabovsky, to show him her +still-life sketch, and to ask him why he had not been to see her the +evening before. The sketch seemed to her worthless, and she had painted +it only in order to have an additional reason for going to the artist. + +She went in to him without ringing, and as she was taking off her +goloshes in the entry she heard a sound as of something running softly +in the studio, with a feminine rustle of skirts; and as she hastened +to peep in she caught a momentary glimpse of a bit of brown petticoat, +which vanished behind a big picture draped, together with the easel, +with black calico, to the floor. There could be no doubt that a woman +was hiding there. How often Olga Ivanovna herself had taken refuge +behind that picture! + +Ryabovsky, evidently much embarrassed, held out both hands to her, as +though surprised at her arrival, and said with a forced smile: + +"Aha! Very glad to see you! Anything nice to tell me?" + +Olga Ivanovna's eyes filled with tears. She felt ashamed and bitter, and +would not for a million roubles have consented to speak in the presence +of the outsider, the rival, the deceitful woman who was standing now +behind the picture, and probably giggling malignantly. + +"I have brought you a sketch," she said timidly in a thin voice, and her +lips quivered. "_Nature morte._" + +"Ah--ah!... A sketch?" + +The artist took the sketch in his hands, and as he examined it walked, +as it were mechanically, into the other room. + +Olga Ivanovna followed him humbly. + +"_Nature morte_... first-rate sort," he muttered, falling into rhyme. +"Kurort... sport... port..." + +From the studio came the sound of hurried footsteps and the rustle of a +skirt. + +So she had gone. Olga Ivanovna wanted to scream aloud, to hit the artist +on the head with something heavy, but she could see nothing through her +tears, was crushed by her shame, and felt herself, not Olga Ivanovna, +not an artist, but a little insect. + +"I am tired..." said the artist languidly, looking at the sketch and +tossing his head as though struggling with drowsiness. "It's very nice, +of course, but here a sketch today, a sketch last year, another sketch +in a month... I wonder you are not bored with them. If I were you I +should give up painting and work seriously at music or something. You're +not an artist, you know, but a musician. But you can't think how tired I +am! I'll tell them to bring us some tea, shall I?" + +He went out of the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him give some order to +his footman. To avoid farewells and explanations, and above all to avoid +bursting into sobs, she ran as fast as she could, before Ryabovsky came +back, to the entry, put on her goloshes, and went out into the street; +then she breathed easily, and felt she was free for ever from Ryabovsky +and from painting and from the burden of shame which had so crushed her +in the studio. It was all over! + +She drove to her dressmaker's; then to see Barnay, who had only arrived +the day before; from Barnay to a music-shop, and all the time she was +thinking how she would write Ryabovsky a cold, cruel letter full of +personal dignity, and how in the spring or the summer she would go with +Dymov to the Crimea, free herself finally from the past there, and begin +a new life. + +On getting home late in the evening she sat down in the drawing-room, +without taking off her things, to begin the letter. Ryabovsky had told +her she was not an artist, and to pay him out she wrote to him now that +he painted the same thing every year, and said exactly the same thing +every day; that he was at a standstill, and that nothing more would come +of him than had come already. She wanted to write, too, that he owed a +great deal to her good influence, and that if he was going wrong it was +only because her influence was paralysed by various dubious persons like +the one who had been hiding behind the picture that day. + +"Little mother!" Dymov called from the study, without opening the door. + +"What is it?" + +"Don't come in to me, but only come to the door--that's right.... The +day before yesterday I must have caught diphtheria at the hospital, and +now... I am ill. Make haste and send for Korostelev." + +Olga Ivanovna always called her husband by his surname, as she did all +the men of her acquaintance; she disliked his Christian name, Osip, +because it reminded her of the Osip in Gogol and the silly pun on his +name. But now she cried: + +"Osip, it cannot be!" + +"Send for him; I feel ill," Dymov said behind the door, and she could +hear him go back to the sofa and lie down. "Send!" she heard his voice +faintly. + +"Good Heavens!" thought Olga Ivanovna, turning chill with horror. "Why, +it's dangerous!" + +For no reason she took the candle and went into the bedroom, and there, +reflecting what she must do, glanced casually at herself in the pier +glass. With her pale, frightened face, in a jacket with sleeves high on +the shoulders, with yellow ruches on her bosom, and with stripes running +in unusual directions on her skirt, she seemed to herself horrible +and disgusting. She suddenly felt poignantly sorry for Dymov, for his +boundless love for her, for his young life, and even for the desolate +little bed in which he had not slept for so long; and she remembered +his habitual, gentle, submissive smile. She wept bitterly, and wrote an +imploring letter to Korostelev. It was two o'clock in the night. + + +VIII + +When towards eight o'clock in the morning Olga Ivanovna, her head heavy +from want of sleep and her hair unbrushed, came out of her bedroom, +looking unattractive and with a guilty expression on her face, a +gentleman with a black beard, apparently the doctor, passed by her into +the entry. There was a smell of drugs. Korostelev was standing near the +study door, twisting his left moustache with his right hand. + +"Excuse me, I can't let you go in," he said surlily to Olga Ivanovna; +"it's catching. Besides, it's no use, really; he is delirious, anyway." + +"Has he really got diphtheria?" Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper. + +"People who wantonly risk infection ought to be hauled up and punished +for it," muttered Korostelev, not answering Olga Ivanovna's question. +"Do you know why he caught it? On Tuesday he was sucking up the mucus +through a pipette from a boy with diphtheria. And what for? It was +stupid.... Just from folly...." + +"Is it dangerous, very?" asked Olga Ivanovna. + +"Yes; they say it is the malignant form. We ought to send for Shrek +really." + +A little red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent arrived; +then a tall, stooping, shaggy individual, who looked like a head deacon; +then a stout young man with a red face and spectacles. These were +doctors who came to watch by turns beside their colleague. Korostelev +did not go home when his turn was over, but remained and wandered about +the rooms like an uneasy spirit. The maid kept getting tea for the +various doctors, and was constantly running to the chemist, and there +was no one to do the rooms. There was a dismal stillness in the flat. + +Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her +for having deceived her husband. That silent, unrepining, uncomprehended +creature, robbed by his mildness of all personality and will, weak from +excessive kindness, had been suffering in obscurity somewhere on +his sofa, and had not complained. And if he were to complain even +in delirium, the doctors watching by his bedside would learn that +diphtheria was not the only cause of his sufferings. They would ask +Korostelev. He knew all about it, and it was not for nothing that he +looked at his friend's wife with eyes that seemed to say that she was +the real chief criminal and diphtheria was only her accomplice. She did +not think now of the moonlight evening on the Volga, nor the words of +love, nor their poetical life in the peasant's hut. She thought only +that from an idle whim, from self-indulgence, she had sullied herself +all over from head to foot in something filthy, sticky, which one could +never wash off.... + +"Oh, how fearfully false I've been!" she thought, recalling the troubled +passion she had known with Ryabovsky. "Curse it all!..." + +At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He did nothing but scowl and +drink red wine, and did not eat a morsel. She ate nothing, either. At +one minute she was praying inwardly and vowing to God that if Dymov +recovered she would love him again and be a faithful wife to him. Then, +forgetting herself for a minute, she would look at Korostelev, and +think: "Surely it must be dull to be a humble, obscure person, not +remarkable in any way, especially with such a wrinkled face and bad +manners!" + +Then it seemed to her that God would strike her dead that minute for +not having once been in her husband's study, for fear of infection. And +altogether she had a dull, despondent feeling and a conviction that her +life was spoilt, and that there was no setting it right anyhow.... + +After dinner darkness came on. When Olga Ivanovna went into the +drawing-room Korostelev was asleep on the sofa, with a gold-embroidered +silk cushion under his head. + +"Khee-poo-ah," he snored--"khee-poo-ah." + +And the doctors as they came to sit up and went away again did not +notice this disorder. The fact that a strange man was asleep and snoring +in the drawing-room, and the sketches on the walls and the exquisite +decoration of the room, and the fact that the lady of the house was +dishevelled and untidy--all that aroused not the slightest interest now. +One of the doctors chanced to laugh at something, and the laugh had a +strange and timid sound that made one's heart ache. + +When Olga Ivanovna went into the drawing-room next time, Korostelev was +not asleep, but sitting up and smoking. + +"He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity," he said in a low voice, "and +the heart is not working properly now. Things are in a bad way, really." + +"But you will send for Shrek?" said Olga Ivanovna. + +"He has been already. It was he noticed that the diphtheria had passed +into the nose. What's the use of Shrek! Shrek's no use at all, really. +He is Shrek, I am Korostelev, and nothing more." + +The time dragged on fearfully slowly. Olga Ivanovna lay down in her +clothes on her bed, that had not been made all day, and sank into +a doze. She dreamed that the whole flat was filled up from floor to +ceiling with a huge piece of iron, and that if they could only get the +iron out they would all be light-hearted and happy. Waking, she realized +that it was not the iron but Dymov's illness that was weighing on her. + +"Nature morte, port..." she thought, sinking into forgetfulness again. +"Sport... Kurort... and what of Shrek? Shrek... trek... wreck.... And +where are my friends now? Do they know that we are in trouble? Lord, +save... spare! Shrek... trek..." + +And again the iron was there.... The time dragged on slowly, though the +clock on the lower storey struck frequently. And bells were continually +ringing as the doctors arrived.... The house-maid came in with an empty +glass on a tray, and asked, "Shall I make the bed, madam?" and getting +no answer, went away. + +The clock below struck the hour. She dreamed of the rain on the Volga; +and again some one came into her bedroom, she thought a stranger. Olga +Ivanovna jumped up, and recognized Korostelev. + +"What time is it?" she asked. + +"About three." + +"Well, what is it?" + +"What, indeed!... I've come to tell you he is passing...." + +He gave a sob, sat down on the bed beside her, and wiped away the tears +with his sleeve. She could not grasp it at once, but turned cold all +over and began slowly crossing herself. + +"He is passing," he repeated in a shrill voice, and again he gave a sob. +"He is dying because he sacrificed himself. What a loss for science!" +he said bitterly. "Compare him with all of us. He was a great man, an +extraordinary man! What gifts! What hopes we all had of him!" Korostelev +went on, wringing his hands: "Merciful God, he was a man of science; we +shall never look on his like again. Osip Dymov, what have you done--aie, +aie, my God!" + +Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair, and shook his +head. + +"And his moral force," he went on, seeming to grow more and more +exasperated against some one. "Not a man, but a pure, good, loving soul, +and clean as crystal. He served science and died for science. And he +worked like an ox night and day--no one spared him--and with his +youth and his learning he had to take a private practice and work at +translations at night to pay for these... vile rags!" + +Korostelev looked with hatred at Olga Ivanovna, snatched at the sheet +with both hands and angrily tore it, as though it were to blame. + +"He did not spare himself, and others did not spare him. Oh, what's the +use of talking!" + +"Yes, he was a rare man," said a bass voice in the drawing-room. + +Olga Ivanovna remembered her whole life with him from the beginning +to the end, with all its details, and suddenly she understood that he +really was an extraordinary, rare, and, compared with every one else she +knew, a great man. And remembering how her father, now dead, and all the +other doctors had behaved to him, she realized that they really had seen +in him a future celebrity. The walls, the ceiling, the lamp, and the +carpet on the floor, seemed to be winking at her sarcastically, as +though they would say, "You were blind! you were blind!" With a wail +she flung herself out of the bedroom, dashed by some unknown man in the +drawing-room, and ran into her husband's study. He was lying motionless +on the sofa, covered to the waist with a quilt. His face was fearfully +thin and sunken, and was of a greyish-yellow colour such as is never +seen in the living; only from the forehead, from the black eyebrows and +from the familiar smile, could he be recognized as Dymov. Olga Ivanovna +hurriedly felt his chest, his forehead, and his hands. The chest was +still warm, but the forehead and hands were unpleasantly cold, and the +half-open eyes looked, not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the quilt. + +"Dymov!" she called aloud, "Dymov!" She wanted to explain to him that +it had been a mistake, that all was not lost, that life might still be +beautiful and happy, that he was an extraordinary, rare, great man, and +that she would all her life worship him and bow down in homage and holy +awe before him.... + +"Dymov!" she called him, patting him on the shoulder, unable to believe +that he would never wake again. "Dymov! Dymov!" + +In the drawing-room Korostelev was saying to the housemaid: + +"Why keep asking? Go to the church beadle and enquire where they +live. They'll wash the body and lay it out, and do everything that is +necessary." + + + + + +A DREARY STORY + +FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF AN OLD MAN + +I + +THERE is in Russia an emeritus Professor Nikolay Stepanovitch, a +chevalier and privy councillor; he has so many Russian and foreign +decorations that when he has occasion to put them on the students +nickname him "The Ikonstand." His acquaintances are of the most +aristocratic; for the last twenty-five or thirty years, at any rate, +there has not been one single distinguished man of learning in Russia +with whom he has not been intimately acquainted. There is no one for him +to make friends with nowadays; but if we turn to the past, the long list +of his famous friends winds up with such names as Pirogov, Kavelin, +and the poet Nekrasov, all of whom bestowed upon him a warm and sincere +affection. He is a member of all the Russian and of three foreign +universities. And so on, and so on. All that and a great deal more that +might be said makes up what is called my "name." + +That is my name as known to the public. In Russia it is known to every +educated man, and abroad it is mentioned in the lecture-room with the +addition "honoured and distinguished." It is one of those fortunate +names to abuse which or to take which in vain, in public or in print, is +considered a sign of bad taste. And that is as it should be. You see, my +name is closely associated with the conception of a highly distinguished +man of great gifts and unquestionable usefulness. I have the industry +and power of endurance of a camel, and that is important, and I have +talent, which is even more important. Moreover, while I am on this +subject, I am a well-educated, modest, and honest fellow. I have +never poked my nose into literature or politics; I have never sought +popularity in polemics with the ignorant; I have never made speeches +either at public dinners or at the funerals of my friends.... In fact, +there is no slur on my learned name, and there is no complaint one can +make against it. It is fortunate. + +The bearer of that name, that is I, see myself as a man of sixty-two, +with a bald head, with false teeth, and with an incurable tic +douloureux. I am myself as dingy and unsightly as my name is brilliant +and splendid. My head and my hands tremble with weakness; my neck, as +Turgenev says of one of his heroines, is like the handle of a double +bass; my chest is hollow; my shoulders narrow; when I talk or lecture, +my mouth turns down at one corner; when I smile, my whole face is +covered with aged-looking, deathly wrinkles. There is nothing impressive +about my pitiful figure; only, perhaps, when I have an attack of tic +douloureux my face wears a peculiar expression, the sight of which must +have roused in every one the grim and impressive thought, "Evidently +that man will soon die." + +I still, as in the past, lecture fairly well; I can still, as in the +past, hold the attention of my listeners for a couple of hours. My +fervour, the literary skill of my exposition, and my humour, almost +efface the defects of my voice, though it is harsh, dry, and monotonous +as a praying beggar's. I write poorly. That bit of my brain which +presides over the faculty of authorship refuses to work. My memory has +grown weak; there is a lack of sequence in my ideas, and when I put them +on paper it always seems to me that I have lost the instinct for their +organic connection; my construction is monotonous; my language is +poor and timid. Often I write what I do not mean; I have forgotten the +beginning when I am writing the end. Often I forget ordinary words, and +I always have to waste a great deal of energy in avoiding superfluous +phrases and unnecessary parentheses in my letters, both unmistakable +proofs of a decline in mental activity. And it is noteworthy that +the simpler the letter the more painful the effort to write it. At a +scientific article I feel far more intelligent and at ease than at a +letter of congratulation or a minute of proceedings. Another point: I +find it easier to write German or English than to write Russian. + +As regards my present manner of life, I must give a foremost place to +the insomnia from which I have suffered of late. If I were asked what +constituted the chief and fundamental feature of my existence now, I +should answer, Insomnia. As in the past, from habit I undress and go to +bed exactly at midnight. I fall asleep quickly, but before two o'clock +I wake up and feel as though I had not slept at all. Sometimes I get out +of bed and light a lamp. For an hour or two I walk up and down the room +looking at the familiar photographs and pictures. When I am weary of +walking about, I sit down to my table. I sit motionless, thinking of +nothing, conscious of no inclination; if a book is lying before me, I +mechanically move it closer and read it without any interest--in that +way not long ago I mechanically read through in one night a whole novel, +with the strange title "The Song the Lark was Singing"; or to occupy my +attention I force myself to count to a thousand; or I imagine the face +of one of my colleagues and begin trying to remember in what year and +under what circumstances he entered the service. I like listening to +sounds. Two rooms away from me my daughter Liza says something rapidly +in her sleep, or my wife crosses the drawing-room with a candle and +invariably drops the matchbox; or a warped cupboard creaks; or the +burner of the lamp suddenly begins to hum--and all these sounds, for +some reason, excite me. + +To lie awake at night means to be at every moment conscious of being +abnormal, and so I look forward with impatience to the morning and the +day when I have a right to be awake. Many wearisome hours pass before +the cock crows in the yard. He is my first bringer of good tidings. +As soon as he crows I know that within an hour the porter will wake up +below, and, coughing angrily, will go upstairs to fetch something. And +then a pale light will begin gradually glimmering at the windows, voices +will sound in the street.... + +The day begins for me with the entrance of my wife. She comes in to +me in her petticoat, before she has done her hair, but after she has +washed, smelling of flower-scented eau-de-Cologne, looking as though +she had come in by chance. Every time she says exactly the same thing: +"Excuse me, I have just come in for a minute.... Have you had a bad +night again?" + +Then she puts out the lamp, sits down near the table, and begins +talking. I am no prophet, but I know what she will talk about. Every +morning it is exactly the same thing. Usually, after anxious inquiries +concerning my health, she suddenly mentions our son who is an officer +serving at Warsaw. After the twentieth of each month we send him fifty +roubles, and that serves as the chief topic of our conversation. + +"Of course it is difficult for us," my wife would sigh, "but until he is +completely on his own feet it is our duty to help him. The boy is among +strangers, his pay is small.... However, if you like, next month we +won't send him fifty, but forty. What do you think?" + +Daily experience might have taught my wife that constantly talking +of our expenses does not reduce them, but my wife refuses to learn by +experience, and regularly every morning discusses our officer son, and +tells me that bread, thank God, is cheaper, while sugar is a halfpenny +dearer--with a tone and an air as though she were communicating +interesting news. + +I listen, mechanically assent, and probably because I have had a bad +night, strange and inappropriate thoughts intrude themselves upon me. I +gaze at my wife and wonder like a child. I ask myself in perplexity, +is it possible that this old, very stout, ungainly woman, with her +dull expression of petty anxiety and alarm about daily bread, with eyes +dimmed by continual brooding over debts and money difficulties, who +can talk of nothing but expenses and who smiles at nothing but things +getting cheaper--is it possible that this woman is no other than the +slender Varya whom I fell in love with so passionately for her fine, +clear intelligence, for her pure soul, her beauty, and, as Othello his +Desdemona, for her "sympathy" for my studies? Could that woman be no +other than the Varya who had once borne me a son? + +I look with strained attention into the face of this flabby, spiritless, +clumsy old woman, seeking in her my Varya, but of her past self nothing +is left but her anxiety over my health and her manner of calling my +salary "our salary," and my cap "our cap." It is painful for me to look +at her, and, to give her what little comfort I can, I let her say what +she likes, and say nothing even when she passes unjust criticisms on +other people or pitches into me for not having a private practice or not +publishing text-books. + +Our conversation always ends in the same way. My wife suddenly remembers +with dismay that I have not had my tea. + +"What am I thinking about, sitting here?" she says, getting up. "The +samovar has been on the table ever so long, and here I stay gossiping. +My goodness! how forgetful I am growing!" + +She goes out quickly, and stops in the doorway to say: + +"We owe Yegor five months' wages. Did you know it? You mustn't let the +servants' wages run on; how many times I have said it! It's much easier +to pay ten roubles a month than fifty roubles every five months!" + +As she goes out, she stops to say: + +"The person I am sorriest for is our Liza. The girl studies at the +Conservatoire, always mixes with people of good position, and goodness +knows how she is dressed. Her fur coat is in such a state she is ashamed +to show herself in the street. If she were somebody else's daughter +it wouldn't matter, but of course every one knows that her father is a +distinguished professor, a privy councillor." + +And having reproached me with my rank and reputation, she goes away at +last. That is how my day begins. It does not improve as it goes on. + +As I am drinking my tea, my Liza comes in wearing her fur coat and +her cap, with her music in her hand, already quite ready to go to the +Conservatoire. She is two-and-twenty. She looks younger, is pretty, +and rather like my wife in her young days. She kisses me tenderly on my +forehead and on my hand, and says: + +"Good-morning, papa; are you quite well?" + +As a child she was very fond of ice-cream, and I used often to take +her to a confectioner's. Ice-cream was for her the type of everything +delightful. If she wanted to praise me she would say: "You are as nice +as cream, papa." We used to call one of her little fingers "pistachio +ice," the next, "cream ice," the third "raspberry," and so on. Usually +when she came in to say good-morning to me I used to sit her on my knee, +kiss her little fingers, and say: + +"Creamy ice... pistachio... lemon...." + +And now, from old habit, I kiss Liza's fingers and mutter: "Pistachio... +cream... lemon..." but the effect is utterly different. I am cold as +ice and I am ashamed. When my daughter comes in to me and touches my +forehead with her lips I start as though a bee had stung me on the +head, give a forced smile, and turn my face away. Ever since I have been +suffering from sleeplessness, a question sticks in my brain like a nail. +My daughter often sees me, an old man and a distinguished man, blush +painfully at being in debt to my footman; she sees how often anxiety +over petty debts forces me to lay aside my work and to walk up and down +the room for hours together, thinking; but why is it she never comes to +me in secret to whisper in my ear: "Father, here is my watch, here +are my bracelets, my earrings, my dresses.... Pawn them all; you want +money..."? How is it that, seeing how her mother and I are placed in a +false position and do our utmost to hide our poverty from people, she +does not give up her expensive pleasure of music lessons? I would +not accept her watch nor her bracelets, nor the sacrifice of her +lessons--God forbid! That isn't what I want. + +I think at the same time of my son, the officer at Warsaw. He is a +clever, honest, and sober fellow. But that is not enough for me. I think +if I had an old father, and if I knew there were moments when he was +put to shame by his poverty, I should give up my officer's commission +to somebody else, and should go out to earn my living as a workman. Such +thoughts about my children poison me. What is the use of them? It is +only a narrow-minded or embittered man who can harbour evil thoughts +about ordinary people because they are not heroes. But enough of that! + +At a quarter to ten I have to go and give a lecture to my dear boys. I +dress and walk along the road which I have known for thirty years, +and which has its history for me. Here is the big grey house with the +chemist's shop; at this point there used to stand a little house, and in +it was a beershop; in that beershop I thought out my thesis and wrote +my first love-letter to Varya. I wrote it in pencil, on a page headed +"Historia morbi." Here there is a grocer's shop; at one time it was kept +by a little Jew, who sold me cigarettes on credit; then by a fat peasant +woman, who liked the students because "every one of them has a mother"; +now there is a red-haired shopkeeper sitting in it, a very stolid man +who drinks tea from a copper teapot. And here are the gloomy gates of +the University, which have long needed doing up; I see the bored porter +in his sheep-skin, the broom, the drifts of snow.... On a boy coming +fresh from the provinces and imagining that the temple of science +must really be a temple, such gates cannot make a healthy impression. +Altogether the dilapidated condition of the University buildings, the +gloominess of the corridors, the griminess of the walls, the lack of +light, the dejected aspect of the steps, the hat-stands and the benches, +take a prominent position among predisposing causes in the history of +Russian pessimism.... Here is our garden... I fancy it has grown neither +better nor worse since I was a student. I don't like it. It would be +far more sensible if there were tall pines and fine oaks growing here +instead of sickly-looking lime-trees, yellow acacias, and skimpy pollard +lilacs. The student whose state of mind is in the majority of cases +created by his surroundings, ought in the place where he is studying +to see facing him at every turn nothing but what is lofty, strong and +elegant.... God preserve him from gaunt trees, broken windows, grey +walls, and doors covered with torn American leather! + +When I go to my own entrance the door is flung wide open, and I am met +by my colleague, contemporary, and namesake, the porter Nikolay. As he +lets me in he clears his throat and says: + +"A frost, your Excellency!" + +Or, if my great-coat is wet: + +"Rain, your Excellency!" + +Then he runs on ahead of me and opens all the doors on my way. In my +study he carefully takes off my fur coat, and while doing so manages +to tell me some bit of University news. Thanks to the close intimacy +existing between all the University porters and beadles, he knows +everything that goes on in the four faculties, in the office, in the +rector's private room, in the library. What does he not know? When in +an evil day a rector or dean, for instance, retires, I hear him in +conversation with the young porters mention the candidates for the post, +explain that such a one would not be confirmed by the minister, that +another would himself refuse to accept it, then drop into fantastic +details concerning mysterious papers received in the office, secret +conversations alleged to have taken place between the minister and +the trustee, and so on. With the exception of these details, he almost +always turns out to be right. His estimates of the candidates, though +original, are very correct, too. If one wants to know in what year some +one read his thesis, entered the service, retired, or died, then summon +to your assistance the vast memory of that soldier, and he will not only +tell you the year, the month and the day, but will furnish you also with +the details that accompanied this or that event. Only one who loves can +remember like that. + +He is the guardian of the University traditions. From the porters who +were his predecessors he has inherited many legends of University life, +has added to that wealth much of his own gained during his time of +service, and if you care to hear he will tell you many long and +intimate stories. He can tell one about extraordinary sages who knew +_everything_, about remarkable students who did not sleep for weeks, +about numerous martyrs and victims of science; with him good triumphs +over evil, the weak always vanquishes the strong, the wise man the fool, +the humble the proud, the young the old. There is no need to take all +these fables and legends for sterling coin; but filter them, and you +will have left what is wanted: our fine traditions and the names of real +heroes, recognized as such by all. + +In our society the knowledge of the learned world consists of anecdotes +of the extraordinary absentmindedness of certain old professors, and two +or three witticisms variously ascribed to Gruber, to me, and to Babukin. +For the educated public that is not much. If it loved science, learned +men, and students, as Nikolay does, its literature would long ago +have contained whole epics, records of sayings and doings such as, +unfortunately, it cannot boast of now. + +After telling me a piece of news, Nikolay assumes a severe expression, +and conversation about business begins. If any outsider could at such +times overhear Nikolay's free use of our terminology, he might perhaps +imagine that he was a learned man disguised as a soldier. And, by the +way, the rumours of the erudition of the University porters are greatly +exaggerated. It is true that Nikolay knows more than a hundred Latin +words, knows how to put the skeleton together, sometimes prepares the +apparatus and amuses the students by some long, learned quotation, but +the by no means complicated theory of the circulation of the blood, for +instance, is as much a mystery to him now as it was twenty years ago. + +At the table in my study, bending low over some book or preparation, +sits Pyotr Ignatyevitch, my demonstrator, a modest and industrious but +by no means clever man of five-and-thirty, already bald and corpulent; +he works from morning to night, reads a lot, remembers well everything +he has read--and in that way he is not a man, but pure gold; in all else +he is a carthorse or, in other words, a learned dullard. The carthorse +characteristics that show his lack of talent are these: his outlook is +narrow and sharply limited by his specialty; outside his special branch +he is simple as a child. + +"Fancy! what a misfortune! They say Skobelev is dead." + +Nikolay crosses himself, but Pyotr Ignatyevitch turns to me and asks: + +"What Skobelev is that?" + +Another time--somewhat earlier--I told him that Professor Perov was +dead. Good Pyotr Ignatyevitch asked: + +"What did he lecture on?" + +I believe if Patti had sung in his very ear, if a horde of Chinese +had invaded Russia, if there had been an earthquake, he would not have +stirred a limb, but screwing up his eye, would have gone on calmly +looking through his microscope. What is he to Hecuba or Hecuba to him, +in fact? I would give a good deal to see how this dry stick sleeps with +his wife at night. + +Another characteristic is his fanatical faith in the infallibility +of science, and, above all, of everything written by the Germans. He +believes in himself, in his preparations; knows the object of life, and +knows nothing of the doubts and disappointments that turn the hair of +talent grey. He has a slavish reverence for authorities and a complete +lack of any desire for independent thought. To change his convictions is +difficult, to argue with him impossible. How is one to argue with a man +who is firmly persuaded that medicine is the finest of sciences, that +doctors are the best of men, and that the traditions of the medical +profession are superior to those of any other? Of the evil past of +medicine only one tradition has been preserved--the white tie still +worn by doctors; for a learned--in fact, for any educated man the only +traditions that can exist are those of the University as a whole, with +no distinction between medicine, law, etc. But it would be hard for +Pyotr Ignatyevitch to accept these facts, and he is ready to argue with +you till the day of judgment. + +I have a clear picture in my mind of his future. In the course of his +life he will prepare many hundreds of chemicals of exceptional purity; +he will write a number of dry and very accurate memoranda, will +make some dozen conscientious translations, but he won't do anything +striking. To do that one must have imagination, inventiveness, the gift +of insight, and Pyotr Ignatyevitch has nothing of the kind. In short, he +is not a master in science, but a journeyman. + +Pyotr Ignatyevitch, Nikolay, and I, talk in subdued tones. We are not +quite ourselves. There is always a peculiar feeling when one hears +through the doors a murmur as of the sea from the lecture-theatre. In +the course of thirty years I have not grown accustomed to this feeling, +and I experience it every morning. I nervously button up my coat, ask +Nikolay unnecessary questions, lose my temper.... It is just as though +I were frightened; it is not timidity, though, but something different +which I can neither describe nor find a name for. + +Quite unnecessarily, I look at my watch and say: "Well, it's time to go +in." + +And we march into the room in the following order: foremost goes +Nikolay, with the chemicals and apparatus or with a chart; after him I +come; and then the carthorse follows humbly, with hanging head; or, when +necessary, a dead body is carried in first on a stretcher, followed by +Nikolay, and so on. On my entrance the students all stand up, then they +sit down, and the sound as of the sea is suddenly hushed. Stillness +reigns. + +I know what I am going to lecture about, but I don't know how I am going +to lecture, where I am going to begin or with what I am going to end. +I haven't a single sentence ready in my head. But I have only to look +round the lecture-hall (it is built in the form of an amphitheatre) +and utter the stereotyped phrase, "Last lecture we stopped at..." when +sentences spring up from my soul in a long string, and I am carried away +by my own eloquence. I speak with irresistible rapidity and passion, and +it seems as though there were no force which could check the flow of +my words. To lecture well--that is, with profit to the listeners and +without boring them--one must have, besides talent, experience and a +special knack; one must possess a clear conception of one's own powers, +of the audience to which one is lecturing, and of the subject of one's +lecture. Moreover, one must be a man who knows what he is doing; one +must keep a sharp lookout, and not for one second lose sight of what +lies before one. + +A good conductor, interpreting the thought of the composer, does twenty +things at once: reads the score, waves his baton, watches the singer, +makes a motion sideways, first to the drum then to the wind-instruments, +and so on. I do just the same when I lecture. Before me a hundred and +fifty faces, all unlike one another; three hundred eyes all looking +straight into my face. My object is to dominate this many-headed +monster. If every moment as I lecture I have a clear vision of the +degree of its attention and its power of comprehension, it is in my +power. The other foe I have to overcome is in myself. It is the infinite +variety of forms, phenomena, laws, and the multitude of ideas of my own +and other people's conditioned by them. Every moment I must have the +skill to snatch out of that vast mass of material what is most important +and necessary, and, as rapidly as my words flow, clothe my thought in a +form in which it can be grasped by the monster's intelligence, and may +arouse its attention, and at the same time one must keep a sharp lookout +that one's thoughts are conveyed, not just as they come, but in a +certain order, essential for the correct composition of the picture I +wish to sketch. Further, I endeavour to make my diction literary, my +definitions brief and precise, my wording, as far as possible, simple +and eloquent. Every minute I have to pull myself up and remember that +I have only an hour and forty minutes at my disposal. In short, one has +one's work cut out. At one and the same minute one has to play the part +of savant and teacher and orator, and it's a bad thing if the orator +gets the upper hand of the savant or of the teacher in one, or _vice +versa_. + +You lecture for a quarter of an hour, for half an hour, when you +notice that the students are beginning to look at the ceiling, at Pyotr +Ignatyevitch; one is feeling for his handkerchief, another shifts in his +seat, another smiles at his thoughts.... That means that their attention +is flagging. Something must be done. Taking advantage of the first +opportunity, I make some pun. A broad grin comes on to a hundred and +fifty faces, the eyes shine brightly, the sound of the sea is audible +for a brief moment.... I laugh too. Their attention is refreshed, and I +can go on. + +No kind of sport, no kind of game or diversion, has ever given me such +enjoyment as lecturing. Only at lectures have I been able to abandon +myself entirely to passion, and have understood that inspiration is +not an invention of the poets, but exists in real life, and I imagine +Hercules after the most piquant of his exploits felt just such +voluptuous exhaustion as I experience after every lecture. + +That was in old times. Now at lectures I feel nothing but torture. +Before half an hour is over I am conscious of an overwhelming weakness +in my legs and my shoulders. I sit down in my chair, but I am not +accustomed to lecture sitting down; a minute later I get up and go on +standing, then sit down again. There is a dryness in my mouth, my voice +grows husky, my head begins to go round.... To conceal my condition +from my audience I continually drink water, cough, often blow my nose as +though I were hindered by a cold, make puns inappropriately, and in the +end break off earlier than I ought to. But above all I am ashamed. + +My conscience and my intelligence tell me that the very best thing I +could do now would be to deliver a farewell lecture to the boys, to +say my last word to them, to bless them, and give up my post to a man +younger and stronger than me. But, God, be my judge, I have not manly +courage enough to act according to my conscience. + +Unfortunately, I am not a philosopher and not a theologian. I know +perfectly well that I cannot live more than another six months; it might +be supposed that I ought now to be chiefly concerned with the question +of the shadowy life beyond the grave, and the visions that will visit my +slumbers in the tomb. But for some reason my soul refuses to recognize +these questions, though my mind is fully alive to their importance. Just +as twenty, thirty years ago, so now, on the threshold of death, I am +interested in nothing but science. As I yield up my last breath I shall +still believe that science is the most important, the most splendid, +the most essential thing in the life of man; that it always has been and +will be the highest manifestation of love, and that only by means of it +will man conquer himself and nature. This faith is perhaps naive and may +rest on false assumptions, but it is not my fault that I believe that +and nothing else; I cannot overcome in myself this belief. + +But that is not the point. I only ask people to be indulgent to my +weakness, and to realize that to tear from the lecture-theatre and his +pupils a man who is more interested in the history of the development +of the bone medulla than in the final object of creation would be +equivalent to taking him and nailing him up in his coffin without +waiting for him to be dead. + +Sleeplessness and the consequent strain of combating increasing weakness +leads to something strange in me. In the middle of my lecture tears +suddenly rise in my throat, my eyes begin to smart, and I feel a +passionate, hysterical desire to stretch out my hands before me and +break into loud lamentation. I want to cry out in a loud voice that I, +a famous man, have been sentenced by fate to the death penalty, that +within some six months another man will be in control here in the +lecture-theatre. I want to shriek that I am poisoned; new ideas such as +I have not known before have poisoned the last days of my life, and are +still stinging my brain like mosquitoes. And at that moment my position +seems to me so awful that I want all my listeners to be horrified, to +leap up from their seats and to rush in panic terror, with desperate +screams, to the exit. + +It is not easy to get through such moments. + +II + +After my lecture I sit at home and work. I read journals and monographs, +or prepare my next lecture; sometimes I write something. I work with +interruptions, as I have from time to time to see visitors. + +There is a ring at the bell. It is a colleague come to discuss some +business matter with me. He comes in to me with his hat and his stick, +and, holding out both these objects to me, says: + +"Only for a minute! Only for a minute! Sit down, _collega_! Only a +couple of words." + +To begin with, we both try to show each other that we are +extraordinarily polite and highly delighted to see each other. I make +him sit down in an easy-chair, and he makes me sit down; as we do so, we +cautiously pat each other on the back, touch each other's buttons, and +it looks as though we were feeling each other and afraid of scorching +our fingers. Both of us laugh, though we say nothing amusing. When we +are seated we bow our heads towards each other and begin talking +in subdued voices. However affectionately disposed we may be to one +another, we cannot help adorning our conversation with all sorts of +Chinese mannerisms, such as "As you so justly observed," or "I have +already had the honour to inform you"; we cannot help laughing if one +of us makes a joke, however unsuccessfully. When we have finished with +business my colleague gets up impulsively and, waving his hat in the +direction of my work, begins to say good-bye. Again we paw one another +and laugh. I see him into the hall; when I assist my colleague to put +on his coat, while he does all he can to decline this high honour. Then +when Yegor opens the door my colleague declares that I shall catch cold, +while I make a show of being ready to go even into the street with him. +And when at last I go back into my study my face still goes on smiling, +I suppose from inertia. + +A little later another ring at the bell. Somebody comes into the hall, +and is a long time coughing and taking off his things. Yegor announces +a student. I tell him to ask him in. A minute later a young man of +agreeable appearance comes in. For the last year he and I have been on +strained relations; he answers me disgracefully at the examinations, +and I mark him one. Every year I have some seven such hopefuls whom, to +express it in the students' slang, I "chivy" or "floor." Those of them +who fail in their examination through incapacity or illness usually bear +their cross patiently and do not haggle with me; those who come to the +house and haggle with me are always youths of sanguine temperament, +broad natures, whose failure at examinations spoils their appetites and +hinders them from visiting the opera with their usual regularity. I let +the first class off easily, but the second I chivy through a whole year. + +"Sit down," I say to my visitor; "what have you to tell me?" + +"Excuse me, professor, for troubling you," he begins, hesitating, and +not looking me in the face. "I would not have ventured to trouble you if +it had not been... I have been up for your examination five times, and +have been ploughed.... I beg you, be so good as to mark me for a pass, +because..." + +The argument which all the sluggards bring forward on their own behalf +is always the same; they have passed well in all their subjects and have +only come to grief in mine, and that is the more surprising because they +have always been particularly interested in my subject and knew it +so well; their failure has always been entirely owing to some +incomprehensible misunderstanding. + +"Excuse me, my friend," I say to the visitor; "I cannot mark you for a +pass. Go and read up the lectures and come to me again. Then we shall +see." + +A pause. I feel an impulse to torment the student a little for liking +beer and the opera better than science, and I say, with a sigh: + +"To my mind, the best thing you can do now is to give up medicine +altogether. If, with your abilities, you cannot succeed in passing +the examination, it's evident that you have neither the desire nor the +vocation for a doctor's calling." + +The sanguine youth's face lengthens. + +"Excuse me, professor," he laughs, "but that would be odd of me, to say +the least of it. After studying for five years, all at once to give it +up." + +"Oh, well! Better to have lost your five years than have to spend the +rest of your life in doing work you do not care for." + +But at once I feel sorry for him, and I hasten to add: + +"However, as you think best. And so read a little more and come again." + +"When?" the idle youth asks in a hollow voice. + +"When you like. Tomorrow if you like." + +And in his good-natured eyes I read: + +"I can come all right, but of course you will plough me again, you +beast!" + +"Of course," I say, "you won't know more science for going in for my +examination another fifteen times, but it is training your character, +and you must be thankful for that." + +Silence follows. I get up and wait for my visitor to go, but he stands +and looks towards the window, fingers his beard, and thinks. It grows +boring. + +The sanguine youth's voice is pleasant and mellow, his eyes are clever +and ironical, his face is genial, though a little bloated from frequent +indulgence in beer and overlong lying on the sofa; he looks as though +he could tell me a lot of interesting things about the opera, about his +affairs of the heart, and about comrades whom he likes. Unluckily, it is +not the thing to discuss these subjects, or else I should have been glad +to listen to him. + +"Professor, I give you my word of honour that if you mark me for a pass +I... I'll..." + +As soon as we reach the "word of honour" I wave my hands and sit down to +the table. The student ponders a minute longer, and says dejectedly: + +"In that case, good-bye... I beg your pardon." + +"Good-bye, my friend. Good luck to you." + +He goes irresolutely into the hall, slowly puts on his outdoor things, +and, going out into the street, probably ponders for some time longer; +unable to think of anything, except "old devil," inwardly addressed to +me, he goes into a wretched restaurant to dine and drink beer, and then +home to bed. "Peace be to thy ashes, honest toiler." + +A third ring at the bell. A young doctor, in a pair of new black +trousers, gold spectacles, and of course a white tie, walks in. He +introduces himself. I beg him to be seated, and ask what I can do for +him. Not without emotion, the young devotee of science begins telling me +that he has passed his examination as a doctor of medicine, and that he +has now only to write his dissertation. He would like to work with me +under my guidance, and he would be greatly obliged to me if I would give +him a subject for his dissertation. + +"Very glad to be of use to you, colleague," I say, "but just let us come +to an understanding as to the meaning of a dissertation. That word is +taken to mean a composition which is a product of independent creative +effort. Is that not so? A work written on another man's subject and +under another man's guidance is called something different...." + +The doctor says nothing. I fly into a rage and jump up from my seat. + +"Why is it you all come to me?" I cry angrily. "Do I keep a shop? I +don't deal in subjects. For the thousand and oneth time I ask you all +to leave me in peace! Excuse my brutality, but I am quite sick of it!" + +The doctor remains silent, but a faint flush is apparent on his +cheek-bones. His face expresses a profound reverence for my fame and my +learning, but from his eyes I can see he feels a contempt for my voice, +my pitiful figure, and my nervous gesticulation. I impress him in my +anger as a queer fish. + +"I don't keep a shop," I go on angrily. "And it is a strange thing! +Why don't you want to be independent? Why have you such a distaste for +independence?" + +I say a great deal, but he still remains silent. By degrees I calm down, +and of course give in. The doctor gets a subject from me for his theme +not worth a halfpenny, writes under my supervision a dissertation of +no use to any one, with dignity defends it in a dreary discussion, and +receives a degree of no use to him. + +The rings at the bell may follow one another endlessly, but I will +confine my description here to four of them. The bell rings for the +fourth time, and I hear familiar footsteps, the rustle of a dress, a +dear voice.... + +Eighteen years ago a colleague of mine, an oculist, died leaving a +little daughter Katya, a child of seven, and sixty thousand roubles. +In his will he made me the child's guardian. Till she was ten years +old Katya lived with us as one of the family, then she was sent to a +boarding-school, and only spent the summer holidays with us. I never +had time to look after her education. I only superintended it at leisure +moments, and so I can say very little about her childhood. + +The first thing I remember, and like so much in remembrance, is the +extraordinary trustfulness with which she came into our house and let +herself be treated by the doctors, a trustfulness which was always +shining in her little face. She would sit somewhere out of the way, with +her face tied up, invariably watching something with attention; whether +she watched me writing or turning over the pages of a book, or watched +my wife bustling about, or the cook scrubbing a potato in the kitchen, +or the dog playing, her eyes invariably expressed the same thought--that +is, "Everything that is done in this world is nice and sensible." She +was curious, and very fond of talking to me. Sometimes she would sit at +the table opposite me, watching my movements and asking questions. It +interested her to know what I was reading, what I did at the University, +whether I was not afraid of the dead bodies, what I did with my salary. + +"Do the students fight at the University?" she would ask. + +"They do, dear." + +"And do you make them go down on their knees?" + +"Yes, I do." + +And she thought it funny that the students fought and I made them go +down on their knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle, patient, good +child. It happened not infrequently that I saw something taken away from +her, saw her punished without reason, or her curiosity repressed; at +such times a look of sadness was mixed with the invariable expression of +trustfulness on her face--that was all. I did not know how to take her +part; only when I saw her sad I had an inclination to draw her to me and +to commiserate her like some old nurse: "My poor little orphan one!" + +I remember, too, that she was fond of fine clothes and of sprinkling +herself with scent. In that respect she was like me. I, too, am fond of +pretty clothes and nice scent. + +I regret that I had not time nor inclination to watch over the rise and +development of the passion which took complete possession of Katya when +she was fourteen or fifteen. I mean her passionate love for the theatre. +When she used to come from boarding-school and stay with us for the +summer holidays, she talked of nothing with such pleasure and such +warmth as of plays and actors. She bored us with her continual talk of +the theatre. My wife and children would not listen to her. I was the +only one who had not the courage to refuse to attend to her. When she +had a longing to share her transports, she used to come into my study +and say in an imploring tone: + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch, do let me talk to you about the theatre!" + +I pointed to the clock, and said: + +"I'll give you half an hour--begin." + +Later on she used to bring with her dozens of portraits of actors and +actresses which she worshipped; then she attempted several times to take +part in private theatricals, and the upshot of it all was that when +she left school she came to me and announced that she was born to be an +actress. + +I had never shared Katya's inclinations for the theatre. To my mind, if +a play is good there is no need to trouble the actors in order that it +may make the right impression; it is enough to read it. If the play is +poor, no acting will make it good. + +In my youth I often visited the theatre, and now my family takes a box +twice a year and carries me off for a little distraction. Of course, +that is not enough to give me the right to judge of the theatre. In my +opinion the theatre has become no better than it was thirty or forty +years ago. Just as in the past, I can never find a glass of clean water +in the corridors or foyers of the theatre. Just as in the past, the +attendants fine me twenty kopecks for my fur coat, though there is +nothing reprehensible in wearing a warm coat in winter. As in the past, +for no sort of reason, music is played in the intervals, which adds +something new and uncalled-for to the impression made by the play. As in +the past, men go in the intervals and drink spirits in the buffet. If no +progress can be seen in trifles, I should look for it in vain in what +is more important. When an actor wrapped from head to foot in stage +traditions and conventions tries to recite a simple ordinary speech, "To +be or not to be," not simply, but invariably with the accompaniment of +hissing and convulsive movements all over his body, or when he tries to +convince me at all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and +is so fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is +not a dull play, the stage gives me the same feeling of conventionality +which bored me so much forty years ago when I was regaled with the +classical howling and beating on the breast. And every time I come out +of the theatre more conservative than I go in. + +The sentimental and confiding public may be persuaded that the stage, +even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is familiar with +a school in its true sense will not be caught with that bait. I cannot +say what will happen in fifty or a hundred years, but in its actual +condition the theatre can serve only as an entertainment. But this +entertainment is too costly to be frequently enjoyed. It robs the state +of thousands of healthy and talented young men and women, who, if they +had not devoted themselves to the theatre, might have been good doctors, +farmers, schoolmistresses, officers; it robs the public of the evening +hours--the best time for intellectual work and social intercourse. I say +nothing of the waste of money and the moral damage to the spectator when +he sees murder, fornication, or false witness unsuitably treated on the +stage. + +Katya was of an entirely different opinion. She assured me that +the theatre, even in its present condition, was superior to the +lecture-hall, to books, or to anything in the world. The stage was a +power that united in itself all the arts, and actors were missionaries. +No art nor science was capable of producing so strong and so certain an +effect on the soul of man as the stage, and it was with good reason that +an actor of medium quality enjoys greater popularity than the greatest +savant or artist. And no sort of public service could provide such +enjoyment and gratification as the theatre. + +And one fine day Katya joined a troupe of actors, and went off, I +believe to Ufa, taking away with her a good supply of money, a store of +rainbow hopes, and the most aristocratic views of her work. + +Her first letters on the journey were marvellous. I read them, and was +simply amazed that those small sheets of paper could contain so much +youth, purity of spirit, holy innocence, and at the same time subtle +and apt judgments which would have done credit to a fine masculine +intellect. It was more like a rapturous paean of praise she sent me than +a mere description of the Volga, the country, the towns she visited, her +companions, her failures and successes; every sentence was fragrant with +that confiding trustfulness I was accustomed to read in her face--and +at the same time there were a great many grammatical mistakes, and there +was scarcely any punctuation at all. + +Before six months had passed I received a highly poetical and +enthusiastic letter beginning with the words, "I have come to love..." +This letter was accompanied by a photograph representing a young man +with a shaven face, a wide-brimmed hat, and a plaid flung over his +shoulder. The letters that followed were as splendid as before, but now +commas and stops made their appearance in them, the grammatical mistakes +disappeared, and there was a distinctly masculine flavour about them. +Katya began writing to me how splendid it would be to build a great +theatre somewhere on the Volga, on a cooperative system, and to attract +to the enterprise the rich merchants and the steamer owners; there +would be a great deal of money in it; there would be vast audiences; the +actors would play on co-operative terms.... Possibly all this was really +excellent, but it seemed to me that such schemes could only originate +from a man's mind. + +However that may have been, for a year and a half everything seemed to +go well: Katya was in love, believed in her work, and was happy; but +then I began to notice in her letters unmistakable signs of falling off. +It began with Katya's complaining of her companions--this was the first +and most ominous symptom; if a young scientific or literary man begins +his career with bitter complaints of scientific and literary men, it is +a sure sign that he is worn out and not fit for his work. Katya wrote +to me that her companions did not attend the rehearsals and never knew +their parts; that one could see in every one of them an utter disrespect +for the public in the production of absurd plays, and in their behaviour +on the stage; that for the benefit of the Actors' Fund, which they only +talked about, actresses of the serious drama demeaned themselves by +singing chansonettes, while tragic actors sang comic songs making fun of +deceived husbands and the pregnant condition of unfaithful wives, and +so on. In fact, it was amazing that all this had not yet ruined the +provincial stage, and that it could still maintain itself on such a +rotten and unsubstantial footing. + +In answer I wrote Katya a long and, I must confess, a very boring +letter. Among other things, I wrote to her: + +"I have more than once happened to converse with old actors, very worthy +men, who showed a friendly disposition towards me; from my conversations +with them I could understand that their work was controlled not so much +by their own intelligence and free choice as by fashion and the mood of +the public. The best of them had had to play in their day in tragedy, +in operetta, in Parisian farces, and in extravaganzas, and they always +seemed equally sure that they were on the right path and that they were +of use. So, as you see, the cause of the evil must be sought, not in the +actors, but, more deeply, in the art itself and in the attitude of the +whole of society to it." + +This letter of mine only irritated Katya. She answered me: + +"You and I are singing parts out of different operas. I wrote to you, +not of the worthy men who showed a friendly disposition to you, but of +a band of knaves who have nothing worthy about them. They are a horde of +savages who have got on the stage simply because no one would have taken +them elsewhere, and who call themselves artists simply because they +are impudent. There are numbers of dull-witted creatures, drunkards, +intriguing schemers and slanderers, but there is not one person of +talent among them. I cannot tell you how bitter it is to me that the art +I love has fallen into the hands of people I detest; how bitter it is +that the best men look on at evil from afar, not caring to come closer, +and, instead of intervening, write ponderous commonplaces and utterly +useless sermons...." And so on, all in the same style. + +A little time passed, and I got this letter: "I have been brutally +deceived. I cannot go on living. Dispose of my money as you think best. +I loved you as my father and my only friend. Good-bye." + +It turned out that _he_, too, belonged to the "horde of savages." Later +on, from certain hints, I gathered that there had been an attempt at +suicide. I believe Katya tried to poison herself. I imagine that she +must have been seriously ill afterwards, as the next letter I got was +from Yalta, where she had most probably been sent by the doctors. Her +last letter contained a request to send her a thousand roubles to Yalta +as quickly as possible, and ended with these words: + +"Excuse the gloominess of this letter; yesterday I buried my child." +After spending about a year in the Crimea, she returned home. + +She had been about four years on her travels, and during those four +years, I must confess, I had played a rather strange and unenviable part +in regard to her. When in earlier days she had told me she was going on +the stage, and then wrote to me of her love; when she was periodically +overcome by extravagance, and I continually had to send her first one +and then two thousand roubles; when she wrote to me of her intention of +suicide, and then of the death of her baby, every time I lost my head, +and all my sympathy for her sufferings found no expression except that, +after prolonged reflection, I wrote long, boring letters which I might +just as well not have written. And yet I took a father's place with her +and loved her like a daughter! + +Now Katya is living less than half a mile off. She has taken a flat +of five rooms, and has installed herself fairly comfortably and in +the taste of the day. If any one were to undertake to describe her +surroundings, the most characteristic note in the picture would be +indolence. For the indolent body there are soft lounges, soft stools; +for indolent feet soft rugs; for indolent eyes faded, dingy, or flat +colours; for the indolent soul the walls are hung with a number of cheap +fans and trivial pictures, in which the originality of the execution is +more conspicuous than the subject; and the room contains a multitude +of little tables and shelves filled with utterly useless articles of no +value, and shapeless rags in place of curtains.... All this, together +with the dread of bright colours, of symmetry, and of empty space, bears +witness not only to spiritual indolence, but also to a corruption of +natural taste. For days together Katya lies on the lounge reading, +principally novels and stories. She only goes out of the house once a +day, in the afternoon, to see me. + +I go on working while Katya sits silent not far from me on the sofa, +wrapping herself in her shawl, as though she were cold. Either because +I find her sympathetic or because I was used to her frequent visits +when she was a little girl, her presence does not prevent me from +concentrating my attention. From time to time I mechanically ask her +some question; she gives very brief replies; or, to rest for a minute, +I turn round and watch her as she looks dreamily at some medical journal +or review. And at such moments I notice that her face has lost the old +look of confiding trustfulness. Her expression now is cold, apathetic, +and absent-minded, like that of passengers who had to wait too long for +a train. She is dressed, as in old days, simply and beautifully, but +carelessly; her dress and her hair show visible traces of the sofas and +rocking-chairs in which she spends whole days at a stretch. And she +has lost the curiosity she had in old days. She has ceased to ask me +questions now, as though she had experienced everything in life and +looked for nothing new from it. + +Towards four o'clock there begins to be sounds of movement in the hall +and in the drawing-room. Liza has come back from the Conservatoire, and +has brought some girl-friends in with her. We hear them playing on the +piano, trying their voices and laughing; in the dining-room Yegor is +laying the table, with the clatter of crockery. + +"Good-bye," said Katya. "I won't go in and see your people today. They +must excuse me. I haven't time. Come and see me." + +While I am seeing her to the door, she looks me up and down grimly, and +says with vexation: + +"You are getting thinner and thinner! Why don't you consult a doctor? +I'll call at Sergey Fyodorovitch's and ask him to have a look at you." + +"There's no need, Katya." + +"I can't think where your people's eyes are! They are a nice lot, I must +say!" + +She puts on her fur coat abruptly, and as she does so two or three +hairpins drop unnoticed on the floor from her carelessly arranged +hair. She is too lazy and in too great a hurry to do her hair up; she +carelessly stuffs the falling curls under her hat, and goes away. + +When I go into the dining-room my wife asks me: + +"Was Katya with you just now? Why didn't she come in to see us? It's +really strange...." + +"Mamma," Liza says to her reproachfully, "let her alone, if she doesn't +want to. We are not going down on our knees to her." + +"It's very neglectful, anyway. To sit for three hours in the study +without remembering our existence! But of course she must do as she +likes." + +Varya and Liza both hate Katya. This hatred is beyond my comprehension, +and probably one would have to be a woman in order to understand it. I +am ready to stake my life that of the hundred and fifty young men I see +every day in the lecture-theatre, and of the hundred elderly ones I meet +every week, hardly one could be found capable of understanding their +hatred and aversion for Katya's past--that is, for her having been a +mother without being a wife, and for her having had an illegitimate +child; and at the same time I cannot recall one woman or girl of my +acquaintance who would not consciously or unconsciously harbour such +feelings. And this is not because woman is purer or more virtuous than +man: why, virtue and purity are not very different from vice if they are +not free from evil feeling. I attribute this simply to the backwardness +of woman. The mournful feeling of compassion and the pang of conscience +experienced by a modern man at the sight of suffering is, to my mind, +far greater proof of culture and moral elevation than hatred and +aversion. Woman is as tearful and as coarse in her feelings now as she +was in the Middle Ages, and to my thinking those who advise that she +should be educated like a man are quite right. + +My wife also dislikes Katya for having been an actress, for ingratitude, +for pride, for eccentricity, and for the numerous vices which one woman +can always find in another. + +Besides my wife and daughter and me, there are dining with us two or +three of my daughter's friends and Alexandr Adolfovitch Gnekker, her +admirer and suitor. He is a fair-haired young man under thirty, of +medium height, very stout and broad-shouldered, with red whiskers near +his ears, and little waxed moustaches which make his plump smooth face +look like a toy. He is dressed in a very short reefer jacket, a flowered +waistcoat, breeches very full at the top and very narrow at the ankle, +with a large check pattern on them, and yellow boots without heels. He +has prominent eyes like a crab's, his cravat is like a crab's neck, and +I even fancy there is a smell of crab-soup about the young man's whole +person. He visits us every day, but no one in my family knows anything +of his origin nor of the place of his education, nor of his means of +livelihood. He neither plays nor sings, but has some connection with +music and singing, sells somebody's pianos somewhere, is frequently +at the Conservatoire, is acquainted with all the celebrities, and is a +steward at the concerts; he criticizes music with great authority, and I +have noticed that people are eager to agree with him. + +Rich people always have dependents hanging about them; the arts and +sciences have the same. I believe there is not an art nor a science +in the world free from "foreign bodies" after the style of this Mr. +Gnekker. I am not a musician, and possibly I am mistaken in regard +to Mr. Gnekker, of whom, indeed, I know very little. But his air of +authority and the dignity with which he takes his stand beside the piano +when any one is playing or singing strike me as very suspicious. + +You may be ever so much of a gentleman and a privy councillor, but if +you have a daughter you cannot be secure of immunity from that petty +bourgeois atmosphere which is so often brought into your house and into +your mood by the attentions of suitors, by matchmaking and marriage. I +can never reconcile myself, for instance, to the expression of triumph +on my wife's face every time Gnekker is in our company, nor can I +reconcile myself to the bottles of Lafitte, port and sherry which are +only brought out on his account, that he may see with his own eyes the +liberal and luxurious way in which we live. I cannot tolerate the habit +of spasmodic laughter Liza has picked up at the Conservatoire, and her +way of screwing up her eyes whenever there are men in the room. Above +all, I cannot understand why a creature utterly alien to my habits, my +studies, my whole manner of life, completely different from the people +I like, should come and see me every day, and every day should dine with +me. My wife and my servants mysteriously whisper that he is a suitor, +but still I don't understand his presence; it rouses in me the same +wonder and perplexity as if they were to set a Zulu beside me at the +table. And it seems strange to me, too, that my daughter, whom I am used +to thinking of as a child, should love that cravat, those eyes, those +soft cheeks.... + +In the old days I used to like my dinner, or at least was indifferent +about it; now it excites in me no feeling but weariness and irritation. +Ever since I became an "Excellency" and one of the Deans of the Faculty +my family has for some reason found it necessary to make a complete +change in our menu and dining habits. Instead of the simple dishes to +which I was accustomed when I was a student and when I was in practice, +now they feed me with a puree with little white things like circles +floating about in it, and kidneys stewed in madeira. My rank as a +general and my fame have robbed me for ever of cabbage-soup and savoury +pies, and goose with apple-sauce, and bream with boiled grain. They have +robbed me of our maid-servant Agasha, a chatty and laughter-loving old +woman, instead of whom Yegor, a dull-witted and conceited fellow with +a white glove on his right hand, waits at dinner. The intervals between +the courses are short, but they seem immensely long because there is +nothing to occupy them. There is none of the gaiety of the old days, the +spontaneous talk, the jokes, the laughter; there is nothing of mutual +affection and the joy which used to animate the children, my wife, and +me when in old days we met together at meals. For me, the celebrated man +of science, dinner was a time of rest and reunion, and for my wife and +children a fete--brief indeed, but bright and joyous--in which they knew +that for half an hour I belonged, not to science, not to students, but +to them alone. Our real exhilaration from one glass of wine is gone for +ever, gone is Agasha, gone the bream with boiled grain, gone the uproar +that greeted every little startling incident at dinner, such as the cat +and dog fighting under the table, or Katya's bandage falling off her +face into her soup-plate. + +To describe our dinner nowadays is as uninteresting as to eat it. +My wife's face wears a look of triumph and affected dignity, and her +habitual expression of anxiety. She looks at our plates and says, "I see +you don't care for the joint. Tell me; you don't like it, do you?" and I +am obliged to answer: "There is no need for you to trouble, my dear; +the meat is very nice." And she will say: "You always stand up for me, +Nikolay Stepanovitch, and you never tell the truth. Why is Alexandr +Adolfovitch eating so little?" And so on in the same style all through +dinner. Liza laughs spasmodically and screws up her eyes. I watch them +both, and it is only now at dinner that it becomes absolutely evident +to me that the inner life of these two has slipped away out of my ken. +I have a feeling as though I had once lived at home with a real wife and +children and that now I am dining with visitors, in the house of a sham +wife who is not the real one, and am looking at a Liza who is not the +real Liza. A startling change has taken place in both of them; I have +missed the long process by which that change was effected, and it is no +wonder that I can make nothing of it. Why did that change take place? I +don't know. Perhaps the whole trouble is that God has not given my wife +and daughter the same strength of character as me. From childhood I +have been accustomed to resisting external influences, and have steeled +myself pretty thoroughly. Such catastrophes in life as fame, the rank +of a general, the transition from comfort to living beyond our means, +acquaintance with celebrities, etc., have scarcely affected me, and I +have remained intact and unashamed; but on my wife and Liza, who have +not been through the same hardening process and are weak, all this has +fallen like an avalanche of snow, overwhelming them. Gnekker and the +young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of singers and pianists, +of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of +ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: "That's +exquisite... really! You don't say so!..." Gnekker eats with solid +dignity, jests with solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the +remarks of the young ladies. From time to time he is moved to speak in +bad French, and then, for some reason or other, he thinks it necessary +to address me as _"Votre Excellence."_ + +And I am glum. Evidently I am a constraint to them and they are a +constraint to me. I have never in my earlier days had a close knowledge +of class antagonism, but now I am tormented by something of that sort. +I am on the lookout for nothing but bad qualities in Gnekker; I quickly +find them, and am fretted at the thought that a man not of my circle is +sitting here as my daughter's suitor. His presence has a bad influence +on me in other ways, too. As a rule, when I am alone or in the society +of people I like, never think of my own achievements, or, if I do recall +them, they seem to me as trivial as though I had only completed my +studies yesterday; but in the presence of people like Gnekker my +achievements in science seem to be a lofty mountain the top of which +vanishes into the clouds, while at its foot Gnekkers are running about +scarcely visible to the naked eye. + +After dinner I go into my study and there smoke my pipe, the only one +in the whole day, the sole relic of my old bad habit of smoking from +morning till night. While I am smoking my wife comes in and sits down +to talk to me. Just as in the morning, I know beforehand what our +conversation is going to be about. + +"I must talk to you seriously, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she begins. "I +mean about Liza.... Why don't you pay attention to it?" + +"To what?" + +"You pretend to notice nothing. But that is not right. We can't shirk +responsibility.... Gnekker has intentions in regard to Liza.... What do +you say?" + +"That he is a bad man I can't say, because I don't know him, but that I +don't like him I have told you a thousand times already." + +"But you can't... you can't!" + +She gets up and walks about in excitement. + +"You can't take up that attitude to a serious step," she says. "When it +is a question of our daughter's happiness we must lay aside all personal +feeling. I know you do not like him.... Very good... if we refuse him +now, if we break it all off, how can you be sure that Liza will not have +a grievance against us all her life? Suitors are not plentiful nowadays, +goodness knows, and it may happen that no other match will turn up.... +He is very much in love with Liza, and she seems to like him.... Of +course, he has no settled position, but that can't be helped. Please +God, in time he will get one. He is of good family and well off." + +"Where did you learn that?" + +"He told us so. His father has a large house in Harkov and an estate in +the neighbourhood. In short, Nikolay Stepanovitch, you absolutely must +go to Harkov." + +"What for?" + +"You will find out all about him there.... You know the professors +there; they will help you. I would go myself, but I am a woman. I +cannot...." + +"I am not going to Harkov," I say morosely. + +My wife is frightened, and a look of intense suffering comes into her +face. + +"For God's sake, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she implores me, with tears in +her voice--"for God's sake, take this burden off me! I am so worried!" + +It is painful for me to look at her. + +"Very well, Varya," I say affectionately, "if you wish it, then +certainly I will go to Harkov and do all you want." + +She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes off to her room to +cry, and I am left alone. + +A little later lights are brought in. The armchair and the lamp-shade +cast familiar shadows that have long grown wearisome on the walls and on +the floor, and when I look at them I feel as though the night had come +and with it my accursed sleeplessness. I lie on my bed, then get up and +walk about the room, then lie down again. As a rule it is after dinner, +at the approach of evening, that my nervous excitement reaches its +highest pitch. For no reason I begin crying and burying my head in the +pillow. At such times I am afraid that some one may come in; I am afraid +of suddenly dying; I am ashamed of my tears, and altogether there is +something insufferable in my soul. I feel that I can no longer bear the +sight of my lamp, of my books, of the shadows on the floor. I cannot +bear the sound of the voices coming from the drawing-room. Some force +unseen, uncomprehended, is roughly thrusting me out of my flat. I leap +up hurriedly, dress, and cautiously, that my family may not notice, slip +out into the street. Where am I to go? + +The answer to that question has long been ready in my brain. To Katya. + +III + +As a rule she is lying on the sofa or in a lounge-chair reading. Seeing +me, she raises her head languidly, sits up, and shakes hands. + +"You are always lying down," I say, after pausing and taking breath. +"That's not good for you. You ought to occupy yourself with something." + +"What?" + +"I say you ought to occupy yourself in some way." + +"With what? A woman can be nothing but a simple workwoman or an +actress." + +"Well, if you can't be a workwoman, be an actress." + +She says nothing. + +"You ought to get married," I say, half in jest. + +"There is no one to marry. There's no reason to, either." + +"You can't live like this." + +"Without a husband? Much that matters; I could have as many men as I +like if I wanted to." + +"That's ugly, Katya." + +"What is ugly?" + +"Why, what you have just said." + +Noticing that I am hurt and wishing to efface the disagreeable +impression, Katya says: + +"Let us go; come this way." + +She takes me into a very snug little room, and says, pointing to the +writing-table: + +"Look... I have got that ready for you. You shall work here. Come here +every day and bring your work with you. They only hinder you there at +home. Will you work here? Will you like to?" + +Not to wound her by refusing, I answer that I will work here, and that +I like the room very much. Then we both sit down in the snug little room +and begin talking. + +The warm, snug surroundings and the presence of a sympathetic person +does not, as in old days, arouse in me a feeling of pleasure, but an +intense impulse to complain and grumble. I feel for some reason that if +I lament and complain I shall feel better. + +"Things are in a bad way with me, my dear--very bad...." + +"What is it?" + +"You see how it is, my dear; the best and holiest right of kings is the +right of mercy. And I have always felt myself a king, since I have made +unlimited use of that right. I have never judged, I have been indulgent, +I have readily forgiven every one, right and left. Where others have +protested and expressed indignation, I have only advised and persuaded. +All my life it has been my endeavour that my society should not be a +burden to my family, to my students, to my colleagues, to my servants. +And I know that this attitude to people has had a good influence on all +who have chanced to come into contact with me. But now I am not a king. +Something is happening to me that is only excusable in a slave; day and +night my brain is haunted by evil thoughts, and feelings such as I never +knew before are brooding in my soul. I am full of hatred, and contempt, +and indignation, and loathing, and dread. I have become excessively +severe, exacting, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even things that +in old days would have provoked me only to an unnecessary jest and a +good-natured laugh now arouse an oppressive feeling in me. My reasoning, +too, has undergone a change: in old days I despised money; now I harbour +an evil feeling, not towards money, but towards the rich as though they +were to blame: in old days I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate +the men who make use of violence, as though they were alone to blame, +and not all of us who do not know how to educate each other. What is +the meaning of it? If these new ideas and new feelings have come from +a change of convictions, what is that change due to? Can the world have +grown worse and I better, or was I blind before and indifferent? If this +change is the result of a general decline of physical and intellectual +powers--I am ill, you know, and every day I am losing weight--my +position is pitiable; it means that my new ideas are morbid and +abnormal; I ought to be ashamed of them and think them of no +consequence...." + +"Illness has nothing to do with it," Katya interrupts me; "it's simply +that your eyes are opened, that's all. You have seen what in old days, +for some reason, you refused to see. To my thinking, what you ought to +do first of all, is to break with your family for good, and go away." + +"You are talking nonsense." + +"You don't love them; why should you force your feelings? Can you call +them a family? Nonentities! If they died today, no one would notice +their absence tomorrow." + +Katya despises my wife and Liza as much as they hate her. One can hardly +talk at this date of people's having a right to despise one another. But +if one looks at it from Katya's standpoint and recognizes such a right, +one can see she has as much right to despise my wife and Liza as they +have to hate her. + +"Nonentities," she goes on. "Have you had dinner today? How was it they +did not forget to tell you it was ready? How is it they still remember +your existence?" + +"Katya," I say sternly, "I beg you to be silent." + +"You think I enjoy talking about them? I should be glad not to know +them at all. Listen, my dear: give it all up and go away. Go abroad. The +sooner the better." + +"What nonsense! What about the University?" + +"The University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it, anyway. +You have been lecturing for thirty years, and where are your pupils? Are +many of them celebrated scientific men? Count them up! And to multiply +the doctors who exploit ignorance and pile up hundreds of thousands for +themselves, there is no need to be a good and talented man. You are not +wanted." + +"Good heavens! how harsh you are!" I cry in horror. "How harsh you are! +Be quiet or I will go away! I don't know how to answer the harsh things +you say!" + +The maid comes in and summons us to tea. At the samovar our +conversation, thank God, changes. After having had my grumble out, +I have a longing to give way to another weakness of old age, +reminiscences. I tell Katya about my past, and to my great astonishment +tell her incidents which, till then, I did not suspect of being still +preserved in my memory, and she listens to me with tenderness, with +pride, holding her breath. I am particularly fond of telling her how I +was educated in a seminary and dreamed of going to the University. + +"At times I used to walk about our seminary garden..." I would tell her. +"If from some faraway tavern the wind floated sounds of a song and +the squeaking of an accordion, or a sledge with bells dashed by the +garden-fence, it was quite enough to send a rush of happiness, filling +not only my heart, but even my stomach, my legs, my arms.... I would +listen to the accordion or the bells dying away in the distance and +imagine myself a doctor, and paint pictures, one better than another. +And here, as you see, my dreams have come true. I have had more than I +dared to dream of. For thirty years I have been the favourite professor, +I have had splendid comrades, I have enjoyed fame and honour. I have +loved, married from passionate love, have had children. In fact, looking +back upon it, I see my whole life as a fine composition arranged with +talent. Now all that is left to me is not to spoil the end. For that I +must die like a man. If death is really a thing to dread, I must meet +it as a teacher, a man of science, and a citizen of a Christian country +ought to meet it, with courage and untroubled soul. But I am spoiling +the end; I am sinking, I fly to you, I beg for help, and you tell me +'Sink; that is what you ought to do.'" + +But here there comes a ring at the front-door. Katya and I recognize it, +and say: + +"It must be Mihail Fyodorovitch." + +And a minute later my colleague, the philologist Mihail Fyodorovitch, +a tall, well-built man of fifty, clean-shaven, with thick grey hair +and black eyebrows, walks in. He is a good-natured man and an excellent +comrade. He comes of a fortunate and talented old noble family which has +played a prominent part in the history of literature and enlightenment. +He is himself intelligent, talented, and very highly educated, but has +his oddities. To a certain extent we are all odd and all queer fish, +but in his oddities there is something exceptional, apt to cause anxiety +among his acquaintances. I know a good many people for whom his oddities +completely obscure his good qualities. + +Coming in to us, he slowly takes off his gloves and says in his velvety +bass: + +"Good-evening. Are you having tea? That's just right. It's diabolically +cold." + +Then he sits down to the table, takes a glass, and at once begins +talking. What is most characteristic in his manner of talking is the +continually jesting tone, a sort of mixture of philosophy and drollery +as in Shakespeare's gravediggers. He is always talking about serious +things, but he never speaks seriously. His judgments are always harsh +and railing, but, thanks to his soft, even, jesting tone, the harshness +and abuse do not jar upon the ear, and one soon grows used to them. +Every evening he brings with him five or six anecdotes from the +University, and he usually begins with them when he sits down to table. + +"Oh, Lord!" he sighs, twitching his black eyebrows ironically. "What +comic people there are in the world!" + +"Well?" asks Katya. + +"As I was coming from my lecture this morning I met that old idiot N. +N---- on the stairs.... He was going along as usual, sticking out his +chin like a horse, looking for some one to listen to his grumblings +at his migraine, at his wife, and his students who won't attend his +lectures. 'Oh,' I thought, 'he has seen me--I am done for now; it is all +up....'" + +And so on in the same style. Or he will begin like this: + +"I was yesterday at our friend Z. Z----'s public lecture. I wonder how +it is our alma mater--don't speak of it after dark--dare display in +public such noodles and patent dullards as that Z. Z---- Why, he is a +European fool! Upon my word, you could not find another like him all +over Europe! He lectures--can you imagine?--as though he were sucking +a sugar-stick--sue, sue, sue;... he is in a nervous funk; he can hardly +decipher his own manuscript; his poor little thoughts crawl along like +a bishop on a bicycle, and, what's worse, you can never make out what he +is trying to say. The deadly dulness is awful, the very flies expire. It +can only be compared with the boredom in the assembly-hall at the yearly +meeting when the traditional address is read--damn it!" + +And at once an abrupt transition: + +"Three years ago--Nikolay Stepanovitch here will remember it--I had to +deliver that address. It was hot, stifling, my uniform cut me under the +arms--it was deadly! I read for half an hour, for an hour, for an hour +and a half, for two hours.... 'Come,' I thought; 'thank God, there are +only ten pages left!' And at the end there were four pages that there +was no need to read, and I reckoned to leave them out. 'So there are +only six really,' I thought; 'that is, only six pages left to read.' +But, only fancy, I chanced to glance before me, and, sitting in the +front row, side by side, were a general with a ribbon on his breast and +a bishop. The poor beggars were numb with boredom; they were staring +with their eyes wide open to keep awake, and yet they were trying to put +on an expression of attention and to pretend that they understood what I +was saying and liked it. 'Well,' I thought, 'since you like it you shall +have it! I'll pay you out;' so I just gave them those four pages too." + +As is usual with ironical people, when he talks nothing in his face +smiles but his eyes and eyebrows. At such times there is no trace +of hatred or spite in his eyes, but a great deal of humour, and that +peculiar fox-like slyness which is only to be noticed in very observant +people. Since I am speaking about his eyes, I notice another peculiarity +in them. When he takes a glass from Katya, or listens to her speaking, +or looks after her as she goes out of the room for a moment, I notice in +his eyes something gentle, beseeching, pure.... + +The maid-servant takes away the samovar and puts on the table a large +piece of cheese, some fruit, and a bottle of Crimean champagne--a +rather poor wine of which Katya had grown fond in the Crimea. Mihail +Fyodorovitch takes two packs of cards off the whatnot and begins to play +patience. According to him, some varieties of patience require great +concentration and attention, yet while he lays out the cards he does not +leave off distracting his attention with talk. Katya watches his cards +attentively, and more by gesture than by words helps him in his play. +She drinks no more than a couple of wine-glasses of wine the whole +evening; I drink four glasses, and the rest of the bottle falls to the +share of Mihail Fyodorovitch, who can drink a great deal and never get +drunk. + +Over our patience we settle various questions, principally of the +higher order, and what we care for most of all--that is, science and +learning--is more roughly handled than anything. + +"Science, thank God, has outlived its day," says Mihail Fyodorovitch +emphatically. "Its song is sung. Yes, indeed. Mankind begins to feel +impelled to replace it by something different. It has grown on the soil +of superstition, been nourished by superstition, and is now just as much +the quintessence of superstition as its defunct granddames, alchemy, +metaphysics, and philosophy. And, after all, what has it given to +mankind? Why, the difference between the learned Europeans and the +Chinese who have no science is trifling, purely external. The Chinese +know nothing of science, but what have they lost thereby?" + +"Flies know nothing of science, either," I observe, "but what of that?" + +"There is no need to be angry, Nikolay Stepanovitch. I only say this +here between ourselves... I am more careful than you think, and I am not +going to say this in public--God forbid! The superstition exists in +the multitude that the arts and sciences are superior to agriculture, +commerce, superior to handicrafts. Our sect is maintained by that +superstition, and it is not for you and me to destroy it. God forbid!" + +After patience the younger generation comes in for a dressing too. + +"Our audiences have degenerated," sighs Mihail Fyodorovitch. "Not to +speak of ideals and all the rest of it, if only they were capable of +work and rational thought! In fact, it's a case of 'I look with mournful +eyes on the young men of today.'" + +"Yes; they have degenerated horribly," Katya agrees. "Tell me, have you +had one man of distinction among them for the last five or ten years?" + +"I don't know how it is with the other professors, but I can't remember +any among mine." + +"I have seen in my day many of your students and young scientific men +and many actors--well, I have never once been so fortunate as to meet--I +won't say a hero or a man of talent, but even an interesting man. It's +all the same grey mediocrity, puffed up with self-conceit." + +All this talk of degeneration always affects me as though I had +accidentally overheard offensive talk about my own daughter. It +offends me that these charges are wholesale, and rest on such worn-out +commonplaces, on such wordy vapourings as degeneration and absence +of ideals, or on references to the splendours of the past. Every +accusation, even if it is uttered in ladies' society, ought to be +formulated with all possible definiteness, or it is not an accusation, +but idle disparagement, unworthy of decent people. + +I am an old man, I have been lecturing for thirty years, but I notice +neither degeneration nor lack of ideals, and I don't find that the +present is worse than the past. My porter Nikolay, whose experience of +this subject has its value, says that the students of today are neither +better nor worse than those of the past. + +If I were asked what I don't like in my pupils of today, I should answer +the question, not straight off and not at length, but with sufficient +definiteness. I know their failings, and so have no need to resort +to vague generalities. I don't like their smoking, using spirituous +beverages, marrying late, and often being so irresponsible and careless +that they will let one of their number be starving in their midst while +they neglect to pay their subscriptions to the Students' Aid Society. +They don't know modern languages, and they don't express themselves +correctly in Russian; no longer ago than yesterday my colleague, the +professor of hygiene, complained to me that he had to give twice as many +lectures, because the students had a very poor knowledge of physics and +were utterly ignorant of meteorology. They are readily carried away +by the influence of the last new writers, even when they are not +first-rate, but they take absolutely no interest in classics such as +Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, or Pascal, and this inability +to distinguish the great from the small betrays their ignorance of +practical life more than anything. All difficult questions that have +more or less a social character (for instance the migration question) +they settle by studying monographs on the subject, but not by way of +scientific investigation or experiment, though that method is at their +disposal and is more in keeping with their calling. They gladly become +ward-surgeons, assistants, demonstrators, external teachers, and are +ready to fill such posts until they are forty, though independence, +a sense of freedom and personal initiative, are no less necessary +in science than, for instance, in art or commerce. I have pupils and +listeners, but no successors and helpers, and so I love them and am +touched by them, but am not proud of them. And so on, and so on.... + +Such shortcomings, however numerous they may be, can only give rise to +a pessimistic or fault-finding temper in a faint-hearted and timid +man. All these failings have a casual, transitory character, and are +completely dependent on conditions of life; in some ten years they will +have disappeared or given place to other fresh defects, which are all +inevitable and will in their turn alarm the faint-hearted. The students' +sins often vex me, but that vexation is nothing in comparison with the +joy I have been experiencing now for the last thirty years when I talk +to my pupils, lecture to them, watch their relations, and compare them +with people not of their circle. + +Mihail Fyodorovitch speaks evil of everything. Katya listens, and +neither of them notices into what depths the apparently innocent +diversion of finding fault with their neighbours is gradually drawing +them. They are not conscious how by degrees simple talk passes into +malicious mockery and jeering, and how they are both beginning to drop +into the habits and methods of slander. + +"Killing types one meets with," says Mihail Fyodorovitch. "I went +yesterday to our friend Yegor Petrovitch's, and there I found a studious +gentleman, one of your medicals in his third year, I believe. Such a +face!... in the Dobrolubov style, the imprint of profound thought on his +brow; we got into talk. 'Such doings, young man,' said I. 'I've read,' +said I, 'that some German--I've forgotten his name--has created from +the human brain a new kind of alkaloid, idiotine.' What do you think? +He believed it, and there was positively an expression of respect on his +face, as though to say, 'See what we fellows can do!' And the other day +I went to the theatre. I took my seat. In the next row directly in front +of me were sitting two men: one of 'us fellows' and apparently a law +student, the other a shaggy-looking figure, a medical student. The +latter was as drunk as a cobbler. He did not look at the stage at all. +He was dozing with his nose on his shirt-front. But as soon as an actor +begins loudly reciting a monologue, or simply raises his voice, our +friend starts, pokes his neighbour in the ribs, and asks, 'What is +he saying? Is it elevating?' 'Yes,' answers one of our fellows. +'B-r-r-ravo!' roars the medical student. 'Elevating! Bravo!' He had gone +to the theatre, you see, the drunken blockhead, not for the sake of art, +the play, but for elevation! He wanted noble sentiments." + +Katya listens and laughs. She has a strange laugh; she catches her +breath in rhythmically regular gasps, very much as though she were +playing the accordion, and nothing in her face is laughing but her +nostrils. I grow depressed and don't know what to say. Beside myself, I +fire up, leap up from my seat, and cry: + +"Do leave off! Why are you sitting here like two toads, poisoning the +air with your breath? Give over!" + +And without waiting for them to finish their gossip I prepare to go +home. And, indeed, it is high time: it is past ten. + +"I will stay a little longer," says Mihail Fyodorovitch. "Will you allow +me, Ekaterina Vladimirovna?" + +"I will," answers Katya. + +"_Bene!_ In that case have up another little bottle." + +They both accompany me with candles to the hall, and while I put on my +fur coat, Mihail Fyodorovitch says: + +"You have grown dreadfully thin and older looking, Nikolay Stepanovitch. +What's the matter with you? Are you ill?" + +"Yes; I am not very well." + +"And you are not doing anything for it..." Katya puts in grimly. + +"Why don't you? You can't go on like that! God helps those who help +themselves, my dear fellow. Remember me to your wife and daughter, and +make my apologies for not having been to see them. In a day or two, +before I go abroad, I shall come to say good-bye. I shall be sure to. I +am going away next week." + +I come away from Katya, irritated and alarmed by what has been said +about my being ill, and dissatisfied with myself. I ask myself whether I +really ought not to consult one of my colleagues. And at once I imagine +how my colleague, after listening to me, would walk away to the window +without speaking, would think a moment, then would turn round to me +and, trying to prevent my reading the truth in his face, would say in +a careless tone: "So far I see nothing serious, but at the same time, +_collega_, I advise you to lay aside your work...." And that would +deprive me of my last hope. + +Who is without hope? Now that I am diagnosing my illness and prescribing +for myself, from time to time I hope that I am deceived by my own +illness, that I am mistaken in regard to the albumen and the sugar I +find, and in regard to my heart, and in regard to the swellings I +have twice noticed in the mornings; when with the fervour of the +hypochondriac I look through the textbooks of therapeutics and take +a different medicine every day, I keep fancying that I shall hit upon +something comforting. All that is petty. + +Whether the sky is covered with clouds or the moon and the stars are +shining, I turn my eyes towards it every evening and think that death is +taking me soon. One would think that my thoughts at such times ought +to be deep as the sky, brilliant, striking.... But no! I think about +myself, about my wife, about Liza, Gnekker, the students, people in +general; my thoughts are evil, petty, I am insincere with myself, and +at such times my theory of life may be expressed in the words the +celebrated Araktcheev said in one of his intimate letters: "Nothing good +can exist in the world without evil, and there is more evil than good." +That is, everything is disgusting; there is nothing to live for, and the +sixty-two years I have already lived must be reckoned as wasted. I +catch myself in these thoughts, and try to persuade myself that they are +accidental, temporary, and not deeply rooted in me, but at once I think: + +"If so, what drives me every evening to those two toads?" + +And I vow to myself that I will never go to Katya's again, though I know +I shall go next evening. + +Ringing the bell at the door and going upstairs, I feel that I have no +family now and no desire to bring it back again. It is clear that the +new Araktcheev thoughts are not casual, temporary visitors, but have +possession of my whole being. With my conscience ill at ease, dejected, +languid, hardly able to move my limbs, feeling as though tons were added +to my weight, I get into bed and quickly drop asleep. + +And then--insomnia! + +IV + +Summer comes on and life is changed. + +One fine morning Liza comes in to me and says in a jesting tone: + +"Come, your Excellency! We are ready." + +My Excellency is conducted into the street, and seated in a cab. As I go +along, having nothing to do, I read the signboards from right to left. +The word "Traktir" reads "Ritkart"; that would just suit some baron's +family: Baroness Ritkart. Farther on I drive through fields, by the +graveyard, which makes absolutely no impression on me, though I shall +soon lie in it; then I drive by forests and again by fields. There +is nothing of interest. After two hours of driving, my Excellency is +conducted into the lower storey of a summer villa and installed in a +small, very cheerful little room with light blue hangings. + +At night there is sleeplessness as before, but in the morning I do not +put a good face upon it and listen to my wife, but lie in bed. I do not +sleep, but lie in the drowsy, half-conscious condition in which you know +you are not asleep, but dreaming. At midday I get up and from habit +sit down at my table, but I do not work now; I amuse myself with French +books in yellow covers, sent me by Katya. Of course, it would be more +patriotic to read Russian authors, but I must confess I cherish no +particular liking for them. With the exception of two or three of the +older writers, all our literature of today strikes me as not being +literature, but a special sort of home industry, which exists simply +in order to be encouraged, though people do not readily make use of +its products. The very best of these home products cannot be called +remarkable and cannot be sincerely praised without qualification. I must +say the same of all the literary novelties I have read during the last +ten or fifteen years; not one of them is remarkable, and not one of them +can be praised without a "but." Cleverness, a good tone, but no talent; +talent, a good tone, but no cleverness; or talent, cleverness, but not a +good tone. + +I don't say the French books have talent, cleverness, and a good tone. +They don't satisfy me, either. But they are not so tedious as the +Russian, and it is not unusual to find in them the chief element of +artistic creation--the feeling of personal freedom which is lacking in +the Russian authors. I don't remember one new book in which the author +does not try from the first page to entangle himself in all sorts of +conditions and contracts with his conscience. One is afraid to speak of +the naked body; another ties himself up hand and foot in psychological +analysis; a third must have a "warm attitude to man"; a fourth purposely +scrawls whole descriptions of nature that he may not be suspected of +writing with a purpose.... One is bent upon being middle-class in his +work, another must be a nobleman, and so on. There is intentionalness, +circumspection, and self-will, but they have neither the independence +nor the manliness to write as they like, and therefore there is no +creativeness. + +All this applies to what is called belles-lettres. + +As for serious treatises in Russian on sociology, for instance, on art, +and so on, I do not read them simply from timidity. In my childhood and +early youth I had for some reason a terror of doorkeepers and attendants +at the theatre, and that terror has remained with me to this day. I am +afraid of them even now. It is said that we are only afraid of what we +do not understand. And, indeed, it is very difficult to understand +why doorkeepers and theatre attendants are so dignified, haughty, and +majestically rude. I feel exactly the same terror when I read serious +articles. Their extraordinary dignity, their bantering lordly tone, +their familiar manner to foreign authors, their ability to split straws +with dignity--all that is beyond my understanding; it is intimidating +and utterly unlike the quiet, gentlemanly tone to which I am accustomed +when I read the works of our medical and scientific writers. It +oppresses me to read not only the articles written by serious Russians, +but even works translated or edited by them. The pretentious, edifying +tone of the preface; the redundancy of remarks made by the translator, +which prevent me from concentrating my attention; the question marks +and "sic" in parenthesis scattered all over the book or article by the +liberal translator, are to my mind an outrage on the author and on my +independence as a reader. + +Once I was summoned as an expert to a circuit court; in an interval one +of my fellow-experts drew my attention to the rudeness of the public +prosecutor to the defendants, among whom there were two ladies of good +education. I believe I did not exaggerate at all when I told him that +the prosecutor's manner was no ruder than that of the authors of serious +articles to one another. Their manners are, indeed, so rude that I +cannot speak of them without distaste. They treat one another and the +writers they criticize either with superfluous respect, at the sacrifice +of their own dignity, or, on the contrary, with far more ruthlessness +than I have shown in my notes and my thoughts in regard to my future +son-in-law Gnekker. Accusations of irrationality, of evil intentions, +and, indeed, of every sort of crime, form an habitual ornament of +serious articles. And that, as young medical men are fond of saying in +their monographs, is the _ultima ratio!_ Such ways must infallibly have +an effect on the morals of the younger generation of writers, and so I +am not at all surprised that in the new works with which our literature +has been enriched during the last ten or fifteen years the heroes drink +too much vodka and the heroines are not over-chaste. + +I read French books, and I look out of the window which is open; I +can see the spikes of my garden-fence, two or three scraggy trees, and +beyond the fence the road, the fields, and beyond them a broad stretch +of pine-wood. Often I admire a boy and girl, both flaxen-headed and +ragged, who clamber on the fence and laugh at my baldness. In their +shining little eyes I read, "Go up, go up, thou baldhead!" They are +almost the only people who care nothing for my celebrity or my rank. + +Visitors do not come to me every day now. I will only mention the +visits of Nikolay and Pyotr Ignatyevitch. Nikolay usually comes to me +on holidays, with some pretext of business, though really to see me. He +arrives very much exhilarated, a thing which never occurs to him in the +winter. + +"What have you to tell me?" I ask, going out to him in the hall. + +"Your Excellency!" he says, pressing his hand to his heart and looking +at me with the ecstasy of a lover--"your Excellency! God be my witness! +Strike me dead on the spot! _Gaudeamus egitur juventus!_" + +And he greedily kisses me on the shoulder, on the sleeve, and on the +buttons. + +"Is everything going well?" I ask him. + +"Your Excellency! So help me God!..." + +He persists in grovelling before me for no sort of reason, and soon +bores me, so I send him away to the kitchen, where they give him dinner. + +Pyotr Ignatyevitch comes to see me on holidays, too, with the special +object of seeing me and sharing his thoughts with me. He usually sits +down near my table, modest, neat, and reasonable, and does not venture +to cross his legs or put his elbows on the table. All the time, in +a soft, even, little voice, in rounded bookish phrases, he tells me +various, to his mind, very interesting and piquant items of news which +he has read in the magazines and journals. They are all alike and may be +reduced to this type: "A Frenchman has made a discovery; some one else, +a German, has denounced him, proving that the discovery was made in 1870 +by some American; while a third person, also a German, trumps them both +by proving they both had made fools of themselves, mistaking bubbles of +air for dark pigment under the microscope." Even when he wants to +amuse me, Pyotr Ignatyevitch tells me things in the same lengthy, +circumstantial manner as though he were defending a thesis, enumerating +in detail the literary sources from which he is deriving his narrative, +doing his utmost to be accurate as to the date and number of the +journals and the name of every one concerned, invariably mentioning it +in full--Jean Jacques Petit, never simply Petit. Sometimes he stays +to dinner with us, and then during the whole of dinner-time he goes on +telling me the same sort of piquant anecdotes, reducing every one at +table to a state of dejected boredom. If Gnekker and Liza begin talking +before him of fugues and counterpoint, Brahms and Bach, he drops his +eyes modestly, and is overcome with embarrassment; he is ashamed that +such trivial subjects should be discussed before such serious people as +him and me. + +In my present state of mind five minutes of him is enough to sicken me +as though I had been seeing and hearing him for an eternity. I hate the +poor fellow. His soft, smooth voice and bookish language exhaust me, and +his stories stupefy me.... He cherishes the best of feelings for me, +and talks to me simply in order to give me pleasure, and I repay him by +looking at him as though I wanted to hypnotize him, and think, "Go, go, +go!..." But he is not amenable to thought-suggestion, and sits on and on +and on.... + +While he is with me I can never shake off the thought, "It's possible +when I die he will be appointed to succeed me," and my poor lecture-hall +presents itself to me as an oasis in which the spring is died up; and I +am ungracious, silent, and surly with Pyotr Ignatyevitch, as though he +were to blame for such thoughts, and not I myself. When he begins, as +usual, praising up the German savants, instead of making fun of him +good-humouredly, as I used to do, I mutter sullenly: + +"Asses, your Germans!..." + +That is like the late Professor Nikita Krylov, who once, when he was +bathing with Pirogov at Revel and vexed at the water's being very cold, +burst out with, "Scoundrels, these Germans!" I behave badly with Pyotr +Ignatyevitch, and only when he is going away, and from the window I +catch a glimpse of his grey hat behind the garden-fence, I want to call +out and say, "Forgive me, my dear fellow!" + +Dinner is even drearier than in the winter. Gnekker, whom now I hate and +despise, dines with us almost every day. I used to endure his presence +in silence, now I aim biting remarks at him which make my wife and +daughter blush. Carried away by evil feeling, I often say things that +are simply stupid, and I don't know why I say them. So on one occasion +it happened that I stared a long time at Gnekker, and, _a propos_ of +nothing, I fired off: + + "An eagle may perchance swoop down below a cock, + But never will the fowl soar upwards to the clouds..." + +And the most vexatious thing is that the fowl Gnekker shows himself much +cleverer than the eagle professor. Knowing that my wife and daughter are +on his side, he takes up the line of meeting my gibes with condescending +silence, as though to say: + +"The old chap is in his dotage; what's the use of talking to him?" + +Or he makes fun of me good-naturedly. It is wonderful how petty a man +may become! I am capable of dreaming all dinner-time of how Gnekker +will turn out to be an adventurer, how my wife and Liza will come to see +their mistake, and how I will taunt them--and such absurd thoughts at +the time when I am standing with one foot in the grave! + +There are now, too, misunderstandings of which in the old days I had no +idea except from hearsay. Though I am ashamed of it, I will describe one +that occurred the other day after dinner. + +I was sitting in my room smoking a pipe; my wife came in as usual, sat +down, and began saying what a good thing it would be for me to go to +Harkov now while it is warm and I have free time, and there find out +what sort of person our Gnekker is. + +"Very good; I will go," I assented. + +My wife, pleased with me, got up and was going to the door, but turned +back and said: + +"By the way, I have another favour to ask of you. I know you will be +angry, but it is my duty to warn you.... Forgive my saying it, Nikolay +Stepanovitch, but all our neighbours and acquaintances have begun +talking about your being so often at Katya's. She is clever and +well-educated; I don't deny that her company may be agreeable; but at +your age and with your social position it seems strange that you should +find pleasure in her society.... Besides, she has such a reputation +that..." + +All the blood suddenly rushed to my brain, my eyes flashed fire, I +leaped up and, clutching at my head and stamping my feet, shouted in a +voice unlike my own: + +"Let me alone! let me alone! let me alone!" + +Probably my face was terrible, my voice was strange, for my wife +suddenly turned pale and began shrieking aloud in a despairing voice +that was utterly unlike her own. Liza, Gnekker, then Yegor, came running +in at our shouts.... + +"Let me alone!" I cried; "let me alone! Go away!" + +My legs turned numb as though they had ceased to exist; I felt myself +falling into someone's arms; for a little while I still heard weeping, +then sank into a swoon which lasted two or three hours. + +Now about Katya; she comes to see me every day towards evening, and of +course neither the neighbours nor our acquaintances can avoid noticing +it. She comes in for a minute and carries me off for a drive with her. +She has her own horse and a new chaise bought this summer. Altogether +she lives in an expensive style; she has taken a big detached villa with +a large garden, and has taken all her town retinue with her--two maids, +a coachman... I often ask her: + +"Katya, what will you live on when you have spent your father's money?" + +"Then we shall see," she answers. + +"That money, my dear, deserves to be treated more seriously. It was +earned by a good man, by honest labour." + +"You have told me that already. I know it." + +At first we drive through the open country, then through the pine-wood +which is visible from my window. Nature seems to me as beautiful as it +always has been, though some evil spirit whispers to me that these pines +and fir trees, birds, and white clouds on the sky, will not notice my +absence when in three or four months I am dead. Katya loves driving, and +she is pleased that it is fine weather and that I am sitting beside her. +She is in good spirits and does not say harsh things. + +"You are a very good man, Nikolay Stepanovitch," she says. "You are a +rare specimen, and there isn't an actor who would understand how to play +you. Me or Mihail Fyodorovitch, for instance, any poor actor could do, +but not you. And I envy you, I envy you horribly! Do you know what I +stand for? What?" + +She ponders for a minute, and then asks me: + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch, I am a negative phenomenon! Yes?" + +"Yes," I answer. + +"H'm! what am I to do?" + +What answer was I to make her? It is easy to say "work," or "give your +possessions to the poor," or "know yourself," and because it is so easy +to say that, I don't know what to answer. + +My colleagues when they teach therapeutics advise "the individual study +of each separate case." One has but to obey this advice to gain the +conviction that the methods recommended in the textbooks as the best and +as providing a safe basis for treatment turn out to be quite unsuitable +in individual cases. It is just the same in moral ailments. + +But I must make some answer, and I say: + +"You have too much free time, my dear; you absolutely must take up some +occupation. After all, why shouldn't you be an actress again if it is +your vocation?" + +"I cannot!" + +"Your tone and manner suggest that you are a victim. I don't like that, +my dear; it is your own fault. Remember, you began with falling out with +people and methods, but you have done nothing to make either better. You +did not struggle with evil, but were cast down by it, and you are not +the victim of the struggle, but of your own impotence. Well, of course +you were young and inexperienced then; now it may all be different. Yes, +really, go on the stage. You will work, you will serve a sacred art." + +"Don't pretend, Nikolay Stepanovitch," Katya interrupts me. "Let us +make a compact once for all; we will talk about actors, actresses, and +authors, but we will let art alone. You are a splendid and rare person, +but you don't know enough about art sincerely to think it sacred. You +have no instinct or feeling for art. You have been hard at work all your +life, and have not had time to acquire that feeling. Altogether... I +don't like talk about art," she goes on nervously. "I don't like it! +And, my goodness, how they have vulgarized it!" + +"Who has vulgarized it?" + +"They have vulgarized it by drunkenness, the newspapers by their +familiar attitude, clever people by philosophy." + +"Philosophy has nothing to do with it." + +"Yes, it has. If any one philosophizes about it, it shows he does not +understand it." + +To avoid bitterness I hasten to change the subject, and then sit a +long time silent. Only when we are driving out of the wood and turning +towards Katya's villa I go back to my former question, and say: + +"You have still not answered me, why you don't want to go on the stage." + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch, this is cruel!" she cries, and suddenly flushes +all over. "You want me to tell you the truth aloud? Very well, if... +if you like it! I have no talent! No talent and... and a great deal of +vanity! So there!" + +After making this confession she turns her face away from me, and to +hide the trembling of her hands tugs violently at the reins. + +As we are driving towards her villa we see Mihail Fyodorovitch walking +near the gate, impatiently awaiting us. + +"That Mihail Fyodorovitch again!" says Katya with vexation. "Do rid me +of him, please! I am sick and tired of him... bother him!" + +Mihail Fyodorovitch ought to have gone abroad long ago, but he puts off +going from week to week. Of late there have been certain changes in +him. He looks, as it were, sunken, has taken to drinking until he is +tipsy, a thing which never used to happen to him, and his black eyebrows +are beginning to turn grey. When our chaise stops at the gate he does +not conceal his joy and his impatience. He fussily helps me and Katya +out, hurriedly asks questions, laughs, rubs his hands, and that gentle, +imploring, pure expression, which I used to notice only in his eyes, is +now suffused all over his face. He is glad and at the same time he is +ashamed of his gladness, ashamed of his habit of spending every evening +with Katya. And he thinks it necessary to explain his visit by some +obvious absurdity such as: "I was driving by, and I thought I would just +look in for a minute." + +We all three go indoors; first we drink tea, then the familiar packs +of cards, the big piece of cheese, the fruit, and the bottle of Crimean +champagne are put upon the table. The subjects of our conversation are +not new; they are just the same as in the winter. We fall foul of the +University, the students, and literature and the theatre; the air grows +thick and stifling with evil speaking, and poisoned by the breath, +not of two toads as in the winter, but of three. Besides the velvety +baritone laugh and the giggle like the gasp of a concertina, the maid +who waits upon us hears an unpleasant cracked "He, he!" like the chuckle +of a general in a vaudeville. + +V + +There are terrible nights with thunder, lightning, rain, and wind, such +as are called among the people "sparrow nights." There has been one such +night in my personal life. + +I woke up after midnight and leaped suddenly out of bed. It seemed to +me for some reason that I was just immediately going to die. Why did +it seem so? I had no sensation in my body that suggested my immediate +death, but my soul was oppressed with terror, as though I had suddenly +seen a vast menacing glow of fire. + +I rapidly struck a light, drank some water straight out of the decanter, +then hurried to the open window. The weather outside was magnificent. +There was a smell of hay and some other very sweet scent. I could see +the spikes of the fence, the gaunt, drowsy trees by the window, the +road, the dark streak of woodland, there was a serene, very bright +moon in the sky and not a single cloud, perfect stillness, not one leaf +stirring. I felt that everything was looking at me and waiting for me to +die.... + +It was uncanny. I closed the window and ran to my bed. I felt for my +pulse, and not finding it in my wrist, tried to find it in my temple, +then in my chin, and again in my wrist, and everything I touched was +cold and clammy with sweat. My breathing came more and more rapidly, my +body was shivering, all my inside was in commotion; I had a sensation +on my face and on my bald head as though they were covered with spiders' +webs. + +What should I do? Call my family? No; it would be no use. I could not +imagine what my wife and Liza would do when they came in to me. + +I hid my head under the pillow, closed my eyes, and waited and +waited.... My spine was cold; it seemed to be drawn inwards, and I felt +as though death were coming upon me stealthily from behind. + +"Kee-vee! kee-vee!" I heard a sudden shriek in the night's stillness, +and did not know where it was--in my breast or in the street--"Kee-vee! +kee-vee!" + +"My God, how terrible!" I would have drunk some more water, but by then +it was fearful to open my eyes and I was afraid to raise my head. I was +possessed by unaccountable animal terror, and I cannot understand why +I was so frightened: was it that I wanted to live, or that some new +unknown pain was in store for me? + +Upstairs, overhead, some one moaned or laughed. I listened. Soon +afterwards there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. Some one came +hurriedly down, then went up again. A minute later there was a sound of +steps downstairs again; some one stopped near my door and listened. + +"Who is there?" I cried. + +The door opened. I boldly opened my eyes, and saw my wife. Her face was +pale and her eyes were tear-stained. + +"You are not asleep, Nikolay Stepanovitch?" she asked. + +"What is it?" + +"For God's sake, go up and have a look at Liza; there is something the +matter with her...." + +"Very good, with pleasure," I muttered, greatly relieved at not being +alone. "Very good, this minute...." + +I followed my wife, heard what she said to me, and was too agitated to +understand a word. Patches of light from her candle danced about the +stairs, our long shadows trembled. My feet caught in the skirts of my +dressing-gown; I gasped for breath, and felt as though something were +pursuing me and trying to catch me from behind. + +"I shall die on the spot, here on the staircase," I thought. "On the +spot...." But we passed the staircase, the dark corridor with the +Italian windows, and went into Liza's room. She was sitting on the bed +in her nightdress, with her bare feet hanging down, and she was moaning. + +"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" she was muttering, screwing up her eyes at our +candle. "I can't bear it." + +"Liza, my child," I said, "what is it?" + +Seeing me, she began crying out, and flung herself on my neck. + +"My kind papa!..." she sobbed--"my dear, good papa... my darling, my +pet, I don't know what is the matter with me.... I am miserable!" + +She hugged me, kissed me, and babbled fond words I used to hear from her +when she was a child. + +"Calm yourself, my child. God be with you," I said. "There is no need to +cry. I am miserable, too." + +I tried to tuck her in; my wife gave her water, and we awkwardly +stumbled by her bedside; my shoulder jostled against her shoulder, and +meanwhile I was thinking how we used to give our children their bath +together. + +"Help her! help her!" my wife implored me. "Do something!" + +What could I do? I could do nothing. There was some load on the girl's +heart; but I did not understand, I knew nothing about it, and could only +mutter: + +"It's nothing, it's nothing; it will pass. Sleep, sleep!" + +To make things worse, there was a sudden sound of dogs howling, at first +subdued and uncertain, then loud, two dogs howling together. I had +never attached significance to such omens as the howling of dogs or the +shrieking of owls, but on that occasion it sent a pang to my heart, and +I hastened to explain the howl to myself. + +"It's nonsense," I thought, "the influence of one organism on another. +The intensely strained condition of my nerves has infected my wife, +Liza, the dog--that is all.... Such infection explains presentiments, +forebodings...." + +When a little later I went back to my room to write a prescription for +Liza, I no longer thought I should die at once, but only had such a +weight, such a feeling of oppression in my soul that I felt actually +sorry that I had not died on the spot. For a long time I stood +motionless in the middle of the room, pondering what to prescribe for +Liza. But the moans overhead ceased, and I decided to prescribe nothing, +and yet I went on standing there.... + +There was a deathlike stillness, such a stillness, as some author has +expressed it, "it rang in one's ears." Time passed slowly; the streaks +of moonlight on the window-sill did not shift their position, but seemed +as though frozen.... It was still some time before dawn. + +But the gate in the fence creaked, some one stole in and, breaking a +twig from one of those scraggy trees, cautiously tapped on the window +with it. + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch," I heard a whisper. "Nikolay Stepanovitch." + +I opened the window, and fancied I was dreaming: under the window, +huddled against the wall, stood a woman in a black dress, with the +moonlight bright upon her, looking at me with great eyes. Her face was +pale, stern, and weird-looking in the moonlight, like marble, her chin +was quivering. + +"It is I," she said--"I... Katya." + +In the moonlight all women's eyes look big and black, all people look +taller and paler, and that was probably why I had not recognized her for +the first minute. + +"What is it?" + +"Forgive me!" she said. "I suddenly felt unbearably miserable... I +couldn't stand it, so came here. There was a light in your window and... +and I ventured to knock.... I beg your pardon. Ah! if you knew how +miserable I am! What are you doing just now?" + +"Nothing.... I can't sleep." + +"I had a feeling that there was something wrong, but that is nonsense." + +Her brows were lifted, her eyes shone with tears, and her whole face was +lighted up with the familiar look of trustfulness which I had not seen +for so long. + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch," she said imploringly, stretching out both hands +to me, "my precious friend, I beg you, I implore you.... If you don't +despise my affection and respect for you, consent to what I ask of you." + +"What is it?" + +"Take my money from me!" + +"Come! what an idea! What do I want with your money?" + +"You'll go away somewhere for your health.... You ought to go for your +health. Will you take it? Yes? Nikolay Stepanovitch darling, yes?" + +She looked greedily into my face and repeated: "Yes, you will take it?" + +"No, my dear, I won't take it," I said. "Thank you." + +She turned her back upon me and bowed her head. Probably I refused her +in a tone which made further conversation about money impossible. + +"Go home to bed," I said. "We will see each other tomorrow." + +"So you don't consider me your friend?" she asked dejectedly. + +"I don't say that. But your money would be no use to me now." + +"I beg your pardon..." she said, dropping her voice a whole octave. +"I understand you... to be indebted to a person like me... a retired +actress.... But, good-bye...." + +And she went away so quickly that I had not time even to say good-bye. + +VI + +I am in Harkov. + +As it would be useless to contend against my present mood and, indeed, +beyond my power, I have made up my mind that the last days of my life +shall at least be irreproachable externally. If I am unjust in regard to +my wife and daughter, which I fully recognize, I will try and do as she +wishes; since she wants me to go to Harkov, I go to Harkov. Besides, I +have become of late so indifferent to everything that it is really all +the same to me where I go, to Harkov, or to Paris, or to Berditchev. + +I arrived here at midday, and have put up at the hotel not far from +the cathedral. The train was jolting, there were draughts, and now I am +sitting on my bed, holding my head and expecting tic douloureux. I ought +to have gone today to see some professors of my acquaintance, but I have +neither strength nor inclination. + +The old corridor attendant comes in and asks whether I have brought my +bed-linen. I detain him for five minutes, and put several questions +to him about Gnekker, on whose account I have come here. The attendant +turns out to be a native of Harkov; he knows the town like the fingers +of his hand, but does not remember any household of the surname of +Gnekker. I question him about the estate--the same answer. + +The clock in the corridor strikes one, then two, then three.... These +last months in which I am waiting for death seem much longer than the +whole of my life. And I have never before been so ready to resign myself +to the slowness of time as now. In the old days, when one sat in the +station and waited for a train, or presided in an examination-room, a +quarter of an hour would seem an eternity. Now I can sit all night on my +bed without moving, and quite unconcernedly reflect that tomorrow will +be followed by another night as long and colourless, and the day after +tomorrow. + +In the corridor it strikes five, six, seven.... It grows dark. + +There is a dull pain in my cheek, the tic beginning. To occupy myself +with thoughts, I go back to my old point of view, when I was not +so indifferent, and ask myself why I, a distinguished man, a privy +councillor, am sitting in this little hotel room, on this bed with the +unfamiliar grey quilt. Why am I looking at that cheap tin washing-stand +and listening to the whirr of the wretched clock in the corridor? Is all +this in keeping with my fame and my lofty position? And I answer these +questions with a jeer. I am amused by the naivete with which I used +in my youth to exaggerate the value of renown and of the exceptional +position which celebrities are supposed to enjoy. I am famous, my name +is pronounced with reverence, my portrait has been both in the _Niva_ +and in the _Illustrated News of the World_; I have read my biography +even in a German magazine. And what of all that? Here I am sitting +utterly alone in a strange town, on a strange bed, rubbing my aching +cheek with my hand.... Domestic worries, the hard-heartedness of +creditors, the rudeness of the railway servants, the inconveniences +of the passport system, the expensive and unwholesome food in the +refreshment-rooms, the general rudeness and coarseness in social +intercourse--all this, and a great deal more which would take too long +to reckon up, affects me as much as any working man who is famous only +in his alley. In what way, does my exceptional position find expression? +Admitting that I am celebrated a thousand times over, that I am a hero +of whom my country is proud. They publish bulletins of my illness in +every paper, letters of sympathy come to me by post from my colleagues, +my pupils, the general public; but all that does not prevent me from +dying in a strange bed, in misery, in utter loneliness. Of course, no +one is to blame for that; but I in my foolishness dislike my popularity. +I feel as though it had cheated me. + +At ten o'clock I fall asleep, and in spite of the tic I sleep soundly, +and should have gone on sleeping if I had not been awakened. Soon after +one came a sudden knock at the door. + +"Who is there?" + +"A telegram." + +"You might have waited till tomorrow," I say angrily, taking the +telegram from the attendant. "Now I shall not get to sleep again." + +"I am sorry. Your light was burning, so I thought you were not asleep." + +I tear open the telegram and look first at the signature. From my wife. + +"What does she want?" + +"Gnekker was secretly married to Liza yesterday. Return." + +I read the telegram, and my dismay does not last long. I am dismayed, +not by what Liza and Gnekker have done, but by the indifference with +which I hear of their marriage. They say philosophers and the truly wise +are indifferent. It is false: indifference is the paralysis of the soul; +it is premature death. + +I go to bed again, and begin trying to think of something to occupy my +mind. What am I to think about? I feel as though everything had been +thought over already and there is nothing which could hold my attention +now. + +When daylight comes I sit up in bed with my arms round my knees, and +to pass the time I try to know myself. "Know thyself" is excellent and +useful advice; it is only a pity that the ancients never thought to +indicate the means of following this precept. + +When I have wanted to understand somebody or myself I have considered, +not the actions, in which everything is relative, but the desires. + +"Tell me what you want, and I will tell you what manner of man you are." + +And now I examine myself: what do I want? + +I want our wives, our children, our friends, our pupils, to love in +us, not our fame, not the brand and not the label, but to love us as +ordinary men. Anything else? I should like to have had helpers and +successors. Anything else? I should like to wake up in a hundred years' +time and to have just a peep out of one eye at what is happening in +science. I should have liked to have lived another ten years... What +further? Why, nothing further. I think and think, and can think of +nothing more. And however much I might think, and however far my +thoughts might travel, it is clear to me that there is nothing vital, +nothing of great importance in my desires. In my passion for science, +in my desire to live, in this sitting on a strange bed, and in this +striving to know myself--in all the thoughts, feelings, and ideas I form +about everything, there is no common bond to connect it all into one +whole. Every feeling and every thought exists apart in me; and in all +my criticisms of science, the theatre, literature, my pupils, and in all +the pictures my imagination draws, even the most skilful analyst could +not find what is called a general idea, or the god of a living man. + +And if there is not that, then there is nothing. + +In a state so poverty-stricken, a serious ailment, the fear of death, +the influences of circumstance and men were enough to turn upside down +and scatter in fragments all which I had once looked upon as my theory +of life, and in which I had seen the meaning and joy of my existence. +So there is nothing surprising in the fact that I have over-shadowed the +last months of my life with thoughts and feelings only worthy of a slave +and barbarian, and that now I am indifferent and take no heed of the +dawn. When a man has not in him what is loftier and mightier than +all external impressions a bad cold is really enough to upset his +equilibrium and make him begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a +dog howling in every sound. And all his pessimism or optimism with his +thoughts great and small have at such times significance as symptoms and +nothing more. + +I am vanquished. If it is so, it is useless to think, it is useless to +talk. I will sit and wait in silence for what is to come. + +In the morning the corridor attendant brings me tea and a copy of the +local newspaper. Mechanically I read the advertisements on the first +page, the leading article, the extracts from the newspapers and +journals, the chronicle of events.... In the latter I find, among other +things, the following paragraph: "Our distinguished savant, Professor +Nikolay Stepanovitch So-and-so, arrived yesterday in Harkov, and is +staying in the So-and-so Hotel." + +Apparently, illustrious names are created to live on their own account, +apart from those that bear them. Now my name is promenading tranquilly +about Harkov; in another three months, printed in gold letters on my +monument, it will shine bright as the sun itself, while I shall be +already under the moss. + +A light tap at the door. Somebody wants me. + +"Who is there? Come in." + +The door opens, and I step back surprised and hurriedly wrap my +dressing-gown round me. Before me stands Katya. + +"How do you do?" she says, breathless with running upstairs. "You didn't +expect me? I have come here, too.... I have come, too!" + +She sits down and goes on, hesitating and not looking at me. + +"Why don't you speak to me? I have come, too... today.... I found out +that you were in this hotel, and have come to you." + +"Very glad to see you," I say, shrugging my shoulders, "but I am +surprised. You seem to have dropped from the skies. What have you come +for?" + +"Oh... I've simply come." + +Silence. Suddenly she jumps up impulsively and comes to me. + +"Nikolay Stepanovitch," she says, turning pale and pressing her hands +on her bosom--"Nikolay Stepanovitch, I cannot go on living like this! +I cannot! For God's sake tell me quickly, this minute, what I am to do! +Tell me, what am I to do?" + +"What can I tell you?" I ask in perplexity. "I can do nothing." + +"Tell me, I beseech you," she goes on, breathing hard and trembling all +over. "I swear that I cannot go on living like this. It's too much for +me!" + +She sinks on a chair and begins sobbing. She flings her head back, +wrings her hands, taps with her feet; her hat falls off and hangs +bobbing on its elastic; her hair is ruffled. + +"Help me! help me!" she implores me. "I cannot go on!" + +She takes her handkerchief out of her travelling-bag, and with it pulls +out several letters, which fall from her lap to the floor. I pick +them up, and on one of them I recognize the handwriting of Mihail +Fyodorovitch and accidentally read a bit of a word "passionat..." + +"There is nothing I can tell you, Katya," I say. + +"Help me!" she sobs, clutching at my hand and kissing it. "You are my +father, you know, my only friend! You are clever, educated; you have +lived so long; you have been a teacher! Tell me, what am I to do?" + +"Upon my word, Katya, I don't know...." + +I am utterly at a loss and confused, touched by her sobs, and hardly +able to stand. + +"Let us have lunch, Katya," I say, with a forced smile. "Give over +crying." + +And at once I add in a sinking voice: + +"I shall soon be gone, Katya...." + +"Only one word, only one word!" she weeps, stretching out her hands to +me. + +"What am I to do?" + +"You are a queer girl, really..." I mutter. "I don't understand it! So +sensible, and all at once crying your eyes out...." + +A silence follows. Katya straightens her hair, puts on her hat, then +crumples up the letters and stuffs them in her bag--and all this +deliberately, in silence. Her face, her bosom, and her gloves are wet +with tears, but her expression now is cold and forbidding.... I look at +her, and feel ashamed that I am happier than she. The absence of what +my philosophic colleagues call a general idea I have detected in myself +only just before death, in the decline of my days, while the soul of +this poor girl has known and will know no refuge all her life, all her +life! + +"Let us have lunch, Katya," I say. + +"No, thank you," she answers coldly. Another minute passes in silence. +"I don't like Harkov," I say; "it's so grey here--such a grey town." + +"Yes, perhaps.... It's ugly. I am here not for long, passing through. I +am going on today." + +"Where?" + +"To the Crimea... that is, to the Caucasus." + +"Oh! For long?" + +"I don't know." + +Katya gets up, and, with a cold smile, holds out her hand without +looking at me. + +I want to ask her, "Then, you won't be at my funeral?" but she does not +look at me; her hand is cold and, as it were, strange. I escort her to +the door in silence. She goes out, walks down the long corridor without +looking back; she knows that I am looking after her, and most likely she +will look back at the turn. + +No, she did not look back. I've seen her black dress for the last time: +her steps have died away. Farewell, my treasure! + + + + + +THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR + +AT the beginning of April in 1870 my mother, Klavdia Arhipovna, +the widow of a lieutenant, received from her brother Ivan, a privy +councillor in Petersburg, a letter in which, among other things, this +passage occurred: "My liver trouble forces me to spend every summer +abroad, and as I have not at the moment the money in hand for a trip +to Marienbad, it is very possible, dear sister, that I may spend this +summer with you at Kotchuevko...." + +On reading the letter my mother turned pale and began trembling all +over; then an expression of mingled tears and laughter came into her +face. She began crying and laughing. This conflict of tears and laughter +always reminds me of the flickering and spluttering of a brightly +burning candle when one sprinkles it with water. Reading the letter once +more, mother called together all the household, and in a voice broken +with emotion began explaining to us that there had been four Gundasov +brothers: one Gundasov had died as a baby; another had gone to the war, +and he, too, was dead; the third, without offence to him be it said, was +an actor; the fourth... + +"The fourth has risen far above us," my mother brought out tearfully. +"My own brother, we grew up together; and I am all of a tremble, all of +a tremble!... A privy councillor with the rank of a general! How shall +I meet him, my angel brother? What can I, a foolish, uneducated +woman, talk to him about? It's fifteen years since I've seen him! +Andryushenka," my mother turned to me, "you must rejoice, little stupid! +It's a piece of luck for you that God is sending him to us!" + +After we had heard a detailed history of the Gundasovs, there followed +a fuss and bustle in the place such as I had been accustomed to see only +before Christmas and Easter. The sky above and the water in the river +were all that escaped; everything else was subjected to a merciless +cleansing, scrubbing, painting. If the sky had been lower and smaller +and the river had not flowed so swiftly, they would have scoured them, +too, with bath-brick and rubbed them, too, with tow. Our walls were as +white as snow, but they were whitewashed; the floors were bright and +shining, but they were washed every day. The cat Bobtail (as a small +child I had cut off a good quarter of his tail with the knife used for +chopping the sugar, and that was why he was called Bobtail) was carried +off to the kitchen and put in charge of Anisya; Fedka was told that if +any of the dogs came near the front-door "God would punish him." But no +one was so badly treated as the poor sofas, easy-chairs, and rugs! +They had never, before been so violently beaten as on this occasion in +preparation for our visitor. My pigeons took fright at the loud thud of +the sticks, and were continually flying up into the sky. + +The tailor Spiridon, the only tailor in the whole district who +ventured to make for the gentry, came over from Novostroevka. He was a +hard-working capable man who did not drink and was not without a certain +fancy and feeling for form, but yet he was an atrocious tailor. His work +was ruined by hesitation.... The idea that his cut was not fashionable +enough made him alter everything half a dozen times, walk all the way to +the town simply to study the dandies, and in the end dress us in suits +that even a caricaturist would have called _outre_ and grotesque. We cut +a dash in impossibly narrow trousers and in such short jackets that we +always felt quite abashed in the presence of young ladies. + +This Spiridon spent a long time taking my measure. He measured me all +over lengthways and crossways, as though he meant to put hoops round +me like a barrel; then he spent a long time noting down my measurements +with a thick pencil on a bit of paper, and ticked off all the +measurements with triangular signs. When he had finished with me he set +to work on my tutor, Yegor Alexyevitch Pobyedimsky. My beloved tutor was +then at the stage when young men watch the growth of their moustache +and are critical of their clothes, and so you can imagine the devout awe +with which Spiridon approached him. Yegor Alexyevitch had to throw back +his head, to straddle his legs like an inverted V, first lift up his +arms, then let them fall. Spiridon measured him several times, walking +round him during the process like a love-sick pigeon round its mate, +going down on one knee, bending double.... My mother, weary, exhausted +by her exertions and heated by ironing, watched these lengthy +proceedings, and said: + +"Mind now, Spiridon, you will have to answer for it to God if you spoil +the cloth! And it will be the worse for you if you don't make them fit!" + +Mother's words threw Spiridon first into a fever, then into a +perspiration, for he was convinced that he would not make them fit. +He received one rouble twenty kopecks for making my suit, and for +Pobyedimsky's two roubles, but we provided the cloth, the lining, and +the buttons. The price cannot be considered excessive, as Novostroevka +was about seven miles from us, and the tailor came to fit us four times. +When he came to try the things on and we squeezed ourselves into the +tight trousers and jackets adorned with basting threads, mother always +frowned contemptuously and expressed her surprise: + +"Goodness knows what the fashions are coming to nowadays! I am +positively ashamed to look at them. If brother were not used to +Petersburg I would not get you fashionable clothes!" + +Spiridon, relieved that the blame was thrown on the fashion and not on +him, shrugged his shoulders and sighed, as though to say: + +"There's no help for it; it's the spirit of the age!" + +The excitement with which we awaited the arrival of our guest can only +be compared with the strained suspense with which spiritualists wait +from minute to minute the appearance of a ghost. Mother went about +with a sick headache, and was continually melting into tears. I lost my +appetite, slept badly, and did not learn my lessons. Even in my dreams +I was haunted by an impatient longing to see a general--that is, a man +with epaulettes and an embroidered collar sticking up to his ears, and +with a naked sword in his hands, exactly like the one who hung over +the sofa in the drawing-room and glared with terrible black eyes at +everybody who dared to look at him. Pobyedimsky was the only one who +felt himself in his element. He was neither terrified nor delighted, +and merely from time to time, when he heard the history of the Gundasov +family, said: + +"Yes, it will be pleasant to have some one fresh to talk to." + +My tutor was looked upon among us as an exceptional nature. He was a +young man of twenty, with a pimply face, shaggy locks, a low forehead, +and an unusually long nose. His nose was so big that when he wanted to +look close at anything he had to put his head on one side like a bird. +To our thinking, there was not a man in the province cleverer, more +cultivated, or more stylish. He had left the high-school in the class +next to the top, and had then entered a veterinary college, from which +he was expelled before the end of the first half-year. The reason of his +expulsion he carefully concealed, which enabled any one who wished to +do so to look upon my instructor as an injured and to some extent a +mysterious person. He spoke little, and only of intellectual subjects; +he ate meat during the fasts, and looked with contempt and condescension +on the life going on around him, which did not prevent him, however, +from taking presents, such as suits of clothes, from my mother, and +drawing funny faces with red teeth on my kites. Mother disliked him for +his "pride," but stood in awe of his cleverness. + +Our visitor did not keep us long waiting. At the beginning of May two +wagon-loads of big boxes arrived from the station. These boxes looked +so majestic that the drivers instinctively took off their hats as they +lifted them down. + +"There must be uniforms and gunpowder in those boxes," I thought. + +Why "gunpowder"? Probably the conception of a general was closely +connected in my mind with cannons and gunpowder. + +When I woke up on the morning of the tenth of May, nurse told me in a +whisper that "my uncle had come." I dressed rapidly, and, washing after +a fashion, flew out of my bedroom without saying my prayers. In the +vestibule I came upon a tall, solid gentleman with fashionable whiskers +and a foppish-looking overcoat. Half dead with devout awe, I went up +to him and, remembering the ceremonial mother had impressed upon me, I +scraped my foot before him, made a very low bow, and craned forward to +kiss his hand; but the gentleman did not allow me to kiss his hand: he +informed me that he was not my uncle, but my uncle's footman, Pyotr. +The appearance of this Pyotr, far better dressed than Pobyedimsky or +me, excited in me the utmost astonishment, which, to tell the truth, has +lasted to this day. Can such dignified, respectable people with stern +and intellectual faces really be footmen? And what for? + +Pyotr told me that my uncle was in the garden with my mother. I rushed +into the garden. + +Nature, knowing nothing of the history of the Gundasov family and the +rank of my uncle, felt far more at ease and unconstrained than I. There +was a clamour going on in the garden such as one only hears at fairs. +Masses of starlings flitting through the air and hopping about the +walks were noisily chattering as they hunted for cockchafers. There +were swarms of sparrows in the lilac-bushes, which threw their tender, +fragrant blossoms straight in one's face. Wherever one turned, from +every direction came the note of the golden oriole and the shrill cry +of the hoopoe and the red-legged falcon. At any other time I should +have begun chasing dragon-flies or throwing stones at a crow which was +sitting on a low mound under an aspen-tree, with his blunt beak turned +away; but at that moment I was in no mood for mischief. My heart was +throbbing, and I felt a cold sinking at my stomach; I was preparing +myself to confront a gentleman with epaulettes, with a naked sword, and +with terrible eyes! + +But imagine my disappointment! A dapper little foppish gentleman in +white silk trousers, with a white cap on his head, was walking beside +my mother in the garden. With his hands behind him and his head thrown +back, every now and then running on ahead of mother, he looked quite +young. There was so much life and movement in his whole figure that I +could only detect the treachery of age when I came close up behind and +saw beneath his cap a fringe of close-cropped silver hair. Instead +of the staid dignity and stolidity of a general, I saw an almost +schoolboyish nimbleness; instead of a collar sticking up to his ears, +an ordinary light blue necktie. Mother and my uncle were walking in +the avenue talking together. I went softly up to them from behind, and +waited for one of them to look round. + +"What a delightful place you have here, Klavdia!" said my uncle. "How +charming and lovely it is! Had I known before that you had such a +charming place, nothing would have induced me to go abroad all these +years." + +My uncle stooped down rapidly and sniffed at a tulip. Everything he saw +moved him to rapture and excitement, as though he had never been in a +garden on a sunny day before. The queer man moved about as though he +were on springs, and chattered incessantly, without allowing mother to +utter a single word. All of a sudden Pobyedimsky came into sight from +behind an elder-tree at the turn of the avenue. His appearance was so +unexpected that my uncle positively started and stepped back a pace. +On this occasion my tutor was attired in his best Inverness cape with +sleeves, in which, especially back-view, he looked remarkably like a +windmill. He had a solemn and majestic air. Pressing his hat to his +bosom in Spanish style, he took a step towards my uncle and made a bow +such as a marquis makes in a melodrama, bending forward, a little to one +side. + +"I have the honour to present myself to your high excellency," he said +aloud: "the teacher and instructor of your nephew, formerly a pupil of +the veterinary institute, and a nobleman by birth, Pobyedimsky!" + +This politeness on the part of my tutor pleased my mother very much. She +gave a smile, and waited in thrilled suspense to hear what clever thing +he would say next; but my tutor, expecting his dignified address to be +answered with equal dignity--that is, that my uncle would say "H'm!" +like a general and hold out two fingers--was greatly confused and +abashed when the latter laughed genially and shook hands with him. He +muttered something incoherent, cleared his throat, and walked away. + +"Come! isn't that charming?" laughed my uncle. "Just look! he has made +his little flourish and thinks he's a very clever fellow! I do like +that--upon my soul I do! What youthful aplomb, what life in that foolish +flourish! And what boy is this?" he asked, suddenly turning and looking +at me. + +"That is my Andryushenka," my mother introduced me, flushing crimson. +"My consolation..." + +I made a scrape with my foot on the sand and dropped a low bow. + +"A fine fellow... a fine fellow..." muttered my uncle, taking his hand +from my lips and stroking me on the head. "So your name is Andrusha? +Yes, yes.... H'm!... upon my soul!... Do you learn lessons?" + +My mother, exaggerating and embellishing as all mothers do, began +to describe my achievements in the sciences and the excellence of my +behaviour, and I walked round my uncle and, following the ceremonial +laid down for me, I continued making low bows. Then my mother began +throwing out hints that with my remarkable abilities it would not be +amiss for me to get a government nomination to the cadet school; but at +the point when I was to have burst into tears and begged for my +uncle's protection, my uncle suddenly stopped and flung up his hands in +amazement. + +"My goo-oodness! What's that?" he asked. + +Tatyana Ivanovna, the wife of our bailiff, Fyodor Petrovna, was coming +towards us. She was carrying a starched white petticoat and a long +ironing-board. As she passed us she looked shyly at the visitor through +her eyelashes and flushed crimson. + +"Wonders will never cease..." my uncle filtered through his teeth, +looking after her with friendly interest. "You have a fresh surprise at +every step, sister... upon my soul!" + +"She's a beauty..." said mother. "They chose her as a bride for Fyodor, +though she lived over seventy miles from here...." + +Not every one would have called Tatyana a beauty. She was a plump little +woman of twenty, with black eyebrows and a graceful figure, always rosy +and attractive-looking, but in her face and in her whole person there +was not one striking feature, not one bold line to catch the eye, as +though nature had lacked inspiration and confidence when creating her. +Tatyana Ivanovna was shy, bashful, and modest in her behaviour; she +moved softly and smoothly, said little, seldom laughed, and her whole +life was as regular as her face and as flat as her smooth, tidy hair. My +uncle screwed up his eyes looking after her, and smiled. Mother looked +intently at his smiling face and grew serious. + +"And so, brother, you've never married!" she sighed. + +"No; I've not married." + +"Why not?" asked mother softly. + +"How can I tell you? It has happened so. In my youth I was too hard +at work, I had no time to live, and when I longed to live--I looked +round--and there I had fifty years on my back already. I was too late! +However, talking about it... is depressing." + +My mother and my uncle both sighed at once and walked on, and I left +them and flew off to find my tutor, that I might share my impressions +with him. Pobyedimsky was standing in the middle of the yard, looking +majestically at the heavens. + +"One can see he is a man of culture!" he said, twisting his head round. +"I hope we shall get on together." + +An hour later mother came to us. + +"I am in trouble, my dears!" she began, sighing. "You see brother has +brought a valet with him, and the valet, God bless him, is not one you +can put in the kitchen or in the hall; we must give him a room apart. +I can't think what I am to do! I tell you what, children, couldn't you +move out somewhere--to Fyodor's lodge, for instance--and give your room +to the valet? What do you say?" + +We gave our ready consent, for living in the lodge was a great deal more +free than in the house, under mother's eye. + +"It's a nuisance, and that's a fact!" said mother. "Brother says he +won't have dinner in the middle of the day, but between six and seven, +as they do in Petersburg. I am simply distracted with worry! By seven +o'clock the dinner will be done to rags in the oven. Really, men +don't understand anything about housekeeping, though they have so much +intellect. Oh, dear! we shall have to cook two dinners every day! You +will have dinner at midday as before, children, while your poor old +mother has to wait till seven, for the sake of her brother." + +Then my mother heaved a deep sigh, bade me try and please my uncle, +whose coming was a piece of luck for me for which we must thank God, and +hurried off to the kitchen. Pobyedimsky and I moved into the lodge the +same day. We were installed in a room which formed the passage from the +entry to the bailiff's bedroom. + +Contrary to my expectations, life went on just as before, drearily +and monotonously, in spite of my uncle's arrival and our move into +new quarters. We were excused lessons "on account of the visitor." +Pobyedimsky, who never read anything or occupied himself in any way, +spent most of his time sitting on his bed, with his long nose thrust +into the air, thinking. Sometimes he would get up, try on his new suit, +and sit down again to relapse into contemplation and silence. Only +one thing worried him, the flies, which he used mercilessly to squash +between his hands. After dinner he usually "rested," and his snores were +a cause of annoyance to the whole household. I ran about the garden from +morning to night, or sat in the lodge sticking my kites together. For +the first two or three weeks we did not see my uncle often. For days +together he sat in his own room working, in spite of the flies and the +heat. His extraordinary capacity for sitting as though glued to his +table produced upon us the effect of an inexplicable conjuring trick. +To us idlers, knowing nothing of systematic work, his industry seemed +simply miraculous. Getting up at nine, he sat down to his table, and did +not leave it till dinner-time; after dinner he set to work again, and +went on till late at night. Whenever I peeped through the keyhole I +invariably saw the same thing: my uncle sitting at the table working. +The work consisted in his writing with one hand while he turned over the +leaves of a book with the other, and, strange to say, he kept moving +all over--swinging his leg as though it were a pendulum, whistling, and +nodding his head in time. He had an extremely careless and frivolous +expression all the while, as though he were not working, but playing at +noughts and crosses. I always saw him wearing a smart short jacket and a +jauntily tied cravat, and he always smelt, even through the keyhole, of +delicate feminine perfumery. He only left his room for dinner, but he +ate little. + +"I can't make brother out!" mother complained of him. "Every day we kill +a turkey and pigeons on purpose for him, I make a _compote_ with my own +hands, and he eats a plateful of broth and a bit of meat the size of a +finger and gets up from the table. I begin begging him to eat; he comes +back and drinks a glass of milk. And what is there in that, in a glass +of milk? It's no better than washing up water! You may die of a diet +like that.... If I try to persuade him, he laughs and makes a joke of +it.... No; he does not care for our fare, poor dear!" + +We spent the evenings far more gaily than the days. As a rule, by the +time the sun was setting and long shadows were lying across the yard, +we--that is, Tatyana Ivanovna, Pobyedimsky, and I--were sitting on +the steps of the lodge. We did not talk till it grew quite dusk. And, +indeed, what is one to talk of when every subject has been talked over +already? There was only one thing new, my uncle's arrival, and even that +subject was soon exhausted. My tutor never took his eyes off Tatyana +Ivanovna 's face, and frequently heaved deep sighs.... At the time I +did not understand those sighs, and did not try to fathom their +significance; now they explain a great deal to me. + +When the shadows merged into one thick mass of shade, the bailiff Fyodor +would come in from shooting or from the field. This Fyodor gave me the +impression of being a fierce and even a terrible man. The son of a +Russianized gipsy from Izyumskoe, swarthy-faced and curly-headed, +with big black eyes and a matted beard, he was never called among our +Kotchuevko peasants by any name but "The Devil." And, indeed, there was +a great deal of the gipsy about him apart from his appearance. He could +not, for instance, stay at home, and went off for days together into +the country or into the woods to shoot. He was gloomy, ill-humoured, +taciturn, was afraid of nobody, and refused to recognize any authority. +He was rude to mother, addressed me familiarly, and was contemptuous of +Pobyedimsky's learning. All this we forgave him, looking upon him as a +hot-tempered and nervous man; mother liked him because, in spite of +his gipsy nature, he was ideally honest and industrious. He loved his +Tatyana Ivanovna passionately, like a gipsy, but this love took in him a +gloomy form, as though it cost him suffering. He was never affectionate +to his wife in our presence, but simply rolled his eyes angrily at her +and twisted his mouth. + +When he came in from the fields he would noisily and angrily put down +his gun, would come out to us on the steps, and sit down beside his +wife. After resting a little, he would ask his wife a few questions +about household matters, and then sink into silence. + +"Let us sing," I would suggest. + +My tutor would tune his guitar, and in a deep deacon's bass strike up +"In the midst of the valley." We would begin singing. My tutor took the +bass, Fyodor sang in a hardly audible tenor, while I sang soprano in +unison with Tatyana Ivanovna. + +When the whole sky was covered with stars and the frogs had left off +croaking, they would bring in our supper from the kitchen. We went into +the lodge and sat down to the meal. My tutor and the gipsy ate greedily, +with such a sound that it was hard to tell whether it was the bones +crunching or their jaws, and Tatyana Ivanovna and I scarcely succeeded +in getting our share. After supper the lodge was plunged in deep sleep. + +One evening, it was at the end of May, we were sitting on the steps, +waiting for supper. A shadow suddenly fell across us, and Gundasov stood +before us as though he had sprung out of the earth. He looked at us for +a long time, then clasped his hands and laughed gaily. + +"An idyll!" he said. "They sing and dream in the moonlight! It's +charming, upon my soul! May I sit down and dream with you?" + +We looked at one another and said nothing. My uncle sat down on +the bottom step, yawned, and looked at the sky. A silence followed. +Pobyedimsky, who had for a long time been wanting to talk to somebody +fresh, was delighted at the opportunity, and was the first to break +the silence. He had only one subject for intellectual conversation, the +epizootic diseases. It sometimes happens that after one has been in an +immense crowd, only some one countenance of the thousands remains long +imprinted on the memory; in the same way, of all that Pobyedimsky had +heard, during his six months at the veterinary institute, he remembered +only one passage: + +"The epizootics do immense damage to the stock of the country. It is the +duty of society to work hand in hand with the government in waging war +upon them." + +Before saying this to Gundasov, my tutor cleared his throat three +times, and several times, in his excitement, wrapped himself up in his +Inverness. On hearing about the epizootics, my uncle looked intently at +my tutor and made a sound between a snort and a laugh. + +"Upon my soul, that's charming!" he said, scrutinizing us as though we +were mannequins. "This is actually life.... This is really what +reality is bound to be. Why are you silent, Pelagea Ivanovna?" he said, +addressing Tatyana Ivanovna. + +She coughed, overcome with confusion. + +"Talk, my friends, sing... play!... Don't lose time. You know, time, the +rascal, runs away and waits for no man! Upon my soul, before you have +time to look round, old age is upon you.... Then it is too late to +live! That's how it is, Pelagea Ivanovna.... We mustn't sit still and be +silent...." + +At that point supper was brought out from the kitchen. Uncle went into +the lodge with us, and to keep us company ate five curd fritters and the +wing of a duck. He ate and looked at us. He was touched and delighted by +us all. Whatever silly nonsense my precious tutor talked, and whatever +Tatyana Ivanovna did, he thought charming and delightful. When after +supper Tatyana Ivanovna sat quietly down and took up her knitting, he +kept his eyes fixed on her fingers and chatted away without ceasing. + +"Make all the haste you can to live, my friends..." he said. "God forbid +you should sacrifice the present for the future! There is youth, health, +fire in the present; the future is smoke and deception! As soon as you +are twenty begin to live." + +Tatyana Ivanovna dropped a knitting-needle. My uncle jumped up, picked +up the needle, and handed it to Tatyana Ivanovna with a bow, and for the +first time in my life I learnt that there were people in the world more +refined than Pobyedimsky. + +"Yes..." my uncle went on, "love, marry, do silly things. Foolishness +is a great deal more living and healthy than our straining and striving +after rational life." + +My uncle talked a great deal, so much that he bored us; I sat on a box +listening to him and dropping to sleep. It distressed me that he did +not once all the evening pay attention to me. He left the lodge at two +o'clock, when, overcome with drowsiness, I was sound asleep. + +From that time forth my uncle took to coming to the lodge every evening. +He sang with us, had supper with us, and always stayed on till two +o'clock in the morning, chatting incessantly, always about the same +subject. His evening and night work was given up, and by the end of +June, when the privy councillor had learned to eat mother's turkey and +_compote_, his work by day was abandoned too. My uncle tore himself away +from his table and plunged into "life." In the daytime he walked up +and down the garden, he whistled to the workmen and hindered them from +working, making them tell him their various histories. When his eye +fell on Tatyana Ivanovna he ran up to her, and, if she were carrying +anything, offered his assistance, which embarrassed her dreadfully. + +As the summer advanced my uncle grew more and more frivolous, volatile, +and careless. Pobyedimsky was completely disillusioned in regard to him. + +"He is too one-sided," he said. "There is nothing to show that he is in +the very foremost ranks of the service. And he doesn't even know how to +talk. At every word it's 'upon my soul.' No, I don't like him!" + +From the time that my uncle began visiting the lodge there was a +noticeable change both in Fyodor and my tutor. Fyodor gave up going out +shooting, came home early, sat more taciturn than ever, and stared with +particular ill-humour at his wife. In my uncle's presence my tutor gave +up talking about epizootics, frowned, and even laughed sarcastically. + +"Here comes our little bantam cock!" he growled on one occasion when my +uncle was coming into the lodge. + +I put down this change in them both to their being offended with my +uncle. My absent-minded uncle mixed up their names, and to the very day +of his departure failed to distinguish which was my tutor and which was +Tatyana Ivanovna's husband. Tatyana Ivanovna herself he sometimes +called Nastasya, sometimes Pelagea, and sometimes Yevdokia. Touched and +delighted by us, he laughed and behaved exactly as though in the company +of small children.... All this, of course, might well offend young men. +It was not a case of offended pride, however, but, as I realize now, +subtler feelings. + +I remember one evening I was sitting on the box struggling with sleep. +My eyelids felt glued together and my body, tired out by running about +all day, drooped sideways. But I struggled against sleep and tried to +look on. It was about midnight. Tatyana Ivanovna, rosy and unassuming +as always, was sitting at a little table sewing at her husband's shirt. +Fyodor, sullen and gloomy, was staring at her from one corner, and in +the other sat Pobyedimsky, snorting angrily and retreating into the +high collar of his shirt. My uncle was walking up and down the room +thinking. Silence reigned; nothing was to be heard but the rustling of +the linen in Tatyana Ivanovna's hands. Suddenly my uncle stood still +before Tatyana Ivanovna, and said: + +"You are all so young, so fresh, so nice, you live so peacefully in this +quiet place, that I envy you. I have become attached to your way of +life here; my heart aches when I remember I have to go away.... You may +believe in my sincerity!" + +Sleep closed my eyes and I lost myself. When some sound waked me, +my uncle was standing before Tatyana Ivanovna, looking at her with a +softened expression. His cheeks were flushed. + +"My life has been wasted," he said. "I have not lived! Your young face +makes me think of my own lost youth, and I should be ready to sit here +watching you to the day of my death. It would be a pleasure to me to +take you with me to Petersburg." + +"What for?" Fyodor asked in a husky voice. + +"I should put her under a glass case on my work-table. I should admire +her and show her to other people. You know, Pelagea Ivanovna, we have no +women like you there. Among us there is wealth, distinction, +sometimes beauty, but we have not this true sort of life, this healthy +serenity...." + +My uncle sat down facing Tatyana Ivanovna and took her by the hand. + +"So you won't come with me to Petersburg?" he laughed. "In that case +give me your little hand.... A charming little hand!... You won't give +it? Come, you miser! let me kiss it, anyway...." + +At that moment there was the scrape of a chair. Fyodor jumped up, and +with heavy, measured steps went up to his wife. His face was pale, grey, +and quivering. He brought his fist down on the table with a bang, and +said in a hollow voice: + +"I won't allow it!" + +At the same moment Pobyedimsky jumped up from his chair. He, too, pale +and angry, went up to Tatyana Ivanovna, and he, too, struck the table +with his fist. + +"I... I won't allow it!" he said. + +"What, what's the matter?" asked my uncle in surprise. + +"I won't allow it!" repeated Fyodor, banging on the table. + +My uncle jumped up and blinked nervously. He tried to speak, but in his +amazement and alarm could not utter a word; with an embarrassed smile, +he shuffled out of the lodge with the hurried step of an old man, +leaving his hat behind. When, a little later, my mother ran into the +lodge, Fyodor and Pobyedimsky were still hammering on the table like +blacksmiths and repeating, "I won't allow it!" + +"What has happened here?" asked mother. "Why has my brother been taken +ill? What's the matter?" + +Looking at Tatyana's pale, frightened face and at her infuriated +husband, mother probably guessed what was the matter. She sighed and +shook her head. + +"Come! give over banging on the table!" she said. "Leave off, Fyodor! +And why are you thumping, Yegor Alexyevitch? What have you got to do +with it?" + +Pobyedimsky was startled and confused. Fyodor looked intently at him, +then at his wife, and began walking about the room. When mother had +gone out of the lodge, I saw what for long afterwards I looked upon as +a dream. I saw Fyodor seize my tutor, lift him up in the air, and thrust +him out of the door. + +When I woke up in the morning my tutor's bed was empty. To my question +where he was nurse told me in a whisper that he had been taken off early +in the morning to the hospital, as his arm was broken. Distressed at +this intelligence and remembering the scene of the previous evening, +I went out of doors. It was a grey day. The sky was covered with +storm-clouds and there was a wind blowing dust, bits of paper, and +feathers along the ground.... It felt as though rain were coming. There +was a look of boredom in the servants and in the animals. When I went +into the house I was told not to make such a noise with my feet, as +mother was ill and in bed with a migraine. What was I to do? I went +outside the gate, sat down on the little bench there, and fell to trying +to discover the meaning of what I had seen and heard the day before. +From our gate there was a road which, passing the forge and the +pool which never dried up, ran into the main road. I looked at the +telegraph-posts, about which clouds of dust were whirling, and at the +sleepy birds sitting on the wires, and I suddenly felt so dreary that I +began to cry. + +A dusty wagonette crammed full of townspeople, probably going to visit +the shrine, drove by along the main road. The wagonette was hardly out +of sight when a light chaise with a pair of horses came into view. In it +was Akim Nikititch, the police inspector, standing up and holding on to +the coachman's belt. To my great surprise, the chaise turned into our +road and flew by me in at the gate. While I was puzzling why the police +inspector had come to see us, I heard a noise, and a carriage with three +horses came into sight on the road. In the carriage stood the police +captain, directing his coachman towards our gate. + +"And why is he coming?" I thought, looking at the dusty police captain. +"Most probably Pobyedimsky has complained of Fyodor to him, and they +have come to take him to prison." + +But the mystery was not so easily solved. The police inspector and the +police captain were only the first instalment, for five minutes had +scarcely passed when a coach drove in at our gate. It dashed by me so +swiftly that I could only get a glimpse of a red beard. + +Lost in conjecture and full of misgivings, I ran to the house. In the +passage first of all I saw mother; she was pale and looking with horror +towards the door, from which came the sounds of men's voices. The +visitors had taken her by surprise in the very throes of migraine. + +"Who has come, mother?" I asked. + +"Sister," I heard my uncle's voice, "will you send in something to eat +for the governor and me?" + +"It is easy to say 'something to eat,'" whispered my mother, numb with +horror. "What have I time to get ready now? I am put to shame in my old +age!" + +Mother clutched at her head and ran into the kitchen. The governor's +sudden visit stirred and overwhelmed the whole household. A ferocious +slaughter followed. A dozen fowls, five turkeys, eight ducks, were +killed, and in the fluster the old gander, the progenitor of our whole +flock of geese and a great favourite of mother's, was beheaded. The +coachmen and the cook seemed frenzied, and slaughtered birds at random, +without distinction of age or breed. For the sake of some wretched sauce +a pair of valuable pigeons, as dear to me as the gander was to mother, +were sacrificed. It was a long while before I could forgive the governor +their death. + +In the evening, when the governor and his suite, after a sumptuous +dinner, had got into their carriages and driven away, I went into +the house to look at the remains of the feast. Glancing into the +drawing-room from the passage, I saw my uncle and my mother. My uncle, +with his hands behind his back, was walking nervously up and down close +to the wall, shrugging his shoulders. Mother, exhausted and looking much +thinner, was sitting on the sofa and watching his movements with heavy +eyes. + +"Excuse me, sister, but this won't do at all," my uncle grumbled, +wrinkling up his face. "I introduced the governor to you, and you didn't +offer to shake hands. You covered him with confusion, poor fellow! No, +that won't do.... Simplicity is a very good thing, but there must be +limits to it.... Upon my soul! And then that dinner! How can one give +people such things? What was that mess, for instance, that they served +for the fourth course?" + +"That was duck with sweet sauce..." mother answered softly. + +"Duck! Forgive me, sister, but... but here I've got heartburn! I am +ill!" + +My uncle made a sour, tearful face, and went on: + +"It was the devil sent that governor! As though I wanted his visit! +Pff!... heartburn! I can't work or sleep... I am completely out of +sorts.... And I can't understand how you can live here without +anything to do... in this boredom! Here I've got a pain coming under my +shoulder-blade!..." + +My uncle frowned, and walked about more rapidly than ever. + +"Brother," my mother inquired softly, "what would it cost to go abroad?" + +"At least three thousand..." my uncle answered in a tearful voice. +"I would go, but where am I to get it? I haven't a farthing. Pff!... +heartburn!" + +My uncle stopped to look dejectedly at the grey, overcast prospect from +the window, and began pacing to and fro again. + +A silence followed.... Mother looked a long while at the ikon, pondering +something, then she began crying, and said: + +"I'll give you the three thousand, brother...." + + +Three days later the majestic boxes went off to the station, and the +privy councillor drove off after them. As he said good-bye to mother +he shed tears, and it was a long time before he took his lips from her +hands, but when he got into his carriage his face beamed with childlike +pleasure.... Radiant and happy, he settled himself comfortably, kissed +his hand to my mother, who was crying, and all at once his eye was +caught by me. A look of the utmost astonishment came into his face. + +"What boy is this?" he asked. + +My mother, who had declared my uncle's coming was a piece of luck for +which I must thank God, was bitterly mortified at this question. I was +in no mood for questions. I looked at my uncle's happy face, and for +some reason I felt fearfully sorry for him. I could not resist jumping +up to the carriage and hugging that frivolous man, weak as all men are. +Looking into his face and wanting to say something pleasant, I asked: + +"Uncle, have you ever been in a battle?" + +"Ah, the dear boy..." laughed my uncle, kissing me. "A charming boy, +upon my soul! How natural, how living it all is, upon my soul!..." + +The carriage set off.... I looked after him, and long afterwards that +farewell "upon my soul" was ringing in my ears. + + + + + +THE MAN IN A CASE + +AT the furthest end of the village of Mironositskoe some belated +sportsmen lodged for the night in the elder Prokofy's barn. There were +two of them, the veterinary surgeon Ivan Ivanovitch and the schoolmaster +Burkin. Ivan Ivanovitch had a rather strange double-barrelled +surname--Tchimsha-Himalaisky--which did not suit him at all, and he +was called simply Ivan Ivanovitch all over the province. He lived at a +stud-farm near the town, and had come out shooting now to get a breath +of fresh air. Burkin, the high-school teacher, stayed every summer at +Count P----'s, and had been thoroughly at home in this district for +years. + +They did not sleep. Ivan Ivanovitch, a tall, lean old fellow with +long moustaches, was sitting outside the door, smoking a pipe in the +moonlight. Burkin was lying within on the hay, and could not be seen in +the darkness. + +They were telling each other all sorts of stories. Among other things, +they spoke of the fact that the elder's wife, Mavra, a healthy and by no +means stupid woman, had never been beyond her native village, had never +seen a town nor a railway in her life, and had spent the last ten years +sitting behind the stove, and only at night going out into the street. + +"What is there wonderful in that!" said Burkin. "There are plenty of +people in the world, solitary by temperament, who try to retreat into +their shell like a hermit crab or a snail. Perhaps it is an instance of +atavism, a return to the period when the ancestor of man was not yet a +social animal and lived alone in his den, or perhaps it is only one +of the diversities of human character--who knows? I am not a natural +science man, and it is not my business to settle such questions; I only +mean to say that people like Mavra are not uncommon. There is no need to +look far; two months ago a man called Byelikov, a colleague of mine, the +Greek master, died in our town. You have heard of him, no doubt. He +was remarkable for always wearing goloshes and a warm wadded coat, and +carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. And his umbrella +was in a case, and his watch was in a case made of grey chamois leather, +and when he took out his penknife to sharpen his pencil, his penknife, +too, was in a little case; and his face seemed to be in a case +too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore dark +spectacles and flannel vests, stuffed up his ears with cotton-wool, and +when he got into a cab always told the driver to put up the hood. In +short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap +himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would +isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated +him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to +justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the +past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which +he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he +sheltered himself from real life. + +"'Oh, how sonorous, how beautiful is the Greek language!' he would +say, with a sugary expression; and as though to prove his words he would +screw up his eyes and, raising his finger, would pronounce 'Anthropos!' + +"And Byelikov tried to hide his thoughts also in a case. The only things +that were clear to his mind were government circulars and newspaper +articles in which something was forbidden. When some proclamation +prohibited the boys from going out in the streets after nine o'clock in +the evening, or some article declared carnal love unlawful, it was to +his mind clear and definite; it was forbidden, and that was enough. For +him there was always a doubtful element, something vague and not fully +expressed, in any sanction or permission. When a dramatic club or a +reading-room or a tea-shop was licensed in the town, he would shake his +head and say softly: + +"It is all right, of course; it is all very nice, but I hope it won't +lead to anything!" + +"Every sort of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, +depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. +If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him +of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen +late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, +and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' +meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, his circumspection, +and his characteristic reflection on the ill-behaviour of the young +people in both male and female high-schools, the uproar in the classes. + +"Oh, he hoped it would not reach the ears of the authorities; oh, he +hoped nothing would come of it; and he thought it would be a very good +thing if Petrov were expelled from the second class and Yegorov from +the fourth. And, do you know, by his sighs, his despondency, his black +spectacles on his pale little face, a little face like a pole-cat's, you +know, he crushed us all, and we gave way, reduced Petrov's and Yegorov's +marks for conduct, kept them in, and in the end expelled them both. +He had a strange habit of visiting our lodgings. He would come to +a teacher's, would sit down, and remain silent, as though he were +carefully inspecting something. He would sit like this in silence for an +hour or two and then go away. This he called 'maintaining good relations +with his colleagues'; and it was obvious that coming to see us and +sitting there was tiresome to him, and that he came to see us simply +because he considered it his duty as our colleague. We teachers were +afraid of him. And even the headmaster was afraid of him. Would you +believe it, our teachers were all intellectual, right-minded people, +brought up on Turgenev and Shtchedrin, yet this little chap, who always +went about with goloshes and an umbrella, had the whole high-school +under his thumb for fifteen long years! High-school, indeed--he had +the whole town under his thumb! Our ladies did not get up private +theatricals on Saturdays for fear he should hear of it, and the clergy +dared not eat meat or play cards in his presence. Under the influence +of people like Byelikov we have got into the way of being afraid of +everything in our town for the last ten or fifteen years. They +are afraid to speak aloud, afraid to send letters, afraid to make +acquaintances, afraid to read books, afraid to help the poor, to teach +people to read and write...." + +Ivan Ivanovitch cleared his throat, meaning to say something, but first +lighted his pipe, gazed at the moon, and then said, with pauses: + +"Yes, intellectual, right minded people read Shtchedrin and Turgenev, +Buckle, and all the rest of them, yet they knocked under and put up with +it... that's just how it is." + +"Byelikov lived in the same house as I did," Burkin went on, "on the +same storey, his door facing mine; we often saw each other, and I knew +how he lived when he was at home. And at home it was the same story: +dressing-gown, nightcap, blinds, bolts, a perfect succession of +prohibitions and restrictions of all sorts, and--'Oh, I hope nothing +will come of it!' Lenten fare was bad for him, yet he could not eat +meat, as people might perhaps say Byelikov did not keep the fasts, and +he ate freshwater fish with butter--not a Lenten dish, yet one could not +say that it was meat. He did not keep a female servant for fear people +might think evil of him, but had as cook an old man of sixty, called +Afanasy, half-witted and given to tippling, who had once been an +officer's servant and could cook after a fashion. This Afanasy was +usually standing at the door with his arms folded; with a deep sigh, he +would mutter always the same thing: + +"'There are plenty of _them_ about nowadays!' + +"Byelikov had a little bedroom like a box; his bed had curtains. When +he went to bed he covered his head over; it was hot and stuffy; the wind +battered on the closed doors; there was a droning noise in the stove +and a sound of sighs from the kitchen--ominous sighs.... And he felt +frightened under the bed-clothes. He was afraid that something might +happen, that Afanasy might murder him, that thieves might break in, and +so he had troubled dreams all night, and in the morning, when we went +together to the high-school, he was depressed and pale, and it was +evident that the high-school full of people excited dread and aversion +in his whole being, and that to walk beside me was irksome to a man of +his solitary temperament. + +"'They make a great noise in our classes,' he used to say, as +though trying to find an explanation for his depression. 'It's beyond +anything.' + +"And the Greek master, this man in a case--would you believe it?--almost +got married." + +Ivan Ivanovitch glanced quickly into the barn, and said: + +"You are joking!" + +"Yes, strange as it seems, he almost got married. A new teacher of +history and geography, Milhail Savvitch Kovalenko, a Little Russian, +was appointed. He came, not alone, but with his sister Varinka. He was +a tall, dark young man with huge hands, and one could see from his face +that he had a bass voice, and, in fact, he had a voice that seemed to +come out of a barrel--'boom, boom, boom!' And she was not so young, +about thirty, but she, too, was tall, well-made, with black eyebrows and +red cheeks--in fact, she was a regular sugar-plum, and so sprightly, so +noisy; she was always singing Little Russian songs and laughing. For the +least thing she would go off into a ringing laugh--'Ha-ha-ha!' We made +our first thorough acquaintance with the Kovalenkos at the headmaster's +name-day party. Among the glum and intensely bored teachers who came +even to the name-day party as a duty we suddenly saw a new Aphrodite +risen from the waves; she walked with her arms akimbo, laughed, sang, +danced.... She sang with feeling 'The Winds do Blow,' then another song, +and another, and she fascinated us all--all, even Byelikov. He sat down +by her and said with a honeyed smile: + +"'The Little Russian reminds one of the ancient Greek in its softness +and agreeable resonance.' + +"That flattered her, and she began telling him with feeling and +earnestness that they had a farm in the Gadyatchsky district, and that +her mamma lived at the farm, and that they had such pears, such melons, +such _kabaks_! The Little Russians call pumpkins _kabaks_ (i.e., +pothouses), while their pothouses they call _shinki_, and they make +a beetroot soup with tomatoes and aubergines in it, 'which was so +nice--awfully nice!' + +"We listened and listened, and suddenly the same idea dawned upon us +all: + +"'It would be a good thing to make a match of it,' the headmaster's +wife said to me softly. + +"We all for some reason recalled the fact that our friend Byelikov was +not married, and it now seemed to us strange that we had hitherto +failed to observe, and had in fact completely lost sight of, a detail +so important in his life. What was his attitude to woman? How had he +settled this vital question for himself? This had not interested us in +the least till then; perhaps we had not even admitted the idea that a +man who went out in all weathers in goloshes and slept under curtains +could be in love. + +"'He is a good deal over forty and she is thirty,' the headmaster's +wife went on, developing her idea. 'I believe she would marry him.' + +"All sorts of things are done in the provinces through boredom, all +sorts of unnecessary and nonsensical things! And that is because what is +necessary is not done at all. What need was there for instance, for +us to make a match for this Byelikov, whom one could not even imagine +married? The headmaster's wife, the inspector's wife, and all our +high-school ladies, grew livelier and even better-looking, as though +they had suddenly found a new object in life. The headmaster's wife +would take a box at the theatre, and we beheld sitting in her box +Varinka, with such a fan, beaming and happy, and beside her Byelikov, +a little bent figure, looking as though he had been extracted from his +house by pincers. I would give an evening party, and the ladies would +insist on my inviting Byelikov and Varinka. In short, the machine was +set in motion. It appeared that Varinka was not averse to matrimony. She +had not a very cheerful life with her brother; they could do nothing but +quarrel and scold one another from morning till night. Here is a scene, +for instance. Kovalenko would be coming along the street, a tall, sturdy +young ruffian, in an embroidered shirt, his love-locks falling on his +forehead under his cap, in one hand a bundle of books, in the other +a thick knotted stick, followed by his sister, also with books in her +hand. + +"'But you haven't read it, Mihalik!' she would be arguing loudly. 'I +tell you, I swear you have not read it at all!' + +"'And I tell you I have read it,' cries Kovalenko, thumping his stick +on the pavement. + +"'Oh, my goodness, Mihalik! why are you so cross? We are arguing about +principles.' + +"'I tell you that I have read it!' Kovalenko would shout, more loudly +than ever. + +"And at home, if there was an outsider present, there was sure to be a +skirmish. Such a life must have been wearisome, and of course she must +have longed for a home of her own. Besides, there was her age to be +considered; there was no time left to pick and choose; it was a case of +marrying anybody, even a Greek master. And, indeed, most of our young +ladies don't mind whom they marry so long as they do get married. +However that may be, Varinka began to show an unmistakable partiality +for Byelikov. + +"And Byelikov? He used to visit Kovalenko just as he did us. He would +arrive, sit down, and remain silent. He would sit quiet, and Varinka +would sing to him 'The Winds do Blow,' or would look pensively at him +with her dark eyes, or would suddenly go off into a peal--'Ha-ha-ha!' + +"Suggestion plays a great part in love affairs, and still more in +getting married. Everybody--both his colleagues and the ladies--began +assuring Byelikov that he ought to get married, that there was nothing +left for him in life but to get married; we all congratulated him, with +solemn countenances delivered ourselves of various platitudes, such +as 'Marriage is a serious step.' Besides, Varinka was good-looking and +interesting; she was the daughter of a civil councillor, and had a +farm; and what was more, she was the first woman who had been warm and +friendly in her manner to him. His head was turned, and he decided that +he really ought to get married." + +"Well, at that point you ought to have taken away his goloshes and +umbrella," said Ivan Ivanovitch. + +"Only fancy! that turned out to be impossible. He put Varinka's portrait +on his table, kept coming to see me and talking about Varinka, and +home life, saying marriage was a serious step. He was frequently at +Kovalenko's, but he did not alter his manner of life in the least; on +the contrary, indeed, his determination to get married seemed to have +a depressing effect on him. He grew thinner and paler, and seemed to +retreat further and further into his case. + +"'I like Varvara Savvishna,' he used to say to me, with a faint and wry +smile, 'and I know that every one ought to get married, but... you know +all this has happened so suddenly.... One must think a little.' + +"'What is there to think over?' I used to say to him. 'Get +married--that is all.' + +"'No; marriage is a serious step. One must first weigh the duties +before one, the responsibilities... that nothing may go wrong +afterwards. It worries me so much that I don't sleep at night. And I +must confess I am afraid: her brother and she have a strange way of +thinking; they look at things strangely, you know, and her disposition +is very impetuous. One may get married, and then, there is no knowing, +one may find oneself in an unpleasant position.' + +"And he did not make an offer; he kept putting it off, to the great +vexation of the headmaster's wife and all our ladies; he went on +weighing his future duties and responsibilities, and meanwhile he went +for a walk with Varinka almost every day--possibly he thought that this +was necessary in his position--and came to see me to talk about family +life. And in all probability in the end he would have proposed to her, +and would have made one of those unnecessary, stupid marriages such as +are made by thousands among us from being bored and having nothing to +do, if it had not been for a _kolossalische scandal_. I must mention +that Varinka's brother, Kovalenko, detested Byelikov from the first day +of their acquaintance, and could not endure him. + +"'I don't understand,' he used to say to us, shrugging his +shoulders--'I don't understand how you can put up with that sneak, that +nasty phiz. Ugh! how can you live here! The atmosphere is stifling and +unclean! Do you call yourselves schoolmasters, teachers? You are paltry +government clerks. You keep, not a temple of science, but a department +for red tape and loyal behaviour, and it smells as sour as a +police-station. No, my friends; I will stay with you for a while, and +then I will go to my farm and there catch crabs and teach the Little +Russians. I shall go, and you can stay here with your Judas--damn his +soul!' + +"Or he would laugh till he cried, first in a loud bass, then in a +shrill, thin laugh, and ask me, waving his hands: + +"'What does he sit here for? What does he want? He sits and stares.' + +"He even gave Byelikov a nickname, 'The Spider.' And it will readily be +understood that we avoided talking to him of his sister's being about to +marry 'The Spider.' + +"And on one occasion, when the headmaster's wife hinted to him what +a good thing it would be to secure his sister's future with such +a reliable, universally respected man as Byelikov, he frowned and +muttered: + +"'It's not my business; let her marry a reptile if she likes. I don't +like meddling in other people's affairs.' + +"Now hear what happened next. Some mischievous person drew a caricature +of Byelikov walking along in his goloshes with his trousers tucked up, +under his umbrella, with Varinka on his arm; below, the inscription +'Anthropos in love.' The expression was caught to a marvel, you know. +The artist must have worked for more than one night, for the teachers +of both the boys' and girls' high-schools, the teachers of the seminary, +the government officials, all received a copy. Byelikov received one, +too. The caricature made a very painful impression on him. + +"We went out together; it was the first of May, a Sunday, and all of +us, the boys and the teachers, had agreed to meet at the high-school and +then to go for a walk together to a wood beyond the town. We set off, +and he was green in the face and gloomier than a storm-cloud. + +"'What wicked, ill-natured people there are!' he said, and his lips +quivered. + +"I felt really sorry for him. We were walking along, and all of a +sudden--would you believe it?--Kovalenko came bowling along on a +bicycle, and after him, also on a bicycle, Varinka, flushed and +exhausted, but good-humoured and gay. + +"'We are going on ahead,' she called. 'What lovely weather! Awfully +lovely!' + +"And they both disappeared from our sight. Byelikov turned white instead +of green, and seemed petrified. He stopped short and stared at me.... + +"'What is the meaning of it? Tell me, please!' he asked. 'Can my eyes +have deceived me? Is it the proper thing for high-school masters and +ladies to ride bicycles?' + +"'What is there improper about it?' I said. 'Let them ride and enjoy +themselves.' + +"'But how can that be?' he cried, amazed at my calm. 'What are you +saying?' + +"And he was so shocked that he was unwilling to go on, and returned +home. + +"Next day he was continually twitching and nervously rubbing his hands, +and it was evident from his face that he was unwell. And he left before +his work was over, for the first time in his life. And he ate no dinner. +Towards evening he wrapped himself up warmly, though it was quite warm +weather, and sallied out to the Kovalenkos'. Varinka was out; he found +her brother, however. + +"'Pray sit down,' Kovalenko said coldly, with a frown. His face looked +sleepy; he had just had a nap after dinner, and was in a very bad +humour. + +"Byelikov sat in silence for ten minutes, and then began: + +"'I have come to see you to relieve my mind. I am very, very much +troubled. Some scurrilous fellow has drawn an absurd caricature of me +and another person, in whom we are both deeply interested. I regard it +as a duty to assure you that I have had no hand in it.... I have given +no sort of ground for such ridicule--on the contrary, I have always +behaved in every way like a gentleman.' + +"Kovalenko sat sulky and silent. Byelikov waited a little, and went on +slowly in a mournful voice: + +"'And I have something else to say to you. I have been in the service +for years, while you have only lately entered it, and I consider it my +duty as an older colleague to give you a warning. You ride on a bicycle, +and that pastime is utterly unsuitable for an educator of youth.' + +"'Why so?' asked Kovalenko in his bass. + +"'Surely that needs no explanation, Mihail Savvitch--surely you can +understand that? If the teacher rides a bicycle, what can you expect +the pupils to do? You will have them walking on their heads next! And +so long as there is no formal permission to do so, it is out of the +question. I was horrified yesterday! When I saw your sister everything +seemed dancing before my eyes. A lady or a young girl on a bicycle--it's +awful!' + +"'What is it you want exactly?' + +"'All I want is to warn you, Mihail Savvitch. You are a young man, +you have a future before you, you must be very, very careful in your +behaviour, and you are so careless--oh, so careless! You go about in an +embroidered shirt, are constantly seen in the street carrying books, and +now the bicycle, too. The headmaster will learn that you and your sister +ride the bicycle, and then it will reach the higher authorities.... Will +that be a good thing?' + +"'It's no business of anybody else if my sister and I do bicycle!' +said Kovalenko, and he turned crimson. 'And damnation take any one who +meddles in my private affairs!' + +"Byelikov turned pale and got up. + +"'If you speak to me in that tone I cannot continue,' he said. 'And I +beg you never to express yourself like that about our superiors in my +presence; you ought to be respectful to the authorities.' + +"'Why, have I said any harm of the authorities?' asked Kovalenko, +looking at him wrathfully. 'Please leave me alone. I am an honest man, +and do not care to talk to a gentleman like you. I don't like sneaks!' + +"Byelikov flew into a nervous flutter, and began hurriedly putting on +his coat, with an expression of horror on his face. It was the first +time in his life he had been spoken to so rudely. + +"'You can say what you please,' he said, as he went out from the entry +to the landing on the staircase. 'I ought only to warn you: possibly +some one may have overheard us, and that our conversation may not be +misunderstood and harm come of it, I shall be compelled to inform our +headmaster of our conversation... in its main features. I am bound to +do so.' + +"'Inform him? You can go and make your report!' + +"Kovalenko seized him from behind by the collar and gave him a push, and +Byelikov rolled downstairs, thudding with his goloshes. The staircase +was high and steep, but he rolled to the bottom unhurt, got up, and +touched his nose to see whether his spectacles were all right. But just +as he was falling down the stairs Varinka came in, and with her two +ladies; they stood below staring, and to Byelikov this was more terrible +than anything. I believe he would rather have broken his neck or both +legs than have been an object of ridicule. 'Why, now the whole town +would hear of it; it would come to the headmaster's ears, would reach +the higher authorities--oh, it might lead to something! There would be +another caricature, and it would all end in his being asked to resign +his post.... + +"When he got up, Varinka recognized him, and, looking at his ridiculous +face, his crumpled overcoat, and his goloshes, not understanding what +had happened and supposing that he had slipped down by accident, could +not restrain herself, and laughed loud enough to be heard by all the +flats: + +"'Ha-ha-ha!' + +"And this pealing, ringing 'Ha-ha-ha!' was the last straw that put +an end to everything: to the proposed match and to Byelikov's earthly +existence. He did not hear what Varinka said to him; he saw nothing. On +reaching home, the first thing he did was to remove her portrait from +the table; then he went to bed, and he never got up again. + +"Three days later Afanasy came to me and asked whether we should not +send for the doctor, as there was something wrong with his master. I +went in to Byelikov. He lay silent behind the curtain, covered with +a quilt; if one asked him a question, he said 'Yes' or 'No' and not +another sound. He lay there while Afanasy, gloomy and scowling, hovered +about him, sighing heavily, and smelling like a pothouse. + +"A month later Byelikov died. We all went to his funeral--that is, both +the high-schools and the seminary. Now when he was lying in his coffin +his expression was mild, agreeable, even cheerful, as though he were +glad that he had at last been put into a case which he would never leave +again. Yes, he had attained his ideal! And, as though in his honour, +it was dull, rainy weather on the day of his funeral, and we all wore +goloshes and took our umbrellas. Varinka, too, was at the funeral, and +when the coffin was lowered into the grave she burst into tears. I have +noticed that Little Russian women are always laughing or crying--no +intermediate mood. + +"One must confess that to bury people like Byelikov is a great pleasure. +As we were returning from the cemetery we wore discreet Lenten faces; no +one wanted to display this feeling of pleasure--a feeling like that we +had experienced long, long ago as children when our elders had gone +out and we ran about the garden for an hour or two, enjoying complete +freedom. Ah, freedom, freedom! The merest hint, the faintest hope of its +possibility gives wings to the soul, does it not? + +"We returned from the cemetery in a good humour. But not more than +a week had passed before life went on as in the past, as gloomy, +oppressive, and senseless--a life not forbidden by government +prohibition, but not fully permitted, either: it was no better. And, +indeed, though we had buried Byelikov, how many such men in cases were +left, how many more of them there will be!" + +"That's just how it is," said Ivan Ivanovitch and he lighted his pipe. + +"How many more of them there will be!" repeated Burkin. + +The schoolmaster came out of the barn. He was a short, stout man, +completely bald, with a black beard down to his waist. The two dogs came +out with him. + +"What a moon!" he said, looking upwards. + +It was midnight. On the right could be seen the whole village, a long +street stretching far away for four miles. All was buried in deep silent +slumber; not a movement, not a sound; one could hardly believe that +nature could be so still. When on a moonlight night you see a broad +village street, with its cottages, haystacks, and slumbering willows, +a feeling of calm comes over the soul; in this peace, wrapped away from +care, toil, and sorrow in the darkness of night, it is mild, melancholy, +beautiful, and it seems as though the stars look down upon it kindly and +with tenderness, and as though there were no evil on earth and all were +well. On the left the open country began from the end of the village; +it could be seen stretching far away to the horizon, and there was no +movement, no sound in that whole expanse bathed in moonlight. + +"Yes, that is just how it is," repeated Ivan Ivanovitch; "and isn't our +living in town, airless and crowded, our writing useless papers, our +playing _vint_--isn't that all a sort of case for us? And our spending +our whole lives among trivial, fussy men and silly, idle women, our +talking and our listening to all sorts of nonsense--isn't that a case +for us, too? If you like, I will tell you a very edifying story." + +"No; it's time we were asleep," said Burkin. "Tell it tomorrow." + +They went into the barn and lay down on the hay. And they were both +covered up and beginning to doze when they suddenly heard light +footsteps--patter, patter.... Some one was walking not far from the +barn, walking a little and stopping, and a minute later, patter, patter +again.... The dogs began growling. + +"That's Mavra," said Burkin. + +The footsteps died away. + +"You see and hear that they lie," said Ivan Ivanovitch, turning over +on the other side, "and they call you a fool for putting up with their +lying. You endure insult and humiliation, and dare not openly say that +you are on the side of the honest and the free, and you lie and smile +yourself; and all that for the sake of a crust of bread, for the sake of +a warm corner, for the sake of a wretched little worthless rank in the +service. No, one can't go on living like this." + +"Well, you are off on another tack now, Ivan Ivanovitch," said the +schoolmaster. "Let us go to sleep!" + +And ten minutes later Burkin was asleep. But Ivan Ivanovitch kept +sighing and turning over from side to side; then he got up, went outside +again, and, sitting in the doorway, lighted his pipe. + + + + + +GOOSEBERRIES + +THE whole sky had been overcast with rain-clouds from early morning; it +was a still day, not hot, but heavy, as it is in grey dull weather when +the clouds have been hanging over the country for a long while, when +one expects rain and it does not come. Ivan Ivanovitch, the veterinary +surgeon, and Burkin, the high-school teacher, were already tired from +walking, and the fields seemed to them endless. Far ahead of them they +could just see the windmills of the village of Mironositskoe; on the +right stretched a row of hillocks which disappeared in the distance +behind the village, and they both knew that this was the bank of the +river, that there were meadows, green willows, homesteads there, and +that if one stood on one of the hillocks one could see from it the same +vast plain, telegraph-wires, and a train which in the distance looked +like a crawling caterpillar, and that in clear weather one could even +see the town. Now, in still weather, when all nature seemed mild +and dreamy, Ivan Ivanovitch and Burkin were filled with love of that +countryside, and both thought how great, how beautiful a land it was. + +"Last time we were in Prokofy's barn," said Burkin, "you were about to +tell me a story." + +"Yes; I meant to tell you about my brother." + +Ivan Ivanovitch heaved a deep sigh and lighted a pipe to begin to tell +his story, but just at that moment the rain began. And five minutes +later heavy rain came down, covering the sky, and it was hard to tell +when it would be over. Ivan Ivanovitch and Burkin stopped in hesitation; +the dogs, already drenched, stood with their tails between their legs +gazing at them feelingly. + +"We must take shelter somewhere," said Burkin. "Let us go to Alehin's; +it's close by." + +"Come along." + +They turned aside and walked through mown fields, sometimes going +straight forward, sometimes turning to the right, till they came out on +the road. Soon they saw poplars, a garden, then the red roofs of barns; +there was a gleam of the river, and the view opened on to a broad +expanse of water with a windmill and a white bath-house: this was +Sofino, where Alehin lived. + +The watermill was at work, drowning the sound of the rain; the dam was +shaking. Here wet horses with drooping heads were standing near their +carts, and men were walking about covered with sacks. It was damp, +muddy, and desolate; the water looked cold and malignant. Ivan +Ivanovitch and Burkin were already conscious of a feeling of wetness, +messiness, and discomfort all over; their feet were heavy with mud, and +when, crossing the dam, they went up to the barns, they were silent, as +though they were angry with one another. + +In one of the barns there was the sound of a winnowing machine, the door +was open, and clouds of dust were coming from it. In the doorway was +standing Alehin himself, a man of forty, tall and stout, with long hair, +more like a professor or an artist than a landowner. He had on a white +shirt that badly needed washing, a rope for a belt, drawers instead of +trousers, and his boots, too, were plastered up with mud and straw. His +eyes and nose were black with dust. He recognized Ivan Ivanovitch and +Burkin, and was apparently much delighted to see them. + +"Go into the house, gentlemen," he said, smiling; "I'll come directly, +this minute." + +It was a big two-storeyed house. Alehin lived in the lower storey, with +arched ceilings and little windows, where the bailiffs had once lived; +here everything was plain, and there was a smell of rye bread, cheap +vodka, and harness. He went upstairs into the best rooms only on rare +occasions, when visitors came. Ivan Ivanovitch and Burkin were met in +the house by a maid-servant, a young woman so beautiful that they both +stood still and looked at one another. + +"You can't imagine how delighted I am to see you, my friends," said +Alehin, going into the hall with them. "It is a surprise! Pelagea," he +said, addressing the girl, "give our visitors something to change into. +And, by the way, I will change too. Only I must first go and wash, for +I almost think I have not washed since spring. Wouldn't you like to come +into the bath-house? and meanwhile they will get things ready here." + +Beautiful Pelagea, looking so refined and soft, brought them towels and +soap, and Alehin went to the bath-house with his guests. + +"It's a long time since I had a wash," he said, undressing. "I have got +a nice bath-house, as you see--my father built it--but I somehow never +have time to wash." + +He sat down on the steps and soaped his long hair and his neck, and the +water round him turned brown. + +"Yes, I must say," said Ivan Ivanovitch meaningly, looking at his head. + +"It's a long time since I washed..." said Alehin with embarrassment, +giving himself a second soaping, and the water near him turned dark +blue, like ink. + +Ivan Ivanovitch went outside, plunged into the water with a loud splash, +and swam in the rain, flinging his arms out wide. He stirred the water +into waves which set the white lilies bobbing up and down; he swam to +the very middle of the millpond and dived, and came up a minute later +in another place, and swam on, and kept on diving, trying to touch the +bottom. + +"Oh, my goodness!" he repeated continually, enjoying himself thoroughly. +"Oh, my goodness!" He swam to the mill, talked to the peasants there, +then returned and lay on his back in the middle of the pond, turning his +face to the rain. Burkin and Alehin were dressed and ready to go, but he +still went on swimming and diving. "Oh, my goodness!..." he said. "Oh, +Lord, have mercy on me!..." + +"That's enough!" Burkin shouted to him. + +They went back to the house. And only when the lamp was lighted in the +big drawing-room upstairs, and Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch, attired in +silk dressing-gowns and warm slippers, were sitting in arm-chairs; +and Alehin, washed and combed, in a new coat, was walking about the +drawing-room, evidently enjoying the feeling of warmth, cleanliness, dry +clothes, and light shoes; and when lovely Pelagea, stepping noiselessly +on the carpet and smiling softly, handed tea and jam on a tray--only +then Ivan Ivanovitch began on his story, and it seemed as though not +only Burkin and Alehin were listening, but also the ladies, young and +old, and the officers who looked down upon them sternly and calmly from +their gold frames. + +"There are two of us brothers," he began--"I, Ivan Ivanovitch, and my +brother, Nikolay Ivanovitch, two years younger. I went in for a learned +profession and became a veterinary surgeon, while Nikolay sat in +a government office from the time he was nineteen. Our father, +Tchimsha-Himalaisky, was a kantonist, but he rose to be an officer and +left us a little estate and the rank of nobility. After his death the +little estate went in debts and legal expenses; but, anyway, we had +spent our childhood running wild in the country. Like peasant children, +we passed our days and nights in the fields and the woods, looked after +horses, stripped the bark off the trees, fished, and so on.... And, +you know, whoever has once in his life caught perch or has seen the +migrating of the thrushes in autumn, watched how they float in flocks +over the village on bright, cool days, he will never be a real townsman, +and will have a yearning for freedom to the day of his death. My brother +was miserable in the government office. Years passed by, and he went on +sitting in the same place, went on writing the same papers and thinking +of one and the same thing--how to get into the country. And this +yearning by degrees passed into a definite desire, into a dream of +buying himself a little farm somewhere on the banks of a river or a +lake. + +"He was a gentle, good-natured fellow, and I was fond of him, but I +never sympathized with this desire to shut himself up for the rest of +his life in a little farm of his own. It's the correct thing to say +that a man needs no more than six feet of earth. But six feet is what +a corpse needs, not a man. And they say, too, now, that if our +intellectual classes are attracted to the land and yearn for a farm, +it's a good thing. But these farms are just the same as six feet of +earth. To retreat from town, from the struggle, from the bustle of life, +to retreat and bury oneself in one's farm--it's not life, it's egoism, +laziness, it's monasticism of a sort, but monasticism without good +works. A man does not need six feet of earth or a farm, but the whole +globe, all nature, where he can have room to display all the qualities +and peculiarities of his free spirit. + +"My brother Nikolay, sitting in his government office, dreamed of how he +would eat his own cabbages, which would fill the whole yard with such a +savoury smell, take his meals on the green grass, sleep in the sun, sit +for whole hours on the seat by the gate gazing at the fields and the +forest. Gardening books and the agricultural hints in calendars were +his delight, his favourite spiritual sustenance; he enjoyed reading +newspapers, too, but the only things he read in them were the +advertisements of so many acres of arable land and a grass meadow with +farm-houses and buildings, a river, a garden, a mill and millponds, for +sale. And his imagination pictured the garden-paths, flowers and fruit, +starling cotes, the carp in the pond, and all that sort of thing, you +know. These imaginary pictures were of different kinds according to the +advertisements which he came across, but for some reason in every one +of them he had always to have gooseberries. He could not imagine a +homestead, he could not picture an idyllic nook, without gooseberries. + +"'Country life has its conveniences,' he would sometimes say. 'You sit +on the verandah and you drink tea, while your ducks swim on the pond, +there is a delicious smell everywhere, and... and the gooseberries are +growing.' + +"He used to draw a map of his property, and in every map there were +the same things--(a) house for the family, (b) servants' quarters, (c) +kitchen-garden, (d) gooseberry-bushes. He lived parsimoniously, was +frugal in food and drink, his clothes were beyond description; he looked +like a beggar, but kept on saving and putting money in the bank. He grew +fearfully avaricious. I did not like to look at him, and I used to give +him something and send him presents for Christmas and Easter, but he +used to save that too. Once a man is absorbed by an idea there is no +doing anything with him. + +"Years passed: he was transferred to another province. He was over +forty, and he was still reading the advertisements in the papers and +saving up. Then I heard he was married. Still with the same object of +buying a farm and having gooseberries, he married an elderly and ugly +widow without a trace of feeling for her, simply because she had filthy +lucre. He went on living frugally after marrying her, and kept her short +of food, while he put her money in the bank in his name. + +"Her first husband had been a postmaster, and with him she was +accustomed to pies and home-made wines, while with her second husband +she did not get enough black bread; she began to pine away with this +sort of life, and three years later she gave up her soul to God. And I +need hardly say that my brother never for one moment imagined that he +was responsible for her death. Money, like vodka, makes a man queer. In +our town there was a merchant who, before he died, ordered a plateful +of honey and ate up all his money and lottery tickets with the honey, so +that no one might get the benefit of it. While I was inspecting cattle +at a railway-station, a cattle-dealer fell under an engine and had +his leg cut off. We carried him into the waiting-room, the blood was +flowing--it was a horrible thing--and he kept asking them to look for +his leg and was very much worried about it; there were twenty roubles in +the boot on the leg that had been cut off, and he was afraid they would +be lost." + +"That's a story from a different opera," said Burkin. + +"After his wife's death," Ivan Ivanovitch went on, after thinking for +half a minute, "my brother began looking out for an estate for himself. +Of course, you may look about for five years and yet end by making a +mistake, and buying something quite different from what you have dreamed +of. My brother Nikolay bought through an agent a mortgaged estate +of three hundred and thirty acres, with a house for the family, +with servants' quarters, with a park, but with no orchard, no +gooseberry-bushes, and no duck-pond; there was a river, but the water in +it was the colour of coffee, because on one side of the estate there was +a brickyard and on the other a factory for burning bones. But Nikolay +Ivanovitch did not grieve much; he ordered twenty gooseberry-bushes, +planted them, and began living as a country gentleman. + +"Last year I went to pay him a visit. I thought I would go and see what +it was like. In his letters my brother called his estate 'Tchumbaroklov +Waste, alias Himalaiskoe.' I reached 'alias Himalaiskoe' in the +afternoon. It was hot. Everywhere there were ditches, fences, hedges, +fir-trees planted in rows, and there was no knowing how to get to the +yard, where to put one's horse. I went up to the house, and was met by +a fat red dog that looked like a pig. It wanted to bark, but it was too +lazy. The cook, a fat, barefooted woman, came out of the kitchen, and +she, too, looked like a pig, and said that her master was resting after +dinner. I went in to see my brother. He was sitting up in bed with a +quilt over his legs; he had grown older, fatter, wrinkled; his cheeks, +his nose, and his mouth all stuck out--he looked as though he might +begin grunting into the quilt at any moment. + +"We embraced each other, and shed tears of joy and of sadness at the +thought that we had once been young and now were both grey-headed and +near the grave. He dressed, and led me out to show me the estate. + +"'Well, how are you getting on here?' I asked. + +"'Oh, all right, thank God; I am getting on very well.' + +"He was no more a poor timid clerk, but a real landowner, a gentleman. +He was already accustomed to it, had grown used to it, and liked it. He +ate a great deal, went to the bath-house, was growing stout, was already +at law with the village commune and both factories, and was very much +offended when the peasants did not call him 'Your Honour.' And he +concerned himself with the salvation of his soul in a substantial, +gentlemanly manner, and performed deeds of charity, not simply, but +with an air of consequence. And what deeds of charity! He treated the +peasants for every sort of disease with soda and castor oil, and on his +name-day had a thanksgiving service in the middle of the village, and +then treated the peasants to a gallon of vodka--he thought that was +the thing to do. Oh, those horrible gallons of vodka! One day the +fat landowner hauls the peasants up before the district captain for +trespass, and next day, in honour of a holiday, treats them to a gallon +of vodka, and they drink and shout 'Hurrah!' and when they are drunk bow +down to his feet. A change of life for the better, and being well-fed +and idle develop in a Russian the most insolent self-conceit. Nikolay +Ivanovitch, who at one time in the government office was afraid to have +any views of his own, now could say nothing that was not gospel truth, +and uttered such truths in the tone of a prime minister. 'Education is +essential, but for the peasants it is premature.' 'Corporal punishment +is harmful as a rule, but in some cases it is necessary and there is +nothing to take its place.' + +"'I know the peasants and understand how to treat them,' he would say. +'The peasants like me. I need only to hold up my little finger and the +peasants will do anything I like.' + +"And all this, observe, was uttered with a wise, benevolent smile. He +repeated twenty times over 'We noblemen,' 'I as a noble'; obviously he +did not remember that our grandfather was a peasant, and our father +a soldier. Even our surname Tchimsha-Himalaisky, in reality so +incongruous, seemed to him now melodious, distinguished, and very +agreeable. + +"But the point just now is not he, but myself. I want to tell you about +the change that took place in me during the brief hours I spent at his +country place. In the evening, when we were drinking tea, the cook put +on the table a plateful of gooseberries. They were not bought, but his +own gooseberries, gathered for the first time since the bushes were +planted. Nikolay Ivanovitch laughed and looked for a minute in silence +at the gooseberries, with tears in his eyes; he could not speak for +excitement. Then he put one gooseberry in his mouth, looked at me with +the triumph of a child who has at last received his favourite toy, and +said: + +"'How delicious!' + +"And he ate them greedily, continually repeating, 'Ah, how delicious! Do +taste them!' + +"They were sour and unripe, but, as Pushkin says: + + "'Dearer to us the falsehood that exalts + Than hosts of baser truths.' + +"I saw a happy man whose cherished dream was so obviously fulfilled, who +had attained his object in life, who had gained what he wanted, who was +satisfied with his fate and himself. There is always, for some reason, +an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, +and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by +an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly +oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my +brother's bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept +getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I +reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! What a +suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness +of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible +poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, +hypocrisy, lying.... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in +the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one +who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see +the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by +night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, +serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and +we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on +somewhere behind the scenes.... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and +nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their +minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from +malnutrition.... And this order of things is evidently necessary; +evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear +their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be +impossible. It's a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind +the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer +continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that +however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, +trouble will come for him--disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see +or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no +man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily +cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree--and all goes +well. + +"That night I realized that I, too, was happy and contented," Ivan +Ivanovitch went on, getting up. "I, too, at dinner and at the hunt liked +to lay down the law on life and religion, and the way to manage the +peasantry. I, too, used to say that science was light, that culture was +essential, but for the simple people reading and writing was enough +for the time. Freedom is a blessing, I used to say; we can no more do +without it than without air, but we must wait a little. Yes, I used to +talk like that, and now I ask, 'For what reason are we to wait?'" asked +Ivan Ivanovitch, looking angrily at Burkin. "Why wait, I ask you? What +grounds have we for waiting? I shall be told, it can't be done all at +once; every idea takes shape in life gradually, in its due time. But who +is it says that? Where is the proof that it's right? You will fall back +upon the natural order of things, the uniformity of phenomena; but is +there order and uniformity in the fact that I, a living, thinking man, +stand over a chasm and wait for it to close of itself, or to fill up +with mud at the very time when perhaps I might leap over it or build +a bridge across it? And again, wait for the sake of what? Wait till +there's no strength to live? And meanwhile one must live, and one wants +to live! + +"I went away from my brother's early in the morning, and ever since then +it has been unbearable for me to be in town. I am oppressed by its peace +and quiet; I am afraid to look at the windows, for there is no spectacle +more painful to me now than the sight of a happy family sitting round +the table drinking tea. I am old and am not fit for the struggle; I am +not even capable of hatred; I can only grieve inwardly, feel irritated +and vexed; but at night my head is hot from the rush of ideas, and I +cannot sleep.... Ah, if I were young!" + +Ivan Ivanovitch walked backwards and forwards in excitement, and +repeated: "If I were young!" + +He suddenly went up to Alehin and began pressing first one of his hands +and then the other. + +"Pavel Konstantinovitch," he said in an imploring voice, "don't be calm +and contented, don't let yourself be put to sleep! While you are young, +strong, confident, be not weary in well-doing! There is no happiness, +and there ought not to be; but if there is a meaning and an object +in life, that meaning and object is not our happiness, but something +greater and more rational. Do good!" + +And all this Ivan Ivanovitch said with a pitiful, imploring smile, as +though he were asking him a personal favour. + +Then all three sat in arm-chairs at different ends of the drawing-room +and were silent. Ivan Ivanovitch's story had not satisfied either Burkin +or Alehin. When the generals and ladies gazed down from their gilt +frames, looking in the dusk as though they were alive, it was dreary to +listen to the story of the poor clerk who ate gooseberries. They felt +inclined, for some reason, to talk about elegant people, about women. +And their sitting in the drawing-room where everything--the +chandeliers in their covers, the arm-chairs, and the carpet under their +feet--reminded them that those very people who were now looking down +from their frames had once moved about, sat, drunk tea in this room, +and the fact that lovely Pelagea was moving noiselessly about was better +than any story. + +Alehin was fearfully sleepy; he had got up early, before three o'clock +in the morning, to look after his work, and now his eyes were closing; +but he was afraid his visitors might tell some interesting story after +he had gone, and he lingered on. He did not go into the question whether +what Ivan Ivanovitch had just said was right and true. His visitors did +not talk of groats, nor of hay, nor of tar, but of something that had no +direct bearing on his life, and he was glad and wanted them to go on. + +"It's bed-time, though," said Burkin, getting up. "Allow me to wish you +good-night." + +Alehin said good-night and went downstairs to his own domain, while the +visitors remained upstairs. They were both taken for the night to a big +room where there stood two old wooden beds decorated with carvings, and +in the corner was an ivory crucifix. The big cool beds, which had been +made by the lovely Pelagea, smelt agreeably of clean linen. + +Ivan Ivanovitch undressed in silence and got into bed. + +"Lord forgive us sinners!" he said, and put his head under the quilt. + +His pipe lying on the table smelt strongly of stale tobacco, and +Burkin could not sleep for a long while, and kept wondering where the +oppressive smell came from. + +The rain was pattering on the window-panes all night. + + + + + +ABOUT LOVE + +AT lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton +cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask +what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, +with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked +as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out +by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with +this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want +to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very +devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to "live in +sin"; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing +else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. +Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such +occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to +defend her in case of necessity. + +We began talking about love. + +"How love is born," said Alehin, "why Pelagea does not love somebody +more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why +she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout--we all call him 'The +Snout'--how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in +love--all that is known; one can take what view one likes of it. So far +only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: 'This is a +great mystery.' Everything else that has been written or said about +love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have +remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case +does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, +would be to explain every case individually without attempting to +generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case." + +"Perfectly true," Burkin assented. + +"We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions +that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with +roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous +questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, +when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming +lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would +allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a +pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of +asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, +sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether +it is a good thing or not I don't know, but that it is in the way, +unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know." + +It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a +solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they +are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the +restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting +things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they +unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see +a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go +nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to +listen. + +"I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time," Alehin began, +"ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, +a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the +estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because +he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but +to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to +work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does +not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf +labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it +on a peasant footing--that is, work the fields oneself and with one's +family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into +such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered +together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring +villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and +sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like +a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. +My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I +could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do +so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external +order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and +ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, +and when I went to bed I read every night the _Yyesnik Evropi_. But +one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one +sitting; and the _Yyesnik Evropi_ went to the priest's daughters; as in +the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to +my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the +forester's lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little +I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants' kitchen, and of my +former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father's +service, and whom it would be painful to turn away. + +"In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the +peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions +of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change +for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, +especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. +And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, +and dress-coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general +education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and +dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin +boots, with a chain on one's waistcoat, is such luxury! + +"I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of +all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, +the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the +vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most +charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of +incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were +exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said: + +"'Look here, come round to dinner with me.' + +"This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only +officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my +hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to +meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch's wife. At that time she was still very +young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just +six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find +it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it +was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was +all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, +fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at +once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those +cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the +album which lay on my mother's chest of drawers. + +"Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang +of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very +much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don't know what I said, but +Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband: + +"'Dmitry, how is this?' + +"Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people +who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before +a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a +sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner +and in private conversation. + +"'You and I did not set fire to the place,' he said softly, 'and you +see we are not condemned, and not in prison.' + +"And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as +possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee +together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at +half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and +that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the +piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of +spring. + +"After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I +had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful +fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of +her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart. + +"In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some +charitable object in the town. I went into the governor's box (I was +invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna +Alexyevna sitting beside the governor's wife; and again the same +irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, +and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went +to the foyer. + +"'You've grown thinner,' she said; 'have you been ill?' + +"'Yes, I've had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can't +sleep.' + +"'You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were +younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great +deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was +a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my +memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre +today I thought I should see you.' + +"And she laughed. + +"'But you look dispirited today,' she repeated; 'it makes you seem +older.' + +"The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs'. After lunch they drove +out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the +winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at +midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the +fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl +was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to +visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. +As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family. + +"'Who is there?' I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling +voice that seemed to me so lovely. + +"'It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,' answered the maid or the nurse. + +"Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask +every time: + +"'Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?' + +"Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the +way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same +impression on me of something new and extraordinary in my life, and very +important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our +own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were +no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the +child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna +came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for +some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with +as much solemnity, as a boy. + +"There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy +a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with +me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have +happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were +worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, +instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the +country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a +penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only +talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful +moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon +me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when +I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay +interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would +whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a +grave face: + +"'If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel +Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from +us.' + +"And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, +after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, +with red ears, and say: + +"'My wife and I earnestly beg you to accept this present.' + +"And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send +them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, +had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed +money, and was not very particular about it--borrowed wherever I +could--but nothing in the world would have induced me to borrow from the +Luganovitchs. But why talk of it? + +"I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; +I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young +woman's marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her +husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the +mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with +such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the +more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, +uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, +who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and +I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and +why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened. + +"And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she +was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had +a peculiar feeling all that day and had guessed that I should come. We +talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to +each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid +of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her +tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love +could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed +to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely +break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and +all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be +honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take +her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, +interesting life--if, for instance, I had been struggling for the +emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, +an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one +everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how +long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was +ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another? + +"And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her +husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a +son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, +or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been +equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question +whether her love would bring me happiness--would she not complicate +my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of +trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not +industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often +talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of +intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to +me--and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find +such a girl in the whole town. + +"Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two +children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs' the servants smiled +cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch +had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not +understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was +happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and +children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, +and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though +in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna +Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking +there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders +touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, +and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we +could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, +when we came out of the theatre we always said good-bye and parted as +though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about +us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all! + +"In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent +visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from +low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and +unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her +children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia. + +"We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she +displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked +about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my +opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly: + +"'I congratulate you.' + +"If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, +she would say afterwards: + +"'I knew you would forget it.' + +"Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end +sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed +president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their +furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the +villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for +the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and +I realized that I had to say goodbye not only to the villa. It was +arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to +the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later +Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province. + +"We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said +good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute +left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, +which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. +When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted +us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and +tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands +wet with tears--oh, how unhappy we were!--I confessed my love for her, +and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how +petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I +understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about +that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than +happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or +you must not reason at all. + +"I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. +The train had already started. I went into the next compartment--it was +empty--and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I +walked home to Sofino...." + +While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came +out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which +there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was +shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the +same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who +had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing +round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of +devoting himself to science or something else which would have made +his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face +Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the +railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met +her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful. + + + + + +THE LOTTERY TICKET + +IVAN DMITRITCH, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an +income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his +lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper. + +"I forgot to look at the newspaper today," his wife said to him as she +cleared the table. "Look and see whether the list of drawings is there." + +"Yes, it is," said Ivan Dmitritch; "but hasn't your ticket lapsed?" + +"No; I took the interest on Tuesday." + +"What is the number?" + +"Series 9,499, number 26." + +"All right... we will look... 9,499 and 26." + +Ivan Dmitritch had no faith in lottery luck, and would not, as a rule, +have consented to look at the lists of winning numbers, but now, as +he had nothing else to do and as the newspaper was before his eyes, +he passed his finger downwards along the column of numbers. And +immediately, as though in mockery of his scepticism, no further than the +second line from the top, his eye was caught by the figure 9,499! Unable +to believe his eyes, he hurriedly dropped the paper on his knees without +looking to see the number of the ticket, and, just as though some one +had given him a douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the +pit of the stomach; tingling and terrible and sweet! + +"Masha, 9,499 is there!" he said in a hollow voice. + +His wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realized +that he was not joking. + +"9,499?" she asked, turning pale and dropping the folded tablecloth on +the table. + +"Yes, yes... it really is there!" + +"And the number of the ticket?" + +"Oh, yes! There's the number of the ticket too. But stay... wait! No, +I say! Anyway, the number of our series is there! Anyway, you +understand...." + +Looking at his wife, Ivan Dmitritch gave a broad, senseless smile, like +a baby when a bright object is shown it. His wife smiled too; it was as +pleasant to her as to him that he only mentioned the series, and did +not try to find out the number of the winning ticket. To torment +and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so +thrilling! + +"It is our series," said Ivan Dmitritch, after a long silence. "So there +is a probability that we have won. It's only a probability, but there it +is!" + +"Well, now look!" + +"Wait a little. We have plenty of time to be disappointed. It's on the +second line from the top, so the prize is seventy-five thousand. That's +not money, but power, capital! And in a minute I shall look at the list, +and there--26! Eh? I say, what if we really have won?" + +The husband and wife began laughing and staring at one another in +silence. The possibility of winning bewildered them; they could not have +said, could not have dreamed, what they both needed that seventy-five +thousand for, what they would buy, where they would go. They thought +only of the figures 9,499 and 75,000 and pictured them in their +imagination, while somehow they could not think of the happiness itself +which was so possible. + +Ivan Dmitritch, holding the paper in his hand, walked several times +from corner to corner, and only when he had recovered from the first +impression began dreaming a little. + +"And if we have won," he said--"why, it will be a new life, it will be a +transformation! The ticket is yours, but if it were mine I should, first +of all, of course, spend twenty-five thousand on real property in +the shape of an estate; ten thousand on immediate expenses, new +furnishing... travelling... paying debts, and so on.... The other forty +thousand I would put in the bank and get interest on it." + +"Yes, an estate, that would be nice," said his wife, sitting down and +dropping her hands in her lap. + +"Somewhere in the Tula or Oryol provinces.... In the first place we +shouldn't need a summer villa, and besides, it would always bring in an +income." + +And pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious +and poetical than the last. And in all these pictures he saw himself +well-fed, serene, healthy, felt warm, even hot! Here, after eating a +summer soup, cold as ice, he lay on his back on the burning sand close +to a stream or in the garden under a lime-tree.... It is hot.... His +little boy and girl are crawling about near him, digging in the sand or +catching ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing, +and feeling all over that he need not go to the office today, tomorrow, +or the day after. Or, tired of lying still, he goes to the hayfield, or +to the forest for mushrooms, or watches the peasants catching fish with +a net. When the sun sets he takes a towel and soap and saunters to the +bathing-shed, where he undresses at his leisure, slowly rubs his bare +chest with his hands, and goes into the water. And in the water, +near the opaque soapy circles, little fish flit to and fro and green +water-weeds nod their heads. After bathing there is tea with cream and +milk rolls.... In the evening a walk or _vint_ with the neighbours. + +"Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate," said his wife, also dreaming, +and from her face it was evident that she was enchanted by her thoughts. + +Ivan Dmitritch pictured to himself autumn with its rains, its cold +evenings, and its St. Martin's summer. At that season he would have to +take longer walks about the garden and beside the river, so as to get +thoroughly chilled, and then drink a big glass of vodka and eat a salted +mushroom or a soused cucumber, and then--drink another.... The children +would come running from the kitchen-garden, bringing a carrot and a +radish smelling of fresh earth.... And then, he would lie stretched full +length on the sofa, and in leisurely fashion turn over the pages of some +illustrated magazine, or, covering his face with it and unbuttoning his +waistcoat, give himself up to slumber. + +The St. Martin's summer is followed by cloudy, gloomy weather. It rains +day and night, the bare trees weep, the wind is damp and cold. The +dogs, the horses, the fowls--all are wet, depressed, downcast. There is +nowhere to walk; one can't go out for days together; one has to pace +up and down the room, looking despondently at the grey window. It is +dreary! + +Ivan Dmitritch stopped and looked at his wife. + +"I should go abroad, you know, Masha," he said. + +And he began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad +somewhere to the South of France... to Italy.... to India! + +"I should certainly go abroad too," his wife said. "But look at the +number of the ticket!" + +"Wait, wait!..." + +He walked about the room and went on thinking. It occurred to him: what +if his wife really did go abroad? It is pleasant to travel alone, or in +the society of light, careless women who live in the present, and not +such as think and talk all the journey about nothing but their children, +sigh, and tremble with dismay over every farthing. Ivan Dmitritch +imagined his wife in the train with a multitude of parcels, baskets, and +bags; she would be sighing over something, complaining that the train +made her head ache, that she had spent so much money.... At the stations +he would continually be having to run for boiling water, bread and +butter.... She wouldn't have dinner because of its being too dear.... + +"She would begrudge me every farthing," he thought, with a glance at his +wife. "The lottery ticket is hers, not mine! Besides, what is the use of +her going abroad? What does she want there? She would shut herself up in +the hotel, and not let me out of her sight.... I know!" + +And for the first time in his life his mind dwelt on the fact that his +wife had grown elderly and plain, and that she was saturated through and +through with the smell of cooking, while he was still young, fresh, and +healthy, and might well have got married again. + +"Of course, all that is silly nonsense," he thought; "but... why should +she go abroad? What would she make of it? And yet she would go, of +course.... I can fancy... In reality it is all one to her, whether it is +Naples or Klin. She would only be in my way. I should be dependent upon +her. I can fancy how, like a regular woman, she will lock the money up +as soon as she gets it.... She will hide it from me.... She will look +after her relations and grudge me every farthing." + +Ivan Dmitritch thought of her relations. All those wretched brothers and +sisters and aunts and uncles would come crawling about as soon as they +heard of the winning ticket, would begin whining like beggars, and +fawning upon them with oily, hypocritical smiles. Wretched, detestable +people! If they were given anything, they would ask for more; while if +they were refused, they would swear at them, slander them, and wish them +every kind of misfortune. + +Ivan Dmitritch remembered his own relations, and their faces, at which +he had looked impartially in the past, struck him now as repulsive and +hateful. + +"They are such reptiles!" he thought. + +And his wife's face, too, struck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger +surged up in his heart against her, and he thought malignantly: + +"She knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won it she +would give me a hundred roubles, and put the rest away under lock and +key." + +And he looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She +glanced at him too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own +daydreams, her own plans, her own reflections; she understood perfectly +well what her husband's dreams were. She knew who would be the first to +try and grab her winnings. + +"It's very nice making daydreams at other people's expense!" is what her +eyes expressed. "No, don't you dare!" + +Her husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his +breast, and in order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her +at the fourth page on the newspaper and read out triumphantly: + +"Series 9,499, number 46! Not 26!" + +Hatred and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to +seem to Ivan Dmitritch and his wife that their rooms were dark and small +and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating was not doing them +good, but lying heavy on their stomachs, that the evenings were long and +wearisome.... + +"What the devil's the meaning of it?" said Ivan Dmitritch, beginning to +be ill-humoured. "Wherever one steps there are bits of paper under one's +feet, crumbs, husks. The rooms are never swept! One is simply forced to +go out. Damnation take my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on +the first aspen-tree!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Wife and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIFE AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 1883.txt or 1883.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/1883/ + +Produced by James Rusk and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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